jrkorea's Diaryland Diary
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empty
I got one hour's sleep last night. today i have been shaking all day and can't stop crying. i am so angry and hurt and i feel sick to my stomach. this one is going to take a while. donna thank you for the call, and to my friend kate here in bundang, thanks also, i hadn't realised her weekend was worse than mine. time to put things in perspective again.
10:05 a.m. - Sunday, Sept. 28, 2003
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best and worst day
i was meant to meet another guy but i felt tired (4 hours sleep after pub quiz) and although jon and i were meant to meet sunday we decided to switch days and hang out.
it started as such a great day, we went and got his bike fixed, grabbed some food and then went for a really long walk along the han river. it is beautiful at night, the river is huge and bare (no boats or anything) and at night all the city lights reflect on it. there were occasional fireworks and we had a great time.
later we had a few beers and some great conversation. the just being friends thing was going so well. jon described the day as the best he had ever spent with me.
then of course, life had to step in and deal a cruel blow. i got some news that night that shocked me to the core and made me question everything that has ever happened to me since i arrived in korea. i can't even talk about it here but i feel sick to my stomach and wish so much i was home with my friends and people who love me who i can trust.
9:59 a.m. - Saturday, Sept. 27, 2003
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pub quiz
yay i finally achieved my dream ambition - to come LAST in a pub quiz. This may not sound like much of an ambition but when you keep coming second or third last you feel so mediocre. At least last is an extreme position of some sort. And even better... you get a booby prize. I finally got a toy gun!! Toy guns are big here, i've wanted one a while now. This is a particularly cool one; it is in fact also a (ta da) laser light thingy with 5 (five!) different patterned laser beams. wow, can life get any better than this?
9:54 a.m. - Friday, Sept. 26, 2003
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starbucks
do we have these at home? seriously i dont remember ever seeing one. in exeter either. and definitely not in portugal.
damn they're good. how'm i ever s'posed to save money with one of these in my town.
mocha frapaccino... sigh
11:21 p.m. - Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2003
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dongdamun
yesterday i headed to the dongdamun (not sure about spelling) markets with jon. it was such a fun day. it's not really an organised market under one roof, it's just a whole bunch of small markets out in the streets. lots of bargains i think but not many options for women under 65. jon bought a cool jacket and some trousers but i was empty handed. it's quite funny, the stall holders refuse to bargain point blank.
anyway i had a blast walking round there although we were starving and no food places were open, just the dodgy street stall food which my stomache isn't brave enough to try yet. we finally found a mall that was open but the food court was ALL korean, grr we were craving western food. at last we found a subway ripoff called sub which was ok.
after that we headed to a neighbourhood neither of us had ever been to called hye-hwa or something (i'm so hopeless at all these names). i really loved it, i wish i lived there. it was bustling and vibrant, hardly any foreigner, loads of young people, great bars and shops. we walked past a bunch of old men just sitting in a circle on the sidewalk laughing and sharing a plate of food, having the time of their lives.
Jon dragged me to a free Korean lesson. I mean, i'm a bit korean-lessoned-out this week. anyway i agreed even though they're run by an evangelistical (is that a word?) church. it was actually ok. i mean the lesson was a shambles, it made me laugh, i don't think i learnt anything but the nice thing is they have a main teacher at the front but each student sits next to a korean who teaches you concurrently with the lesson. i left early since the weather was just to beautiful to stay indoors, plus i was half waiting for the big god push to come soon or something.
we found a super sushi place and had a rainbow roll and california roll. yummo! pretty cheap too. nothing beats good sushi! after that i wanted to go for a long walk down some road. it was great fun except for the fact seoul is so polluted it kills your lungs to walk down any road for more than 5 mins.
hmm that was pretty much my day. on the subway back, these ajummas (middle aged korean housewife type people) started laughin and pointing to my tattoo and crackin all these jokes. they were quite scornful actually.
hmm, not much else. you know how new york has a little korea? well, i passed a coffee shop called little new york. it made me laugh.
11:16 p.m. - Monday, Sept. 22, 2003
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ppang saro kayo
Well I've had 3 or 4 Korean lessons now... I'm getting better at reading but i'm still pretty slow, especially the longer words (by the time I get to the end of a word I've forgotton how it started).
Vocab seems easy enough to pick up but grammar is a killer. the word order is the opposite of English and there are millions of verb-endings and various particles.
i'm also studying out of a teach-yourself book. it's pretty good but can be very time consuming, you really have to concentrate. my cat never came home last night so despite the gorgeous weather today, i felt obliged to stay in in case she turned up (which she finally did late this evening, thankfully, i was scared she'd been tortured or something). Anyway, it meant I had a bit of time to study today. Also my flat is sparkling clean and I got to listen to my new cds. Tomorrow, when I'm able to leave the house, you can be sure it'll rain.
Anyway, the book is quite good in getting my reading speed up. It has simple dialogues which introduce new vocab and grammar concepts. They don't translate it on the page so you have to work out the conversation yourself. I'm early in the book so they're basic but haha they are funny when you translate word for word, here's (my) literal translation of the first dialogue:
Jaemin! Hello!
Yes. Hello. Well have you been getting on?
Yes. Yes. Where going?
Now. Town to going.
What doing intend to town to going?
Bread buy intend to going
Me too. Bread buy intend to town to going.
Then together going.
Yes. Together going.
Hmm, I'll be a fluent speaker in no time! (in any case I can tell people whether I intend to go to town to buy bread).
I'm going to stay in tonight. I've been having too many drinking nights the last few days and I'd like to get up and do fun stuff tomorrow.
8:44 p.m. - Saturday, Sept. 20, 2003
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dead straight
i had my hair straightened in itaewon today. it was quite a process and took about 3 hours. i was enjoyin all the pampering at first but the time did start to drag, especially after i finished my book. however, now i feel like a jennifer anniston supermodel or something, just kidding. anyway, it's the best thing to do in this country because it's impossible to manage your hair due to the constant anti-hair weather we have. they overcharged me quite a bit because apparantly my hair is very damaged and they had to use the expensive chemicals. anyway, to compensate for feeling a bit ripped off i went and bought a backpack and bargained the guy down to almost half price. i did this by by starting to haggle very loudly in front of a couple who were about to pay full price so he quickly whispered an agreement and ushered me out of the store, saying only cuz you are pretty girl. hah! the hair is payin for itself already.
5:58 p.m. - Saturday, Sept. 13, 2003
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