On Monday night, it snowed in Seoul. I was trying to convince my Dutch friends to join me to play outside after I was invited by Jeremy. This video came after I gave my original speech and then Marc asked me to repeat it for the camera. I made some good points, but it lacks the passion of my first one. This was seconds before someone asked me to be quiet.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=YQsHeUmzYoQ
Friday, February 29, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
An official update
Let's see...the last time that I wrote was on Tuesday. This makes it roughly a week since I last gave an update.
Addendum: I was pretty tired when I wrote this and I forgot to spell check. I couldn't stand leaving it the way it was.
Wednesday: Fairly uneventful. I did something in the day, but it was so inconsequential that I really don't remember what I did. Thursday was the same way. Thursday echoed this same feeling. On boring days, I usually go out and just walk around for a bit, looking for something funny or worthy of a picture. I have some pictures that I need to save for another entry since this one will have enough updates. Skipping ahead to Friday...
Friday: I was a little tired of sitting at Ada's with nothing much to do. It's been somewhat boring when there aren't people to do things with. I mentioned this to Ada hoping that she would have energy to go out and see a movie, or to a later dinner or something like that. She mentioned that a co-worker of hers was celebrating her birthday on Friday night and I would be welcome to join Ada at the restaurant. I was pretty stoked because it was an opportunity to meet more people and eat at a new place. Ada and I, collectively, combine to make an excellently late pair. We were supposed to be at the restaurant by 9:45PM since it was about 30 minutes away. She checked her phone at 10:00PM as we walked out of her apartment...making us a solid 40 minutes late.
As we entered the Czech-themed restaurant (I wish there were a better synonym), I realized how awkward this dinner would be: I wasn't hungry, I was the only non-teacher, I was the only male and I was the youngest. The table was comprised of this combination (moving left): Me, Canadian English teacher, English school owner and teacher (her children were around five years old), English teacher from Minnesota, English teacher from Korea, birthday-girl (English school teacher), some woman that I didn't chat with, another woman that I didn't talk to, the birthday-girl's mother and finally Ada. A little overwhelming for me.
The coolest thing about this dinner was when they brought the birthday drink. I hadn't seen anything like this before, although that doesn't necessarily mean that it is uncommon back home. Anyways, the manager stacked the drinks and poured them down in a fountain-like fashion. Then he lit it on fire! It was so cool! We stayed at dinner before deciding to go a night club.
I will freely admit that I had never been to a dance club. I really didn't know what to expect. I was actually surprised to have fun. They played songs that I knew! I was so surprised to be having a good time that it quickly became 4AM before Ada or I really understood it was so late. We grabbed a cab back home.
About a week and a half ago, Ada informed me that she had a friend coming to Korea sooner than she initially thought. Somewhere in email correspondence, Ada thought her friend was coming in late March when the friend actually arrived mid-February. Ada politely asked me, at the time, if it would be okay for her friend to move in on Saturday or Sunday (February 24th or 25th) and for me to find someplace else. I naturally agreed and passively asked a couple people if I could stay with them for a couple days. I felt uncomfortable moving into the dorms because Ewha had several emails that stated I needed to alert the university if I would be coming early by February 10th or so. The exact date is lost to me right now.
Saturday afternoon was the sad day that I left Ada's and moved into a temporary dorm. I asked Ewha mid-week if Saturday afternoon was an acceptable time to move, which they told me there was still space. The subway trip from Sindaebang to Ewha University is about ten stops or so, equaling roughly 20 minutes. I spent my late morning packing all my things into a combination of my suitcase, computer bag and backpack until I roughly had a working system. It also meant that I needed a lot of space on the subway and bus. I felt really bad because the club left my clothes with a smoky aroma, which caused me to ask Ada if I could use some of her perfume to overpower the smoke, all combined with the sweat of dragging all my stuff around Seoul. Nobody on the subway seemed too compelled to move away from me, but I smelled it the whole trip to Ewha.
My first roommate was French, as I mentioned before. He had plans to go out with some of the international students and kindly invited me to come with them to dinner. I agreed, eager to meet some new people. If I remember correctly everyone that was there, there were: 3 Americans (myself included), 2 Germans, 3 French and 1 Dutch woman. At dinner, the numbers fluctuated as some more people joined and then some left. After we were done at around midnight, half decided to go home and half decided to dance at a club. It was fairly early, so I thought it would be fun to attend another club. On the way there, we ran into the Dutch group (4) and they came with us. The first place was pretty boring, so of the original 10 that came to the club, 5 of us left and 5 stayed. I left with the Dutch group, being the only one who didn't understand Dutch.
We went to another club, spent about a half-hour there and then left with a feeling of boredom. As we were walking in the general direction of Ewha, we saw a karaoke bar. Naturally, I was pretty stoked to impress these Europeans with the sonorous voice of American musical talent. I thought the hhighlight of the night was hearing one of the guys trying to rap to "Stan" by Eminem...he knew the song, but was consistently 3 words behind.
I got back to my room around 3:30AM. I showered and sailed off to a blissful night of sleep for my first dreams at Ewha. Or so I thought at the time. My roommate arrived back around 6AM (he stayed with the second group), which woke me up. The Ewha doors are really advanced with automatic locks and voices...no, I am not crazy. When I hit the unlock button, the door tells me something in Korean. When I shut the door, it says something in Korean. When I enter the combination to unlock the door, since we don't use keys, it says something in Korean. I know -- really neat. The speakers on the door also carry messages to those inside...as I learned at 7AM when I heard they were going to be cleaning the dorms that day. The first one must have been around 7AM, followed 10 minutes later by the same message. Didn't sleep through either of those. My next estimate is that at 8AM the cleaners were on the third floor (my room was 302) since I could hear them yelling in the halls. At around 8:30AM, a woman opened my door to clean the room and noticed that my roommate and I were still asleep. I collapsed until 11 when I just couldn't stand wasting anymore time trying to sleep. My damn roommate didn't wake up at any of that and even made a point to stress how well he slept.
One of the Americans that I met on Saturday had only been in Korea for a day. He was eager to go out and explore, but was apprehensive about going out on his own (perfectly understandable). I informed him that I was going out on Sunday to look for a new phone and he was welcome to come, not necessarily to buy a phone, but just to see new parts of the city. I told him I was going to Yongsan, located near the electronics market. I met him for breakfast (although it was well past noon) and we met up with the Dutch group. They wanted to come as well. I had a pretty good day at Yongsan, mostly quantified by finding my game, and that overshadowed the absence of my phone ringing Sunday night. I also liked the feeling that at that moment, to my American friend, it appeared that I knew everything...
On Sunday night, my PEACE buddy Youna emailed me back just to say hello and explain her recent schedule. She mentioned that she had to pick up a new student from the airport who moved in on Sunday -- an American from Minnesota. Since I hadn't found my phone yet, I was going to go back to Dongdaemun and buy something cheap just so I could start making calls. I invited her to join me on the trip. Her name is Rebecca and she is also really cool. It was nice spending the day with her. I finally found a phone that would work at a reasonable price (about $20). Rebecca already had a phone she bought on Sunday with Youna, but Rebecca needed to establish an account before her prepaid service could start. It was amazing, but it somehow took us over an hour of waiting until she had her phone working. I couldn't believe how long it took. The whole experience was so overwhelming that both Rebecca and I were fairly fatigued. I didn't get a chance to set my phone up because I didn't feel like waiting for another hour to get it working while Rebecca just waited. We went back to Ewha while she was looking forward to a nap. We stopped to eat Kim Bab on the way home (that is how it supposed to be spelled...Kim Bab and not Kimbop...one of the benefits I've received from reading). I led her back and took off to get my phone working.
The little SK store I stopped at that handled phone accounts took care of me in 15 minutes. My phone is finally up and working!!!
I got back to my dorm and checked my email, called people to give them my phone number, and started on this update. Midway into my third paragraph, one of the Dutch guys (Marc) came by to see if I wanted to go out and do something. I was interested since the phone success energized me. He told me that he moved out of his temporary dorm and into his permanent one due to the I-House office's concern over how busy it will be on the 27th (the official move in day). Marc suggested that I should move out as a courtesy as well as the chance to avoid the cluster of others moving at the same time. I agreed so I went to get my pin number for my new place (directly below the temporary room). Pictures of my room at the end of this post.
I was in a movie mood. I originally expected that we would put a DVD on the big-screen TV, but the Dutch guys were more interested in seeing something at the theater. At dinner with Rebecca, I asked her if she would be interested in watching a movie following her nap. She said she would likely be up for it. Marc and Ralf (the other Dutch guy) asked the Dutch girls over MSN if they wanted to see "Across the Universe." I didn't know anything about it. I asked Rebecca if she was interested in joining us, which she was, so we gathered to go see the movie.
I throughly enjoyed it. The art style was nice, complimenting the music and juxtaposition of the stories, but I felt the main character's segment was lacking. I was much more interested in seeing other characters grow as opposed to Jude (protagonist).
Rebecca brought some snow with her to Korea! For the first time since I've been here, suffering through days well below freezing, it finally snowed! It trickled down most of the day to create a nice veil over the ground. After the movie, I was childishly delighted to make snow angels and engage in an international snow fight...nobody else shared my enthusiasm and I had to fight to get one (only one) to make a snow angel with me. For the record, mine was more beautiful.
We all said goodnight and I walked into my new dorm room. I literally just removed my sweatshirt when there was a knock at my door. I opened it to find my old French roommate asking me if I wanted to go out and play in the snow! How cool is that?! So I naturally agreed to join him and two other students to go outside and play. I stopped by one of the Dutch girl's room to ask if she wanted to join us...her initial reaction was mild, at best. I felt it appropriate to start a speech about the window of youth leaving and this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I stand by this conviction. How many Westerners can say they played in the snows of Korea? Exactly. In the process of my speech, which was quite passionate but succinct, one girl exited her room to tell me to be quiet. I felt really bad because I didn't realize how well my voice was traveling.
Once outside, the French guy (Jeremy, probably not spelled that way) started attacking us with snowballs...it took me 15 minutes to realize that he was the only one that brought gloves. The rest of us outside tried to mount an offense against him, but had trouble keeping pace due to our numb hands. Jeremy spent most his time throwing snowballs at this German girl, so while they were off fighting, I built a snowman with an American student named Nuh (pronounced new, but I am clueless how to spell it).
I came inside and finished my journal entry. Now, at 4:30AM, I am ready to go back to sleep. The Korean language class is Monday - Friday at 8:30AM...my hours will need to change really quick...
This is Brian the morning that he left for Thailand. I gave him two options: I could use the picture I took while he was sleeping or this one where he is brushing his teeth. Just in case some don't get my sense of humor, I didn't tell him about the sleeping one.
Here is Ada and Jasmine.
This is my dorm bed. I would estimate that the room is about 18 feet across and 14 feet wide. There is quite a bit of space here, which I am unsure is reflected in my estimations. I usually take my height as the standard and then I lay down across the room.
We have a balcony! How cool is that?! After this picture was uploaded, I realized it would have been better to step outside and take a picture of the walkway below, or the graduate dorms...but I am pretty tired right now. As long as you realize I have a balcony, I am happy.
Self-explanatory. Our hands were too cold to do much else and Jeremy kept attacking, causing us to continually use the base as a snowball.
I had to end with this picture. This door is seriously like one of the coolest things ever. On the bottom right is the box that talks to me. There is also a button I push that automatically locks the door. I can set it so when I close the door, it just locks. I never have to worry about keys because I know the number, so I can always open it. The light on the ceiling turns on when I enter! So I never have to come into a darkened room.
Addendum: I was pretty tired when I wrote this and I forgot to spell check. I couldn't stand leaving it the way it was.
Wednesday: Fairly uneventful. I did something in the day, but it was so inconsequential that I really don't remember what I did. Thursday was the same way. Thursday echoed this same feeling. On boring days, I usually go out and just walk around for a bit, looking for something funny or worthy of a picture. I have some pictures that I need to save for another entry since this one will have enough updates. Skipping ahead to Friday...
Friday: I was a little tired of sitting at Ada's with nothing much to do. It's been somewhat boring when there aren't people to do things with. I mentioned this to Ada hoping that she would have energy to go out and see a movie, or to a later dinner or something like that. She mentioned that a co-worker of hers was celebrating her birthday on Friday night and I would be welcome to join Ada at the restaurant. I was pretty stoked because it was an opportunity to meet more people and eat at a new place. Ada and I, collectively, combine to make an excellently late pair. We were supposed to be at the restaurant by 9:45PM since it was about 30 minutes away. She checked her phone at 10:00PM as we walked out of her apartment...making us a solid 40 minutes late.
As we entered the Czech-themed restaurant (I wish there were a better synonym), I realized how awkward this dinner would be: I wasn't hungry, I was the only non-teacher, I was the only male and I was the youngest. The table was comprised of this combination (moving left): Me, Canadian English teacher, English school owner and teacher (her children were around five years old), English teacher from Minnesota, English teacher from Korea, birthday-girl (English school teacher), some woman that I didn't chat with, another woman that I didn't talk to, the birthday-girl's mother and finally Ada. A little overwhelming for me.
The coolest thing about this dinner was when they brought the birthday drink. I hadn't seen anything like this before, although that doesn't necessarily mean that it is uncommon back home. Anyways, the manager stacked the drinks and poured them down in a fountain-like fashion. Then he lit it on fire! It was so cool! We stayed at dinner before deciding to go a night club.
I will freely admit that I had never been to a dance club. I really didn't know what to expect. I was actually surprised to have fun. They played songs that I knew! I was so surprised to be having a good time that it quickly became 4AM before Ada or I really understood it was so late. We grabbed a cab back home.
About a week and a half ago, Ada informed me that she had a friend coming to Korea sooner than she initially thought. Somewhere in email correspondence, Ada thought her friend was coming in late March when the friend actually arrived mid-February. Ada politely asked me, at the time, if it would be okay for her friend to move in on Saturday or Sunday (February 24th or 25th) and for me to find someplace else. I naturally agreed and passively asked a couple people if I could stay with them for a couple days. I felt uncomfortable moving into the dorms because Ewha had several emails that stated I needed to alert the university if I would be coming early by February 10th or so. The exact date is lost to me right now.
Saturday afternoon was the sad day that I left Ada's and moved into a temporary dorm. I asked Ewha mid-week if Saturday afternoon was an acceptable time to move, which they told me there was still space. The subway trip from Sindaebang to Ewha University is about ten stops or so, equaling roughly 20 minutes. I spent my late morning packing all my things into a combination of my suitcase, computer bag and backpack until I roughly had a working system. It also meant that I needed a lot of space on the subway and bus. I felt really bad because the club left my clothes with a smoky aroma, which caused me to ask Ada if I could use some of her perfume to overpower the smoke, all combined with the sweat of dragging all my stuff around Seoul. Nobody on the subway seemed too compelled to move away from me, but I smelled it the whole trip to Ewha.
