Koreans love ping pong! On Monday afternoon, me and the rest of the sixty or so staff went to cheer on our ping pong team. Our team was playing in the finals against another school in the district.
There was quite a show going on. There were three ping pong games going on at once. Every staff comes out to cheer on their own teams, so as you can imagine there were many people there. The whole event reminded me of being in a hockey game back in Canada. I mean, they had us holding two balloon type sticks that you hit together to make this loud, scratchy sound. Every time our side would get a point, the whole staff would beat these things together and make a racket - but a fun racket after all.
The school that was playing beside us, had brought traditional Korean drums to bang on when their team won a point. I wish I had taped this hoopla.
After two hours of watching singles and doubles games - our school won! We are now the district champions. There is a ping pong table in our school where they practice. I played a few games during a quiet afternoon, and really enjoyed the ping pong machine that spits out balls about 100 mph, while you try and hit them.
After the game, we all went to a dakgalbi traditional sit down restaurant. This was the same restaurant that we went to after my first few weeks at the school. This time, I felt much more comfortable with everyone. So comfortable in fact, that I started the tradition of pouring, 'soju' for the principal and vice principal. So they in accordance with the tradition poured me shots back. I just walked around pouring shots to some of the staff that I knew and wanted to say cheers too. Everyone got 'pissed again'. After lots of pouring shots of beer, and soju and trying to speak English very slowly to some of the staff -I heard my name.
I looked up and saw that the Office Manager, had called me up to sing. At this point I was realllllly tipsy. I felt quite 'happy' at the time to go up and sing. I sang about three songs, rather loud and badly. The pitch was way too high for some reason, and I felt like I was screaming. Nonetheless, the staff loved it, and clapped like mad. Craziness!
I was told after the singing, that we were leaving that restaurant and going to another place to, 'drink some more.' We ended up in a 'Noraebang' which is a place that you go to sing. There was about 15 of us that decided to drink more. They all looked half in the bag as far as I could see, but I thought, 'what the heck, let's party!' The room the principal paid for was quite big. They had nice couches all along the room, and a big screen tv.
Other than a few staff around my age, the rest were older. My principal and vice principal were there, and some higher ups. They brought in about twenty cans of beer and we started drinking more. They all started dancing and I was dancing around the room like a crazy girl. I was twirling the principal around, and him me. I was so amazed at how much the Koreans loved to party and let loose. I know the culture loves to drink, but seeing them relax and let loose was great. Everyone is so serious at school, this was a refreshing change. It was only the third time, I had went out with the whole staff and I was happy to have it happen again.
I sang about three songs and one of the songs I sung was, "Funky town." I also sang, "Thank you" by Dido. I had to get the principal and V.P up for that one. Anyway, it ended about 10pm, and that may seem early, but we started around 5pm, and the next day was a school day. When I arrived at school on Tuesday, I was informed around llam, that the principal had decided to let us go home at noon. I could of kissed him, I was so elated! I just wanted to go home and rest my head. I do have the coolest Principal and V.P. He seems to let us go home early a lot.
My vice principal who will become the principal next year, asked me to stay another year. I didn't promise him, but I was very happy at his request. I wish I could speak to him more. He doesn't know much English. I don't know much Korean. I know a small amount, and have been trying to learn, but it is slow going. I wish I had the time to devote three to five days a week of strict study.
I met the Vice principals daughter a few weeks ago, and we went out for lunch. He couldn't make it for lunch, but his daughter was lovely. She spoke perfect English, so we had lots to talk about. She had given him a run-down on our meeting, as he told me last night. He said, we think you are very sincere. It was sweet. I couldn't thank him enough for treating both me and his daughter to a really amazing buffet, western style lunch.
I will be going on a temple stay in a month, to one of the sacred temples in the middle of Korea. I am excited about it. In a few weeks I'm going white water rafting and bungee jumping! Woot!
