Angie made the trip up from Busan for the weekend! She got here Friday night around midnight (10am on Friday morning for all of you at home), and she stayed until our Monday morning.
When she got here Friday night we went to a Korean restaurant and had pork galbi (Korean barbeque). There were a zillion little side dishes that come with the meal, and it was cooked on our table, Japanese hibachi style. I also had my first kimchi…this particular version was quite spicy. But yeah, the galbi was delicious! And I practiced the fine art of eating with chopsticks. Not easy, but I’m getting better. Angie bought me a beautiful set of chopsticks and a rice spoon as a “welcome to Korea” gift so I can practice and look like an idiot in the privacy of my own home.
Saturday we spent the day in Downtown Daegu. Angie showed me how to navigate the subway (pretty easy, only two lines), and we met up with a girl from the States that we met via Facebook. She showed us around downtown and then we all went to dinner at Italy & Italy in the “foreign section” of downtown (it was almost all foreigners in this particular restaurant). Downtown Daegu is a HUGE spiderweb of little streets, some narrow enough that two people can’t walk side by side. It’s packed full of little shops, huge department stores, and tiny street carts. It was quite chilly at night, but all of the Korean women were dressed to the nines…stiletto heels in cobblestone-esque streets, little dresses with tights, and generally no hat or mittens. They all looked fabulous, but it was very obvious that they were freezing and sore. Before we even got to the downtown area we stopped at a shoe store in the subway mall. The store clerk greeted us in English (which took me by surprise), and proceeded to lift our pant legs to reveal our Dansko clogs. He simply shook his head as if to say, “Those are the ugliest shoes I’ve ever seen…no wonder you’re shopping for shoes.” Hey, at least we were comfortable and warm.
We also saw a man downtown laying down on his belly on a skateboard, pulling himself along with his hands. He was pushing a bucket in front of him, and he had something like an oversized rubber pant leg on his only leg. It was very sad, and everyone seemed to just ignore him and walk by. It made me wonder where his family is or why no one is taking care of him. Angie said that Koreans are very proud and hesitate to admit to weakness in themselves or their family. It brings them shame. So in the school setting, parents would never admit that their child had a learning disability (so it means lots of kids in the classroom struggle because they receive no accommodation), but we’re thinking it may transfer to illness as well. Very sad.
Sunday we set out on a quest for E-Mart, the Korean Walmart, to find a hairdryer and blanket for me. It took us a while to find one, and it took us almost as long to get there because we were misdirected by some well-intentioned Korean man in The North Face who barely spoke English. As it turns out, it was much closer to my apartment than we thought, and we needlessly took the subway and then a taxi to get to it. We could have walked there (we did walk back though). This particular E-Mart has 3 floors and a basement, and I found both my items on floor 2. After E-Mart we walked home and then met up with some friends at Hof-N-Joy, which is also where the MK Christmas party is on Friday. We made it an early night because we were both so tired; we came home, snuggled up with my new blanket, made it through 15 minutes of Moulin Rouge, and fell asleep. A lovely end to a busy weekend. She'll be back in four days for the Christmas party :)
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