::A Geek in Korea::

One of the parents of my students invited me and my wife out to dinner with their children. They are twin girls that have studied abroad and have excellent English. They really enjoy my class, so they wanted to hang out with me. Their mother agreed to treat at a restaurant of our choice, so we went to Bennigan’s again. This is our third trip in less than a month’s time, so we are getting a lot of use out of our mileage cards and discounts. Since it was snowing, the family even agreed to pick us up in their car so we could go together safely.

We had an excellent meal, even though we were stuck in the "children" section. I made a small child cry by smiling from our booth in her direction, and another child nearly projectile vomited onto our table. She only missed by like 10 centimeters but I got to see it all as if it was a glorious sort of slow motion action movie happening in front of my eyes.

We had a nice night with their family and I got to talk to some of my best students. My students are always shy when I see them outside of classroom situations. The mother was interested in our plans for a European vacation sometime this year, and wanted us to travel with her family! We’re still thinking about the offer. It might be a little too much of a headache to plan for a troop of people if we didn’t do a tour, and my and I were set on doing some backpacking. It’s something to consider, of course.

After the excellent (Free!) meal, we went to get my haircut at my regular salon. My new stylist was in cutting hair, so we waited. We were served green tea, and my wife got a hand waxing and massage while we waited. He cut my hair and complimented me on following some of his instructions on hair care. After my cut, I was also given a hand wax, then had my hair shampooed by a young assistant woman. She complimented me for my Korean, as well as telling me I was handsome. My stylist told her to be careful, since my wife was watching. She got very embarrassed.

As I was sitting in the chair waiting for them to take of the hair bib and let me free, I was thinking about my night out with my wife. I had a delicious and huge meal for free with interesting people. I then went and got my hair cut at a stylish salon, had my hair dried by two people at the same time, got fawned over, and all of this for around 10 dollars. We walked home on the ice and snow and had a good time keeping each other from falling down. When I got home, my well adjusted and well behaved dog was waiting for me to play with him, and I had an evening spent chatting with friends and listening to music while the snow fell and the wind blew.

What the hell did I do to deserve such luxury?