Things I don’t miss

My last post was about things I miss about home and look forward to doing or having when I get back. Today I’m going to talk about the things I don’t miss. There’s not that many that I can think of.

4. Having a car. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those people who is all self-righteous about not owning a car. I actually do own a car, and it’s sitting at home in Phoenix waiting for me to come drive it again. In Phoenix not having a car is hot and sucky and it takes forever to get anywhere. But in Gwangju I can walk and take public transportation everywhere, and it’s actually more convenient than driving. If I have to go someplace very quickly or late at night, taxis are cheap and plentiful. I save money, get exercise, and don’t have to worry about parking. It’s sweet. I hope when I get home after not driving for a year I still remember how to drive a stick shift.

3. Hearing about the upcoming Presidential election. I catch some of it online, so I’m not entirely unaware, but 4 years ago, hearing about the presidential election just drove me nuts. I would listen to the radio in the car and hear all this noise about how Obama put the wrong mustard on his burger, or Hillary wore something that showed a quarter-inch of cleavage. I really don’t need to know all that in order to make my decision about who to vote for. It’s really nice not having to hear about that nonsense, even if the alternative is seeing women dancing on street corners in support of their candidate.

2. Drama. I know and like a lot of people in my home city, but christ, is there ever a lot of drama. Someone is always not getting along with someone else. The people I hang out with here in Korea have a lot of incentive to stick together because if they want to hear people speaking English on the weekend, the handful of other foreigners are the only game in town. I’m sure there are some people who screw up and lose friends, but it happens a lot less when you can’t just go find other people to hang out with.

1. These two monsters. Talk about a couple of animals who can suck it. These things live in my apartment. They belong to my old man. They are two of the most spoiled, irritating animals I’ve ever met. Well, Rhubarb is just brain-damaged and is sometimes able to mind her own business, but Easter is just a pain in the ass.

 

Getting away from them was one of my main reasons for coming to Korea (not really, but sometimes it feels that way). It feels great to be able to cook meals without them underfoot. To be able to read or make art without having to shove them away, only to have them jump back up in your business every five seconds until they get distracted by something else. It feels amazing to get dressed in work clothes that aren’t covered in cat hair at all times, even fresh from the dryer because it permeates the air. Cats are parasites. There’s nothing charming about them, and if you think there is, you’re wrong. All they want to do is eat your food and shove their buttholes in your face. I can’t stand them, and being 100% happy with my life won’t be an option until they die in another 20 years or so (I know they will live that long, because awful things invariably do).

2012
06/09
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Things I miss, part III

I come home in three months. This is the final time I will complain about things I can’t do or get in Korea. So, here it is:

8. Breakfast. Breakfast is not something Korea really does. I mean, people eat in the morning, but they eat the same sort of things they have for lunch and dinner: kimchi, rice, fish, soup. Almost every café serves waffles, but these are considered a snack or dessert. They’re good: I liked going to this place called Full House after Korean class and getting a fruit waffle and a cup of coffee.

But I miss being able to go out for breakfast and get French toast, some home fries or hash browns, toast, that sort of thing. Specifically, I miss 5th Avenue Cafe and their amazing red potatoes and French toast. That was a Sunday morning ritual for me and the old man.

7. Sandwiches. I loooooove sandwiches. I am also a vegetarian, which limits my sandwich options, but you’d better not underestimate the vegetarian sandwich. There are some amazing concoctions out there. But sandwiches are another thing that are considered a snack. Some cafés have some prepackaged ones, but they all have meat. I went to an actual sandwich shop downtown once, and all they had that I could eat was a cheese sandwich on this strangely sweet bread. It did not hit the spot. I was used to having sandwiches several times a week in the U.S., so a year with minimum sandwiches is not ideal.

6. Having a couch. My apartment has a bed, and a small table with two chairs. I use one of the chairs as a nightstand and sit in the other one while I’m using my laptop. If I want to relax, I have to do it on the bed, which is not that comfortable. Not a big deal, but I liked having another place to sit. I can’t really have people over, either. On the other hand, I do enjoy having a personal cocoon all for myself. Having my own space feels amazing.

