After work I went to go meet up with Ken and check out one of the spas near his area. While I was waiting for him outside his building my school called me. The assistant director was telling me that the director wants to start a new program where Nick and I call our students once every two weeks for a quick 3 minute call to check up and make sure that they are up to speed on the lessons. And in return I would be paid 1,000 won per call. Now I saw a few flaws in this right away. First off there is only a handful of students that I teach that have the English proficiency to benefit from such a call, the rest of them would all just talk to me in Korean, and the ones that would understand the call really don’t need the extra help. I’ve heard of this type of thing going on with other teachers and its all just to give more perceived value to the parents, it also just sounded like a headache. There’s no way a ‘3 minute call’ only lasts three minutes. When you take into account scheduling, getting a hold of the kid and the odd parent that will want to talk to me while I’m on the line I’d figure that 5 minutes per call would be a safe estimate.
I told her that it didn’t sound that appealing. She sounded surprised and asked why. I told her that 1,000 won really didn’t seem like much. Keep in mind that 1,000 won is only about a dollar. She said that was a very good amount for only three minutes on the phone . I explained that being on my cell phone cost me 500 won a minute, to which she replied I could use the phones at the school after my shift- totally missing the hint that the call we were having right then was costing me more than it was worth. Also half my kids wouldn’t even be home at 6 oclock, and there was no way I was calling my kindergarten kids (the futility of it boggles me). So theres really no way it could amount to more than 20-30 dollars a month for an extra 1 (ideal) to 5 (more likely) or more hours a month. She was still pushing it, so I did what I always do with her when she asks me to do something I don’t want to : write it down so I could take a look at it later. She said that Mrs. Kim needed an answer right away. ‘Ok, then no I don’t think so,’ I replied. She was surprised saying that Nick had already agreed. I told her that I was just too busy and didn’t want any more hours at work, but I thanked her very much for the opportunity.
Ken had caught the last part of the exchange and when I filled him in he was amused. Thinking back now I hope that Nick still gets to do it if he wants, I’d hate to have cost him a chance he wanted. Heck I hope they let him call my students too. But if it wasn’t for me Nick and I would both be working an extra three hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I think he’ll trust me on this one. I do like the fact that I am getting some good practice in business confrontations. I used to be such a people pleaser.
So Ken and I headed to Haeundae to check out some spas. The last one we went to was great, but it was a little out of the way for us so I thought we’d check out his area (mine doesn’t have many). The one we ended up at wasn’t bad, but not really anything special. It was almost empty (I figured weekdays would be better) so we did have the run of it. It had a hot tub, a cold tub, a more hot tub, three saunas and various rest areas. We kept going from hot to cold for a while to get the blood flowing. Ken has started working out again so we were both nursing sore muscles going into it. There was also a small room called an ‘Oxygen Room’ that had a floor covered with smooth pebbles and slightly different airflow. I was hoping it would have been a high oxygen room, but neither of us got a buzz from it. Overall the spa was relaxing, but I can’t see us going back. It just wasn’t anything special compared to the other one. We’ll likely check out a few more in Ken’s area over time though (there are a lot of them).
Afterwards we went to grab something to eat. I wasn’t really planning on eating out after all the lackluster experiences we had of late so I had eaten a little before heading out, but was still starving after the spa. I had forgotten my meals today so while I was at school I had subsisted off of beef jerky (always be prepared) instead of my usual 2 huge mealshakes (its not fair to call what I make in a blender a protein drink) so I was just underfed for the day. This time we decided to just cut the crap and go to one of the western restaurants in his area, even though we had been burned by pizza hut I figured I couldn’t go wrong with a steak. Well I did.
I got a Texas rib eye steak at Bennigans, which cost about $30. Everything on the menu was a little pricey so I figured I was best to pay a few extra bucks for something decent (although it was still one of the cheapest steaks they had). It was a decent size, although they seemed to take my medium-rare order as a half and half request. The side dishes were pitiful, and the steak was slathered in sauce. It also came with some orange marmalade that I couldn’t figure out. Ken also ordered us some beers, which I was on the fence about but wasn’t going to object to. Luckily for my waistline they at least tasted like mostly water.
So you could say that I wasn’t entirely happy with my meal, but at least it was filling. I couldn’t say the same for the fajita that Ken ordered. I had heard that there is only one place in Busan to get good Mexican food, and I realized quickly why Bennigans was not that place. I won’t even try to steal his thunder, I’m sure he will be more detailed in his blog.
So the meal was overpriced and not very good, which was what I was kinda fearing from going in but there was part of me that was hoping that against odds I would find a reasonably priced place to get hearty western fare from time to time.
C’est la vie. I think I’m just going to have to start packing lunches wherever I go and hope I don’t get sick of chicken breasts, mealshakes(the name will catch on) and tuna. Otherwise I’m just going to get poor, fat, skinny or some undgodly combination of the three.
Oh and heres a pic of me posing outside some random restaurant in Busan where the food is like a free aquariam view until you eat it.
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