Some really bored Weigooks....

So... these crazy westerners obviously don't have a life... but it is slightly entertaining... If you're not living in Korea or at least understand Korean culture I'm not sure if you will appreciate this video, but who knows... at least you can see some ridiculous shots that blatantly make fun of Korean pop culture...

Dongdaemun, Barganing, and shopping 'til 2:30am

Before I start, I thought I'd just point out how close Dongdaemun is to my house. Those tall buildings you can see there in the skyline? Those are some of the shopping towers in Dongdaemun. I walked home last night after shopping, and it's only about a 10-15 minute walk.

Anyway, while I have walked around the area of Dongdaemun and been to the movie theater there, I've (surprisingly) never been shopping there. I guess I'm not a big shopper, since I'm so cheap.

My friend decided at about 9:30 last night that she needed to go shopping, so I volunteered to go with her. We got there at about 10:00 and the streets were packed with people and the street was one big traffic jam.

Our first stop was the building where most of the vendors buy their merchandise. For this reason, you can get good deals for clothes and such, because you're buying wholesale. The downside is that you can't bargain here where as you can and SHOULD in just about ever other part of Dongdaemun. We didn't buy anything here the first time around, but my friend went back at the end of the night to buy a coat she really liked. In many places here you can not pay with credit card/ bank card, so be sure to have as much cash as you plan on spending with you. ATMs of most major banks are located on the first floor in most buildings.

Next stop for her was to buy some ski gear. She needed some new snow pants because she's going snowboarding today (lucky bum). Down on the second basement level of Doota (one of the shopping buildings) is a whole bunch of shops with ski gear. I'm not sure where to buy equipment, I didn't see any here, but snow pants, jackets and anything else ski wear related you can find here. Prices weren't that cheap, but they did have a lot of name brands here... the one I recognized was Burton (Vermont Represents!). Shopping here can be so nice in some places, because the Korean shop workers live to cater the customer. They have no problem spending 1/2 an hour with one customer to help them find exactly what they need. Of course, they will always tell you that you look pretty in what you're wearing... (ipuda- pretty in Korean) so you can't trust them to make a good decision usually. After my friend finally found her snow pants, we went shoe shopping for me. We found a small shoe store on the street and I found lots of cute shoes there. I finally found the ones I wanted, and found out they cost 30,000 won.

See, this is the point where I would have said... no thank you, have a good day. I'm way too cheap to pay 30,000 won on shoes, but my friend came over and I finally understood why she put on make-up before leaving the house. All she had to do was bat her pretty eyelashes and the price went down to 28,000 won. But she wasn't done. "No... it's too expencive.... please... my friend really wants these shoes, but she doesn't have enough money... can't you help us...??" Or at least that was the gist of the conversation from the words I was able to pull out. Finally, reluctantly, the seller smiled at me and told me 25,000 won. And... they were cute shoes... and I do really need black shoes... so I buckled too and bough them.

While I understand all the mechanics of barganing, I'm still too shy to try. But if I were going to bargan... this is what I'd say....

너무 비싸요! (naw-moo pissayo... emphasis on the naaaawwww mooo)- It's too expencive!
까가주세요! (ggaka chuseyo- not said as a demand, but more as a plea) - Please give me a discount!
If the shopkeeper is a youngerish man and you are a youngish female you can always try-
오빠! 너무 비싸요 (Opa! Naw-moo pissayo!)- Literally Opa means older brother, but it is often used to speak to older guy friends. If you say it to a shopkeeper... or any other guy you just meet, its slightly flirty...
Then there is the classic:
학생 이에요!! (Haksang ieyo) I'm a student! (Implying that you're poor...hey, all is fair in love and barganing...)
Well... I am a student... sort of... I do take Korean class once a week! And, speaking of this fact, if I got any of that Korean wrong, please write me a comment so I can change it. I'm still learning and I did that all from memory. I finally put the Korean keyboard stickers on my computer so I can type in Korean without having to guess which letter is which and punch buttons till I find the right one. I don't know about on PCs, but on Macs its easy to add a forign language keyboard. All you have to do is go into the international settings in system preferences. I have three keyboards on my laptop. English, Spanish and Korean... its quite convienient, I love it.

