my house... is a very very very small house...

I live in a rooming house. I know how that sounds (or do I?). There are seven bedrooms in the house, a bathroom with a bath, a shower/toilet room, and a kitchen. I think there are eight people living here (but I have yet to meet them all and so really can’t be sure)and because of the uncertainty of sharing a house with so many there are some inevitable shocks.

Shock 1 – no paper in the toilet. I guess that everyone just brings it with them when they go. I’ve left a roll in the toilet for myself, and I hope that no one minds… but it doesn’t seem that any do.

Shock 2 – everyone has their own kitchen equipment. Obviously we all share the oven, stove top, fridge (one upstairs and two down), toaster, microwave, sink…etc… but they all have their own plates, utensils, pans, pots etc…

This was a huge shock to me today when I got home with a work friend (after shopping for other household goods – pillows, sheets…) with a load of food to cook some thai green curry and discovered that I was meant to have my own pots, pans, plates etc… Thankfully one of the guys that lives upstairs told me I could use his in the meantime, but it was just so foreign to me.

Is this my first foreign experience in England? Yes and no. In most flats people share things and live together, but because this “home” I’ve found is more like a rooming house, it seems like this could just be normal. I have yet to verify this with a ‘native’. Regardless, it was a shock to me. I really didn’t expect that I’d have to buy all those things that you have to get when moving into a new place.

There are a few things, as mentioned above, pillows, duvet, sheets that I expected the expenxe for, but I seriously believed that my flat would come “all-in”. I had a nice chat with my landlord this evening about it all. We’ve come to an amiable agreement – he will pay for it all, within reason. He’s really very nice for a landlord, and I really like my room. I feel comfortable here.

Of course, my room came with almost everything I need – bed, dresser wardrobe… I just need to get a few necessities and a couple of extravagancies, and it will truly be all mine. But I guess what I’ve learned is not to take anything for granted and not to assume (ass out of U and me) anything, which I really should have learned in Korea, but sometimes in life we need to make the same mistake more than once for it to really stick.

I’m okay with the situation. Maybe I’ve rationalized it in my head… but I’ve told my landlord that I’ll sign for six months and if I really don’t like it (even before) that we’ll figure something out. For now, I’m happy to have my own room and an underwear drawer, even if I have to go shopping for some pots and pans… at least I’m not paying for them.

**nb... it's been a few days since I wrote this post and haven't had time to post... sorry... but I have found out from my 'native' Londoner, that it really isn't normal that everything isn't included.

it's happenin'

i'm going to japan next week for two days!!! i know it's only two days, but still, i'm going to JAPAN!!! when is the next time i'm ever going to be able to hop over for the weekend? probably never... so i might as well take advantage. i picked up my ferry tickets today - it's a three-hour ride from busan to fukuoka - and i also booked my hostel - Khaosan Fukuoka International Hostel... i know it won't have enough time to do all the things i would like to, but i'll try my best!

i also made my trip to immigration to fix up the re-entry on my visa and amazingly there were no problems. i was in and out. since i was in busan i figured i might as well check out the nampo-dong area (one subway station over) since i had never really been there before. it was a really cool area with lots of shopping and street vendors. it seems like an area where you can get anything...

from dried squid...

to kimbap and other street food...

to neck ties...

and don't forget the "feminism fashion" !!!

this was just a neat statue i happened upon.

i didn't even see all of the area, i just wandered around for an hour or so. there were clothing stores, camera stores, outdoor stores, shoe stores, anything you could possibly want. i passed by three different mcdonalds, two pizza huts, a kfc, and many other restaurants. i was hoping to find a subway, but i still don't know if there is one in busan or not... the two things i wanted were the two things i didn't find - a video game store and a subway restaurant. oh well... maybe i'll find them in japan!

my illness was compounded by the not-at-all-fresh air in the city. i bought a face mask and wore it on the trip home, but i felt like a moron... we'll see how it goes... i might wear it and i might not... it just feels weird to have it on. the illness isn't gettin any worse, but it's not really getting better yet either... so all i can do is hope for the best!

miscellaneous

in keeping with the posting madness that has been going on here of late, i feel that i need to write something today. i hope you all enjoyed my trip to seoul... it already feels like a million years ago. since then i have been to ulsan and back, climbed a mountain, done a major clean up of my apartment, and started back at school. i'll make this quick.

