Ye', Drinkin' with the Locals

So today as I left work, Heather's dad followed me down and asked if I wanted to go drink some beer. He had asked me to drink with him when I was living at Heather's house, but I said no at the time because it was a school night. At this point, I'm not quite as concerned with what I do the night before work, so I said okay. He drove me to this place about a quarter mile away from my apartment. I'm pretty sure it was called Camelot, although the name on the building was in Korean, and I don't think it said that. The menu said Camelot, though, so who knows.


So he took me to Camelot, which is a nice place. The tables on the perimeter of the bar each have their own stall, kind of like enclosed diner booths, and there are also tables in the middle. We sat in one of the stalls, and he ordered three beers and a fruit plate. Koreans eat a lot of fruit. When the waitress brought the three beers, at first I thought he was going to double-fist it for a second, but then I remembered about Korean eating and drinking custom: everyone shares. So we each got a glass, and we shared every one of the five beers we drank (I think he went light on me since it's a weekday. I'm sure he could have tossed back a few more easily. Koreans party hard.).


We drank Hite, a Korean beer that, I'm pretty sure, tastes exactly like Budweiser. Not having had a Bud in almost a decade, I'm not positive, but all beer tastes the same to me, anyway. It's worth drinking shitty alcohol to have an important cultural experience, though.


There was a lot of Konglish and Engorean. Neither of us speaks enough of the other's language to have a real conversation. He obviously speaks more useful English than I speak useful Korean, though. I was able to make a complete sentence about what we were doing, and he thought that was funny. I also could name some of the fruit we were eating, and name some colors, and say which fruit was big and which was small ("small red tomato"), and he would laugh at that. Silly American.

He was telling me about how much the other teachers drink. Lissette, the girl I replaced, drank three beers, which he seemed impressed with. I don't think women drink as much here. He said Steven drinks a lot, which I can understand, as he's a pretty big guy. I said I usually drink whiskey and coke back home, and he said Lissette liked that, too. I wouldn't be surprised if he treated me to whiskey sometime. It's more expensive, of course, but this family seems to have some money.

Some funny things:

I still don't know Heather's parents' names. She told me to just call them Omma and Apa--Mom and Dad.

Although an ashtray was provided for the rinds and seeds of the fruit we were eating, Heather's dad still spat watermelon seeds onto the floor. And not just onto the floor around the table, but out into the main part of the bar. Stuff like that seems totally okay here, as confusing as it is to us.

The big tv they had going on the wall was playing the most bizarre stuff. Every time I looked up, I was like what the crap? For example, one time I looked up and a bunch of people were holding up picture frames with plastic wrap stretched inside them and pressing their faces into the plastic wrap. I think maybe they were making face prints??? One guy just smashed his face right through the plastic, so I don't know if my theory is right. Korean tv is so weird.


We only stayed for an hour, which was better for me, since I had already stayed a half hour late at work to correct, and I only have three hours or so from when I end my last class and bedtime. It was a good time overall, and I'm glad I didn't knee-jerk refuse based on communication barriers and it being a school night.

Teachers' Day

Yesterday was Teachers' Day, and I was glad that they have a day to honor those of us who work our asses off to help kids learn. I was told that children give their teachers gifts; one of my students mentioned that they give carnations to teachers.

Since I don't really like flowers, and a chocolate bar costs the same amount, my friend from the air force gave me the idea to put up a little sign in my classroom last week with a picture of a flower with the red circle and bar through it and a picture of a chocolate bar with a thumbs up next to it, and refuse to comment on it. So I did, and some of the kids even figured it out. They all thought the sign was very peculiar and they studied it a lot. Now that I think of it, I should have taken a picture.

Considering the amount of teachers Korean students have, I expected a lot of kids to give me a flower or maybe a card or some little trinket. I was wrong, though. It seems to be more of big deal than I thought, and most of the kids seem to choose which teachers they want to give presents to, and give them pretty good presents, instead of small ones to all of them. I got thirteen presents, with one more on the way. One of my students says "It's not ready yet."


