My 할머니 (grandma) is cute #2

Ring ring...

Me: Hi grandma!
Grandma: Are you sleeping?
Me: No, I'm doing homework...
Grandma: So you're going to Dr. Lee's (a family friend/cousin) clinic tomorrow?
Me: Yes...
Grandma: It's fortunate that you only have to ride one bus to get there. You don't have to transfer, right?
Me: No, I don't have to transfer...
Grandma: I want to see what the place looks like so when I wake up tomorrow I'll see how I feel and if I feel okay I'll meet you there!
Me: But grandma, it's so far!
Grandma: I know, but I feel better if I go with you and see what it is like.
Me: Grandma, inconvenient for you...mom appointment already...bus easy...Yes, I sound like a caveman. My speaking abilities do not yet permit me to form a real sentence out of what I wanted to say...
Grandma: Well, we'll see. By the way, it doesn't cost very much money to use the cell phone, so USE THE DAMN PHONE AND CALL ME! I don't know why you're so scared to use the phone. Okay, so that section in caps was editorialized a bit. She actually just said "use the phone!" but the underlying message was pretty clear.
Me: Okay, I will.

하숙집 (Boarding house) Life

On Sunday I moved into a boarding house close to school. Here is my room:

Here is my closet:

Yes mom, I've only been here for a day and 방이 벌써 엉망이 됐다. (I've managed to mess up my room.) My room is a little bigger than others I've seen, but still pretty small compared to american standards. The bathroom here is funny - there is no shower stall, but a detachable shower head attached to the wall, so when you want to shower, you just kinda get water everywhere. The floor has a drain directly in it, so it's pretty much always wet.

As student boarders, we get breakfast and dinner every day. When we were going around looking at rooms, my mom would always tell the landlady that I can't eat spicy or salty food. (I can, so I don't know where that came from.) So the first night I ate dinner here, the landlady made spicy soup but made a separate non-spicy version for me. I hope she doesn't think I'm a pain in the ass. We also got a fried egg with dinner, so I was a bit alarmed when I got another fried egg this morning for breakfast. (And I mean fried - no Pam here, but lots and lots of oil...) I spent a good deal of today worrying about if I would get another fried egg at dinner, and how I could politely tell the landlady that I don't want to eat more than one egg a day without inadvertently offending her in my very broken Korean, but luckily at dinner we got spicy braised chicken (닭찜). For each meal, everybody gets his/her own bowl of rice, then sits down to a table full of side dishes (반찬) - usually kimchi, cucumbers, spinach, zucchini, and seaweed sheets. The landlady then gives us a bowl of soup or whatever protein she has cooked for the meal. I still haven't figured out how the timing of everything works - it seems like there are a lot of students living here, but so far each meal I have eaten by myself or with only one other person. Also, I'm not sure if this is a korean thing, or an I'm-a-student-and-need-to-get-back-to-studying thing, but people here eat SUPER fast. I thought I ate fast, considering I'm done with my entire meal in about 15 to 20 minutes, but the girl who ate dinner at the same time I did yesterday was done in literally five minutes, as was the guy who ate dinner with me tonight.

Speaking of studying, I should stop procrastinating and get to my homework:

We have to write three sentences for each new vocab word we learn. That's fine and all, but thinking of three different sentences for a very specific word like "business major" is a little frustrating. My dad suggested:
I like studying business.
I don't like studying business.
I majored in business at school.
Ha ha! Seriously, it was quite tempting. I'm not sure how well that would go over with my teacher though...

New Money

Until very recently, the largest bill in Korea was worth 10000 won (bottom of picture), which according to today's exchange rate, is $8.36. Can you imagine withdrawing $200 and getting it in $8 increments? Yikes. Luckily, there is now a 50000 won bill (top) so when I fork over the 480000 won I have to pay (in cash) for my rent, I'm not counting out 48 of those guys. In korean, the word for ten thousand is "man" (만), so instead of saying "four hundred and eighty thousand" you would say "forty-eight ten-thousands." I'm still getting used to calculating everything in units of 10,000.

