KOREA

OK SO YES IT HAS BEEN A WHILE SINCE I POSED A BLOG ... BUT ......HERE IS ONE I WROTE A WHILE AGO.. WHEN I WAS ONLY 3 WEEKS OLD IN KOREA.... A LOT HAS HAPPENED SINCE THEN AND I HAD NOT FINISHED THIS BLOG .. BUT HERE GOES... HOPE U ENJOY READING THIS...

Korea! Dang Hing Mun (check this)!

It has been 3 weeks since I arrived in South Korea, but yes, it’s only now that I am writing anything about it. Busy, lazy or something else… I don’t know… but now I will pen my feelings about my journey so far!

Coming to SK has been quite different from South Africa. I was not as excited, not as novel, and not as prepared to leave home. Hmm..! But I am glad I came here. Thanks to my mom, who pushed me, when I was almost going to refrain from going to SK. I really don’t know why I was so uninterested. Maybe I felt that I just came back from SA and had not been with my family enough OR maybe I was so used to the routine of life in Fremont, that I did not want change again. Sometime it feels good to be in safe and familiar surroundings. But frankly, I have not even thought about all these things I am penning at this moment. Honestly, I don’t know why I was not as excited to come to SK, although everyone I told was extremely excited for me. Even more than when I told them about SA! Hmm!! I think my mom noticed this and even asked me about it.

But like I said, after 3 weeks I am glad I am came to SK. A big thanks to my mom.

So, when I first arrived at the airport, I did not feel like I was in a new country. Umm yes the people were all Korean Asian, and the store I bought my sandwich had items all labelled in Hangul. But I felt like I was in the U.S. hmm maybe I am just used to seeing and being around so many Asian people, that it did not seem weird or different to me. I noticed some girls wearing really short, childlike dresses. Now when I say childlike, I mean dresses I used to sometimes wear when I was 8-9 ( after that I wore only shorts or pants for a long time, and hated wearing dresses or skirts… soo tomboyish.. but people don’t believe me when I tell them… ask my mom) .. I was like wow CUTE dresses but I found it strange that older girls would wear doll-like balloony dresses with frills and laces…. Then the bus ride was long.. and I was jetlagged.. and yes I have this motion sickness problem especially when I have eaten or eat on any kind of moving object. So, I ate this crab sandwich which was oh so good…and had this strawberry milk (cuz I hardly ate on the plane), and Alex kept talking (oh my supervisor, who came to pick up my roommate, and soon to be ex-roommate LauraDenise (LD) (sad.. waah)). So, all this combined with lack of sleep, I almost threw up.. hehe.. but didn’t….

Ok soo apart from like not feeling like I am in a new country..( although I did not speak Korean and most people do), I kept comparing it to South Africa. I guess I could not form an opinion about SK (of course) but when my mom asked me after a week, which do u like better SK or SA… I said SA!! U know … I think I had almost a year’s worth of memories attached to SA but at that point yes.. SA was better.. now its been 3 weeks.. and I think I have started giving SK a chance…

So, I had a love at first sight experience with Samsung Plaza, which is an extremely huge, bright and colourful mall. OMG there are like 4-6 floors of restaurants, cafes, cyber cafes, icecream parlors, nail shops, barber shops, u name it ... but this is just in the periphery of the mall. The core of the mall is unaffordable for the average American traveller. All brand names.. COACH, GUCCI, etc.. its like a few floors of “expensiveness” if that’s a word. I would never shop there.. I looked at one dress and its 398000 won.. which is somewhere around $395.. what?? NOT EVEN WORTH IT..

And this lady at the shop was rude that day… I guess we were dressed in our jeans and shorts…and this lady went back and forth to find some size for us…and finally was like my manager does not think the dress will fit you.. I think they just wanted us to leave…cuz if not, she would’ve definitely showed us other clothes in the store… hmmm… RUDE!!

