It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Chatting with Carl

I received a phone call tonight that I want to share with you. But before I can share about the phone call, I have to give you a little bit of background information. 

Credit cards seem to work slightly differently here. First of all, they're rather hard to get if you're a foreigner. Which is actually probably true in just about every country. But credit cards in Korea come with all sorts of benefits. You can get discounts and points and rewards and gift cards and who knows what else... It is also significantly easier to shop online, which I've been doing more and more of lately. Basically, milk, bread, eggs and some meats and produce is about all I buy at the store anymore. I get the rest of it online. It's a major pain and a multi-day process to get money transferred into the correct accounts to shop online without a credit card. Debit cards generally don't work. 

About six weeks ago, a middle aged Korean man walked into my office. He worked for Citi Bank Korea, and he wanted to offer a credit card to the foreign professors. I was a little suspicious at first, but my office mates all knew him, so I went ahead and signed up. He was quite persistent. He had three credit cards he was offering, and he wanted me to sign up for all three of them. I was quite sure that I didn't want three credit cards. So then he suggested that I sign up for the highest level super platinum airline benefits card. I definitely didn't want that. There was a card that let you get discounts at the grocery store I shop at, and several restaurants and coffee shops. I was interested in that one. After a good 20 minutes of back and forth (and me getting very frustrated that the man wouldn't listen to me) we finally got everything taken care of. My card came in the mail, and it has made my life easier in all of the anticipated ways. I thought I had heard the last of Carl and his aggressive sales tactics. Then my phone rang. 

I normally don't answer my phone if I don't recognize the number, just because wrong numbers and telemarketers and such are SO stressful to try to deal with in Korean. But since it was 8:00 pm on Sunday night, I figured there was no possible way it could be someone who didn't personally know me. I was partially right. The conversation went something like this:

Sarah: Hello?

Carl: silence

S: Hello?

C: Hello. How are you Sarah? (said a Korean man's voice).

S: (A little freaked out because I don't recognize the voice, but it obviously knows me) I'm fine. 

C: This is Carl. 

S: (drawing a blank)...

C:Credit card.

S: (drawing a blank)...

C: From Citi.

S: (realization dawns, and with it a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach) Oh, hello.

C: I'm with Lotte* now. I can give you a Lotte card. 

Carl then proceeded to explain to me all of the benefits that came with a Lotte card and how they were so much better than a Citi credit card. I kept trying to explain to Carl that I was just fine with the Citi cards that I had, and I really didn't want another one. I really didn't want another three. I really didn't want any more credit cards at all, in Korea or America, actually. I finally managed to convince Carl that I wasn't going to bite, and we awkwardly said goodbye. The goodbyes were going quite well, until Carl said "Ok, I'll see you in your office" just before he hung up. Hopefully he'll come when I'm in class, or on a day I'm not there!

*For my readers not in Korea, Lotte (low-tay) is a rather large corporation here that does pretty much everything. Like Wal*Mart or Tesco times about 10. Apparently in addition to grocery stores, department stores, food manufacturing, fast food chains, and imports/exports, they offer credit cards. 

Things I've Seen and Done, Part 7

This has inexplicably sitting on an apartment building near mine for the last few days. I don't know why there are random rows of toilet paper sitting on the ledge of the building. I don't know how long they will be there. Maybe this is the Korean version of TPing someone's house??

It was Thanksgiving, and we had so much amazingly delicious food! There was a ham. A real ham that didn't come out of a can! 

There was also a massive, 20 pound turkey that was delicious at the Thanksgiving dinner. It was so wonderful to have food that was familiar and normal without having to travel to seven different stores and pay 3x the normal price. 

These things are currently rocking my world. Imagine something that is a little bit like the puffy cheetos, except of being cheesy awesomeness, these guys taste like brownie batter. Amazing. 

This and the next two pictures are a comic panel from my school's English magazine. For some reason, the combination of the text and images struck me as pretty funny. You can click on the pictures to make them larger. 

This is also from the school's magazine. It was the letter from the editor at the beginning. Maybe I'm getting too old, but I just don't get the sense of loss with the completion of Harry Potter. 

This is really what I've been spending a lot of time doing this week. That's right. Grading. This is just the stuff that I wasn't able to finish at school this week and had to bring home with me. It's a sure sign that the end of the semester is near. I think I graded about 100 quizzes, 50 journals, 100 book reports and I have about 30 essays left to finish from that stack. Whew. 

