Friday, April 04, 2003

*... my brief stint as a Canadian ...*
so anyone who knows me knows that i can't fake an accent to save my life. According to me, all Europeans sound the same (tho in my own defense, it would sound the same when Tommy the Italian or Gokhan the Turk shout "Breeeeeet! You ah a beee-yuuuuu-teeee-fuuhll woe-mahn!" across the quad, thanks. This is experience talking here) JP and I were informed to pretend we were Canadian when we were in South Korea, just to be safe. I thought maybe my lurking habit of say "oot" as opposed to "out" would crop up here, but no such luck. Thankfully we only had to say we were Canadian a couple of times, and no one wanted to check our passports. Our cover was almost blown when someone who actually IS Canadian checked into the hostel we were at... but it didn't come up, thank goodness.
Summing up Seoul in 2 words: "f***in' stairs!!" Serious. Ugh. I don't feel too bad about missing my weekly workouts after running through the airport, then running again through the Kwangju bus station (where we ended up missing the bus anyway and prompted JP to be indignant that the bus actually left on time. How dare it, really!), walking around (up??) Seoul for 6 hours straight and then again jogging to a different bus. Whew! I even threw in some pushups in there when I was demonstrating for Kristina and Sarah. Between the 3 of us martial artists (they take hapkido), we were like Charlie's Angels: Sarah's blonde, Kristina's dark brown, and I am now a redhead, after Sarah mentioned that Korea is a country that never sleeps; you can get your hair done at 3am. (She was right!) JP is like our Bosley, though he thinks he's Charlie. And of course we can't forget Walter the (female) dog, who's biggest weapon is peeing absolutely everywhere when she meets anyone new, even if she had met you 2 hours before. That's brutal.
In terms of scenery, Korea isn't much to look at, at least not in Seoul, Kwangju, or the 3 hour highway bus trip in between. However, the food is amazing, and the prices are even better. What would cost me close to $12 in Japan cost me all of $2 in Korea (specifically i am talking about my very healthy dinner one night of fresh strawberries, real vanilla ice cream, and hot cocoa... mmm, the comforts of home). Plus they have an EXCELLENT concept called "service" which means you can say to the waiter "service, service" and they have to bring you free stuff. I could definitely get used to that. At the soju bar (not sure how to spell that, i know in Japanese it is sho-chu), we got some weirdly addictive crispy things, french fries, and for some strange reason they brough us a hot, flat plate of corn with a square of plastic-cheese melted in the middle. No forks, no chopsticks, just corn. All for free! (tho maybe they just had to get rid of the corn concoction, which would then explain a lot). So I now know 3 Korean words: "service!", "gamsa hamnida" (thank you) and "juseyo" (please), which i got to employ quite a lot in the hair salon when the woman decided to style my hair in the most hideous fashion possible (parted down the middle, but fluffed up... I looked like a shoddy Nancy Reagan) and i was trying to politely tell her to stop by pointing out my 2 sleeping friends (it was 3 am) and saying "juseyo" and following it up by pointing at my watch and saying "gotta go, juseyo" and "no more, juseyo". She didn't get the hint, unfortunately.
After we left Kristina, Sarah, and Walter, we went back to Seoul for a day and night, and back to the original hostel where the lady running the place wanted 10,000 of JP's babies (seriously, she would just stare at him and sigh "so handsome...") and back to the crazy lady Heath who snored unrelentlessly and who was in Korea b/c her daughter was extradited from the States to stand trial for a murder (what?! don't ask) and with the charming Swiss guy who wanted 10,000 of MY babies. All in all, Korea was a seriously good time; I am super satiated with happiness b/c i got to see Kristina and Sarah and relive some very fun times and make some new ones ("hated the book, love the nuggets") and JP is an awesome travel partner. And b/c it was WARM and UN-SMOKY... which tells you what it was like once i got back... sigh...
1:26 PM

Sunday, March 30, 2003

*... always an adventure ...*
so right now I am sitting in Seoul, Korea where they do all sorts of crazy things like drive on the right side of the road and have keyboards with the keys in the correct places. Which, of course, means i'm confused as all heck. JP is lucky I didn't kill him since he came to the airport so freaking late that we were escorted to the gate, practically at full sprint, and were out of breath and gasping on the plane. We were supposed to be taken to the hostel we're staying at, but the lady who owns the place was hungry, and we were taken to dinner instead. I'm still wiping the tears away from the peppers and garlic and all sorts of other really-fun-to-be-kissing-someone foods that we ate. But i'm relatively safe in that department (sadly enough). Tomorrow we head down to the south end o' the country to visit some friends i haven't seen in almost 8 years (crazy!). But for now, I am just trying not to get shot, harrassed, shouted at, rioted upon, or otherwise inflicted since i am quite clearly American (JP passes for anything but) and Korea is not exactly my biggest fan... I was told to be Canadian, eh?
9:40 PM