Dear Foreigner,

Today we got some Papa John's coupons in the mail. We get them every few months and tend to promptly use them on free cheesy bready things. This time, I took a closer look at my name on the envelope. Apparantly, to Papa John's, my name is "외국인" AKA "waygookin" AKA "foreigner". CAN YOU IMAGINE, a Canadian company mailing some coupons to a Korean immigrant and addressing it "dear foreigner"? Ohhhh, Korea.

This topic has reminded me of another quick story I'd like to share: last year, Melodie was at a meeting about her summer camp. The meeting was full of 외국인s and there were a few Korean teachers as well, including Catherine- Mel's liaison teacher. Catherine kind of laughed when the attendance sheet was passed around. She pointed out Mel's name on the list and translated the information next to it: it read, "Melodie Erickson, white person". Ohhhh, Korea.

Anyway...I think I'll stop myself from elaborating any further on my feelings regarding this topic. Have a good night, everyone.

Sincerely,

Shawn (foreign white person)

Bang Bang Bang

Korea is home to three very popular "bangs": Norebangs, PC Bangs and DVD Bangs. You can easily find one of these bangy establishments found on just about every street in the country.

While we've been to norebangs (Karaoke rooms) and PC bangs (smoky computer-gaming rooms), we'd never been to a DVD bang, where you can rent a movie and watch it in a private room. I'm a big fan of value for money (AKA a cheapskate), and since I have my own private room (my apartment) and access to any movie ever made (thank you, internet) I'd never seen the point in going to a DVD bang. But- hey- it's a special Korea "thing" and since we're leaving next month we thought we'd try it out on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

We went to the Happy Zone DVD bang across from Popeye's on the food street behind Gangnam Station, exit 7. First, you choose your movie and give it to the employee who loads it up on a DVD player in the lobby. I guess this ensures that they know exactly when your movie is over and when you should be leaving. The downside of this is that you can't pause your video during a bathroom break, but that's not really a big deal. The whole experience costs 16,000 Won, which is roughly the same price as two movie tickets at a real theater in Korea so... it's a little pricy.

After a few minutes, a room became available and we were ushered in. You can see the projectors in the hallway, and I thought the video quality was quite good.

I was *shocked* at how small our "bang" was. I've had broom closets that were a comparable size. Still, the sofa was pretty comfortable and easily big enough for the two of us. Note that none of the surfaces are stainable. These bangs are widely known as a cheap place for young couples that still live at home to have some sexy times.

The screen exceeded my expectations. I was anticipating a TV screen, but the room had a projection screen that was about 5 feet wide. It was a really cool way to watch a movie, and the speaker system was very good, too. Also, please note the tissue box, to wipe up any mess from your sexy time.

We watched Tron: Legacy. We'd missed it at the theaters last winter and never really thought the effects would look great on our laptop screen, and it did look great on the projection screen. I dunno if anything from the movie is all that memorable besides how they make Jeff Bridges look so young, but it was still a fun afternoon, and I'd recommend trying a DVD bang to anybody looking for something different (sexy or otherwise) to do.

Five Umbrellas Drying

After a solid two months of hot, sunny weather, monsoon season has officially hit Korea. It's been raining pretty much non-stop for the last 48 hours and from the looks of the forecast... the rain is here to stay (and we might even get a tropical storm tomorrow)!

The rainy weather makes for a nice soundtrack at bedtime, but it makes life a lot harder when you walk everywhere. For one, traffic has been much worse since the rain hit, and walking on the sidewalk in overpopulated Gangnam has gotten even more annoying than usual. Koreans love to slowly mosey to wherever they're going, and the rain has made them slower than ever. Add 50,000 umbrellas to the mix and I might just become a hermit until the sun comes out in a few weeks time.

All I ask is that the rain dries up on July 30th. I really don't want to be wheeling four overstuffed suitcases in the rain up Gangnamdaero!

Abandonded (?) Alice In Wonderland ENGLISH Park

We'd driven past it many times on the bus ride to Costco: Alice English Park. Who is this Alice? How do you make a park "English"? There were just so many unanswered questions. On Saturday, we finally decided to check it out.

The ticket booth near the front entrance: nobody's home. And it didn't look like anyone had been home in a while.

WTF a playing card man?

OH- Alice Park is an Alice in Wonderland park- of course! How random. Unfortunately, the park entrance was roped off, so it didn't seem like we'd be able to check the place out. But, quicker than you can say "trespass", we'd walked around the gate and were in the park. I thought the guy in the above photo would yell at us, but he didn't so he obviously wasn't an employee. Later, when we were halfway through the park we saw him sightseeing at the other end. He must have thought that if we could trespass then he could too.

