Shi Ne – Downtown and the Market
11 Mar
Amy, Liz and I adventured downtown to shop and mail some letters at the post office. We took the bus, which only cost 900 won, the equivalent of less than 90 cents.
The post office was really modern. It only cost me a few chan (bucks) to send 5 letters. There were some magical looking small wooden chairs and tables in the back of the post office. It felt very alice in wonderlandish.
Downtown is crazy. The buildings are really close, and there are like 3 or 4 stories of all kinds of restaurants, shops, and the like. Old ladies line the sidewalks with bags or boxes of fresh fruit and vegetables. I decided I will buy as much as possible from these ladies, screw the corporate supermarket and their clean floors and pushy customers. You can haggle with the ladies who are more than happy to hear my fake practice korean. “Kam-sa-ham-ni-da” means thank you. See, I’ve learned something. I got lettuce, mushrooms, rice, beanish things, bananas, and some fried bean filled goodness.
All the clothes in Korea have ‘EngRish’ words written on them. The slogans are hysterical. They are usually messed up song lyrics, or english sayings. I bought a tank top for 5 chan with a faded black and white image and some words (I forget right now) that I rocked when we danced it up last night at the hiphop club. I had so much fun, words cannot describe. The DJ was fantastic. He played all english tunes, a few corny, but mostly good dance beats. They have these crazy colored laser lights and a fog machine, which gives the westerners (like me) with no dancing ability the illusion of having some cool moves.
We also checked out some of the foreigner bars, which weren’t really to my liking. There were, like Trenton bars, a place to consider yourself social while paying exorbitant amounts of money for beer and badly mixed drinks. The music wasn’t the best, though Carlos did play some good Beatles and 80s hits at the bar ‘Bumpin’ (which was not, in fact, ‘bumpin.’) ‘The Warehouse’ had some pool tables, which were amusing for 13 seconds, and sexy korean bartenders who posed for us under an umbrella. (Koreans are weird, sometimes.)
Amy and I amused ourselves by playing “make-melissa-beautiful-using-all-the-makeup-in-your-purse” in the bar’s tiny bathroom.
HOLY MAKE-UP. EEK!
I met a group of teachers from ALL OVER the world who teach around Gangneung. I got along great with a few, and we made plans for future get togethers. Did I mention I LOVE KOREA? Ik huan introduced me to this band, Crying Nut, from Seoul. They are crazy korean punk rock and I’m buying their cds as soon as I get paid.
MRumianowski
Wish I could help you Melissa, but I was actually trying to figure out how to get the blog intro on mine and couldn’t find it anywhere.
P.S. And you have an overabundance of dancing ability, so don’t be so modest!
it sounds as though you may never return. i think im jealous.