My first roommate was French, as I mentioned before. He had plans to go out with some of the international students and kindly invited me to come with them to dinner. I agreed, eager to meet some new people. If I remember correctly everyone that was there, there were: 3 Americans (myself included), 2 Germans, 3 French and 1 Dutch woman. At dinner, the numbers fluctuated as some more people joined and then some left. After we were done at around midnight, half decided to go home and half decided to dance at a club. It was fairly early, so I thought it would be fun to attend another club. On the way there, we ran into the Dutch group (4) and they came with us. The first place was pretty boring, so of the original 10 that came to the club, 5 of us left and 5 stayed. I left with the Dutch group, being the only one who didn't understand Dutch.
We went to another club, spent about a half-hour there and then left with a feeling of boredom. As we were walking in the general direction of Ewha, we saw a karaoke bar. Naturally, I was pretty stoked to impress these Europeans with the sonorous voice of American musical talent. I thought the hhighlight of the night was hearing one of the guys trying to rap to "Stan" by Eminem...he knew the song, but was consistently 3 words behind.
I got back to my room around 3:30AM. I showered and sailed off to a blissful night of sleep for my first dreams at Ewha. Or so I thought at the time. My roommate arrived back around 6AM (he stayed with the second group), which woke me up. The Ewha doors are really advanced with automatic locks and voices...no, I am not crazy. When I hit the unlock button, the door tells me something in Korean. When I shut the door, it says something in Korean. When I enter the combination to unlock the door, since we don't use keys, it says something in Korean. I know -- really neat. The speakers on the door also carry messages to those inside...as I learned at 7AM when I heard they were going to be cleaning the dorms that day. The first one must have been around 7AM, followed 10 minutes later by the same message. Didn't sleep through either of those. My next estimate is that at 8AM the cleaners were on the third floor (my room was 302) since I could hear them yelling in the halls. At around 8:30AM, a woman opened my door to clean the room and noticed that my roommate and I were still asleep. I collapsed until 11 when I just couldn't stand wasting anymore time trying to sleep. My damn roommate didn't wake up at any of that and even made a point to stress how well he slept.
One of the Americans that I met on Saturday had only been in Korea for a day. He was eager to go out and explore, but was apprehensive about going out on his own (perfectly understandable). I informed him that I was going out on Sunday to look for a new phone and he was welcome to come, not necessarily to buy a phone, but just to see new parts of the city. I told him I was going to Yongsan, located near the electronics market. I met him for breakfast (although it was well past noon) and we met up with the Dutch group. They wanted to come as well. I had a pretty good day at Yongsan, mostly quantified by finding my game, and that overshadowed the absence of my phone ringing Sunday night. I also liked the feeling that at that moment, to my American friend, it appeared that I knew everything...
On Sunday night, my PEACE buddy Youna emailed me back just to say hello and explain her recent schedule. She mentioned that she had to pick up a new student from the airport who moved in on Sunday -- an American from Minnesota. Since I hadn't found my phone yet, I was going to go back to Dongdaemun and buy something cheap just so I could start making calls. I invited her to join me on the trip. Her name is Rebecca and she is also really cool. It was nice spending the day with her. I finally found a phone that would work at a reasonable price (about $20). Rebecca already had a phone she bought on Sunday with Youna, but Rebecca needed to establish an account before her prepaid service could start. It was amazing, but it somehow took us over an hour of waiting until she had her phone working. I couldn't believe how long it took. The whole experience was so overwhelming that both Rebecca and I were fairly fatigued. I didn't get a chance to set my phone up because I didn't feel like waiting for another hour to get it working while Rebecca just waited. We went back to Ewha while she was looking forward to a nap. We stopped to eat Kim Bab on the way home (that is how it supposed to be spelled...Kim Bab and not Kimbop...one of the benefits I've received from reading). I led her back and took off to get my phone working.
The little SK store I stopped at that handled phone accounts took care of me in 15 minutes. My phone is finally up and working!!!
I got back to my dorm and checked my email, called people to give them my phone number, and started on this update. Midway into my third paragraph, one of the Dutch guys (Marc) came by to see if I wanted to go out and do something. I was interested since the phone success energized me. He told me that he moved out of his temporary dorm and into his permanent one due to the I-House office's concern over how busy it will be on the 27th (the official move in day). Marc suggested that I should move out as a courtesy as well as the chance to avoid the cluster of others moving at the same time. I agreed so I went to get my pin number for my new place (directly below the temporary room). Pictures of my room at the end of this post.
I was in a movie mood. I originally expected that we would put a DVD on the big-screen TV, but the Dutch guys were more interested in seeing something at the theater. At dinner with Rebecca, I asked her if she would be interested in watching a movie following her nap. She said she would likely be up for it. Marc and Ralf (the other Dutch guy) asked the Dutch girls over MSN if they wanted to see "Across the Universe." I didn't know anything about it. I asked Rebecca if she was interested in joining us, which she was, so we gathered to go see the movie.
I throughly enjoyed it. The art style was nice, complimenting the music and juxtaposition of the stories, but I felt the main character's segment was lacking. I was much more interested in seeing other characters grow as opposed to Jude (protagonist).
Rebecca brought some snow with her to Korea! For the first time since I've been here, suffering through days well below freezing, it finally snowed! It trickled down most of the day to create a nice veil over the ground. After the movie, I was childishly delighted to make snow angels and engage in an international snow fight...nobody else shared my enthusiasm and I had to fight to get one (only one) to make a snow angel with me. For the record, mine was more beautiful.
We all said goodnight and I walked into my new dorm room. I literally just removed my sweatshirt when there was a knock at my door. I opened it to find my old French roommate asking me if I wanted to go out and play in the snow! How cool is that?! So I naturally agreed to join him and two other students to go outside and play. I stopped by one of the Dutch girl's room to ask if she wanted to join us...her initial reaction was mild, at best. I felt it appropriate to start a speech about the window of youth leaving and this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I stand by this conviction. How many Westerners can say they played in the snows of Korea? Exactly. In the process of my speech, which was quite passionate but succinct, one girl exited her room to tell me to be quiet. I felt really bad because I didn't realize how well my voice was traveling.
Once outside, the French guy (Jeremy, probably not spelled that way) started attacking us with snowballs...it took me 15 minutes to realize that he was the only one that brought gloves. The rest of us outside tried to mount an offense against him, but had trouble keeping pace due to our numb hands. Jeremy spent most his time throwing snowballs at this German girl, so while they were off fighting, I built a snowman with an American student named Nuh (pronounced new, but I am clueless how to spell it).
I came inside and finished my journal entry. Now, at 4:30AM, I am ready to go back to sleep. The Korean language class is Monday - Friday at 8:30AM...my hours will need to change really quick...
This is Brian the morning that he left for Thailand. I gave him two options: I could use the picture I took while he was sleeping or this one where he is brushing his teeth. Just in case some don't get my sense of humor, I didn't tell him about the sleeping one.
Here is Ada and Jasmine.
This is my dorm bed. I would estimate that the room is about 18 feet across and 14 feet wide. There is quite a bit of space here, which I am unsure is reflected in my estimations. I usually take my height as the standard and then I lay down across the room.
We have a balcony! How cool is that?! After this picture was uploaded, I realized it would have been better to step outside and take a picture of the walkway below, or the graduate dorms...but I am pretty tired right now. As long as you realize I have a balcony, I am happy.
Self-explanatory. Our hands were too cold to do much else and Jeremy kept attacking, causing us to continually use the base as a snowball.
I had to end with this picture. This door is seriously like one of the coolest things ever. On the bottom right is the box that talks to me. There is also a button I push that automatically locks the door. I can set it so when I close the door, it just locks. I never have to worry about keys because I know the number, so I can always open it. The light on the ceiling turns on when I enter! So I never have to come into a darkened room.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
The universe has something against me...
This is just a quick update:
1) I moved out of Ada's place and am now living at Ewha. It is a temporary place until this Tuesday, when I move into my permanent room. My current roommate is French.
2) It will be best for me to purchase a pre-paid phone. The costs of starting up with this plan are about $65 + $200 deposit. The $65 is more than I paid for the phone and far more expensive than buying a pre-paid one from a vendor or someone leaving the country.
3) I bought Warcraft 3 today...a legal copy. It was about $15 dollars, which should testify to my desperation. I put the disc in and had to download a patch:
Oh...how nice...the game doesn't require a CD to play. Hmm, that is just so wonderful and perfectly timed. If any of my friends just sent me a five word email, "Erik, download the warcraft patch," I would have been very pleased. In fact, I would have been a jovial person at that point.
1) I moved out of Ada's place and am now living at Ewha. It is a temporary place until this Tuesday, when I move into my permanent room. My current roommate is French.
2) It will be best for me to purchase a pre-paid phone. The costs of starting up with this plan are about $65 + $200 deposit. The $65 is more than I paid for the phone and far more expensive than buying a pre-paid one from a vendor or someone leaving the country.
3) I bought Warcraft 3 today...a legal copy. It was about $15 dollars, which should testify to my desperation. I put the disc in and had to download a patch:
Oh...how nice...the game doesn't require a CD to play. Hmm, that is just so wonderful and perfectly timed. If any of my friends just sent me a five word email, "Erik, download the warcraft patch," I would have been very pleased. In fact, I would have been a jovial person at that point.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Pushy Christians, board games and Ena!
Pushy Christians: I think the language barrier here has both benefits and pitfalls when talking with people on the streets. On one hand, I can always just say I don't understand and walk away. On the other, explaining that I really don't have one minute and I would appreciate walking on my own instead of walking with two people that-don't-speak-English-continuing-to-read-their-Korean-pamphlets-to-me is difficult.
With that said, let me go into my story. I asked Youna on Saturday if she would be free on Monday for a late lunch or dinner. She let me know that there was a group going to get dinner and then something else afterwards and that we should join them. Will come back to the night later. On my trip to the subway, I walked past two middle-aged women that said "hello" to me in Korean. I've found four general classifications of strangers that talk to me in Korea: 1) Christians, 2) people that want to hire me to teach English privately, 3) children who say "hello" in English and then run away, 4) old people that call me beautiful. I really didn't get this classification until today, so when these two women greeted me, I just thought they were in category 4. I returned the greeting and they both stopped and asked me something. Most the time, the second thing I say is that I don't understand Korean.
Most people smile and continue talking, but don't go too much past two additional sentences. These women, combined, had about a paragraph of talking to me in Korean immediately following my statement. So I smiled and repeated that I only understand a little (I said "chogum" four times to stress that I only speak a little little little little Korean). I said thank you and goodbye. One of the women grabbed my hand and held up one finger, which I took to mean for me to wait one minute. The other woman started calling someone on her cell phone. I waited, mostly relieved they were calling someone who spoke English so I could explain that I needed to go because I was meeting a friend -- and that I was busy every moment from this conversation until I leave Korea. The man on the phone possessed limited English, but we came to a concensus that the women would write down the Church's phone number and I may consider giving some momentary thought to contemplate possibly contacting the Church in the future, should I have the time. I said goodbye to him and then I thanked the women again and said goodbye.
I was walking one way and saw these women walking the other way. So I was a little surprised that they started walking the same way as me. They kept talking and I understood one of the women asking me where I was going. I responded that I was going to Sindaebang station, causing both women to burst into giant smiles and they again grabbed my hand. They excitedly held up one finger, communicating that I only needed to spare them one minute for them to tell me the great things about their Church. We walked a couple blocks together while they continued asking me questions in Korean. Five minutes later, they led me up to their Church (remembering that Korean buildings often have many businesses in the same structure, the Church had the second and third floors of this ten story-tall building). The man I spoke with on the phone, the one that spoke English, came out of his office to greet me. I again told him that I needed to go, that I knew where the Church was, that I had phone numbers to reach the Church, that I had a personal cell phone number from one of the women and I may possibly consider considering contact in the near future if my schedule somehow permits me to consider it.
He offered me black coffee -- "sure," I thought, "it isn't poisonous where this group was a cult trying to kidnap me or anything..."I graciously took it and thanked them. He wrote down his personal cell phone number on a pamphlet and told me I could call him anytime. Nice people, a little pushy, but I was safely on my way to the subway. I don't think I've ever been happier not to have a working cell phone because I was asked four times if I had one -- once by each woman and then twice by this guy.
As far as I could tell from these Church members, the biggest defining factor was that God should be considered the mother of all and not the father. Fair enough -- God probably doesn't have genitals that makes him a male or female...not Earth shattering as there can't be a reasonable rebuttal and I would be surprised if people tried to make a case for a gendered deity. I think that is the only thing with this Church...the only thing they really talked to me about even after I told them several times that I was Christian (but said it with Korean pronunciation).
I need to learn how to say I am a devout Mormon in Korean with the hopes nobody will ask me questions.
Before I move on with my day, I need to quickly mention that I ran into the man at the bus stop today. He came over to say hello and asked if I had any free time. I informed him that I was on my way to meet a new friend at Gangnam station and was running late, so I had to catch the next bus. He asked me, "are you marry this girl?" The next 30 seconds of dialog involved me saying that I was not going to marry her and she is a friend of mine...yeah, that question really caught me off guard...
Back to Monday. We all planned to meet outside Ewha's main gate at 5PM, but I was interested to see what Youna did for her job. Therefore, I asked her on Saturday if I could meet her at 4PM and she could show me around her work. She told me that was fine and that she worked in the biggest building on campus...so the directions to find her were a little vague. At least, that's what I thought before I arrived at campus and quickly saw which building was hers.
She was done with work early, so I didn't get to see too much at all. I was pretty sad. Nonetheless, 5PM came quickly and there were six of us at the front gate of Ewha. I met a new fellow exchange student here -- his name is Peter and he is from Wisconsin. When we got to the restaurant, we were also joined by two more people, one being a woman from Japan that understood English if I spoke slowly. Her and I didn't talk too much because I demand that people operate at my speed!
Following dinner, we were looking for something to do. Something that Youna mentioned was a board-game cafe. How cool is that?! We stayed for two hours or so, but things really slowed down because Clue doesn't hold energy levels too high. I had a good time despite Clue going slow.
Tuesday was the day that JiBin's friend Ena and I roughly set up to meet. I waited until the last minute to call her directly because I felt I could get lucky and catch her on Skype. Not the case. So I had to call her and make sure she was free to meet me in the afternoon. Ena and I had bad luck meeting on Saturday, so my existance without a cell-phone depended on successfully meeting her today -- as in, if it didn't work out, I would collapse and buy a damned pre-paid cell phone (which probably wouldn't have a comparable virtual pet).
But we did meet up! It was grand! Ena is awesome and just great to spend time with...pretty much every person I've met here has been astounding! Ena and I grabbed lunch and then I wanted to check out a bookstore nearby that I saw on the subway map. No luck on William James and the books were really expensive. To give you an idea about how desperate I've been to find a resonable novel, I went into a Korean bookstore today and considered buying a student's copy of "Gone with the Wind." In this case, a student's copy means that it was written for middle schoolers with bland language and giant font.
Ena had to leave at 5PM to get to an English lesson about a half-hour away. As we strolled back toward the subway, she showed me this dialog she needed to learn. I burst into laughter as the first line read something like "I hooked up with Michael this weekend." The situation was two women at a salon. In all my Korean studies, I have yet to come across an equivalent conversation.
