Hello Jack Bauer

On Friday, I was kidnapped.

Not by the Chinese government, not even by the KGB - but by none other than my co-teacher.

She invited me over to her house for dinner, which was really nice of her. Her place is TRICKED OUT (ie. its very nice) - she has a HUGE flatscreen TV (the kind my brother wants instead of a college education), a whole room to showcase her art, and a screened-in porch overlooking the city. In Korea, space is money, so you learn to appreciate spacious places fairly quickly. And her place was spacious.

She even had a couch. All my Korean peeps just gasped when they read that. You just don't come across comfy furniture here.

So I arrived at her place, took the tour, and she sat me down on the couch and handed me two remotes and told me that I could watch a movie as she made dinner.

She didn't talk to me at all for the next hour and a half. I watched the entire movie of Miss Potter while she was preparing dinner. She didn't want any help, and I guess she really didn't want to talk to me much either. But I was content to watch the movie. And it was SO GOOD! But I am a girl...and it was kind of a girly movie...

So she brings dinner out to the living room, and MAN - did she make a lot of food! We had kimchi soup, regular kimchi, rice, dakgalbi, beef galbi, samgyupsal (pork), sundae (sausage), and all the accompanying side dishes. No wonder it took her an hour and a half.

She turned on the TV throughout dinner and we barely talked at all. After cleaning up after dinner, she asked me if I've ever seen the TV show "24". I said no, but that a lot of my friends watch it, so it must be pretty good. She put in the Season 1 DVD and pressed play. Then her cell phone rang, so she went into her room to talk on the phone.

For 3 hours.

...

I watched 3 and a half episodes of "24" in a row. And though it is both an interesting and suspenseful show, I can't sit still to watch anything for 3 hours.

After she got off the phone she came out to the living room, and I immediately took advantage of her presence to let her know that I should probably get going. So she took me home.

It was so nice of her to have me over and to make me dinner, but I felt strangely like a hostage throughout the night. There is a part of me that is just a bit leery of my co-teacher. I can't really explain why...its just feeling. Scary.

But I made it out alive. Happy ending - yay!

Yesterday was Eddy's birthday, so tonight we took him to a Mexican restaurant in Shinchon. The highlight was when the staff brought us all sombreros and a poncho for Eddy and sang a wonderfully Korean-Mexican rendition of Happy Birthday. Then we went to a noraebang (singing room). We were incredibly disappointed to find out that they didn't have "Ghostbusters", but we sang a bunch of mid-90s alternative and grunge hits instead.

By the way - all songs by Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers have completely unintelligible and ridiculous lyrics. But, we decided that that's what makes them awesome.

I'm out - Korean love!

Jess