jrkorea's Diaryland Diary
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service
One nice thing in Korea is "service".
"Service" is anything you get for free with a purchase.
Maybe the guy at the 7-11 will pop a free juice in with your purchases or the lady at the restaurant brings you an extra salad or tops up your drink for free. They just smile and say "service".
Once you start going to any place more than once (and face it you are pretty easy to recognise again) they always add something for service. it's so nice.
1:50 p.m. - wednesday, Sept. 20, 2003
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it's ok
Jon's head teacher Adam gave us this amusing piece of advice.
If you want Koreans to do something that they don't want to do you just tell them that "It's ok"
so if they don't want to let your cat on the bus with you, you just keep nodding and saying "It's ok, it's ok" in your most reassuring voice.
If they won't allow 5 people into a taxi, just keep saying "It's ok" until they start nodding their heads too.
they will respond something like this: "No... no... no... ah... it's ok?... ok"
haven't tried it yet.
7:35 p.m. - Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2003
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no funds
well i'm totally out of cash. i guess you can take the girl out of portugal but you can't take the portugal fucked-upness out of my atm card. there is money there, i just can't take it out. i can't even log onto internet banking because they changed the format.
oh yeh. and the dumb kid whose b'day it was... well i left the house extra early and spent half my remaining cash on snacks for a mini party only to find out they'd been tricking the whole time and it's not her b'day. haha. they got a grammer test for that.
oh i borrowed some cash so i'm ok for money till i find out how to access my account again. everyone says, yeh that's korea for you but well duh, i'll eat my new hat if it wasn't caused at the lisbon end.
- Monday, Aug. 18, 2003
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itaewon
the weekend panned out a bit better in the end. staying in on saturday night was actually really nice. we got take out and watched a movie.
sunday we went to itaewon. this is the part of seoul that has the highest concentration of foreigners. it's also where the us army base is located. all the foreigners freaked me out a little at first, it was hard to remember which country i was in. however the shopping was a lot of fun. you get to bargain for things there. jon bought me a hat and some postcards.
it's a place full of sleazy bars and stuff but was quite mellow to visit during the day. everyone keeps trying to sell you something which is different to what i'm used to here.
i caught the bus back to bundang for a change and it was quite nice, fairly quick and scenic.
i am completely out of cash and i'm having real problems with my bank card. it doesn't even work in most of the foreign atms. it will be a last ditch effort at hbsc tomorrow or i'm in real strife.
it's one of the kid's b'days tomorrow and her classmates instructed me to host a snack party and i have to buy. well uh oh, i haven't organised anything, will see what i can throw together in the morning. i only have this group of kids for one more week and then my schedule changes.
8:07 p.m. - Sunday, Aug. 17, 2003
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chinese terracotta army
friday was a national holiday which was really nice. i got some stuff done which was good and then i tried to bond with my cat but she hid under my bed and wouldn't come out.
headed into seoul in the afternoon. jon has a new flatmate who's a girl (!) so i had to check her out but it's all good
we went out last nite to a really crap foreigner bar called route66 where they make nice long island ice teas. despite the crap nature of the venue, i met a couple of a cool people, maybe catch up again soon.
jon's been in a real mood. he is almost unbearable to be around and i feel a bit depressed as a consequence.
we're staying in tonight. that will be interesting since he's giving me the silent treatment. now i miss my cat!
saw an exhibition today of 2300 year old Chinese terracotta warrior statues, they were pretty amazing.
and i went to a buddhist temple which i really enjoyed even though I'm sure there are better ones around. it was actually several little temples nestled in woodland.
8:07 p.m. - Saturday, Aug. 16, 2003
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introducing kkotemin
I got my cat last night. this is a boring entry so genuine cat lovers only read...
Her name is Kkotenim. I hope I spelt that right. It means beautiful flower (she originally came from a florist). She's just turned one year old and is a beautiful, healthy, shiny calico kitty who just wants cuddles and cries when I leave (I think she forgets me 5 seconds later though, fickle thing).
She put me in such a good mood that I totally got over the fight Jon and I had been having for the last day or so and I even apologised to him (really should have talked it through though).
She waits outside the bathroom door when I'm having a shower so she can rub against me when I get out. I love being covered in wet cat hair straight after a shower!
She doesn't sleep on my face (and that's always a good thing).
And the nicest thing is, she's waiting at home for me right now and I know she'll be happy to see me.
9:05 p.m. - Thursday, Aug. 14, 2003
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happy weekend
Had a great weekend. Got drunk PROPERLY on Saturday night. Properly as in tons and tons of beer but no soju or anything else so very happy drunk. Met lovely people who I want to see again.
It was my first weekend in Seoul too so I got to compare Seoul to Bundang. I think I'm happy where I'm living, it's pretty cool here. It's not as tall (I was experiencing reverse vertigo in Seoul looking up at the buildings) and it doesn't smell. Still, Seoul was fun to go out in.
Got my alien registration card finally. Didn't go and see anything interesting as I was mildly hungover on Sunday and slept a lot. So nice to have a whole weekend with Jon. We talked and talked and talked. It was great but I didn't get to meet half the people I wanted to on Saturday night.
Went back to the doc today (yay another internal examination). Turns out I don't have what he thought so he made me worry (big time!) a whole week for nothing! Plus he told me I can drink on these tablet so d'oh, wasted a whole week. I got drunk on half a sneaky glass of wine Friday night, it went straight to my head, I couldn't walk or talk. These tablets are going to make for a few cheap nites out this week!
- Monday, Aug. 11, 2003
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