Juan's Trip

If you are a regularly reader (not that I can imagine that there actually would be such a person) you would have noticed that I didn't post an entry last week. Well, it was because nothing much happened until the weekend when Juan showed up for a visit.  Juan arrived at the train station on Saturday night, and David and Hye Song were kind enough to drive me there to pick him up. We all went out to eat some samgyupsal and Juan was later introduced to the game of darts. On Sunday we went to play soccer at the World Cup Stadium practice field--the first grass field I'd played on since being in Korea--and I has a none-too-impressive premier there. Oh well. I took Juan to my church's Bible study, then we met up with Jenny for dinner before going to play some pool at Billibow. 

We got up early on Monday morning to hike up Palgong Mountain where a 1,400-year-old hatted Buddha sits on the summit to receive worshipers and pilgrims and the thoughtful masses who wish merely to contemplate his serenity. Juan found it hard to make the journey, and so it took us much longer than I anticipated for us to reach the top and return to the bus. Because of that, I was a little late to work, but I was able to switch classes. Tuesday was a day that will go down in my memory forever: the day I ate dog soup. Juan, Kai (a Korean student), and I took a taxi a few minutes away from Wall Street to a sketchy-looking place that smelled quite foul. We were ushered into a small room that looked as though it had been a child's bedroom a few decades before it's current operational status as a dining room. We were promptly served a boiling soup within which was a healthy (in all senses of the word) portion of dog meat and vegetables. I eagerly enjoyed my soup, finding the taste to be quite good. Juan, however, and perhaps to his credit, found it difficult to stomach the meat. I ended up eating about half of his portion after he gave up on it.

Wednesday we went to Chilseung Market so Juan could get some souveniers. Unbeknownst to me (since it was my first time there), boiled and roasted and gutted dogs were in abundance at the market for your casual perusal and photo-taking pleasure. We partook, as Facebook can now attest for you. We saw lots of seafood as well, and ended up not getting any souveniers at all. We instead went to Doctor Fish, the place where you can dip your feet into a fish tank to have them nibbled on. From there, I went to work whilst Juan enjoyed a 90-minute Thai massage. On Thursday, Juan had to catch the train to Seoul to depart, so we went to the train station and said our goodbyes after a quick but packed trip.

Other than that, I saw the Renee Zellweger film about her going to Minnesota (I don't know the name, because the title was translated into Korean) with Jenny and we had a nice date in the now-warm weather. It's like Daegu went straight from winter to summer, with no time for spring. She still has a cold, but when she gets to feeling better we might go to Gyeongju. My dad and stepmom arrive on the 23rd, which now seems like just a few days away. I'll have some time off work then, which I'm looking forward to. It's tough not having a spring break this year....but not having to teach high school is more than ample compensation.