Egg Roll

I forgot to bring my camera around with me yesterday, so if you're more of a visual person, skip this post. No pics, sorry! Anyway, yesterday I met a few other guys in my program to go around with. One of the guys is a Korean adoptee and apparently came to Korea this summer for a Korean adoption program. While he was here in August, he befriended some locals, one of which, Joon, took us around a bit. We went to the Han river during the day and then to dinner at a local place. We sat upstairs, where we were instructed to take off our shoes, put them in garbage bags, and sit on small pillows. The ceiling could not have been higher than 6 feet and the loft setup actually made it reminiscent of bunk beds, in my opinion. The walls were full of marker writing, some Korean, some English, some Chinese. I obviously jumped right on that... "Chi-town represent" what? embarrassing....
Joon ordered the food for us. The first course was something that is translated literally as "egg roll." However, it was much like a long--about 3 feet, in fact--omelette filled with cheese and kimchi. (Jackie, you would like the half that was just cheese!) They brought it out on a wooden washboard, which was quite interesting. I had my first taste of Soju which is a Korean rice-based whiskey, an alcohol drank throughout the country and often--almost every meal. It tastes like watered down vodka, really. Joon taught us a variety of drinking games that they commonly play when out for a meal which took us a while to figure out. The customary way to take a shot is to pour the glass over your head after you drink the shot to show that you finished it. I followed suit and ended up with some wet hair. Today was the first day of training and the medical exam. We have to wear surgical masks the entire time during training, it's painful. The paranoia about swine flu is rampant. Apparently training is supposed to be pretty intense, so I may not have too many updates within the next week. I'll try and snap a picture of all of us with our masks...pretty cute. The trainer said that the masks are "cool because we look like superheroes." I'm not sure what super hero wears that kind of mask.