thwarted.

this past week saw the birthday of an awesome new friend i've met here. we decided to get a group of people together to go to a korean restaurant to celebrate another year, and the returning teachers knew of an awesome place, somewhere in zone 9 (which is next to our current zone, 10). oh, and of course i was excited, since i hadn't had korean food for nearly three weeks (an all-time record.) :(

so we set out, some people walked from our hotel while another girl and i rode in a taxi to pick up a third girl. since it had been raining, like most days, there was an unbelievable amount of trafico and we were barely moving. at some point, when the taxi meter read 50Q (about $7 USD), i received a phone call: the korean restaurant was closed! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! since we were almost at the former restaurant site, we stayed in the taxi and ended up with a 75Q taxi fare (about $10.50 USD).

the friends who had walked to the restaurant had already started back to the hotel, and rather than sitting in traffic for another 20 minutes and getting another taxi bill, we also walked back. it was a bit scary since we didn't really know the safety "status" of this particular zone and it was darky and stormy. we ran through a rotary, almost got hit by cars a few times, almost twisted our ankles in the water-filled holes, and dodged numerous puddles. great fun.

in the end we went to a nice mexican restaurant in zone 10, and good times and food were had by all. happy birthday jean ah!

i still need to find korean food. i am on a mission!