thursday i went to visit kat in ulsan. we had some good foreign food, some good korean food, and some good times at the noraebang... nothing too crazy happened, except that i saw rachel from orientation - hadn't seen her since way back in august - and we met a guy from athens named panos... which freaked me out a bit since my best friends' boyfriend goes by the same description.

like i said, i'm making this quick... so here are a couple of pics to tide you over...

me in my new hat - hand made by kat
more korean errors... wapple? or waFFle??
gotta go! gotta go! gotta go! (on the ladies room door at the WA Bar in Ulsan)
on the wall next to the ladies room at the WA Bar in Ulsan.
the awesome necklace i bought in seoul for 4$...

after finally giving up the hunt for merrells' i settled on these babies made by the north face. they're cute and comfy and made of gore-tex... what more could you want in a hiking shoe??? i'm disappointed about the merrells...but there will be lots of time in my life to get another pair of them... so for now, here's to the north face!!!

i'll post soon... i've been tagged by kassandra... so will get on it asap.

Whirlwind pt.8

(or more celectronics than you can imagine and the continuation of the search for merrell shoes - OR finally the end of these posts on seoul!!!)

monday morning we had to get up early (10ish) since check out was at eleven... check out at kim's guest house means dropping your keys and sheets into a box in the living room...everything is paid for when you check in, so there's no hassles when you leave... we had our coffee and toast and headed to seoul station to find a locker to drop off our many bags. cyndi's flight was leaving at 8pm so we had the whole day to do more exploring and we knew we had to go to the electronics market.

yongsan station

after dropping our stuff in the locker, which turned out to be more difficult than it should have been, we headed to yongsan station and the yongsan electronics arcade. there are over 7,000 stores in 24 buildings covering an area of nearly 900,000 square meters! i was like a kid in a candy store!

the first building we saw when we came out of the subway was the park mall... we walked in and it was like heaven had fallen from the sky and into this building... there were cameras lined up as far as the eye could see:

there were six aisles this big, selling only cameras,
and that's just the first floor... of the first building.

i was so close to buying a digital SLR that i'm regretting not doing it... i knew i would regret it, but i think that paying off my bills in canada instead was the responsible thing to do... right? i know that i'll go back and get one before i leave korea... if not sooner. it's not the kind of thing i should buy on the spur of the moment... i still wouldn't have been able to afford the canon that i really want, and i haven't really researched the lower end bodies... so it's probably a really good thing i didn't buy one....

anyway, this was the first of eight floors of electronics, in one of the malls...

the mp3 player area... everything you could want... iPods were dirt cheap too...

one floor was all mobile phones... every make and model you could imagine... we didn't even stop on that floor...

after wandering around park mall we left to try to find the bootleg dvd's as we had requests from peeps in gimhae... so we wandered across the train tracks to the rest of the malls:

yes, all electronics... all the time... miles of them!

we started searching for the dvds and got directions from a salesman in one of the stores in one of the malls, but his directions were pretty bad and we couldn't find them... we wandered around then decided it was time for lunch. we found an "orange cafe" (a chain where they serve traditional korean food like kimbap, jigae, and bibimbap). then we called a friend in gimhae to get directions to the dvds... which we found at long last across the street from where we started!

after finally getting the dvds that we wanted, we headed back to seoul station to see cyndi off to the airport. and then there were two. kim and i were left to our own devices... the other kim had sent me the info on where to go find my shoes. as it turned out the address i had from the merrell website was for a distributor, not a retail store, even though that's what i understood from the website... oh well, i finally knew where to go, and it was so simple all along! lotte department store! it just seemed so easy, and as it turns out, it was.

shoes???

we hopped on the subway to lotte, when we got there, the sales person told me "upsayo" which basically means "we don't have them". they told us we had to go to another department store down the street, on the 8th floor... yay! i was elated... finally i would get my shoes! as we wandered out of lotte, we happened upon this area that was full of pucca... trisha, this is for you!

me and pucca!

we walked to shinsegae department store. keep in mind we'd been walking for the past three days... my feet were angry with me, but they were also so excited to soon be walking in a nice new pair of shoes! we got to the eighth floor and i wandered around showing my merrells to sales people who kept saying "upsayo" finally i got kim on the phone to talk to one of the sales people who told her that the shop that sells them was no longer in business there and she didn't know where i could find them... i nearly cried. but there was hope... one other store in seoul, but it was back near the guest house... we had nothing else to do until our train at 9:50 so we headed to the subway.