A freak of nature

I was making some beef stew tonight when I realized that I forgot to buy carrots at the store this week. So I ran down to the vegetable stand on the corner of the street to grab some. The lady had the single largest carrot I had ever seen in my entire life. I made a large quantity of soup. It had 16 cups of stock in it. That's a gallon, for those of you who are counting. This one single carrot was enough for the whole pot. 

The freakishly large carrot, next to a standard teaspoon for reference. 

It was so incredibly large. This is it standing up on it's end. See how small the spoon looks waaaaaay down there? It was so large that when I sliced it in half, it behaved like a very ripe watermelon. I cut the bottom half and the top half split and cracked all on its own. I didn't know carrots could do that. 

The side view. I had to cut this thing into 1/8s, and it was STILL rather large chunks for a soup. 

The Christmas Season

In America, Christmas comes in with a bang. There is a Thursday of gorging on turkey and cranberry sauce, then the Christmas Season arrives. Christmas decorations go up, radio stations change their playlists, and there is a little thing known as Black Friday.

Korea's harvest festival was back in September. It was certainly too early to kick off the Christmas Season then. However, we've had our first officially cold day. The stores have decorations up. And I've eaten what passes for a Thanksgiving dinner here. So, today I updated my Christmas playlist in iTunes and brought out my cinnamon spice candle. I'll hopefully pick up a proper Christmas tree tomorrow and bring some holiday cheer to my apartment.

As I was sorting through my music to make the Christmas 2011 playlist, I came across this song that was on the Christmas 2010 playlist.

Straight No Chaser is a great musical group to start with. I really enjoy both of their Christmas albums. But this song. It is all about someone who is in a big city, surrounded by thousands of people, missing Christmas in Indiana. ::sigh:: I admit, after I listened to this song for the first time, I checked out some ticket prices to see if I could arrange my own Indiana Christmas this year. Alas, it just won't work out. Also, I have a fairly short window of time for a trans-pacific journey before I have to start work again. So, it will be a Seoul Christmas for me again this year. But enjoy the song, and for those of you in Indiana, know that I'm thinking of you!

Things I've Seen and Done, Part 6

Mornings that include something like this are infinitely better than mornings that don't!

There are so many beautiful chrysanthemums out this time of year. 

I saw this when I was on the bus. Who wouldn't want to shop at a store called "Wonder Woman"??

I'm not really sure what a "Western Ice Bar" is, but the "TEXAS" just makes me want steak...

Just outside of the Western Ice Bar were all of these random blocks on the sidewalk. They all had a different country on them. They were different from the normal lineup of countries I usually see in Seoul. 

The big department stores have their Christmas lights out now, and they're really pretty!!

Crosswalks in Seoul go the normal way, from corner to corner, but they also have crosswalks that cut diagonally across an intersection. It's pretty cool!

I bought some fruit for lunch in the little store that is in my office building. All was going well until I opened up the container. 

There were four apple slices, two orange slices and two chunks of pineapple, all individually wrapped. 

There is a student art exhibit going on right now. This is one of my favorite paintings. It is sparkly!!

The exhibit was both indoors and outdoors. There were cute sunflower cats!!

And friendly, fuzzy eskimo men. 

Remember the Itaewon Global Festival that I went to a few weeks ago? My friend and I got some Korean calligraphy done, but it was just a piece of paper. I went to a stationary store last week and got some supplies and made a wall hanging out of it! It looks so much prettier now. 

A Terrible, Horrible, Rotten, No-Good Kind of Day (With a Happy Ending!)

Do you ever have those days where nothing seems to go right? That happened to me this morning. The batteries in my alarm clock died, so I woke up 40 minutes late for work. I'd planned to get to work a little bit early, so I was still ok, although it was going to be close. I threw on some clothes and dashed out the door to catch the bus. The bus wasn't as crowded as it normally is, so I thought maybe things were going to go well! How wrong I was...

