Today I ate tuna kimbap. I went to E-mart. I bought snacks and banana milk.
I don't know if this is true or not, but when I was in South Korea I experienced something very new and very unexpected-Korean people like drinking on Tuesday night.
I don't know if it's because surviving Monday and Tuesday is so hard, or if it's a cultural tradition, or perhaps just my bad luck, but both the Tuesdays I spent in Korea featured a lot of people who were either drinking, had been drinking, were drunk, or were totally plastered.
But we'll get to that in a moment. Let's address my first day of real classes!
I got up Tuesday morning with a heart singing 'thank you Jesus!' for clean clothes and a suitcase packed with everything I needed. Or everything I thought I would need. :) I hurriedly got dressed because I wanted to talk to Mom all about my plans for that day since my tablet was finally charged. I had discovered that 'country-wide internet' in Korea is not always free, but available! As we continue through my journey of lostness and making my parents worry, you will find that this becomes very important very soon.
Anyway, on this day it rained a lot again. However, the rain wasn't that bad when I got to meet my teacher-how sunny she is! Her personality is so vibrant and lively that she made the entire process of learning Korean that much more enjoyable. She also really likes cats, speaks fluent Mandarin, and wants to marry a Chinese man (preferably within this year, any available Chinese guys reading this! Sadly I can't do my advertisement in Chinese...). Why does she want to marry a Chinese man? Because apparently, even after getting married, Chinese guys will still cook, clean, etc. etc., while according to her, Korean men won't. And the cooking of a Chinese man? Apparently, it's amazingly good. I found it really funny that the same stereotype we have here in the United States is known in South Korea-the Chinese man can cook.
Now, I don't want to insult any Chinese guys by stereotyping them. It's a compliment to you! We girls think you Chinese men are awesome! Feel flattered! :)
It thunder stormed around lunchtime, and we nearly lost power in the Graduate Building. When we came downstairs there was a huge amount of foreign and Korean students gathered in the lobby, waiting for it to stop raining. It was so dark outside it looked like night was upon us-that's how bad this storm was.
We skipped across the road to Hanyang Plaza and ate kimbap for lunch. I had tuna kimbap (twice, the second time was next week) and let me just say-it was amazing. I'm a little crazy over kimbap, and so the chance to eat it in South Korea was one I could not pass up, even if it tastes nearly identical to that which myself and Mom make here at home.
Once I got to the door of my dorm, I dug into the pocket of my jeans to find that my dorm key was gone. Yes, you got that right-I lost a key only a day after getting it. Of course, I hit rock bottom after I reached the administration office. I had re-traced everywhere I had gone that morning to find the key. I even asked the folks at the restaurant if they had found one. While waiting for a class to end so that I could inspect our classroom, I sent Mom my second most desperate and whiny email for the entire time I was there. I was pretty near to tears-in the United States, a lost dorm key meant $100 dollars and a lot of scorn. When I entered the classroom, the professor and students were still sitting around, and the program organizing lady explained that I was looking for a key.
Number two act of kindness from folks in South Korea-the professor announced what I was looking for, and immediately the students dropped to their knees and started searching everywhere! I wasn't even combing the floor yet! After two minutes of searching, we decided it was a lost cause, and I went with the lady back to the office. You know how much a replacement for that key cost me? 3,000 won, which is about $2.73 USD. If the lady was angry with me, she never showed it-she smiled and said it was perfectly okay, and I could go to the dorm office with the security guard of my dorm and they would make me a new key that afternoon.
Well, I did so. After a little language confusion with the security guard (but it turned into a sweet sort-of exchange afterwards, because he always said hello to me and asked how I was doing after that), I got my key from the dorm office. Another security guard there warned me in his broken English that I should be very careful of thieves since keys had been stolen for that exact purpose. He wasn't harsh with me, but told me firmly that I needed to be careful with my key and not lose track of where it was, and I needed to watch out for thieves. I was a little scared after that, but I know he only said it so that I would be on alert. I did keep most of my electronics out of sight after that and I really hope the key just slipped out of my pocket instead of being stolen.
Afterwards, I relaxed in my dorm for a while, where I took this video of my area from my dorm balcony (which I did walk out onto after a few days...it probably wasn't good but it looked stable!)-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G9C0ETtefQ
I met up with my friend Sandra to go on a shopping trip to E-mart! It's like the Wal-mart of South Korea I think, so of course I was excited. There is a small shopping mall above Wangsimni Station, and this is the E-mart that we went to. We also stopped at a restaurant a short walk away and ate 물 냉면 (mul naengmyung/water naengmyun). It was pretty good but for some reason I got a little sick on it. The meat they gave us was very tasty, however, and I really want to go back to that restaurant one day! Pictures speak louder than words (and who wants to hear me ramble about a supermarket, anyway?) so here's a few snapshots of the evening.
