A few interesting things happened this week. The Chinese students arrived that I’ll be taking Korean language classes with. I was surprised as to how good their English is. They call it “Ching-glish.” They all seem really nice. One girl is really shy around me because I’m the first “westerner” that she’s ever met. They’ll be taking Korean for a year and then starting in Graduate Degree programs.
I’ve also joined the rest of the 99.999999% of the Korean population by finally getting a cell phone, or “hand phone” as they go by here. I’m glad I was able to finally get one because now I feel like I can jump on a bus and go exploring by myself. Getting lost doesn’t really seem like a problem anymore now that I can call someone up to get directions or help if I need it. It’s a cute little thing, I have to admit. It has some pretty handy features like a built in map of the Seoul subway system, exchange rate calculator and Karaoke. Yes indeed, portable Karaoke.
I’ve always had the dream of taking an ordinary thing like riding an elevator with a bunch of strangers and turning it into a Karaoke party. That dream is finally within reach.
Anyways, I went to Seoul this past Sunday for the first time. I went with my Korean language teacher and her boyfriend; Joyce and Bill. As far as public transport goes, there’s three ways to get to Seoul from where I live; high speed bullet train, normal train and subway. We chose to take the ladder which is the cheapest, and therefore the longest. I was up at 6am to catch a bus for 7am to get to the closest subway station. The subway ride into the area of the town where we went was 2 hours long. Yuck.
We got off at a station called Myeong-dong which seemed to be the fashion district. It was an enormous area with nothing but clothing stores, restaurants and street vendors. We arrived there at 11am and started walking around. The streets there are meant for pedestrians only; they’re not very wide, almost like large alleys. I felt like I was in a maze, a maze that had also trapped thousands of other people. The place was jammed.
The weather is starting to cool down a little bit so I figured I might as well look for a light jacket to wear for the autumn. With so many stores everywhere this should be an easy task I thought. Well, I was wrong. It’s not that there wasn’t a great selection, there was. There are stores ranging from Old Navy prices to high-end department stores. It was the sizes that were the problem. Even the XL sizes were too small. If the body of the jacket fit the arms were too short. If the arms were long enough the shoulders were too tight. If the shoulders weren’t tight it was bright purple or something. There was always something wrong with every jacket I tried on.
We went to one store that was 5 or 6 stories high, each floor was divided into a type of grid with nothing but small clothing vendors lined up. On one of the men’s floors there was one small shop with nothing but jackets. We walked in, the girl working looked me up and down and said, “We don’t have anything that fits you here, maybe you should try a different country.” A different country? My jacket shopping came to an end at that moment. No one had told nothing in all of Korea will fit me. Thank you for your honesty Shop Keep.
Maybe I’ll have better luck in Japan next month?
We had enough shopping so they asked if I wanted to go to Karaoke. I was all for it, expecting we were going to a bar. That’s where Karaoke’s done right? Unless you have it on your cell phone I guess. I was wrong about both things. Karaoke in Korea is done in private booths about the size of a medium sized bathroom. There were bench seats around the wall, a small table in the center, a large flat panel screen on the wall, a mirror ball hanging from the ceiling and a tambourine on the table should the mood strike you. So because it’s private karaoke you have full control of the music; you choose it, you can stop it, change the speed or key, etc...
It was a great time. Bill I found out is a rock star (not really). You haven’t lived until you’ve heard a small Korean man SCREAMING Linkin Park songs. Nothing is greater.
