I don't intend to write any essays here. Today I write only for the many little stories or factoids that do not warrant their own post by themselves.
7 Eleven. I experienced some genuine glee when I first noticed that this country was full of them. EXCEPT, when you step into these mascqerading shops, you quickly perceive that aside from the store's name, nothing is familiar to you! Okay, okay - maybe a couple chocolate bars. But even the chips are foreign. And the only 'supposed' brand name chip (Sunchips) taste like chimera sunchip/buggle/awful chips.
To counter that disappointment, let me add the blessing of McDonalds. Woah! Easy! I would never say that in Canada. But in foreign lands, McDonalds are always more respectable. Especially when they offer you unbeatable and unbelievable prices at lunch. I could get 2 Bigmac meals (with tomato and bacon) and substitute their drinks for small shakes and only pay $7 Cdn. total.. Plus, it tastes like home, not kimchi (Korea's 'everywhere food'). [Tyler and I think that Korean body odor and old Korean fridges smell like kimchi; and that everything that tastes funny, like milk, has rice in it]. For the record, I don't mind the taste of Kimchi.
Scaring Tyler. Oh, he knew this was coming. It was one of my 'best ever' scares. Before I begin - a detail about our house. The bathroom shower has a mini sliding window that opens to a sheltered shoe removal area. From that area I was about to depart, when Tyler yells in his best Swartzenegger voice: "Get Down!" which startlers anyone who doesn't expect there to be anybody in the room with them. He was showering and decided to surpise me with a good natured scare. So I left to run an errand and crept back quietly to the same location where I could exact my revenge. This time the window was shut. I poise right in front of the foggy glass...then *slide* and with a yet more precise Arnold voice: "It's not a tumor!" Hahaha, I still laugh at his raw animal reaction. He quite seriously screamed bloody murder and through up his hands in the air. The kind of reaction you think Hollywood has embellished until you see it for yourself. Thankfully he was already laughing with me in seconds.
I think triplets are enough for anyone to give birth to in one day. Now I rest.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Settling Down and Settle Down on Saturday
If I thought upon arriving here that ordering dinner was going to be difficult, imagine the challenge of finding housing. Language barrier aside, Tyler and I had to barter with local real estate agents while having no idea of the property value in the prospective area (Itaewon). The only solution: hit several real estate agents, compare offers, and try to drop down your favourite place. That was last weekend, and now Tyler and I are proud owners of a 3 bedroom flat in a district that is noted for its attractiveness to foreginers.
After a week of work, including closing the house deal, working many overtime hours, and getting a health check at the hospital for my immigration process, we were ready to move on to phase two: furnishing the house. I don't just mean furniture here. I mean, fridges, stoves, and washing machines are not included. Never mind a few beds, closets (they don't have permanent closets so you have to buy movable units), a table, desks, chairs, a tv, a couch, a coffee table, and whateverelse we'll need. Again we encountered the bartering dilemna. For the furniture and appliances we thought it necessary to look at a few secondhand places. But how do we find out where they are if we don't have an English Yellow Pages. Well, you ask random people who know broken English and walk and walk and walk around looking for places. Once we rounded up enough stuff from a couple locations we realized that we didn't have enough cash to pay for everything (they wouldn't except credit cards). So we ran around looking for banks that would allow us to take out cash from our credit cards. This story goes on but I'll stop here. Sound exhausting? Sound stressful? It was. And that was just before supper.
The evening was spent traveling an hour to Costco and finding out that you can only pay with cash (again!!!) or samsung-mastercards.... we were sooooo frusterated at that point. We decided to at least look around. Imagine what you, as a Canadian, would think a packed and busy night at Costco would be like. Now multiply that by 3 (probably more), and factor in that half of them were completely oblivious to where they were pushing their cart. It is no exaggeration that at least 15 times that evening people stopped in the middle of an isle, stayed there doing nothing in particular, and refused to accept the reality that several other people were staring at them waiting to move forward. After all we had been through that day, we were ready to go back to our appartment with still only one mattress to share between the two of us.
