Shopping, noses and numbers...
Well, hello there one and all,
So here I am in Mokpo and it is lovely and warm today. Which is great but worries me a bit since I have no summer clothes here. But it is good to see the sun. Though it is still a bit chilly at nights.
No sign of anyone trying to break in again so that is a relief. I have also relaxed enough to be able to sleep with my back to the window- though it has taken nearly a week to do so. So what has been happening in the exciting world of Mokpo that I have to tell you about?
Friday night started off fairly quietly. Then someone suggested going to a club- oo-oh! We stopped at the convenience store on the way and bought a few bottles of soju to swill on the way to the club. It is rude to walk along the street eating and drinking here in Korea but this was of little consideration when we had soju and a thirst. So we went to the club. The guy put us up in the balcony as far away from the dance floor as it was possible to get while still being in the building. They brought over the usual beer, fresh fruit platter and dried fish which we then abandoned to head downstairs to the dance floor. Now I take back all I said last time about the Koreans not getting into the whole dancing thing. In this club they were animals! It was great. First off there was a singer and dancers on the stage. These were then replaced by three gorgeous young bits of totty in suits- but they seemed to have forgotten to put their shirts on- shame on them! Just as we were all getting into it the DJ took it down a few notched and everyone left the floor. We did temporarily ourselves and then decided to just put on a show for everyone so we leapt back downstairs again and put on the wayguk (foreigner) floor show of their lives! Well, we enjoyed ourselves even when the bouncer came and got the bar towels off us.
Still it was fun and only one of us didn't make it to the Korean class the next day. Progress on Korean class is as follows- I can now count to ten - which theoretically means I am sorted as all other numbers are combinations of that. That is apart from the other numbering system they use. Yes, nothing is easy over here. There is one lot of numbers for hours and one lot for minutes. One lot for counting things and another for asking for a number of things. Just the kind of thing that is really easy to learn when your lesson is on the Saturday morning after the Friday night before! I now have the alphabet sorted- mostly- and now just need to learn what the words mean. It is like learning some secret code. It is funny when you decipher a word only to discover that it is the same word in english- such as bus, lighter and lemon juice. I even found out that my roach spray is that old favourite Raid! Quite fun. I still can't talk to cab drivers though and generally just smile a lot and say fungus (english) in answer to all questions. Seems to frighten them off.
But I think that my crowning achievement in Korean class is finally mastering 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes' in Korean! A skill worthy of much celebration I am sure that you will agree! A vital life skill- it has stood me in good stead for all these years in English speaking countries after all. And I am learning enough Korean to freak the kids out when I understand them (or just pretend that I do- hee hee!)
After Korean class we went shopping and took with us a Korean guy that I met in the PC bang a few weeks ago. He was amazed to see just how much western adults are like teenage Korean girls! We bought danglies for the phones and key ring for each other. We all have our favourite cartoon character- mine is a little character called Gamzadori (potato boy) whose catchphrase is 'I love potato'. I have attached a photo of him to this mail. I have writing paper and notebooks with him on. Some of the others like a character called Dalki- she even has her own shop here. Gamzadori is often drawn sitting on the toilet- weird. But not as weird as what I saw in the window of the Dalki shop- a cuddly toy poo- complete with grinning fly! And inside was a toilet paper cover that is a man squatting over the squat pot doing the business- complete with little felt 'business'. It is a strange obsession over here and I have been told of flash cards that just show different coloured poo for the kids to learn their colours from!
So now I have three things hanging from my phone- the very cool turtle that I have had for a while, a power puff girl and a key ring with a photo of me and my mates from Saturday in it. I feel so Korean. But none more so than when I went into town this morning and bought a pair of check trousers- very popular here. Now, as a foreigner in Korean I am more than used to getting stared at- my life is a constant round of saying hello and getting embarrassed giggles back from the young girls that have plucked up courage to say hi first. Fine. This has led to a rather dangerous philosophy of 'they are going to stare at you anyway so you might as well do what you want'! So on the way home from town (i was walking as it is such a beautiful day) a lady stopped me to ask if I was living here. I said yes. Then she asked if I was working here to which I had to admit that I was. Then she said that she hadn't seen many.. I was patiently waiting for the word foreigners at this stage... BIG NOSES around! Well, that is a first for me. I quite like being a foreigner and I certainly give the locals enough cause to dismiss us all as a crazy breed- but BIG NOSES! Well, my hand flew to cover my nose (which is actually fairly big it has to be said!) and then she said that her husband is the only big nose that she knows. I know the Korean for nose and now I will listen out for Big Nose comments!
Still, I managed to buy clothes so now I am going to go home and try them on. Oh yeah, for those of you worried about how I was going to get on with the ATM- fear not- the first thing that I found was that two of the three ATMs near me have a button clearly marked 'English' and the rest is plain sailing!
Up to Seoul for a very Korean Paddy's Day this weekend!
