Seoul, Day Eight.
This evening, after I slept for like three, four hours and talked to my fabulous brother briefly, I decided to go get dinner and go to the COEX Mall.
I had Chinese food for dinner, which came with the requisite Korean side dishes of kimchi and pickled...turnip or radish or whatever that sliced yellow thing is. I had sweet and sour pork, which was really lovely and perfect for the first three bites and then it was less awesome. I saw an experiment once that showed in order to enjoy your food 100%, you have to either wait a really long time between bites, or mix it up with other foods.
Anyway, there were strips of fried pork, pineapple, maraschino cherries, a few carrot and zucchini and onion slices, and, my favorite part, two slices of canned peach. It tasted like about 3,000 calories. But I walked about twelve miles today so it doesn't really matter.
Then I walked to the mall, which is about three miles from my house. And in some ways it is like an American mall: food court, escalators, Starbucks, lots of clothing boutiques.
But then there's the Korean edge: everything is advertised with cartoon creatures, even men's products. There is an unbelieveable number of stores devoted to sheer KITSCH. I do like all the random stuff with badly translated English though. Can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but I'll bring home some Happy Smile pencil cases or something.
OH. AND JILL. There's a show entirely devoted to umbrellas/parasols. Most of them I think are sun/rain umbrellas, but the $35 umbrellas are lacy and gorgeous. Like, you could get a bunch of matching ones and use them in a wedding.
And then there's the people. There were a fair number of Westerners (by which I mean about 8), but mostly super well-dressed Koreans. I brought mostly formal clothes with me, and most people dress very well most of the time (my school happens to be more casual, but whatever). But the thing that GETS me about Koreans is the SHOES. Korean women wear ridiculous, flimsy, high-heeled shoes ALL THE TIME. It's so stupid! And I've seen people wear these shoes over bandaids and flesh-colored socks. I'm just like, yo, people, WEAR SENSIBLE SHOES! No wonder Esther thought it was amazing that I didn't want to take a taxi to avoid a 20-minute walk. Nooo, Esther. These boots were made for walking. I love Esther though, she's really sweet.
I tried and failed to find a birthday present for my dad. Alas! But I did buy a headset so I can skype people. I tried to buy an actual cordless phone for my VoIP but they were out of cordless phones. Silly. They had replaced the cordless phone with a Garfield phone, which didn't help me.
Theeeeen I went to the movies and saw "Smart People," which I actually really enjoyed. It had Korean subtitles, wasn't dubbed or anything.
Apparently there's an aquarium at the COEX Mall too, but I didn't see it.
Today I was supposed to get my TV. I didn't. I wonder why they keep giving me specific dates for things when all they really mean is "sometime in the next few weeks."
But for now, bedtime.
I had Chinese food for dinner, which came with the requisite Korean side dishes of kimchi and pickled...turnip or radish or whatever that sliced yellow thing is. I had sweet and sour pork, which was really lovely and perfect for the first three bites and then it was less awesome. I saw an experiment once that showed in order to enjoy your food 100%, you have to either wait a really long time between bites, or mix it up with other foods.
Anyway, there were strips of fried pork, pineapple, maraschino cherries, a few carrot and zucchini and onion slices, and, my favorite part, two slices of canned peach. It tasted like about 3,000 calories. But I walked about twelve miles today so it doesn't really matter.
Then I walked to the mall, which is about three miles from my house. And in some ways it is like an American mall: food court, escalators, Starbucks, lots of clothing boutiques.
But then there's the Korean edge: everything is advertised with cartoon creatures, even men's products. There is an unbelieveable number of stores devoted to sheer KITSCH. I do like all the random stuff with badly translated English though. Can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but I'll bring home some Happy Smile pencil cases or something.
OH. AND JILL. There's a show entirely devoted to umbrellas/parasols. Most of them I think are sun/rain umbrellas, but the $35 umbrellas are lacy and gorgeous. Like, you could get a bunch of matching ones and use them in a wedding.
And then there's the people. There were a fair number of Westerners (by which I mean about 8), but mostly super well-dressed Koreans. I brought mostly formal clothes with me, and most people dress very well most of the time (my school happens to be more casual, but whatever). But the thing that GETS me about Koreans is the SHOES. Korean women wear ridiculous, flimsy, high-heeled shoes ALL THE TIME. It's so stupid! And I've seen people wear these shoes over bandaids and flesh-colored socks. I'm just like, yo, people, WEAR SENSIBLE SHOES! No wonder Esther thought it was amazing that I didn't want to take a taxi to avoid a 20-minute walk. Nooo, Esther. These boots were made for walking. I love Esther though, she's really sweet.
I tried and failed to find a birthday present for my dad. Alas! But I did buy a headset so I can skype people. I tried to buy an actual cordless phone for my VoIP but they were out of cordless phones. Silly. They had replaced the cordless phone with a Garfield phone, which didn't help me.
Theeeeen I went to the movies and saw "Smart People," which I actually really enjoyed. It had Korean subtitles, wasn't dubbed or anything.
Apparently there's an aquarium at the COEX Mall too, but I didn't see it.
Today I was supposed to get my TV. I didn't. I wonder why they keep giving me specific dates for things when all they really mean is "sometime in the next few weeks."
But for now, bedtime.