Picture time!!!!
This is just inside Ewha's main gate. On the right there is this ramp and just outside the picture on the far right is a second ramp, creating a valley in the middle. I asked Youna what this was there for -- but I don't think I got an answer. Her work is to the left of this picture and the building is a good nine stories or so taller than the one in this picture.
One of the games we played was to put these branches into the tree and then dump monkeys at the top. You roll dice to figure out which color branch you take and then whoever has the least amount of monkeys wins. I suggested this game -- nobody was as enthusiastic as me to be playing. Youna is on the right and my new Dutch friend, Marc, is on the left.
This was the menu that had the list of games. I believe the stars represent the difficulty of learning the game. They also printed the estimated time of completion, but their estimates seemed really off. Monopoly was an hour and a half and Life was an hour. They didn't have Risk, sadly...
This was a sign at the movie theater on Sunday. Jenny used her cell phone to take it and then she emailed it to me today. Just look at that sign and try not to be happy...
I've seen about three of these places and I vowed to never go inside. I am very happy believing this is a bar where you sit down and order ice. I refuse to have this belief crushed with reality.
With that said, let me go into my story. I asked Youna on Saturday if she would be free on Monday for a late lunch or dinner. She let me know that there was a group going to get dinner and then something else afterwards and that we should join them. Will come back to the night later. On my trip to the subway, I walked past two middle-aged women that said "hello" to me in Korean. I've found four general classifications of strangers that talk to me in Korea: 1) Christians, 2) people that want to hire me to teach English privately, 3) children who say "hello" in English and then run away, 4) old people that call me beautiful. I really didn't get this classification until today, so when these two women greeted me, I just thought they were in category 4. I returned the greeting and they both stopped and asked me something. Most the time, the second thing I say is that I don't understand Korean.
Most people smile and continue talking, but don't go too much past two additional sentences. These women, combined, had about a paragraph of talking to me in Korean immediately following my statement. So I smiled and repeated that I only understand a little (I said "chogum" four times to stress that I only speak a little little little little Korean). I said thank you and goodbye. One of the women grabbed my hand and held up one finger, which I took to mean for me to wait one minute. The other woman started calling someone on her cell phone. I waited, mostly relieved they were calling someone who spoke English so I could explain that I needed to go because I was meeting a friend -- and that I was busy every moment from this conversation until I leave Korea. The man on the phone possessed limited English, but we came to a concensus that the women would write down the Church's phone number and I may consider giving some momentary thought to contemplate possibly contacting the Church in the future, should I have the time. I said goodbye to him and then I thanked the women again and said goodbye.
I was walking one way and saw these women walking the other way. So I was a little surprised that they started walking the same way as me. They kept talking and I understood one of the women asking me where I was going. I responded that I was going to Sindaebang station, causing both women to burst into giant smiles and they again grabbed my hand. They excitedly held up one finger, communicating that I only needed to spare them one minute for them to tell me the great things about their Church. We walked a couple blocks together while they continued asking me questions in Korean. Five minutes later, they led me up to their Church (remembering that Korean buildings often have many businesses in the same structure, the Church had the second and third floors of this ten story-tall building). The man I spoke with on the phone, the one that spoke English, came out of his office to greet me. I again told him that I needed to go, that I knew where the Church was, that I had phone numbers to reach the Church, that I had a personal cell phone number from one of the women and I may possibly consider considering contact in the near future if my schedule somehow permits me to consider it.
He offered me black coffee -- "sure," I thought, "it isn't poisonous where this group was a cult trying to kidnap me or anything..."I graciously took it and thanked them. He wrote down his personal cell phone number on a pamphlet and told me I could call him anytime. Nice people, a little pushy, but I was safely on my way to the subway. I don't think I've ever been happier not to have a working cell phone because I was asked four times if I had one -- once by each woman and then twice by this guy.
As far as I could tell from these Church members, the biggest defining factor was that God should be considered the mother of all and not the father. Fair enough -- God probably doesn't have genitals that makes him a male or female...not Earth shattering as there can't be a reasonable rebuttal and I would be surprised if people tried to make a case for a gendered deity. I think that is the only thing with this Church...the only thing they really talked to me about even after I told them several times that I was Christian (but said it with Korean pronunciation).
I need to learn how to say I am a devout Mormon in Korean with the hopes nobody will ask me questions.
Before I move on with my day, I need to quickly mention that I ran into the man at the bus stop today. He came over to say hello and asked if I had any free time. I informed him that I was on my way to meet a new friend at Gangnam station and was running late, so I had to catch the next bus. He asked me, "are you marry this girl?" The next 30 seconds of dialog involved me saying that I was not going to marry her and she is a friend of mine...yeah, that question really caught me off guard...
Back to Monday. We all planned to meet outside Ewha's main gate at 5PM, but I was interested to see what Youna did for her job. Therefore, I asked her on Saturday if I could meet her at 4PM and she could show me around her work. She told me that was fine and that she worked in the biggest building on campus...so the directions to find her were a little vague. At least, that's what I thought before I arrived at campus and quickly saw which building was hers.
She was done with work early, so I didn't get to see too much at all. I was pretty sad. Nonetheless, 5PM came quickly and there were six of us at the front gate of Ewha. I met a new fellow exchange student here -- his name is Peter and he is from Wisconsin. When we got to the restaurant, we were also joined by two more people, one being a woman from Japan that understood English if I spoke slowly. Her and I didn't talk too much because I demand that people operate at my speed!
Following dinner, we were looking for something to do. Something that Youna mentioned was a board-game cafe. How cool is that?! We stayed for two hours or so, but things really slowed down because Clue doesn't hold energy levels too high. I had a good time despite Clue going slow.
Tuesday was the day that JiBin's friend Ena and I roughly set up to meet. I waited until the last minute to call her directly because I felt I could get lucky and catch her on Skype. Not the case. So I had to call her and make sure she was free to meet me in the afternoon. Ena and I had bad luck meeting on Saturday, so my existance without a cell-phone depended on successfully meeting her today -- as in, if it didn't work out, I would collapse and buy a damned pre-paid cell phone (which probably wouldn't have a comparable virtual pet).
But we did meet up! It was grand! Ena is awesome and just great to spend time with...pretty much every person I've met here has been astounding! Ena and I grabbed lunch and then I wanted to check out a bookstore nearby that I saw on the subway map. No luck on William James and the books were really expensive. To give you an idea about how desperate I've been to find a resonable novel, I went into a Korean bookstore today and considered buying a student's copy of "Gone with the Wind." In this case, a student's copy means that it was written for middle schoolers with bland language and giant font.
Ena had to leave at 5PM to get to an English lesson about a half-hour away. As we strolled back toward the subway, she showed me this dialog she needed to learn. I burst into laughter as the first line read something like "I hooked up with Michael this weekend." The situation was two women at a salon. In all my Korean studies, I have yet to come across an equivalent conversation.
Picture time!!!!
This is just inside Ewha's main gate. On the right there is this ramp and just outside the picture on the far right is a second ramp, creating a valley in the middle. I asked Youna what this was there for -- but I don't think I got an answer. Her work is to the left of this picture and the building is a good nine stories or so taller than the one in this picture.
One of the games we played was to put these branches into the tree and then dump monkeys at the top. You roll dice to figure out which color branch you take and then whoever has the least amount of monkeys wins. I suggested this game -- nobody was as enthusiastic as me to be playing. Youna is on the right and my new Dutch friend, Marc, is on the left.
This was the menu that had the list of games. I believe the stars represent the difficulty of learning the game. They also printed the estimated time of completion, but their estimates seemed really off. Monopoly was an hour and a half and Life was an hour. They didn't have Risk, sadly...
This was a sign at the movie theater on Sunday. Jenny used her cell phone to take it and then she emailed it to me today. Just look at that sign and try not to be happy...
I've seen about three of these places and I vowed to never go inside. I am very happy believing this is a bar where you sit down and order ice. I refuse to have this belief crushed with reality.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
The weekend
My Saturday was supposed to be super busy.
Over Skype, I arranged to meet one of JiBin's friends that I spoke with briefly back home. We were supposed to meet at 1PM on Saturday at Gangnam station -- or so I thought. I arrived right at 1PM, like exactly as the clock struck 1. Finding someone I've never met here is impossible while it is much easier for others to find me. I just waited at the meeting point for fifteen minutes and decided I would go to a pay phone and give her a call. I hate calling people to see where they are, especially if we've never met, but that is the life without a cellphone =*(. On a tangent, I just don't know how people were able to meet up before cellphones...
I gave her phone a call.......no answer. I quickly walked back to the meeting point to wait, just in case she was there and waiting. Fifteen more minutes pass. I decided that I must have the wrong exit, so I start racing around the subway station looking to see if there she might see me at another stop. No such luck, so it's time to try with another call. It's been about 45 minutes since I arrived at the station and that has been my magic number in the past (when meeting Josie and Youna). I call again, no answer. Hmmm...maybe I just had the hours wrong and we were going to meet at two.
So I went back to the exit and waited until 2:00...when I decided it best to try calling her again. No answer. I drew a line in the sand -- I would leave at 2:10 and try to get a hold of her over Skype. As my digital clock closed on 2:10, I gathered my remaining dignity and started back for the subway. I passed the phones again and just had to try calling one more time. This time I got her to answer. When we were talking on Skype, I said I wanted to meet at 1PM on Saturday, but would need to leave to meet someone else at six -- which was lost in translation to mean to her that I wanted to schedule a different day.
I went home to check my email because I was meeting two people at six. The writer of the email wrote "Shincheon," which could have meant "Sincheon" or "Sinchon." Since he added the 'h' after the 's,' I was concerned I would be at Sincheon while he tapped his feet at Sinchon (they are literally on complete opposite sides of the subway). He hadn't written back, but he mentioned a landmark that I could find and I discovered he meant Sinchon.
On my way to Sinchon, I ran into another...bizarre situation. Normally when I get on the subway, I am either ignored (like nobody really pays attention) or they quietly whisper and point in my general direction. Rarely do strangers interact, especially on the subway. As I boarded, this man looked at me, smiled and patted the seat next to him, implying he wanted me to sit next to him. This hadn't happened to me before, so I just insticintly sat next to him. He started talking to me in broken English and we talked until the next stop (three minutes or so). The announcer of the subway said something in Korean and then this man grabbed my hand and kind of walked me off the train. He said something like "we don't want this subway." I didn't really understand, but just went with the flow. We continued chatting until the next train arrived and we boarded it. As his stop neared, he pulled out a business card and wrote down his cell phone number and English name, John. John is 59, has a 30 year old son and 29 year old daughter. He was a nice guy, but the whole situation was a little creepy...especially when I told John I was a philosopher (I used my cellphone dictionary. I wanted philosophy student, but it was hard enough for us to communicate) and he told me I wasn't.
Late Friday, Youna wrote me an email asking if I wanted to spend some time with her and her friends Saturday night. I told her I was really interested, but was busy until about eight. She said that was kosher (not the word she used) and I should just call her when I was ready. I didn't want to miss this opportunity because I would have a chance to meet other students at Ewha, which as it stood at the time, I only knew Youna.
With all these details combined, it meant that my Saturday was happily busy with things to do. I met Youna around 7:40. She was with two friends and we were going to join some Dutch exchange students at a bar. The two Dutch guys are also studying at Ewha. The guys were nice, but I have this unfortunate apprehension toward spending too much time with Westerners here. The reason is that I am concerned I will fall into the trap of familiarity and become like the group that sat behind us -- only filled with Westerners. In addition, one of the guys seemed to bring up Holland as part of his answer to each question. "The Korean language is great, it is so hard to learn Asian languages in Holland...Korean history is interesting, similar to Dutch history...this Korean beer just can't stand up to my hometown's beer." They were really nice and I am looking forward to a term with them.
That was my Saturday. Sunday was a great day too!
When I was living with Danny, he introduced me to a couple of his friends. Through the course of our discussion, it came up that I was preparing to head to Korea. His friend told me about a friend of hers from Korea and I should get in touch with him. I did, but he told me that he was outside Seoul and likely couldn't meet up with me before my classes started (his started two weeks ago, I believe). He did tell me about his cousin that goes to Yonsei and I could meet her. Sunday was our time together. Through the grapevine, finding her (Jenny) was: Friend's friend's friend's cousin, AKA friend^3's cousin.
Jenny and I arraigned to meet near Insadong and spend some time there and then possibly watch a movie. After my fiasco on Saturday, I was nervous that I would have the wrong time, day, place and so forth. We met up and all went smoothly. We watched "Jumper," because I needed a movie in English since I doubted the Korean movies would be English subtitled. It was pretty good, I just wish they had more of the cool fight scenes with everyone teleporting around.
She had to get home for dinner because there was a guest coming. It was only five or so and I was close to Itaewon, which made it too tempting not to visit. Finding a bookstore in Seoul has been uncommon; finding an English bookstore in Seoul has been near impossible thus far. I read that Itaewon had a couple English bookstores and I've been trying to find "The Will to Believe" by William James because it came so highly recommended by Steven. Here is an appropriate space to write, "good luck with that Erik."
Over Skype, I arranged to meet one of JiBin's friends that I spoke with briefly back home. We were supposed to meet at 1PM on Saturday at Gangnam station -- or so I thought. I arrived right at 1PM, like exactly as the clock struck 1. Finding someone I've never met here is impossible while it is much easier for others to find me. I just waited at the meeting point for fifteen minutes and decided I would go to a pay phone and give her a call. I hate calling people to see where they are, especially if we've never met, but that is the life without a cellphone =*(. On a tangent, I just don't know how people were able to meet up before cellphones...
I gave her phone a call.......no answer. I quickly walked back to the meeting point to wait, just in case she was there and waiting. Fifteen more minutes pass. I decided that I must have the wrong exit, so I start racing around the subway station looking to see if there she might see me at another stop. No such luck, so it's time to try with another call. It's been about 45 minutes since I arrived at the station and that has been my magic number in the past (when meeting Josie and Youna). I call again, no answer. Hmmm...maybe I just had the hours wrong and we were going to meet at two.
So I went back to the exit and waited until 2:00...when I decided it best to try calling her again. No answer. I drew a line in the sand -- I would leave at 2:10 and try to get a hold of her over Skype. As my digital clock closed on 2:10, I gathered my remaining dignity and started back for the subway. I passed the phones again and just had to try calling one more time. This time I got her to answer. When we were talking on Skype, I said I wanted to meet at 1PM on Saturday, but would need to leave to meet someone else at six -- which was lost in translation to mean to her that I wanted to schedule a different day.
I went home to check my email because I was meeting two people at six. The writer of the email wrote "Shincheon," which could have meant "Sincheon" or "Sinchon." Since he added the 'h' after the 's,' I was concerned I would be at Sincheon while he tapped his feet at Sinchon (they are literally on complete opposite sides of the subway). He hadn't written back, but he mentioned a landmark that I could find and I discovered he meant Sinchon.
