Bowing

You would not believe how much Koreans bow...it's amazing.  Every time you enter a business, you bow and say "yo-bo-say-yo" or something like that, and they bow and say the same thing.  And when you make a purchase/pay for your meal, the cashier usually bows to you, and I'm assuming you're supposed to bow back.  Then when you leave, you do the yo-bo-say-yo bow exchange thing again.  This applies everywhere, even the 7-11 on my street.  So every time I enter it to get a snack, I have to go through this whole process of bowing and greeting in the most American of institutions just to get an ice cream bar late at night.  A bit annoying at times, but usually I just find it funny.

Sick

Unfortunately I have a nasty cold here.  This seems to happen to me in foreign countries.  I get colds all of the time in the states, so I guess it's natural that I'd get sick as soon as I arrive here since I'm not immune to their sicknesses.  Not as bad as in Argentina though.  In my first two months there, I got colds twice that left me bed-ridden for days.  I'm not exaggerating...literally, I was too weak to get out of bed.  From a cold.  Probably had something to do with the language.  In Korea, I'm pretty much an alien and don't interact with them, but in Argentina, I was constantly interacting with the culture since I spoke Spanish, and speaking in a foreign language all day is incredibly taxing.  So I think it just left me really weak.  My cold here hasn't been nearly as bad, although I'm constantly congested and I sleep much, much longer than normal.

OK I seriously need to stop posting.  I'm getting way too mundane.  It's Friday night so I'm off to do some exploring for a little while.

Middle-aged Korean women

The funniest thing about Korea is the uniform of the middle-aged woman.  First of all, they're funny in that their main job seems to be to put their kids in school 18 hours a day as well as put tremendous pressure on them to succeed, and to be as strict as possible along the way of course.  But they all wear the exact same outfit.  I'm not joking.  They all wear a visor and they dress as hikers.  Most of the time it's a black pastic visor.  They were hiking boots, nylon pants, and a nylon jacket, and a nice backpack.  Often times they even have hiking poles, and sometimes they walk with them!  I don't know how they decided this, if they had a convention or what, but it seems like every single one wears this outfit.  It's unbelievable.

Eating in Korea

I thought I'd already written about this but I couldn't find it in the mass of text I've written (my liberal arts training has given me the ability produce huge bodies of text in a relatively short period of time without getting too bored), so I'm going to devote a quick post to it.  I love Korean food, even though it's very spicy (I have a hard time with spicy food).  I'm trying to build up my tolerance to it though, because there are so many great spicy foods in the world out there and I've really limited myself in never eating them.  You just have to not think about it.  I pride myself in being able to eat pretty much any food (I can't think of anything off of the top of my head that I don't like), and since the spicy food category is a big one, I better conquer it.  I'm already pretty used to it.  Anyway, as much as I love Korean food, I do get kind of sick of eating it every meal, every day, so I've definitely had my fair share of Burger King, McDonald's, and Subway. 

In Korean restaurants you generally take your shoes off and sit on the floor (usually you get a thin pillow).  It's hard for me though because my legs are really long and cross-legged I can't fit them under the low tables, so I have to shift from position to position and my back gets kind of sore.  I kind of like the idea though, not having your shoes on and sitting on the floor makes you feel more at home.  Usually every table has a stove (either gas or charcoal) and, if necessary (always with meats), they cook your food right in front of you (or you do it yourself, but since I'm a foreigner, they always do it for me). 

Each table has a wooden box with metal spoons and chopsticks (Korea is the only country that uses metal chopsticks apparently), and usually stacks of cups, and they give you a container of water.  You always get your food within 5 minutes of ordering it, and, by the way, you don't tip them.  So you don't wait for food, you never have to wait for a table (I've never seen it happen), you refill your own water, and you don't tip them.  Not to mention the prices are way lower than those of restaurants in the states.  And you don't have to worry about some annoying server constantly interrupting your conversation and "taking care of you."  When I have dinner, I don't need to be taken care of.  I can take care of myself.  Just give me a pitcher of water and leave me alone.  If there's something wrong with the food, I'll let you know.  Why can't we have restaurants like these in the states????  I guess it's no surprise that there are restaurants EVERYWHERE here.  You wouldn't believe how many restaurants there are.  Koreans must eat out all of the time because it's such a good deal.

There are tons of American places here as well.  On the main street that's two blocks from my house, there's a Baskin Robbins (there seems to be one on every street), a Subway, a Coldstone Creamery (though it's extremely expensive, unfortunately), and McDonald's and Starbucks (those are on every street as well).  There's a Burger King right by my work, which is apparently equally as popular as McDonald's here and came first.  There's tons of Dunkin Donughts as well.  There's Papa John's too, which they had at the hagwon the other night.  I live a block away from a Korean pizza chain called Pizza School which is really good (it would do well in the states, especially with its prices and how fast it is).  It has some interesting flavors...pork ribs (with a rib on each piece), pork loin crepe or something like that, Mexican bite pizza, Deutsche bite pizza (German themed I guess), and two potato pizzas, among other things.  There's also a Korean fast food burger chain called Krazee Burger that's really good apparently but I haven't tried it since there aren't any near where I live or near my work.

G20 summit

When I arrived in Seoul the G20 was just starting, and yesterday and today, Obama spoke.  I'm not sure how long he's in Korea.  Anyways, I was excited at first...I mean, what are the chances that a hugely important economic conference would kick off in the same city right when I arrived?  But after thinking about it for 30 seconds I realized that it provides absolutely no entertainment value.  Even though there's hardly any foreigners here, it's not like that entitles you to mixing with the world leaders.  And none of it is open to the public, not to mention all of the businesses in the area close down.  The area is also extremely tightly patrolled by Korean cops and military personnel, who don't f around.  Apparently Korea declared martial law in that area, so I'd be liable to get my ass kicked if I went there.  There are two areas where people are allowed to protest (very far away from the summit), but that wouldn't be a good idea either.  I wouldn't want to risk the wrath of the Korean riot police, not to mention getting involved in a political incident probably wouldn't be good for my E-2 visa.

Sometimes, Korean food isn't so good

Today I spent several hours walking through Seoul and exploring (I'm able to do this because I don't have many hours right now).  I headed west on a street that I hadn't gone to far down.  I was only probably 10-15 blocks or so from my apartment before I got to a hill.  At the top of the hill I was shocked to see that I could see the hillsides surrounding Seoul very easily, and only another 15-20 blocks in a different direction was a large hill covered in trees.  There were some huge skyscrapers as well that were pretty isolated.  I kept heading west and was hungry so I stopped at a restaurant that was cheap and had pictures with prices under them, meaning it'd be simple to order.  It was in between lunch and dinner, so not a peak time for restaurants, and no one was eating there.  I should've listened to the advice I received: if a restaurant is crowded, it must be good.  If not, than it sucks.  Well, I had the worst meal I've had here yet.  I'm not sure if it was the quality of the restaurant or just a dish I don't like, but it was hard to finish.  It was a soup of either liver or morcillo (I don't know the word in English for this, it's common in Argentina, it's coagulated pig's blood or something like that).  Anyways, not good.

Another hilarious thing about Korean culture is how they advertise for sales.  Often times they'll blare loud music outside of the store and there'll be a girl with a microphone talking about the products, I'm guessing.  Sometimes, they'll have girls dancing too.  I was walking home and an appliance store was having a sale, and they had huge speakers blaring music you could hear from blocks away, a girl talking into a microphone, and another girl dancing in skimpy clothes, which must've sucked because it was freezing outside.

Stovetop

I have the weirdest stovetop in my apartment.  I couldn't figure out how to turn it on.  Whenever I did, it would beep and hum and then stop.  Then, sometimes when I tried it, it wouldn't even go on at all.  I had one of my coworkers (not sure what I should call them...fellow teachers?) email the guy who used to live there, and he said that you needed a certain type of pot or pan for it to work.  When one of the people at the front desk called the landlord, he said the same thing, though they didn't believe him...none of them had heard of such a thing.  Eventually, my boss and I had dinner in my area and then he went to my apartment to check it out.  The landlord told him that you need to have a certain type of metal on the bottom, one that a magnet would stick to...ferris, he said, or something like that.  The teakettle I bought was aluminum.  There was one for 13,000 won at the store that I'm sure would've worked, but no, I had to get the fancy one with a guard on the spout for 22,000 won (there was one of that kind for like 17,000 won, but it was pink so I broke down and bought the more expensive one).  Anyways, 22,000 won wasted.  I bought another one for 15,000 and it works.  Finally I can eat oatmeal and ramen!