Korea. Kinda cool actually, was expecting something much worse. We pulled into Busan and when I took the bus out in town the culture difference was immediately apparent. They drive on the same side of the road as us, but the streets are laid out really different and they are really narrow. They had these awesome rock formations with bonsai like trees planted all in the rocks along the side of the road. It was really cool I wish I took some pics of that. The construction workers all wore these massive face shields and just the way they dressed was so different, it was just really neat to be there and looking at all the stuff that was different.
Once we got off the bus and started walking around I was struck quickly by the smell of the place. It really stinks in Korea, I mean like you just dove into a dumpster behind Applebee's after a hot weekend of sitting there full. It wasn't that bad in places, it was real bad in others and it was pretty much always there if you were outside. That was the worst part. There was a lot of shopping. And when I say there was a lot of shopping, I mean it like if I were to say there is a lot of water in the ocean, or a lot of sand on the beach. Cause dang the shopping. But what was weird, is that is was like the same 10 stores repeated over and over. This extended even to the hundreds of street vendors. Let me tell you what you can buy, in plenty, in Korea. There was the watches/sunglasses guy, there was the ball cap/t-shirt guy, the guy with a million purses, the leather jackets guy, the jewelry guy, there was the shoes guy (shoes EVERYWHERE), the weird cd/cassette guy, the cheap souvenirs guy, and then 3 different food vendors. You have the squid/seafood guy, the chicken on a stick guy and the "omg is that seriously food" guy. There were plenty of actual stores you could visit, but there were hundreds upon hundreds of street vendors with carts selling the same exact stuff. The one thing I hated about shopping in Korea was the sales people. If any of you are familiar with the "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy" skit from SNL, it reminds me of one of those. And I quote: "Anytime I see something screech across a room and latch onto someones neck, and the guy screams and tries to get it off, I have to
laugh, because what is that thing."
I now know the answer, that thing is the sales person from Korea. To give you an example I went up to a stand outside of one of the cheap souvenirs guy's stores because they had some cheap jump drives hanging there. I was looking at one that was 16GB, and this guy literally ran
out from behind his counter, ran all the way around the aisle, bolted out the front door and glued the tip of his index finger under big red circle on the package that said 16GB and said, "16gigs!" and then just stood there. I had to laugh cause dang dude I can read the thing, catch your breath for a sec and get some water or something. You can't go into a store without 5 salespeople following you and pointing out the obvious and clinging to you like suckerfish. I walked up to a cart selling hats and the lady kept trying to show them to me and pick them up for me and was so in the way of me actually trying one on that the hats finally fell onto the ground. I picked them up and put them back for her and just walked away, which of course immediately reduced the
price of the item by 75%. That was the cool thing about shopping here, every price is debatable. The jump drive for example was marked at 67,000won which is about 70bucks. All I had to do was express interest, and then mosey away like I was just going to leave and he dropped it to
60bucks. After haggling back and forth for awhile, I got the 16gb jump drive for 52dollars american. Pretty good price, it works great too. Oh and it was made in Korea, which he made sure I understood.
I have been pretty adventurous in these different countries as far as eating things that do NOT look like human food. Korea is supposed to be famous for it's BBQ. So I was all about trying this. They cook it in the table in front of you, but it was so stupid. This guy just brought out a few strips of meat and slapped them on the little grill with no seasonings whatsoever and browned the meat and cut it with scissors and gave up the pieces. It was really disappointing, and there were these little bowls of stuff all over the table, I took a pic of the spread. It was weird. We went to McDonalds later, and I had my first Shrimp Burger. It was weird, but decent. The best, and I mean the BEST food I had was a dessert called Bingsu. Let me tell you about this little chunk of amazing. They fill a bowl with shaved ice, then pour a sweet cream over the ice. Then a layer of fruit (I had watermelon) chopped into small pieces and then a tall serving of the most deliscious soft serve ice cream I've ever had in my life. It wasn't even like ice cream, it was like cool whip turned into a sweet frozen cream. I couldn't get over how amazing this thing was. I took a picture of it too, I'll have some pics up soon.
