Things I Miss Right Now

Yeah, I love my time in Korea to this point, but I am human and there’s definite stuff I miss about NY (do or die M-Fers, lol).  Also, no mention of friends or family on this list because, obviously I miss those close to me from back in the states.   

-Deli’s, Pizza Joints, basically anyplace where you can walk in and then walk out with really good food (besides fast food places). 

-Being able to buy clothes pretty hassle free (6-4, 220 is not who Koreans make clothes for).

-NBA Playoffs, MLB (its not that I can’t follow it here, its just that a 13 hour time difference makes it real hard to ever see a game live). 

-Real Hip-Hop (too many people here either dislike hip-hop or think that Soulja Boy is the best rap act going.  No further comment needed). 

-Miller High Life

-American Country Breakfasts

-non-Korean food (I love Korean food, but the non-Korean options in Korea just don’t match up in my opinion)

-Calling in sick for work (not really something you do here)

-American National Holidays (Korea has national holidays, but they have not yet figured out the benefits a firmly scheduled 3-day weekends.  I will be very ornery on Memorial Day). 

-All that stuff you can do in NY. 

Ok, I’m done. 

Dong Chim or: Get Your Index Fingers Out of My Anus

“The Korean children I have worked with are generally pretty well behaved, but beware of the occasional dong chim.” 

I didn’t realize at the time, but the above advice was among the more sage tidbits I received from older, wiser veterans of the Korean Classroom. 

Dong chim (adapted from wikipedia’s entry of Kancho, the Japanese equivalent of Dong-chim) – roughly translated as poop needle, dong chim is act where the performing party claspes his or her hands together so that the index fingers are pointing outwards and then sharply attempts to insert them in the anal region of an unsuspecting receiving party. 

Far East

Hey hey, I just landed in Seoul, South Korea and am loving the free wifi at the airport.  I wish I had a connection with which to blog throughout my trip so far, but I have a few comments and notes I’d like to get in before I jump on my connecting flight to Busan.

1)  Korean Air gave me one of the best travel experiences ever.  Plenty of movies, good food, lots of movie options and most importantly lots of space.  Perhaps the expectations I had of flying steerage class for 14 hours made anything seem great, but I never felt that cramped, discomforted or crappy throughout the flight.  I think the quality sleeping pills I took during the flight may have also helped some. 

2)  Incheon International Airport is pretty sweet.  Free wifi, free luggage carts and everything is shiny and clean.  Also, at those desks where people fill out customs documents, there were even reading glasses provided next to the pens that are usually found at such a desk. 

3)  Perhaps a little bit of the jitters and natural homesickness that comes to being a great distance from the states, but I did begin to feel alien on the flight from New York.  I was not the only American on the flight, but the others travelling were military personal and clearly doing their own thing. 

4) Google defaulting to www.google.co.kr during my first web search in Korea is a neat trick, but I must override that.  Right now, I struggle to pronounce Romanizations of Korean words (“Thank you” is a struggle at kam-sa-ham-ni-da) so Korean characters are absolutely useless to me right now. 

5)  Solid move packing some big bags of Dark Chocolate M & M’s.  I’d venture over to the convenience store, but I check-in for my flight hasn’t opened yet (its 5:56am here) and I don’t want to lug 6 months worth of luggage in and out while decided between lots of Korean Foods at the convenience store that I don’t know diddley about. 

More to come…..