New/Old Stuff: Costco, Golf, Bagpipes and Opera
Trip Start
Aug 30, 2005
1
20
49
Trip End
Aug 29, 2006
Daejeon,
Korea Rep.
Saturday, November 12, 2005
On Monday I finished work and got the typically roundabout Korean question "Are you busy tonight?". There are two ways that you can answer this question A) Yes. (Do not elaborate, as a rule) B) No. (Prepare to have your evening scheduled for you) So I thought about it and since I hadn't had anything planned, except that I wanted a rest after my busy weekend, I said "No."
Now you must remember you when you say "No" you will have a mystery evening. They do not tell you what will happen in your evening. It was a pleasant suprise though as I went to Gong-ju to a golf range. Fortunately a left-handed golfer was in attendance who allowed me to borrow his clubs AND he spoke English. Pretty good. He actually offered to make me some clubs. Most Korean golfers are very good as the golf course are about $200 CDN per round, rare and difficult to play. They also gamble large sums when golfing too, so it is essential to be good and independently wealthy.
The week flew by as usual and it was suddenly Wednesday. Wednesday happend to be a teachers union day, so it was a holiday for me. I made the most of it heading South to Daejeon which has an immigration office I needed to visit to update my Visa to multiple re-entry status. I was easier than I thought - it only required 1 stamp this time and 5 minutes. Although it did run $70CDN to upgrade.
I then headed for Lotte Department store and bought a cheap zip-up hoody for those cool fall evenings. I was now up to $120CDN in a single day and it wasn't even Noon.
As I exiting the store I caught a waft of what I thought was bagpipes amongst the morning bustle. I thought "no, noone in Korea would play the bagpipes!". Well I went to investigate the source and was proven wrong. It was a car show show, what exactly bagpipes had to do with the cars I'll never know. I was in Scotland and they don't make cars. Nevertheless, Koreans were playing the bagpipes! Most interesting yet was they were all women. The whole scenario was a little surreal.
After recovery from the intial shock of bagpiping in Korea, I busted out north for the legendary Costco that I had heard so much about amongst the foreign teachers. I did find it. I'll tell you I was like a kid in a candy store (partially because there was so much candy). I managed to find of all holy, holies an enormous block of regular cheese. This was a rather momentus occasion for me, as there is a serious cheese deficency in this country - that is regular cheese. Processed cheese slices are a dime a dozen - but natural cheese is another story. So needless to say I was in my glory. I also found a shady KD (Kraft dinner) knockoff, but to my displeasure it tastes like crap. I found Cheerios, Eggo waffles, ground coffee adn many other things that were just too enormous for one person to buy - unless of course you were stocking up for a nuclear winter. I managed to contain myself to a mere $150CDN at Costco.
I rounded off the week with my first Korean concert. It was more along the lines of a mishmash of Korean operatic interpretations, but very cool. Truth be told I found out after it was a group of teachers training in Opera that had performed. Very impressive really. I also spotted a Korean transvestite at the concert, which is very unusal for this country. Confucian culture is still rather dominant here, although fading rapidly under western influence.
Well that's it. Join me next time: Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.