On my way to Sinchon, I ran into another...bizarre situation. Normally when I get on the subway, I am either ignored (like nobody really pays attention) or they quietly whisper and point in my general direction. Rarely do strangers interact, especially on the subway. As I boarded, this man looked at me, smiled and patted the seat next to him, implying he wanted me to sit next to him. This hadn't happened to me before, so I just insticintly sat next to him. He started talking to me in broken English and we talked until the next stop (three minutes or so). The announcer of the subway said something in Korean and then this man grabbed my hand and kind of walked me off the train. He said something like "we don't want this subway." I didn't really understand, but just went with the flow. We continued chatting until the next train arrived and we boarded it. As his stop neared, he pulled out a business card and wrote down his cell phone number and English name, John. John is 59, has a 30 year old son and 29 year old daughter. He was a nice guy, but the whole situation was a little creepy...especially when I told John I was a philosopher (I used my cellphone dictionary. I wanted philosophy student, but it was hard enough for us to communicate) and he told me I wasn't.
Late Friday, Youna wrote me an email asking if I wanted to spend some time with her and her friends Saturday night. I told her I was really interested, but was busy until about eight. She said that was kosher (not the word she used) and I should just call her when I was ready. I didn't want to miss this opportunity because I would have a chance to meet other students at Ewha, which as it stood at the time, I only knew Youna.
With all these details combined, it meant that my Saturday was happily busy with things to do. I met Youna around 7:40. She was with two friends and we were going to join some Dutch exchange students at a bar. The two Dutch guys are also studying at Ewha. The guys were nice, but I have this unfortunate apprehension toward spending too much time with Westerners here. The reason is that I am concerned I will fall into the trap of familiarity and become like the group that sat behind us -- only filled with Westerners. In addition, one of the guys seemed to bring up Holland as part of his answer to each question. "The Korean language is great, it is so hard to learn Asian languages in Holland...Korean history is interesting, similar to Dutch history...this Korean beer just can't stand up to my hometown's beer." They were really nice and I am looking forward to a term with them.
That was my Saturday. Sunday was a great day too!
When I was living with Danny, he introduced me to a couple of his friends. Through the course of our discussion, it came up that I was preparing to head to Korea. His friend told me about a friend of hers from Korea and I should get in touch with him. I did, but he told me that he was outside Seoul and likely couldn't meet up with me before my classes started (his started two weeks ago, I believe). He did tell me about his cousin that goes to Yonsei and I could meet her. Sunday was our time together. Through the grapevine, finding her (Jenny) was: Friend's friend's friend's cousin, AKA friend^3's cousin.
Jenny and I arraigned to meet near Insadong and spend some time there and then possibly watch a movie. After my fiasco on Saturday, I was nervous that I would have the wrong time, day, place and so forth. We met up and all went smoothly. We watched "Jumper," because I needed a movie in English since I doubted the Korean movies would be English subtitled. It was pretty good, I just wish they had more of the cool fight scenes with everyone teleporting around.
She had to get home for dinner because there was a guest coming. It was only five or so and I was close to Itaewon, which made it too tempting not to visit. Finding a bookstore in Seoul has been uncommon; finding an English bookstore in Seoul has been near impossible thus far. I read that Itaewon had a couple English bookstores and I've been trying to find "The Will to Believe" by William James because it came so highly recommended by Steven. Here is an appropriate space to write, "good luck with that Erik."
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Internet and food delivery
Not much happened to me today, so I will take this time to write about two things that I couldn't find a place for before:
Internet: I have a love/hate relationship with technology. When it works like I want, I love it. Every other time, it is the force that stands between happiness and me. Something that nobody told me about the internet is that it automatically matches with the geography. What I mean by this is that I cannot access American Youtube. My webpages are filled with Korean text. I thought origionally I would like this because it would help me learn to read -- that is not the case. I want to know what the hell the Korean says:
I don't want to click that until I know what it is...
Granted that it isn't Korean, but I can't remember a time back home when I went to youtube and had to translate nearly every video title (some come through in English, like Tom Cruise's Scientology video). I've been surviving...but nobody told me it would happen like this. I thought I would need to visit like youtube.kr.com or something.
Food delivery. Many Koreans order their food like Americans order pizza -- with a delivery. There are often mopeds that ride around the streets (see also, sidewalks, between cars, everywhere) with food in their rear basket. After the food has been consumed, the dishes are left on the curb to be picked up later by the restaurant. Let's say that I order Kim Bop from the local establishment and ask for delivery. A nice man (I've only seen one female delivering like this) will bring me my food in a giant metal lunchbox (only way I can think of describing it). The driver leaves -- I think usually without a tip because it is rare to give tips for service. When I finish eating, I take all the dishes and leave them on the curb. Maybe the next day, the next week or however the system works, someone comes and picks up the dishes. Ada told me it is the restaurant reclaiming their supplies. She told me this on the second day I was here because apparently the store forgot about her dishes so the rotting food sat on her curb for a solid week. It is gone now.
Garbage works the same way in Seoul. I rarely see trash cans and instead see bags of trash sitting on the curb. Ada told me that if someone wanted garbage service, that person would need to buy a special bag to alert the sanitation service for pickup. I can see how it would be inefficient to work where one paid a monthly charge to have their garbage picked up, but wow, sometimes it just smells awful to walk by these bags of trash.
Today I saw a street dog for the second time in a week. The first time I saw it was when it was knocking over one of those trash bags. Today, I saw it running happily on the street. I think I am going to name that dog Erik. For the record, Erik is cute but can beat up all the other street dogs.
Internet: I have a love/hate relationship with technology. When it works like I want, I love it. Every other time, it is the force that stands between happiness and me. Something that nobody told me about the internet is that it automatically matches with the geography. What I mean by this is that I cannot access American Youtube. My webpages are filled with Korean text. I thought origionally I would like this because it would help me learn to read -- that is not the case. I want to know what the hell the Korean says:
I don't want to click that until I know what it is...
Granted that it isn't Korean, but I can't remember a time back home when I went to youtube and had to translate nearly every video title (some come through in English, like Tom Cruise's Scientology video). I've been surviving...but nobody told me it would happen like this. I thought I would need to visit like youtube.kr.com or something.
Food delivery. Many Koreans order their food like Americans order pizza -- with a delivery. There are often mopeds that ride around the streets (see also, sidewalks, between cars, everywhere) with food in their rear basket. After the food has been consumed, the dishes are left on the curb to be picked up later by the restaurant. Let's say that I order Kim Bop from the local establishment and ask for delivery. A nice man (I've only seen one female delivering like this) will bring me my food in a giant metal lunchbox (only way I can think of describing it). The driver leaves -- I think usually without a tip because it is rare to give tips for service. When I finish eating, I take all the dishes and leave them on the curb. Maybe the next day, the next week or however the system works, someone comes and picks up the dishes. Ada told me it is the restaurant reclaiming their supplies. She told me this on the second day I was here because apparently the store forgot about her dishes so the rotting food sat on her curb for a solid week. It is gone now.
Garbage works the same way in Seoul. I rarely see trash cans and instead see bags of trash sitting on the curb. Ada told me that if someone wanted garbage service, that person would need to buy a special bag to alert the sanitation service for pickup. I can see how it would be inefficient to work where one paid a monthly charge to have their garbage picked up, but wow, sometimes it just smells awful to walk by these bags of trash.
Today I saw a street dog for the second time in a week. The first time I saw it was when it was knocking over one of those trash bags. Today, I saw it running happily on the street. I think I am going to name that dog Erik. For the record, Erik is cute but can beat up all the other street dogs.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Yeongdeunpo Market, Yangsam and my PEACE buddy!
My days are not quite filled with the same adventure I experienced when I first arrived. It is already normal to start my days with a trip on the subway and to stop at some location to take care of something I needed done. With that in mind, it doesn't seem the fill enough space to warrant a brand new post with mundane details. But, when I have several days of small things, I can write quite a bit...
Monday: My goal for Monday was to submit paperwork for my Alien Registration Card with the hopes of having the card by the end of the week so I could finally get my phone. I made it to Seoul Immigration and started a long wait to sit down to have an employee look over everything. Nothing exciting except that I sat next to a guy from Nigeria (I thought that was cool). Well I got to the nice woman at the desk after taking a number and waiting an hour, only to discover that I needed to bring my certificate of admission from Ewha. For the record, Seoul Immigration's website was very vague on what I needed! So I had to call it an early day.
Tuesday: Back to Seoul Immigration. I vowed to laugh when I submitted all that I needed, just as a little moral conquest over the tyrannical bureaucracy (I've found that demonizing my antagonists makes triumph sweeter). The bad news was that the website lied to me -- it actually takes ten (10!!!!) days for a student ARC to clear and only 3-4 for a worker's ARC to clear. That is 10 days without my passport. That is 10 days without my ARC. That is 10 days of bitter agony. Just today, it took an extra 45 minutes before I could meet up with my PEACE buddy because I didn't have a cell phone. More on that later.
When I left the USA, I didn't pack any computer games to bring with me because 1) I didn't want to spend a lot of time on the computer and 2) I figured I could find the games here for a cheaper price and wouldn't worry about compatibility with Korean computers (if I wanted to play against Koreans here, for instance). Well I've played enough solitaire to really miss Warcraft 3. I asked Ada over the weekend where I could find cheap computer software. For the record, I just need to say, I actually own this game. I made it a point early on that I would not confess to anything illegal on this blog to protect my future political career...
Ada told me that I needed to go to Yangsam market where there was an electronics section. She figured they would be the best bet to find cheap games. I have a system here where when I go someplace new, I write down the name on my hand so I can check to make sure I am in the right place. On Tuesday, I earnestly believed that I had the subway down and I was learning how to read so I could remember Yangsam station...I quietly regret that assumption. I finished at Seoul Immigration around 2PM and didn't have much to do back at Ada's, so I wanted to explore Yangsam and see what I could find. The problem came when I started reading the subway names and forgot the "sam" at the end, remembering only that the first letter was a Y. I also vaguely remembered that it was close to another line. Just for your information, Yangsam is on light-blue line and flanked by the light purple, but I thought it was dark blue and light blue. Anyways, I couldn't find it, but I saw Yeongdeunpo Market -- hey, it is pretty close, right? And it had "market" in the title, so 1+1 just makes sense.
Let me quickly describe every place I've been to in Seoul. Seoul is divided into large sections of similar businesses. Rarely will one find a single clothing store, but will instead find at least a dozen other clothing stores in the same location. I walked down a street today that had six stores in a row that only sold chandeliers, followed by ten stores that sold lamps and then six more with chandeliers. Yesterday I walked by twenty mechanics in a row. And finally three car dealerships.
With that said, markets function the same way. You see one meat store, you can bet there are going to be 100 more within 100 meters. I walked through Yeongdeunpo Market, foolishly searching for a store that would sell computer games (there are DVD vendors on every street corner, it makes sense to think video games might be easy to find, especially unauthorized versions). I hadn't eaten since the morning and I earnestly believed that if I followed the fish smell, I might also reach some food vendors that would sell vegetarian snacks. After all, experience taught me that smelling fish meant there would be dozens of other options as well. Well, I came across my first giant meat-market.
I used to be uncomfortable around meat when I was newly a vegetarian and was like nine. Since then, it's been around me all the time so I've just become desensitized. Oh my gosh, how I wish I was a little more desensitized. Walking down the pathway, only big enough for two people walking (or one motorcycle because at least fifteen drove by) I was quickly losing my appetite. Pig's feet with a little pool of blood at the bottom of a tub was one of the first sights. Next was the tub of frozen fish heads followed closely by the fresh fish heads. Whoa, does that store have chicken heads and feet right next to each other? Oh yeah, I had to look closer. This was all complimented by a couple of those shops cooking silkworm larvae. Thankfully, my nose was a little stuffy because it was below freezing, but damn my mouth for allowing just a little of that smell to seep into the back of my throat. Finally, the hardest sight to see, was a row of four freezers with naked, frozen dogs along the top shelf. I've known for a while that some parts of east Asia eat dog, but maybe I naively believed the dog meat was always chopped up into sections -- like how you see beef meet, but not whole cows. There was only one shop I saw that sold dog like that, but it was still depressing to see. After Yeongdeunpo market, I was content with my hunger level.
Wednesday: After talking with Ada again, I wrote down Yangsam market. Once that was done, it was a law of physics that I could actually find the place. The Yangsam station reminded me of an airport: there were hordes of people, subway times were posted on electronic screens, there were shops everywhere and there were also countable numbers of people with luggage. Ada told me that Yangsam had a giant mall which would have electronics, so I couldn't ask where to go for electronic equipment because they would point me to the giant mall. I feel that I need to add giant every time I mention this giant mall just to reinforce how big this place was.
To find the market Ada was thinking of, I had to wander around and see if I could get lucky with my navigation skills. Before that story, let me tell you about this giant mall. This place at Yangsam station, the wrong one that I wanted to see because it was so big, was called "I-market." My initial reaction was that perhaps Ada was just mistaken and this giant mall was the right place. I walked in and as far as I could see were kiosks selling cameras. Kiosks isn't the right word because they weren't kiosks, they were like those counters at Macy's that sell makeup. They have glass display cases with make-up and such inside. Well, as far as I could see (20/20 vision) there were these kiosks with cameras. Nothing else. Not cameras and MP3 players. Not cameras and camera cases. Not cameras and computers. Not cameras and make-up. Only cameras. Please see my previous comments about how Seoul is divided into sections.
So there was no hope of finding anything relating to computers on that floor. I found the escalator and went upstairs. The signs all had English and when the sign said "musical instruments," naturally, there was nothing else on this floor but musical instruments. As far as I could see -- pianos and some walls that had band instruments hanging up (saxophone, flute, trumpet and so forth). Wow. Next floor was called "Bookscan," all as one word. Yep, an entire bookstore. I read it as "book scan," but found some signs later that separated the words after the s to make "books can." Neither made sense to me. There were two "bookscan" levels with the top floor saying "computer." Success!
Except not. Computer, in Korea, means only computers. It doesn't mean computer games, it doesn't mean computer software, it doesn't mean accessories -- it only means they sell new computers. Laptops, desktops, computer towers, computer CD drives. I spent a half-hour circling this floor trying to find any hint they had computer software. Then I got thinking...a single person just needs to have a little section of this floor to sell something to compliment the new computer and this person would trick all the confused foreigners and the lazy people to believe that there is only one place that sells these accessories. I honestly would have thought that if I saw some vendor selling headphones on this floor.
Through my exploring I also found that the floor wasn't exclusively one genre. But I spent a good 45 minutes in this place believing that to be true. When I said as far as I could see, it meant that seventy feet away, the sections transitioned to new items. Phones transitioned to MP3 players (in the middle on that section, it was MP3 players as far as I could see) and computers transitioned into video games and so forth. Well I found video games, believing with all my heart that video games included computer games. I'll just let that sentence stand on it's own to lead you to the same conclusion I reached some half-hour later.
I left I-Market confused. How could a giant mall that sells electronics not have any sections that included computer games? On a lighter note, I found one place that sold Windows Vista -- that guy held a monopoly in that giant mall on Vista. I was walking along, trying to figure out where I could go next when I saw a sign for "electronic market." That feeling I had right there...that felt pretty good.
