Down and Out in Seosan...

Well, I've now taken my first official sick day in Korea. Damn! I had been doing so well - last year, even though I felt pretty bad a few times, I managed to make it to school every day. This time, not so much. I took my bike home yesterday at 1pm, and it was a good thing too, because I had a pretty high fever and started shivering if I was in bed. I think I've slept about 18 out of the last 24 hours. Good times... tomorrow I'm going to try to get a ride with one of the teachers; not only do I not quite feel up to a drive in 35 degree weather, it's also supposed to rain. Ugh!


Korea has been quite the experience over all. It's amazing how different life can be for the first few days, and then how normal life becomes so quickly. When we first got to Seosan, it was incredibly confusing and frankly quite daunting. Now? It's all become so familiar and easy. I guess that's the difference between Georgia and Korea - life was so difficult in Georgia. There was just a constant struggle, for the language, for the food, for the people; here, life is easy and simple. I get up, I go to school, I teach my classes, and then I go home. I can buy western food if I want, I can make Korean food if I want, and I live in my own apartment with beautiful windows and nice heat. Showers every day, and more if I want - what's not to love?!

FYI, I've now tried live octopus. Yep, still wiggling and all, with possible suffocation if it attaches to your windpipe on the way down! Yay! In answering the question of 'how does it taste', I prefer to give the answer of 'how does it feel?'. Chewy. As much as chewy is a flavor, that's octopus. I ended up sitting there chewing for about 5 minutes to make sure the darn thing wasn't going to kill me. It comes in a bowl, and frankly, looks pretty much wiggly. It's kind of disturbing, but I figured that my chances of doing it anywhere else were pretty much zero - so why not go for it? It also comes with a mildly spicy red sauce, which was better than the octopus.

The fish market here is quite a trip to go through. Imagine a normal fish shop, and then imagine that you can go *and eat ANYTHING*. There's pretty much everything there, and it's all alive. Drew and I watched a lady moving a batch of octopi from one tank to another, and wow, they were pretty pissed about it. They were hitting the ceiling of her little tent with ink, and constantly crawling out of the tank. It was so entertaining we actually stood there and just watched for about 5 minutes. Because Seosan is so close to the ocean, we have excellent sea food.

In fact, my school cafeteria always has excellent seafood soup, usually with oysters or mussels. And they're certainly not skimpy on adding them in, either. In America, I found oysters gross; here, they're actually pretty delicious. There's a dish with red chili paste and raw oysters that's especially good.

And to change the topic yet again, I got a call yesterday (in the midst of a fever-induced shiver spree) from a Seosan Deptartment of Education. Aparently, they had been told that I was the best English teacher in Seosan, and wanted me to start weekend classes for students at the Department of Education. That felt pretty good (with the exception of being really sick). I'm not really sure how lucid I was, but I'm going to call again next week and find out more information (when hopefully I can remember everything that occurs in the phone call).