WHAT AM I DOING IN KOREA?!?

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…