Santa Claus is coming, to Seoul

I was invited via Facebook to come to Seoul to an event called "Santafest." Basically it's when a bunch of foreigners meet up dressed in Santa outfits and wander the streets bar-hopping and singing Christmas carols. Over 500 people are attending, mostly foreigners. Should be interesting.

Last night the school Director took all the teachers out to dinner. It was a fairly nice restaurant and must have cost the school a good amount of money for all 12 or so of us to chow down there. Oh also I was looking forward to having maybe a glass of wine with my pasta but instead the Director brought a GIANT BOTTLE OF WHISKEY into the restaurant and poured us all half a glass as if it were actually supposed to be drunk like wine with dinner. I mixed mine with Pepsi but everyone else seemed to just be sipping it straight. The only problem for me is that since they all speak Korean, guess what language they were speaking in? The Director doesn't speak English at all so when she talked to me someone always had to translate. All evening it's not like I got spoken to much, and when I did it was delayed and a little confusing. Still, I got a few good confidence boosting compliments out of the deal. I put on my glasses toward the end and a few of them started pointing and jabbering and chucked out a few "Kimberly"s here and there. I asked Mel what the hell they were saying (it's a strange feeling to be talked about right in front of your face and not knowing what they're saying about you) and he said, "they're jealous of your eyes, they're just saying you're lucky and they wish theirs were like yours." "Oh, okay...thanks?" We went to a bar after dinner and the Director bought us Jagerbombs and some beer. She's a pretty nice boss when all is said and done. Also I made a joke, as I do, and the head teacher (Michelle), who speaks excellent English but has a weird way of phrasing things sometimes, said "you are very good at having a joke!" and laughed her ass off. When you're not included in the conversation 80% of the evening it's easy to be witty in small incriments.

I went to a different foreigner bar after a little while because I was sick of hearing Korean and just staring into space. I sat down with some friends and a Korean girl that one of them knew came up and said to my friend about me, "she is really beautiful!" And no joke, she sat down across from me and STARED AT ME. For like 5 minutes. It was super weird. Afterwards my firend said "she has a weird personality," which may be true, but clearly she has excellent taste. :)

I'm at school right now. No class this morning because the Kindergardeners are practicing for the Christmas talent show. Then we have a birthday party. I teach from 1:15-6pm. Now I am off to lesson plan.