I got to the electronic market and found a second home in the sweaty smell of geeks talking about motherboards and graphic cards. Again, in the typical Korean fashion (Ada backed me up on this), there were little stores that sold only sound cards, packed in rows of eights. They all sold the same thing, but none posted the price in a way I could understand (if at all). Nonetheless, I figured I could probably find computer games somewhere in this place. The information sign did not have anything that looked like "games" in Korean (I've been learning how to read and it has been coming along nicely. I learned "game" from my phone's English-Korean dictionary). I may just be thick, but when the monitor section of stores appeared and there were games of Starcraft being played, I just figured that I would find a game store. Again, I'll let that sentence stand on its own.
That hard lesson took an hour. Again, confused, I walked back out into the freezing Korean winter to try my luck at randomly finding computer games. I started seeing signs for PS2 and Xbox games, which meant a step in the right direction! One of the first stores I went in had PS2 signs posted outside, so I walked in and saw no computer games. The woman said hello in Korean, so I felt I should just ask her about computer games so I didn't seem so rude. I asked her "computer game?" and she looked at me weird, "no this video game."
I did eventually find one store that sold computer games. Read that again. ONE store. In the heart of the video game section, this old man convinced this confused foreigner that there was only ONE store that sold computer games. His price was way too high for the game I wanted and I figured I could find another vendor that would sell computer games...
So I haven't found my game yet.
The big thing that I was really excited about for Wednesday was meeting my PEACE Buddy, Youna. Ewha has a buddy system where they assign students to incoming exchange students to help the exchange students get adjusted and make friends with Korean students. I wish "student" had a more acceptable synonym. Maybe peer would work best, but I am not one to flip-flop on my word choices. I've been passively following the election at home, so just thinking that way recently. Back on track. She emailed me Monday just to say hello. She was also worried about me because I didn't sign up to meet anyone at the airport on the 26th (the dorm check-in day). I let her know I was already here and wanted to meet with her for dinner. She had free time on Wednesday, so today was my chance to meet my new buddy! PEACE stands for something, but I can't remember what.
Anyways, so through emails, we were meeting at 6PM at a subway. Again, not having a phone, meant that I couldn't be reached. I thought we were meeting at Omokgyo and she thought Sinchon. She said to take exit three and there would be a McDonald's, but I couldn't find it at Omokgyo, so I called her on a payphone and said there was no McDonald's around the station. She felt really bad and said she must have been mistaken. I said we should meet at this convenience store right at the ticket station. This was about 5:40PM and I was early just because Yangsam pissed me off and I left earlier than anticipated. Punctuality is only a word for me and not a lifestyle.
6:00PM...6:15PM...6:25PM...we were supposed to meet at 6PM, so I was a little worried that there was a problem. I went to the pay phone again and called her -- the first thing she said, "I've been waiting for your call. Where are you?" We figured out that I was just confused -- what happened was she said to meet at Sinchon but then commented that about trip to Seoul Immigration and how I used Omokgyo -- so that name stuck with me. At 6:50, we met outside this cafe in the Hyundai Department Store. On a quick tangent, as I said before how large companies often own many things and don't change names, well this is one of those cases because I didn't see anything sold by Hyundai during my time there. This department store was closer to the mall I was used to because there were real kiosks (not the confusing ones I said before) and coffee shops that weren't grouped together, but spread out where they were a good seventy meters apart.
Youna and I grabbed some food from the food court and talked about school and fun things to do in Seoul. She made the mistake of asking me how I've been enjoying Seoul so far, so I told her stories for fifteen minutes about what I've done thus far. After dinner, I asked her if she was still free for something else. We spent a couple minutes thinking of something to do and finally decided on karaoke. For those of you who don't know how good I am, just take this as my personal guarantee that I am pretty amazing.
So this post turned out much longer than I anticipated. Nonetheless, it must continue! We found a karaoke...umm...place nearby. Because Seoul has so much packed in such a small space, it is uncommon to find a building only serving one function. In this case, the karaoke place was on the 13th floor of an office building. It was really cool. They gave us a room with a TV, speakers, couches and a disco ball. There were two catalogs of songs; most were in Korean, but a couple pages were English (so maybe 200 songs in English) and 800 in Korean. The room had this controller where we could enter the number of the song we wanted. I started off with "Part of your world" from the Little Mermaid. Set the tone for the night because Youna had trouble keeping a straight face during my passionate solos. We sang one Korean song that had parts of English in the chorus. I also got her to sing "Bohemian Rhapsody" with me...I don't think she fully understood the grandeur of that song. I snapped this picture of her while she was singing:
I tried to get a picture of me singing as well, but it was hard to aim the camera. Youna used her camera to take pictures of me during this song as well, so I hope she will upload them.
My throat was sore after "Unchained Melody, Dancing Queen and Stayin' Alive," so I asked her if there was a place to get some coffee. I sorta forgot this was also my first trip to a Korean Cafe until I arrived and looked at the menu. I ordered a yummy drink that was like "Cinnamon chip mocha." I liked it. Youna and I stayed at the coffee shop for about two hours, talking about philosophy. With so few English speakers, I've been thirsting for opportunities to have deep conversations. We left around 11:15PM mostly because the subway stops running at midnight-ish (I am still not sure).
It was a good today.
Monday: My goal for Monday was to submit paperwork for my Alien Registration Card with the hopes of having the card by the end of the week so I could finally get my phone. I made it to Seoul Immigration and started a long wait to sit down to have an employee look over everything. Nothing exciting except that I sat next to a guy from Nigeria (I thought that was cool). Well I got to the nice woman at the desk after taking a number and waiting an hour, only to discover that I needed to bring my certificate of admission from Ewha. For the record, Seoul Immigration's website was very vague on what I needed! So I had to call it an early day.
Tuesday: Back to Seoul Immigration. I vowed to laugh when I submitted all that I needed, just as a little moral conquest over the tyrannical bureaucracy (I've found that demonizing my antagonists makes triumph sweeter). The bad news was that the website lied to me -- it actually takes ten (10!!!!) days for a student ARC to clear and only 3-4 for a worker's ARC to clear. That is 10 days without my passport. That is 10 days without my ARC. That is 10 days of bitter agony. Just today, it took an extra 45 minutes before I could meet up with my PEACE buddy because I didn't have a cell phone. More on that later.
When I left the USA, I didn't pack any computer games to bring with me because 1) I didn't want to spend a lot of time on the computer and 2) I figured I could find the games here for a cheaper price and wouldn't worry about compatibility with Korean computers (if I wanted to play against Koreans here, for instance). Well I've played enough solitaire to really miss Warcraft 3. I asked Ada over the weekend where I could find cheap computer software. For the record, I just need to say, I actually own this game. I made it a point early on that I would not confess to anything illegal on this blog to protect my future political career...
Ada told me that I needed to go to Yangsam market where there was an electronics section. She figured they would be the best bet to find cheap games. I have a system here where when I go someplace new, I write down the name on my hand so I can check to make sure I am in the right place. On Tuesday, I earnestly believed that I had the subway down and I was learning how to read so I could remember Yangsam station...I quietly regret that assumption. I finished at Seoul Immigration around 2PM and didn't have much to do back at Ada's, so I wanted to explore Yangsam and see what I could find. The problem came when I started reading the subway names and forgot the "sam" at the end, remembering only that the first letter was a Y. I also vaguely remembered that it was close to another line. Just for your information, Yangsam is on light-blue line and flanked by the light purple, but I thought it was dark blue and light blue. Anyways, I couldn't find it, but I saw Yeongdeunpo Market -- hey, it is pretty close, right? And it had "market" in the title, so 1+1 just makes sense.
Let me quickly describe every place I've been to in Seoul. Seoul is divided into large sections of similar businesses. Rarely will one find a single clothing store, but will instead find at least a dozen other clothing stores in the same location. I walked down a street today that had six stores in a row that only sold chandeliers, followed by ten stores that sold lamps and then six more with chandeliers. Yesterday I walked by twenty mechanics in a row. And finally three car dealerships.
With that said, markets function the same way. You see one meat store, you can bet there are going to be 100 more within 100 meters. I walked through Yeongdeunpo Market, foolishly searching for a store that would sell computer games (there are DVD vendors on every street corner, it makes sense to think video games might be easy to find, especially unauthorized versions). I hadn't eaten since the morning and I earnestly believed that if I followed the fish smell, I might also reach some food vendors that would sell vegetarian snacks. After all, experience taught me that smelling fish meant there would be dozens of other options as well. Well, I came across my first giant meat-market.
I used to be uncomfortable around meat when I was newly a vegetarian and was like nine. Since then, it's been around me all the time so I've just become desensitized. Oh my gosh, how I wish I was a little more desensitized. Walking down the pathway, only big enough for two people walking (or one motorcycle because at least fifteen drove by) I was quickly losing my appetite. Pig's feet with a little pool of blood at the bottom of a tub was one of the first sights. Next was the tub of frozen fish heads followed closely by the fresh fish heads. Whoa, does that store have chicken heads and feet right next to each other? Oh yeah, I had to look closer. This was all complimented by a couple of those shops cooking silkworm larvae. Thankfully, my nose was a little stuffy because it was below freezing, but damn my mouth for allowing just a little of that smell to seep into the back of my throat. Finally, the hardest sight to see, was a row of four freezers with naked, frozen dogs along the top shelf. I've known for a while that some parts of east Asia eat dog, but maybe I naively believed the dog meat was always chopped up into sections -- like how you see beef meet, but not whole cows. There was only one shop I saw that sold dog like that, but it was still depressing to see. After Yeongdeunpo market, I was content with my hunger level.
Wednesday: After talking with Ada again, I wrote down Yangsam market. Once that was done, it was a law of physics that I could actually find the place. The Yangsam station reminded me of an airport: there were hordes of people, subway times were posted on electronic screens, there were shops everywhere and there were also countable numbers of people with luggage. Ada told me that Yangsam had a giant mall which would have electronics, so I couldn't ask where to go for electronic equipment because they would point me to the giant mall. I feel that I need to add giant every time I mention this giant mall just to reinforce how big this place was.
To find the market Ada was thinking of, I had to wander around and see if I could get lucky with my navigation skills. Before that story, let me tell you about this giant mall. This place at Yangsam station, the wrong one that I wanted to see because it was so big, was called "I-market." My initial reaction was that perhaps Ada was just mistaken and this giant mall was the right place. I walked in and as far as I could see were kiosks selling cameras. Kiosks isn't the right word because they weren't kiosks, they were like those counters at Macy's that sell makeup. They have glass display cases with make-up and such inside. Well, as far as I could see (20/20 vision) there were these kiosks with cameras. Nothing else. Not cameras and MP3 players. Not cameras and camera cases. Not cameras and computers. Not cameras and make-up. Only cameras. Please see my previous comments about how Seoul is divided into sections.
So there was no hope of finding anything relating to computers on that floor. I found the escalator and went upstairs. The signs all had English and when the sign said "musical instruments," naturally, there was nothing else on this floor but musical instruments. As far as I could see -- pianos and some walls that had band instruments hanging up (saxophone, flute, trumpet and so forth). Wow. Next floor was called "Bookscan," all as one word. Yep, an entire bookstore. I read it as "book scan," but found some signs later that separated the words after the s to make "books can." Neither made sense to me. There were two "bookscan" levels with the top floor saying "computer." Success!
Except not. Computer, in Korea, means only computers. It doesn't mean computer games, it doesn't mean computer software, it doesn't mean accessories -- it only means they sell new computers. Laptops, desktops, computer towers, computer CD drives. I spent a half-hour circling this floor trying to find any hint they had computer software. Then I got thinking...a single person just needs to have a little section of this floor to sell something to compliment the new computer and this person would trick all the confused foreigners and the lazy people to believe that there is only one place that sells these accessories. I honestly would have thought that if I saw some vendor selling headphones on this floor.
Through my exploring I also found that the floor wasn't exclusively one genre. But I spent a good 45 minutes in this place believing that to be true. When I said as far as I could see, it meant that seventy feet away, the sections transitioned to new items. Phones transitioned to MP3 players (in the middle on that section, it was MP3 players as far as I could see) and computers transitioned into video games and so forth. Well I found video games, believing with all my heart that video games included computer games. I'll just let that sentence stand on it's own to lead you to the same conclusion I reached some half-hour later.
I left I-Market confused. How could a giant mall that sells electronics not have any sections that included computer games? On a lighter note, I found one place that sold Windows Vista -- that guy held a monopoly in that giant mall on Vista. I was walking along, trying to figure out where I could go next when I saw a sign for "electronic market." That feeling I had right there...that felt pretty good.
I got to the electronic market and found a second home in the sweaty smell of geeks talking about motherboards and graphic cards. Again, in the typical Korean fashion (Ada backed me up on this), there were little stores that sold only sound cards, packed in rows of eights. They all sold the same thing, but none posted the price in a way I could understand (if at all). Nonetheless, I figured I could probably find computer games somewhere in this place. The information sign did not have anything that looked like "games" in Korean (I've been learning how to read and it has been coming along nicely. I learned "game" from my phone's English-Korean dictionary). I may just be thick, but when the monitor section of stores appeared and there were games of Starcraft being played, I just figured that I would find a game store. Again, I'll let that sentence stand on its own.
That hard lesson took an hour. Again, confused, I walked back out into the freezing Korean winter to try my luck at randomly finding computer games. I started seeing signs for PS2 and Xbox games, which meant a step in the right direction! One of the first stores I went in had PS2 signs posted outside, so I walked in and saw no computer games. The woman said hello in Korean, so I felt I should just ask her about computer games so I didn't seem so rude. I asked her "computer game?" and she looked at me weird, "no this video game."
I did eventually find one store that sold computer games. Read that again. ONE store. In the heart of the video game section, this old man convinced this confused foreigner that there was only ONE store that sold computer games. His price was way too high for the game I wanted and I figured I could find another vendor that would sell computer games...
So I haven't found my game yet.
The big thing that I was really excited about for Wednesday was meeting my PEACE Buddy, Youna. Ewha has a buddy system where they assign students to incoming exchange students to help the exchange students get adjusted and make friends with Korean students. I wish "student" had a more acceptable synonym. Maybe peer would work best, but I am not one to flip-flop on my word choices. I've been passively following the election at home, so just thinking that way recently. Back on track. She emailed me Monday just to say hello. She was also worried about me because I didn't sign up to meet anyone at the airport on the 26th (the dorm check-in day). I let her know I was already here and wanted to meet with her for dinner. She had free time on Wednesday, so today was my chance to meet my new buddy! PEACE stands for something, but I can't remember what.
Anyways, so through emails, we were meeting at 6PM at a subway. Again, not having a phone, meant that I couldn't be reached. I thought we were meeting at Omokgyo and she thought Sinchon. She said to take exit three and there would be a McDonald's, but I couldn't find it at Omokgyo, so I called her on a payphone and said there was no McDonald's around the station. She felt really bad and said she must have been mistaken. I said we should meet at this convenience store right at the ticket station. This was about 5:40PM and I was early just because Yangsam pissed me off and I left earlier than anticipated. Punctuality is only a word for me and not a lifestyle.