The smallest coin is worth 10 won (barely a penny!) and they've started making them teeny tiny - on the top bill is the old coin, and on the bottom bill is the shiny new one. I don't know what it's made of, but it is very light and kinda feels like toy money. I feel like it would be unheard of in the US to suddenly make the penny a different diameter and weight, but I suppose there are very few vending machines in the US that really even accept pennies anymore. I haven't tried to use a 10 won coin in a vending machine here yet, but most likely both types of coins are recognized.

It's kind of nuts that using a coin worth less than a penny is even possible here, but the coffee machine (커피 자판기) I visit every day has black coffee for 150 won. I splurge and go for the 200 won "maxim milk coffee" - seriously, that stuff is like crack.

Smart food courts

One of the nice things about department stores here is that you can get a pretty good meal for $5 or less at the food court that is generally found on one of the underground floors. There are a whole bunch of counters that have different kinds of food - chinese, japanese, and korean, and in some of the fancier places, italian and vietnamese. You first make your selection and pay at the main register, where you're assigned a number. Once your food is ready your number flashes on a screen and you go pick up your food. This is pretty much the easiest and cheapest way to eat when you are out and about with your family, since you can all sit together but cater to everybody's different tastes.

During busy times, finding a seat can be pretty hairy, and it can get kinda stressful walking around with a big bowl of noodles while hovering over people who look like they're about to leave. Yesterday I had lunch at the Hyundai Department Store, and it was amazing because not only was the food good (see miso ramen below) but they assign you a table! No stress or wandering around. And they try to seat you near the counter where you have to pick up your food so there is minimal walking around with sloshing hot liquids. If my mom were here she would say "koreans are so smart!"

My 할머니 (grandma) is cute

So I may have mentioned this in passing, but my grandmother used to live right outside of Seoul. Recently, she moved to a place in Seoul that is kind of like a retirement community - people living here are over a certain age, and while it isn't truly an assisted-living type place, there are many services (on-staff nurses and doctors, a cleaning service, a "cafeteria"/restaurant, etc) and classes available to everybody that make it a comfortable place to live.

I'm crashing here (and feeling quite out of place) until I move to my boarding house on Saturday. The other day my grandma suggested I use the "running machine" in the fitness center (or, "hitness" center) while she went to her water fitness class. I got to see a little through the windows, and it involved little old ladies (and one gent) walking through the water with water noodles, and then playing a vigorous game of water polo (although the water is like three feet deep, so it moves a little slower.) When I met my grandma back in the room, she was so excited because she was the goalkeeper and her team won. It was so freaking cute to see her practically bounce up and down because she was so happy.

Today was my first day of class. I have lots of catching up to do, vocab-wise. It's a little weird because I pretty much understand everything going on, but when it's my turn to talk the words I need to say are right on the tip of my tongue and then I end up sounding like an idiot. I guess lately some would argue that that's how I sound when I speak English. :) At any rate, I think class will be okay. Most of the people in my section are from Japan and China. It looks like people from the same countries kinda group together, so I don't think I'll become best friends or anything with anybody in my class. There's another girl from the US, but it seems like we don't have very much in common. When I told her how old I am, she pretty much said something to the effect of "oh my god, it would totally suck to be that old!" No, she didn't use those exact words, but she just turned the ripe old age of 22 so I guess I seem like a scary old person to her. Also, a lot of students have studied at Yonsei in previous semesters and already know each other. It was interesting to have that first-day-of-school anxiety where you don't know anybody and it totally seems all clique-y.

So here are a few random pictures:

Here's a restaurant that serves semi-slow well-being food. Well-being (pronounced "wellbing") is kind of a catch phrase for anything that is supposed to be good for you. I suppose with time and training, this restaurant will upgrade to actual slow food, but props to them for being completely honest.


I guess the twitter phenomenon is popular here? I haven't really noticed.

