Significant events during the Global Year

In this post, I'll talk about important or interesting events that took place while I was working at Global.

Engagement : In October 1997, Heather and I took our second vacation to Hong Kong. It was there that I proposed to her, at the exact spot that a year-and-a-half earlier she was told she would get married to me.

Wedding: Naturally, if there is an engagement, there is going to be a wedding. We tied the knot on March 7th, 1998 at the Folk Village at Lotte World. Let the uninhibited sex begin!


IMF Crisis: In a six-month period during the latter half of 1997, we were witness to an economic meltdown of historic proportions in east Asia. My bank account saw its value (when converted to dollars) drop by 70%. The crisis also precipitated two other events of significance in my life -- the start of a new Monday night tradition of chicken and beer so that we could drown our sorrows, and the decision to dye my hair blond for the first time.

The Streetfight: As alluded to in an earlier post, we native teachers found ourselves in a situation that we probably wish we could do over. After an evening of drinking (what else?), we were harrassed by some Korean punks. In the ensuing skirmish, I found myself experiencing one of those movie moments where time slows to a crawl. Yes, I had been punched square in the face, and I could feel myself gliding through the air and dropping to the pavement. It took about 30 seconds to happen, although it was probably two seconds in real time.

The police arrived to take us all in. My upper lip was split, but the wonderful cops weren't going to do anything for me. Aaron started threatening to get the U.S. Embassy involved. Finally, around 4:00 in the morning, I was taken to a police hospital. I waited... and waited... and waited some more, until I was finally informed that the doctor on call had been drinking that night. My opinion of Korea had just dropped to its nadir.

As a follow-up to this story, I was convinced by Aaron to fake a back injury to help get us some reward money. It worked, at least to the point of covering my hospital bill for the lip surgery. In the end, though, one important fact was made abundantly clear to me by this incident: my three years of training in taekwondo meant absolutely nothing.

The Metallica Concert: On April 25th, 1998, I saw Metallica for the fifth time, and first in Seoul. I was amazed by the energy and excitement of the crowd. As usual, my voice was gone for two days after the concert.

Birthdays: We always celebrated a birthday by going out for drinks (what else?!). Below is some video footage of my friend Dan's birthday celebration. Admittedly, if you weren't there, you won't likely give a damn about this video, but if you were there, now you can relive some memories.