WHAT AM I DOING IN KOREA?!?

today was teacher’s day in korea.  on children’s day, everybody got the day off to have fun in whichever way they chose.  on teachers’ day, we got to teach.  we were showered in gifts all day long.  i got a mug, some lotion, 2 bottles of expensive body wash, a gift certificate good for 2 movie tickets at the theater, 3 roses (one from the girl i reduced to sobs over stickers yesterday), some chinese medicine for digestion (yeah, digestion medicine) and lots and lots of food. 

here’s the wrapping from one of the gifts i got today:

every time i turned around, another parent had brought in another batch of junk food.  first it was a cake.  a subtly flavored chocolate cake, with layered with whipped cream and pineapple.  it was also covered with tomatoes.  way to go, korea.  then, we got these cookies that were basically styrofoam filled with a thick, sugary nasty goo.  then we got these fruit flavored puffed rice things.  think really big fruity pebbles.  at lunch, the cook made a special lunch of pork cutlets (of which i did not partake), coleslaw, soup, rice, and kimchi.  then we got these premade lattes that you can get at the grocery store or the convenience store here.  then krispy kreme donuts arrived.  then a sweet potato cake appeared (i stayed away from that.  before you call me closed minded, i’ll point out that the korean teachers wouldn’t touch it either).  a box of duncan donuts ended up in the teacher’s room.  it was ridiculous.  other than the sweet potato cake, there was hardly anything left over by the end of the day!

i partook in very little of this stuff.  koreans eat like they’ve been starved all of the time.  the two foreigners i work with are always bitching about being hungry, too.  my appetite, on the other hand, has completely disappeared since coming here.  the koreans freak out when meat is the entree at lunch and i have “nothing” to eat.  hi.  there’s always rice, kimchi, other vegetables, and soup that is usually without meat.  anyway, the point i’m making here, is that we got a ton of food for teacher’s day and it all got eaten.

despite the festive mood and gifts being forced upon me all day, i’ve been in a sour mood.  i’m getting a little pissy about my work schedule.  i am soooo a night person.  i don’t function well before noon.  if i have to get up much before noon, i don’t function well all day.  i have to be at work at 9:20 every single damn day.  3 days out of the week, i don’t stop teaching until 7:30.  All but 2 of those hours are non stop back to back classes.  i like being kept busy, but i’d like to be kept busy for a little less than 10 hours at a time. 

by the time i walk the 30 minutes to school (i was told it was a 15 minute walk), start teaching at 9:30 am, stop teaching at 7:30 pm, and walk another 30 minutes back home, all i can do is sit around my apartment and wait to get sleepy.  i can’t go do anything because i have a really REALLY bad history of sleeping right through my alarm clock.  i’m afraid to stay up much past midnight (which is my prime time of prductivity) because i don’t want to oversleep.  FUCK.

then there’s the at-work situation.  i was getting really pissed off today about the korean teachers’ habit of asking me or one of the other foreigners about a class, getting an answer from one of us, and flying off the handle in korean for 5 minutes to another teacher.  then, if you ask what’s up, they’ll just say “nothing”.  if you don’t ask, they won’t say anything.  but the second you ask for a phone number or how to get somewhere, they want to know where you’re going, why, with whom, etc.  i typically don’t care, and figure if it’s something important, they’ll bring it up to me.  but today…jesus.  today i was ready to rip everyone’s fucking mouths off.  then, i reminded myself not to care, and alas, i no longer cared.

on the way home, for no reason i can think of other than masochism, i started thinking about the morning i left for korea, and the emotional mess that was walking away from jeremy at the airport security checkpoint.  then i started thinking about how much i miss him.  with my school hours and my self imposed bedtime, I don’t even get to im or video chat with him unless it’s the weekend.  when i wake up, he’s usually working and away from the computer.  when i get home, it’s like 5 or 6 in the morning and he, a night person as well, is still dead asleep.  the hardest part of this whole korea experience is going from 4 years of him being a call away to being half a world apart.

