Sunday, September 15, 2013

A Korean Surprise: Impromptu Lunch?

On Thursday I finished teaching my 4th period class and headed back to the teacher's room.  I was starving because at this point it was 1:10 and I had been teaching non-stop all day, so I put my stuff down and was ready to head to the cafeteria. Just as I was about to leave, one of my co-teachers came over and said "We will go to lunch now.  You will come with me."

Ummm ok?  I could tell that this meant we were not going to the cafeteria, so I grabbed my purse and followed her to her car.

We then proceeded to drive to a restaurant not too far down the road, where we met the other English teachers from our school.

We ate a typical Korean lunch (lots of side dishes, soup, fish)...but I kept looking at my watch and thinking things along the line of "Shouldn't we be getting back to school now?"

It was 2:05 by the time we were done, and our next class starts at 2:10.  Of course, no one seemed worried about it.  We got back to school a little late, and went to teach our next class without anyone batting an eyelash.

Again, I couldn't help to think that I REALLY am in Korea now (in case the whole language thing hasn't given it away yet).  If a bunch of teachers in the US went out to lunch and were a few minutes late getting back, you would never hear the end of people complaining about those "lazy, overpaid teachers." Talk about a different perspective.

All in all, not a bad surprise.  School lunches in Korea are pretty good, but I can't complain about a random restaurant outing.  I have no idea why it happened, or if there even was a reason, but that's part of the mystique of these lovely Korean Surprises.

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