Where everbody knows your name...

Well its sunday here in Korea and I've had a decent enough weekend. Friday night I went out with Matt for his last night here, we went to a chicken place with some friend of his and then to athe "Ol' 55" the western bar that I went to last weekend for halloween. Its a nice enough place, a big hangout for us teachers. Kind of odd if you think about it that everyone travels across the world and then hangs out in a mostly english speaking, english culture place. In any case I had a good time and met some cool people. It was one of matt's friend's birthdays and so the bartender brought over a birthday cake, a sweet potato cake. It looked and tasted mostly like a regular cake but the sugaryness had a slight yamlike aftertaste, it wasn't bad. Its kind of like when a vegan gives you a carob cookie and tries to convince you that it tastes the same as chocolate. It doesn't taste the same but in its own way it doesn't taste bad. I hung out at the bar for a bit and actually had a few drinks. I am a superlightweight nowadays and part of my brain was afraid that I was mortgating the rest of my weekend by having the shots of soju and beer but something tells me that the five pounds of chicken I ate at the restaurant beforehand helped stave off any hangover- not to mention any actual drunkeness the night of. Matt ducked out quietly at one point, he wasn't even planning to stay out late at all as he had to catch a cab to the airport at 8am (to coincide with his master plan to get back into the US in time to watch his first live football game in the daytime in a year) and kept on getting peer pressured to stay a little longer. I'm guessing he got up to go to the bathroom and then beelined it for the exit in a fleeting moment of self discipline. I hung out with some of the new people I had met for a little while longer then booked it myself. I think there is a built in failsafe here in Busan that will keep me from staying in bars long enough to do any real damge to my liver, and that would be the damage to my lungs. I've gotten very used to the smoking bans in Toronto and being reintroduced to smoky bars (and internet cafes) reminds me of the long forgotten feeling of leaving a bar just to get some fresh air.
A lot of Matt's friends were telling me what I've already kins of realized, which is that my school really isn;t treating me all that well. I really don't like how they promised me a new apartment and have not followed through on it at all. I've gone through my stages of trying to make the best out of what I have and have managed to look at the bright side of things. I like being close to a gym, itsnice having patrick next door and I have managed to make it look a lot nicer than before. But its seriously still a shithole. So after talking to my recruiter I'm going to give the school written notice that if they don't rectify my living situation (read: nicer apartment) I'm going to resign. My recruiter said that if it does come to resignation he'd help me get out of the contract and find a new job. But we're both fairly confident that the school will do its best to hold onto me. They've gone through quite a few teachers lately and if they lose any more they are likely to lose thier contracts with the elementary school I teach at and parents might take thier kids to a more stable Hagwon. I basically jsut want an apartment that is a little bigger, with a better equipped kitchen and not on the ground floor.
I did yet more cleaning yesterday and have eliminated one of the two mystery smells in my apartment. The fridge had what looked like potting soil under the crisper but i know was likely mold. I bleached the hell out of the fridge and now it is much improved. But since yesterday the bathroom has starting smelling bad, not in a septic way either. which makes me think that ther is more mold there somewhere. So today I will empty another bottle of bleach into there. I fixed up the main room of my place a little more too. I put up a tryptich of small art I bought at e-mart and a mirror from a bargain store. I bought two more plants and honestly the main room isn't looking too bad at all now. I still need at lest two more big pictures to hang on the wall to fill the white space but its tough to find a big picture thats light enough to be hot-glued onto wallpaper. Luckily I found out through trial and error that I can take the pictures down with no noticable damage to the walls, so I can move all of my stuff to my new place when I get one.
I found saturday afternoon that I got a little stir crazy, I walked the city a bit, worked out, checked my emails at the PC bahng and did the aforementioned housecleaning but still was feeling a little off. I think it was just a bit of homesickness. Coupled with the fact that I just don't like my place enought to spend too much time there.
Ben (from the visa run) had emailed me that he would be in town last night so I called him and met up with him at, yep you guessed it, ol'55. It is actually fine for me to meet people there because its one of the few places I can find in this city without getting lost. SO I got to meet a few new people, ran into some people I knew from the previous night and butchered a game of pool so bad you'd thinik I was angry at it. I left fairly early because the smake was getting me nauseous again but it was nice to know that although I feel pretty out of place here sometimes I do have a hangout I can hit and run into people I know. So really not the most exciting weekend, and the rest of it will basically be me ironing my laundry, shopping and cleaning. Yep thats right kids its the land of adventure her ein Korea.