OSIAJFDOIGNJERPYAISOJDAPRMKWEGLJJPIMMK ;SDZLKGRELJNMPOGSPOJMEWIITE,HNL;KBFDZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

now, i’m going to throw this disclaimer into the mix here:  i really did wake up on the wrong side of the bed today.  i was in a foul mood the second my eyelids cracked open and allowed the sunlight to hit my pupils.  why?  i don’t know.  it must have been a dream i was having.  so while i’m finding something in every aspect of my life in korea to bitch about, i’m not unhappy.  just temporarily pissed off and unsettled.  i think a lot of it has to do with the fact that i still don’t really know anyone here.  it’s been kind of crappy to go from having a swingin social life at home in houston to hardly knowing anyone here.  like tonight…i reeeeeally wanted a drink.  at home, i would have texted one of a handful of people to see if they wanted to get some weeknight drinks.  someone or a couple of someones would have been down, i would have ended up too drunk to remember my own name, and that would have been that.  here, i walked home like a sad puppy dog (or pissed off puppy dog), longingly looking at the bars i passed, and locked myself into my tiny dungeon of an apartment.

yes, i am being way over dramatic.  but my point is, i’m a social person living without much social stimulation.  it’s driving me a little mad.

anyway, with that bitchfest out of my system, i already feel better.  the world can’t always consist of unicorns that prance in moonbeams while puking glitter and shitting butterflies in your face, can it?

i’m still glad i’m here. 

all i did today was work, pick up dinner, and go home.  i’m livin it up.

at work today, my boss came into the teachers’ room with some paperwork for me to sign and a request for 2 passport photos.  he got my medical check results back and is bringing everything to immigration tomorrow so i can get my alien registration card.  that means i’m going to remain a legal alien.

it also means i don’t have the hiv!  not that i was worried, but my coworker and i were on the bus wondering about what would happen if my medical results did come back positive for hiv or any other disease that they test for (tuberculosis, i believe…i think they did away with the drug screening but i’m not sure).  he had apparently heard a rumor about someone who tested positive for hiv, didn’t show up for work the next day, and was never heard from again.  that probably means that he got shipped back to where he came from, but for the sake of dramatics, i’m going to remain open to the possibility that something more sinister happened to him.

for those of you who know me well enough to know about my history of drug use (or lack thereof) and sexual behavior, you know i’m pretty much the least likely candidate to come up with a surprise case of aids.  still, it got me to thinking.  while it was somewhere around number 3438 on my priority list, it’s nice to know i’m not going to be loaded up on a ship and carted away from korea anytime soon.

what i was legitimately worried about, though, was my chest x-ray.  my bronchitis has been more or less gone since the day before my medical check, but my lungs are still clearing themselves out.  i was pretty scared that they were going to find all kinds of junk in them and deem me riddled with tuberculosis, or find out that i had developed pneumonia without knowing it myself.  luckily, i’m clear on that front.

anyhow, work was full of drama with the children.  i did make one little girl cry like her world was falling apart RIGHT before her last class ended.  that means that she was still bloodshot, puffy eyed, and snotty when she walked out the door to go home, just in time for her mother to see what i did to her dear, dear child.  see, my school has a “no korean” rule in the classrooms.  if the kids speak korean, they get a yellow card, which is just a warning and a tally mark on the board by their name.  if they do it repeatedly, we start taking away stickers on their sticker sheets.

let me digress a bit, and explain the sticker system.

all of the kids get sheets of paper with a gridded design in the shape of the school’s logo.  when they do their homework or answer a question correctly,  they get these tiny square stickers to put on the sheets.  when the gridded logo is entirely covered in stickers, they bring the sheet to susan behind the front desk, and she gives them a prize.  however, when they misbehave, such as not doing their homework or speaking korean in class, they have to peel stickers off of their sheets and throw the stickers in the trash.  got it?

so miss lina would not stop speaking korean.  the first time, she did it before i even sat down to get my pens out.  so she got her first yellow card, which made her so mad at me, she wouldn’t even take the stickers she deserved for doing her homework.  then, she spoke korean again.  i made her throw away 5 stickers.  again.  this time, 10 stickers.  again.  15 stickers.  by the end of class, she had taken her tiny little fingers and peeled 30 stickers off of her chart.  add that to the stickers she refused to take, and she lost 33 stickers today. 

after that class, i went to the teachers room and told stephen that i had taken a lot of stickers away from her and i felt kind of bad.  he laughed and told me that in his class earlier, she was bragging about how she only had 3 more stickers to go until she got her prize.  oops.

call me a monster.  last week, though, i was so busy trying to figure out what i was doing that i kind of overlooked a lot of bad things they did.  i think that gave off a bad impression, because a lot of the kids seem to think they can get away with stuff while i’m teaching.  this week is dedicated to cracking the whip and being a bitch so they will behave and i can get back to not giving a damn.  there’s a method to my madness.

