Best 3G ever: Great time, Great friends, Great memories

 

 

If I have to write about every great day I spend in Korea, I wouldn’t be able to stop writing for a couple of weeks. This is why I only write about unique ones, exactly like this weekend I spent in DongHae (동해) 260 km east of Seoul and right next to the east sea.

Going to Donghae isn’t supposed to take more than 3 hours, maybe 4 hours if your car isn’t that fast, but it took us 7 hours to get through the 260 km and the reason is Buddha’s birthday, since this is an official holiday in Korea this weekend was a long one and in this super fast country holiday is synonym of a very slow and crazy traffic as the people living in seoul prefer to spend this days off with their families back in their hometowns, but well riding a nice Mercedes for 7 hours with a good friend (and his dog) isn’t that bad, It was a good opportunity to practice my Korean and even learn couple new words related to traffic and highways that I hope I won’t forget fast.

We started our little trip on Saturday may 26th at 12pm thinking it will be a light fun driving to the east side of korea, and I am so thankful I didn’t have to be behind the wheel so I didn’t receive any of the stress Jay hyung had to go through for driving at 30km/h for 7 hours, but all the stress has gone away with the first sight of the deep blue color of the east sea, a view from up high in the mountain that was totally worth the time.

Our friends in Donghae were expecting us earlier on lunch and it was raw fish on the menu but we made them wait a lil bit longer and had it on dinner. Our hosts were super nice and treated us on dinner and it was of the most unique ones, for me eating raw fish has become a tradition when going out with Jay since it is his favorit food but living shrimp!! That was a premier.

I felt sorry for the shrimp seeing his eyes coming out when removing his head!! But well, it did,t stop me from trying one little shrimp and to be honest the taste wasn’t bad at all.

The next day was another interesting day next to the fishing port where we came across the little fish market an amazing scene full of life. Watching the sellers taking care of their fishes and answering the clients questions about any kind of fish and can even give you the best recipe to get the best of the fish on a dish. Part of the fish market is small space in the middle where you can bring the fish you bought and give it to one of the two ajhummas in their to clean it for you and get it ready for cooking or maybe not (as you will be told that the best way to eat a fish is to eat it raw)

During this weekend everything was perfect, like it has always been in korea, our hosts Jay and suji were great and kept worrying about us, but thanks to them boredom couldn’t find a way to our journey. Big thanks to my new friends from Donghae^

Memories: the end of my first day

My first meal on my first day in Seoul was hot, so hot that it took me some time to try it again, a mix of rice cake and fish cake called doppoki (덕볶이) to which you can add boiled egg or cabbage, it is cheap and tasty when you got used to it, I have tried a lighter version few days later that was less spicy and it was absolutely delicious.

After that early dinner, the sun started to go down and it was about the time for the night show to start in the famous street of Kangnam where I headed next, the coolest street of Seoul where most of the celebrities live, colorful lights and big screens everywhere, well groomed men and beautiful ladies walking in a slower past compared to what I have seen earlier that day, most of them were young people in their mid 20s walking in couples getting in and out of those shining stores. Restaurants, coffee shops and malls, they were all busy, I guess there is nothing such as “bad business” in Kangnam, whatever you sell people will buy.

With my friend we had a tour in what seemed to be some kind of traditional market place with typical Korean “street food”, more than the food I was impressed by the people, how they eat how they talk how the boyfriend was taking care of his girlfriend, everyone seemed not to pay attention to everyone…exactly what I was looking for, privacy. after that little tour, my day came to an end and it was time for me to get some sleep while kangnam was getting ready to start another of its crazy nights, that I will tell you about in another post.

My little list of things i don’t like about Korea

Image via Wikipedia

Thanks to its people, Korea has always been a country that you easily fall in love with but since perfection is not from this world, there is few things that might not suit a foreigner’s mind, style of life or education when first faced, it was hard to find something about Korea that I don’t like and finally came out with this little list:

 

Taxi drivers: Very nice people on day time but can turn into very rude after midnight (when you have no choice but to take a taxi to go to your destination), if you live less than 3km away, you might have a hard time finding a taxi that will accept to give a ride home, some of the taxi drivers even pretend not to know your destination or simply ask you to get of the car.

Subways stops earlier on weekends:  when most of people go out to have fun, subways surprisingly stop earlier than on weekdays. So you better keep an eye on your watch if you don’t want to face taxi drivers.

 

Coffee is esxpensive:  Coffee is super expensive; although Korea is the coffee shops kingdom, coffee prices happen to be excessively expensive, as it can much the food’s price in a “not bad restaurant”. But well, I don’t think it will get any cheaper since it seems to be working for everyone.

 

bread is too sweet:  Too sweet bread, since bread is somehow a new comer into the Korean food scene, I believe Koreans have got some misunderstanding about bread’s properties, use and qualities. Almost every kind of cookies made of flour is considered as bread here, I have even been presented donuts as bread :O, it can be used as a full meal and happen to be very sweet, stuffed with butter and not always fresh.

