first weekend at work

Friday night we had a "work dinner meeting"... which was more like a "worker dinner soju-drinkathon". It was a good time until I started to feel very nauseated and had to leave early. I missed out on most of the festivities... but turned out I was falling ill. I didn't drink any soju and haven't yet since I've been here, so I can't really blame being sick on alcohol this time. The next morning I woke up with a fever. My aunt tried to feed me all sorts of weird stuff to make me better. I didn't argue... I just scarfed down what she gave me. Luckily, I brought some ibuprofen with me from the States. I went to work a little later feeling like death... I wasn't alone. Everyone was hungover from the "work meeting". I felt bad for them but glad at the same time... misery loves company ;D

Saturday night we went out for a co-workers birthday. She's almost as new as I am so I felt glad that everyone had bought her a cake and wanted to go out. We went out to downtown Gwangju and ate dinner there. Afterwards, we went to this place called "Ethnic Bar". It was a beautifully eclectic place. There's a candle lit staircase that leads down to the bar. In the center was a large water-feature lit with drip candles and what looked like kind of a banyan tree towering over the water. There were glass ornaments hanging from the tree and ceilings along with lanterns and canopy drapery everywhere. It was very different from what you typically see in Korea.
It was great to sit and talk with everyone outside of work. Every moment outside of school seems to be an escape for everyone and I will soon be in their shoes. I'm just glad that my co-workers are such great people. Everyone gets along really well and it's neat to get to know more about where they're from.

Sunday was recovery day. I basically slept most of the day. Then my grandmother and two of my aunts and cousins randomly showed up. They came to feed me because they had heard that I was sick. Typically, I just want to be left alone but I was glad to see them because it had been a while. They greeted me by asking how I was feeling and slapping my back really forcefully. My aunts brought all different kinds of fruit and my grandmother brought veggies from her garden she wanted to cook for me. I hope this amount of hospitality is normal... It bothers me that everyone goes out of their way for me so much. I almost want to make a log of how much I'm indebted to everyone.
My aunts served trays of fruit in the living room and my uncle's dog, Louis, ran out to join everyone. Louis kept jumping around with a toy in her mouth and my aunts kept freaking out because they thought she was going to attack (Louis is a miniature poodle btw). I took the toy and threw it and continued to play fetch with Louis. Everyone was so amazed. My aunts were so giddy with excitement because the dog retrieved the toy when it was thrown. Who knew "fetch" could be so exciting!? I thought it was funny... apparently not many Koreans have dogs, or play fetch with them for that matter.

Next week is going to go by slowly with the last round of boring observations. I'm not looking forward to it but hopefully it'll be over soon so I can finally start getting paid!