then, in my beloved class with the bad kids, which really is typically my favorite class, chaos broke loose.  sue, the only girl in the class, was crawling around on the floor.  dennis was leaning back in his chair with the front two legs up in the air.  sue crawled under dennis, dennis’s chair slammed upright, and sue’s hand got crushed between the floor and the leg.  crying ensued.  i gave sue a hug (in korea, we ARE allowed to touch the children) and joked with her until she started laughing.  calvin, in the mean time, discovered that when he spit on his desk and rubbed his eraser on it, it made a paint like substance, and he decided he wasn’t going to stop until a square foot of desk was covered in this rubbery, spitty mess.  then, sue freaked out again.  i couldn’t figure out what was wrong, just that something had possibly been stolen.  i temporarily lifted the “no korean” rule in my class so she could tell another kid what was wrong in hopes that he could tell me.  no luck.  she kept insisting that this thing, whatever it was, was stolen by dennis, and she began searching through his backpack, pencil case, even stuffing her hands down his pockets.  finally, i told her we were going to have to give it up and get on with class.  she sat in her chair and whimpered throughout the whole lesson until ryan found the thing on  the floor.  ever seen one of those tiny clear plastic sleeves that you can put memory cards from cell phones in?  it was one of those.  without a memory card in it.  just a piece of plastic.  but she was happy for the remaining 2 minutes we all had together.

so i made kids cry, left work, and picked up a pizza on the way home.  i’ve had a lot of korean food lately and wasn’t in the mood for more tonight.  this time, i passed up the pizza hit and tried pizza maru down the street.  don’t get me wrong, pizza hit made quite an impression on me, and i will be going back.  i was actually heading there when it dawned on me that this was going to be my 2nd pizza in like, 10 or so days, and i didn’t want the pizza hit boys to think i’m some sort of closed minded, stereotypical american, eating nothing but pizza.

this time i got a western style pizza.  yay!  pizza hit’s korean creation is still sitting in my fridge, probably molding, and untouched since the night i got it.  tonight’s pizza was tasty, though the staff was not as friendly.  it was also only 6000 won.  i swear, it’s cheaper to eat out in korea than it is to cook at home.

also, at pizza maru, i picked this out while i was waiting:

i thought i was in for an adventure in korean soda.  then i took a sip.  it was fucking sprite.  it even has this label on the bottle:

boring.

at least i tried to try something different, right?

this weekend, i finally got my washing machine hooked up.  sort of.  the part where the hose connects to the water supply isn’t properly sealed, so it shoots water into the air.  whatever.  the machine is on my patio.  i’ll live until it gets taken care of.

imagine my relief upon finally being able to do some laundry.  i’ts been 13 days since i left houston, and not a load has been done.  i brought plenty of clothes and i stocked up on underwear before leaving, so i was still good on that front.  however, i wore my last pair of socks today, and while i had more shirts to wear, i had cycled through my favorites.  i came home from work with all kinds of laundry ambitions.

never mind that i just washed my clothes in shampoo, because the container i picked up and blindly purchased on my way home was in fact not detergent as i hoped, but fabric softener.

not knowing korean gets really funny sometimes, let me tell ya.

i was too lazy to walk back to the store once i realized i had bought the wrong thing, but my clothes desperately needed to be washed.  so out came the economy sized bottle of tressemme i brought on this trip.  i hate that cheap shampoo anyway.

so now my clothes are drying with the help of this state of the art apparatus:

laundry rack courtesy of heather.  thanks, heather!  now i won’t get foot fungus!

that ugly fabric is a fabulous pair of flannel pajama pants jeremy bought me for christmas one year.  they’re hellaciously hideous (sorry jeremy), but they’re fantastically confortable and loved.  i’d also like to comment on the blandness of my wardrobe.  i once heard that when you’re overseas, americans stick out like sore thumbs because they’re always the ones in bright, obnoxious colors.  at least i’m safe from that stereotype.

it’s only 9:30 and i’m exhausted.  i went to sleep too late and had to wake up too early.  it’s also gotten really cold (by my standards - i’m guessing it’s in the 50’s right now) which just makes me want to curl up in bed and watch tv. 

so that’s exactly what i’m going to do.

texas friends, i went a week without drinking.

i’ll give you some time to regroup.

i am, however, aware that i have a reputation to uphold, so last night i went out for trey’s birthday.  i got drunk.