About 13 seconds after I get on the bus, we get stuck in a significant traffic jam. It lasted a good 20 minutes. Apparently, there is a good bit of difference in the traffic pattern between 7:30 and 8:15. I was really concerned that I was going to be late for my first class. It was at this point in the commute that I heard sirens. Lots and lots of sirens. There were 5 fire engines that were trying to work their way through the traffic and congestion of Jongno. Normally, the bus travels in it's own happy lane, and this helps the bus schedule remain fairly accurate. But the bus moved into normal traffic to accommodate the fire engines. Which was all well and good. However. The fire engines kept getting cut off by crazy taxi drivers who were dropping off and picking up passengers, so it still took them forever to get past where we were, as the bus driver is doing some serious braking/accelerating maneuvers in the rush hour traffic. 

I was standing in the bus, holding on for dear life, thinking about how to handle the potential lateness when I heard this sound and felt something warm on my leg. I looked down, and the old man who was sitting in front of me had decided to vomit all over everything. Including my leg and shoes. The bus was still fairly crowded, so I didn't have that many places to move to. The second spew mostly missed me, but I was caught in a little bit of splatter. By the third spew, I was able to move enough out of the way that I didn't get caught in anything.

At the next stop, a whole bunch of people got off the bus. I didn't have time to either go back and change clothes or to even get off of that bus and wait for the next one. So I had to spend the next 30 minutes on a bus that smelled of vomit, with wet and sticky pants legs, wondering what in the world I was going to do when I got to school.

I finally made it to school. I walked into my office building at 9:07, and my class was supposed to start at 9. I went to the nearest bathroom I could find and did my best to clean up. It looked much better, but I still smelled kinda funny. I dashed to my office, grabbed my books and ran to my first class. Normally, I really enjoy my Friday classes. The students are engaged and we have fun. But today they basically refused to talk. Both my writing and my speaking class remained painfully silent. Maybe it was the morose weather? Maybe it was the strange smell emanating from the front of the classroom... Who knows. But they were a most difficult lot to teach.

By the time noon rolled around, I was having a rather difficult time. I didn't have time to eat breakfast this morning, due to the unfortunate alarm clock incident, so I was rather hungry. I was getting a headache from the vomit odors that persistently clung to my pants and shoes. I had one more class that was supposed to go from 12-3, then I had a makeup Korean class from 3-5. I wasn't sure I could make it through all of them.

I went to my 12:00 class, and we went through some student presentations. After the presentations, I decided that the circumstances were extenuating enough that I was going to cancel the rest of the class and go home to change and shower. Thankfully, the bus ride home was uneventful, and I was able to rid myself of the lingering souvenirs of the morning.

I texted a couple of friends to see if anyone was interested in getting some dinner tonight, but they were all busy, so I was left to my own devices. I decided that I was going to be very brave and attempt to have a pizza delivered to my house. I went to the Pizza Hut website to see if I could figure it out. I found the place where you were supposed to register, but it didn't like my name and ID number. I'm not sure what was up with that. I got frustrated and decided to check out Papa John's. But there aren't any Papa John's around my apartment. Finally, I went to the Domino's website. Lo and behold, they had an English website! It was like the clouds had parted and revealed rays of sunshine.

I successfully registered for the website and downloaded the 11 (that isn't hyperbole, it was actually 11) pieces of software, plugins and add-ons that were required by the website to function (God bless Korean web design...) and placed my order. The website was in English, but the program that was necessary to pay with a credit card was all in Korean. I had to go through a long and complicated authentication process which involved secret words, text messages and emails, and I finally paid for my pizza.

A mere 25 minutes later, my doorbell rang and I was greeted by this:

Then I opened the box and saw this. It looked and smelled wonderful. I'm happy to report that it was just as delicious as it looked! I'd ordered it with extra cheese, so it was pretty similar to a real, American pizza!!

Of course, this was still a pizza order placed in Korea, so it came with garlic dipping sauce, two packets of hot sauce, and two containers of sweet pickle slices. All of which are still sitting on top of my oven awaiting a cold and lonely fate in my food recycling bin. 

All in all, it was a pretty trying day. I'm not entirely sure that I'm able to laugh about it just yet. But. I have officially added a new skill to my "living in Korea" list, and that's a pretty exciting thing!

Lantern Festival, 2011

It's that time of year again -- Seoul's International Lantern Festival. I went to this last year when I was still so shell shocked that I wasn't able to do much of anything very well. This time, I'm much more acclimated to life in Seoul, so I was able to enjoy the festival despite the crowds of people. 

