Episode 44: In Which DFM Becomes A Victim, Helps A Victim, And Eats A Coincidence

On Tuesday I was told that I needed to vacate my former premises by Thursday (just two days later, for those of you doing the maths). As a result I was forced to spend most of Wednesday cleaning up the pigsty that used to be my room.

Over the course of the last four months I had managed to amass a rather large amount of excess supplies that would not fit in my suitcase. During my last stay in Korea the same thing happened to me, as well, but I was actually able to cram everything into my suitcase. However, the consequence of my efficient packing was that I was charged an extra $100 at the airport for a suitcase that tipped the scale 20 kg over the limit. Looking to avoid a similar blow to my wallet, I took some advice from a friend and decided to send a package home ahead of time through the mail.

As seems to be the norm with government sites in Korea, the Korea Post website is awful. Oh sure, there are lots of colourful boxes, and buttons to press, but very little real information is given, and as usual there seems to be no way to actually find out how to get to any one of the buildings for which the website was designed.

Again I had to use independent websites to find the location of a government building in Seoul (in this case, my neighbourhood's post office) and set off to find it. Once I found the post office, I got set packing all of my things into the largest of the boxes you can buy there for a nominal fee, with the intention of sending it to my house in Canada via the ultra slow, but relatively cheap "surface mail." However, since I lacked the necessary Korean language capability to request what is probably a rarely requested service, I was charged over $100 to send it through the air (AKA the money I was hoping to avoid spending by going to the post office in the first place).

* * * * *

Later that night I went to Hongdae to meet Scarlett and her friend (not Liz, the other one, I feel horrible that I keep forgetting her name). When I reached the station I tried to find the exit at which she told me to meet, but it didn't seem to exist. After a few phone calls, and a game of hide and seek, it became apparent that in all the stress and confusion of the last few days I had forgotten that she changed our meeting place last night, and so I was at the wrong station.

Eventually we met up in Sillim (I think I know the streets of Sillim better than my own neighbourhood I've been there so often), and Scarlett decided to take me out for naengmyeon. I was pretty excited because at that time, I had been asked about a dozen times if I had tried naengmyeon, and I would finally be able to say yes.

When I got my bowl, I was expecting something really spicy. Everything in Korea is hot and spicy it seems, and I kind of like that now. Much to my surprise though, naengmyeon is a bowl of buckwheat noodles in a tangy soup that has a bunch of ice floating around in it, but it's definitely not spicy.

I still can't believe it, but up until that point I had just thought it an ironic coincidence that the word for refriderator is 냉장고 - "naeng-jang-go." I had wondered on more than one occasion why something designed to keep food cold, would sound so similar to a hot, spicy Korean dish, but as soon as I saw the ice in the bowl I felt kind of stupid. (냉 "naeng" - mean cold.)

* * * * *

On the way home I had my first experience with a subway drunkard. This particular man had spread himself out on the bench occupying two seats for himself. A third and fourth seat were occupied by a combination of alcohol bottles, a bag, the sugared candies that used to be in the bag, and a bag of kimchi that the man had been eating with his hands. I'm not exactly sure what he had been drinking (and still drinking), but it had an incredibly strong camphorous scent, and the eyes of the poor guy sitting beside him were watering pretty badly.

As well as breaking the law, the drunkard was obviously breaking a strict sociatal code of ethics, or so I gathered from the looks of disgust and distain most of the older Koreans were throwing his way. He couldn't be bothered with that though, and so chose to try and pick a fight with theth the only guy kind enough to sit by him and put up with his state.

I'm not sure what was said, but the drunkard first started talking to the guy next to him, who was listening to music on his headphones and reading a book at that time. When the man couldn't hear him, the drunkard starting yelling at him, until he noticed the drunkard's voice and looked up. He was quite patient for some time in listening to and responding to whatever the drunkard was asking, and one would think the drunkard would have appreciated the man's kindness. Apparently that's not how drunkards think though, for he then started to get beligirent with the kind man. This especially offended a gentleman in his mid-sixties, sitting on the other side of the kind victim, who then became quite stern with the drunkard for his lack of manners. However this only served to spur the drunkard on more, and he once again directed more of his annoying behaviour towards the unfortunate young man literally caught in the middle.

At this moment, what I had been waiting to happen finally did happen, and the kimchi covered hand that the drunkard had been waving around started coming closer and closer to the young man's white shirt. Finally the young man's patience had worn too thin, and he stood up in disgust. The older man told him he should call the police, but the younger man said it was alright, although it was plain to see that he was rather upset. I smiled at him and asked him if everything was all right, which I like to think helped distract him enough so that he could calm down.