After a week of work, including closing the house deal, working many overtime hours, and getting a health check at the hospital for my immigration process, we were ready to move on to phase two: furnishing the house. I don't just mean furniture here. I mean, fridges, stoves, and washing machines are not included. Never mind a few beds, closets (they don't have permanent closets so you have to buy movable units), a table, desks, chairs, a tv, a couch, a coffee table, and whateverelse we'll need. Again we encountered the bartering dilemna. For the furniture and appliances we thought it necessary to look at a few secondhand places. But how do we find out where they are if we don't have an English Yellow Pages. Well, you ask random people who know broken English and walk and walk and walk around looking for places. Once we rounded up enough stuff from a couple locations we realized that we didn't have enough cash to pay for everything (they wouldn't except credit cards). So we ran around looking for banks that would allow us to take out cash from our credit cards. This story goes on but I'll stop here. Sound exhausting? Sound stressful? It was. And that was just before supper.
The evening was spent traveling an hour to Costco and finding out that you can only pay with cash (again!!!) or samsung-mastercards.... we were sooooo frusterated at that point. We decided to at least look around. Imagine what you, as a Canadian, would think a packed and busy night at Costco would be like. Now multiply that by 3 (probably more), and factor in that half of them were completely oblivious to where they were pushing their cart. It is no exaggeration that at least 15 times that evening people stopped in the middle of an isle, stayed there doing nothing in particular, and refused to accept the reality that several other people were staring at them waiting to move forward. After all we had been through that day, we were ready to go back to our appartment with still only one mattress to share between the two of us.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
A Story Beginning
Here begins my written journey. Many have expressed the desire to know my experiences, and since the options are myriad, malnouished 'personal' updates or a girthy, detailed mass update, I believe you will agree that the latter is superior. So in the spirited voice of the MXC announcer, "Let's get it on!"
Where do I begin? With the terrible visa process that soaked all my patience? Too frusterating. With the scramble to find western luxuries before departing this familiar market? Too materialistic. With the hard goodbyes of my loved ones? Too personal. No. I will begin when I landed in Toronto for my interview with the Korean consulate. Not with the actual interview which was short and not worth mentioning, but with the other Canadians I met at the consulate who were about to embark on the same journey.
We had never seen each other and would have never spoken to each other if it weren't for the similar fate we shared. Yet with a secretly shared excitement inside and a longing to express it with anyone else who could empathize, we greeted with mutual affection. We talked of our frustrations, our gameplans, and our traveler's joy.
I met a girl who was on the same flight as I was that very night. I never would have done this with a perfect stranger but the circumstances invited company - we decided to spend the evening hanging out together. We had a couple final Canadian beers and exchanged our knowledge of the land and the people before us. We just wanted to know that other people were doing the same thing as us and everything would turn out fine. I thought to myself that this wouldn't be the first meeting of this kind and that the same meeting might happen multiple times with other lone foreigners in Korea.
And then we departed. Off and up. High, high, and over. Across. Far. Very far. Terrifyingly far. And then 14 hours later. I was transported. There was no stopping the adventure. There was no turning back. I was much much further from home than I had ever been before.
Where do I begin? With the terrible visa process that soaked all my patience? Too frusterating. With the scramble to find western luxuries before departing this familiar market? Too materialistic. With the hard goodbyes of my loved ones? Too personal. No. I will begin when I landed in Toronto for my interview with the Korean consulate. Not with the actual interview which was short and not worth mentioning, but with the other Canadians I met at the consulate who were about to embark on the same journey.
We had never seen each other and would have never spoken to each other if it weren't for the similar fate we shared. Yet with a secretly shared excitement inside and a longing to express it with anyone else who could empathize, we greeted with mutual affection. We talked of our frustrations, our gameplans, and our traveler's joy.
I met a girl who was on the same flight as I was that very night. I never would have done this with a perfect stranger but the circumstances invited company - we decided to spend the evening hanging out together. We had a couple final Canadian beers and exchanged our knowledge of the land and the people before us. We just wanted to know that other people were doing the same thing as us and everything would turn out fine. I thought to myself that this wouldn't be the first meeting of this kind and that the same meeting might happen multiple times with other lone foreigners in Korea.
And then we departed. Off and up. High, high, and over. Across. Far. Very far. Terrifyingly far. And then 14 hours later. I was transported. There was no stopping the adventure. There was no turning back. I was much much further from home than I had ever been before.
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