Loving Musicals Keeps Me Alive

The best part of the week. More on that later

Well, it was back to the grind (kind of) at school this week. It was a pretty easy week of review with my kids, since they're all almost done with the book and this coming week is the last full week of classes. 

The cold snap finally broke and I could walk to school without dying again. Everyone rejoiced.

However, everyone else was kind of frazzled at work because they had to write down their preferences for what they will do next year. Apparently the system is changing somewhat, so everyone was kind of stressed. I don't know who I will end up teaching with next year, so I'm curious and a bit worried, too. 

The stress in the office got me frazzled, so I made this my
background. Inspiration for the next vacation I go on,
if I win the lotto or something haha

My kids were happy to see me, and I did miss some of them, so it was nice to get back to work, especially since the lessons this week aren't too hard to plan. 

The whole thing said "We know you're a little
slut"

I do hate incidents like this though. We were playing a game with my 4th graders when I spotted this on a student's shirt. She's good at English, but obviously doesn't know the meaning of this shirt, so I, sick to my stomach, asked Young Ah to explain that the shirt was awkward and Christina teacher was worried about her wearing it. WHO would make that?!?!?

Sigh...

In a sad note, the teacher at my Korean hagwon told us that the teachers for the classes are changing, so she won't be my teacher anymore :(. I have had her for almost 2 years, so I'm really sad about it and not looking forward to this change, since she knows me and my level so well. 

Other than that, nothing crazy happened at school or in class to share. 

Judging by the pictures I took this week, apparently, the only thing I cared about was going to see Dracula haha. 

Cesca made this fabulously awful pun while we were discussing the show

Cesca and I really enjoyed this show when she first came to Korea, and when the chance to see it came, we actually resisted for a bit. We decided that we should check it out again because we REALLY like the music, plus this time we could see JYJ's Junsu, who got a lot of praise for the role. 

We brought along Young Ah and Grace, who like musicals but don't actively seek them out, unlike me, who checks the ticket page all the time to see what's up and coming.

So, on Wednesday, we headed out to Gwanghwamun to see the show. (I have a lot of thoughts about the show but I'll write another post about that... this is just the summary what happened at the show, so don't worry, I won't be blabbin about plot stuff. Just how the days went). 

We were far away but it was a great show

This is Junsu. He is pretty popular and has a
unique but decent voice for musicals

I love his press shots for the show

We decided to be Dracula's wives/slaves
cause he has 3 in the show

Young Ah liked it too!

Other Dracula!

After seeing it Wednesday, Cesca and I couldn't stop talking/thinking about it, and we saw, checking the tickets, that the alternate Dracula (who we'd seen as an understudy in 2014) was performing Friday, and because 

A.) This show is moderately popular, but not enough to sell out and

 B.) A relatively unknown actor definitely doesn't sell as many tickets as Junsu, 

the tickets were 1+1 for the show. We obviously couldn't say no...

Oops we ended up here again

how can we resist leather pants and 1+1 tickets?

I was worried I'd be bored the 2nd time in 3 days, since the excitement of the show might have worn off, but I was wrong. It was excellent the 2nd time, though I unfortunately was feeling unwell on Friday (sigh...) so I spent the 2nd Act alternatively feverish and suffering through harsh chills. NOT the most fun way to spend a show, but I like the show enough that I was distracted from feeling crappy and made it through without passing out or anything.

I love this song and his voice. Cesca and I also saw the woman playing Mina in Phantom, so it was cool to see her again in something else. 

Being a stickler for torture, Cesca and I decided we'd attempt stage dooring, something we do at home but rarely in Korea. I have plenty of good experiences from London and Broadway, but in Korea it's not as common, or I happen to catch a show with a celeb where stage dooring would be worthless, like with Park Hyo Shin or Junsu. They have so many fans it's too crazy to try. I felt ok enough, and since it wasn't freezing, we headed out.

Park Eun Seok is not a celeb, but there was a good sized crowd waiting for him. We were nervous about waiting, but didn't want to give up. We ended up meeting two nice fans who love musicals and were really fun to talk to. They also saved us later, thankfully!

They thought we were cool for being into Korean musicals, so they wanted pics with us haha.

We were moderately discouraged that it was talking so long, since the only other time I have waited for a long time was usually to meet Phantoms, since the makeup takes forever. 

He came out and said he was in a hurry, but nicely obliged some fans with signatures. Our new friends kind of pushed us forward and were like 'look, you have foreign fans!' and I told him we'd seen him as an understudy last time in Dracula. His gasp of surprise and "How do you speak Korean so well?!?" is probably the highlight of my day, even though I have no idea if he heard a word I said. 

He was nice enough to let us have a picture, BUT MY IPHONE CAMERA IS HORRIBLE AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS!

Thankfully, our new friends saved the day with their phone, and they sent a nice picture to me later via Facebook. 

Cesca managed to shout "You're handsome" in Korean as he walked away. I hope he found us amusing haha. Maybe he will do more musicals soon. I hope so, his voice is amazing.

I'm pretty sure he was crouching haha. He's really tall in person!
And handsome kekeke

So yeah, that's the story of how Cesca and I met Dracula. It was fun and awesome, and the best part of it is that he would remember us easily, or at least remember he has foreigner fans, cause we are pretty distinct in the sea of Koreans. It was about the 4th or 5th compliment we'd gotten that day (the lady where we ate dinner asked how my pronunciation was so good, the barista complimented Ces at a coffee shop, and a few Koreans in between commented on our skills, and of course, the most important being Park Eun Seok asking how we spoke so well). So yeah, we left feeling pretty awesome.

They had a postcard set at the show that was really cool, as
each card has a song. My new project will be translation
practice^^

We headed home to Cescas, and on Saturday, we slept in, and I went home and did laundry and slept while she went to a wedding. I felt a little better, and I'm not sure whether I was really sick Friday or the theater was too hot or something, but I rested all day Saturday anyway and then felt better Sunday. 

We headed to dance class to learn another EXO song, which turned out as well as we expected, meaning we sucked but had a ton of fun! It was a good way to end the week.

~~

Obviously, I've been into Dracula this week. It didn't go over well on Broadway, but the Korean version was great, so that's what I've been listening to. Looking forward to a relatively easy week this week and then a long weekend next weekend! Yesss! 

Stay well and stay happy everyone!