i didn’t know how to get there via bus or subway, so i asked my coworker to write a note for a cab driver in korean.  i planted myself on the street and hailed a cab, got in, told him where i wanted him to go, and gave him the note.  30 minutes and 11000 won later, i was there.

i went in, finally got to see trey, and met a bunch of fun people.  i got a lot of help and advice on living in daejeon.  i got a lot of jack.  i got drunk.  my washing machine was scheduled to be delivered at 9 am this morning, so i started talking about going home around 1. 

as is typical, i ended up having another drink, going to another bar, and drinking there.  i didn’t head home until 3:45 am.  oops!

in all of my korea research, i was already privy to the knowledge that there’s no closing time in korea.  i kind of forgot about that, and did a poor job of pacing myself as a result.  add that to the fact i hadn’t had a drink since last friday and the fact that my stomach was fairly empty, and whoa.  i think korea might kill me.

the cab ride home was awesome.  of course, by awesome, i mean vomit inducing.  i didn’t feel nauseous until i was being propelled at 90 km/h down winding roads.  these winding roads had giant road humps, which the cab driver would speed up to, slam on his brakes at the last minute, and fly over.  my ass lost contact with the car seat a few times.  red lights were ignored.  my stomach was stirred.  ultimately, though, i made it home in one piece with all of my lunch and drinks safely digesting in my stomach.

i made my way up the stairs to my apartment, grabbed my laptop, and got online while sitting on my bed.  i put the laptop away when i woke up after passing out while sitting upright.  i went to bed and fell asleep.

i woke up at 9:45 to the sound of my boss banging on my door.  i rolled out of bed, still drunk, and let him and the washing machine guy in.  luckily for me, the hot water connector was broken, so i still have to wait even longer before i can wash my clothes.  i have plenty of clothes, but i’m going to run out of socks in a day or two.  just call me stinky feet tanner.

they left, i hung out for awhile, and around 1 i decided to sleep off my remaining drunkenness.  i didn’t wake up until 6!  i was kind of pissed, because now that i’m armed with my bus route map, i was ready to go explore.  but this is another 3 day weekend, so it’s fine.  i’ll go explore tomorrow.

i’m also going to costco tomorrow!  why am i so excited about that?  call me a nerd, but i am.  time to stock up on some food.  i’m hoping i can at the very least find things to make quesadillas.  i’m really missing my mexican food!

oh, i almost forgot.  i had my health check yesterday afternoon.  my boss drove me to the hospital, where they checked my blood pressure, took 4 vials of blood, checked my hearing, my vision, my teeth, my heartbeat, my height, and my weight.  the good:  my heart is still beating, i’ve lost 7 lbs, and i can see and hear well.  bad news:  my blood pressure was sky high!  it wasn’t even in the prehypertension stage, it was in the stage 1 hypertension range.  i’m convinced it’s because of everything i’ve been dealing with.  everything i do lately puts me in a super high state of anxiety.  anxious, anxious, anxious.  i can feel my blood pounding whenever i leave the house.  i’m not unhappy, it’s just really scary walking around a place so different.  so i blame my high blood pressure on that.  also, they couldn’t get the vein in my arm, to they took my blood from the top of my damn hand.  it hurt!  it still feels bruised, too.  they didn’t even give me a hello kitty bandage like i wanted! 

ultimately, i had a really good friday to complete my first full week here in korea.  how fantastic!

don’t sweat, my pets.  a new blog is coming.  as soon as i sleep for a few hours, take delivery of my washing machine, and lower my blood alcohol content a bit.

please note that it is 4:46 am and i am just now home…

photobucket is screwing up all of my photos.  i’ll try and work on it.  until then, have fun looking at sideways, distorted photographs!

thus far, i’ve lucked out with my school.  i still feel completely directionless and idiotic in the classroom, but everyone’s been very helpful.

the owner and director of my school speaks a lot of english, but his accent is so thick.  yesterday, he said he was going to have my internet and cable tv set up this afternoon, and asked permission to come to my apartment while i was teaching today so he could let the cable guy in.  i said ok.  today, after returning from my apartment, he came in and started talking and talking and talking.  i had NO idea what he said.

i got off work around 7, leisurely strolled home, and stopped at a bakery to get something sweet.  i got this pastry stuffed with cherry filling.  i took it to the counter, paid my 800 won to the expressionless man working the register, and thanked him in korean.  upon hearing that, he lit up, jumped out from behind the counter, grabbed a croissant, and gave it to me as i walked out.

