finally the ice fishing update

Today I cleaned my room. It wasn't disgusting like "ew...what is THAT in your sink??" It was more you couldn't walk because clothes and reeces peanut butter cup wrappers were strewn everywhere. I did a lot of laundry, dusted, swept and mopped my floor and have real good intentions of bringing out the garbage. go me!

After 20 days of working 11 hours a day, coming home, marking for an hour, and going to bed to do it all again, intensives are over tomorrow. thank god.

There was no time to clean...ok, there was, but I had no motivation. If many options of things to do were presented to you on a week-day night I could only choose one. Doing more than one event in an evening was far too much. Cleaning fell by the wayside.

BUT

IT'S DONE!!! and the paycheck will be here shortly!

So now, I also have time to update on the ice fishing weekend...the pics are already up, but the entry has been lacking. and trust me. that weekend needs an update. any weekend that invovles drunk, naked korean men covered in soot deserves an update!!

Friday night we all went to bed early...out of exhaustion due to intensives and necessity because we were getting up crack of dawnish the next day. The 12 of us who were going met at Gangnam station at 7:30am. To our wonderful surprise we found a McDonalds serving breakfast AND a krispy kreme donuts right next to eachother. We each purcahsed from both establishment and headed for the Adventure Korea buses...or...we tried to.

We knew what stop we were supposed to meet the buses at...but no one had told us exactly where we were supposed to meet in the station. It's a BIG station...many many buses. We got lost. We were only like 10 minutes late, but it all worked out. We had to split up between the two buses for the journey to the festival, but separation makes the heart grow fonder right??

We get to the festival. The actual festival was fun...actually pretty warm, the sun was shining, the sky was a wonderful blue (NO SMOG), there were many koreans (but we're used to that), there was beer, there was fishing. it was all around a good time. The fishing got kinda boring after a time tho...as fishing often does. Especially when there are literally thousands of people all standing on one ice covered lake-thing fishing AT THE SAME TIME. I'm sorry, there can NOT be that many fish in the water. I looked in my fishing hole for a long time...I never saw a fish swim by.

There were other events as well...quite a few of my friends decided it would be a good idea to jump into a very cold pool of water to try to catch fish with their bare hands. I was sick ;) so i didn't do it. I also have sense...or a lack of adventure. you be the judge. Some of them caught fish, some didn't...all in all it made for good videos and pics.

At around 4 we all headed back to the tour buses for the trip to our cabins in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. It was supposed to be a half an hour jaunt. It took closer to an hour when we included a stop at the store, but it was a fun, singing filled hour. There were two tour buses FULL of foreigners. It was good times.

We're dropped off, in the dark, at some school. then told that we have to walk 1 km, or 5 minutes, to the cabin. I've been in Korea for awhile. I know this is a lie.

we walk for 20 minutes in the snow and COLD (it's now dark), uphill, to our cabins. Ah well, I said I knew it was a lie...we didn't bitch that much. When we got there we put ourselves into our cabins. 10 people in each cabin. We had 10 then we added one more girl who Martha had met on her bus. She was on the tour alone because her friends had said they were gonna sign up, but then forgot.

The cabin was nice, a big bathroom, one bedroom with a bed then lots of floor room to put down our mats. We set-up then headed for our galbi dinner.

with our wine. hence the c.l.a.s.s.y. pics ;)

We ate a great dinner, drank some wine, then everyone headed up to the bonfire.

It was fabulous to see stars. We literally were in the middle of nowhere, 20 clicks from the DMZ (North Korea border). It was very cold, but with snowpants, sweaters, toques, scarfs, gloves and jackets we were all good. It very much reminded me of home. A bunch of people crowded around a bonfire in the booneys drinking, laughing, singing and talking. It was great, but then the reality of intensives hit and most of our cabin stumbled towards bed around 12:30. We left the two boys in our cabin and the girl we didn't know up at the campfire.

I woke up at 1:30 to Lyndsay saying "wake UP!!" I gave her a look of digust, to which she replied "not you, HIM!"

I rolled over to find a korean man sleeping on the floor next to me.

we didn't know any korean men on this trip...

He also had no pants on. He had nothing on his lower half. He was covered in soot. he was very much passed out.

now there are 9 girls, very awake in a room...yelling at him.

he really didn't understand. he put his long johns on (it's really that cold...you need those) and continued to sit there, staring at all of us. I literally had to reach down, grab him by the collar, and pick him off the floor. We're all yelling at him to get out. He didn't speak any English. You'd think that if you'd accidentally stumbled into a room and passed out, woken up to 9 foreign girls yelling at you, that you'd realize your mistake and leave. this guy wasn't getting it. It took lyndsay smoking him with a pillow and me physically removing him from the building to get rid of him.

He came back 5 minutes later for his pants...it was -15.

We calmed down and fell back asleep...I slept a little closer to Lyndsay because the other side of my mat was covered in soot from the korean guys legs and ass. nice.

We woke up the next morning and started re-hashing the previous evenings events with clearer minds. It was then that I glanced over at the girl who had woken up on the other side of the korean man. This was the girl whom none of us had known previously to this trip.

She also had no pants on...and had soot on her..uhh..bottom.

It clicked...

when we were trying to kick the guy out the night before, I had been trying to hand him pants, to get him clothed!! but she said "no, those are my pants" so i gave them to her...not really thinking about it. figuring she had pjs on.

she didn't.

if you do not know a room full of people, you do not sleep in ur underwear. also...why was she covered in soot.

well...we had left her up at a bonfire hadn't we.

ok, girl got together with a korean guy...whatever.

but then i realize that...wait a second. they're both covered in ash, so they obviously were fooling around outside by the fire. that's given. BUT the fire was far away. It was -15 outside. the guy did not waddle all the way back to our cabin with his pants around his ankles.

ahhh the girl got together with the drunk korean guy next to me. i don't know her. harsh. if it had been one of my friends i would've laughed at them and never let 'em forget it, but that'd be that.

however...i didn't know this girl. to me that's big disrespect. it's like saying. well...i don't give two shits about you or any of the people in this room, so i'm gonna do whatever i want. it's bull. we let her stay with us. we befriended her. thanks for the payback chick!

i'm not that mad anymore...nor was I really that mad then. it was more shocking than anything.

also...when we were screaming at buddy she never said boo. It's understandable now as to why he was so confused. he had been invited there! felt kinda bad for man-handling him...oh well. life's life.

SO we woke up, girl high-tailed it outta our cabin and we never saw her again. We went to breakfast and chilled for the rest of the day. We could have gone on a hike or stayed behind at the cabins. we chose the latter. It was wonderful just to chill in a nature setting. Everything covered in snow, beautiful clear blue sky, fresh air. It was fabulous.

Then we got back on the tour buses and sat in a traffic jam for 4 hours till we got home. Back to the starless, natureless, smog-filled Seoul.

it was much more memorable than our staff party.