5 months in ...

So, I have been here for almost 5 months and I thought I would give my thoughts on Korea and the things that I have come to like, dislike and just find amusing. On the whole I have come to enjoy living here. It's very exciting to live in a new culture and having new experiences every day. Here are some of the things that I have come to really like about Korea.
1. Buying ice cream - when you buy ice cream in the grocery store in Korea it comes packaged in an air sealed freezer bag that keeps it frozen until you get home. I could be wrong, but I have never seen this in Canada. What a great invention - it lets me buy ice cream, take the bus home, and still have it be frozen solid.
2. Outdoor exercise equipment - All over Daejeon, and I suspect Korea, are outdoor exercise machines. You see them everywhere, in parks, on sidewalks and in school playgrounds. It varies depending on where you are but basically they consist of bikes, stepping machines, weight machines etc. They are free for anyone to use and quite often I pass by on the bus and see some old man pedalling away on one of the bikes. They are a great way to avoid paying for a gym membership.
3. I have mentioned this before but I will say it again - banana milk. This stuff is so delicious. Here is a picture of what it looks like. It costs about $1.00 and basically it's banana flavoured milk.

4. Lack of credit cards. It seems that credit cards aren't used to often here in Korea as everything gets paid through wire transfers at the ATM. Since I neither like or use credit cards this makes my life very easy here. Basically if you want to buy something online, order plane tickets, reserve seats on a tour they will give you their account number, you go to the ATM, type the info in and voila it's paid for. It's made my life much easier here in Korea as I have been able to buy books, reserve tickets and plan holidays without use of the dreaded visa.

There are many things that I have found amusing or interesting about Korea and I will mention a few of them here.

1. The need to be the first person on the bus. I ride the city bus at least once every day and every time it's the same. There are always a group of people standing at the bus stop waiting with me, and it always very orderly and civilized until the bus appears. Suddenly it becomes a mad dash for the door. I have seen people run and body check others out of the way just so that they could be the first on. I'm not sure what the reasoning for this is - it's not like the bus is going to leave without them. I have a theory though, that it's an ingrained survival instinct. You see riding a bus in Korea, especially a crowded bus can sometime be a life endangering experience. Korean bus drivers are sadistic and there is a rumour going around that they purposely try to knock down as many people as they can (probably get extra points if it's a foreigner). If you are unfortunate enough to have to stand then you hang on for dear life because that driver will take corners without slowing down and and will quite often slam on the brakes for no apparent reason. So I think people try to get on first so that they can get situated with a death grip on the pole before the driver takes off at breakneck speeds. I have included some comics from a website that I found that depicts life in Korea because some of it is very accurate.

2. Misused english language - Koreans like english slogans and you see t-shirts and signs everywhere with them. Unfortunately they are often wrong, sometimes making them really funny. At other times it is very obvious that the person wearing the shirt has no concept of what the slogan means, or I am sure they wouldn't be wearing it. More than a few times I have seen men wearing shirts stating it's just PMS I am not a bitch. The worst, though is when the students at my school show up in shirts that their parents obviously didn't understand the meaning of. I saw a third grade student wearing a shirt saying I love my hooker or the worst one was a 4th grade boy with shirt saying I am c--t (think a very nasty word for female genitalia). I have seen other slogans like Kitty Litter Revolution or Love the World's Butt. One time I saw an old Ajumma wearing a shirt with glittering letters on it stating I'm a Gangsta. When I took a second look I got the dreaded Ajumma stare (see below)

It's not just t-shirts either. I have eaten in restaurants called Eat Me or Sexy, Honey Bar (which surprisingly was not a strip club). I have seen menus with foods such as Potatoe meet onions (these were french fries who would have guessed).
Finally one of the last things that I find amusing in Korea is this fear that they have of the sun. Most Koreans hate the sunshine and strive to keep their skin as white as possible. It's funny to see the foreigners out in their shorts and tank tops trying to get as tanned as possible standing next to the Korean who is covered up with only thier eyes peaking out. How they stand it in the heat, I don't know but they do.

So,these are a few of the things that I have come to like about Korea. I have decided to skip the dislike section as I will leave that for another post.