Pre-birthday weekend

This was super busy weekend, so enjoy reading!

I haven't seen Liezle in awhile, so she decided to come to town to visit me and some other people. I went home after work on Friday and cleaned for an hour - dishes, bed, general organizing, bathroom and sweeping. I need people to come over more often because that's really the only reason why I clean. I went to Friday night prayer service, then met Kyeong He and Krista for dinner. There was some confusion and I ended up wandering a bookstore for a few minutes before I got a message they were someone else. Oh well. Liezle came in late Friday night and met us at the gamjatang (beef spine soup that's really good) place. She had already eaten, so didn't eat too much there. Then we debated on what we should do. Krista really wanted to sing, since she used to live in Japan and hadn't been to a norebang yet in Korea. So first we went to get take-out coffees at Angel-in-Us. Then we walked around looking for a place to sing. There are dozens advertised in the area near us, but it turned out that they were all business rooms. The funniest part of the evening was explaining to Kyeong He (the Korean with us) what business rooms were. She didn't really believe us and actually talked to a group of men who were outside one and asked them some basic questions. Then we tried to go into another place (that didn't say it was a business room) and got immediately escorted out of it. Then we passed a strange looking building with Greek statues outside. Liezle asked what it was and Kyeong He goes "I think a prostitute house...yes, it's definitely a prostitute house." The 3 non-Koreans laughed hysterically at her nonchalance about it.

After walking in a giant circle for 20 minutes or so, we ended up at Pop-Junko, which is located directly above the restaurant where we had dinner. I've been there before last year and it's a really nice place, but can be a little pricey. It was also strange because neither I nor Liezle had ever gone singing stone cold sober before, and we weren't planning on drinking, so it was going to be a totally different experience for us. So we rented the room, they brought us food (it's required that you buy something) and sang for 2 hours. Krista is a high soprano and has a lovely voice. She sang quite a few Japanese songs too. So we were very multicultural. Your voice sounds slightly better when you haven't been drinking, but your enthusiasm for the song is definitely lower. It was still fun though! We left around 2, then Liezle and I stayed up talking until just after 4.

What the screen looks like - they play random movie or TV clips behind your songs that don't match at all.

Selfie in the mirror/wall at the norebang

On Saturday we got up and started to get ready around 10. We went downtown to Waining coffee. I hadn't been there since I've been back to Korea and was excited because they have a good chai tea latte...or at least they used to. Ordering was interesting because when I asked for the latte, they said "no, now we have milk tea" so I was like fine, can I have a large and the lady said, "no large size". It ended up ok, but it wasn't what I wanted. Liezle's friend Nick was going to meet us there, but while we were waiting for our drinks, I saw Josh walking past, so I ran outside to meet him. He was taking a box to the post office. So I told him to come back over if he wanted to and meet Liezle and Nick. The post office was closed, but he came back and stayed with us for most of the rest of the day. We stayed at the coffee place for close to 2 hours, when we finally decided to go to lunch. We went to a chicken place that I'd been to before with Josh - it's a great place though.

After lunch we were trying to decide what to do, so we walked around downtown for a little while, went shopping in a few stores, laughed at horrible Konglish shirts and walked around some more. It is still quite cold here and were trying to come up with something else to do, so we decided to go to another coffee shop. The first one we tried was full, so we ended up going back to back to Waining. This time I got a chocolate mint smoothie and Josh got something called "Choco mountain" because he wanted to see what it was - it was frozen yogurt with chocolate syrup and chocolate cereal on it.

After coffee, Josh ended up going to Emart then going home. The three of us decided to go bowling and called Kyeong He to meet us there. We bowled one game without her (I bowled a 140), then 2 more games with her (I did not do well on the second 2 games). The last game was fun though because we decided to play teams - me and Liezle v. Nick and Kyeong He. The winner had to buy drinks. We lost horribly because both Liezle and I did poorly.

Nice form for Kyeong He!

After bowling, we went back to the same norebang. We decided to just do dinner there since they make you buy food anyway. We ordered what is labeled "Cajun chicken salad" but is not cajun by any means. It had lettuce, Korean pear slices, hard-boiled eggs and chicken with a sweetish, honey-type glaze. It's very good, but not cajun. We sang for another 2 hours and this time we decided to try out songs we would usually not sing with our friends as practice. There were a couple that ended up ok - "breathless" by the Corrs was a good one. And some that were awful - Kelly Clarkson is not in my range! Turns out I'm more like my sister than I thought and tend to sound better when I stick to songs sung by dudes. Unless I go super high - the middle is my downfall. After singing, we called it a night (it was a little before midnight) and went home. We stayed up talking again for another couple of hours and it just made me realize how much I miss talking to Liezle.

The "free" food they give you. The top left is japchae (glass noodles and veggies), the top right is papbingsu (shaved ice, sweet cream, red beans and cereal), center is egg rolls (scrambled eggs rolled up with spicy peppers), the bottom left is edemame and the bottom right is caramelized/burnt rice (sweet but super hard/crunchy)

Sunday morning we got up and started getting ready at 10 again. We back back to Waining and met Nick for coffee a little before noon. I had to leave for church at 1, so we said goodbye and Liezle gave me a birthday present of lotion and coffee with a cute mug. It was very sweet.

After church, we prayed and said goodbye to a lady named Joanna who leaves tomorrow for Canada. She's been in Jinju for close to 2 1/2 years and was a regular member of IEC. Then we had a town hall meeting. They do this twice a year to get feedback from everyone, tell the plans for the upcoming months and give a budget report. I will be hosting monthly game/social nights starting next month, so I had to deliver a little announcement about that. They had pizza, but I don't think they anticipated that many people, so I got 1 slice. After the announcement other people mentioned they were still hungry, so we decided to go to Han's Deli. I was meeting Josh later, so I had a couple of chicken tenders. Corinne often gets this rice dish that has fish flakes on it. The best part is that the flakes move and look kind of like worms when the dish first comes out due to the heat from the rice. This video isn't great, but you can kind of see it, plus the background commentary is kind of funny.

This picture is actually from LeeAnna's cake last week, but was too funny not to share with you. Oh Konglish, how I love you.

I then met Josh for what could be our last dinner. He's still waiting to get paid for his last month of teaching and to get confirmation of his plane tickets/job etc. from Africa. So he could leave anytime from Wednesday - Saturday of this week. The 2 of us went to the meat place and tried some new kinds of meat, but didn't actually eat very much (which is a good thing). We stayed for awhile after eating, just talking like we always do. He was telling me a lot about his time in HR and some of the cool things he did. I'll see him again before he goes, but it might only be for a short minute, so tonight was kind of bittersweet. Then I came home and skyped with one of my cousins for a little while, updated pictures and wrote this! I'm pretty tired now, so I'm off to bed!