The first thing I noticed, besides the overgrown grass and dug-up ground, was a fenced-off area full of bunnies and one pissed off rooster. He tried to charge at me, but he was tied by the foot and couldn't get close. I will not be reporting whether of not I screamed.

Some of the buildings at the park.


What's inside?

Aha! It is (or was?) an English Village! Mel, Hannah, and I are English Villagey veterans so it was funny to randomly find ourselves in another one so many years later. It was also refreshing to see that they also use a passport-based rewards system.

A building shaped like a top hat.

Inside an upside-down classroom- that picture is actually the ceiling. It looked really cool, but imagine trying to keep the children's attentions with this kind of distraction! It seemed to us that these unique rooms were built to look impressive, but with no concept of how they would be used to teach. There were no desks or chairs, and one of the "classrooms" was just full of small inflatable swimming pools. Still... upside down room= pretty rad.

Finally, I find some fruit in Korea and it's got a hole in it. Groan!

Creepy floor hockey playing area. These Alice in Wonderland promo posters are everywhere, so I really hope Johnny Depp is getting his fair cut of the action on this place.

Strange, dark covered area filled with neglected animals.


There were squirrels, birds, lizards, hamsters, mice and these guys (groundhogs?) who seemed pretty upset. The hamster cage smelled TOXIC. The wooden shavings were so piss soaked that they'd turned black.

After that lovely stroll through the animal cruelty tent, we emerged to find some mushrooms and teepees.

Whatchu smokin', Mr. Caterpillar?

Next up was the cat house (I think the cat is missing a tooth).

These poor little guys were caged up and crying outside the cat house. Mel reports that they, at least, had some food.

Some worksheets about the "Homan Brain" and the "tic TAC clock" left out inside the cat house.

Next to the cat building was this boot. We could hear someone watching TV inside the boot, so we didn't go in, but when I took this picture a guy stepped into the doorway, stared at me, and then went back inside. Do you think he lives in the boot? That's so cool.

This log, made out of cardboard and spacious enough for two full humans, marked the end of Alice Park. But wait- what's that inside the "log"?

A flat screen TV, of course! Where, I assume, Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" airs non-stop on a loop all day long.

It was hard to tell if this Alice Park English Village is still up and running. The lights were all on and there were a lot of books and materials left laying around everywhere. But at the same time, it was a really messy, overgrown, and run-down looking place. I can't imagine anyone sending their kid there. When we got home, we Googled the park and we could see that as recently as last summer the Park was holding "Indian" camps... which sounds.. rewarding...

Anyway, if any of you out there send your kid to Alice Park to be an Indian for the day, would you mind sending some animal food along with them. I feel bad for those things. Please don't blame English, little animals! It's not our fault :( What a strange place.

Yangjae Citizens Forest AKA Park of Tragedy and Cosplayers

I'd visited Yangjae Citizens' Forest, an expansive woodsy park sandwiched between Yangjae Station and the Costco/E-Mart area, a few times before but I'd never been to this section.

Set off from the main picnic and playground-themed area of the park is a small collection of statues built in memoriam of some of Korea's greatest tragedies:

Statue in memory of Korean Air flight 007, shot down by Soviets in 1983 when it strayed off course.

A statue in memoriam of the Sampoong Department Store collapse in 1995 that killed 501 people. The building had not been built according to code and even when the top floor was cracking and caving in the owners never warned customers or staff because they didn't want to lose business. After the collapse, a major review of Korea's existing buildings was done and more than 80% were found to be structurally unsound. The documentary series "Seconds From Disaster" did a really interesting episode about this, which can be found on any torrent site if you're interested.

Now, on the site where Sampoong Department Store used to stand, is a huge, luxury apartment building. I used to teach a student whose family lived there. My co-teacher told me the apartments are nice, but cheaper than usual because many Koreans think the building is haunted.

The main purpose of our visit to the park was just to enjoy the weather and drink some magkolli, but we didn't realize how great the people watching would be. Turns out, a number of cosplay enthusiasts were also hanging out in the park that day. Cosplayers like to dress up and role play, and it's really popular in Japan... not so much in Korea. The Korean cosplayers were all female, and all were accompanied by armies of male photographers. For every costumed girl, there was 5 men taking her photo. It was strangey. What were they doing with the photos?

These girls were wearing wigs and kimonos. They stayed next to the washrooms the whole time and Mel and Hannah reported that it was NOT easy to get a mirror in the washroom with all this costumey business going on in there.

This group of sailors/soccer players stayed at the far end of the park and didn't associate with the other cosplayers. Even a clique can be cliquey in Korea.

The last two times I was at this park was with my school, for Sports Days. Maybe it's best that we skipped the controversial statues, but I bet they would have gotten a kick out of the costumed girls. If they could see them past the wall of photographers.