how much free shit am i going to get here?  i must be really charming or something.

i ate my croissant on the way to family mart and got a big bottle of orange juice and this delicious item:

it’s like drinking dimetapp.

so i ate my tiny cherry pastry and decided to test drive my internet.  while doing this, someone knocked on my door.  given that i live in what is called a villa apartment with 11 other korean families, i couldn’t imagine who it could be.  then, i heard my director announce his presence.  kind of confused, i let him in, and he started showing me how to use the tv (very important, since the remote is in all korean).  we talked (if you can call it that) for a few minutes, and he left.

i guess he told me he was coming over during our “conversation” at school.  good thing i didn’t party in the streets of songgang-dong any longer…

anyhow, now i have cable and a contant, real internet connection.  james told me it would only cost about $30-40 usd in all.  and i have found tv in english!  csi las vegas is on right now.  i’m not even watching it, but it’s nice to be blocking out english instead of korean.  korean sounds like white noise.  at least i can phase in and out of this.

i still hear tiny, high pitched korean accented voices in my head.  saying “lacher teacher” over and over again.  and the “r” and “l” proninciation sterotype is no joke.

while here in daejeon, i’ve been terrified to eat anything super traditionally korean.  one, going into the restaurants is intimidating, especially when you’re a foreigner flying solo such as myself.  two, the food scares me.  i figured if it tasted anything like the way it smelled, i’d be puking all over the place.  but today, i ate it.  i feel triumphant.

today was my first day of teaching (crazy.  3 kindergarten classes followed by 4 english classes for older children.  rooms full of boisterous korean children.  tiring, stressing, and way amusing.  the end).  there’s a cook that comes in and makes lunch for the kindergarteners and the teachers around 12.  she made this soup with fish flavored strips (i know…), some rice, some kimchi, potatoes, and fried eggs.  i put a little bit of everything on my plate and cleared it off.  the fish soup kind of smelled like rotting seafood, but its flavor was passable.  my coworker had warned me that the cook’s kimchi was gross, but when i tried it, i was surprised to find that it too was edible.  this was a surprise because i always hear about how kimchi is an acquired taste.  admiteddly, i won’t be craving the stuff at 2 AM anytime soon, but it was ok.  the potatoes were delicious, and the fried egg was just how i like them (salty with the yolk broken and cooked so hard it’s like rubber).

then, brandy, the cutest, funniest korean girl you will ever meet insisted on ordering another pizza around 4.  this one was western style.  i had one small piece, because i wasn’t hungry, but i never turn down pizza.

then the director’s wife decided that she wanted to take us all out to eat because my coworker’s sister was in town.  around 7, the entire wonderland school staff piled up into two cars and we went off for shabu shabu.  according to lonely planet’s korean food guide, shabu shabu is beef and noodle casserole.  definitely not what i observed.

we showed up, took our shoes off at the door, and sat down on the floor around a table with gas burners and pots full of broth on them.  a woman came over and turned on the burners, causing the broth to boil.  then, she brought plates covered in squid, clams, shrimp, different mushrooms, leafy greens, and beef and placed them on the table.  brandy loaded up one of the pots with the seafood, mushrooms, and greens, knowing that i don’t eat beef.  the stuff boiled until it cooked, and brandy served everyone their food.  all of it was a+.  then, once we were almost done eating that, the woman brought giant bowls of noodles, which brandy threw into the pot and served once it was cooked.  that was even better than the noodles.  at one point i looked over and realized that the woman running the restaurant had dropped off bowls fulled with rice covered in dried seaweed (which i have never been able to stand) with a raw egg cracked on top of it.  once we were finishing our noodles, the woman came over, drained most of the broth out of our pots, and threw the rice, seaweed, and egg mixture into the pots.  she cooked it all until it had a thick, risotto-like texture, and we ate it.  even than was good.  i think the koreans were all surprised that i liked everything.  brandy kept saying i was really a korean.  not at all…but it was really good.

and watching brandy eat bowl after bowl of noodles, seafood, beef and rice AND going back for seconds on everything was kind of amazing.  i mean, she’s small.

after dinner, my coworkers and i were all talking about our students and laughing at their quirks, and out of knowhere i thought to myself “holy shit.  i’m sitting on the floor of a restaurant digesting squid and kimchi in the middle of korea with 10 people i didn’t even know existed 5 days ago,and i’m having a blast.  am i the most awesome person out there or what?”

