This week was busy at work for me because I had an open class - my second this semester. However, this time it wasn't parents watching me but teachers from other schools. Overall, I think it went okay, but these things are always a bit phony since everyone puts in an extra effort and goes all out when they know they're being evaluated.
This weekend was a bit laid back for us as we had no real big plans. Thursday, Ali and I both had our respective gender nights with girls night being spent by the river eating pizza and boy's night in a shabu shabu restaurant. On Friday we stayed in and just watched the World Cup. With Korea out of it, obviously world cup fever is gone, but there's still interest in the tournament.
On Saturday, Ali and I went separate ways; I had a get-together at an ice rink with the same group of foreign teachers I climbed a mountain with last month, and Ali went to a barbecue for two people from ECC that will be leaving in a few days. The skating was interesting as I hadn't skated since I was maybe 10 years old. The rink was crowded with kids as they were just getting out of school. (Kids in Korea go to school every other Saturday). There were even some adult speed skaters doing laps pretty fast. Despite my inexperience and the congestion, I'm happy to say that I did not fall once. I only skated for 45 minutes though because I had to leave early to go meet Ali for an opera. More on that later.
Ali had a good time at the farewell BBQ for a Calgary couple that works at ECC. It was a really hot day and amazingly not raining so everyone went onto the roof of the apartment. There was a BBQ with a variety of foods - an okay way to spend an afternoon.
That night, Ali, I and three friends went to see the popular opera "Carmen" in Seoul. One of the friends is a trained opera singer so she was eager to get people to go with her. Ali and I are glad that we saw it so that we can say we've seen an opera. But as for the actual experience. Well... we were a group of English people watching an opera set in Spain and spoken in French by a Korean cast. So I feel like a lot was lost in translation. We were both new to the opera scene so we didn't know what to expect. Alida, the trained opera singer, has seen many, and said that this was the best production she'd seen. If that's the best that opera gets, I don't think we'll be repeating the experience anytime soon. Ali, whose French is better than mine, missed a lot of what was being said due to the opera accents. There were subtitles but of course those were in Korean.
Us waiting outside the opera
The Seoul Arts Centre
Sunday was a relaxing day. We stayed at home during the afternoon and booked our flight to Japan. We will be spending 5 nights in the country starting at the end of July. We're excited about the trip since we've heard so many great things about Japan. The plan is to go from Kyoto to Tokyo. Later that evening we went to the movies and a restaurant in downtown Uijeongbu.
Overall, it was a relaxing weekend and we'll probably have a few more of those in order to save money that we're going to be spending in the most expensive city in the world.
We'll update again next weekend.
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