Anyway that's about it for my trip to Korea. Took the subway around, walked the streets, spent my time just being a silly foreigner. Next stop Japan!
Wilson
Once we got off the bus and started walking around I was struck quickly by the smell of the place. It really stinks in Korea, I mean like you just dove into a dumpster behind Applebee's after a hot weekend of sitting there full. It wasn't that bad in places, it was real bad in others and it was pretty much always there if you were outside. That was the worst part. There was a lot of shopping. And when I say there was a lot of shopping, I mean it like if I were to say there is a lot of water in the ocean, or a lot of sand on the beach. Cause dang the shopping. But what was weird, is that is was like the same 10 stores repeated over and over. This extended even to the hundreds of street vendors. Let me tell you what you can buy, in plenty, in Korea. There was the watches/sunglasses guy, there was the ball cap/t-shirt guy, the guy with a million purses, the leather jackets guy, the jewelry guy, there was the shoes guy (shoes EVERYWHERE), the weird cd/cassette guy, the cheap souvenirs guy, and then 3 different food vendors. You have the squid/seafood guy, the chicken on a stick guy and the "omg is that seriously food" guy. There were plenty of actual stores you could visit, but there were hundreds upon hundreds of street vendors with carts selling the same exact stuff. The one thing I hated about shopping in Korea was the sales people. If any of you are familiar with the "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy" skit from SNL, it reminds me of one of those. And I quote: "Anytime I see something screech across a room and latch onto someones neck, and the guy screams and tries to get it off, I have to
laugh, because what is that thing."
I now know the answer, that thing is the sales person from Korea. To give you an example I went up to a stand outside of one of the cheap souvenirs guy's stores because they had some cheap jump drives hanging there. I was looking at one that was 16GB, and this guy literally ran
out from behind his counter, ran all the way around the aisle, bolted out the front door and glued the tip of his index finger under big red circle on the package that said 16GB and said, "16gigs!" and then just stood there. I had to laugh cause dang dude I can read the thing, catch your breath for a sec and get some water or something. You can't go into a store without 5 salespeople following you and pointing out the obvious and clinging to you like suckerfish. I walked up to a cart selling hats and the lady kept trying to show them to me and pick them up for me and was so in the way of me actually trying one on that the hats finally fell onto the ground. I picked them up and put them back for her and just walked away, which of course immediately reduced the
price of the item by 75%. That was the cool thing about shopping here, every price is debatable. The jump drive for example was marked at 67,000won which is about 70bucks. All I had to do was express interest, and then mosey away like I was just going to leave and he dropped it to
60bucks. After haggling back and forth for awhile, I got the 16gb jump drive for 52dollars american. Pretty good price, it works great too. Oh and it was made in Korea, which he made sure I understood.
I have been pretty adventurous in these different countries as far as eating things that do NOT look like human food. Korea is supposed to be famous for it's BBQ. So I was all about trying this. They cook it in the table in front of you, but it was so stupid. This guy just brought out a few strips of meat and slapped them on the little grill with no seasonings whatsoever and browned the meat and cut it with scissors and gave up the pieces. It was really disappointing, and there were these little bowls of stuff all over the table, I took a pic of the spread. It was weird. We went to McDonalds later, and I had my first Shrimp Burger. It was weird, but decent. The best, and I mean the BEST food I had was a dessert called Bingsu. Let me tell you about this little chunk of amazing. They fill a bowl with shaved ice, then pour a sweet cream over the ice. Then a layer of fruit (I had watermelon) chopped into small pieces and then a tall serving of the most deliscious soft serve ice cream I've ever had in my life. It wasn't even like ice cream, it was like cool whip turned into a sweet frozen cream. I couldn't get over how amazing this thing was. I took a picture of it too, I'll have some pics up soon.
Anyway that's about it for my trip to Korea. Took the subway around, walked the streets, spent my time just being a silly foreigner. Next stop Japan!
Wilson