no what about it.  i’m the coolest.

and now you know about my first experience in a korean restaurant eating korean food.

the kids at school wore me out, and the korean beer at dinner made my limbs feel very heavy.  time to smoke a cigarette, get into bed, and either fall asleep or watch a movie.

today has been quite the day here in daejeon.  this is going to be a long post.

i started out by heading back to lotte mart to get some stuff for my apartment.  once i got to the street that leads to lotte mart, i decided to go left, away from the store.  i had yet to explore that way, the weather was cool and gorgeous, and i and figured lotte mart wasn’t going anywhere.

for a long stretch there was literally nothing.  a fence to my left blocked my view of my neighborhood, there was a major street to my right, and across the street is a bunch of industrial shit.  not very interesting.  but then, i crossed a street, and you will never believe what i found.

a fucking river.  i live a 5 minute walk from a river.  not a ditch, bayou, or creek, but a R-I-V-E-R.

someone, i think richard, had already told me that the river was close by.  i didn’t know he meant that close!  it’s a pretty river too!  daejeon is surrounded by a ring of hills, and the hills backdrop the river.  there’s some weird manmade crap sprinkled around it, but i have found it wouldn’t be korea without something weird thrown in (read rest of entry for proof).  i walked down to the bank and hung out for about an hour.  it was so nice!  since it was children’s day, a lot of families were out there playing soccer on the field next to the river, flying kites, having picnics, and doing other family fun kinds of things.  of course, in efforts to keep my purse as light as possible, and since i was “just going to lotte mart”, i decided to leave my camera at home.  i’ll get pictures later.

then i went to lotte mart.  boring.  i got nothing but an alarm clock, and did not get as freaked out as i did the last time i was there. then, i walked around and explored my area some more.

while walking around, i was getting stared at by a woman pusing a stroller when another woman rounded a corner and, with her purse, grazed a bicycle parked on the sidewalk.  following behind her was her small baby, barely able to walk.  as he toddled by, the bike began to roll downhill, headed straight for korean jr!  the woman who was staring at me let out a little yelp in fear for the baby’s well being.  i reached over, put my hand on the bicycle seat to stop it, let baby walk past, and rebalanced the bike to where it didn’t move.  in stroller woman’s eyes, i went from freak foreigner to hero foreigner in about 2 seconds.  she tried to get friendly with me after it was all said and done, but i had already walked off when i realized she was trying to be nice.  oops.

evening fell, and i had gotten sick of eating corner store food.  armed with some vegetarian friendly phrases that jennie gave me via this blog, i walked out the door and up the alley i live in to the big street a few blocks up.

i still have no idea how traditional korean restaurants work, so when i found a pizza hit (that’s not a typo…it’s a hit not a hut), i took the easy way out and ducked in.  i pointed to a western style pizza on the menu and said “no meat” in korean.  what i was getting at was “make me this pizza, just leave the meat off”, but my communication skills are lacking in this country and mass confusion ensued.  they were asking me all of these questions in korean, peppered with the very occasional english word, and i just gave them the “i don’t know?” look.  i tried to tell them that whatever they made, i would take, just no meat.  and honestly, had there been meat on it, i would have just picked it off and eaten the shit anyway.  i might just do it that way next time i’m feeling like a pizza.  i’m too ignorant about this place to be picky.

so they charged me like W16,000 and the guy got to making my pizza.  he put sauce on a crust.  he opened the topping bin and threw all of the vegetables on there, and asked me again if i wanted ham.  i said no, and he opened the cheese bin and put the cheese on the pizza. 

oddly, he then talked to the guy that had initially charged me, and gave W3000 or W4000 back to me.  i guess it was for the lack of meat, ham included?

then, he pulled out a plastic bag filled with grey pasty stuff and began squeezing it like a pastry bag around the perimeter of the crust.  then, he pulled out another bag, this time filled with yellow paste, and made a grid pattern over the whole pizza.  i knew before i even walked into this place that i might be in for a more korean style pizza instead of the western style i had at work the other day.  this was totally ok with me,  but i had no idea what was going on my food.

so i waited for about 20 minutes while it cooked.  while standing inside, the guy behind the counter yelled at me and i turned around to see him holding out a glass and a bottle of pepsi, offering me something to drink as i waited for no charge.  i politely declined.  a few minutes later, i wandered out onto the small patio they had out front.  the other man came out and brought me this little packet:

