Seoul, Days 17-18.
OOoh, fun weekend.
So I went to see Leah (who is the cousin of my childhood neighbor, Suzanne) and her husband Pavi at the Osan Air Base, where Pavi's stationed.
They have a really cool apartment:
We had Indian buffet for lunch (there's American, Asian, and Italian food in my neighborhood, but no Indian), which made me soooooo happy, curry and naan and tandoori chicken and caramel flan for dessert.
We were going to go the actual air base for a jazz/food event, but they wouldn't let me on because I didn't have my passport (it's at immigration for two weeks, until I can get my alien registration card. Two weeks! Bah!). So instead we went back to their house, I taught them how to play Scramble on facebook, we watched a bunch of Monty Python's Flying Circus, and we wrote a limerick about Chuck Norris, who, we discovered, had been stationed at the same air base.
Chuck Norris was once at an Air Base
And as an MP he did pace
He got in a fight,
and put all his might,
In a roundhouse kick to the face
Then we had pizza and wine for dinner:
And got ready to go out:
All the bars are tiny, so usually each clique chooses one bar that they go to, and they don't really rotate much cause then they'd run out of space. We went to a place called Kelly's, where there was a stuffed kitten on the shelf:
And folks played darts:
...while yes, Jean, they played The Killers. They had a computer hooked up to a big flat-screen, and basically when you wanted to listen to a certain song, you looked it up on YouTube and played it. The music was awesome.
And we danced and I tried cherry soju (soju is the Korean version of vodka, only it's not as strong and it's made of pine needles. When you mix it with cherry, though, it doesn't taste like anything. It was like drinking a Shirley Temple only less fizzy.
Good times.
Leah made breakfast in the morning, and they drove me back to Songtan station, and I went on my merry way to Itaewon. I was going to go to a ginseng festival in Geumsan, but couldn't get anyone to go with me (and it was a two hour forty minute bus ride each way), so I went grocery shopping instead.
I am now the proud owner of:
~five bunches of fresh noodles
~a box of green tea
~one package of shrimp
~one package of weird little fishies I see mixed into a lot of dishes
~One package of tofu
~One package of hot dogs
~One carton of eggs (they come in packages of ten here)
~Two packages of dumplings that look like the ones I like from Trader Joe's
~A bag of bean sprouts
~A package of those yellow striped melons
~One bag of something I hope is similar to spinach
~Two carrots
~Three nectarines
~One package of cherry tomatoes
~Cinnamon and pepper
~Korean barbeque sauce
~Lily-scented soap
~Lucky toothpaste
~Q-tips that cost less than 50 cents per Q-tip!! Yay!
~One trash can (hopefully this will alleviate the fruit fly issue)
~One power strip.
I could not find trash bags. And I didn't feel like carrying bottled water home, cause it's heavy, so I am just going to get it at the FamilyMart.
I feel so prepared for the next couple weeks. Mmmhmm.
So I went to see Leah (who is the cousin of my childhood neighbor, Suzanne) and her husband Pavi at the Osan Air Base, where Pavi's stationed.
They have a really cool apartment:
We had Indian buffet for lunch (there's American, Asian, and Italian food in my neighborhood, but no Indian), which made me soooooo happy, curry and naan and tandoori chicken and caramel flan for dessert.
We were going to go the actual air base for a jazz/food event, but they wouldn't let me on because I didn't have my passport (it's at immigration for two weeks, until I can get my alien registration card. Two weeks! Bah!). So instead we went back to their house, I taught them how to play Scramble on facebook, we watched a bunch of Monty Python's Flying Circus, and we wrote a limerick about Chuck Norris, who, we discovered, had been stationed at the same air base.
Chuck Norris was once at an Air Base
And as an MP he did pace
He got in a fight,
and put all his might,
In a roundhouse kick to the face
Then we had pizza and wine for dinner:
And got ready to go out:
All the bars are tiny, so usually each clique chooses one bar that they go to, and they don't really rotate much cause then they'd run out of space. We went to a place called Kelly's, where there was a stuffed kitten on the shelf:
And folks played darts:
...while yes, Jean, they played The Killers. They had a computer hooked up to a big flat-screen, and basically when you wanted to listen to a certain song, you looked it up on YouTube and played it. The music was awesome.
And we danced and I tried cherry soju (soju is the Korean version of vodka, only it's not as strong and it's made of pine needles. When you mix it with cherry, though, it doesn't taste like anything. It was like drinking a Shirley Temple only less fizzy.
Good times.
Leah made breakfast in the morning, and they drove me back to Songtan station, and I went on my merry way to Itaewon. I was going to go to a ginseng festival in Geumsan, but couldn't get anyone to go with me (and it was a two hour forty minute bus ride each way), so I went grocery shopping instead.
I am now the proud owner of:
~five bunches of fresh noodles
~a box of green tea
~one package of shrimp
~one package of weird little fishies I see mixed into a lot of dishes
~One package of tofu
~One package of hot dogs
~One carton of eggs (they come in packages of ten here)
~Two packages of dumplings that look like the ones I like from Trader Joe's
~A bag of bean sprouts
~A package of those yellow striped melons
~One bag of something I hope is similar to spinach
~Two carrots
~Three nectarines
~One package of cherry tomatoes
~Cinnamon and pepper
~Korean barbeque sauce
~Lily-scented soap
~Lucky toothpaste
~Q-tips that cost less than 50 cents per Q-tip!! Yay!
~One trash can (hopefully this will alleviate the fruit fly issue)
~One power strip.
I could not find trash bags. And I didn't feel like carrying bottled water home, cause it's heavy, so I am just going to get it at the FamilyMart.
I feel so prepared for the next couple weeks. Mmmhmm.