Randomness About Korea

Here people are really into appearances. That’s why they have such great skin care products and why they have mirrors absolutely everywhere. I mean anytime you’re about to enter or exit somewhere there’s a mirror; like the subway and elevators. And you always see people fixing their hair and shirts. At first I didn’t think much of it, but now I do it too, just because it’s there. Speaking of that, I got a 1-hour facial for less than $10. It was deep cleansing and a mask. I fell asleep, it was great!
Getting around: You know how nowadays we barely give directions. We just give people addresses and expect them to “mapquest it” or however they want to look it up online. We depend on addresses, street names, and definite markers to know where to turn. Here they don’t really have addresses. They do as far as the post office is concerned, but not really. (I heard that buildings might be numbered in the order they are built) So you can’t just look up where something is. And google maps (my best friend) does not work here. I think Koreans just sorta know where stuff is. To give directions you have to guestimate everything. You pick something that will probably be there for a long time, like the Honda dealership or convenient store and say turn left on the tiny street after that. Luckily google earth works here, but since I can’t just look up street names, it’s usage is limited. I’ve already figured out my longitude and latitude to look on google earth and so that way I can at least get to see my area of town better. (If anyone wants my coordinates to see for themselves where I am then please email me)
I really want to take Korean classes and I have found a couple of places that have them, but unfortunately they’re all while I’m at work or way too far away. I decided to label the things in my apartment in korean. I haven’t finished yet, but I figure it’ll be an easy way to pick up another 20 or so words.
So far I haven’t found a ton of things to do. Possibly because I’m on the outskirts of the city. My coworker and I found an indoor rock wall climbing place. It’s only about $5 for the whole day. There’s also a pool hall near work. That’s inexpensive too. It’s not dark and filled with questionable people like you might think. It’s usually filled with teens and well lit.
On TV there’s a few English channels, but they still have Korean commercials. I like that. They have way less commercials here. Or I should say that there’s less commercial breaks, but then in between shows they have a long break. The commercials are pretty much the same style as ours.
There’s this huge 2-story store that’s like Wal-Mart and inside is a food court and one of the places is fast food and they have great French fries. For my coworker and I, it’s like a little piece of home. Sometimes on the way home we’ll stop in just for those fries.
Daegu is famous for pig intestine. So we tried it recently. It’s seasoned and grilled. It looks sort of like calamari, except bigger. It tastes pretty good actually, but it’s chewy. Sorry, I forgot my camera that day.
I found this café that’s so cute inside. I met the girl and she’s so friendly and knows a little English. I had my coffee and prepared for my class there one day. I think it’s going to become “my spot”. I love it.
For Thanksgiving I got to see my family through webcam. It’s was awesome! So if anyone else has a webcam let me know.