Random Family Mart Conversations

I love being able to talk to random folks on the street sometimes. It can be so entertaining.
Last night two friends and I sat outside my local family mart. I made my guacamole, and I have a big block of cheese that I got at costco a while ago that I still haven't finished and my boyfriend made some Korean pancakes so we were out there munching away when a older Korean woman walked over and started curiously checking out our food.

"What's that you're eating?" she said in Korean, pointing to the guacamole. I guess the bright green color is a bit unusual to someone who's never seen an avocado before...
"Guacamole" I respond. "Do you know avocado?" She gave me a curious look as she continued to investigate.
"Would you like to try?" I ask her. Without hesitation she reached into our bag of chips and took some guacamole for herself. But, before she would put it into her mouth, she tried to lick the guacamole to figure out what it was.
"How is it?" I asked.
"I couldn't taste it" She responded. She put the whole chip in her mouth. She gave no comment on the taste. She then proceeded to sit down at our table and start asking the typical questions the Koreans always ask.
"You're Americans, right?" Well, at least she didn't say Russian. That seems to be only men that assume that.
"Well, I'm American, my friend is Canadian".
"Oh, Canada and America are close, right?"
"Yes, yes, they are close." Is there some other meaning of 가깜다 that I don't know, or does she really not know that Canada and America are right next to each other?
"You're married, right?" She asks me.
"No, not married."
"But you're so pretty! Americans have such white skin."
"Uh.. thanks.."
"Why are you in Korea? Do you live here in this apartment?"
"No, just next door."
"Oh, I live down the street, by the gopchang (roast cow intestines) restaurant."
"Ah, I see"

Finally, after a few more of the typical questions about where I work and how long I've been here (and of course the typical "wow, you can speak Korean so well!".. which they also say when you can say "kamsahamnida"...) the woman got bored of sitting with us and took the chair, and some more of our chips and sat about 10 feet away. Korea would be so much more boring without these random conversations. This is why I need to focus harder on my Korean studies so I can have real conversations about things more complex than the average how long have you been here, what do you do type things....

Guacamole...

Avocados are a rare commodity in Korea... more so even than cheese and deodorant. For my birthday at the end of last month, my friend in the Air Force called me and said, "I'm at the commissary at Yongsan Base, what do you want?". The American army base in Yongsan (central Seoul) has a commissary (supermarket for military types only) fully stocked with the normal things you'd find in an American grocery store, at American prices (in dollars, not won, no less). At this I leaped at the opportunity, "avocados, please!". He knows me well enough that he had already picked them out before asking. I wound up getting three avocados. I had dreams of a good California roll (my version). Well, I made my California roll with one avocado (actually only half of an avocado, but the other half went bad too fast for me to make more...

With two avocados left I weighed my options... actually there's not a whole lot of recipes that involve avocados. When I was in Chile, they'd put it on a hot dog, and while that's delicious, it seemed a bit of a waste of a good avocado. So, of course I decided to make guacamole. I should have taken a photo, but I didn't think of it. But, though it was my first time to make it, I think it turned out ok. Here's what I did:

Mashed two ripe avocados into a bowl.
peel one tomato, chopped and mashed into the avocados
1/4 of an onion, finely chopped and mashed into the avocado mix
a heaping spoonful of minced garlic that I mashed a while ago and keep in my freezer
a generous helping of lime juice to keep it fresh

Then I ate it with 'Ricos' nachos... aka, the only nacho chips that I've ever seen in this country. They are a little salty for my taste, and a little expensive, but it does the trick.

I hope it's still good tomorrow, I have a lot left!

Swine flu check...

As I entered Garwal Community Center for my free weekly Korean class, every person was checked for a fever as I entered the door. They checked temperature by using an ear style thermometer, and I sat and watched them after I entered and noticed that they only cleaned it after every 10th person or so. God I love sanitation. That's all I have to say...

Preparing to leave, and what comes after November....

This week has been spent plane ticket hunting for my trip home in November and post-SLP job hunting.

The plane ticket is becoming a rather daunting problem, much harder than I expected. My school will only cover 1,000,00o won for my plane ticket home. Since I'm flying right around Thanksgiving time (I really want to be home for Thanksgiving this year) the cheapest possible flight to Boston is around $800... today.. but rising quickly... that comes out to be just around a million won. Of course those are the crappy flights with long layovers in inconvenient places. To make it even more difficult, my friend and I wanted to meet in San Francisco for a few days before I come home. Under normal circumstances, this would be a simple long stop-over, but leaving San Francisco two days before Thanksgiving is proving quite difficult. I refuse to pay for a stopover, since I have to make a stopover anyway, there are no direct flights to Boston from Seoul. I guess I just better pick a flight today and tell my school that's what I want. It's looking like Hawaiian Air for me.... with a 4 hour layover in Honalulu.

Then there is the question of what to do once I get home. I still seem to keep leaning toward coming back to Korea.... My plan today (which I'm sure will change about 500 times between now and December) is to go home for a month, get a job with either Borders or Macy's as a seasonal worker, since I've worked at both places before, then in January, go to Ecuador as a volunteer at a forest restoration site for a month or so, then home for a week, then back to Korea for Spring semester in the public schools, if I can get in to SMOE (Seoul Public Schools). I've even found that I can fly to Ecuador for only about $400 dollars if I take a bus to New York and fly from there, otherwise it's about a $700 flight with 3-4 stopovers.