5. My sewing machine. I had a Viking Huskvarna and I knew how to use it. I made handbags, clothes, curtains, and other stuff. And if I found something I liked at the thrift store that didn’t fit right, it was easy for me to fix it – change the sleeves, hem it, take it in. I also make art, and I miss being able to make quilts and stuff. I have some ideas and I hope to get busy when I get back.

4. Thrift stores. I know I mentioned this one before, but I miss it even more now. I haven’t gotten any new work clothes since I got here. There’s one thrift store in town where I got some sweatshirts and winter stuff, but I’ve been wearing the exact same work outfits I had when I got here. Some of it is getting a little worn out, and because I don’t have my sewing machine, I can’t fix things easily. I’m also not shaped like 99% of Koreans, so I don’t even bother trying to find clothes that fit me. Pants and skirts – forget it.

3. Running errands not being a baffling ordeal. I have been to the bank four times since I got here. Literally, four times. It’s not that I haven’t needed or wanted to go more times, but my Korean’s not good enough to go by myself, so I have to have another teacher escort me. Every time I go, whatever I need takes at least 15 minutes, and it feels longer because it’s not just my time I’m wasting, it’s hers. Bill problems, post office stuff, health care, shopping…everything is 10 times harder to accomplish. There’s plenty of stuff I’d like to get done, but just don’t because it’s too hard. I’ve put off trying to get a Korean library card for my mom for months because I just know it’s going to be impossible. I’ve heard that coming back to your home country after living abroad can feel boring, but I think I will appreciate everything feeling so easy.

2. Having short hair: the day before I left Phoenix, I got a haircut (thanks Ambur!). It looked and felt great. But very short hair on ladies is another thing that Koreans don’t really do. When it was super short, I never heard the end of it from my students. It grew out naturally, and because haircuts are a baffling ordeal, it stayed long for quite a while. I mentioned to the other teachers that I had my hair really short (the soccer team had just had all their heads shaved and I was jealous) and that I wanted to cut it like that again. And they were like, “Diana, for the love of god, don’t do that.” Sigh. So I have it longer than I would like until I get home. Then: BUZZZZZZZ.

1. My old man

That was an amazing two weeks we had there, but it was simply not sufficient. When I get back I think I will permanently attach my body to his.

2012
06/02
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I went to Busan.

Last weekend was a long weekend due to Memorial Day. Just kidding! I’m in Korea. It was actually Buddha’s birthday. So I celebrated by going with a friend to Busan. Busan is about a three and a half hour bus ride southeast of Gwangju, on the southern coast of Korea. It seemed like it was kind of a party town for foreigners. Gwangju has kind of a San Francisco feel to it, but Busan is more like L.A.

We stayed in this hostel in the middle of a fish market. It’s run by this Korean hippie guy who seems to really like India, and it was crowded with party girls there to go clubbing (and one Belgian engineer who was there for a conference on renewable energy). We chose this hostel because it was very near Haeundae Beach, and we wanted to take advantage of the warm weather.

The Sand Festival is the weekend after we visited, so they were getting ready by building these amazing sand sculptures.

We ran around on the beach for awhile, and then checked out the Busan Aquarium. That was pretty cool; I think I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

This aquarium had leafy sea dragons! Although these look like they might be weedy sea dragons. I was thrilled to see these; I have had a thing for them ever since I was thwarted in my desire to write a paper on them in 4th grade for lack of age-appropriate research material. Not the greatest picture, I know, but there they are.

I was also fascinated by the jellies. So sheer, so little substance, no organs as I think of them. How are these even alive? Truly a miracle only God could produce. (Kidding again.)

I LOL’d:

The next day we went to Busan museum, which has a place where you can dress up in traditional Korean costumes, much like those photo shacks at the fair. They let me dress as a man. My friend Jenny dressed as a princess. She rocked it, I looked hilarious.

The other exciting thing we did was go to a taco shop near the beach. It was amazing. TACOS!!! I think the restaurant was called Taco Señorita, and they showed nothing but Phineas & Ferb on their TV. We went there twice.

I won’t say that this food was exactly like Mexican or Tex-mex food. But it was just as delicious as that food. I was happy to eat it. I had a “quesadilla,” a folded tortilla filled with mozzarella cheese, rice, refried beans, and olives.

There were also “nachos,” which were yellow corn tortilla chips served with salsa and ranch dressing on the side. Still. Put it in my face.