6:00PM...6:15PM...6:25PM...we were supposed to meet at 6PM, so I was a little worried that there was a problem. I went to the pay phone again and called her -- the first thing she said, "I've been waiting for your call. Where are you?" We figured out that I was just confused -- what happened was she said to meet at Sinchon but then commented that about trip to Seoul Immigration and how I used Omokgyo -- so that name stuck with me. At 6:50, we met outside this cafe in the Hyundai Department Store. On a quick tangent, as I said before how large companies often own many things and don't change names, well this is one of those cases because I didn't see anything sold by Hyundai during my time there. This department store was closer to the mall I was used to because there were real kiosks (not the confusing ones I said before) and coffee shops that weren't grouped together, but spread out where they were a good seventy meters apart.
Youna and I grabbed some food from the food court and talked about school and fun things to do in Seoul. She made the mistake of asking me how I've been enjoying Seoul so far, so I told her stories for fifteen minutes about what I've done thus far. After dinner, I asked her if she was still free for something else. We spent a couple minutes thinking of something to do and finally decided on karaoke. For those of you who don't know how good I am, just take this as my personal guarantee that I am pretty amazing.
So this post turned out much longer than I anticipated. Nonetheless, it must continue! We found a karaoke...umm...place nearby. Because Seoul has so much packed in such a small space, it is uncommon to find a building only serving one function. In this case, the karaoke place was on the 13th floor of an office building. It was really cool. They gave us a room with a TV, speakers, couches and a disco ball. There were two catalogs of songs; most were in Korean, but a couple pages were English (so maybe 200 songs in English) and 800 in Korean. The room had this controller where we could enter the number of the song we wanted. I started off with "Part of your world" from the Little Mermaid. Set the tone for the night because Youna had trouble keeping a straight face during my passionate solos. We sang one Korean song that had parts of English in the chorus. I also got her to sing "Bohemian Rhapsody" with me...I don't think she fully understood the grandeur of that song. I snapped this picture of her while she was singing:
I tried to get a picture of me singing as well, but it was hard to aim the camera. Youna used her camera to take pictures of me during this song as well, so I hope she will upload them.
My throat was sore after "Unchained Melody, Dancing Queen and Stayin' Alive," so I asked her if there was a place to get some coffee. I sorta forgot this was also my first trip to a Korean Cafe until I arrived and looked at the menu. I ordered a yummy drink that was like "Cinnamon chip mocha." I liked it. Youna and I stayed at the coffee shop for about two hours, talking about philosophy. With so few English speakers, I've been thirsting for opportunities to have deep conversations. We left around 11:15PM mostly because the subway stops running at midnight-ish (I am still not sure).
It was a good today.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Transcendental unity of apperception
I've been having a love affair with that Kantian phrase...
Anyways...
Dongdaemun Stadium: There wasn't much that was significant about this adventure other than I haggled for the first time in Korea. I forgot my camera upload wire back home and needed one, so I figured that I could find a cheap replacement at the market. I brought my camera and asked in Konglish (Korean + English) for "cable" (many Korean words are rooted in English, except with slightly different pronunciation. Computer is pronounced "com - poo - der" and apartment is pronounced "a - pat - tu, for example). I showed the shopkeeper my camera and said "cable download." He picked up on it and showed me a cable for roughly $5. I shook my head no and said that was too expensive and then I held up three fingers. I won! It was a good experience.
That was my Friday. I had an adventure walk as well, but there wasn't much that was memorable. I think the best part was when these two middle-school girls were walking past and one said "hello" and both of them ran off giggling as I responded. Some Westerners say they are tired of it, but I still find it funny. Maybe I'll eat these words in a couple months.
I spent most my Saturday trying to "fix" my phone. The problem that I have is that I need to set up an account with SK to get a new USIM card. In order for them to give me a new USIM card, I need an Alien Registration Card (which I would need to get within 90 days anyways). Tomorrow I am going to apply for the card, but the application usually takes a couple days (3-4). The conclusion is that I am phone-less for the next week -- it sucks. Everyone out there should give their phones a hug and kiss their SIM cards. The "fix" I was trying to work out was to import a Skype program that would let me make phone calls over Skype's service on my cell phone. Using this application, I believe I would just need to have a Skype account and then purchase SkypeIn for people to be able to call me. Trust me, it would likely be easier than going with Ada to set up an account on my credit card (dear God, please let them accept foreign credit cards...). Samsung hates my phone so provides NO drivers to allow me to connect my phone to my computer. Essentially, when I connect my phone, my computer doesn't recognize the phone and won't let me do anything with it. It took me 5-6 hours of trying to find third-party software that would allow my computer to establish an uplink with the phone before I admitted defeat and gave up.
I did have an interesting experience on my way back from the store on Saturday. I was just walking out with these amazing drinks (that are better than anything ever)...wait...hold that thought. These drinks are like carbonated Milkis. I've had regular Milkis before and mostly felt the price wasn't worth the taste, but this is carbonated and the best drink in the world. I can really only describe it as cream, milk, sugar and carbonation -- trust me, I don't get excited about drinks very easily, but this was worth it's own paragraph.
So I was walking outside the store and this guy waves me down. I walk over and say hello and he starts talking to me in Konglish. The only real word that I recognized very well (he slurred most his words together) was "gentleman." He called me that several times, so I thanked him, shook his hand and proceeded on my way. Maybe 20 steps later, he yells "gentleman" to me and walks over to me. Shakes me hand, looks me in the eye and grunts. He leans in real close to me with his shoulder touching my chest and reaches into his back pocket. He pulls out about 40 pictures and starts showing them to me. One picture has a woman in front of a tree and he pointed with his thumb at his chest. I guessed his wife. I didn't know what I could really say, so I just commented on the tree. That made him smile. He started cycling through these pictures -- one I think was him and his brother as children, three pictures were probably his kids, a couple pictures of his wife. I stayed with him for a couple more minutes and then told him I was cold and pointed toward Ada's place. He looked me right in the eye, said "gentleman," checked the zipper on my coat and put his hand on my cheek. We smiled and parted...it was, all in all, an interesting experience. I felt pretty safe through the whole...umm...conversation and I don't know if I would have felt the same way back home.
Moving on to Sunday! Josie and I made plans to visit a couple places around Seoul and then finish the night with ice skating at city hall. It can get pretty hard to meet people without a cell phone, so we didn't get together until 2:45 (45 minutes past our meeting time). Our first destination was Insadong, which is a more traditional Korean district. I'm not sure if we missed that section, but for the most part, it appeared like the rest of Seoul. The most significant parts of Insadong were the palaces with pictures below:
This is the courtyard to the main entrance. It was pretty big and really cool.
Josie and I in front of a different palace enterence. To be honest, we visited 6 separate and unique palaces and I can't tell them apart.
This is the barren forest inside the palace walls. Josie commented that Koreans often plant trees in Seoul (they are somewhat rare) and then fail to water them. She said that in Seoul, most caretakers use straw to make "clothes" for the trees. We saw a couple trees that had these straw coats. But, despite this, she expressed disappointment with Korean trees.
Look at that...cold enough to snow, but it just won't! I think this will look beautiful in the summer time.
This carving was decorating parts of one of the palaces. The men on horses are Japanese and it appears that the Japanese are killing or torturing women in this Korean village. There was another carving commemorating a female martyr that helped found a resistance group. The style shows her raising a Korean flag despite the coming Japanese bayonets.
After we finished at Insadong, we planned to visit Itaewon. I'd been trying to avoid spending too much time at Itaewon because it is the foreigner part of Seoul and I am not really interested in meeting up with Westerners at this point. Nonetheless, I felt that I would have to go in order to find an ATM that allows withdrawals from international banks. Luckily, it worked, so I was able to replenish my cash supply which was uncomfortably low. We ate at an expensive restaurant in Itaewon (expensive because of all the foreigners) that served mediocre food -- not as good as Kim bop (I also learned that is two words) around Ada's -- and I had my first experience with Soju. Expensive food in Korea is about normal back home -- I paid about $8 for my meal and was a little pissed. Back at my little Kim Bop restaurant I could get more food for $3 and it tastes better.
Soju is a Korean drink that comes in a beer-sized bottle and then the patrons pour it into shot glasses. Josie told me that traditional Korean customs demand the younger generations to pour for the older generations -- so Josie, being some 3 months my junior, had to fill my shot glass. Additionally, she said that the elders are supposed to drink their Soju facing the guest while the youngsters need to turn to their left when they drink -- therefore not facing the elder. Finally, it is mildly rude to have empty glasses during the meal because it makes the host look inattentive (that is my understanding at least). Josie said she disliked that custom because guests will often avoid drinking so the host doesn't have to serve everyone and also that many tables are left with drinks that are completely full.
We finished our night ice skating at city hall. It was really cheap, costing only about $3 for the both of us (including skate rental). They also gave us little gloves that we got to keep. I hadn't been ice skating in years and that made it a blast. There were a lot of people, so I made it a goal to knock down as many of them as I could...just kidding. Here is a picture of the outside of the skating rink:
Anyways...
Dongdaemun Stadium: There wasn't much that was significant about this adventure other than I haggled for the first time in Korea. I forgot my camera upload wire back home and needed one, so I figured that I could find a cheap replacement at the market. I brought my camera and asked in Konglish (Korean + English) for "cable" (many Korean words are rooted in English, except with slightly different pronunciation. Computer is pronounced "com - poo - der" and apartment is pronounced "a - pat - tu, for example). I showed the shopkeeper my camera and said "cable download." He picked up on it and showed me a cable for roughly $5. I shook my head no and said that was too expensive and then I held up three fingers. I won! It was a good experience.
That was my Friday. I had an adventure walk as well, but there wasn't much that was memorable. I think the best part was when these two middle-school girls were walking past and one said "hello" and both of them ran off giggling as I responded. Some Westerners say they are tired of it, but I still find it funny. Maybe I'll eat these words in a couple months.
I spent most my Saturday trying to "fix" my phone. The problem that I have is that I need to set up an account with SK to get a new USIM card. In order for them to give me a new USIM card, I need an Alien Registration Card (which I would need to get within 90 days anyways). Tomorrow I am going to apply for the card, but the application usually takes a couple days (3-4). The conclusion is that I am phone-less for the next week -- it sucks. Everyone out there should give their phones a hug and kiss their SIM cards. The "fix" I was trying to work out was to import a Skype program that would let me make phone calls over Skype's service on my cell phone. Using this application, I believe I would just need to have a Skype account and then purchase SkypeIn for people to be able to call me. Trust me, it would likely be easier than going with Ada to set up an account on my credit card (dear God, please let them accept foreign credit cards...). Samsung hates my phone so provides NO drivers to allow me to connect my phone to my computer. Essentially, when I connect my phone, my computer doesn't recognize the phone and won't let me do anything with it. It took me 5-6 hours of trying to find third-party software that would allow my computer to establish an uplink with the phone before I admitted defeat and gave up.
I did have an interesting experience on my way back from the store on Saturday. I was just walking out with these amazing drinks (that are better than anything ever)...wait...hold that thought. These drinks are like carbonated Milkis. I've had regular Milkis before and mostly felt the price wasn't worth the taste, but this is carbonated and the best drink in the world. I can really only describe it as cream, milk, sugar and carbonation -- trust me, I don't get excited about drinks very easily, but this was worth it's own paragraph.
So I was walking outside the store and this guy waves me down. I walk over and say hello and he starts talking to me in Konglish. The only real word that I recognized very well (he slurred most his words together) was "gentleman." He called me that several times, so I thanked him, shook his hand and proceeded on my way. Maybe 20 steps later, he yells "gentleman" to me and walks over to me. Shakes me hand, looks me in the eye and grunts. He leans in real close to me with his shoulder touching my chest and reaches into his back pocket. He pulls out about 40 pictures and starts showing them to me. One picture has a woman in front of a tree and he pointed with his thumb at his chest. I guessed his wife. I didn't know what I could really say, so I just commented on the tree. That made him smile. He started cycling through these pictures -- one I think was him and his brother as children, three pictures were probably his kids, a couple pictures of his wife. I stayed with him for a couple more minutes and then told him I was cold and pointed toward Ada's place. He looked me right in the eye, said "gentleman," checked the zipper on my coat and put his hand on my cheek. We smiled and parted...it was, all in all, an interesting experience. I felt pretty safe through the whole...umm...conversation and I don't know if I would have felt the same way back home.
Moving on to Sunday! Josie and I made plans to visit a couple places around Seoul and then finish the night with ice skating at city hall. It can get pretty hard to meet people without a cell phone, so we didn't get together until 2:45 (45 minutes past our meeting time). Our first destination was Insadong, which is a more traditional Korean district. I'm not sure if we missed that section, but for the most part, it appeared like the rest of Seoul. The most significant parts of Insadong were the palaces with pictures below:
This is the courtyard to the main entrance. It was pretty big and really cool.
Josie and I in front of a different palace enterence. To be honest, we visited 6 separate and unique palaces and I can't tell them apart.
This is the barren forest inside the palace walls. Josie commented that Koreans often plant trees in Seoul (they are somewhat rare) and then fail to water them. She said that in Seoul, most caretakers use straw to make "clothes" for the trees. We saw a couple trees that had these straw coats. But, despite this, she expressed disappointment with Korean trees.
Look at that...cold enough to snow, but it just won't! I think this will look beautiful in the summer time.
This carving was decorating parts of one of the palaces. The men on horses are Japanese and it appears that the Japanese are killing or torturing women in this Korean village. There was another carving commemorating a female martyr that helped found a resistance group. The style shows her raising a Korean flag despite the coming Japanese bayonets.After we finished at Insadong, we planned to visit Itaewon. I'd been trying to avoid spending too much time at Itaewon because it is the foreigner part of Seoul and I am not really interested in meeting up with Westerners at this point. Nonetheless, I felt that I would have to go in order to find an ATM that allows withdrawals from international banks. Luckily, it worked, so I was able to replenish my cash supply which was uncomfortably low. We ate at an expensive restaurant in Itaewon (expensive because of all the foreigners) that served mediocre food -- not as good as Kim bop (I also learned that is two words) around Ada's -- and I had my first experience with Soju. Expensive food in Korea is about normal back home -- I paid about $8 for my meal and was a little pissed. Back at my little Kim Bop restaurant I could get more food for $3 and it tastes better.
Soju is a Korean drink that comes in a beer-sized bottle and then the patrons pour it into shot glasses. Josie told me that traditional Korean customs demand the younger generations to pour for the older generations -- so Josie, being some 3 months my junior, had to fill my shot glass. Additionally, she said that the elders are supposed to drink their Soju facing the guest while the youngsters need to turn to their left when they drink -- therefore not facing the elder. Finally, it is mildly rude to have empty glasses during the meal because it makes the host look inattentive (that is my understanding at least). Josie said she disliked that custom because guests will often avoid drinking so the host doesn't have to serve everyone and also that many tables are left with drinks that are completely full.