I had no idea what it was.  i figured it was some sort of spongey dessert by feeling it through the wrapper.  then, i decided it was those wipes you clean your hands with.  once i got home, i opened it.  it was a spongey cake like dessert.  i can’t get the picture to post right, but it basically looks like a biscuit.

i still haven’t tasted it.  well, let’s fix that.  now i have.  it’s kind of good, kind of bad. kind of almondy, kind of dirty.  kind of sweet, kind of rancid.  kind of not going to eat any more of that…

anyway.  he brought me my dessert biscuit.  trying to skate the line between thankful yet not greedy, i accepted this freebie.  soon thereafter, a ruckus broke out in the street behind me.  i turned around to face a car, slowly driving by, with a small child hanging out of the sunroof.  the boy had a speaker in his hands, and they were playing some sort of chanty music.  to be honest, i’ve already dealt with so much weird here in only 4 days that it didn’t affect me much.  i went on with my life. (and no, i did not have my camera for any of this)

they called me in when my pizza was done and made a big production out of showing me the tiny box of fried cheese they were giving me for free.  then, they got my condiment bag together:  pickles, hot sauce, parmesan cheese, spicy mustard, and garlic sauce.  i was presented with the bag and a pizza box, beautifully wrapped in a red ribbon.

*this picture is showing up wonky, at least for me.  but i think seeing the gift-like manner in which my pizza was presented to me is important, so i’m leaving it up.

i thanked the smiley, friendly, korean men who took such good care me, the dolt foreigner.  seriously.  if i had been them, i probably would have been frustrated and not so friendly.  they made me feel completely welcome and not at all stupid.  well…i felt a little stupid, but it wasn’t their doing. as i walked outside, i saw what was slowly following the sunroof speaker kid.

it was a monk.  an honest to god, bald, robed monk.  i’ve seen plenty of monks before, but it still stopped me in my tracks for a second.  he was holding a wooden block and a stick, banging them together in a slow, steady rhythm as he trugded behind the car.  there was a line of middle aged asian women beind HIM, some banging their blocks and sticks in unison with the monk, others holding these paper lotus things:

i, clutching my pizza, just shook it all off and walked toward home, which was the same direction they were going.  i passed them, as i was moving a lot faster.  i passed a man taping everything with a video camera.  i walked until i hit the intersection, and stopped to wait for traffic to pass.

it was then that i felt a cold hand on my arm.  i turned around to have a tiny woman press a paper lotus into my hand, asking for W10 in exchange for the flower.  typically, i would not have been interested.  hell, i wasn’t interested today.  i had no idea what was going on!  but the flower was kind of pretty, and i’m in a strange land, so i figured i’d do the diplomatic thing and give her some money.  i mean, they were being led by a monk…the cause must be good, right?!?  right.

i tried to hand the flower back to her and said “i’ll get money”.  my hands were kind of full of pizza and cheesesticks and whatnot.  she thought i was trying to sell the lotus back to her.  ha ha ha!  but when i pulled out my wallet, she understood.  it was at that time that i realized captain camcorder that i had passed earlier was videotaping out entire exchange.  i gave her two W100 coins, got my flower, and got the hell out of there.

if i find myself on some weird erotic video, like “expat girls gone wild…donating money to zen organizations”, i’m going to be pissed.  on the upside, there were two lolipops inside the lotus.  i am being rewarded for my charitable behavior.

so, laughing all of the way while shaking my head in wonderment, i got home and got to examining all of my food.  first, i found that they had thrown a free pepsi into my bag, along with the cheese sticks.  seriously, could these people be any nicer?!?  then i grabbed a slice and took a bite out of it.

corn, onions, bell peppers, cheese…then the sweetness of the yellow pasty stuff hit.  then i chewed down on a piece of sweet potato.  undoubtedly the weirdest pizza i have ever eaten.  just like everything else korean that i have had, it wasn’t BAD, just strange.  i also discovered that my crust was a purplish blackish color…black rice crust, maybe?  hilariously enough, though, the stuff they put on the perimeter was regular white flour dough, making the pizza look like a regular pizza.  korea, you are wild.

the fried cheese was typical korea.  not bad, but strange.  i think it was the oil they cooked it in that lent it its weird flavor and odor.  i only ate one stick and 2 pieces of pizza before i was done.

now i am going to eat some of my monk donation candy for dessert.