And with the show over just in time for me to get off at my station, I headed home to try and get some sleep before my big move the next day.

Episode 38: In Which DFM Gets Kicked Out Of A Restaurant, And Visits A Korean Doctor (Fish)

With less than a month to go, and essentially only the weekends to meet people, the race is on to try and see all of my friends one more time before I leave Seoul for Ulsan at the end of the month.

Back in September I leant Charles a couple of my favourite books and I wanted to get them back, so I figured I would start with him. Since I had planned to meet some friends in Gangnam at 6 PM, Charles suggested we have lunch there at 1:30 PM. Conveniently, he only lives a 5 minute walk away (I, on the other hand, live about an hour and twenty minutes away by subway).

(The Samsung corporate building in Gangnam. Or at least that's what Charles told me it was.)

I can't remember what Charles and I ate exactly, but it involved mixing a package of store bought ramyeun noodles into a stew of vegetables, ddeok, and some sort of mashed up meat scraps sausage that tastes a little bit like pepperoni.

Charles told me that back when Korea was poor (about 60 years ago), its people were forced to eat anything they could find. One of those "anythings" involved collecting leftovers from the American soldiers, and that's how this soup (I can tell you it's budae jjigae, now that I've looked it up) came about. Apparently, in one of the first budae jjigaes, or "ham and scraps stew" as its also known, there was even a used tissue from one of the soldiers. Funny story aside though, I'm continuously impressed with the resourcefulness of Koreans when it comes to making food.

As far as I can tell, the traditional Korean diet consists of little more than cabbage, pepper, seaweed and rice/ddeok. With these few ingredients, and some minor tweaks (like adding ramyeun noodles), there have grown unlimited combinations, tastes and textures. I will surely miss Korean food when I return to Canada.

After finishing the budae jjigae, we went to have ice cream at my favourite ice cream chain, The Cold Stone Creamery. I told Charles to order me a medium, but he came back with the large size. When I finished I was stuffed full, but then the girls working at the front brought us a couple of small sample cups each, and asked us to fill out a taste test questionnaire. If there's one phrase that summarizes my two visits to Korea most completely, it's "getting free food."

Stomachs overflowing with ice cream, we slowly waddled our way to the Kyobo book store nearby (can you tell I love books?). I bought about $50 in books, although I'm not sure why because I don't have time to read them right now, but I guess your DFM buys books like some women buy shoes.

More notable though, I also managed to get wrangled into getting a Kyobo book club card. I had been trying to avoid getting any "points cards" of any kind while I was here, but this one was free and would give me 10% off my first purchase (the one I just bought). I suppose now I'll have to come back to Korea a third time to redeem my points. "Darn!"

A couple of weeks ago I talked about meeting Seung-bok in Sillim and naming some of his friends. Last weekend, while I was waiting for Mitja to phone me, one of those friends, Elizabeth, called me to set up a date this week. When I showed up though, I was surprised to see Scarlett too.

(Scarlett, on the left, and Elizabeth.)

I was still full from the ice cream, but neither Scarlett or Elizabeth had eaten supper, so we set off in search of some dalkgalbi (sacrifices must be made I suppose).

In the past I have told people that I liked dalkgalbi, but I now realize what I meant was, dalkbokki (the barbecued chicken on a skewer). It wouldn't really matter either way, because both dalkgalbi and dalkbokki are Korean food dishes, so they are equally delicious.

While the food was delicious, the restaurant at which we were eating was very busy this night, and we were asked to leave shortly after finishing. So again we braved the wind that was blowing blustery to find another place to chat.

In Korean Cop's sister blog, Kindergarten Cop, I wrote about a cafe in Edmonton called Block 1912 Cafe. Actually I didn't write about it at all, I simply said that I went to a cafe. That cafe though is called Block 1912 Cafe, on Whyte Ave, but apart from Indigo Restaurant in Haeboncheon, nothing else in Seoul had come close to it. I had even been led to believe that Seoul exists entirely of Dunkin' Donuts, Paris Baguette bread shops, and expensive Starbuks-like cafe chains.

This night though, we stumbled upon a wonderfully large and bright cafe. I can't remember the name of it, but you could buy waffles and dangle your feet in a pool of doctor fish. I couldn't believe it! Waffles and hot chocolate, and doctor fish all in one place (you can see from the picture that the chairs are soft too). This could be the best cafe in the world. It's too bad I'll never be able to find it again on my own.