In addition to this, we went to a tea ceremony that lasted 1.5 hours and taught us how to serve tea in the traditional style. It was all in Korean and kind of tedious. We also got awesome and slightly painful Thai massages (thankfully not a sex place, at least not for us!).

Busan was a nice place to visit, although I imagine it would be much different from Gwangju as a place to live. It’s a bigger city with more to do, but the tourists it attracts probably give foreigners a bad reputation in that city. In Gwangju the locals are usually nice to you because they can safely assume you live there, but in Busan it’s likely that a person has had a bad run-in with a drunk tourist. I know it’s the case that Koreans have a worse opinion of foreigners in places that have an American military base because the soldiers don’t always behave themselves off-base.

Anyway. Busan was fun. Thanks for reading.

2012
05/31
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I went to a Korean wedding

Today I went to my co-teacher’s wedding. She and her husband had been dating for a long time – I think they met in high school or university, and they spent the last couple of months preparing an apartment where they will live together.

This wedding looked similar to the weddings that I’ve been to in America, but there are several important differences. First of all, this wedding started around noon and was over in less than three hours. It was in a hotel ballroom, and there were between 500 and 1000 people there – it was huge!

I wanted to bring them a gift of some sort, so I prepared myself by doing an internet search for what would be appropriate. It turns out, at Korean weddings, people only give money, and it should be in an odd number: ₩30,000, ₩50,000, ₩70,000 etc . You just put it in an envelope with your name on it and hand it to this guy at the desk when you get there. They had two guys with a big ledger handing out meal tickets to the guests and cataloging how much was in the envelopes they brought. The other teachers were very impressed that I had done my homework and brought an envelope.

I thought it was strange that the ceremony and the reception went on simultaneously.  The ceremony was in a smaller room that had probably 200 chairs in it, so there was only room for a fraction of the guests to sit down, and a few more to stand in the back. If you wanted to eat lunch in the buffet room next door instead of watching the ceremony, that was OK, definitely not rude. There was no dancing afterwards and probably not much getting drunk, just the ceremony and the buffet.

The room where the ceremony was held had a raised aisle down the middle, leading to the stage up front.

The mothers of the bride and groom walked down it first, dressed in traditional Hanbok. Then the groom, then the bride, escorted by her father. Unlike an American wedding, there were no bridesmaids or groomsmen – just the parents and a few uniformed women who might have worked for the hotel, primping and arranging the bride’s dress and holding these heart-shaped flower gate things for them to walk through.

After a short ceremony, they cut a cake right there at the altar, although they did not eat it. Then a couple of guys performed a song for the newlyweds. Then, the most hilarious part, a few of our students performed this dance:

I had seen them practicing it at lunch in the days preceding the wedding. I think they were imitating a viral video they had seen. They did an amazing job, truly stole the show.

Then, the bride and groom walked back down the aisle together, where our students were crouched, preparing to shower them with confetti poppers:

Bang!

The aftermath:

After this, they took a bunch of photos with different groups of people: family, friends, etc. and you could go next door and eat lunch. I ate with some of the students. While we were eating, they quizzed me about American wedding customs: what age people usually got married at, what people did at weddings. These were some of the brightest, most trustworthy students, so I shared with them the information that in the U.S., you can live with your boyfriend or girlfriend without being married, and that you can even have a baby without being married, and more than half of couples do. It’s so common that nobody cares except old people and the severely religious. They were kind of shocked, and told me that that was illegal in Korea. I don’t know if it really is illegal, or if they just meant “extremely frowned upon.”

Quote of the day, in response to the lack of meat on my plate:

“Teacher, if I ate like you, I could not…life.”

When we were done eating, we tracked down the bride to say goodbye. She was posing for more photos, this time in a traditional Korean dress. She looked amazing, both in the traditional dress and in the white wedding dress. She kept her wedding a secret from all but the students who were invited, probably because she would have never heard the end of it. She’s very pretty, and most of the boys are probably in love with her. One is for sure, and his friend told me that this boy was against the wedding, and tried to talk her out of it. Poor kid. Next week she gets to go on her honeymoon, and then come back to a school full of heartbroken 15-year olds.

2012
05/19
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Random things to amuse you

I haven’t done anything too exciting since I let the fish nibble on my feet, so I thought I would regale you with a few amusing photographs and anecdotes about my students and school.

1. Here are three words my students have said to me recently that surprised me:

–Psychopath (this was a kid insulting a friend)

–Australopithecine (also a kid insulting a friend)

–Asshole (this was when I asked for the name of a body part for a Mad Lib; the kid who shouted it out was totally one of the smartest kids in the school)

-I am also kind of surprised that a lot of them really like the band Lonely Island, and they love that I know who that is. Seems like kind of a fringe thing but the internet is an amazing tool to connect middle school boys with the juvenile humor they crave.

2. Every day a group of three first-year students come to clean my classroom. I like them because they are friendly and hilarious, and they like me because I let them listen to music (today I cemented my role as the most permissive teacher ever and let them listen to Lonely Island). It’s amazing how much their English improves in this first year of middle school. These kids’ English (or at least comfort in using it) has improved noticeably just in the past two months. Yesterday we had an hour-plus cleaning time instead of the usual half-hour. It was a party.

They washed the windows.

CLEANING PARTY!

3. A couple of weeks ago my school had a “sports day” where the different classes compete against each other in several games: soccer, basketball, wrestling, a relay race, and the traditional board game Yut. I was excited to have a chance to shoot some hoops with the students, and I was not actually the reverse-ringer I thought I would be. Most students prefer soccer so they weren’t very skilled at basketball. I sank three baskets in a row, surprising everybody,  including myself. I also sat in on some Yut, which I didn’t understand at all.

The best part, however, was one of the last things that happened. The students, standing on the field in formation, had to do this synchronized exercise dance to an antique-sounding exercise song. A little digging on YouTube and I found a video that has the song and shows you how to do the dance:

When I saw and heard this, I was embarrassingly unable to conceal my amusement. The song is so funny! And all the kids doing this! Don’t get me wrong, I love living in South Korea and I in no way think it’s a totalitarian regime, but this struck me as kind of a North Korea thing, or like the exercises everyone had to do in the book 1984. Must be something about the song. In case you’re wondering, the words the announcer is belting out are mostly the Korean version of counting: HANA! TUL! SET! NET! TASOT! YOSOT! ILGOP! YODAL! AHOP! YUL!

4. Here’s a video of some of my students doing an awesome a capella number:

When they saw themselves on YouTube they were very amused and want to learn a new song to make another video. I have an idea, and I hope they go for it.

2012
05/11
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Glasses and Doctor Fish

It’s time for me to talk about my experience with two personal services I have used in Korea: one efficient and awesome, one comically horrifying.

Part I: Awesome

My eyesight is constantly getting worse, and so recently I decided I should stop into one of the many glasses storefronts in my city to get a new pair. Here, you don’t need to get a prescription from an eye doctor to get new glasses, they just check your eyesight in the store. I have long admired the store around the corner from my apartment – such a huge selection! – so I decided to go there.

After getting my eyes checked, I browsed their selection of frames. These things are amazingly cheap. I ended up choosing two pairs – one was about 10,000 won ($10) and one was closer to 50,000 won ($50). With the lenses included, my grand total was exactly 100,000 won. SO CHEAP.

Now, here’s the best, most unexpected part. Whenever I’ve gotten glasses in the U.S., I have to wait days or weeks before I can actually pick them up. You can pay extra to have it expedited so that it is only 2 or 3 days instead of a week or more. I expected it to be like that here, which is one reason I chose a store near my home. But no. They had a lens-cutting machine in the store, and both my pairs of glasses were finished and ready to take home in 15 minutes. I was thrilled.

I think I’ll get a few more pairs before I come home. Cheap, efficient, awesome colors – get on the stick, America!

As an added bonus, they have this cool vending machine that will clean your glasses for you.

I usually see this thing outside in front of the store, and I watched people using it a few times when I first got to Korea and I frequently called people back home from the payphone by the glasses store. It was indoors and empty when I went because it was cold outside and the water would freeze. But you dip your glasses in the dish, flip the switch, and the water vibrates or something to get the grime off. Pretty neat!

 

Part II: Disgusting

Now it’s time for the gross personal service story time. I specifically did this activity because it sounded disgusting, and I was not disappointed.

I paid a visit to the Doctor Fish.

Doctor Fish is a thing you can do at Lotte Mart, which is a big department store similar to Target. I say Target because it’s cleaner and nicer than Wal-mart, but like Wal-Mart, Lotte Mart has several mini shops within the store where you can get services, including this nail salon that houses the Doctor Fish.

This is where you put your feet in a pool of water that contains many small fish. The fish swim up and eat the dead skin and nastiness off your feet. I went with my friend Megan. First of all, you have to soak your feet in a sink full of something that kills the germs, so the fish don’t die. Then you  dry your feet and come over to the fish pond.

I was kind of freaked out at first and I almost wanted to stop. It looks and feels like bugs all over you. But I was able to remain calm and let the fish chew on my feet for the duration of our 20-minute session. It didn’t hurt, it just tickled. The fish were very attracted to me; I guess because all the walking I do here makes my feet crusty and disgusting. I will probably have nightmares about this, but it seems like it worked pretty well. I don’t think I’ll do it again, though. It’s currently illegal in the United States because it’s unsanitary.

2012
04/29
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Field trip!

Last week I went on a field trip with the grade 2 boys from my school. We took 8 buses and drove into the Korean countryside in search of more information about the Baekje dynasty, which they’re learning about in school. We visited a lot of tombs and museums and a few other things, too. We were away for three days and two nights.

If you’re thinking that 72 hours is an awfully long time to be with 300 14-year old boys, you’d be right, but it was actually kind of a nice diversion. Some of the places were more interesting than others, but overall it was a good time.

They gave me a brochure and itinerary that was all in Korean, so I was never sure quite what was happening. This place was a fortress of some sort. Pretty, but a lot of steep walking for how interesting it was.

This was a place where a lot of emperors from the Baekje dynasty were buried.

This was in a naval museum where I got to see this awesome model of a turtle ship. This museum was dedicated to the admiral Yi Sun-sin, whose face is on the 100-won coin – that’s what I’m holding up in the picture, like a doofus.

This park was really pretty and had the Korean version of seesaws, which are low to the ground and you stand on rather than sit. Here I am with some of the other teachers on the trip.

More of that nice park.

This is the monument to Korean independence from Japan, which they achieved at the end of World War II.

This place was rather nice, lots of flags flapping in the breeze, and several museums full of hilarious animatronic mannequins that would teach you about the signing of treaties! No matter how dry the subject matter, you can count on animatronic dummies to spice it up.

This scene depicts the assassination of Ito Hirobumi, the Resident-General of Korea, by An Jung-geun in Manchuria.

Oh my.

For the two nights, we stayed in a pension, which was kind of like a giant hotel or apartment building, but with no beds. Blankets and pillows were provided, and I slept on the floor in an apartment-style room with the four other female teachers on the trip. I was surprised that we left the 300 boys all alone in the hotel while we went to dinner, where they no doubt amused themselves by running screaming up and down the halls. I guess this because they did that until about 3 AM. During dinner the other teachers drank plenty of soju, which would be illegal in the U.S. for sure, so I was quite surprised. Afterwards they wanted me to go with them to do further drinking and noraebang singing. It was nice of them to offer, but honestly, as every foreign teacher knows, sitting there and listening to other people say things you can’t understand is only interesting for so long. Every once in awhile someone takes pity on you and tells you what they’re talking about or makes conversation with you briefly, but it’s a lot of just sitting there, zoning out. I would much rather be reading back at the hotel.

There were times when I wished they had just let me stay home or at the school for three days, but overall, this was an interesting experience to have. The students are really cute and love to talk to me outside of the classroom, which is endearing, and I saw some neat stuff. I also got to go swimming, which I hadn’t done in a long time. I’m not sure much learning about the Baekje dynasty actually happened, but the students sure had a blast being out of class, and in the end, isn’t that what real education is all about? The answer…is no.

2012
04/24
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It’s Springtime

Spring is here, thank goodness. The past few days have been really lovely. It rains a lot, but the cherry trees are in bloom and it’s a kind of beautiful that I’ve never seen before. It makes me very happy.

This is actually in the parking lot of my school. There are a ton of cherry trees in that area.

Towards the end of winter I caught myself checking the weather on my phone and seeing a temperature like 41 degrees and saying, “Wow, 41 degrees! Warm!” Then I would catch myself. What has this place done to me? I’m now thrilled when I only have to wear 2 pairs of fleece tights instead of 3.

It’s only 4 months until I come home. Then I can go back to being a real Phoenician, someone who isn’t happy unless it’s 80+ degrees outside. I’m mentally making a list of the first things I want to do when I get home. One of the first things is to get a really short haircut. It’s hard to find an English-speaking barber here, so my hair is a lot longer than I’d like. On the plus side, the students no longer mistake me for a man. I’ve started pinning it back to keep it out of my face and the first time I did, a possibly-insincere student said to me, “Teacher! Hairstyle. Good job.” But the fact is, it drives me crazy. First day or two I get back: buzzzzzzzz.

Teacher! Hairstyle. Good job.

When I get home, I’m going to eat like I just got out of a prisoner of war camp. Which is strange, because I’m not in a prisoner of war camp; there’s plenty to eat here. But I do miss a lot of things. Here are the first things I want to eat when I get home:
Vegetarian “Straw Sandwiches” as prepared by Mr. Uncle Diana (Aunt…Jason?).
Greek pizza from Pizza Heaven.
Filiberto’s burritos.
Veggie sandwiches from Cheese ‘n Stuff and AZ Bread Company.
Green. Green Green Green. I hear there’s one by my house now.
Any kind of fake meat. Veggie burgers don’t exist here.
Chinese food from Gourmet House of Hong Kong. Yeah, I know, I’m spitting distance from China, you’d think the Chinese food I get here would blow that out of the water, but I just crave the phony American kind I ate for years, OK?
Dolmades. These things are amazing but take forever to make so maybe I can bribe Dana into making them for me.
Those potato wedges from the grocery store deli.
Falafel pita sandwiches with Goddess dressing.
Pierogies with onions and fake bacon.
As much chips and salsa as I want, since I don’t have to hoard the good stuff.
Pizza crepes from Jobot.

OK, I need to stop. As much as I sit around daydreaming about Filiberto’s now, I know that when I get back to Phoenix I’m going to start craving cheap bibimbap from those ubiquitous kimbap places that are the exact Korean equivalent of Filiberto’s. Seriously: the interior look like Filiberto’s, the menu looks the same, they all have a similar looking orange sign even if it’s not part of the big chain, it’s quick, the food is the same price and quality. My old man coined the term “Bibimberto’s” while he was here. I will also miss the crappy iced coffee drinks you can get at the convenience stores; I loooooove those things. I’ll probably have a blog post just about them some day.

2012
04/15
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Election Season

Election day is coming up in Korea. April 11th – I know because I have the day off work. As it should be, I think. When I voted in the 2008 election, I had to get to the polling place at 7 AM to wait in line for an hour before rushing to work. Other times I’ve had to rush there after work with only minutes to spare. Almost every time I’ve voted, I’ve cut it close time-wise. It disenfranchises people who work longer hours than me for less pay and can’t ask for time off to vote, so I think everyone should have the day off.

But anyway. Just when I thought that the American election season is the most humiliating possible preface to voting for an elected official, I saw what it looks like here.

Yes, that is a small army of women in matching windbreakers doing a synchronized dance on the street in support of their candidate. It’s slightly more embarrassing that the Scientology recruiters following you around with their e-meter at ASU and just less embarrassing than the Ron Paul Kool-Aid Cult mobbing you at First Friday.

You can’t see it that well, but they all have this special truck with a built-in stage and big LED screen. The candidates wear these beauty-pageant sashes. They park on corners, play music, dance around, shake hands with pedestrians, and amplify inspiring rhetoric about whatever is important here. Honestly, I have no idea what they’re saying. I can’t help but imagine that it’s less horrifying than what’s going on in America right now with regards to women’s privilege to not conceive or gestate babies, but I might be wrong. Maybe they’re all talking how the inexpensive over-the-counter birth control pills you can get at any pharmacy here are causing too many young women to consider holding hands with their boyfriends.

2012
04/04
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Guest Post: Uncle Diana’s old man speaks

Hello Feedbag fans! JRC here, Diana’s oft-mentioned Old Man. Welcome to my guest blog post.

I’m not much of a world traveler, but faced with the prospect of not seeing her for a year, the decision to fly halfway around the world was an easy one to make. I hope you enjoy list covering some highlights of my recent visit:

10. Gwangju, do you know how awesome your subway system is? It’s really awesome. You should kiss its sliding doors every time one of the fancy, well-maintained, whisper-quiet cars rolls into your stop exactly on time. The new Phoenix rail system is a fine start, but waiting for the car to arrive in 100+ temperatures for half the year really sells the importance of the underground.

Speaking of subway…
9. SUBWAY. Okay, I’m sorry, this might be the lamest thing I did on the trip, but one night, hour after hour, Diana and I just couldn’t find any of the restaurants we were looking for; Enter Subway Seoul, programed into her robot-phone. The perfect meal for the moment–Generic veggies on a starchy bun w/ a side of chips and a Dr. Pepper FTW.

8. Cemeteries: We took public bus to the 5-18 Memorial, never suspecting that it would keep “bureaucracy hours.” The staff were really cool and gave us 15 minutes to visit, AND souvenir postcards/map to salve our disappointment! On the way back to the bus stop we lucked across this little set of plots that we can only assume belong to one of the farm families in the area. Small but majestic. It’s possible we were indecently trespassing at this site, if so apologies from us to the deceased and their living family.

7. Theme Coffee Shops! Not everyplace in SK has a gimmick, but the places that do know how to rock it! Dining on Snoopy-shaped waffles, or including medical advice, or hanging with cats while eating your food. SK is the place to experience all this oddness, along with SOY Delicious Cafes!: Mochas, ice cream! The only place I could safely get a coffee drink besides a simple Americano. (Tip of the hat to the poor trainee kid who we cornered alone one morning, he didn’t know a thing yet but did his level best).

6. Shopping!
I love shopping/window shopping and Seoul in particular had a couple great spots. I could have spent hours in the Lomography Store where Diana got me my funky 4-shot analog film camera . Covered foot to ceiling with different “old fashioned” Holgas, Brownie-remakes, and other fun trick cameras–perfect for a kitsch-collector like me. Also a hit, the Converse store where D got us hightops. I haven’t worn a pair of Chucks since they stopped making them in the US (I know, I know…) so it was nice to have a “when in Rome” excuse. Did I mention the stationary stores? Oh my, so much goodness.

5. A short 20 minute walk to Vegetarian Restaurant / Loveland!
Getting to walk everywhere in SK was a great exercise and honestly enjoyable. The hike on Jeju Island to their infamous outdoor “romance museum” Loveland however started to feel a bit like the Bataan Death March once it got dark and the sidewalk turned to mud. After 12 years living in PHX, the “why walk when you can drive city”, my leg muscles had pretty much forgotten what “brisk” meant. Luckily the vegetarian food at the halfway mark was awesome, and Loveland more than lived up to its absurd promotion!

4. Bangs 1! Along with my other retro obsessions I think photobooths are just the height of charm. They’re rare and getting rarer in the US–especially the old ones that use real film photo processing. Diana and I went to about 4 different photobangs over the 2 weeks I was visiting, resulting in many postcard-sized sheets of silly faces and juvenile photoshop fun. #2 retirement idea: US photobooth shop.

4.5. Bangs 2. How do you know you’re in love? It’s either when you sing Barry Manilow songs to your girlfriend in a mini-Karaoke booth, or when she’s patient enough to listen to it. Dueting on “Rock & Roll Radio” is optional but recommended.

3. Outfits! As Diana showed me, Koreans love to play “couple’s dress-up” with their beau/best-gal, and I’m romantic enough that this sounded like just about the cutest thing in the world. Plus because we wouldn’t be allowed to make out in public as much as usual, it seemed like a good substitute to channel our energies into for a day. Identical Kate Beaton shirts, earflap hats, blue jeans, and of course those chucks and we were fit for a day of SK cultural immersion. One of the photobooth attendants caught on and chuckled at our “SK cosplay.”

2. Namsan Tower! One of the tallest buildings in the world, a majestic view, and easily the most compelling and sweet public art projects I’ve ever seen in person! “Locks of Love” my gentle readers: bring a couple of locks and latch them together as a part of this huge ever-growing display of affection and promises.

1. Snugglin’ up, watching Simpsons. I don’t care what amazing country you’re in, or what adventure you’re having. Sittin’ in bed, watching ‘toons with the woman you love = Win!

2012
03/29
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