I Can Hang With These Guys

I've been hanging out with my neighbors a lot. They are really nice guys. They take me out to dinner about three times a week, and because of Korean culture, they always foot the bill. They tell me that they're worried about me living by myself and not eating well, so they always encourage me to eat massive quantities of food. Usually I spend our dinners eating all the food while they talk. They order more, I eat that, too. They order more, I'm full, and they laugh about how they can eat for a longer time than me even though they are much smaller.

And just to explain the situation, here are the names: Sung-hoon and Een-Goo live next to me and Do-Jin lives with his family nearby. Een-Goo is the guy that came to my house with oranges. His wife and son live about 45 minutes away in another city. Sung-hoon has a girlfriend that lives across town. However, across town in Ulsan means over an hour away. He usually only sees her on the weekend. His English is the best of the three. He is able to form sentences, and he is the one that really tries to take care of me.

Do-Jin's English is the worst of the three. His wife's is even more terrible. His wife comes to dinner often and she usually eats a little the spends the rest of the time taking care of me. She cuts barbecued meat for me and makes sure I have the freshest side dishes within range of my chopsticks. She also calls attention to my empty drinking glass to the other guys when I need a refill. They took me out to dinner last week. It was just those two and their two children. No English at all, but we were at my favorite restaurant so it was good. The wife's workplace is near GnB and she wants to have lunch sometime. I'm terrified of that because she speaks no English at all. None.

Last night I called Sung-hoon for dinner. He was busy with work all last week so I was only able to hang with the other two. Sung-hoon was excited and told me to go to their regular restaurant. I walked into a business meeting. Sung-hoon's company (it is his company, he's the owner) was trying to negotiate with two guys. I wasn't sure what was happening, so I just ate.

These guys have exposed me to a lot of new food. Last month, I had a pile of raw beef strips. Sung-hoon called it 'cow sashimi.' I gagged on it. I didn't try the raw livers they ordered a couple of weeks ago. Last night there was a plate of raw seafood on the table when I arrived. I recognized some of it as octopus tentacles. The tentacle were still moving and the suction cups were still suctioning. They were wiggling for over an hour while I was there. An old guy at the table loved them. It was a battle for him to eat each tentacle. The tentacles would grab onto the plate for dear life whenever the chopsticks came near. Then they would move up the chopstick to avoid being dipped in the sauce. And finally they would fight to stay on the chopstick when they entered his mouth. The guys told me that the tentacles also grab your tongue and throat on the way down to the stomach.

After dinner, Sung-hoon, a big dude named Jung-ho, a guy whose name I can't remember, and I went to a covenience store near my house. The store has one of those games with the big claw and you try and grab crappy stuffed animals or toys, but the claw never holds the things it grabs. Well, Jung-ho is apparently a master of this game. So Sung-hoon and I drank beer and ate squid jerky and watched Jung-ho collect a miniature toy car and a tool kit from the machine. Sung-hoon wanted me to give it a shot, so I had six tries to grab a toothbrush and I ultimately failed. But before each turn Sung-hoon would point to a pair of womens'' underwear and yell, "Raymond! Woman panty for Sora!" Then he would laugh hysterically and his face would turn bright red.

Here's a quick set up for what came next. My ex-girlfriend has been reporting my cell phone as stolen whenever she has gotten mad at me. She did it for the third time two weeks ago and told me that I would have to buy a new cell phone because she was done dealing with it. I asked her to just cancel the phone service so I could get it in my name. She did that, but told the phone company the phone was still stolen and to never let the phone be used again. Nice girl. Oh, and if anyone is wondering, I bought the phone she reported as stolen, I always gave her money to pay the bills on time, and a new phone would cost me about $200.

Well, Sung-hoon told me he felt bad about my situation. He is having his mom send his brother's phone so I can use it. His brother is in the military and cannot have a cell phone. Sung-hoon also told me that he will pay the bill because he feels so bad that Misook has been doing this to me. But I'm not going to let him do that, I would feel terrible.

I was also sick about three weeks ago. Sung-hoon lectured me on how I need to eat better food. 'No gimbop' he would tell me. So last night he gave me a huge box of a ginseng drink that I am supposed to drink three times a day. There is enough drink to last me a couple of months, I think. He gave it to me and said, "Body good." It better be because it tastes like dirt.