insert a song about weekends here:

or listeners calling in to 5fm [radio station back home] and saying “it’s the weeeeekeeend baaabyyyy!!”

weekends in korea are pretty freaking awesome. i’m not sure what it is, it isn’t the relief that the workweek  is over and you finally get a break from all the stress and thankless hard work of a 9-5. because stress doesn’t really feature in my 9-5 (or make that 8-4 actually) i teach 2 or 3 classes a day, they each last 50 minutes so i have a lot of time to prepare and relax. plus i enjoy teaching, the girls may be naughty but they usually they make me laugh and smile. if you’ve read the previous post you know all about it.

so what makes the weekends so great? is it the fact that i have really awesome friends? that just about everything is an adventure? that a bottle of soju is so damn cheap?

with summer here now every weekend feels like summer holiday. it’s weird, i’ll be dancing with my friends somewhere some hour of the night/morning and i’ll feel just so blissfully happy, the kind of happiness that you want to shout from the rooftops. that feeling that you get in the summer holidays when everything is carefree and great. i guess because i’m in another country it is that traveling kind of vibe, but at the same time i’ve been here a while now.

there is the adventure aspect. every weekend i leave my little town of majeon, either to head to the big city (daejeon) or sometimes the even bigger city (seoul) or somewhere new and exciting in korea. daejeon is where my awesome friends live and every weekend is a happy reunion as we don’t usually see each other in the week. my majeon/geumsan friends are cool too but i guess i’m more “tight” with the daejeonites. we’ve all got the same sense of adventure and enjoyment. if one of us finds something that looks like it could be cool and suggests trying it out nobody hesitates. no humming and hawing, more like why on earth not? life is for living. book it.

nightlife-wise there are lots of cool and interesting clubs but we usually end up at our “local” which is actually not special or interesting at all but i guess it’s comforting. or there’s always the gs25. drinking outside a convenience store is one of the very awesome things about korea. it sounds totally dodgy and low class but it’s not… i promise! “our” gs25 has nice wooden picnic tables and is surrounded by other bars and clubs, it’s great to people watch and meet people and enjoy (really) cheap alcohol and snacks. buying beer at a convenience store is a very exciting novely for the south african in me. plus the gs25 is open 24 hours. i’ve sat there till 10.30 am before.

that is another interesting/crazy thing about weekends in korea. the total lack of sleep. there is too much awesome too experience to waste time sleeping. sleep when you’re dead. or in the nap room at school during the week.

now before you start planning an intervention… let me assure you it’s all good fun. i’m not getting completely wasted. jagermeister and tequila are expensive here. i hardly ever have hangovers. sleep deprivation? yes, hangovers? not so much. there’s just this awesome crazy energy and me and my friends really enjoy each others company. plus not every weekend is a party weekend. quite often i go on trips that involve hiking, visiting temples and whatnot.

a list of some of the awesome things i’ve done weekends… not to brag or anything : )

jisan valley rock festival

boryeong mud festival

other festivals

travelled  to cities, towns and islands

stayed in a traditional korean village

went to a huge south african braai in seoul

went on a american and canadian independence day booze cruise

got lost in and explored hongdae

picked and learned how to make green tea

and and and and… : P

oh and i said awesome 8 times in this post. because it’s an awesome word to describe how awesome everything is. awesome awesome awesome.  (13 times now)