Interesting tidbits...

Well, it seems as though I left my photo upload cord in America, so until I can get my hands on one, this blog will have to be photoless. But, there are some other little odds and ends I can talk about until I can get some photos up.

Today my internet was finally installed. I had been using the boyfriend's "wibro" internet connection (one of those low data limit cellular based internet services you can plug into your computer for like 10,000 won a month) but I maxed out the monthly limit of data after two skype calls home... oops.

So today the internet guy came by to set up the internet. We also decided to get a wireless internet phone instead of a landline. I'm not sure how much it costs, but it's cheap. But, I'm now fascinated with this little phone. I went to make a phone call and when it wouldn't let me hit the button I wanted, I read the screen to see what it was trying to tell me. "New text message". What? It's a landline. How can it get a text message? Well, I guess, why not make a "landline" to send and receive texts. It just makes sense, I've just never seen it before.

Then I noticed that the ring was a little low and I tried to get into the menu to raise the volume (mind you all these menus are in Korean). I thought if I hit the up button when I got the ringer screen, it would raise the volume, but in fact changed the ringer. I flipped through about 50 rings before I came back to the original one. I was tempted to set my phone on "고스트하우스" ("ghosthouse") but in the end I went with "India". In fact, there was only one normal ring on the whole phone that I could find.

I also tried to enter in names into the phone book. Well, it was easy enough, but I was trying to type in Korean, which I assumed would be easier, since it's a Korean phone, but then I found that only half the alphabet was listed on the buttons. Where is the "ㅎ"? I still haven't found it... So, I still wound up typing in everybody's names in English. Oh well.



Another slightly interesting side note was my trip to get my bed. We found it for 30,000 won on a Korean used site, kind of like craigslist or something. We had to hire a mover, but we wanted to check it out first before we decided to get it and call the mover. We went to the house, checked out the bed and decided to buy it. We called the mover and he said it would take him about 30 mins to get there. Ok, no problem. We disassembled the bed and moved it out into the hallway, which took 15 mins or so. After that, we were going to go out and get some food until the mover arrived, but the woman insisted we stay inside and wait. While we sat, this perfect stranger brought us over a big plate of fruit and steamed buns filled with red bean (Koreans like to put red beans into things) and glasses of juice. We were very grateful since we hadn't eaten and she and the boyfriend chatted for a while, mostly about foreigners, because she was very curious about me and why I was in Korea.

Finally, an hour later, the mover finally arrived. Part of the deal of how he agreed to move it for only 35,000 won was that the boyfriend had to assist in the moving process. Not a big deal, of course, it was only a bed. While we were waiting outside for the mover to finish getting the last of the pieces into the flatbed, the security guard started chatting with the boyfriend. I wasn't paying much attention to the conversation until the boyfriend looked over at me and said "예브다" beautiful, in Korean. "What?" I said. I started to pay more attention to the conversation, but I coudn't follow it. After we got back in the car I asked him what they were talking about. The conversation went something like this:

You're living with a foreigner?
Yea.
Foreigners are so pretty. Their noses are very high.

I think there was more to it than that, but that's about as much as I could figure out. Evidently "high" noses are quite attractive around these parts. I had no idea my nose was so noticeably "high".... But at least I'm pretty. ^^