 

This doesn’t mean that those kinds of “sweet bread” are not delicious, they totally are, it is just different from what a French, a Russian or an Algerian is expecting from bread.

 

Cheese and yogurt?!  you should just give up:  Very rare to find, and a bit expensive if found as they are mostly imported from Europe or USA, specially cheese, I miss it ㅜ_ㅜ

 

Old people in the subways: Of course not all of them but when running to get a seat on the subways an ajoshi or an ajumma, doesn’t always stand in the line and doesn’t seem to care much about whom they might hit in the process, so always be careful.

 

Generally speaking Koreans have always shown great sense of civism and very respectful manners toward others and after living here for 7 months I admit that I have got used to korea easly, I got used to the ajummas in the subways, to the great sweet bread, to the taxi drivers sometimes being rude, the same way I got used to kimchi.

 

Memories: Could a Korean ever be late?!

Nothing is more important in Korea than being on time, everyone walks in a fast pace if not running to catch a bus or a metro, they never wait for the next one coming, even when the bus is super full there is always some space for one more because waiting two more little minutes for the next bus or metro would be a waist while I used to wait 15 minutes for a bus in Algeria on my luckiest days (I don’t even want to start a comparison), everyone at all times is in such a hurry to the point none stops to say sorry when he accidently hits you in the street and if anyone does, he probably has been living abroad for a while and came back with some fresh new habits from there. I remember myself on my first week in Korea saying sorry all day long to everyone whenever someone hits me on the shoulder or step on my foot in the subways but none seemed to pay attention or care about it, I guess Koreans suppose that none does that on purpose so no need to be sorry for something u didn’t mean which I now got used to

my friend Hyunji is the only exception among the Koreans I know, in many different ways, she decided to make me worry and be late on my first day in Korea, although I don’t blame her since living in Algeria for a while might have affected her time notion, but more seriously, she could have picked another day to be late! Since she wasn’t there yet, I took the time to go for a walk and take some pictures with my phone camera in the airport, a really big airport that is even much bigger than the biggest Algerian airport (which we are so proud about for some reason I don’t know), I could hear people speaking Arabic, French, English, Chinese, Spanish, Indian and so many other languages I couldn’t recognize, people seemed to be coming from everywhere to the great Korea looking for the same calm morning I was coming after.

Hyunji came 20 minutes later, although she looked a bit different that day because of the makeup, I could recognize the smile she always wear, after a little chat and a lot of excuses from my friend for her lateness, she decided that we should take the bus, as it is the best way to have a first look at the city, from Incheon airport, which is in the city of Incheon about 1 hour 45 minutes bus ride from Seoul downtown, you can take one of those very comfortable limousine buses which goes to different destinations in Seoul or you can ride the airport subway metro line which is way faster as it avoids any traffic you may face riding the bus and much cheaper as well.

No wander they call those buses a limousine bus, after you show your ticket to the driver he makes sure you are riding the right bus, help you with the luggage and welcome you on board with the same smile you see everywhere, if it is your first time riding one of those buses you will for sure get surprised the same way I was when I saw those large seats covered with brown leather, two people would fit in there with no trouble, I couldn’t help it but to remember the bus I used to ride from Chlef going to Algies, buses made in Korea that have nothing to do with the ones Koreans ride, a real pain.

after arriving to Iteawon my friend suggested to take a taxi to her place because of my heavy luggage, a taxi ride isn’t that expensive in korea although it may a bit differ according to the taxi you take, but if you are a foreigner like me on your visit to Korea it would be better to ride one of the orange taxis that Seoul is so proud of, the fare starts at 2400 won for the first 3km and you can get a free translation service through the phone if you ever need it. When arriving to my friend’s place we didn’t really need much time to rest, we leave the luggage there and head right away for my first Korean meal experience.

The Korean class early morning conversation

I started today as I would start any other Monday, hating it ㅜ_ㅜ, I woke up 7h30, took a quick shower, check my facebook for longer than I should, pass by the GS and buy my daily dose of bread then I had to run to school because I was late. I arrived to class on time and even had some time for a lil chat with Sara (the Hong Kong wondergirl) who was a bit sick today , The teacher came in at 9, she started the usual “hi, how are you, how was your weekend…” conversation which I actually, because of my limited Korean conversation skills, never could understand when it goes beyond the “good morning” but today’s conversation was somehow different, the words seemed easier and the grammar more familiar, I could understand it, I could even understand all what came after…well, almost all what came after.

As my favorit teacher from level one said (전희정 성생님 and it is her birthday tomorrow) I just needed to give it some time, as the process of learning a language might take a while to give results even for someone as smart as me (Modesty: OFF!), I am hoping from the deepest part of the deepest part of my heart that it wasn’t just a one day exception and that the days when I couldn’t understand the early morning conversation are gone forever.