The Weekend

Saturday May 26th

I went with a friend to the opening ceremony for Cambodia since it was their national day. Every country gets a national day and on that day they have a ceremony at 10 am in Expo Hall consisting of a speech by the Expo Commissioner I believe, a speech by a dignitary from the country, and then an hour long cultural performance. Cambodia had some really interesting dances. One was about the king of the monkeys sending off its monkey minions to go save his queen or something. It was very Oz-like because the dancers actually acted like monkeys and so it reminded me of that scene with the monkeys flying around in the Wizard of Oz. Another dance was to promote good crop yields so part of the dance consisted of women acting like they were picking berries. But all in all it was pretty interesting.

After that we got lunch and then I had the afternoon shift for work. After work a group of us hung out at Brittany's apartments just chatting.

Sunday May 27th

I went out with Brittany for lunch to an origari restaurant. It served triangularly-shaped kimbap. I explained to one of the workers that I was vegetarian in order for her to recommend something to me from the menu. The first thing she recommended was Kimchi Tuna. Then she recommended something else and I tentatively said yes not knowing what it was. However I looked it up in a dictionary and she had recommended something with anchovies. So that go rejected. Finally, she recommended something else, but I had little faith by now in her suggestions, so I took a menu so I could translate it. It was pollack roe. Everything on the menu had some kind of meat in it so Brittany got her food to go and we went to another restaurant that I've been frequenting since the owners try really hard to always accommodate my vegetarianism. Brittany didn't want to eat there since she already had food, which didn't bother the owners. In fact, they gave her a free side soup with her other food because they said it was good for her health. They also gave us free tomato slices as dessert, which they've done several times. I always eat at least a couple slices out of obligation since I don't have the heart to explain to them that I don't like tomatoes.

The afternoon shift was probably the most hectic it has been all expo. The weekend has been kind of crazy because Monday is Buddha's Birthday and a national holiday. So people have 3 days off and decided to make day trips down here for the expo.

After the shift, Jenna, Brittany, and I went out to 노래방 (the karaoke room) and sang our hearts out.