Seoul (1/6): Snowing, Shopping and Sitting

I spoke too soon when I said I was being gyped on the whole snow thing. After waking up on Saturday there was quite the flurry of snowfall going on outside. That combined with the cold on the ground made it stick pretty quick. Within a few minutes we had a nice initial layer of accumulation on the ground. It was quite nice, but unfortunately would be short-lived. Throughout the rest of the day it slowly warmed up and the sun came out and melted most of the initial fall. Then, in the evening the melted snow froze up and there was a nice ice layer on the sidewalks. Made for interesting walking. Fortunately the roads were not icy since they had dried up with all the driving on them.

Snowfall!

Shovelling up the snow

After getting ready, showering, etc., we caught a cab and went to YongSan Station where the huge electronics mall and shopping center is. First we went to the Camera area (kind of like the camera/electronic store places in China, but much cleaner and less “sensory overload”-ish) and I drooled at the nice digital cameras. I’m actually in the market for one (mine broke so if anyone has a suggestion on a good hand-held portable digital let me know) but haven’t done any research yet so I didn’t want to just randomly buy something on impulse. It was nice to look though.

YongSan Station

Camera’s Galore!

Jiheun and Oppa showed up after a little while and the four of us went upstairs and got some food at an Omurice (Omlette Rice) restaurant. I had the galbi omurice. It was quite good.

My Omurice with Bulgogi

Oppa and Jiheun

But then it was time for shopping. Originally Jisue had told me “We’ll just go shop for an hour — I’m just picking up some food to ship to the U.S. so we will probably leave by 2:00″ but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. We started our shopping at around 1:00 and we didn’t get through the checkout until 4:20. That’s almost 3 and a half hours in the equivalent of a Korean Walmart. It probably would have been more interesting if I was there to buy something for myself, but it was mostly them going through the same aisles over and over buying food that, to be honest, I didn’t think they needed to buy in the first place. I mean — they have Korean instant noodles in the U.S., y’know?

Lots and lots of … “stuff”

But I think this actually represents more of a fundamental difference in how I view living/travelling abroad vs. Jisue (and most of Korea, actually). For me when I move or travel somewhere I do so to experience the native culture and live as locally as possible. That includes food and ameneties. I feel like in order for me to appreciate the culture into which I am moving/visiting I should have the fullest experience. So I try to leave the culture I’m coming from behind — at least as far as “things” go. I bring my clothes, my computer and a few random things, but that’s it.

Those special “things” from home — your favorite brand of shampoo or your favorite type of food — while they are nice to have, I find that I develop a greater appreciation for them when I return to them after having been away than I do when I’m bringing them with me to where I’m going. They say “longing makes the heart grow fonder”, which seems to apply here. And then when you happen to find something from “back home” it makes it that much more special to you. “Hey! They have Kix Cereal here in Nepal! That’s awesome!” seems nicer to me than “Hey! I brought 5 boxes of Kix Cereal to Nepal with me!”.

And on top of that, I learn a lot more about how local people in that new environment live when I have to make do with the same things they have. You learn to appreciate those unique qualities in the new environment much more when you rely on them the same as the people who are from there. You also learn not to take things for granted, which is always a nice paradigm to live in.

So, for me it didn’t seem to make sense to buy tons and tons of food (they have food in New York) and ameneties (they have shampoo in New York) to ship over there. Don’t get me wrong - I can understand why it is done. But at the same time, comprehension is different than rationalization.

To each their own, I suppose. I guess part of me being a visitor to Korea culture is to appreciate this aspect of it as well. Maybe there is a logic to this practice of bringing your own package of kim chee and spicy chili paste to the four corners of the globe. Even though it doesn’t make sense to me, doesn’t mean I can’t learn to appreciate what it does for the people who do it…

In any case, back to the story. We shopped for a VERY long time.

After that we packed all the stuff in to Oppa’s car and headed back to Jisue’s. But we had to leave pretty soon after dropping off our things because Jisue and I were going to meet up for dinner at Bennigan’s with two of her best friends from middle school. We all grabbed a cab to Sinchon and said goodbye to Jiheun and Oppa (they were going to go eat on their own) and then walked to Bennigan’s. It was nice meeting her two friends and the food was quite good. They had a lot to talk about so I kind of zoned out (since I don’t understand Korean) and played “Space Trader” on my phone. For about 3 hours ….

Today was basically a lot of waiting — but I didnt’ mind all that much. It was still a fun day.

Jisue at Bennigan’s

Mi Jung a.k.a. “MJ”

Jisue and MJ

Jisue’s other friend, So Yeon

Jisue’s Best Friends

After dinner we said goodbye to everyone and I grabbed a meat stick on the street. It was freaking delicious! I love Korean street food. I realize that it’s probably not the safest thing in the world, but the street food here is almost equivalent to restaurant food in China — plus it’s delicious.

In any case, we came back to Jisue’s and Jisue worked on some translation of graduate-level English Chemistry text for her sister while I fell asleep on the couch. Oh, I also watched a bit of “The Office” - season 2.

best. show. ever. (aside from all the other “best ever” shows, of course.)