Thursday

This is the Thursday edition of the days of the week post. As far as school goes, this day is identical to Thursdays for me. Four classes plus the extra class with the grade ones and twos. Since there isn’t anything to add to the school day I’ll talk about teaching in a bit more in depth.

I’ve mentioned my co-teacher, Moon Hae Jin, before. She is young, 23 in Korean reckoning, and in her first year of teaching straight out of teachers college. She is great and I owe a lot to her. She handles a lot of the normal responsibilities of a teacher from the west; she does the paper work, goes to meetings, makes and marks the tests and doles out the discipline. I help with us much as I can but without being fluent in Korean there is only so much I can do. I do my best to keep the kids in line during class but when they need a good yelling that falls to Hae Jin. Our teaching style is 50/50 both in the planning and teaching in the classroom. If I plan grade 5 lesson 13 part 1 she will plan grade 5 lesson 13 part 2. In truth we probably don’t teach 50% each day since I’ll admit that whoever is planning the lesson is not the best at including an equal part for the other. I often use Hae Jin to translate instructions and advanced concepts and she has me read and pronounce sentences correctly. She also prefers me to do Simon says. It averages out to 50% though.

I’ve mentioned that Wednesday and Thursday are in flux a bit for the events after school. Thursday night is Tae Kwon Do as normal for Laura and it used to be guy’s night for me. We have a few regular friends here in Mokpo and all but one of them is a couple. So the guys would spend Thursday night out without the ladies. However the ladies have now started knitting on Wednesday nights (I believe it is called a ‘stitch and bitch’) and of course they wanted us to move our night to Wednesday as well. So far it has worked out but things come up, like teacher dinners that occasionally make us move it back to Thursdays. Anyway I can’t talk much about knitting or Tae Kwon Do but here is an average guy’s night.

Guy’s night is great because we get to drink beer, eat meat and play sports and video games. A few of the woman are vegetarians and a few of them don’t drink beer. So it is the only night of the week we get to chose where to eat and drink without restriction. Most chicken places for example only have beer, soju and fried chicken. That is their entire menu and it is great. Another example is that we always start at Song’s beer which, no surprise, only has beer (also food but we rarely eat there). Song’s is one of the best for beer since Song himself became a brew master in Germany, studying there for 18 years, and has since returned home and opened up three beer halls (two in Mokpo and the original in Gwangju). It is the only place to get dark beer on tap. After a few beers at Song’s it is supper time.

There are more restaurants than you can count here but we generally go for a grill place. A common style here is that the meat is brought to you raw and you grill it yourself at your table. The grill can be gas, electric or coal. You throw your plate of meat on the grill along with some sliced up garlic and when it is done you pick it off with your chopsticks put it in a lettuce leaf along with some spicy red bean paste, hot pepper, green onion and whatever else you like. This is done with beef, pork and duck. It is really delicious and easy way to eat dinner. Food and liquor are very cheap in Korea as long as you are eating and drinking Korean. A large bottle of beer is 3.00 dollars and a single serving of pork is 2.00 which include all the side dishes. An average dinner bill for Thursday night (with 6 guys) is around 60 to 80 dollars. That is every guy full and a few drinks each. 

After dinner it is time to go and play. There are a lot of diversions in Mokpo but some of the most common we participate are batting cages, the shooting gallery and pool. Batting cages are common in new Mokpo and you get about a dozen or so balls for 50 cents. The same places also often have video games like ‘time crisis’ or a racing game. The bar we shoot pool at offers pool for free as long as you are drinking and I am not so sure they are very strict about that. Most often the bartender is on the computer chatting or playing ‘World of Warcraft’ and is too busy to see if the foreigners are drinking enough. That’s a pretty average night but sometimes it is another bar instead of games or there is a festival or a laser show. There is a chain bar here with beers of the world, another that serves beer in an mug of ice that you throw at a target for prizes and multitude of others with different gimmicks. Thursdays are never boring and I am always surprised by the bill at the end of the night. Including taxis, drinks ($1.50 at the 7-11/GS 25/Family Mart), entertainment and dinner I rarely have to spend more than 50 dollars. Back in Halifax that would be either the taxis or dinner.