We finished our night ice skating at city hall. It was really cheap, costing only about $3 for the both of us (including skate rental). They also gave us little gloves that we got to keep. I hadn't been ice skating in years and that made it a blast. There were a lot of people, so I made it a goal to knock down as many of them as I could...just kidding. Here is a picture of the outside of the skating rink:
Friday, February 8, 2008
Pictures
So I couldn't find the cord to upload pictures from my camera. Today I went back to the Dongdaemun Stadium to try to buy a replacement cord and the look for DVD's. I'll update later on that adventure, but first here is a round of pictures (I had some problems with format, so excuse the ordering):
This is a shop at Dongdaemun that ONLY sold foreign bags. In this picture you can see a Chanel bag. There were also Abercrombie bags, Disney bags and so forth. Brian told me that Koreans are very status orientated, so buying your goods and putting them in a Chanel bag looks better than a simple black bag. I can't tell from this picture, but I believe most bags were sold for about $3.
This picture shows two things: the market was actually on a street with people driving through and it also shows a car with loudspeakers driving through the crowd. I wanted to get a picture of the side because I think it said something like "choose Jesus and receive hell." They were Christian, just had some trouble with the translation.
This was the alleyway of shoes. I must stress this picture does not do justice to how many shoe stores were on this path.
Silkworm larvae. The smell was so strong that it overpowered every other smell in the market.
This is the room I am in. The bed nearly touches the door. There is a bookcase to the bottom left of this picture.
I usually see that symbol as a swastika. I know that it is a religious symbol for Buddhists and Hindus, but seeing it everywhere takes some getting used to. On that note, there are quite a few Churches with giant neon illuminated crosses that light the sky at night. It looks almost a little Satanic to see these bright red crosses on the skyline...
I think this is a picture of the Eastern Gate (name might be different, though). It was destroyed in the Korean war and then rebuilt. Ada explained that it was a military fort. The reason I like this picture so much is because you can see a meshing of 21st century and 18th century. I bet you $5 those cars turning left are running a red light...
This is Ada's shower. My first night here I went in fully clothed and just set things on top of the washer while I showered, not realizing they would be completely soaked. As you can see, there is nowhere to put dry clothes where they can't get wet. There are a couple nails available to hang towels from.
This is a shop at Dongdaemun that ONLY sold foreign bags. In this picture you can see a Chanel bag. There were also Abercrombie bags, Disney bags and so forth. Brian told me that Koreans are very status orientated, so buying your goods and putting them in a Chanel bag looks better than a simple black bag. I can't tell from this picture, but I believe most bags were sold for about $3.
This picture shows two things: the market was actually on a street with people driving through and it also shows a car with loudspeakers driving through the crowd. I wanted to get a picture of the side because I think it said something like "choose Jesus and receive hell." They were Christian, just had some trouble with the translation.
This was the alleyway of shoes. I must stress this picture does not do justice to how many shoe stores were on this path.
Silkworm larvae. The smell was so strong that it overpowered every other smell in the market.
This is the room I am in. The bed nearly touches the door. There is a bookcase to the bottom left of this picture.
I usually see that symbol as a swastika. I know that it is a religious symbol for Buddhists and Hindus, but seeing it everywhere takes some getting used to. On that note, there are quite a few Churches with giant neon illuminated crosses that light the sky at night. It looks almost a little Satanic to see these bright red crosses on the skyline...
I think this is a picture of the Eastern Gate (name might be different, though). It was destroyed in the Korean war and then rebuilt. Ada explained that it was a military fort. The reason I like this picture so much is because you can see a meshing of 21st century and 18th century. I bet you $5 those cars turning left are running a red light...
This is Ada's shower. My first night here I went in fully clothed and just set things on top of the washer while I showered, not realizing they would be completely soaked. As you can see, there is nowhere to put dry clothes where they can't get wet. There are a couple nails available to hang towels from.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Skype and driving
I'll go ahead and reverse that order and talk about driving first.
Since this is approaching on the longest I've spent in a city the size of Seoul, it is difficult for me to differentiate between what is shared in big cities and what is unique to Seoul. With that said, I have never been so dumbfounded at the driving behaviors in this city!
As far as I can tell, police do not spend much time on traffic violations. I am used to "green = go, yellow = go faster or stop, red = stop." Here, red seems to mean either 1) "I can make it before oncoming traffic hits me," 2) "the car behind me is probably going to go as well, so I won't look quite as bad running this light," or 3) "proceed with caution." It isn't just the regular drivers either, it is taxi drivers and bus drivers. The Village Bus (Ada calls it that, but it is smaller than the other buses. I think the village bus gets kicked around by the bigger ones so I ride it to help it's self-esteem) last night was at a red light, a car was coming and the bus just went after the car passed. The light was red! Additionally, I was in a cab with Ada one day and the taxi was the sixth car to enter the intersection after the light turned red.
I really love that bus though. I am used to cars merging when given the opportunity, but this bus pulls up centimeters (I am trying to learn the metric system -- I wish they taught it to us in school...) next to the nice Hyundai, with the driver going straight and the bus trying to merge in, and the bus driver just starts honking. He waved his hands and just started going into the lane.
Streets around Ada's place are also paper thin. If I were driving here, I would consider most to be alleyways or simply parking lots because so many people just park in the street. I was walking today on a two lane road -- a TWO LANE ROAD (for emphasis) -- and half of the right lane was filled with parked cars that were up on the sidewalk. The left side mirrored the same image. This obviously made the road a one-lane road with traffic going in two directions. Despite all the honking, the drivers almost always seem very courteous. Both cars coming at each other honked and then one pulled to the side and they waved at each other. Normally I always see one of the cars yield with no yelling or obscene gestures (unless a wave means something different here...). I spent most of my day walking and witnessed one-way signs crying as they were ignored. I swear I saw tears! My first morning here I also saw a sign that had a picture of a car getting towed. I assumed that meant "don't park here, or you will be towed." Unsurprising, a car was parked as close to that pole as possible -- almost as the obligatory middle finger. I laughed to Ada about it and she just said she rarely sees tickets, fines or cars towed.
I walked a couple kilometers (AKA miles) today. Most stores seemed closed except for PC cafes and convenience stores. If only one of those SK telecom stores stayed open, they would have had 100% of the business today. The first walk I went on was to get Jasmine out for exercise. She did better this time and walked for most of the trip. I think she is trying to test my patience because she will randomly stop and shiver. I don't really want to pull her or pick her up, so I just stand there and say "come Jasmine. I have candy for you" (that works with kids). She would wait a couple minutes and then just continue walking. She did the same thing when I wanted to take a different route than her.
My second walk was to try to find a computer microphone so I could talk with Skype. I was trying to find a department store, electronic store, or street vendor that had something cheap. I walked for about an hour through the streets until I found a PC cafe that was open. The guy at the desk spoke little English, but we were able to hand-gesture our way to an understanding. He gave me directions to someplace that he believed would sell me a microphone. I realized at this point it would be good to have my phone because my phone has an English-Korean dictionary. I didn't bring it since it was low on batteries and beeping at me. I ate when I got home and charged my phone while I waited. Jasmine and I talked about interior decorating over noodles and pineapple juice.
As I took off again, I stopped at another PC cafe to see if anything was closer. This guy spoke no English, but I had my dictionary to show him "buy" and then I said microphone while demonstrating with a headset on one of the computers. He went to the back room and brought me one in a box. I was pleased because I bought these cool headphones for 3000 Won ($3) and they are made by Hyundai! They are blue and have padding to make sure it is soft. They are called "ROCK FIRE" (not in capitals, but that is how I say it).
On that note, just a little quirk of Korea, major companies seem to be somehow attached to everything commercial. There are SK gas stations and there is a band that was made to sell Samsung phones (Anyband is the band name to sell their phones, Anycall). There are other examples, but I can't think of them right now. Oh, I also saw a vending machine for candy, coffee, pop and it was a pay phone!
Back on track, I dropped my new headphones off at Ada's and logged on Skype. I started searching for JiBin's friends, but only found one (I think...I sent the person a message but she has yet to respond). I also couldn't find JiBin. My sister said she made an account, but gave me no indication as to what it is. For the record, my contact on Skype is erik.hagen2. I have a microphone now so just give me a call on Skype and we can chat!
I played around for about an hour and then decided to go for an "adventure" walk where I was just exploring the city. I was gone for about three hours because I got lost. When I got home I made dinner, watched "Sicko" and showered. Today felt boring compared to yesterday, but I somehow managed to get quite a bit written. I am impressed.
Since this is approaching on the longest I've spent in a city the size of Seoul, it is difficult for me to differentiate between what is shared in big cities and what is unique to Seoul. With that said, I have never been so dumbfounded at the driving behaviors in this city!
As far as I can tell, police do not spend much time on traffic violations. I am used to "green = go, yellow = go faster or stop, red = stop." Here, red seems to mean either 1) "I can make it before oncoming traffic hits me," 2) "the car behind me is probably going to go as well, so I won't look quite as bad running this light," or 3) "proceed with caution." It isn't just the regular drivers either, it is taxi drivers and bus drivers. The Village Bus (Ada calls it that, but it is smaller than the other buses. I think the village bus gets kicked around by the bigger ones so I ride it to help it's self-esteem) last night was at a red light, a car was coming and the bus just went after the car passed. The light was red! Additionally, I was in a cab with Ada one day and the taxi was the sixth car to enter the intersection after the light turned red.
I really love that bus though. I am used to cars merging when given the opportunity, but this bus pulls up centimeters (I am trying to learn the metric system -- I wish they taught it to us in school...) next to the nice Hyundai, with the driver going straight and the bus trying to merge in, and the bus driver just starts honking. He waved his hands and just started going into the lane.
Streets around Ada's place are also paper thin. If I were driving here, I would consider most to be alleyways or simply parking lots because so many people just park in the street. I was walking today on a two lane road -- a TWO LANE ROAD (for emphasis) -- and half of the right lane was filled with parked cars that were up on the sidewalk. The left side mirrored the same image. This obviously made the road a one-lane road with traffic going in two directions. Despite all the honking, the drivers almost always seem very courteous. Both cars coming at each other honked and then one pulled to the side and they waved at each other. Normally I always see one of the cars yield with no yelling or obscene gestures (unless a wave means something different here...). I spent most of my day walking and witnessed one-way signs crying as they were ignored. I swear I saw tears! My first morning here I also saw a sign that had a picture of a car getting towed. I assumed that meant "don't park here, or you will be towed." Unsurprising, a car was parked as close to that pole as possible -- almost as the obligatory middle finger. I laughed to Ada about it and she just said she rarely sees tickets, fines or cars towed.
I walked a couple kilometers (AKA miles) today. Most stores seemed closed except for PC cafes and convenience stores. If only one of those SK telecom stores stayed open, they would have had 100% of the business today. The first walk I went on was to get Jasmine out for exercise. She did better this time and walked for most of the trip. I think she is trying to test my patience because she will randomly stop and shiver. I don't really want to pull her or pick her up, so I just stand there and say "come Jasmine. I have candy for you" (that works with kids). She would wait a couple minutes and then just continue walking. She did the same thing when I wanted to take a different route than her.
My second walk was to try to find a computer microphone so I could talk with Skype. I was trying to find a department store, electronic store, or street vendor that had something cheap. I walked for about an hour through the streets until I found a PC cafe that was open. The guy at the desk spoke little English, but we were able to hand-gesture our way to an understanding. He gave me directions to someplace that he believed would sell me a microphone. I realized at this point it would be good to have my phone because my phone has an English-Korean dictionary. I didn't bring it since it was low on batteries and beeping at me. I ate when I got home and charged my phone while I waited. Jasmine and I talked about interior decorating over noodles and pineapple juice.
As I took off again, I stopped at another PC cafe to see if anything was closer. This guy spoke no English, but I had my dictionary to show him "buy" and then I said microphone while demonstrating with a headset on one of the computers. He went to the back room and brought me one in a box. I was pleased because I bought these cool headphones for 3000 Won ($3) and they are made by Hyundai! They are blue and have padding to make sure it is soft. They are called "ROCK FIRE" (not in capitals, but that is how I say it).
On that note, just a little quirk of Korea, major companies seem to be somehow attached to everything commercial. There are SK gas stations and there is a band that was made to sell Samsung phones (Anyband is the band name to sell their phones, Anycall). There are other examples, but I can't think of them right now. Oh, I also saw a vending machine for candy, coffee, pop and it was a pay phone!
Back on track, I dropped my new headphones off at Ada's and logged on Skype. I started searching for JiBin's friends, but only found one (I think...I sent the person a message but she has yet to respond). I also couldn't find JiBin. My sister said she made an account, but gave me no indication as to what it is. For the record, my contact on Skype is erik.hagen2. I have a microphone now so just give me a call on Skype and we can chat!
I played around for about an hour and then decided to go for an "adventure" walk where I was just exploring the city. I was gone for about three hours because I got lost. When I got home I made dinner, watched "Sicko" and showered. Today felt boring compared to yesterday, but I somehow managed to get quite a bit written. I am impressed.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
More phone + Lotte World!
Well yesterday wasn't as exciting, so I didn't take the time to write about it. I will simply make two observations:
1) Cell phone service sucks for foreigners here. First, after some searching, Ada and I figured out that I either need to buy 1) a new USIM card (pretty much the same as a SIM card) or 2) transfer the service to me from the previous owner. The problem with 2 is that she is gone for Lunar New Year and won't be back until next week (phone-less until then). And the problem with 1 is that I will need a subscription plan, which means I need an Alien Registration Card, which means that if you add in the holiday days, I can't submit for the card until next week. The reason is: Lunar New Year. I think it will work out eventualy, but I feel absolutely naked without a (working) phone (because I carry it with me to play with my virtual pet).
Lunar New Year is coming up (actually, tomorrow). It is a national holiday where many Koreans travel to visit family. I heard a story of a family that had to book a plane ticket to get from Seoul to Pusan (about a 2 hour bus) because there was nothing left of anything else. Anyways, it means that the business hours are all messy and I am mostly stuck with nothing to do. Ada and Brian went for a trip today for the New Year and so I am here alone watching Ada's dog Jasmine. I think Jasmine was abused in her earlier years and doesn't take kindly to men at all because she is constantly frightened of me and Brian, but seems to be okay around Ada. I tried to walk her tonight and we made it about half way until she refused to move...I had to carry her back.
So a lot can happen in two days, which explains the jumping around. 2) The second thing that happened yesterday was that Ada and I went looking for phone help. The place we needed was SK telecom. I had NO idea how frequently these stores appear. Literally, in a one block radius, there were about five different stores. Ada explained that they each serve different functions, but never really clarified what those functions were. All the stores sell phones, some can offer credit for prepaid service, some can help with USIM problems, some don't seem to do either, some are VERY friendly to foreigners, some are mean to foreigners. I didn't think it was possible to visit twelve different SK telecom stores in an hour...I mean think of Starbucks in Seattle -- one every block -- and I was amazed at how many of these stores exist. Each one appears to be independently managed because they all have sales. My Korean is still poor (awful), but one store appeared to have a 90% off phones (I read that in English)...or they raised prices by 90%...but I doubt that. When you see "90% phone..." you mostly assume it is a sale for how much % off.