Here is a picture of the full spread:


And a little more detail:



From left to right, generally: bergamot body wash from The Body Shop, an embroidered handkerchief with hand mirror from renoma Paris, a mini rouge compact from Anna Sui (it's not in the detail picture, but I remembered to include it in the wider shot), body lotion from Anna Sui, a "diamond" hair clip from Ssilbaereudae Paris (it's in Korean, so I don't know what the English translation is), a basket of assorted French cookies and cakes (the picture shows only half of what it had originally), orange and aloe-flavored chocolates from Jeju Island in Korea, a decorative box, a floral handbag, a bar of milk chocolate, and handmade soaps in aloe, grape, and black sugar flavors. Plus the massive basket of carnations.

I think the box is my favorite. I love containers. Like I said, I don't really like flowers, but I was rather impressed by the basket of carnations. It was quite thoughtful, as were all the gifts.

All this stuff, especially considering that a fair amount of it is European or American, and how nice the Asian stuff is, is easily worth over $100, probably closer to $150. Holy schnikes.




Here are close-ups of some of the more decorative stuff:

Lotte Department Store

Lotte Department Store has eight floors and I perused all of them. It was really silly. I thought that having only done clothes shopping at lower end stores that maybe the fashion of Korea was misrepresented a bit, but no. High end clothes just mean more ruffles, more spandex leggings, more long, clunky jewelry, and more awful color clashing.

There was not as much Engrish as I wanted, though I did find a couple good examples. I'm kicking myself now for not writing it down, but the first good one I saw said something about "feeling actually emotion," which was cool and made me laugh out loud. Another one was called "Green, Be Nice!" and had a bunch of little icons, presumably stuff you can recycle? One of them was "Strong Duck." I took a long time looking at that shirt.

The things men wear here would frighten any American man, I think. I really, really, truthfully saw ties with sequins and glitter on them. And a lot of them, too, not just a few weird ones. Like almost a majority of the ties in the store were either bejewelled or were a color not considered masculine by our culture.

Additionally, golf clothes, which get half a floor to themselves, are evidently synonymous with blindingly bright colors. They don't seem to go as much for the plaid golf pants here, unless of course they are canary yellow and fluorescent orange.

Going to the Movies and Other Such Nonsense

I went to the movies for the first time yesterday. I wish I had started going a long time ago, but it took me a while to find out where the theatre is, and I also wasn't sure if they would be playing any decent American/European movies. What I ended up finding out, though, is not only do they play at least a few English-language new releases, but South Korea seems to sometimes get earlier release dates than the U.S., according to imdb.com. For example, Iron Man came out 3 days earlier here than there, and Luc Besson's Taken came out April 10 here, while the U.S. has to wait until September 19. I guess starting in France makes a difference.

I didn't really plan on going to see a movie, but it kind of just ended up that way. I had do a little shopping, so I didn't bother with a shower because I was walking over a mile to the Lotte Mart. On the way I saw a couple white guys and they actually approached me--the first time another foreigner has done that since I've been here. They were "seamans," as they called it (haha), from Bulgaria and the Ukraine off the ship for the day. They got off the ship without asking how to exchange money and hadn't had any luck with banks. The only way I was able to get money exchanged without a bank account was for my boss to do it for me, and since Ulsan isn't a tourist spot, they don't exactly have a lot of money exchange places. It being a Sunday and the day before a major holiday (Buddha's birthday--I have the day off) didn't help, either. I called my boss to see if she had any ideas, but she said pretty much the only chance was to exchange at the airport, which they couldn't get to without money, of course. They suggested maybe a hotel could help, them, and luckily were were right by the rotary, which houses several large hotels, so I directed them there and wished them good luck. The End.

Back to the story. True to form, Lotte Mart was not able to provide me with what I was looking for. So it was onto the bus and off to Emart again, where I pretty much always find what I want. Then I figured that since I was only a mile from the movie theatre and I'd have to pay for the bus again to get there from home the next day, I might as well walk over and see a movie while I was in the neighborhood.

Iron Man was playing on three screens (out of nine), and even though I haven't seen any ads for it, I have heard a couple rave reviews, and figured since it was a comic book movie, I should see it either way. Other options include Taken, which I'll see next weekend, maybe, and Horton Hears a Who. And some Korean movies, of course. The next show of Iron Man was sold out, so I figured I'd just kill time in the Lotte Department Store, connected to the Lotte Cinema while I waited a couple hours for the next one. I started writing in this entry about what I saw there, but now that I've made this entry wicked long, I think I'm going to split them up.

Buying the ticket and seeing the movie were a little different than in the States. The weirdest part was the ticket counter. Instead of just choosing a line to wait in, you have to take a number, like at the deli. Digital displays above each ticket station display whose number they are now serving. When you take your number from a machine, a display on the machine shows how many people are in front of you in "line." That bit of info, plus other stuff I didn't understand, is also printed on the number ticket. I guess this system prevents people from choosing the slow line and also allows people to go to the bathroom or buy a concession or whatever while waiting, but it seems like such a waste. All that paper...

My seat in the theatre was assigned, like in Hollywood's Arclight. This is a high end cinema, so I'm not sure if it's just the Arclight of Ulsan, or if all Korean movie theatres have assigned seating. On the up side, despite it being a nice theatre, the ticket only cost about $7, and during a prime time, too. I'm not sure if they have matinee prices. I'll have to check that out sometime. Still, though, even with the extra two bucks for the round trip bus ride, going to the movies is still cheaper here than in LA.

Another strange thing about going to the movies is that I'm pretty sure they make some sort of announcement, like at the train station or airport, as to when people can enter the theatre. I got back from killing time only fifteen minutes before showtime, and I walked upstairs to my screen amongst a huge crowd of... zero. The ticket taker asked if he could help me (in English), and I said I'd like to see my movie (duh). He took me into the theatre and showed me to my seat, but had to talk to the cleaning crew that was still in there, presumably to check to see if it was okay for me to be there yet. It was clearly highly unusual for someone to be seated at that time, but I assume they let me in because I'm a foreigner who clearly doesn't know any better.

Strangely, they were broadcasting on the speakers an interview with someone talking about the making of Michael Jackson's Thriller music video, and how they got Vincent Price to do the narration. I wouldn't expect them to play something that most people wouldn't understand at all, and only a few people would understand fully or nearly fully.

A few minutes after I sat down (in the direct center of the theatre, a benefit of buying the ticket almost two hours in advance) EVERYONE else came in. This is why I suspect the announcement. They played a couple commercials, as they do in the US, and a few previews, though not as many as I'd like. I wish I could remember what the previews were for. There's something awesome coming out June 5, but I can't for the life of me remember what movie it is. I guess I'll find out in a few weeks.

The movie was subtitled in Korean, of course, but since the screen is so big, I hardly noticed them. I did see that people's names were put in quotation marks, which was odd. They don't do that on TV. Luckily, when the characters spoke other languages, the English subtitles were still on screen, which is a benefit I don't get when watching TV here.

The funny thing about being the only American watching an American movie in a foreign country is the parts when I'm the only one laughing. Admittedly, that still happens back home, but for different reasons. Some jokes just don't translate. I was the only one laughing when Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey, Jr. were joking about how he wouldn't get along without her if she quit as his assistant. He says he'll make it a week, and she then asks him what his social security number is. He says "5." Even though it was translated in a way that probably allows them to infer what an SSN is, but apparently the joke just isn't funny to them. I was the only one to vocally react to Stan Lee's cameo, as well.

Additionally, only five other people, chicks, surprisingly, stayed in their seats through the credits and were able to see the postcredits scene. As I watched the throngs of people exit the theatre as soon as the credits started, I supressed the urge to cry out, "Foolish mortals!" knowing they were going to miss something totally cool. But they wouldn't understand me, so whatever.

It was a fun outing, and one that I think I will try to do more often now, given the price and convenience. By the way, I recommend Iron Man. It was neato.