One night in Cheonan

Okay, the title is a bit of a lie, because I actually had my first social outings this weekend. On Thursday, David (the other English teacher at the Academy)invited me out to a pool night where a bunch of other foreigners meet up. We took a taxi into to Downtown (all you need to say is "Ya Woori" which is the name of the mall, and you are there, also taxi's hardly ever cost more than 5 or 6 bucks). I found the facebook group online, so I contacted the people that organize it and eventually met up with them at a pool hall. Abby is a teacher in Cheonan from Iowa and has been here since October, she and her boyfriend Ed, whose from London get everyone together every Thursday for a little pool and a lot of socializing. It was refreshing not to speak in pigeon English, like I have to do with all of my students, and everyone I met was extremely nice. After that night, Abby and Ed invited me out with them on Friday. She lived in Shinbang Dong (the city is broken up into district-like "dongs").

So on Friday, I met Ed at Homever and we walked to Abby's place which is just on the top of the hill I live at the bottom of. We sat for awhile at a salt pork restaurant and watched a bit of the opening ceremonies. My favorite part of the casual eateries here is that they are open, and sitting in front of a large table of cheap food cooking on the grill at the table is having a warm breeze. It was great. After eating we met Darren, Abby's Canadian neighboor, and Olivia and Natalie, two teachers from South Africa. Again, everyone was great and so warm and willing to share all of their experiences with me. The six of us hit a place called Garten Bier, a german-inspired bar where the only German influence seemed to be pictures of men with Leiderhosen and big moustaches.

I needed to start a new paragraph because what I am about to tell you changed my life and I want to make sure that it doesn't get lost in a block of text. The tables of Garten Bier have refrigeration units built into them, in the form of cupholders, where one places their beer whilst having conversation, making the beer drinking experience highly more enjoyable. I hope someone takes that idea to the bank, because it was awesome. There, I've said it.

The next place we hit was proclaimed by everyone to be a thing I just had to do. In Korea, and actually in Japan too, you can rent karaoke rooms called "nori bangs" where for about 20 bucks you get a half hour of free reign over a room that has both English and Korean songs. It was great. We sang everything from The Clash to Queen, to Rick James. We closed the place. It was pretty late by this time (in the interest of not giving my mother a heart attack, I won't mention the actual time) and so I headed home.

The next day, Abby and Ed invited me to go with them to Songtan. The United States has several bases all over Korea (the DMZ being the most heavily enforced boarder in the world) and one of them is in Songtan. The result is an area of the town where everyone is pretty Western. Our specific purpose was to eat at what Abby called "The best Mexican restaurant in Korea". She was right. It was great. Also it was knock-off bag city. I didn't get a bag, but I did buy a cool pair of 7 dollar sunglasses with slats cut into them ala Kanye West. After shopping for a bit, we hit the covered market which was a shady looking place where a lot of Koreans go for their fresh fish, dried fish and grains, spices and such. You will also find entire little stores with the occasional Western food item. I was able to get garlic powder, which I have had a hard time finding in Homever, and Double Stuff Oreos, which I am not sure if I could find, but was intrigued by.

The rest of the day consisted with another visit to a place called Kuma in Shinbang dong with some old Cheonan teaching veterans who were visiting and then to a place that sold pork spine soup. Okay, so here is where I tell you about my recent conundrum. For the past 8 or so months, I have been a vegetarian. Not strict, as I have eaten fish and eggs, but abstaining from meat because of books I have read on the processing of American meat. Currently there are protests going on about the use of American beef in Korea. The president recently signed a trade agreement allowing the sale of beef in Korea, which made Korean cattle processors angry because it was cheaper (the sheer number of cattle in comparison illustrates the reason why).

Being a vegetarian in Korea is really really hard. I had been okay so far, but basically I think I may have to quit for awhile. Meat is literally in everything. Even fish soups and noodles are stewing in meat broths. Also, the meat smells extremely tasty. If my problem with meat was an animal cruelty debate, I might be more attached to my beliefs, but as it was stated to me by more than one person "You might starve here, if you don't eat meat." I might start off slow, and ease into it, but I haven't made my move yet. I guess time will tell.