all of this in the span of less than 10 hours.  only here, and only me.  i swear…

ok.  i’m really bored.  it’s getting late, and it’s a little drizzly outside, so i’m not going to go walk around in search of dish soap like i had planned to.  yeah, dish soap.  it’s a 3 day weekend, and i know how to party.

i have not spoken to anyone today.  i mean, there was the man at the pc bang playing world of warcraft (or something) that helped me sign on when i ignorantly placed my cursor in the wrong field (it was in korean, and i’m stupid…what do you expect?), and then there was the man i bought water, noodles, and cigarettes from.  but the extent of our interaction was to place my items on the counter, point at the cigarettes, and pull my own pack of cigarettes out.  he told me my total, i gave him money, i received change, nodded my head in gratitude, and i left.  oh, and there was the teenage korean girl who said hello to me as i walked by.  yet again, someone is very proud that they know some english. 

so since i can’t leave, and i’ve been doing nothing but talking about how in awe i am of everything, let’s talk about some not so cool things in korea.

first, are the smells.  i know america would smell bad to koreans.  but my nose is not trained for all of this.  it’s too cool outside to run my air conditioner, so i have my windows open.  something not unlike the scent of an open sewer line is wafting in and out of my apartment.  it also didn’t help when i cooked my dinner.  korean food all has a slight fishy scent to it.  it didn’t taste fishy, but it left my whole apartment smelling like fish food.  mmm mmm!

now, we’re going to talk about my eating situation.  every other storefront seems to be a restaurant.  most have pictures of strange looking meaty dishes in the window.  i walked by one place today that smelled very good, and i was able to tell it was a fried chicken restaurant.  i, however, have no idea how to go about getting vegetarian food. 

i’m kind of just eating stuff that doesn’t outright have giant chunks of meat in it.  this means i have been eating mostly ramyeon from the corner store.  i did buy spaghetti stuff at lotte mart.  even though the sauce was an imported american brand, it tasted like water with tomato chunks in it.  i bought some bread, but it tastes strange.  not bad, but strange.  it’ll take some getting used to.  i got a popsicle from a store on the street yesterday since it was so hot.  i’ve been drinking a lot of vending machine coffee (i swear, i love that stuff).  i ate those strange potato snacks.  and i ate pizza at work.  that pretty much sums up what i’ve eaten.  i have a list of korean foods, and i imagine once i learn hangol (the alphabet) i’ll be able to look at a menu and eat a little more nutritiously, but for now, i’m on the korean crap diet.  luckily, my appetite has completely dropped off, so it’s not like i’m hungry.  just depriving my body of essential nutrition. 

i think i just heard someone puke on the street.  ah ha ha ha!

now, let’s talk about the weather.  when i landed, it was relatively cool and way humid.  friday, it was hotter than hell.  yesterday, it wasn’t quite as hot, but i still sweated up a storm walking around.  today, it was a little overcast and ever so slightly warm in the afternoon.  now it’s rainy and kind of chilly.

and we all joke about how houston has jumpy weather.

i don’t know if i’ve covered this in other entries, but koreans like to stare at foreigners.  this, i was prepared for.  but the people who were talking about this when i was researching this place weren’t kidding.  they stare.  and point.  and laugh.  and, i’m guessing, talk shit.  i’ve got thick skin, so i can deal with it.  I’m guessing, though, that the fact that i’m not just a foreigner, but a curly headed, big chested, tallish foreigner isn’t helping me blend in.  maybe i should get a straight perm, dye my hair black, hide my round eyes behind sunglasses, wear a sports bra and baggy clothes, and lose 400 lbs.  then i’ll blend in.  :) 

don’t get me wrong, i don’t feel like i’m being treated badly.  they stare, but whenever anyone has noticed that i need help they help.  whenever i am being served or waited on in a bank or store, they are very gracious and polite.  so they’re very welcoming once you give them the chance to be, but they are very standoffish in passing.

all of that said, i think korea is the coolest place ever.  cooler than anywhere i have ever been.  i’m glad i’m here, seeing and doing all of this crazy stuff.

interesting fact i learned from a coworker:  adult koreans who understand english do not like the word crazy.  like, if you’re being funny, i might say “ha ha, you’re crazy”, or if a kid is being hyperactive, you might call their behavior crazy, but if i said that to a korean, they would be offended because they think lunatic-who-belongs-in-an-asylum.  crazy, isn’t it?