Day 16: Recovery

It's not very often that I wake up feeling hung over after a night out partying, but this morning, unfortunately, was a severe exception. I woke up feeling like I had been run over by a truck full of squid, and my stomach felt soooo queasy. (Funny thing is, I hadn't even drank that much the night before - nothing too crazy anyways!) And the worst part is that I was *so hungry*, but eating was the last thing that I wanted to do at that moment. Ugh....

Charles wanted to go and have breakfast, but again, just the thought of food made me wanna hurl all over his nice hotel room. I decided to pass on the offer for a little brekky, and looking at my watch, noticed that I was due to meet up with Steven and his host family for lunch in 2 hours. SHIT! Time to run back to Shihung! I had run out of Korean won the night before, so I attempted to cash some traveller's cheques to fatten up my wallet a bit. I went to THREE exchange places and either they were closed, only exchanged cash for cash, or didn't do Canadian funds. What the...? Knowing that all the banks were gonna be closed tomorrow as well (this Monday is a national holiday in Korea), it looked like I'd have to survive on bread and water until Tuesday. That and the million and one packets of instant noodles I have in my cupboard.

The train ride was painful with the constant rocking motion, and I was SO HUNGRY that I was starting to get the shakes (and Scotty's hypoglycemic mood swings started to kick in as well...not fun!) I must've looked like an absolute mess on the train - still wearing the clothes from the night before, desperately in need of a shave, and reeking like cigarette smoke (unlike Vancouver, you can smoke pretty much anywhere you damn well feel like it in Korea, obviously including the bars!) AND NO WINTER COAT EITHER! Grrrr....

I arrived at my apartment like 10 minutes before we had to leave. I quickly changed into something clean, fixed my rat's nest of hair up a bit, and tried to shove down some toast and juice to get my blood sugar levels back up. I had just taken my first bite of toast when there was a knock on the door...time to leave!
I was sooooo NOT in the mood for a lunch out 'with the family' but didn't want to be rude and turn down the invitation for lunch. The Parks and I drove on over to a family friend's, not far up the street. They live in a beautiful apartment on the 12th floor of a high rise and had spectacular views of the city. One thing really cool about Korean families is how so many generations live in one household. In this one apartment was the father and mother, 2 sons, and both grandmothers - so cool! The other noteworthy thing about Korean families is that all the children (generally) stay living at home until they get married. It's not uncommon for 'kids' to stay at home until they're 30 or whenever, as Koreans seem to be getting married later in life than what used to be traditional. And even when they do get married, a lot of times they still live one of the spouse's families. Wow! It's so different from North America where each generation lives on their own. I guess having all these generations living together has both its pros and cons I imagine - no privacy, but you always get to be close to all your loved ones.

We were served lunch, and even though I still didn't feel like eating anything, I knew that I needed to (and plus I didn't want to be rude!) What was really sweet was that even though the mother (actually the grandmothers did most of the cooking!) had prepared a massive meal full of like 20 dishes, she also ordered take-out fried chicken, just for me... (Looks like my seafood aversion reputation has spread across Korea....) :-) The meal was absolutely delicious, and it included many dishes considered edible by Scotty's tame and wimpy stomach, including lots of vegetables, fresh fruit, rice, and this yummy drink made from rice and grains...not sure how to explain that one...it's like drinking wheat, but actually tastes really good! I felt SO MUCH better after eating anyways!

After the meal we all sat around and chatted, and I had a good hour of practicing English with Sandy and John (John is one of the sons of the family we were visiting, and he is the same age as Sandy.) Sandy and John, like many Koreans, actually have a fairly good knowledge of simple English, but often are just too shy to practice it in 'real life' situations. I don't know if it's a matter of being self-conscious or what, but I tried to make them feel comfortable and asked them lots of easy questions so they could practice. The mother and one of the grandmothers sat around and listened in and even though they couldn't understand a word of English, seemed to be really excited over the conversation.

When I got home I was feeling much better, but still completely tired. I spent the afternoon doing housework (oh the joys of laundry and vaccuming...) and then some reading in the evening. I broke into the Lonely Planet: Southeast Asia On A Shoestring that Arion gave me and have really been enjoying it so far. This book is totally pumping me up for my backpacking journey around Asia that I'd like to do after my year of teaching finishes. I'm reading about Cambodia right now and it seems like such an amazing place - I can't wait to wander around the temples at Angkor Wat. (Yes, Korea is only the beginning of the world tour...) Later I watched Notting Hill (one of only 11 movies that I allowed myself to bring to Korea.) God I'm such a sucker for cheesy romantic comedies...