Korea Sparkling

The low number of blog entries is due to our incredibly intense schedule, and the most recent event has been an attack of food poisoning.

Rather than recounting one of our many adventures, this entry will be a list of interesting firsthand observations.

1. It is cold. The thermostat registers temperatures that are above those in Toronto, but we've concluded that because it is a damp cold, it penetrates your coat and your bones and you feel a lot colder. There was one day where it was supposed to be a lot colder, but it was a crisp Toronto cold, and it felt much more tolerable.





2. Pantyhose are readily sold everywhere. This is probably due to the high number of Korean girls wearing skirts and heels in freezing weather, but wherever you look, you'll see pantyhose of various colours and patterns of good quality for really cheap





3. "Korea sparkling" is the slogan of the national tourism campaign. I'm not quite sure what "sparkling" refers to, but at night, Seoul is a visual competition for neon signs. Everywhere, there are flashing neon signs, it's overwhelming. Even churches have large red neon crosses at the top of their steeples.





4. There is no tea in Korean restaurants. Seriously. This is what I am most indignant about. I'm accustomed to restaurants in Toronto's Koreatown, where you get constant refills for free. I can't even find tea even if I offer to pay for it. The Korean word for tea sounds like the universal word "cha", but whenever we ask for it at a Korean restaurant, and this has happened in multiple neighbourhoods, we are told that there is none, and how about some coffee? Alternately, a singular cup is listed for 5000-6000 won, around $5. How is this possible?





5. What is really interesting is the amount of English words that are spelled out in Hangul (the Korean alphabet). Instead of using the actual Korean word, for example, "satang" in Hangul, they'll use these Korean letters to write out what sounds like, "caen-dee", for "candy". So for those of us who have picked up Hangul (it's possibly the world's easiest alphabet to learn), it's a continual Mad Gab game: "kay-uh-tuh" is "gate" and "kuh-ree-rim" is "cream".





6. Canned hot coffee. In every convenience store, which are stationed between every three stores, there are two "refrigerators". One is the cold one, and the other is hot, and it contains all kinds of canned hot coffee and tea. It's amazing, and definitely something that Canada should look into, considering how cold it gets over there.





7. The subway. First of all, it's extremely extensive and efficient. The seats, although hard and metal, are heated. What is funny, is during the subway announcements, which occur before every stop, whenever the upcoming stop is a transfer point to another line, there is the loud sound of birds tweeting. I'm not sure what the connection between tweeting birds and transfer points are.





8. They really like their microphones. Especially around Valentine's day, in front of every store, including tiny convenience stores, there were a few people presumably trying to sell chocolates. They're pretty aggressive too.





9. The intellectual property rights violations are amusing, at least from our standpoint. I'm not talking about the Louis Vuitton purses which come in Grades C, B, A and AA. There are tons of brands which are blatant imitations, for example, red chocolate wafers called KicKer. A computer store with the exact same logo as IBM, named YBM. The best has got to be a clothing store that has the identical look as Abercrombie & Fitch: they have the dark wooden panel doors, the same-style clothing, they even captured the smell. The only thing a bit different is that it's too bright for A&F. We've also taken multiple pictures of hilariously incorrect English signs, and hopefully they'll be uploaded soon.





10. The Korean interpretation on Western food has been slightly disturbing. First of all, despite multiple places that advertise "muffins", all muffins are actually chiffon cake. We tried pizza from Papa John's (likely the culprit of our food poisoning they were all so wrong. One of the pizzas didn't have tomato sauce at all, instead it had condensed cream of mushroom soup. Another had cream cheese on it (Koreans like to put cream cheese on everything). And another had an entire ring, like an inner crust, of sweet potato puree.

Those are all the points I can squeeze in for now. Later on we'll be meeting the former secretary for foreign affairs, Byung Kook Kim.