First Day on The Town

We awaken, bright-eyed, but not especially bushy tailed, around 8:30. Rob runs off to a meeting at Chonnam University, and I decide to acquaint myself with the apartment, then do a little exploring of the neighbourhood.

Our apartment is quite lovely. The door opens to a spacious living area on the right and a bathroom on the left. Straight ahead is the bedroom which has a wall-to-wall closet and a sensible, firm, queen-sized bed. There are no halls, everything is right there. The design is minimalist. The living room has a table, two chairs, an air conditioner, and a TV. The latter is of little consequence as there are no English channels from which to choose. Still, it's fun to try to decipher the local news. The ads are thoroughly entertaining - bright, action packed, and zany. We are rather taken aback by the site of tarted-up teenaged girls shaking their booty to some North American rap song.

I make my way to the kitchen for a morning cup of toasted brown rice green tea, but soon discover that I don't know how to turn on the gas stove. We sate outselves with a yummy fruit salad comprised of outsized grapes, baseball sized yellow Korean melons, yogurt, and dry cereal.
Then it's off to shower in our compact, spartan bathroom. The floor and walls are tiled, so there's no need for a shower curtain. Thankfully, at this stage in our relationship, we are beyond modesty, so this is not a problem.

I throw on a cotton sun-dress and sandals and venture forth. I'm greeted by a blanket of steam heat and a crush of late morning traffic. Young men race by on scooters equipped with cartons in which they carry all manner of items for delivery. Who knew McDonalds could provide even more convenient, faster, fast food? There's a cacophany of horns - short bursts from taxi drivers seeking clients and long low blasts from buses speeding through red lights at intersections. Ladies with parasols or newspapers shield themselves from the sun.

I start clicking my Canon and am alarmed as the image I'm seeing disintegrates before my eyes. Something is very wrong with the old girl. (The camera, not me.) This is not good. Visual documentation is central to my appreciation of experiences, especially when traveling, so this feels like losing an appendage. Oh well, I'm in Korea, for heaven's sake. If one is in need of a camera, what better place to be?

I visit many shops and experience that feeling of utter helplessness one gets when confronted with the limitations of unilingualism. Vendors and shop owners try the time honoured technique of speaking slowly and then yelling while speaking slowly. I point to my temple and make a goofy face. They laugh and shake their heads. One man points to the sun, to his own skin, then to mine. He rubs my forearm in an effort to convey to me that I, unlike him, am Caspar white, and therefore in need of sunscreen. I smile, nod, and say, "Kamsa Hamnida." Thank you is the extent of my knowledge of the Korean language.

Feeling a mite peckish, I opt for a vegetable pancake from a middle aged female vendor. 2000 won, or about 2 dollars Canadian, gets me five of these very greasy, but absolutely delicious gems. It's considered rude to eat and drink whilst walking, but I make like a Philistine and do so anyhow thinking it might be ruder to pass out due to negligible blood sugar levels.

Picking up bread at Le Franc (a French style bakery) is a lesson in excess for they believe that if your baguette is good with butter, it's even better with whipped cream! While Koreans aren't big on desserts, sugar is a major ingredient in many foods. Later in the day, this will be driven home when we eat some unnervingly sweet sweet potato pizza.

An evening walk with husband yields a much beloved find. Like a homing pigeon, Rob manages to locate nachos at a Mini Mart convenience store. While there, we encounter a fresh-faced strawberry blond young gent from Northern California. Like many who come to Korea to teach or to study, he has fallen in love with the place and may never leave. We three North Americans are conspicuous in our lumpen white plainess. The store and the streets abound with an attractive young on-the-go university crowd. There are gaggles of pretty young things in Sailor Moon style school uniforms, and many wear clothes with, albeit grammatically unsound, status symbol English script. (Example: Hello Kintty for Hello Kitty) The highlight of the outing has to be the young fellow in a massive high performance red motorcycle helmet and a pair of those ubiquitous plastic Asian flip-flops.

We wend our way home through the dark, narrow, alleys. Street lights aren't necessary here for street crime is virtually nil. A cup of tea, and then it's lights out on our first full day in Korea.