Anyway, I digress. The biggest barganing victory of the night though was at our next stop. My friend wanted to buy herself a big men's t-shirt that would come down to her mid-thigh to keep her warm. We met this shopkeeper who wanted to sell her a shirt so badly that when he couldn't find one in his own shop that fit her qualifications he started to go to around to the shops around him to find something for her. Unfortuatly for him, he was not able to find anything. We wondered around 'til we found a really long t-shirt. We asked the woman how much it was. She told us 28,000 won, which we knew way waaay too much, and my friend told her as such. She told her she would only pay 12,000 won. The woman lowered the price down to 20,000. Still way too much for basically just a t-shirt. My friend tried to walk away, but the vendor was insistant. She put it in the bag for my friend and told her 18,000 won. My friend pulled out 14,000 and said that was all she had. The vendor woman tried to peak in her wallet to see that she had more. Then she tried to convince me to lend her the rest of the money. I knew enough Korean to reply to this! 없어요! (Opsoyo-I don't have any!)This whole discourse happend while laughing of course. This is really one big game to all parties. My friend finally gave the bag back to the woman and walked away. At this point, the woman chased us down and said fine, 14,000. So... my friend cut the price in half. And it wasn't even a guy she was pretending to flirt with!

We walked around for a little while later and I bought myself a cute dress for 10,000 won (it was so cheap it wasn't even worth barganing for). Finally when we decided we were done, I looked down at my watch for the first time all night and realized it was 2:30 AM!!!! Who would have thought? The streets were packed (and evidently it's like that even when it's not christmas season) and the shops showed no sign of closing for the night. Evidently some places never close, others close at 4:30 am and open again at 10:30am. I guess going out all night isn't restricted to partying and drinking here... You learn something new every day!

To get to Dongdaemun, you can take line 2 or 4 to Dongdaemun Stadium Station, or line 4 or 1 to Dongdaemun Station. This is a fun alternative to partying all night on a Friday or Saturday night! Though it might be more expencive... haha...

Limón y Sal

Hace unos dias bajé Limewire... he estado bajando muuucha musica... y... encontré esta canción de Julieta Venegas.... y me encanta! Escuchala aqui, y agregué las letras aqui para acompañarla.

Tengo que confesar que a veces
no me gusta tu forma de ser
luego te me desapareces y no entiendo muy bien por qué
no dices nada romántico cuando llega el atardecer te pones de un humor extraño con cada luna llena al mes.

Pero a a todo lo demás le gana lo bueno que me das sólo tenerte cerca siento que vuelvo a empezar.

CORO:
Yo te quiero con limón y sal, yo te quiero tal y como estás,
no hace falta cambiarte nada,
yo te quiero si vienes o si vas,
si subes y bajas y
no estás seguro de lo que sientes.

Tengo que confesarte ahora
nunca creí en la felicidad
a veces algo se le parece, pero
es pura casualidad.

Luego me vengo a encontrar con tus ojos y me dan algo más
solo tenerte cerca siento
que vuelvo a empezar.

CORO

Solo tenerte cerca
siento que vuelvo a empezar....

Letras gracias a quedeletras.com

Thanksgiving day....

Well, today was thanksgiving, though it didn't feel like it... It was really just any other day here. Me and two friends decided to go to Subway before work, because that is one of the few places where you can get a turkey sandwich. Though, frankly, I didn't even enjoy the turkey that much... luckily I got bacon on my sub, which is something that I haven't eaten since coming here. That one slice of bacon that they put in my sandwich was amazing.... Tomorrow morning I will wake up early to call home (it will be Thursday evening at home). Hopefully I'll get to talk to everyone in my family. It's been so long since I've talked to most of them. I do talk to my mom a few times a week usually (thank god for skype). It was too hard to have any sort of celebration today of course with work and all... Tuesday/Thursdays are my long days too... I work 'til 8:40 on those days. So, I just came home and ate my soup. I've been on a homemade soup kick lately.

This weekend a bunch of people from work and some other friends will get together to celebrate the holiday. The tricky part about thanksgiving in Korea is the fact that the vast majority of apartments and homes don't have ovens (what would they cook really? All they eat is soup, kimchi, rice, fish and bulgogi.... if you don't believe me, go ahead and ask your students what they eat. What do you eat for breakfasat? Rice and soup. What do you eat for lunch? Rice and soup and kimchi. What do you eat for dinner? Rice and soup and kimchi and fish). The only way you'll probably find an oven in Korea is if you're living in Haebongchong or some other area with a high concentration of forigners living there. I've seen some stovetops in E-mart that have a small broiler oven sized oven under the range. Still, not big enough to bake anything more than cookies or maybe a steak. Anyway, I digress..... I think we're going to eat some pan fried chicken as the next best alternative. Some people got some packages in the mail with gravy mix and cranberry sauce... so we'll do our best. I still need to think of some food to bring to the party... any suggestions? Maybe an appetizer or dessert that is easy to make with ingredients found in Korea?????

A fun song to sing when learning Korean

I found this nice song thanks to a random person on a forum on Dave's ESL Cafe. This isn't a video, just the song here. This song is called 개똥벌레 or firefly (or glow worm? I haven't studied insects in Korean... I'm just relying on other people's translations. Anyway, I have no idea who the singer is... if anyone does, let me know.


Here are the lyrics and the translation. Again, thanks to random posts on dave's ESL... I didn't write or translate these...

아무리 우겨봐도 어쩔 수 없네
Even though I insist, I can't do anything
저기 개똥 무덤이 내집인걸
Over there, the dog dung's grave is my house
가슴을 내밀어도 친구가 없네
Even if I throw my chest out, I don't have any friends.
노래하던 새들도 멀리 날아가네.
Even those singing birds fly away.

가지마라 가지마라 가지말아라
Don't go away, don't go away, please don't go away,
나를 위해 한번만 노래를 해 주렴
Please sing once for me.
나나 나나나나 쓰라린 가슴 안고
Na-na na-na-na-na- I hug my bitter heart
오늘밤도 그렇게 울다 잠이든다.
I fall asleep while crying tonight.

마음을 다주어도 친구가 없네
Even if I give all my heart, I don't have any friends.
사랑하고 싶지만 마음뿐인 걸
I want to love but it's only my mind.

나는 개똥벌레 어쩔 수 없네
I'm just a firefly, I can't help it.
손을 잡고 싶지만 모두 떠나가네.
I want to hold other's hand, but they all leave.

가지마라 가지마라 가지말아라
Don't go away, don't go away, please don't go away,
나를 위해 한번만 노래를 해 주렴
Please sing once for me.
나나 나나나나 쓰라린 가슴 안고
Na-na na-na-na-na- I hug my bitter heart
오늘밤도 그렇게 울다 잠이든다.
I fall asleep while crying tonight.

ps, here is another site. it's in korean. maybe the artist's name is here.... can anyone tell? http://kaibere.tistory.com/tag/%EA%B0%9C%EB%98%A5%EB%B2%8C%EB%A0%88

Having Fun With Gadgets

So, Blogspot lets you add "gadgets" to your blog, so I just spent the last hour playing around with various gadgets to add to my blog. If you scroll down, you will see them on the right hand side under all the other links and mumbo jumbo over there. Let me know if there is something that you like/ don't like.

Another North Korean Documentary

Maybe I'm boring my readers with North Korea info, but I came across another documentary filmed by two American tourists to North Korea. The things that they managed to get on film is amazing, and this is definitely worth checking out.

Here is the first part, there are 14 parts in total.


Here is the link to their website for the rest of the episodes: http://www.vbs.tv/shows.php?show=1442318652.

I do need to put a disclaimer here though. These guys that made the video were able to get some amazing footage, but I have to say that they did it without any cultural awareness of North Korea, and Korea in general. It seems as if they made the documentary just to prove that they could do it, and not for any actual interest in North Korea and the North Korean people. How difficult is it to learn how to say hello and thank you? They sort of make a mockery of the people that they meet, and if the North Korean government ever sees this video (which they probably will) it's quite possible their guides and their guide's families could be sent to prison, if not killed. That is the reality of North Korea, and they did not take this fact into consideration when filming.

That being said, it is still an amazing video to watch, and it gives you an amazing perspective into the country.