Yowza

I just took the entrance exam for my Korean class and boy, am I tired. That sucker was 12 pages long. Or maybe even longer, I didn't even bother trying answer any questions on the last few pages, my head hurt so much. So here are a few more pictures:


As a starchmouse, of course I have to comment on the bread, which is...interesting, and nuts expensive. It also comes without the ends. I guess that makes sense, most people don't like eating that part anyways, but it makes me wonder, what do they do with all the ends? I wouldn't be surprised if they figured out a way to bake the bread so that there aren't any.


I don't think I could get on board with the concept of "couple shirts" - we're not talking about matching or color-coordination here, we're talking about wearing the same article of clothing...


One thing that is very sad about my grandmother living in a new apartment is that they won't deliver food there. Usually you can get a bowl of delicious jja-jjang myun (noodles with black bean sauce) delivered to you for around $4, and it even comes in a real bowl. When you're done, just leave the dirty dishes outside your door and somebody will come by later to get them. My mom and I had to resort to getting our jja-jjang myun fix at Lotte World.


After the test a fellow student and I walked to the Sinchon neighborhood in search of lunch. We settled on chicken soup, or 삼계탕, because it was such a dreary, rainy day. A teeny tiny chicken is stuffed with sweet rice and cooked in a ginseng and date broth until the meat falls off the bone. Good stuff if you happen to have a cold. I'm pretty sure it wards off swine flu as well.

Onion Say Hello

And here we begin the portion of the blog that comes to you from…the future! That’s right, I’m now in Seoul (17 hours ahead of SF), where I’ll be for the next few months, attempting to learn Korean. I say “attempt” because let’s face it – I’ve spent 29 years of my life listening to a lot of Korean yet for some reason I can’t really speak very well, so we’ll see how this goes. I’m taking a class at Yonsei University so at the very least, I’ll learn some grammar, and be able to form sentences that are a little more complex than what a 7-year-old could construct.

Incidently, Yonsei’s motto is “The First and the BEST” (emphasis mine) which cracks me up, but then again, my alma mater’s motto is pretentiously in latin, so props to Yonsei for choosing something that effectively gets the point across to the masses.

Even though I’ve visited Seoul many times, I would be lying if I said I’m not overwhelmed by the prospect of being here on my own for longer than two weeks. First of all, my parents won’t be around to translate everything for me (that’s mom below, waiting for our plane to take off.)



Second…um…CULTURE SCHOCK. I’d like to think that growing up eating kimchi and watching Korean dramas have prepared me for what’s in store, but the two short days I’ve spent here have proven otherwise. But I’ll get to that later. Here are a few pictures to tide my 3 readers over:


I can’t remember a time my family has visited Korea without eating myong dong kal guk su. It comes with the garlic-iest kimchi EVER. I think I still taste the garlic even though I ate this on Friday.


Spam is properly revered here. If somebody gave me this lovely gift box, I’d be pretty happy.


Full disclosure: learning Korean was only about 10% of my motivation for coming here. The other 90% was that I’d be able to eat these every day. Imagine the most delicious pillowy white bread bun. Then, imagine it covered with a crunchy and sweet mocha-flavored crust. As if that weren’t enough, put a pat of salty butter in the middle that melts as it bakes. Why yes, I will be the chubby person coming off the plane in December.


A typical breakfast. I have trouble eating the same thing every day though, so I brought a jar of peanut butter with me. I’m pretty sure by the middle of October I’ll be ready to kill somebody for a tamale.


My mother and I feasted on this lunch at the local department store food court. The seafood pajun was absolutely delicious, yet only cost 4000 won. That’s a little less than $4. Nuts.


Here’s my aunt, grandma, and mom. My aunt is hilarious. She was a total trooper and came out to help me look for a boarding room even though she had a long week (she’s a teacher, and students here attend school on Saturdays.) Since the moment she arrived we’ve all been in stitches.

So I won’t have regular internet access until I move into my room near school on Saturday, but I hope to be able to update regularly. At the very least, my dad will be able to know I’m alive and well, since I’m pretty sure he'll never be able to figure out how to use Skype. (Dad! It says you're online but you won't pick up!)