Naked adventure time

 Time for the weekly update!  I know you all have been waiting on pins and needles for this (either that, or going about your daily lives).

So, the school situation is about the same.  Still feeling a lot of stress about managing a classroom and being a good teacher.  Thus far, doesn't seem to be the life changing career shake up I was hoping for.  But, next week is midterms (so minimal planning required on my part), followed by a 5 or 6 day holiday, so at the moment my feelings about school are a bit more positive.

My landlady, bless her, speaks not a word of English.  Every time she comes over she talks at me in Korean, and I just nod and smile.  Friday, she brought me a bed heater thing.  I thought she wasn't going to bring it until November, so the fact that she already brought it makes me greatly fear the coming cold.  WINTER IS COMING!  Scary music!  I need winter clothes!


I desperately need to learn more Korean, as sometimes it would just be nice to know what the heck is going on.  Like when I go to meet someone at our city's boat stage (it's a big stage downtown that looks like a boat.  Eventually maybe I'll take pictures of all this stuff), and there's a surprise festival or something there, with singers in traditional hanboks and...belly dancers?  It was an amazing surprise.

Also, I love Korean street food.  Yesterday, I ate something like a corn dog, except the dough was different, and I'm not really sure what kind of meat it actually was.  Oh, and the condiment selection was, "ketchup, mustard, sugar." 

My big adventure for the weekend was trying out the jimjilbang.  It's kind of a bath house with spas.  It was fun, although we got slightly lectured for apparently not scrubbing thoroughly enough before trying to get in a hot tub. 

I'm sure everyone is dying to hear what it's like to hang out naked with a bunch of naked Korean people, so I'll do a shorty synopsis.  We paid 7,000 won to get in, and we were issued a stack of towels and a lovely set of jimjilbang PJs (for the common area).  Then we went into the lady section, first storing our shoes in one locker, then handing in that key for an awesome key fob that had a key for our clothes locker and served as a charge card while we were inside.  They had a little snack bar in that section that we later grabbed some drinks from.  Inside, there's a serious shower section, where you're supposed to scrub down good before getting into the communal hot tubs.  They really take that scrub down seriously.  Then there's several pools of varying temperatures, mostly hot, but with a few frigid ones too to mix things up.  Then there's a couple steam rooms.  So, after we'd relaxed there, we put our jimjilbang pajamas on and headed upstairs to the co-ed section.  The jimjilbang has sleeping rooms where you can spend the night, a lounge with TVs, a PC bang, massage rooms, a little restaurant, and, my favorite, salt rooms.  Yes, rooms full of rock salt that are heated, and you just lay in the delicious warm salt.  Weird, but awesome.  I'll definitely try the jimjilbang again.


After the jimjilbang, I decided to walk further and explore the area.  I found a random outdoor gym park and a pet store with some adorable tiny puppies.  Good times. 

Back at home, I answered the door to a very earnest Korean woman.  I thought she was a census worker.  She desperately tried to communicate with me by talking in Korean.  I did my "smile and shrug" routine.  Later, someone told me she was probably from a church.  That made me glad I didn't understand.  :-)

Well, off for more fun times!