PUT AN EGG ON IT

Hello Everyone!

Paul here.  I am approaching the end of my first week of full time teaching.  I have finished my preparations for today so I thought to write a small post.  

Korea has been...a place...completely different from anything I have experienced previously.  I thought I would be able to compare most of it to when I was in Japan or China; but I can't.  It is a completely different culture with different norms, people, weather, air quality etc.  I haven't fallen in love with Korea as of yet.  I still seem to be more overwhelmed by everything.  I wouldn't say I am experiencing culture shock... more culture surprise!

The last few weeks have been routine, or at least what I would define as what routine would look like in Korea.  We have been exploring our new surroundings, going out for dinner and buying groceries.  Of course the images of these routine events that you may be conjuring in your head are not close to reality.  I live in a quiet neighborhood on top of a small hill (or mountain depending on who you talk to).  There are no neon lights, no loud cars or people.  It is like a quaint village that is close to a subway station that can take us into the heart of a major city in Korea.  

Grocery shopping is overwhelming, produce is very expensive...in fact I feel like anything sort of healthy is very expensive.  This has been a shock as I was told everything was so much cheaper here.  If you go shopping on a major grocery shopping day expect solicitors employed by the grocery store (or maybe a specific product) to try to coax you into buying something.  To me it seems like people were yelling at me to buy something that was completely foreign to me.  The rare occasions of clarity in a grocery store are major celebrations.  I remember buying shampoo, of all things.  The aisle with shampoo had many different types and brands but they were intermingled with conditioner (or rinse, as it is referred to in Korea).  We only needed shampoo and the brands that wrote shampoo on the bottle were very expensive.  I began looking for patterns in Korean calligraphy and slowly two characters began to appear on some of the mystery bottles of either conditioner and/or shampoo.  Suddenly it clicked and we were able to buy a middle of the road shampoo that was written completely in Korean.  It was a big deal to finally feel confident in buying something that was completely in Korean.  

This has backfired too.  When we were grocery shopping I thought I was buying sausage, but instead I bought a sausage looking coil filled with a substance that looked like clear jelly and/or putty.  I cooked it many different ways but I couldn't handle the taste.  We ended up throwing it out.

Going out for dinner has been great.  We have eaten at a ton of restaurants that would never pass a safely inspection in Canada, with gas lines running through the restaurant, open flames mixed with open liquor and tipsy people cooking raw meat.  But it works and it is magical.  I am very happy that most places have a picture of the food you can order and we have gone with very knowledgeable people.  Going out for dinner is definitely far tastier, easier and more fun than cooking at the dorms.

Korean food is sort of funny.  At least I think it is.  I seem to recount the second episode of Portlandia where the two characters are making everything trendier by putting birds on various objects while yelling "PUT A BIRD ON IT” Cooking Korean food is somewhat similar just with eggs.  What to make food Korean? “PUT AN EGG ON IT!” Soup needs an Asian flair? “PUT AN EGG ON IT!” Your beef feeling a little lonely? “PUT AN EGG ON IT!”

Talking about Portlandia, remember CACOW.  That is the text message app in Korea that EVERYONE uses… I often hear my students saying CACOW, I am amused.

Okay this blog is becoming quite long now.  I was hoping to also talk about the hospital visit I had, almost spilling my pee on an old lady, being very sick over the past few days with a sinus infection and a power inverter with no ground making our lab top computers completely useless.

Never mind I was able to squeeze it in.