Well, I know it’s been a long time since my last blog update, so I want to update you all the best I can. My week-days are slowly starting to form a routine here, which is nice. Maybe I’ll give you a detailed run down of all that soon, but for this post I’d like to do something different. This week especially I’ve had a lot of interesting run-ins, so I think I’ll just post some of my thoughts and observations.
- *Yesterday when I was walking down by the lake I encountered a man in a sweatshirt that said Philadelphia and I got really excited. As he ran towards me I realized his shirt said “Philadelphia 78ers.” I had to try really hard not to laugh.
- *I also found a coffee shop called “Legends of the Fall.” I promise I’ll get a coffee there before I leave.
- * The other day my friend and I went to our corner grocery after work to pick up a few things. While we were waiting in line a bunch of middle-aged Korean guys came in. They picked up a few things and got in line behind us. All of a sudden, one of them spoke to us, “hello!” This is pretty normal here, so we said ‘hi’ and smiled back. Then he turned to Nicole and said, “For your service,” and handed her a tomato he was buying. Of course all his friends started laughing, and she said thank you. And then he started to tell us, “In Korea, we have the best… the best…the best…” His friends were cracking up but I tried to be helpful and said “Tomatoes?” And he got very excited and said, “Yes, yes!” Then he got another tomato and gave it to me, “You, you are beautiful. You have a tomato.” By then Nicole and I had paid for our food so we left. Once we got outside, Nicole said “I’m pretty sure these are persimmons.” So now there’s a random Korean man who thinks persimmons are called tomatoes and I know that they don’t sell tomatoes at our corner grocery store but they do sell a lot of persimmons.
- *We celebrated Pepero Day here on Friday! Pepero’s are shortbread type sticks dipped in chocolate. Sometimes they’re sprinkled with nuts and stuff. It’s a big deal to the students. They give each other Pepero and write little notes and stuff. It’s a bit like Valentine’s Day, except it’s actually branded here. Our Teaching Assistants bought us all a box and a few of my girl students gave me a little Pepero. Needless to say, the kids were bouncing off the walls on Friday.
- *When I walked to the park yesterday I ran into a lot of families with young kids. Our neighborhood is mostly a late night place, so even at noon the only people out are old people and people with babies. And there really aren’t that many of them. Anyway, on my walk to the park I had two or three young kids come up to me and shout “HELLO!!!” It’s really adorable. One kid just kept saying it over and over again, and finally I had to leave and say “Bye-Bye!” Maybe he learned a new word. I love this about Korea and I really try my best to be polite and talk to anyone that says “Hi” to me in English, unless they’re creepy which happens occasionally. Now that I’ve been here a few weeks, I’m really wanting to learn Korean. It helps that I’m starting to become familiar with some shopkeepers and restaurant owners. Mostly I want to be able to tell them that I like their food or their shop, since they are all really helpful and try to speak some English. Anyway, the bottom line is the majority of the Koreans I have met so far have been really lovely.
- *Also, everyone should know that when I tell people I’m from Philadelphia they usually say one of two things: “Philadelphia Cream Cheese?” or “Ohhhh, I know the baseball team…” Yep. We make fatty and delicious cheese and are the home of the Phillies.
Well, that’s all I can think of for now. I hope my random anecdotes and thoughts made sense! I should have some pictures to put up of my neighborhood and the lake soon. Hopefully I’ll have a more organized blog to post next time!
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