no, really, shoes???

after 45 minutes on the subway we arrived at dangsan station. the directions said it was out exit 6 and walk 50 meters... of course, we walked in the wrong direction... a nice man helped us though and we found the building, and then the store 'okoutdoors'... as soon as i walked in i saw the boxes of merrells lined up on the walls and i was so happy i nearly dropped to the ground and kissed it.

i showed the salesman my shoes and said "merrell"... we walked to the shoe section and he started looking around...kime pointed to some merrells, i saw others, but there was something wrong... none of them were womens' shoes. i said to the man, "woman merrell" and "shoes for women" and he just looked baffled. then he tried to show me mens shoes. normally it doesn't make a difference, but merrells are special... and one of the reasons i want them so bad is that they use a different 'last' (mold) for womens and mens shoes... this makes them more comfortable since they are designed for the way that women walk... so i wasn't going to buy mens shoes... i felt like sitting down and crrying when he said "no" to my repeated queries of where are the womens shoes?

i was so disappointed... after all the searching and wandering and everything, we were on a wild goose chase. i felt bad for making kim come along with me on this pointless trek to the other side of the world for a pair of shoes... i'm angry that the merrell website isn't clearer about their dealers in korea. so, after all, i am STILL on the eternal hunt for merrell shoes. i've heard that there is a store in ulsan and will be going there so hopefully i will have some by the time i actually post this in a few days...

after the shoe fiasco, we were both really tired and kind of cranky, so we headed to seoul station to see if we could get an earlier train home... which we did by about an hour and a half. we pulled out of seoul at 8:30 pm on monday, after an incredible weekend. i was home by 11:45 and started writing these posts. i didn't know what else to do with myself... life in gimhae just won't be the same aafter experiencing seoul... i feel like i live in a little backwards hick town... :(

not bad for three days...

so seoul was incredible... i hope you enjoyed coming along for the ride...as much as i enjoyed reliving it for you... i ended up spending a lot of money, but not as much as i thought i would... i bought, 2 purses, 2 t-shirts, jeans, 2 pairs of socks, two books, a magazine, a mini tripod, a pair of genuine JLo track pants, a korean sweater dress, and some lipgloss... not a bad haul... but it could have been better...oh merrell... where art thou???

**
i've been writing these posts for two days now... i'm only posting one a day, so i don't overwhelm you... so it should be monday feb. 5th by now... my vacation is over and i'm back at work... but i will have been to ulsan to visit kat and hopefully bu now i have my shoes... so stay tuned for the adventures of kat and liz... and the continuation of the eternal search for merrells...

...and thanks for staying with me this long! i never said i wasn't detailed!

Whirlwind pt.7

(or more shopping and eating)

we left gangnam around sunset. we were meeting dan at dongdaemun market at 8, so we had some time to shop in this incredible shopping area. i would recommend this place to anyone visiting seoul... the best shopping in the country can be found here.

dongdaemun is the big black spot!

i had been looking for a pair of jeans for two days, but never found anything that fit that wasn't covered in sparkles, glitter or other weird decorations... but i did at dongdaemun. i am now the proud owner of a pair of 100% korean jeans! and actually, after wearing them for a day, they're too big... i should've gone down a size... oh well, at least i know where to go in the future!

all malls... shopping, shopping, shopping...

we ended up in this mall called "doota!" i didn't take any photos... not sure why, maybe i was justso amazed by the floors and floors of clothes, purses, jewelry, shoes, and everything else under the sun... i was dazzled and too busy looking around to take photos... how odd... i'm usually more of a shutterbug... but i got this shot of the floor plan:

'dooche'??? you can see on the map this is just one small section of one floor (there are 8)

a canal just outside the mall... very pretty at night...

after shopping for a few hours, we met dan for dinner. we were looking for tak galbi, but ended up here:
we had bulgogi, which was tasty though there were tons of mushrooms mixed in...in case you don't know bulgogi is meat that is cooked on the table in front of you. you eat it wrapped up in leaves with all kinds of side dishes... sort of like bbq, but cooked in a different way.