I keep dreaming of getting my own apartment... with two rooms... in Seoul... I love my apartment now, but guests are out of the question, it's very nice and modern, but not much bigger than a closet. Some school that would give me key money and rent money would be amazing... having to commute a little further wouldn't be a big deal, I usually take the bus to work now anyway because I'm lazy, or the subway from Gwanghwamun because I have Korean class three mornings a week. What difference if I'm commuting from my hagwon, or from my house? Is it sick that I'm dreaming of my potential amazing life in Seoul, and not in America? But, really, me getting an apartment on my own in Boston with the salary that I can expect is basically out of the question, unless I want to be completly broke all the time. Here I can live without constant money concerns...

Thanks for putting up with more of my musings. If anyone knows of any temporary jobs/internships/volunteer jobs in Latin America.... or China (I've had this notion lately that Chinese would be easy and useful to learn) let me know. Something that at least covers the cost of a room, even if they don't pay for board or a salary... I need to brush up on my Spanish before I lose it!

Medical Attention

Sorry for the lack of posts nowadays. Life has been a little crazy. For the past month now I've been to two separate doctors trying to get, what everyone thought was a UTI, treated. After a month of antibiotics, two different ones, one being the strongest and newest on the market, plus an antibiotic injection giving me only minimal improvement and still showing high white blood cell count in my urine samples, I was finally referred to a hospital for further examination.

I know that I am an adult, and fully capable of going to a hospital with English translators to accompany me on my hospital adventure, I felt a lot more comfortable going with someone I knew. For that reason, my boyfriend took me to the National Medical center at Euljiro-5-ga (right by dongdaemun stadium) because it is next to his office. Being a smaller, public hospital, there were no translators or doctors that are referred to international patients because of their language skills. That actually makes me feel better, I'd rather see a specialist that can't speak a word of English, than some doctor who isn't the best in the hospital, but is bilingual. On the other hand, this is a small, public hospital, so you have to wonder how good the care really is...

Anyway, after a rather stressful Thursday afternoon, going to the hospital just to make an appointment and being late for work and slightly ticking off my boss, Friday morning I went to the hospital for my consultation. After a rather uncomfortable waiting room experience, surrounded by Korean men at least 40-60 years older than me, I went in to see the top doctor in the urology department. He was very professional, and coincidentally, spoke English very well. He agreed with the gynecologist I had been seeing and told me that this was not a UTI. No UTI could survive a month course of antibiotics. He had some guesses as to what it might be, but sent me in for further tests to be sure. I took another urine test, three cups of urine this time (two of which had no cover, and all three were left on a counter top to be examined later... lovely) and an X-ray, presumably to check for kidney stones. Monday I have an appointment for an ultrasound and then Thursday I'll go back for a diagnosis. Monday and Thursday I'll have to miss some classes, but when my boss realized that it was not some ordinary problem, she seemed much more sympathetic to my case. Koreans are very health sensitive, I find, and going to the doctors during work hours has never been a problem for me.

I'm hoping that whatever the problem is, that it is not too serious. Though I was in a lot of pain, mostly in the lower abdominal area, still, just early last week, since Wednesday I've had almost no pain. Maybe whatever it was has run it's course. I'm off the antibiotics and I feel a lot better. If you've ever had any similar experiences, let me know, I have no idea what the problem could be...

Revisit to Doksugung and Gwanghwamun

Last weekend, a friend and I decided to get out and get some fresh air. Being on a budget, we decided to check out Doksugung. I actually accidentally found my way to Doksugung when I first arrived in Seoul last July , but I don't mind going again. We just wandered around, no tour this time around. There is also incidentally a Botero exhibit there, and though we didn't go in to see the exhibit, we took our photos with some chubby Botero statues out front.





After a romp through Doksugung, we decided to walk down and check out the new Gwanghwamun Plaza. While I don't know if it's worth a specific trip to see the new plaza, if you're in the area, it's definitely worth stopping by to check out. Lots of water spouts for children and a fantastically designed and well groomed garden.

Today I'm heading to Yongsan Base to check out District 9 at the movie theater on base. I was there yesterday too to see Up, which was so cute! I seem to be on base a lot lately, but it's so cheap to see movies there! Not to mention Taco Bell and other "real" American restaurants.

Gangneung Unification Park

In September, 1996, a North Korean spy submarine crashed on the rocks off of the east coast of South Korea. The 26 crew members managed to escape on to land. Some killed themselves, others tried to escape to the North and the man hunt for these soldiers caused the death of 17 South Koreans. Surprisingly, the North Korean government issued a formal apology for the loss of lives during the incident that following December. Later the South Koreans placed the submarine, along with a retired US Navy battleship donated to the ROK by the US government, into a park along the east coast named Gangneung Unification Park.
Durring our trip to Yongpyong two weekends ago, we decided to spend a little time at the beach, since it's only about a 45 minute drive away. When we reached the coast, I noticed that the coast was lined with barbed wire and military posts. I guess this was all installed after the crash of the North Korean sub as precaucionary measures if it were to ever happen agian. As we drove along, we came across Gangneung Unification Park and decided to check it out.

The first thing we did was check out the battleship. Actually, at the time I didn't realize it was an American ship, I found that while I was doing research to write this post. But, it was quite interesting to walk through the inside of a battle ship. We were even able to sit where they would shoot the guns. Then had a lot of historical information about the Korean Navy and the North Korean submarine crash in 1996.

Then we went over to the North Korean sub and were totally surprised that we were allowed to to in and see. We had to put on hard hats because of the low ceilings and small door frames. It's hard to believe that 24 men were on this tiny sub when it crashed.

Here's a view from the front of the sub
Me in the North Korean Sub

You can actually see the damage that the sub suffered when it crashed on the rocks off the east coast.