Suh-Bees-Uh!

One of the best things about shopping and dining in Korea is the SUH-BEES-UH, free "service" items, that you get just for shopping at a store or eating at a restaurant. For starters, every traditional Korean meal comes with a table full of "service" food. When we go out for BBQ, as we do once a week or so, we can expect to receive about 6-8 free dishes with our meal. Usually, they are different types of kimchi-ish vegetable dishes, but sometimes we'll be surprised with free soups, a bowl full of egg or a bottle of "cider" (Korean 7 Up). The side dishes are what usually makes or breaks a restaurant for us. We can get BBQ anywhere here, but a place with good sides can expect repeat business from this blogger and his girl.

Sometimes the grocery stores will offer 1+1 deals with a free roll of paper towel taped to a bag of chicken nuggets, or something like that, but by far the best places to get some free swag are the cosmetic shops. Cosmetics shops in busy areas will actually give you free stuff just to go inside and look in their store- you don't even need to buy anything. Anyway, a perfect example of this, today it was really hot and it was time for us to pick up some sunscreen for the summer. We each got a tube, mine from Skin Food, Mel's from Missha:

Total price: less than $20 (yes, I bought broccoli sun cream)

And here's the free stuff we walked away with: an acai berry mask, lettuce and cucumber water drop essence (wtf?), grapefruit body wash, "super aqua" refreshing cleansing foam, BB cream, "sun milk", aqua youth cream, night repair serum (2 packs), "turn over control booster", and night repair lotion. Also, at the Missha (where I didn't even buy anything), the saleslady took one look at me, said "남자" and tossed in a 2-pack of whitening lotion. Should I want to go the Michael Jackson route with my look.

And that's not all, Mel was also given a glass tissue box at Missha. We were going biking and she didn't want to carry it around, so she just left it on a payphone for someone else to find... but really! A glass tissue box. Anyway, we don't even shop at these places all that often and we have a drawer full of free samples from our time here. Anyone out there need some essence of lettuce cream? Some "sun milk"? If you don't take this stuff off my hands, some Seocho hobo is gonna have some really fancy looking skin after they dig through our garbage when we leave.

RIP Express Bus Terminal

Seoul's Express Bus Terminal underground shopping area, one week ago:


And today:

When we first moved to Korea almost five (!) years ago, it was the land of small shops selling $5 funny t-shirts. Today, it is a land of brands. Our beloved Myeongdong Department Store is now a Uniqlo. The Salvation Paradiso is an H&M. Gangnam Station, and it's underground shopping area of more than 100 small stores, was suddenly gutted a few months ago and blueprints for the new shopping area feature yet another Nike Store and yet another dozen cosmetics shops.

And now, it's Express Bus Terminal. If I'm guessing, the shopping area probably had 500 small, independently-run shops. It was so long that it would take about 30 minutes to walk from one end to the other (without stopping to look at things)... and there were two hallways to walk through! Sure, it was old. It was always boiling hot down there. The hallways were too narrow for the 10,000 shoppers there at any given time, BUT it was kind of a great place to shop. It was one of the last places to find a deal. A place to find something unique that didn't come from a chain store. And how many people are out of a job now that all these shops are gone?

I'm probably in the minority... one of those old fogies that doesn't want things that will inevitably change to change. I'm sure when the Underground Shopping Area Season 2 has it's "refresh open" it will be a big hit. But, to be melodramatic about a shopping mall: it's not part of the Korea that I want to live in.

Here's a sad Mel in front of her favorite, now empty, store: The Gam. Look at that face. How can this be right?

Vibrating Chairs

Last night at CGV movie theater in Gangnam:

Me: Can we get two tickets for "X-Men" tomorrow?

CGV Lady: Yes, what seat would you like? (in Korea, you get to choose your seat, so she shows us the available seats on a computer screen)

Me: The only seats left are too close to the screen... wait... what are these blacked out seats?

CGV Lady: They're vibrating seats. More expensive.

Me: Ohhhhh... (feeling scared to ask the price) How much are they?

CGV Lady: They are 10,000 Won. Normal seats so close to the screen that you'll be using Wolverine as a footrest are 9,000 Won.

Me: It's $1 more? We'll take two.


This was actually the second movie time we tried to get seats for. I wondered why so many seats were blacked out! Why was this option never offered to us? How poor do I look that I couldn't spend the extra buck to watch the movie while sitting in a massage chair? Can't wait. I'll let you know how it is.

UPDATE: It was good. Also, the vibrating chairs weren't exactly what we were expecting. It was like sitting on a subwoofer with the bass turned way up, so the seats kind of "vibrated" when something loud happened. Interesting...