BANG BANG BANG 뱅뱅뱅 (and other awesome things)

What a week. I'm so tired. Like my body,my brain, my heart, my soul and everything are so tired. Which means it was freaking awesome. 

Random updates:

Strange bruise on my arm....

Finally got to wear this shirt with my cooling undershirt since I can't show my tattoo. Also, new shorts!

We had our English speaking contest throughout the week, which drove me up a wall. I'm really proud of my kids, but it literally took up all my free time at school. My babies were so cute and did so well though!

To help me get through this week, I had special plans with my coworkers. Once again, I went to see the Mr. Show! I keep telling myself it's the last time, but I can't resist the abs. But this one let me go out on a high note (literally), so I might call it.

First, we went to dinner. We went to this cute ddeokbokki place and I got to impress everyone with knowing how to read some Korean. You had to circle the things you wanted in your custom pan.

Then they bring it out to you and you cook it and eat and it is incredible.

After the ddeokbokki is gone, you can ask to have the sauce used with some rice and other toppings. We got cheese and flying fish eggs. No joke. It was delicious.

Little red dots all over the rice are the eggs. Mostly just salty and awesome. 

After dinner we still had some time to kill, so we got dessert. Bingsu season is upon us! And the kind we got isn't just all ice flake. It had the frozen yogurt and so much topping that I never got a spoonful of just ice, which is awesome. I must eat many more.

Obsessed. So good.

Finally we headed into the venue.

A lot of the guys were different from the last time I saw the show, so it's practically new, right?

I noticed the MC was the same as the times I went with Tina, not when I went with my cos last time.

They also updated their billboard thing.

So many abs in one place.

Since we ordered early and are awesome, we were in the first row on the right side of the stage. It was right in front of where I sat with Tina and Young Ah. We drew tickets randomly and I was on the most inside closest to the center. I sat next to Moon Jung, my Korean soulmate (we went to a lot of the same places in Japan, including the maid cafe, and also discovered that we stayed at the same hotel in Vegas).

This proved to be quite beneficial as I was once again pegged pretty early on by the MC and the cast. When you're a foreign girl with (apparently) blonde(ish) hair in a sea of Korean women, you can guarantee that there are gonna be some stares.

The MC pretended to walk by me then did an "oh hello foreigner" type thing before pulling me up on stage. I had debated telling him to let one of my coworkers go in my place, but it happened so fast and the words wouldn't come out. Perhaps I was too happy to be chosen again and never really intended to give up my spot. I won't get to experience this kind of positive singularity when I go back to the US, anyway.

So I got pulled on stage with two ahjummas. Unfortunately the guy I picked from last time was no longer in the show, and two of the guys were not my style. Fortunately the first ahjumma pounced on the one I liked least, and I was second to pick. I picked Troy, who reminded me very quickly why I thought I liked him last time: his voice is like 8 octaves deeper than like every other man I've ever heard speak. 

I also now know the drill that each guy has his assigned seat, and my Troy happened to be the center one AND THEY RAISE YOU UP ON A PLATFORM.

Troy's hair wasn't styled like his photo: it was long and swoopy in his face which all of us agreed looks better and I of which I am a huge fan. Also pictured, Marco, who was my actual favorite.

I remember my last time on stage, and I feel like Troy got wayyyyyyyyy closer to me than the first guy. I mean, it was largely the same with lots of him taking my hands and running them all over his muscles (dude had some serious thighs and pecs along with insane abs), but equally as awesome. at one point they pull off their underwear and my coteachers were so scandalized and were like "OH MY GOD DID YOU SEE HIS..." and I had to explain to them that they wear another pair of underwear underneath and are suuuuper careful about not having a malfunction. They all really liked Troy so they were quite jealous. But I asked if they wanted to go up and the answer was a resounding "no" for various reasons: shyness, boyfriends, embarrassment. Only one said she would have wanted to go up. Alas.

In the glow of all this, I got to speak some Korean when the MC talked to me. He laughed when he asked me what I did and I said I was an English teacher but I said it in Korean. He also asked me if I had a boyfriend, and I said no. He was like, "Why? Your face is so beautiful. And your hair is so cool (my hair was quite a talking point when he picked me). And your body is amazing!" Thanks, MC of this testament to the fine male specimen for telling me I have a bangin' body. I have been losing weight recently and I looked pretty good, so it was nice to hear in front of all these chiseled ab men and a bunch of screaming Korean women,

Weirdest thing though: MC forgot my name. Pretty typical since my name is hard for them to remember, but he called me by a different name. What did he call me?

