Turkey Day minus the turkey

We are a day ahead of all of you back home, so Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving, a day of thanks, a day of pilgrims, a day of feasts, a day of football, has to be one of my favorite holidays. It kicks off the holiday season, my favorite time of the year!

There are a few parallels between my current situation and those pilgrims from yesteryear. On one hand, you have a bunch of foreigners fighting everyday for survival in a world so alien. On the other, you have the pilgrims. I mean, they were all buddy buddy with the natives. They had Pocahontas, or was she in Jamestown. Okay I am kidding. We have it soooo easy.

We work from 3 to 11. They are strange hours. Zach did a little research and quickly found a wide arrange of different restaurants offering a Thanksgiving Day spread. The problem was that these buffets ALL started between 5 and 6 pm. We were SOL. We, as the pilgrims had done before us, decided to feast on what we had on hand. I sent out an e-mail to about 10 people. Meg, Doug, and I were the only ones at the meet up spot at the meeting time, everyone else no showed. We were going to head to Gecko's, a place that Zach picked out, but we didn't know how to get there without him. A familiar sign saved the disappointing turn out: Outback Steakhouse! It turned out that three others actually went to Gecko’s and we just missed them by a few minutes. I don’t know why they didn’t call us, but I am happy with our decision to go to Outback. Hey, if given the option of steak or turkey I’m pretty sure the pilgrims would’ve taken the latter. It’s not my fault they were struggling to survive grueling hardships. I had a glorious American meal, from (I think) an American chain with two great people.

Here is the most memorable part of the whole experience. Mind you, we are in a family restaurant. All restaurant chains play music. Italian chains play Frank Sinatra, seafood chains play Jimmy Buffet, and steakhouse chains are supposed to play country western music. Well, apparently that part of “Opening an Outback Franchise Manual” didn’t translate well in Korean. This particular store was playing hip-hop. I was tempted to write blasting hip-hop, but I thought that might be a little over kill. Now, after looking back at that sentence, playing hip hop at a loud level sounds just about perfect. Strange I know, but it gets stranger. They were playing un-edited hip-hop. Needless to say, there was a lot of cursing going on in a pretty nice restaurant. Teachers like me must not be doing a good job because no one seemed to notice at all. It was very weird. The service was great. The waiter spoke English, and was there for our every beckoning. I use to think tipping makes servers better, because they strive for a bigger tip. But the service over here is just great, and we never have to tip. This debunks my entire theory. Also, the fast food is better over here (except for the French Fries, which are often not fresh). The sandwiches are more consistent and very fresh, so it might just be that the Korean workforce is better. I don’t know.

Random Thought: The only place I have seen turkey over here is Quizzno's. They never have any deli meats besides ham. Pork, chicken, and beef are the only meat options.

Update:
10 more days until two of Meg’s friends come to Seoul! Meg got three recruits for the December term.

If Mizzou beats KU this weekend, and the winner of the Big 12 South the following weekend, then they will get a great BCS bowl game. The Fiesta!!! All is not lost, but that Oklahoma State loss at home still stings.

DYK- I am now an author of three books. These are work books, but they have been published. I am kind of a big deal. Working on a fourth as we speak. Meg, by the way, might be published in a magazine called Working Abroad. Here is the address.

Poker Tuesday: I got third, 5th, and 2nd place out of 6 people this past Tuesday.

We are heading to the DMZ this weekend. I'll tell you all about it next week.