!!!Poongmulnori club!!!

So, I joined the poongmulnori club! I think are between 9-11 different poongmulnori clubs at Yonsei; the one I joined is the one that advertised during the activities fair. We first went to their meeting on Tuesday, which was a bit awkward. Their room is REALLY small and we came late. They were telling about their weekend. Everyone was very nice, but it was all in Korean, so after introductions, I kind of zoned out. It was interesting though because everyone listened attentively and seemed to genuinely care about what the others did; when people in America ask how someone is doing, they don't really want to know, they are just being polite. After everyone went around, the meeting ended (it took quite a while). I think we may have looked a bit disappointed, so they got out the instruments and we all played for about 10 minutes. Afterwards they told us they were going to go out and drink and invited us. We all declined; I think we all thought it was weird because it was already 9ish and a school night. There was one girl who is really good changgo player and she told me to come back and use the room and practice anytime I want! One Wednesday I met my language partner, Sung-eun, and we went to lunch together. Girls often hold hands or link arms here, and my partner is a fan of the linking of arms, which is fine with me, but it was hard because I was using a HUGE messenger bag with all my books and it was in between us, so I felt like it kept hitting her while we were walking... She didn't seem to mind though. We went to an Italian restaurant and I ordered chicken and pasta. I asked her if she could ask the waitress if my dish had any egg and when she asked the waitress laughed at her like she was asking a really absurd question. People here do not seem to understand allergies and when every I or someone else asks if there is eggs, they think I mean is there literally is an egg cracked into whatever food it is. They never think of the ingredients. After lunch I randomly met up with this girl I met in class. She was trying to find an outlet to plug her laptop in and I suggested the poongmul room. I doubted any one would be there during the day. I was wrong; there were about five or six people in there practicing. The girl I'd met the night before (the changoo player, her name is Da-hwa) saw me and invited me to come practice with them. It was so awesome! We first worked on basics with some of the other girls who were learning changoo, and then after they left we worked one on one and she taught me a bunch of different garaks (beats). It was a little awkward because I knew different versions of most of them (ee-chae, sam-chae, oh-bang-jin, jin-oh-bang-jin etc.) so it was pretty easy for me to pick up on the new versions, but everyone was impressed that I was catching on so fast and I didn't know how to explain to them that I already knew something very similar to them... We actually played outside. It was really fun! It is really cool that passerbys didn't even give us a second thought. I found out tonight that Da-hwa has only been drumming for 18 months! wow! Playing with them totally made my day. Tonight we went to practice. I guess Tuesdays are meeting days and Thursdays are practice days. It was really cramped in the room, but fun. I dragged along a bunch of friends who seemed interested. We played for more or less an hour and then they all took a break to eat dinner. They ordered pizza. They ate and hung out for almost an hour. Most of my friends left during the break but I decided to stay as did this Japanese kid named Ryoma who's in my Korean class. We played for about 10 more minutes. After practice they invited me to go out and drink with them. I declined again but got in a very interesting attempt at a conversation with this one guy as we walked out. When I started to part ways he was all like "where are you going????" and convinced me to come along. It was actually really fun. We wandered around a while searching for a place that had enough space for all of us. We ordered food and drinks. I had kiwi-soju and tried makoli a traditional rice wine. It wasn't too bad. We also had soondae which is noodle sausage. It was weird because it was covered in gochujang (spicy red pepper paste) and cheese... Anyhow, here are some pics. last friday Pang (my roommate) and I met up with a friend from our Korean class last summer who is here teaching English. we went to dinner at a Thai restaurant and an arcade. Here is a pretty cake! I wish American bakers made such pretty things! Too bad I couldn't eat it, but I ate green tea ice cream instead. yum! the view of Sinchon from my window