Chuseok and other stories

So…quick update. It’s Chuseok (chew-sock)! Korean Thanksgiving. Was at a teacher’s ‘orientation’ Tues-Thur—and have off Thurs-Monday for Chuseok. Pretty nice.

I don’t even want to elaborate on the ‘orientation’ – and if you’re one of those types that can read between the lines, you know that my putting ‘’ around the word orientation would indicate it wasn’t that great. I will say this though. Some of the native teachers here are pretty weird and a couple of them are downright questionable. I understand that the bare minimum for becoming a native teacher here is having a bachelors and being a native speaker. But I would imagine when they came up with these requirements, they probably figured that along with these 2 qualifications, one should also know how to spell, not use words that don’t exist, maybe even have a genuine interest in the English language and what the hell, a dash of interest in reading a book. Again, this wasn’t everybody, but the fact that this describes more than one person is a little scary to me.

Actually, kind of a lot scary.

Other than that, I went to a casino for the first time in my life a couple days ago. They don’t let Koreans gamble—so it was mostly Japanese, Chinese and Westerners piddling their money away. It wasn’t what I imagined it to be…it felt like the tables were actually tiny funerals scattered along the gambling floor with drooling zombies on either side—one side drinking the other playing the slots. I was on the latter. Didn’t win anything. But I did pay $16 that night for a Bennigan’s sandwich that tasted like it’d just been taken out of a box and defrosted. So it wasn’t a total loss. :-/

Randomness:

• I’ve figured out what my favorite Korean food is so far: kimchi man doo gook: kimchi dumpling soup. My god is it amazing.
• There’s lots of free extras here. You’re guaranteed to get a gift set of items if you buy something at a skincare store. Even if you buy something really cheap. Most of my purchases have been around 5,000 won (~ $5) and even so, they’ll give me a heap of samples that I know cost more than 5,000 won. Pretty cool. Also, I went to a bread store the other week and bought a loaf of bread (how original!) – the nice lady gift-wrapped the loaf and stuck in 3 AMAZING pastries for free. There’s also this one grocery store where it’s impossible to buy a box of soy milk without it having a small soy milk box strapped to it.
• I had my first ever taxi ride with a FEMALE taxi driver! They usually don’t even exist in movies (I can only think of one: the one in Pulp Fiction that drove Bruce Willis after his boxing scene). Anyhow, this one was very nice and was highly amused by my dazzling handle on Korean – I said “hello”, “thankyou” and “goodbye”.
• Korean grapes. Beyond delicious. Also on the fruit front: citrus fruits are extremely rare here. And when you do find them, they’re very expensive (I pay around $2 for 1 orange) They also like to put fruit in gift boxes. Off topic: they’re obsessed with spam. I’ve found bonafide spam gift sets in souvenir stores. I’m not kidding.
• At the movies: every theater has reserved seating. You do not pick your seat, no matter what. I went to a film with a couple of my co-teachers and aside from us, there were 2 other people in the entire theater. I figured we could bend the rules a little, but no. They were really serious about it.

In just a few days, I’ll be going to the Busan International Film Fest! Busan is where I originally wanted to live—2^nd largest city, gorgeous and it's where Korea’s burgeoning film scene is located. Taking the fast train! Also might be staying in a ‘love motel’ since they’re pretty cheap. Should make for one interesting weekend…