Ada also gave me some useful advice. The traditional barber shop signs that spin red, white and blue are like everywhere on the streets around her place. They spin much quicker here than back home, so I told her I really liked the barber shop signs. Ada then gave me one of those "wait, what?" moments when she enlightened me that they can sometimes be symbols for prostitutes. "Wait, what?" Ada continued "I've heard from friends that if there are two spinning next to each other, that is where you can find prostitutes." We also just happened to be passing about three in a row that were paired together. I was silent a couple seconds and then thanked her: "I would have been very confused during that haircut..."
Lotte World: If I could describe it in one word, I would say "DisneylandwithoutDisney."
(Lotte World will now be abbreviated as LW because I got tired of writing Lotte so many times)
I got in touch with another exchange student from OSU studying in Korea named Josie. I had been communicating with her through Facebook and she invited me to join her and a friend at LW today. I honestly had no idea what it was. Nonetheless, I thought it would great to meet Josie and her friend and spend the day with them. I woke up at like 8:15 in order to meet her outside LW at 9:30AM (I was trying to be late, but made it on time thanks to a miscalculation on how long it would take the bus to reach the subway). Josie was born and raised in Korea, but her parents moved to the USA because the education was better (I know, I was a little surprised too) and they wanted her to learn English. She is already fluent in Korean, is near perfect in English (she was more humble about it) and also speaks Japanese. Really smart.
Her friend (I feel so bad because I forgot her name twice) was also really nice, but was too shy to really speak English around me. What that led to was Josie talking to me for ten minutes in English and then talking to her friend in Korean. Her friend and I indirectly communicated through Josie -- but my jokes weren't as funny in Korean, apparently. I felt really bad because I wanted to talk to Josie but didn't want to leave her friend out. In my defense, Josie taught me like twenty new Korean phrases (I remember maybe 5 of them =*( ), and her friend's name was hard for me to remember. I was the first American her friend had really spent any time with...I am going to sleep tonight hoping I made a good impression.
Back to LW: LW is an amusement park in Seoul, housed inside what I see as a big shopping mall. Let me clarify that: if you took old Washington Square, built two more stories and installed a theme park, you would have half of LW. There was an additional island outside with some fun rides, so maybe take that image and add an island about the size of a football stadium if the stadium were flat. The theme for the park seemed to be "Western culture."
Let me first stress how awesome this place was. I had such a blast and it was an amazing day. But I have to laugh about a few things, observe a couple more and then say what I loved.
Laugh 1) I think in the Western world there is often a mental organization that groups together all Asian societies into one shared culture. I was reminded of that here as well, except in the opposite direction. There was this ride that was something like "The Pharaoh's Curse" that possessed an Ancient Egypt theme. Inside the doors, there was this statute of Horace or some similar Egyptian god that was held on a pillar with Ancient Greeks. As we continued through this room, I noticed impressionist paintings of romantic France and American architecture. The next room was the pharaohs tomb...
Laugh 2) Disneyland has those magic cups...LW has the "Drunken Basket."
Laugh 3) Speaking of Disney, most themed rides seemed to be eerily similar to Disney. "Pirates of the Caribbean" was found with "Adventures of Sindbad," "Space Mountain" was this ride like "Comet Rush," and "Splash Mountain" was some weird adventure with many dinosaurs. One ride that I loved was called "French Revolution." I didn't get the name at all because there wasn't anything remotely French...unless the revolution involved a cave with flashing lights and one of those loops on a roller coaster where you are upside down.
Laugh 4) Sometimes the English translation just came off humorously. I remember reading a couple signs and just smiling to myself (Ali Baba and the 40 Fibs). I bet American signs written in Korean come off odd as well, but chuckling about the language differences is sometimes just called for. Case in point, from the English LW website, Lotty (the mascot) is described as "(one who) likes to play with other children, and is our friend who breeds dream with bright and nice mind." Ignoring the proximity of children and breeds, I just couldn't help but picturing a parent reluctantly explaining "when two people love each other very much..."
Observation 1) The staff at LW was really great and brought some positive energy. Josie had to translate, but as we finished the rides, four staff members would say something like (and you have to sing this in beat, each period is a pause) "the exit..is on [clap clap] the right." I couldn't imagine that job being very fun, but the staff seemed to have fun with synchronized hand movements (like "are you ready [point point] then lets get this [clap clap] ride going [move arms in a circle to point at the conductor]). Everyone there also had this wave where they took both hands and just kind of waved them. One guy told Josie that at Everland (the biggest in Korea, LW is the second) they do the same wave with their palms facing inward. That should be a jeopardy question.
Observation 2) I REALLY stuck out here. I got kicked off two rides for being too tall where a Korean that looked about the same height as me passed without question. The cut off for two rides was 1.87M (I am about 1.95M according to Josie's phone) so I was only 8CM too tall. That is nothing! Maybe he was short enough and I misjudged his height, but we met nearly eye to eye. There was also this little girl that ran up to me while I was waiting in line, waved, and said "hello." As I started to respond she ran off. Put a big smile on my face. Brian and I were walking home one night and this little boy said "hi" and ran off, leaving his two friends there. Brian growled at them and they took off too. I laughed as Brian explained he was tired of the kids.
Great Thing 1) I am not sure why (because today was a holiday), but there were not many people there. In the afternoon, some waits were about 40 minutes (reminisce of Disneyland). The park seemed to quiet down at 6PM when we rode the same ride three times in a row by running around and getting back in line. There were two rides that took us up some 30 stories and gave us a free fall. The lights of the Seoul buildings bouncing off the half-iced river was breathtaking (coupled with the quick fall, which also made it hard to breathe).
Great Thing 2) The park was very accommodating to foreigners, printing many signs in Korean, English and Chinese. Many staff members also spoke a little English to help me out during those confusing times.
Great Thing 3) The food was great! I couldn't tell you what I ate today, but everything was spectacular. There was this snack that was like a pancake stuffed with a sweet paste of beans and sunflower seeds (according to Josie). It was so sweet and wonderful, despite my limited description.
Great Thing 4) The rides were very fun. We bought our tickets to enter LW at about 10AM and left at 9:00PM only because I was concerned that the bus wouldn't be running too late during the holidays. There was a laser light show starting at 9 that I wanted to see and then there was this ride that circled the inside section. At night, the illuminated structures would have been beautiful.
Great Thing 5) Josie is awesome. Was so great spending the day with her. Her friend was nice too, but I wish there would have been something I could have done to help her feel comfortable speaking English around me.
1) Cell phone service sucks for foreigners here. First, after some searching, Ada and I figured out that I either need to buy 1) a new USIM card (pretty much the same as a SIM card) or 2) transfer the service to me from the previous owner. The problem with 2 is that she is gone for Lunar New Year and won't be back until next week (phone-less until then). And the problem with 1 is that I will need a subscription plan, which means I need an Alien Registration Card, which means that if you add in the holiday days, I can't submit for the card until next week. The reason is: Lunar New Year. I think it will work out eventualy, but I feel absolutely naked without a (working) phone (because I carry it with me to play with my virtual pet).
Lunar New Year is coming up (actually, tomorrow). It is a national holiday where many Koreans travel to visit family. I heard a story of a family that had to book a plane ticket to get from Seoul to Pusan (about a 2 hour bus) because there was nothing left of anything else. Anyways, it means that the business hours are all messy and I am mostly stuck with nothing to do. Ada and Brian went for a trip today for the New Year and so I am here alone watching Ada's dog Jasmine. I think Jasmine was abused in her earlier years and doesn't take kindly to men at all because she is constantly frightened of me and Brian, but seems to be okay around Ada. I tried to walk her tonight and we made it about half way until she refused to move...I had to carry her back.
So a lot can happen in two days, which explains the jumping around. 2) The second thing that happened yesterday was that Ada and I went looking for phone help. The place we needed was SK telecom. I had NO idea how frequently these stores appear. Literally, in a one block radius, there were about five different stores. Ada explained that they each serve different functions, but never really clarified what those functions were. All the stores sell phones, some can offer credit for prepaid service, some can help with USIM problems, some don't seem to do either, some are VERY friendly to foreigners, some are mean to foreigners. I didn't think it was possible to visit twelve different SK telecom stores in an hour...I mean think of Starbucks in Seattle -- one every block -- and I was amazed at how many of these stores exist. Each one appears to be independently managed because they all have sales. My Korean is still poor (awful), but one store appeared to have a 90% off phones (I read that in English)...or they raised prices by 90%...but I doubt that. When you see "90% phone..." you mostly assume it is a sale for how much % off.
Ada also gave me some useful advice. The traditional barber shop signs that spin red, white and blue are like everywhere on the streets around her place. They spin much quicker here than back home, so I told her I really liked the barber shop signs. Ada then gave me one of those "wait, what?" moments when she enlightened me that they can sometimes be symbols for prostitutes. "Wait, what?" Ada continued "I've heard from friends that if there are two spinning next to each other, that is where you can find prostitutes." We also just happened to be passing about three in a row that were paired together. I was silent a couple seconds and then thanked her: "I would have been very confused during that haircut..."
Lotte World: If I could describe it in one word, I would say "DisneylandwithoutDisney."
(Lotte World will now be abbreviated as LW because I got tired of writing Lotte so many times)
I got in touch with another exchange student from OSU studying in Korea named Josie. I had been communicating with her through Facebook and she invited me to join her and a friend at LW today. I honestly had no idea what it was. Nonetheless, I thought it would great to meet Josie and her friend and spend the day with them. I woke up at like 8:15 in order to meet her outside LW at 9:30AM (I was trying to be late, but made it on time thanks to a miscalculation on how long it would take the bus to reach the subway). Josie was born and raised in Korea, but her parents moved to the USA because the education was better (I know, I was a little surprised too) and they wanted her to learn English. She is already fluent in Korean, is near perfect in English (she was more humble about it) and also speaks Japanese. Really smart.
Her friend (I feel so bad because I forgot her name twice) was also really nice, but was too shy to really speak English around me. What that led to was Josie talking to me for ten minutes in English and then talking to her friend in Korean. Her friend and I indirectly communicated through Josie -- but my jokes weren't as funny in Korean, apparently. I felt really bad because I wanted to talk to Josie but didn't want to leave her friend out. In my defense, Josie taught me like twenty new Korean phrases (I remember maybe 5 of them =*( ), and her friend's name was hard for me to remember. I was the first American her friend had really spent any time with...I am going to sleep tonight hoping I made a good impression.
Back to LW: LW is an amusement park in Seoul, housed inside what I see as a big shopping mall. Let me clarify that: if you took old Washington Square, built two more stories and installed a theme park, you would have half of LW. There was an additional island outside with some fun rides, so maybe take that image and add an island about the size of a football stadium if the stadium were flat. The theme for the park seemed to be "Western culture."
Let me first stress how awesome this place was. I had such a blast and it was an amazing day. But I have to laugh about a few things, observe a couple more and then say what I loved.
Laugh 1) I think in the Western world there is often a mental organization that groups together all Asian societies into one shared culture. I was reminded of that here as well, except in the opposite direction. There was this ride that was something like "The Pharaoh's Curse" that possessed an Ancient Egypt theme. Inside the doors, there was this statute of Horace or some similar Egyptian god that was held on a pillar with Ancient Greeks. As we continued through this room, I noticed impressionist paintings of romantic France and American architecture. The next room was the pharaohs tomb...
Laugh 2) Disneyland has those magic cups...LW has the "Drunken Basket."
Laugh 3) Speaking of Disney, most themed rides seemed to be eerily similar to Disney. "Pirates of the Caribbean" was found with "Adventures of Sindbad," "Space Mountain" was this ride like "Comet Rush," and "Splash Mountain" was some weird adventure with many dinosaurs. One ride that I loved was called "French Revolution." I didn't get the name at all because there wasn't anything remotely French...unless the revolution involved a cave with flashing lights and one of those loops on a roller coaster where you are upside down.
Laugh 4) Sometimes the English translation just came off humorously. I remember reading a couple signs and just smiling to myself (Ali Baba and the 40 Fibs). I bet American signs written in Korean come off odd as well, but chuckling about the language differences is sometimes just called for. Case in point, from the English LW website, Lotty (the mascot) is described as "(one who) likes to play with other children, and is our friend who breeds dream with bright and nice mind." Ignoring the proximity of children and breeds, I just couldn't help but picturing a parent reluctantly explaining "when two people love each other very much..."
Observation 1) The staff at LW was really great and brought some positive energy. Josie had to translate, but as we finished the rides, four staff members would say something like (and you have to sing this in beat, each period is a pause) "the exit..is on [clap clap] the right." I couldn't imagine that job being very fun, but the staff seemed to have fun with synchronized hand movements (like "are you ready [point point] then lets get this [clap clap] ride going [move arms in a circle to point at the conductor]). Everyone there also had this wave where they took both hands and just kind of waved them. One guy told Josie that at Everland (the biggest in Korea, LW is the second) they do the same wave with their palms facing inward. That should be a jeopardy question.
Observation 2) I REALLY stuck out here. I got kicked off two rides for being too tall where a Korean that looked about the same height as me passed without question. The cut off for two rides was 1.87M (I am about 1.95M according to Josie's phone) so I was only 8CM too tall. That is nothing! Maybe he was short enough and I misjudged his height, but we met nearly eye to eye. There was also this little girl that ran up to me while I was waiting in line, waved, and said "hello." As I started to respond she ran off. Put a big smile on my face. Brian and I were walking home one night and this little boy said "hi" and ran off, leaving his two friends there. Brian growled at them and they took off too. I laughed as Brian explained he was tired of the kids.
Great Thing 1) I am not sure why (because today was a holiday), but there were not many people there. In the afternoon, some waits were about 40 minutes (reminisce of Disneyland). The park seemed to quiet down at 6PM when we rode the same ride three times in a row by running around and getting back in line. There were two rides that took us up some 30 stories and gave us a free fall. The lights of the Seoul buildings bouncing off the half-iced river was breathtaking (coupled with the quick fall, which also made it hard to breathe).
Great Thing 2) The park was very accommodating to foreigners, printing many signs in Korean, English and Chinese. Many staff members also spoke a little English to help me out during those confusing times.
Great Thing 3) The food was great! I couldn't tell you what I ate today, but everything was spectacular. There was this snack that was like a pancake stuffed with a sweet paste of beans and sunflower seeds (according to Josie). It was so sweet and wonderful, despite my limited description.
Great Thing 4) The rides were very fun. We bought our tickets to enter LW at about 10AM and left at 9:00PM only because I was concerned that the bus wouldn't be running too late during the holidays. There was a laser light show starting at 9 that I wanted to see and then there was this ride that circled the inside section. At night, the illuminated structures would have been beautiful.
Great Thing 5) Josie is awesome. Was so great spending the day with her. Her friend was nice too, but I wish there would have been something I could have done to help her feel comfortable speaking English around me.
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