after dinner we headed out to the sinchon area (not too far from where we were staying) to look around and have a drink.
this is part of the wall in the subway... there were a ton of these cats performing different sports...something to do with the olympics... this was the best one though... cats with guns!

we ended up walking around the area for a long time before settling on a little bar. i wish i had taken more photos... i just always think they'll never come out when i take them at night, especially with the little crappy camera i have (more on that next post)... as we were walking around we saw a photo store... this is something i have been wanting to do since i learned about them so i was really excited to do this.

basically there are stores that are like those little booths you see in the subway where you can take your picture with your friends, only these are way cooler. you pay about $5 and each person gets to choose a prop. kim wore a wig, dan had a hat, cyndi wore a viking hat, and i had a tiara. you get into the booth (which is much bigger than the ones in the metro):

behind the curtain please!

once you get in there is a little screen so you can see your pose. we needed help since everything was in korean... thank god there was a guy who spoke really good english. first you choose a background - eight of them actually - and then you pose. after the pictures are taken you go around to the side of the machine to 'finish' them.

this computer is used to choose borders and write messages on your photos.

when the process is complete you print them out. you can choose one big one, lots of small ones or a mix of them. we got eight miniature ones - 2 of each as we were only allowed to pick four of the eight shots. here are the two i got:
i finished the one on the right and cyndi did the one on the left... love the "girls night out '07" with dan in the pic!!! it was loads of fun. they're also stickers so you can put them anywhere... you can also buy keychains to put them in, or get a mobile phone dangly thing with your pic in it... i'm just keeping them in my wallet.

after pictures we walked around and saw about a million noraebangs and bars... a lot of the bars in this area look like they could be foreign bars since they're all named after foreign bands like the doors. we ended up at the 'S Bar' for a drink and then ran to get the subway home. but we missed the last one and had to take a taxi.

up next: seoul electronics market and the continuation of the eternal search for merrells.

Whirlwind pt.6

(or the beginning of the eternal search for merrell shoes, mexican food, and english books)

Since we were out so late on saturday we slept in on sunday until around noon. i was excited because we would be going to the gangnam area to look for my merrells (one of the only things i really wanted to do in seoul). let me give you a little background. i have a pair of merrell hiking shoes. i love them. i bought them for my trip to greece many moons ago, about three years. they still look great, but they're falling apart now and i desperately need some new ones. so, about a month ago i went searching online to see if i could get them here. their website listed only one store in korea, and it was in seoul. i knew that i'd be going up there, so i kept the address and phone number and waited. well, sunday was the day we were going to find them... i was so excited.

gangnam... on the other side of the river...

we had to go to the Gangnam area on the other side of the Hangan River. luckily it didn't take too long because our subway station was on the same line. we met kim there too as she was going to take us to a mexican restaurant and then an english book store.

this is from the subway window as were crossing the river.

Gangnam is the most affluent area on the south side of the river. since we were meeting kim, we went for coffee at starbucks to wait.

i took this shot of the street vendors on our way to lunch.
this was a huge intersection and i stopped in the middle to snap a few.
a couple of blocks down the street we came to 'Dos Tacos'.

it wasn't really what i was expecting when i think 'mexican' (i always think of three amigos in montreal) but it was mexican food! the walls were painted bright white and had posters from the US hanging on them. the tables were white plastic and the chairs were multicoloured - not really the kind of ambiance that screams mexican... maybe it was a fusion restaurant before... regardless, we sat down and ordered: two plates of nachos to share (one with meat, one without) kim and cyndi got a burrito to share, i got a chicken fajita, and the other kim got a taco. i was so excited that i forgot to take pictures... sorry!

one side of the menu

the fajita was tasty, but strange as it had mushrooms (which i hate) and it wasn't wrapped up like a fajita, but was in the shape of a waffle cone. i make awesome fajitas at home, and you know when you make something really well, i just never tastes as good in a restaurant... but it was still great.

kim eating the last nacho

after lunch it was on to the bookstore! i was so excited. we have a bookstore in gimhae called "english" but their selection is smaller than what i used to have in my bedroom at home... and they're mostly classics like war and peace... there is another one in busan, but the selection is also quite small and they don't really have any new releases... really what i wanted was a copy of vanity fair which i have been craving since i arrived in september but have been unable to find anywhere.