So here I am in Mokpo and it is lovely and warm today. Which is great but worries me a bit since I have no summer clothes here. But it is good to see the sun. Though it is still a bit chilly at nights.
No sign of anyone trying to break in again so that is a relief. I have also relaxed enough to be able to sleep with my back to the window- though it has taken nearly a week to do so. So what has been happening in the exciting world of Mokpo that I have to tell you about?
Friday night started off fairly quietly. Then someone suggested going to a club- oo-oh! We stopped at the convenience store on the way and bought a few bottles of soju to swill on the way to the club. It is rude to walk along the street eating and drinking here in Korea but this was of little consideration when we had soju and a thirst. So we went to the club. The guy put us up in the balcony as far away from the dance floor as it was possible to get while still being in the building. They brought over the usual beer, fresh fruit platter and dried fish which we then abandoned to head downstairs to the dance floor. Now I take back all I said last time about the Koreans not getting into the whole dancing thing. In this club they were animals! It was great. First off there was a singer and dancers on the stage. These were then replaced by three gorgeous young bits of totty in suits- but they seemed to have forgotten to put their shirts on- shame on them! Just as we were all getting into it the DJ took it down a few notched and everyone left the floor. We did temporarily ourselves and then decided to just put on a show for everyone so we leapt back downstairs again and put on the wayguk (foreigner) floor show of their lives! Well, we enjoyed ourselves even when the bouncer came and got the bar towels off us.
Still it was fun and only one of us didn't make it to the Korean class the next day. Progress on Korean class is as follows- I can now count to ten - which theoretically means I am sorted as all other numbers are combinations of that. That is apart from the other numbering system they use. Yes, nothing is easy over here. There is one lot of numbers for hours and one lot for minutes. One lot for counting things and another for asking for a number of things. Just the kind of thing that is really easy to learn when your lesson is on the Saturday morning after the Friday night before! I now have the alphabet sorted- mostly- and now just need to learn what the words mean. It is like learning some secret code. It is funny when you decipher a word only to discover that it is the same word in english- such as bus, lighter and lemon juice. I even found out that my roach spray is that old favourite Raid! Quite fun. I still can't talk to cab drivers though and generally just smile a lot and say fungus (english) in answer to all questions. Seems to frighten them off.
But I think that my crowning achievement in Korean class is finally mastering 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes' in Korean! A skill worthy of much celebration I am sure that you will agree! A vital life skill- it has stood me in good stead for all these years in English speaking countries after all. And I am learning enough Korean to freak the kids out when I understand them (or just pretend that I do- hee hee!)
After Korean class we went shopping and took with us a Korean guy that I met in the PC bang a few weeks ago. He was amazed to see just how much western adults are like teenage Korean girls! We bought danglies for the phones and key ring for each other. We all have our favourite cartoon character- mine is a little character called Gamzadori (potato boy) whose catchphrase is 'I love potato'. I have attached a photo of him to this mail. I have writing paper and notebooks with him on. Some of the others like a character called Dalki- she even has her own shop here. Gamzadori is often drawn sitting on the toilet- weird. But not as weird as what I saw in the window of the Dalki shop- a cuddly toy poo- complete with grinning fly! And inside was a toilet paper cover that is a man squatting over the squat pot doing the business- complete with little felt 'business'. It is a strange obsession over here and I have been told of flash cards that just show different coloured poo for the kids to learn their colours from!
So now I have three things hanging from my phone- the very cool turtle that I have had for a while, a power puff girl and a key ring with a photo of me and my mates from Saturday in it. I feel so Korean. But none more so than when I went into town this morning and bought a pair of check trousers- very popular here. Now, as a foreigner in Korean I am more than used to getting stared at- my life is a constant round of saying hello and getting embarrassed giggles back from the young girls that have plucked up courage to say hi first. Fine. This has led to a rather dangerous philosophy of 'they are going to stare at you anyway so you might as well do what you want'! So on the way home from town (i was walking as it is such a beautiful day) a lady stopped me to ask if I was living here. I said yes. Then she asked if I was working here to which I had to admit that I was. Then she said that she hadn't seen many.. I was patiently waiting for the word foreigners at this stage... BIG NOSES around! Well, that is a first for me. I quite like being a foreigner and I certainly give the locals enough cause to dismiss us all as a crazy breed- but BIG NOSES! Well, my hand flew to cover my nose (which is actually fairly big it has to be said!) and then she said that her husband is the only big nose that she knows. I know the Korean for nose and now I will listen out for Big Nose comments!
Still, I managed to buy clothes so now I am going to go home and try them on. Oh yeah, for those of you worried about how I was going to get on with the ATM- fear not- the first thing that I found was that two of the three ATMs near me have a button clearly marked 'English' and the rest is plain sailing!
Up to Seoul for a very Korean Paddy's Day this weekend!
posted by Helen @ 12:08 AM
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