SEOUL FOR SALE
Amy tolerated the plane trip well, i.e. she didn't have to retch into the paper bag this time. I had 6 hours of battery life on my laptop so I didn't have any adverse symptoms either.
I finished my tourist site book too. Pretty much every single Korean national palace/site/treasure was either destroyed by the Mongols or the Japanese and then rebuilt, oftentimes destroyed/rebuilt multiple times. My mom taught me persistence as well.
The old Kimpo Airport in Korea is gone now. They recently built a new one at Incheon which is very nice but farther from Seoul.
Upon landing, we saw a group of young girls in platforms, pastel colors, with boots one inch below their kneecaps and skirts one inch above. Pretty funky hair styles as well, spiky, wavy, and all dyed light brown.
"Are they Korean?" I asked Amy.
"They're Japanese girls here for the shopping. Just look at how freaky they dress," Amy answered.
Apparently we've planned our trip during Korea's VISIT KOREA campaign, where much of everything is on sale. It's mostly to coincide with some tourist holiday in Japan. We saw a lot of friendly Japanese women shopping here as always.
Hey, at least they're paying for the treasures they take back to Japan this time. The invaders are a lot prettier this time as well.
JUST LIKE THE REAL THING
The Marriott hotel here in Seoul is so new you can literally smell the fresh paint when you walk in. The cabbies don't even know where it is, it's that new.
On the other side of the spectrum, plastic surgery is increasingly common here as well. Eyelid surgery of course, along with breast implants, jaw shavings, nose jobs, and even calf muscle reduction (yuck!! -- Koreans have muscular calves, probably from all the subway steps and squatting).
The fitness center brochure is funny though. It says the "oxygen level ratio has been increased to 21% ... like real mountain air." Or normal room air atmospheric oxygen levels. What a deal J.
The brochure also brags about "natural sunlight captured by dishes on the roof and distributed by fiber-optic cables throughout the Club."
Later … I don’t know about the fresh sunlight but I’m still the largest guy in the gym here. [FLEX!!] (Of course, I only have middle-aged salarymen and women to compare myself with.) I actually feel "bulky." I’ve decided to run more while I’m here.
RESIDENT EVIL ALIEN
Even by the first day, Amy is having a problem with her passport in Korea. They can't find her last known Korean address, since Amy is technically still considered a Korean citizen, although she left when she was three.
Have I ever shown you her Resident Alien card (I love her hair!! Hahaha! Punk before punk was cool!:-). They need that before they renew her passport.
Even though she married a U.S. citizen and has lived most of her life, I guess that still doesn't give her U.S. citizenship.
HARDCORE CORN
One of the cool things about the major hotels here is that they are often built above or connected to major malls. The shops and malls are often interconnected underground with subway terminals too. Shopping is hardcore here. I can't say the same for the porn movies in our hotel though.
Amy bought corn bread today. When she took it out of the bag, it was a loaf of bread with corn kernels on top. No lie. We were expecting something else. Like corn bread, maybe?
Corn is a favorite side dish here. Maybe it will overtake rice as the national staple food. It not only looks like oversized sumo rice, but it's yellow too! Bonus!
CYBER KAO-BOYS & KAO-GIRLS
A lot of the music video and commercials have a major cyber theme these days. Especially this Yoo Seung Jun singer (apparently he's on his way out of the coolness crowd according to June).
Plus you can’t walk 100 feet downtown without passing by a "[Korean characters] PC [more Korean characters]" sign here. The PC tells you its an internet café, mostly for email, chat, and online gaming (like StarCraft). A lot of these places charge around $1 per hour or require a membership like a gym.
Even the Korean AV porn I watched in our room last night had a teacher meeting a schoolgirl online, and mutually stripping for each other on cam. Then they met in real life and did it the way your grandparents did it.
Korea is one of the most well-connected countries in the world now. Internet dating is at least as common there as anywhere else. Tae Hee’s brother met his new bride only once amid a year of emails, chatting, and phone calls before marrying her. What a freak (haha).
While his mother showed us their wedding pictures, she told us,
"She kept emailing him to marry her."
Kids these days.
…
Did I just admit to watching porn my first night here?
RADIO BI BIM BOP
Our guide Tae Hee got back late from work, so we went shopping. The mall was pretty busy even at 9 p.m.
We checked out the FREE internet café and the arcade which had no fighting games but a lot of dancing games and guitar and DJ games.
We also went to the music store. Apathetically hip music store workers all shop at the same thrift shop apparently, despite country. I picked up a bagful of older k-pop music CDs I haven’t found online. Although I surprisingly already had most of the more recent stuff, including music videos.
TAE HEE (bringing CD to me) : "Oh, do you have this?"
ME : "Oh yeah."
TAE HEE (with music video DVD) : "Do you have this Baby V.O.X. DVD?"
ME : "Oh yeah! I already have that one too."
TAE HEE : "!?"
ME : "Online shopping."
TAE HEE (with a guy group, G.O.D., really) : "This is my favorite group! Do you have this one?"
ME : "I've seen them but I don’t really listen to them. Thanks though."
TAE HEE (with another guy group CD) : "How about them?"
ME : "No, thanks."
AMY [in Korean] : "He only listens to girls."
It's true. Guy groups seem to either rap too much or constantly sing ballads. I'm not either of their target audiences. I don't watch gay porn either. Simple pattern recognition.
K-TV
We have Channel V here in our hotel. The DJs are almost all Chinese with lots of Chinese and American videos and occasional Korean videos as well. I've seen more on my DVD player though.
The latest Chinese pop group is called "China Dolls," a Chinese femme duo, who’s dance moves are straight out of the Street Fighter 2 school of dancing, including fireballs and lightning (in the video). No kidding. It’s pretty cool. I wonder if they would seem too stereotypical in the U.S.A though.
At Tae Hee’s (a family friend) apartment, we saw two talk shows completely dedicated to StarCraft (an online video game that was popular two years ago). I also saw some current K-pop videos as well on one of the many music shows they broadcast here.
I WILL get into one of those audiences while I’m here. Make no mistake.
[I lied. I never made it into a show. We missed it by a couple days. *heartbreak* I'm so sad I could sing a ballad.]
We mostly rest during our first day there. Tomorrow we'll venture into the markets.
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