This wasn't actually part of the lantern festival. It was near the entrance of the stream where the lantern festival was, and it is also close to City Hall. Each flag represents a country that helped Korea during the Korean war. There were also some cool pictures from the war era, but since they were black and white pictures and it was dark outside... photography didn't exactly work in this instance. 

This is the really tall sculpture thing that marks the entrance to the Cheonggyechung (the cool stream running through Seoul). It's much cooler in real life. 

Welcome! 

The theme of this year's festival was the juxtaposition of the past and present. There were several lanterns representing parts of Korean history and folk tales. I'm not sure which one this lantern represents, but it was definitely beautiful with the waterfall all lit up like that. 

The lanterns were incredibly detailed. Each of these figures and lanterns were so tiny. 

This is a full shot of the detail shot above. The whole lantern was on a platform that was maybe 10 feet/3 meters long. 

This was part of a traditional wedding procession. The girl in the litter is actually the bride, but she looks very, very unhappy. 

This is a reproduction of a traditional game that has apparently been banned in schools. You have the "horse" team on the bottom and the "jumping" team on the top. One boy braces himself against something sturdy like a wall or tree. The rest of his team will make a "horse" by putting their head between the legs of the boy in front of them and bracing themselves. They do this until they have a good chain going. The "jumping" team then... jumps. They get a running start and jump and land on the "horse". The idea is the horse wants to stay strong and not collapse under the weight of the jumping team, and the jumping team wants to stay on the horse when they land. If you're interested in reading a bit more about this game and seeing some pictures of actual boys playing it, check out this blog post. 

This is the reflection of a truly creepy lantern. We would later find out that it wasn't the creepiest lantern at the festival, but it definitely wasn't something you wanted to spend too much time looking at directly. 

Pretty waterfalls! 

There were lanterns from around the world. These lanterns came from the Philippines. 

We don't actually know where these lanterns came from. We think maybe they represented somewhere in Africa? Becky and I were both reminded of the Swiss Family Robinson though. 

So remember the creepy reflection lantern dude? And how it wasn't the creepiest lantern of them all? Prepare yourselves... What you will see next may scar you for life. As we progressed down the stream, over the tinkle of the water and the background noise made by hundreds of people, we started to hear a rhythmic squeaking/groaning sound. We couldn't figure out what in the world it was, until we turned a corner and saw this:

It was a 30 foot/9 meter tall peacock with flapping wings, a mouth that opened and closed, and tail feathers that went up and down. It also had red laser eyes of death. The blue peacock had a compatriot on the other side. He was even worse. 

In addition to the groaning and squeaking moving body parts and red laser eyes of death, THIS peacock actually breathed fire.... Actually, they both breathed fire. But the golden peacock breathed it much more regularly than the blue peacock. We were simultaneously horrified and fascinated. 

Because the theme of the festival was past and present and there were lanterns about folk tale heroes, they decided to have some modern day heroes. Batman, Superman, Tae Kwon V and Podoro all made an appearance. 

These are all more of the lanterns from around the world. Again, we aren't really sure what country they are supposed to represent. But they were all pretty!

This is another creepy lantern face. I think he was part of the Japanese lantern. 

This one was some sort of art contest winner, I believe. 

The colors were so bright. It was simply lovely!

Has anyone seen Tangled? Because I have. And I love that movie. They had floating lanterns that you could buy and write a wish on, then float down the stream. It was lovely!!

There was also a big dragon lantern. You could write something on the individual "scale" and attach it to the dragon. 

I'm afraid I have absolutely no clue what this says. My attempts at translating it didn't turn out so well either. 

This was a fountain back at the beginning of the stream. It was so cool, because this is exactly what it looked like in person. The lights were coming up, and the water was all white. It looked like moving clouds made of marshmallows or something. I really wanted to touch it, because it looked so soft and feathery. Of course, I know that it would be cold and wet, and it would probably have enough force from the water that it wouldn't feel so nice...

Finally, there were LED bedecked carriages that you could take for a ride. 

The horses pulling the carriages were so tiny! Becky is standing maybe a food and a half in front of the horse. she's about 5'8"/172cm. They were tiny, tiny horses. 

All in all, it was a good time at the lantern festival. It's still around until November 20th, so if you're in Seoul, you should go check it out!