we got to the store and i have to admit i was a little disappointed since it was Kyobo... the same store we have in busan.

kyobo tower in seoul

but as soon as i walked in and saw the size i knew it would be different... this was, after all, seoul. we headed to the "foreign" section and they had about three or four times more english books than busan. i picked up a copy of "i know this much is true" by Wally Lamb, and "the curious incident of the dog in the night" by mark haddon. i was meant to read it last summer, but never got my hands on a copy, so i'm excited to finish what i'm reading now to get started on it.... anyway, the search for vanity fair was on!

the magazine section was on the other side of the store, so i found my way and started looking. it was amazing how many foreign magazines they had! but oh-so-expensive! Time was 6,000 W which is almost $8 cdn - a total rip off... i couldn't find the VF so i found a guy to help me, but it was kim who ended up seeing it on the rack... it came wrapped up with a copy of seventeen - which is totally weird, but i got them anyway, for 13,000W - around $15... twice the price of what it's supposed to be, but it's worth it!

next we were supposed to go looking for my shoes... and we did, but never found the place... i gave my paper with phone number and address to kim so she could call and figure it out - since she speaks korean - and there was no answer when we tried during the afternoon... she promised to go online to a korean site and figure it out for me and then email the results to cyndi before monday morning... the shoes would have to wait.

stay tuned for more! up next: dongdaemun market and sinchon for drinks

Whirlwind pt.4

(or OMG how many parts is this going to have?!?!? a: as many as it takes!)

Insadong

took the subway up there...

this area is north of the city center. it didn't take too long on the subway to get there, and was totally worth visiting. again, it's a market centered area with shops lining the streets, but it was WAY cooler than intaewon. it is the artist district and most of the shops were run by artisans and tons of little galleries. you could find many kinds of art here... i'll have to go back before i leave korea to spend lots of money on things like: paintings, ceramics, sculptures, and traditional art.
even the benches have sculptures on them! cute little froggies! the street was very busy with people, and the shops all have their wares outside on the street... just down the way we found the free hug girl:
i got one from her... it wasn't very good... she probably does it to meet cute boys or something... she didn't speak any english so when i asked her why she was giving away free hugs, she couldn't tell me. there was a guy further down the street - his hug was better, but i don't have a pictuure of it... when i asked him, he could only convey a sort of "just because" - his english wasn't very good either... oh well... hugs are nice no matter the reason why.

one of the nifty shops on the street... selling artsy stuff...

we didn't get very far down the street before finding this outdoor mall-type place called ssamzie market. it was kind of strange when we first found it. for example:

the giant green horse.

this was one of many sizable sculptures around the place which was like a giant art exhibit... it was having some kind of andy warhol inspired exhibit... not sure if it always looks like this or if it was temporary, but it was definitely cool. all the shops were little artsy places... i didn't buy anything, but cyndi and kim did.

one of the entrances... see all the art?

anothe sculpture. these giant flowers were growing up the stairwell... four stories of them...

this is from the second or third story - see all the andy warhol? on one of the other walls it actually says "from andy warhol" in glowing blue neon...
this is from the top floor - see the horse at the bottom. the coolest thing about the mall is that you never actually have to take the stairs after the first floor. the 'sidewalk' is on a slight incline the whole way up and when you walk around you are slowly walking up to the next level... totally wheelchair (or lazy) friendly! the top floor has restaurants and coffee places with outdoor tables to sit at - must be nice in summer!
we found this along the top walkway and hhad to take our pictures with it... we aren't sure what it's from, but the pixelation is hilarious!
this is the outside the car is actually on a little road... i got a shot of it from above, but i like this one better....

after wandering around in there for about an hour and a half, we met up with kim's friend kim who lives in seoul. we were pretty cold from having been outside all afternoon, and it got really cold after the sun went down... (it was probably around zero or lower in seoul - way colder than gimhae...) so we went for coffee...

the girls in front of the artsy (and expensive) coffee shop we went to... second floor.

i think it was called the book cafe... or something like that... they had a wall full of korean books...

the last thing we saw as we were leaving insadong... don't know how i didn't notice it in the daylight... the auto-toilet! no-one used it, but kim was considering it! i don't think we could figure out how to get in!

stay tuned for a night out on the town in the Hongik University area...