Jon goes to Korea: Must start, catch up then relish

Ok, last time I left off, I had just finished orientation and was just starting my first weekend in Seoul. Also, I should mention that I met up with Gord and Charlotte on Wednesday, not Thursday as I had previously stated. I'm a bit rough on the details about my first days in Korea, as they happened almost 3 weeks ago. I'll do my best though!

Also I should mention that after walking around my apartment holding up my laptop, I found a relatively reliable wifi spot on my balcony. It's in the corner though so don't get any images of me reclining on a lawn chair with my laptop on my stomach. It's more like me huddled in a corner sitting on a tea table with my laptop on a chair underneath a bunch of shelves. Not glamourous. Plus it's still kind of cold here. Anyways.

On Thursday, the second last day of my orientation, Gord and Charlotte came over to check out my place. They agreed that it was decent and even helped me take out a bunch of trash that the previous tennant graciously left behind. Gord convinced me to have Burger King, probably my first western indulgence. I really want to cut back on eating familiar foods here, but the aforementioned Burger King happens to be 24 hours and within 5 minutes from my house. It is well lit and foreboding so Saturday night Whopper stops are likely.

I headed back to Gord and Charlotte's that night to check out their place/crash there. They live near Cheongyangni station, about a 40 minute trainride away which is actually pretty good by Seoul standards. It still took me about an hour and some to get to orientation the next day, but at least I got to shave some time off my commute and get out of my barren apartment. We watched some Korean television too. They have an entire channel dedicated to Starcraft on basic cable. It's like pro sports, with an announcer and everything. When one guy sends in his fleet to attack the other guy's base, the announcer goes nuts, like Alfie was a breakaway or something. The other shows usually consist of hidden camera shenanigans, variety shows and crazy over-emotive Korean dramas which are like soap operas if everyone was constantly menopausal.

Once orientation was over, I called my school awaiting more ridiculous and disappointing instructions, but luckily I was told to enjoy my weekend and come in on Monday. Finally, a chance to relax and unwind. I hadn't even unpacked my suitcase at this point either. So I called up Gordlotte on my landline and agreed to meet up for some dinner and karaoke. Also, they told me Jess was on Skype and I was hoping to talk with her for the first time since landing in Korea, so I headed over as quickly as possible. Unfortunately I got lost in some back alley catacombs for about an hour until I managed to get a hold of ol' Leave-the-phone-off Cameron and got directions. Needless to say, by the time I found my way, Jess was long gone and I was very upset.

For dinner we met up with John, another ECC teacher and Dio, a Korean medical student Gord and Charlotte randomly met at a restaurant a few months back. One thing I noticed about Korean servers is that they really like to mess with your food while you're eating it. Like, not pick it up off your chopstick or anything, but like, cut it up, mix it around and put it in your bowl and stuff. I got a huge heap of mushrooms dumped on my plate at one point which I artfully picked around. I could honestly write an entire blog about how much I hate mushrooms. But anyways...

We hit up the karaoke room afterwards and it was awesome. For some inane reason, they don't allow alcoholic beverages into karaoke rooms in Korea, but Gord knew a place where they turned a blind eye to it, so we bought some beer and soju (a liquor I will explain in detail later), and headed in. It was about $15 to rent a room for 90 minutes, but another perk to this particular location was that if you made enough racket and made the place sound like it was really bangin' they would add time on for you. So with the drinks that was absolutely no problem at all. When we did Jump Around by House of Pain, Gord sang the chorus while I did those scream samples in the background. Dio won the gold medal of the night with his incredibly genuine and heartfelt renditions of Bon Jovi, Radiohead and, uhm, Sisqo. They kept extending our time until 3 in the morning. We still had 40 minutes on the clock when we left.

The next morning, with nary a hangover in sight, the three of us went to Dongdaemun, a landmark neighbourhood with a pretty bustling underground shopping scene. The goal was to get me a pair of glasses, as you have probably seen in the previous post. Gord and Charlotte are pretty familiar with the area, but the few shops I saw barely cracked the surface of what that place boasts, apparantly. The mall we visited was a multi-storey complex with all kinds of young trendy shops set up here and there. Before I talk about getting my glasses, a quick note on shopping in Korea:

There's a rule of thumb that if a price isn't displayed, you're supposed to haggle for it. They usually offer you some ridiculously inflated price at first, and then you're supposed to engage in this ludacrous exchange where you pretend that they are trying to suck your blood right out of you. After you offer them a price which rest just below of half of the price they gave you, they gasp and laugh a bit, usually adding a comment about how top of the line the item you're trying to buy is. They offer you another price, which is usually drastically lower than the first price, and it's anyone's game from there. The real pros have their shopkeeper buds there to gasp with them. I haven't really participated in too many of these, but I did manage to talk a cordless trimmer down by $20. So anyways, back to Dongdaemun...

The goal was to get a pair of glasses. Charlotte and Gord showed me this place they usually went to. It was a kiosk with a bunch of designer frames for sale right next to a bunch of knock-off designer frames. Naturally, I was drawn to the knock-offs, and I picked a distinguished pair of "Tom Fords". I figured it would be a problem not having a prescription, but the guy took me into the booth to do an eye test. I looked at a blurry picture for a couple of seconds and read a few numbers and he immediately had my results. He then opened up case of lenses and assembled a pair of those steam-punky-looking test glasses for me to try on and sure enough, my vision was crystal clear. He told me to come back in 30 minutes, and when I did, my "Tom Fords" were ready, case, cleaning rag and all. The whole thing came out to only $27 Canadian, which I honestly still can't believe. It's $80 for the eye test alone in Canada.

So Dongdaemun was a success. We went to Insadong next which is a tourist street filled with all sorts or traditional Korean items for sale as well as a few art galleries. Didn't really have the time or patience to do any serious digging. Saw a couple of nice galleries and some fat American tourists and that's about it.

Next stop was Hongik University, or Hongdae, the arty district of the city. We didn't have that much time, so we did a bit of wandering and drank in the culture, as well as a few mixed beverages served in plastic bags. For dinner we had Greek food at this small place owned by a guy who worked in Toronto for a bit. He chatted us up and gave us a complimentary glass of wine afterwards. I slept over again that night, just as I would for the next 2 weekends, a move I'm thinking of calling the Double Dupree.

Next day was equally as packed. March 1st was Samil Day in Korea, celebrating a famous Korean independence movement against Japanese occupiers. The place to be was Tapgol Park where said independence movement took place. It was filled with passionate old guys. Generally the rule of thumb here is that if you're a foreigner, one of every ten old dude probably wants to talk to you a whole bunch. Turns out that the old guy we ended up locked in semi-conversation with was none other than the world record holder for most iron consumed. Like, as in he ate watches and stuff. COOL! So we took a picture with him:

We then printed that picture onto mousepads:

The rest of the day was spent at Techno-Mart, a massive electronics store complex that's about 9 or so stories high, with each floor about the size of a Best Buy. It was good, but there were a lot of repeated stores. Everything was haggle-able (?) as well so this was where I got the aforementioned trimmers. While I was there I decided to try new things and bought a pine needle drink which we all agreed tasted like Christmas. After all the walking around, we retired back to our respective apartments to start the busy work week.

And I guess I'll cut it there. I didn't think I would take a whole entry to cover a weekend but the weekends are just packed for me. So much to do and see. Next entry I'll cover my first week of work. To reward you for making it through the whole entry, here are some pictures: