Obama Soup, weird booze.

It’s 9.15 on Tuesday night, and we just got back from our second day of rehearsal. Another amazing day.

I woke at 4.30, and despite attempts, was unable to go back to sleep. Instead, I got up, did some yoga, and checked my email before meeting Eli for breakfast. His colleague, SonMahn Kim, took us out for a spicy breakfast. Uijeongbu, the city we’re in, has a long history of a US Army presence, and one of the odd side effects of that presence is that the city has developed a special dish. It’s a spicy soup, with a kimchee-based broth. In it is peppers, thin rice noodles, thick rice noodles, tofu, sausage, and various processed meats (think hot dogs, spam, etc.). The meats came from the local Army surplus, which is why this dish is connected to a place with a US Army presence. The soup is named after the current US President, so this morning, Eli and I breakfasted on Obama soup!

After SonMahn dropped us off at the studio, Eli and I went upstairs for a press interview with Korea’s largest newspaper: Dong-A Ilbo. Two reporters came to talk to us, and after the interview was over, the interviewers and the whole company went out for a special lunch. Today is the first of three days that are typically the hottest days in Korea (it’s not always on 14 July, and today wasn’t particularly hot, but nevermind), and in honor of that, Koreans often dine on a special chicken soup. We’re talking serious chicken soup. Like, a whole small chicken in each bowl. The chickens are stuffed with rice and ginseng. There’s also garlic and peppers in the broth. Of course, there was kimchee on the side. Afterwards, we had a lychee drink as a digestive.

The afternoon rehearsal was great – we were very productive and got most of the show sketched in. We did a lot of work on the parade of kings and the three witches.

Dinner was another company-wide event, but this time, I LOST the contest to see who would wash the dishes. So, after dinner, I labored over the hot sink, scrubbing the rice pot. SooAh was nice enough to help out.

After dinner, we ran what we have (it’s about 40 minutes right now), worked on the Weezer bit (a lovely manipulation exercise where Lady M controls MacBeth), and added a final witches dance to the show: Rose Royce’s Car Wash (yes, strains of Jitney were echoing in my head).

Eli and I are back at the hotel, but we’re about to go get a drink at a nearby bar. I gotta run! Big day tomorrow - gotta build notes before another two sessions of rehearsal.

UPDATE: 10.15 pm. We just got back from an interesting drink at the bar. I wanted to drink some Sojou, a rice liquor, but the bar that we went to apparently didn’t have any. Instead, they gave us this light brown fermented and slightly carbonated drink that didn’t taste particularly good. With it (because you never drink in Korea without some accompanying food) came some greens, spicy tomato soup with bean sprouts, and a spicy egg pancake with greens, oysters, shrimp, fish, and squid. The food was great, but the drink was disappointing. Need to find some real sojou. Maybe tomorrow.