Christina.

He kept calling me Christina last time, but it made sense since Tina was there and had gone up first then passed it to me. But how freaking weird? that was like a year ago, Whoa. 

Anyway, it was awesome, as usual. It really helped get me through a really stressful week at school.

So Jung and I had a funny conversation after when I told her I thought Marco liked her (he was always on her part of the stage and was seriously always staring at her):

So Jung is probably my favorite person I've met in Korea. Her emoticon game is strong.

Let me take this moment once again to thank whatever powers that be placed me in this school with So Jung as my main coteacher and with such awesome coworkers who will go with you to a male strip show. I'm pretty lucky for a lot of reasons.

Wednesday was also payday, so Thursday before Korean class we celebrated by trying the BBQ place near our hagwon. They do a lot with bamboo and bamboo wine. It was so good!

I love Korean bbq so much.

We have a week off from class so I get to relax. Woo!


Saturday we went to get our medical checks near Lauren's apartment, and I almost passed out from the blood drawing because she had trouble finding my veins and was poking around a lot with a needle under my skin then had to resort to syringe drawing it from the back of my wrist. Thankfully Ga Hyeon took us so he got thing sorted for me. I am not confident in the training these "nurses" had and I realized pretty late in that the one wasn't wearing gloves when she took my blood. Yikes.

Anyway, with that out of the way I took a nap and got ready for a night out in Itaewon. It was my friend Hanh's birthday, so I got to see a lot of people from my intake from all over the city. It was fun!

This is my "My hair game is so strong but I've been waiting for the bus for like ever" face.

Lots of love for the bday girl!

The original restaurant "lost" her reservation, so we ended up at Blue 55, a beer garden that had lots off cool food and drinks plus a waiter with neck tattoos. Itaewon is pretty sweet.

Beer Menu.

I got the "bacon potato" which was a basket of french fries with bacon on top. Also that is whipped cream. I have no idea why.

"Simple pizza"
?????

Afterwords, we headed to another bar and drank and chatted the night away.

Chocolate Cake birthday shots!

It's always nice to see friends, especially as our contracts come to an end and a lot of people aren't renewing. A bittersweet time, indeed.

Sunday was the day we've been waiting for for a looooooooong time. Well, since June first when Big Bang's "BANG BANG BANG (뱅뱅뱅)" was released.

We were finally learning it in dance class!

woooooo!

Please take the time to watch this performance. The song is awesome. This performance is amazing. And you can get a taste of the choreography.

Big Bang isn't a big dance group like Super Junior, EXO, or even Beast and other groups we've done the last few weeks, so the choreography is pretty tame compared to a lot of other groups. But we do the background dancer stuff too so it's a lot. Also it's harder than it looks. We did manage to finish the whole song, though!

I was so tired by the end but it was so much fun. Probably my favorite one we've learned.

Tina and I bought special hats for the occasion. We've been wanting these for a while: it says "waygookin" which means "foreigner"

Our hats got lots of love. I could tell people on the street and subway saw me wearing it and were confused. Does she know what it means?  Classic.

뱅뱅뱅 in our coordinated outfits

There are not enough words to express how much I love our class and studio and this song, so here is this picture.

After we died in class, we hung out for a bit. I can't wait for the video of this one to come up!

Some of the crew. 3 foreigners and 2 Korean guys. They guys don't come for the girl dances so much haha.

Exhausted, I decided to grab a quick and cheap dinner and experiment with my palate. I have had a rough time with seaweed since my incident in Italy, but I'm trying to eat it little by little. This time I got myself a whole roll.

Get in my belly and don't make me sick.

The seaweed flavor isn't super strong with most kimbap, but when I first got here I couldn't even manage it. Now I can! I want to try a bunch of kinds now to make up for when I was missing it.

Bulgogi kimbap.

Monday was stressful. Lots of stupid little things. But here I am now sweating my butt off in my 90 degree apartment waiting for the sun to go down so I can practice this dance more. Here's the dance practice version. I cannot take G Dragon seriously in his shorts because he looks so badass on stage with his red hair. I'm digging Seungri's white hair, and his part and Taeyang's "B I G yeah we bang like this" are my favorite parts of the song.

Also the music video for this song is sick. Love it.

I don't even have much else to say musically because I effing love this song and everyone should listen to it a million times the end.

뱅뱅뱅, bitches. I'm out!