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| Our amazing restuarant! |
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| Sadly blurry picture of Wangsimni at night. :( |
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| Coffee-do you spot Joowon and Jin Se-yeon advertising?! |
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| Oh, yes-that is Roy Kim on chocolate hazelnut candy. And I bought it because I am easily duped by his cute face. XD |
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| Korean Oreos and two other cookies-Chaming and Na! I think the Chaming is more of a cracker and I know Na! is a cheese filled cracker. :) |
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| These are called 'Big Pie' and they are a cookie with a strawberry jam center covered in chocolate. They are delicious and I loved them. XD |
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| This is Jung Il-woo advertising facial products. Enough has been said. |
Sandra and I headed homeward at around 10 PM. As we walked through Wangsimni, we started noting the people that had been out drinking. Red-cheeked Koreans sleeping on the backs of their somewhat more sober friends, a few middle-aged business men walking through the streets arm in arm, singing, and of course, people sitting outside of convenience stores at little plastic chairs and tables, drinking soju together. I was surprised at first-you don't see this in the United States. Coming up across from the police station, Sandra and I were suddenly assailed by a man who just randomly struck up a conversation. He told us he was Japanese and that it was his birthday. He asked us where we were from-we thought he maybe just wanted to practice English. We told him a little about ourselves, but when I tried to ask him why he was in Korea, he couldn't really formulate an answer. Getting a strange feeling about him, I moved away, allowing Sandra to fill in the space between us. However, he kept walking ahead of her, trying to talk only to me. He kept switching between Korean, English, and Japanese, so I was having a hard time understanding him. He suddenly asked if we wanted to go drink beer with him. I could hear him repeating a Japanese phrase under his breath which means 'I like...(implied you)" but I pretended to not understand any Japanese and Sandra told him quickly that I couldn't drink, that I was too young. He acted shocked and asked me if I was a high school student. I immediately told him I was seventeen, and yes, I'm a high schooler (it isn't true, but I'm the same age as one and prefer to be treated that way). He then looked at Sandra and said 'are you a high school student, too? Too young to drink?'. She paused for a moment, and he said 'Are you nineteen?'. Sandra, who I immediately thought was amazing for her quick thinking, told him she was and explained that we were going home now, telling him goodnight. He wandered off with perhaps a 'bye', but I honestly don't remember. I lied about my high school enrollment and she lied about her age, but we were just happy to get rid of him. It's funny looking back on it. Sandra told me she could smell alcohol on him-I couldn't, but I have a bad nose. After a little nervous laughter and resting a while at her dorm, we parted ways and I started out on the long walk back to my dorm, hoping I didn't run into any one else who had been drinking.
I'd like to make a note here that all those who had been drinking that I saw in South Korea were very nice-I never saw any drunks fighting or making obnoxious commotion. There were a few instances of old men singing rather loudly together, but I thought this was really endearing and actually took a video to record their voices (not them, since I figured that was an invasion of privacy). And even this strange man was rather nice to us, despite his wayward intentions. So I don't want anyone to think that I'm complaining. I won't say Koreans don't drink-because they drink like crazy-but I also won't say that it bothered me.
Okay, so do you remember my little speech about how awesome Chinese guys are supposed to be? This very night I met a Chinese man trying to find his way around campus. He was in Seoul for an economics program that was to last a week. He was very excited about it because there would be Americans there to talk about world business, economics, trade, and all those good things that include math and statistics. ;) I had no idea what he was talking about, but I somehow knew where the building he was looking for was. When he came back on the way to his dorm, I was still running around Hanyang Women's University trying to find my way back to my dorms. Yes. It's sad when I found out I was practically walking in circles. It took me over an hour to find my way back, but I got to meet a nice person who told me to come visit Beijing sometime, and to "never believe what the U.S. media says about Chinese pollution-it's not any worse than Seoul!". I promised him I would consider a trip to Beijing one day-and you know what, maybe one day I'll go there.
All in all, it wasn't a bad day-stressful, that's for sure, and I was starting to hit my 'people interaction limit' but still an adventure all the same.
Come back for the next post in which I will write about an adorable little boy calling me 'noona' (I have a video of him!) and his grandpa, the Blue House (Korea's White House), a marketplace, my first real conversation with a Korean girl, and a hilarious phone call in 3 languages. Oh, and ddeokbokki. Amazing ddeokbokki. :)
-Argentia
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