Words and Deeds

This entry comes to you from a different Daegu café than the last. This place is called Seven Monkeys, and was constructed during the time I’ve been here. I walk by it every day on the way to work and, having seen its birth, I suppose I feel a special kinship to it. Rather than pay for overpriced tea this time, I got a cappuccino, with which I received a free banana, in keeping with the monkey theme. Across the street is a gym that also contains a hair salon and a place to play screen golf.

On Tuesday, I went on a mission to buy ice cream. I started walking in a direction I hadn’t been yet, reasoning that, since I knew there wasn’t ice cream in the directions I’d already been, it had to be that way. Of course once I set off the pleasure of walking around and looking at stuff distracted me from my purpose. I saw a slew of golf clothing stores, which made me giggle. I was having so much fun wandering that when I came upon a Baskin Robbins, I decided to walk some more and then come back to it. When I returned to BR, I bought a pint of cookies and cream. The cashier asked me how long it was to my destination, and I said ten minutes, though I was at a loss as to why it mattered. When I got home , I took the ice cream out of the bag and a little cloth baggy fell to the floor, containing what looked like ice. When I went to pick it up, I quickly discovered it was too cold to be regular ice. I threw it into the sink and it landed in a pot filled with water (the pot with which I’d had my first, very unsuccessful attempt at cooking sticky rice without a rice cooker) and proceeded to bubble in an alarmingly unnatural way for a good ten minutes. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I learned that they give you dry ice to keep your ice cream cold.

On Sunday, it was gloriously, unseasonably warm. I collected Bryan and we went on a delightful walk to Emart. I’d only gone to Emart by cab before this. I was in a very good mood, and when I’m in a good mood it really shows, which is probably why two separate strangers said hello and asked me where I was from, which is the classic “I’m talking to a foreigner” dialogue, but (as far as I can tell) you don’t get it that much spontaneously on the street. I suppose I do look pretty approachable.

On Saturday, I spent most of the day relaxing. It was Adom’s birthday so I talked to that crazy, quarter century old punk, which was lovely. Adom is a great brother and person, and since he’s the least vain of the three of us, he is probably embarrassed that I wrote that. Well suck it up, oppa. After that, I went downtown to go to the salsa party at the place where Melinda teaches. As you may recall, I’m not a good salsa dancer, but I am a champion people watcher so I had a really good time watch the dancing and trying to pick up on the stylistic differences between the “LA style” salsa popular in Korea and the “Cuban style” taught by Melinda and her fantastic co-instructor, Susy. I did actually end up dancing 5 times, and not making a complete fool of myself. The first guy I danced with was a regular who is friendly with M and S. In conversation, he mentioned that whenever he travels, the first thing he does is locate the salsa community in his new city because that’s the best way to make new friends who share a common interest. This got me thinking about my own tactics of adaptation. It’s a touch unfortunate that my dominant interest, books and literature, doesn’t lend itself to making local friends since it requires a high level of English proficiency. While I’d totally love to get into some Korean lit, not much has been translated and my Korean isn’t anywhere near reading even a picture book level. More bodily activities are better for crosslingual friendship making.

Friday, I joined Melinda for a trip to a new Tex Mex restaurant that she had to write a review of for the local mag she writes for. The resto was ultra weak. We waited 2 hours for our food and the food was seriously mediocre. Thank God we didn’t pay for it, otherwise – well, I wouldn’t have paid for it if it was two hours late regardless, which is saying something because I am usually very forgiving about these sorts of things. The co-owner was this American dude who, I am confident, had no idea what he was doing, either in restaurant running, or in food making. As I said later, I would take good Korean food in Korea over mediocre Western food, any day of the week.

Last night (chronological order is for suckas), I went out for galbi with the enjoyable Nakia, a coworker who has different hours than me so I only see her in the afternoons, and her friend who works elsewhere. Galbi was delicious as always and the conversation was most entertaining. Then me and Nakia did a little shopping and I started plotting what I will buy when I get paid.

Today was a triumphant day because I got my alien card, bank account and cell phone. BAM! I officially exist in this country. Now people don’t have to call people who might happen to be around me in order to talk to me. My cell phone is quite fancy and I’m sure it’ll take me a million years to learn how to use it (with my Canadian cell phone, I never learned how to text quickly, and that was way less complicated than doing it on this one).

I know it must seem like I am obsessed with Korean traffic, but there are some things I just can’t get over. If you thought motorcycles on the sidewalk was outrageous, then let me tell you about the times I’ve been on the sidewalk and I’ve looked over my shoulder to find a car inching along behind me. I just don’t get it. When I walk on the sidewalk here I feel like I have to be constantly vigilant or else I’ll get hit by something.

In other news, I get paid tomorrow! Oh my goodness. A real paycheck. I’m very excited. Money I worked for that I get to actually keep? Amazing!

Well, that’s all for now, kiddies. I should probably vacate Seven Monkeys and go home. Luckily, tomorrow is Friday which means its so close to the weekend I can taste it. Aw yeah.

Love,
AAA

p.s. almost broke my chain of music recommendations. A quirkier side to Korean music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjvW3LqtijA