Monday 21 September 2009

Welcoming Dinner from Bunam Middle School

It was 5:30PM, my last class had just ended, and I was preparing to go home.

On most days, Mrs. Jeon packs up, comes over to my desk, waits for me to pack, then drives me to the bus station. But today, she walked over to my desk and promptly advised me that we were going to a restaurant for my “welcoming party.” So much for advanced notice…


I called Jess to let her know that I wasn’t coming home for dinner and to invite her to join us (all of the teachers were begging me to persuade her to come). She said yes, and 30 minutes later showed up at the school ready for show-and-tell (she was the main event of the night).


There were two main differences between my first welcoming dinner (with Gucheon Middle School teachers) and this one:


First: I knew what to expect. This dinner was no less of an escapade than the last one, but this time I was mentally prepared.


Second: I had a side-kick. Actually, let me re-phrase that. Jess was the focus of conversation, and I was the side-kick. This allowed me to focus more on eating, drinking, and the occasional conversation. Jess, thank you thank you thank you!


The night went extremely well with lots of drinks, laughter, and of course, copious amounts of flirting (directed mostly at Jess, but I did get a few side remarks from some of the male teachers).


Once all of the bottles were empty, we said our good-byes and caught the last bus from Bunam station towards home.


Back in Andeok, we walked over to the ticket counter to buy bus tickets for the week. We looked through the window and saw the salesman and his family sitting in a circle on the living room floor eating dinner (we felt really bad for interrupting them). They talked with us for a few minutes (mostly about where we were from and why we were in Andeok) before handing us our bus tickets and a bag of… Yup, you guessed it… Apples.


- Ken

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