My St. Patty's Day Blunder

Dear Mom,
I've loved everything you sent me. Except for that one thing that made me look like such a goober.

Hello all! I've decided to sit down on this Tuesday early evening and write yet another blog. "But Natalee, you work every evening from 4 to 9 with no breaks!" Me: "My 6 oclock class was canceled!" YES! This feeling brings me back to the FCS snow days! Now if I could only sit around my house, drink hot chocolate, make a snowman, and dare my mom to drive us into town.

Anyhow, last week was an o.k. week. I felt like I watched hours and hours of the devastation in Japan. It's been very interesting being so close to Japan and it's put me on edge a little bit. On Tuesday last week, the sirens went off right as I was watching a story on CNN about how to survive a tsunami. It turns out that it was a monthly drill of "what to do during an air strike from North Korea." (Don't ask me what you're supposed to do. My plan is to hunker down in my market.) But I heard the sirens and I was ready to run up the small "mountain" behind my market.

Last week, on Monday, they celebrated White Day here in Korea. This is very similar to Valentine's Day, but this time the man is supposed to give the women some sort of candy (preferably fruit candy)...come on Korea...your women don't want fruit candy, they want chocolate in as many forms as possible.

Then came Thursday, which was also St. Patrick's Day. I was so excited. A couple years ago I bought this over sized green sweatshirt specifically for this day. Across the front it says, "IRISH" in huge white letters. I had also been anticipating it because my mom sent me these gold and green "chocolate" coins, and I was so excited to give them to all my students. I told them on Wednesday that I had a surprise for them the next day.

The day came. I wore the sweatshirt. I passed out 2 coins to each of the students in my adult class AND the other adult class across the way and told them about St. Patrick's Day and about these delicious gold and green coins. They said, "this chocolate is very thin" and I said, "yeah, that's how they are, you have to pull back the foil." I was a little surprised that no one tried the "chocolate" at first, so we kept talking. About 15 minutes later, I noticed Mrs. Ko really struggling with her "chocolate." So while Mr. Che was talking about something I tried opening one of the "chocolates" myself. Well, it turned out it was really just a plastic gold and green coin with a four leaf clover on it. I'm pretty sure Mr. Che asked me a question and my answer was, "oh no! It's not chocolate!" Initially Mr. Che was confused, but a few seconds later we were all cracking up and I was slightly embarrassed but glad that I didn't hand them out to the kids first. They would have had my head. And surely enough, when I told the class across the hallway that the coins were not edible, one of the students told me she knew because she tried to bite it. If only it were April Fools Day instead.

I don't know if it's because of all news about the separated families in Japan or that it's almost been 6 months since I left home, but I've been feeling a little homesick. So, the busy weekend in Seoul was welcomed with open arms.

So Saturday morning I woke up and headed to Seoul to meet some friends for one of the girl's birthday. I love Seoul. It's like going to America for a little bit. So much to do. So much diversity. So much English.

Saturday afternoon we went to a comedy martial arts show called "Jump." These people were sooooo strong and disgustingly flexible. It was very entertaining and since there were really no words, I understood the whole storyline.

Here's the group:


Saturday night we stayed at the birthday girl's friends house in Seoul. The friend and her husband just moved to Seoul from the States about 2 months ago because he got a job at the horse racing track as a judge.

So, Sunday early afternoon we were off to the races and I accomplished yet another first! The weekend before I watched the movie "Secretariat," so I was pretty pumped to go to my first horse race. We were told before that the horse races were a very dirty place. Supposedly, it was a place where old men smoke, drink and bet. And that was true. It was very crowded and people were just so engrossed in their papers and researching the horses of the day.

These ajummas aren't going to be left out of the fun.

I still can't get over the Asian squat. This must be a designated squatting area.

One time a drunk man touched my arm and said, "beautiful," and then as I was walking away, he cackled. Kind of creepy, but we were quickly ushered out of there and into the VIP room. Yes that's right. I am no longer just an ordinary citizen. I have been to the Pegasus Lounge where free cappuccinos are in abundance and the races are viewed through a clear wall at the top of the building.

You probably want to ask me, "Did you place a bet?" And yes I did. I dropped 500..no biggie.....Five hundred WON that is. (which is about 40 cents) And Lo and behold, my horse won! Thank you Stormtroop for running so fast! However, the odds that he was going to win were very high. SO, I only got about 700 won back, but it was still a victory! And I can totally see how this type of gambling is addicting and therefore destructive. It is fun to put money on a horse and then cheer like crazy when it comes around the track. The guy who was able to get us into the VIP room told me later that on a single race at this track the average amount of money brought in is 4 MILLION dollars!!!!!! Dollars..not won! My contribution to that 4 million dollars was obviously very microscopic.

Here's my winning ticket!


And they're off!


And that's all I have for ya. I hope you are doing well and that the weather is getting warmer wherever you are! God Bless!