What the hell was that?

I don't even know where to start. Which is good, because I'm drunk out of my mind on Korean rice wine and shouldn't be typing anyway.

Let's just say, hiking was the fucking least of it.

Noraebang disco bus. I ate raw liver and squid (or fucking something....) tonight. Squat toilets are now my bitches. The country here is... well, like the country back home.

Mr. C, Mr. K and Mr. Lee are all leaving my school. I have no friends.

But.

There are three genuinely good looking teachers at my school. All three are PE teachers and two of the three have completely ignored me until tonight. I don't know how to explain what happened, except to use a phrase my favorite of the three (the one who originally didn't ignore me) coined, which is "alcohol English". That about sums it up. Mr. K is a good man, you know, deep down at the heart of it all. And after he confessed to me that he's leaving (for reasons I altogether do not agree with -- I think he's making a huge mistake), he brought me to the table with the PE teachers and from then on they were my companions for the evening. He's leaving me in good (if somewhat to extremely intoxicated) hands.

Remember the PE teacher Mr. Kim told me was very handsome and single? Well, he's both. And tonight he decided, I guess, to make his move. He was pouring me drink after drink and on the third one, the entire restaurant started chanting, "LOVUH SHOTUH! LOVUH SHOTUH!" Which apparently meant we were to link arms and do our "one shots" that way. There is (unfortunately) photographic evidence of this.

PE teacher no. 2 (as of here yet unnamed) then asked me, "What do you think of him?" Referring to the first.

I said I thought he was very nice.

He said, "I think he's very foolish man."

"Why?"

He then relayed a story about how PE teacher no. 1 fell down the stairs at school this week. I got to see the scrape and everything.

I said, "It was only a mistake."

To which, PE teacher no. 2 responded, "His life is a mistake."

On the bus ride home, PE teacher no. 1 sat with me the entire time and continued pouring drinks, which accounts for my current state. His English is fucking magnificent for a PE teacher and I had no idea. I guess Alcohol English is a hell of a lot better than Lunch Table English.

It figures.

The music teacher is now my new best friend. He says he doesn't need to speak English because we speak the language of art and free spirits, which transcends the ordinary language barrier. He sat on my lap, told me I am very beautiful, and taught me how to play a game that, as far as I can tell, involves the words "sal" and "boriuh" (or something) and grabbing your opponent's hand.

PE teacher no. 3 is the one who lives in my apartments. He doesn't speak much English (even when drunk) but did approach me after we got off the bus to say, "Leez. You come home wis me."

Well. Okay. If you insist.

Of course, he meant that he would drive me home. And he did.

We'll see how much of this extends past winter vacation. I'm wholly counting on the other teachers returning to school and going back to being extremely ignored. Only with no Mr. K to make up the difference.

That sucks, if you really want to know. He said, you know we will still see each other.

I said, between my public schedule and your hagwon schedule, you living in Seoul and me living in Incheon, I really don't believe you.

All the more reason to make good use of my desk warming time this winter to learn as much Korean as I possibly can. It's time to get serious about this if I don't want my work life to get really miserable for no fucking reason. Several of the teachers that have gone out of their way to avoid me instead went out of their way to make me comfortable tonight. Which is all well and good while we're outside of school and all relatively shitfaced. But I'm going to have to be the one who really extends the effort here. My crutch is leaving. I'm on my own from here on out.

More (coherent) and photos tomorrow.