Yaa.. I have heard from some people that Koreans have this sort of love/hate relationship.. I guess ambivalence… they want us to teach English to their kids and students but at the same time, they dislike us for having such well-paid jobs, and excellent fringe benefits…and we just have a Bachelor’s degree…I know this is true to some extent.. cuz I heard the Korean teachers at SNET do not get as much compared to us. Hmm…so I can see why anyone would hate us…

So anyways, when I first saw Samsung Plaza, which was not when this rude lady incident happened … I was in awe… omg I don’t think I had any expectations of what this place would look like… but then again I had no expectations of anything in SK…. Sooo… OMG… I WAS LIKE WOW… I LOVE SK…HEHE… food places EVERYWHERE…. Even street food…and clothing and shoe stores….

SO.. yes the excitement waned a bit after this rude lady but it was regained again..

I LOVE STREET FOOD IN SK… OMG SOO CHEAP AND SOO GOOD AND SOOO FILLING…. AAAAAH!

So, I had mandoo (dumplings), dakuchi (juicy chicken on a skewer), dapoki (chewy rice thingies in this red spicy hot sauce… u can eat it plain or with some fried things like fried sweet potato, or fried squid…(hmm), or fried pork stuffed with noodles and stuff…and some other fried things…), oh yes..how could I forget it.. Omukh… (ok so this is fish on a stick.. but fish that has been soaked in something, and its texture is really different…soo its looks like this wavy, squiggly thing on a stick.. and it is soaked in this flavoured water which is piping hot..and u jus pull the stick out of the water and eat the omukh…hehe, so this can also be flavored in a spicy reddish water.. oh.. I LIKE!!!! And then u can jus drink the water like a soup in a cup…sooo good…great for like sore throats and hungry bellies…) isn’t it weird.. how much I write in parantheses.. hehe.. like an entire sidetracked story.. its like a blog in a blog…

And yes its all cheap.. hmm 1000-2500 won.. which is $1-2.50.. hmmmm yup!!street food is good.. don’t get me wrong… there are places that are super duper expensive…soo jus be careful…some place we jus saw had like coffee and icecream for like $9-$15… hmmm yes expensive…

Another thing was like omg KOREANS eat out like everyday but don’t get too fat…. Has to be genetic… omg.. every café every icecream place every restaurant is full of people… hmmm and girls here wear SUPER DUPER SHORT skirts and really really really high heels…. Omg … like everyone . I guess partly because this is sooo close to the city and also because this area is supposed to be one of the rich areas in Korea… like it seems all these millionaires live here.. even the kids who come to us are super rich .. n have travelled to many parts of the world… like us Canada new Zealand phillipines.. n what not .. wow… hmm n they always seem to have loads of money ready to buy candy n other goodies…… but some kids are spoiled brats.. such snobs… no respect…

Anyways.. back to girls wearin short skirts… soo yaa people in SK are EXTREMELY WELL DRESSED.. they don’t go out lookin like bums on the street.. im sooo happy that people take some sort of interest in dressin… but sometimes they mite goo too far u know.. hehe but hey whateva works.. live n let live… but yaa Koreans always own real stuff.. like real gucchi bags.. n stuff like that…

And even guys ok. Don’t get me wrong…

Hmm what else??

PAP BING SU!!!!!!!! HOW COULD I FORGET THIS?? This is like the best healthy icecream EVER!! YAYA!!
Hehe.. soo its this ASSA (awesome) icecream… which has shaved ice, fruits like watermelon, kiwis, oranges, grapes, etc…, sweet red beans, and yes ICECREAM… hehe omg… soo CAFÉ ICEBERRY NEAR SAMSUNG PLAZA is the BESTESTESTESTEST!!! OMG…. YOU ALL HAVE TO EAT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

COUPLA DAYS AGO I tried café lovice.. it sucked.. soo café iceberry.. it comes with 2 waffles also.. hehe..

SO WILL WRITE MORE LATER ON..... CURRENTLY WRITING AN ARTICLE FOR GANESH UTSAV 2008 HELD AT SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY .. WILL TELL U MORE ABOUT IT LATER.. BUH BYE