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: