RANDOM KOREAN THINGS

Okay. Bear with me. I have a feeling I will be pulling my second all-nighter this week with more all-nighters to come, and right now will be my only chance to post so it probably won't be very coherent.

Today is Day 30 and I only have 26 days left in Seoul! I can't believe my time here is over halfway over. This week we are making the final edits of our documentaries and presenting them Friday at a fancy closing ceremony. This means I won't get much sleep but the end is in sight! Soon I shall be able to enjoy Seoul with much less stress and obligations.
FYI: my Korean class will have one more week after this week and then I will have two weeks of internship.

Instead of telling another Korean adventure in detail, which I just don't have time for, let me briefly summarize some of my observations. I shall call it, RANDOM KOREAN THINGS!


To start off, I would like to dispel the notion you may or may not of heard - "Men in Korea are so gay."  First of all, that is not a politically correct or polite statement to make, and second it is just not logical to group an entire population and declare them something like feminine. Korea is just like the US or any other country, everyone is different. Some people might be more feminine than others. Celebrities (male and female) may get more plastic surgery and wear more make-up than some may consider to be "normal", but regardless, that is not something I am here to judge.

Okay, I'm sorry if that became too serious all of a sudden, but I felt it was necessary considering some of my "Random Korean Things" might seem like I'm trying to support the "feminine Korean men" notion which is not the case. I've seen enough Korean B-boys and Taekwondo masters and whatnot to know that Korean men are some of the "manliest" guys I know. I just find some of the things I've seen guys doing here particularly interesting and different from what I am used to seeing back home. Okay. Thanks for understanding this. Now onto RANDOM KOREAN THINGS:

- THERE ARE MIRRORS EVERYWHERE. I don't know if it's because Koreans are particularly concerned with their image or afraid their face has changed in the last half an hour, but I find the amount of mirrors here disturbing. Every single bathroom stall I've been in each has it's own mirror on the door at about person-sitting-on-toilet-eye-level. So while you are doing your business you can stare into your eyes... and I just have no idea. Make entertaining faces at yourself. View yourself more. Something. This goes for dorm bathrooms, public bathrooms, ALL THE (women's) RESTROOMS. Even more startling, there are mirrors in every shower stall I've been in. The shower stall in my dorms each have their own mirror. When I went to 찜질방 (A place with public baths, saunas, ice rooms, furnace rooms, norebang (karaoke rooms), EVERYTHING) the showers next to the baths each had their own mirror by the shower head as well. I'm getting sick of staring at myself actually. By the time I go back home, I'm going to be a full-fledged narcissist.

- As you've probably noticed from my other posts, Korea is "random English word" obsessed. Some of the English is cute and make some sense, like this delicious restaurant/cafe called 스푼레이스 "Spoon Raise". But then there is an underwear store called "YES". Really? An underwear store. 
With a bunch of YES all over it? Really? 
Forget about getting a woman's consent before you knock her up, her underwear clearly says the 
answer.
 >.<
I want an underwear store called "NO". Or "Hands off". Or "Look at your life. Look at your 
choices." 
Or "WHAT. WHAT. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"


- Silly things I've seen Korean guys doing: 
At a Korean BBQ restaurant, two guys were sitting together analyzing something very seriously on 
their computer screen, so of course I looked to see what it was... 
They were looking at dresses. Like on a clothing store website, in the woman's clothes section, 
looking at a bunch of pictures of dresses. What.
Maybe guys do this all the time, but I've sure never seen it. And I've certainly never seen it in public.
In a restaurant. What.


In 울산 (Southern coastal town) I saw a guy rocking heart-shaped sunglasses with white frames. 
Nothing else about him was "feminine". He just owned those sunglasses.
I saw another guy with a floral umbrella (lots of Koreans (male and female) use umbrellas to block
the sun and not tan) I just don't see many guys with flowery umbrellas...


In a restaurant with lots of messy, delicious, spicy food, there were aprons for the customers. But 
my friends and I didn't use them. And I honestly didn't see anyone else using one when we arrived.
But when we were leaving the restaurant I saw a table of five or so guys, all wearing these pink, 
floral aprons while they were eating. It was a funny sight.


- Koreans hate bugs. Especially girls. Just about every girl I've met absolutely freaks out 
when they see anything from a moth to an inchworm. I can understand hating mosquitoes. I 
currently have three annoying bites on my feet. But what was once humorous is sort of getting 
annoying... I mean. Aren't ladybugs cute? And butterflies pretty? It's too confusing.


- There are overly affectionate couples everywhere. 
Everywhere. 
EVERYWHERE.
I almost miss the overly sexual and inappropriate couples from the States because couples here are 
always doing the ridiculously cute, lovey-dovey stuff that makes me want to barf and round-house kick 
them apart at the same time. 






















Here's a couple getting stuffed animal prizes for each other...











And now back to video editing. I will have lots of stories soon about all the awesome people 
I've met through interviews for this project. ㅋㅋㅋㅋ


See you on the other side.


- 성냥개비     <----- This means matchstick in Korean... but the second half sounds like my 
name Gabby. So this is now my "Korean name"

Doesn't it look just like me?

FOOD and Not Adventures

오래간만예요! Today is Day 23 and needless to say, a lot has happened since I last posted.

I've begun to use my second roll of Korean toilet paper. Only 22 more to go! Maybe I will donate my excess rolls to random locations/people in Seoul... or put 20 all in one public bathroom stall. Decisions, decisions...
Oooh. Here's an incentive to comment on my blog: Post your suggestions for what I should do with my excess toilet paper below and I will announce/follow-through with the best idea! ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ <- Korean laughter (think evil "kekekekeke" - that's what I imagine, but I'm sure no Korean would tell you that)

Tonight I also did my first load of laundry in Korea and unfortunately it was not the epic disaster-adventure I was hoping it would be. I was expecting an exciting overflow of soap suds and the washer to explode from putting in too much detergent. Or all my clothes to be dyed one color. Or my socks to go missing. Or at least the dawn of the CLOTHING MUTANT reign. But alas, my clothes are just a bit cleaner than they were before and smell kind of weird because the dryers smell weird and I didn't have nice-smelling fabric softener (nor any bad-smelling fabric softener for that matter) to put in the dryer with it. I fear I am much more domestic than I hope I wasn't. Moving on.

Last week my film course brought me to travel the Southeast, somewhat coastal cities of 경주, 안동, and 을산, throughout which I had absolutely no internet connection. Hence no word from me for so long. But before I describe any more (non)adventures I promised you a KOREAN FOOD GUIDE:
Basically eat everything.
Done! 


ㅋㅋㅋㅋ Just kidding. But I actually have not disliked anything that I have eaten here. Truly, just eat everything.
I shall now present you with KOREAN FOOD PICTURES:

BEHOLD: 팥빙수

Sort-of-not-really pronounced: PAt-bing-SU

팥빙수 is the greatest dessert of all time. It is shaved ice with a glob of red beans hidden in the middle (you can't see it in these pictures). The ice can be flavored like green tea on the left, or strawberry(?) on the right. It also often has a scoop of ice cream on top. And finally, like almost every dessert, drink, or special food in Seoul, the surface is carefully decorated to look fantastic. On the left you have tapioca balls arranged in an aesthetically pleasing way. On the right, chocolate and vanilla sauce is on top of pineapple and cherry tomatoes and bananas and grapes and honey dew - ALL INSIDE OF A WATERMELON SHELL. IT'S GENIUS I TELL YOU! KOREAN FOOD IS GENIUS!

NOW MOAR POTOS:

         

Now you might notice something about these photos, and indeed with 팥빙수 as well. Korean food is almost always "family style" or sharable. The common Western/American conception that "This dish is MY MEAL because I want it for me. And it is mine. My food. And I will eat it because it is mine." doesn't really exist here except at McDonalds or Taco Bell. I think it's really great because a) it's much easier to split the bill, b) you often can try more kinds of food this way, and c) it creates this magical, happy atmosphere of camaraderie and friendship that Americans lack. ㅋㅋㅋㅋ So c) is a bit exaggerated, but eating "family style" really does make eating more social and fun with everyone trying the same dish that you all can react to. I don't know how to explain it so... just come to Korea and try it yourself! :D

ONE MORE FOOD PHOTO:

This is my favorite Korean food: 죠스떡볶이

떡볶이 is roughly pronounced: TOCK-bok-key

I just love this dish. 떡볶이 is rice cakes and fish cakes swimming in spicy red chili pepper sauce and just sooooooo gooooood. 죠스떡볶이 is supposedly a particularly spicy 떡볶이, but like most Korean dishes that had been flagged by locals who baby all foreigners about how spicy the food is, I do not find it as unbearable as I apparently should. I admit that this dish and a few others I have eaten have been spicy, but not, "Oh my! My mouth is on fire and my eyes are watering! Give me all the water in this restaurant because this is food is SO SPICY!" kind of spicy. Eat this dish with some delicious pig intestine, 순대, and drink the delicious and refreshing 쿨 피스. Then you will find your meaning to life and happiness and stomach fulfillment.

So I have to sleep now or be a zombie in class tomorrow, but I have so much more to share that a new post will definitely be up in a few days. To wrap things up with a friendly toilet seat brand, "HELLO"

Why, hello there, rear-end. Have a pleasant time here in this lovely land of bathroom stalls.

GABI OUT

MONSOONS (don't trust Jumanji)

Whew! Sorry, but it looks like I'll be lucky to post once a week. Our schedule is BUSY. I'm barely able to get all my homework done, so this post is actually a few days in the making. Maybe I'll start writing short ones more regularly (even though I really want to write longer). Anyways, I apologize for the delay. Now onto updates in Korea!

Today is Day 11.
I just brushed my teeth with brand new, mysteriously clear, less than a dollar, Korean toothpaste! It tasted like what one would expect less than a dollar toothpaste to taste like...
And I've recently discovered that the shampoo I bought is actually conditioner. Yay.


English in Korea - Stating the "obvious":

Good name

Or... are you?

Updates on Korea in general:
MONSOON SEASON IS HERE! It has not been raining nonstop and flooding like the monsoon in 'Jumanji' (and what I was expecting) but it does pour pretty often. It would actually be pretty similar to Oregon weather except that it is fifty bagazillion times more muggy/humid. I have somehow managed to make it through the rain without an umbrella, but this brings me to my second Korean Adventure story...

Day 9 - A Drenched Adventure
Some Harvard students and I set out after our classes to run some errands like paying for our dorm room fee, buying shampoo, toothpaste, and whatnot (I even intended to buy an umbrella). It was sprinkling a little bit when we set out, but I had my "summer rain jacket" on and was fine. We went into a bargain store inside the subway but soon heard some mysterious booming noises. Was it thunder? Was the Democratic People's Republic of Korea attacking... with cannons? Was it all a dream?
Well it was thunder (I know, boring) as we discovered, climbing up out of the subway. And it was raining, not just cats and dogs, but whales and elephants and hippopotamuses and moose and... other big animals. I thought that the horizontal rain that the Oregon coast can attack with was as bad as it could get (I was wrong). People were running into the subway for cover, dumping their umbrellas in our faces, and making it generally hard to get out of the station. I pulled up my hood, took a deep breath, and gave my other rain jacket-ed comrade a nod, and then we set off running into the rain for the dorms.
Just about everything went wrong.
My sandal/shoes broke after running one block. My water-logged, cotton pants determinedly sought to make me half nude, so I tried to hold them up. But my hood also persistently flew backward, so then I'd try to hold it in place over my head - and then my pants would slide off again. And finally, let me just say, "summer rain jackets" are not meant for monsoon season. I might have been dry for the first few seconds, but that was it. If anything, the jacket made it more difficult to run in the muggy, hot weather. So the jacket was sticking to me soaked through with both rain water and sweat.
I did make it back to the dorm eventually. The three layers I had under the jacket were also soaked and it looked as if I had come back from the dead (a drowning death of course). And yet, somehow, magically, my wonderful rental phone's case was mostly waterproof, as was the fancy-shmansy leather clutch that had my wallet and other papery things inside. Yay for the little things...
Also, as I'm sure you have inferred, I did not buy an umbrella while at the bargain store. I doubt it would have helped.

When it has not been pouring down rain I have seen a lot of Korea. A bunch of us went to 이태원 for dinner and tried to not be mistaken for hookers (simply because we were in that type of an area wearing dresses and were foreign, a lot of guys eyed us). Earlier that night I went to see the Krokodiloes perform in Seoul and was chosen for the first time to be their Name Girl! Yay! It was doubly fun because... well, I love all the Ewha girls in my class but have recently realized that I have not met any Korean guys at all. So it was nice to talk with a bunch of boys who I know well and are fun to be with. And don't look at me like I'm an exotic fungus growing on their big toe.
Another night a bunch of us went to a 노래방 (Korean karaoke) in 신촌, where I discovered I do not know KPOP songs as well as I thought it did (lyrics? what are those?). That night I also saw my first completely blacked-out girl, dragged into a cab by four guys. I've been warned about Korea's "drink till you're dead" motto, but this was the first time I saw it with my own eyes. That chick looked like one of those cartoons where all the bones disappear and the character flops around helplessly. Yup.
Another day I went to 남대문시장 for filming footage for one of our projects. It's a pretty cool traditional market where the vendors are expert tourist-nationality-guessers. They would just look at me and say, "We have English menu!", "Hello lady!", "Real Korean tradition!" and would change instantly to Japanese or Chinese when the next potential customer who was either Japanese or Chinese walked by.

Okay, this is a bit too much to expect most people to read so I'll stop here. Look out for a Korean food update coming soon! (But actually, I've eaten so much. And have no time to work-out. This is a disaster. A really delicious disaster.)

안녕!

Gahbi