School teachers and me

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Originally uploaded by kirijae

So this was taken last night when I went out for dinner with the grade six teachers. The woman I am sitting next to is my very wonderful co-teacher, Judy. We went to a duck restaurant, which was incredibly yummy, and I seem to be finally mastering their chopsticks - or at least I thought so until my co-teacher gave me a bib ;-) Actually even harder than the chopsticks is getting used to sitting cross-legged on the floor - and getting up again afterwards! Tall people aren't designed to be flexible I swear.
In addition I am trying to learn all the many little points of etiquette that come with Korean dining, such as making sure that everybody else's glass is filled before filling my own, and (I think) only drinking when everybody raises their glass together, which they do a lot. I can't quite remember what they say when they raise their glasses, but it means 'To everything!', which I liked.
I think I managed to horrify a good portion of the people in my neighborhood on Friday night by going into the restaurant at the bottom of my building and eating by myself. The restaurant owner kept saying "no no, you won't like the food, you shouldn't eat here", but I was hungry and sick of eating my own cooking so I persevered. Maybe people don't eat in restaurants by themselves here? Everybody turned and stared when I was eating, and had a good giggle about my limited ability with the chopsticks, but I persevered and had a great meal that only cost me about $4.00, so I think they'll just have to get used to me there :-) My own cooking by the way is TERRIBLE. I can't work out what is what when I go shopping, so I thought I'd experiment, which hasn't worked out too well. Twice now I have had to throw out what I made and resort to vegimite on toast, which is becoming a dietary staple of mine. I'm firmly sticking to salad for a while I think.