Porfessional night out

"Eat what ever you want and if someone wants to lecture you on your weight, eat them too" - Anonymous

We went out last night for our annual monthly dinner and man was it interesting. Firstly, we went to have a nice starter at a little restaurant that really didn't look much like a restaurant but more like a little shack house. It was quite an interesting little place. I would've liked to show you how it looked but my phone battery was completely flat. I had rice wine for the first time. To describe the taste for you it was like someone through milk into namaqua sweet white wine and gave it a little bit of a fizz. It wasn't too bad to be honest but it wasn't my favourite at all. 

In Korea the tradition is that you are not allowed to drink before the head of the table starts drinking and you should also finish your drink when they finish theirs so that you are ready for a top up. It is considered disrespectful and rude if you don't do it. So what do you think happens? Everybody gets drunk. 

This is the Rice wine and how you drink it. 

And here we all cheers on my first glass with the school. 

After having a little bit of wine we all headed off to the Soyosan Mountains in Uijungbu (walking distance) for a little bit of a hike. I thought we were on our way to the restaurant where we will be having supper but the language barrier caused my assumption to be wrong. We just went up for a little bit of scenery. It was absolutely beautiful. There were cherry blossoms all the way up next to the walkway. It looked like snow with a little bit of pink in it. Absolutely beautiful. And the mountains is also becoming more green by the day. I think it will be stunning in summer never mind in autumn when all those leaves turn into shades of red and orange. We went up so many stairs and then again down so many stairs that I'm not sure how many stairs there were but there was a lot of stairs and it was all worth it. We ended at this beautiful waterfall at the end of the path and this really interesting and beautiful temple. The mountain Soyosan was named after a princes who used to walk though the forests and play in its small waterfalls and natural springs. It is also a very common place for Buddhists to come pray and there is 2 priests also living here. They are actually preparing for Buddhists birthday at the moment which is on 25 May.

 

After our little walk up into the beautiful mountains we head back to the city for a traditional Korean BBQ. I actually like the Korean BBQ since you can eat quite a lot and most of it is eaten with your hands and the variety is quite big. I can eat what I like and leave the rest for the other people. We took off our shoes and went to sit on the floor cushions at the low tables and started packing our meat on the grill. We had duck and pork. It was super nice. Another tradition came out when the principle handed me a shot glass (quite a big one) and asked if I want beer, cider or sojo. Sojo is almost like vodka and you shoot it. It's not the most pleasant taste in the world and luckily I only had one. But to get back to the tradition, if a person in higher authority or ranking throw you a shot you need to give them a shot back of the same thing. And you need to pour it yourself. It is seen as good manners and acceptance/ thanks if you give one back. So the bottle of alcohol doesn't last very long if you are a lot of people and the one handing out the first shots well I think it could be implied how it all turns out.

Every little bowl has something different in it. Here we are having some soup as well because it's good for the digestion. The green bottle is Sojo and empty. 

After dinner the principle gave me a choice where we should go. The choices were coffee house, beer house or karaoke bar. I wanted to choose karaoke bar but I am a little sick so my voice needed some resting. I choose the beer house of course. And she was very keen for that. We ended up in a coffee house in the end but we did still order beer. We had beer in the one hand and ice cream coffee in the other. Talk about best of both worlds. At first I was a little overwhelmed but the whole story but it turned out to be pretty cool. I just wish I understood these people. I feel so stupid when I laugh but have no idea what about.

Best of both worlds.