thoughtjunkie

Here are some things that have happened to me recently:

While walking into Seogwipo, I passed by a gaggle of middle school-to-early high school girls. I had my head down and was thinking, as you do, so at first, I didn't really notice how tightly they clung to each other.

Then, one of them-- the one in the middle with the sky blue Flu Paranoia mask said, "Hi!" Such bravado! Such boldness! She dares to speak to the bearded white guy, the breather of fire and the consumer of souls!

Her friends screamed, and clung harder. The one closest to me started slapping her shoulder, and screaming something-- "Why would you do that? I can't believe you did that! You're crazy, Soo Eun! You're crazy!" etc. etc, I imagine.

So, I said, "Hi there!" and their screams got louder.

As soon as we passed each other, her friends started pushing Fearless sky blue Flu Paranoia masked girl down the street (her, being fearless, leaned back, willing to remain in my presence a little longer).

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About half (no hyperbole there. HALF) the people living in rural Seogwipo own tangerine groves. At school the other day, a couple of the teachers said, "Orangee?"

"Oh, no. Someone already gave me 3 of them," I say, and then I round the corner.

There are two massive crates of tangerines, stacked on top of each other.

I don't think you understand when I say massive crates. I mean MASSIVE. 4 feet x 2 feet x 1.5 feet massive. Two of them. Completely full.

My shoulder ached when I got home, from where the strap cut in.

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I ate 23 tangerines the next day. The day after that, I had horrible acid in the back of my throat, all day long.

But it was so good while it lasted!

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I want to do bobbing for apples with my students.
I bought 2 decently sized basins (as I am not sure the school has any clean enough to eat out of, of that size), and a whole bunch of apples.

This is just to say-- APPLES ARE DAMNED EXPENSIVE HERE.

Not that I won't be reimbursed by my school, but STILL.

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There's an old farmer-man who drives a tractor at a crawl through the streets of my town. This evening, as I was going out to get plastic bags (for the clothes-protecting during the apple-dunking), and I saw him drive by.

In the back of the tractor-- in the trailer portion-- there were about 7 other old people, all scowling and looking generally fed up with the world.

Ahh yes! The Jungmun Disapproving Old People harvest! It comes but once a year!

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The man who runs (and perhaps owns?) Espresso and Yogurt (the best Jungmun coffee shop) is very nice. His lattes are pretty damn good, and the chairs are comfortable.

Alas, I've gotten into this funk where I can't write in my apartment-- only when I'm elsewhere. Needless to say, I've been drinking a lot of lattes in comfortable chairs, around nice men.

There are worse restrictions on when/where I can write...

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I'm trying to figure out a way to play a Zombie-tag variant with my students (FOR HALLOWEEN... WHAT!! It's THEMATIC and thus, APPROPRIATE).

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Throat aches in that "You're gonna be sick in a weekish" way. Voice may be going away. I may be Very Sick for the language festival (where I am meant to be serving chili).

Which will be bad...

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I was trying to find the post office in Jungmun, and had NO IDEA where it was. So I stopped into a bank.

The teller I talked to spoke no English (doh). I tried to mimic mailing a letter. I had a sheet of paper, which I folded in 3. I stuffed an imaginary envelope. I licked said imaginary envelope, and put it in an imaginary mailbox. The woman looked at me like I was a moron.

Gah...

That's okay-- the bank teller next to her, looked at her as if she were a moron for not understanding, and after a minute of moron-glances, Bank Teller 2 said, "Post office?" and pointed the way out to me.

So, I went to the post office, and was in the process of mailing my things, when Bank Teller 2 walks in, carrying my phone.
I had left it there, and he had chased me down the street to give it back.

This is in no way an isolated incident-- Koreans are very staggeringly nice people when they're not cowering in fear from my awesome bearded Caucasian might.

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Another story of Korea's awesomely helpful people/policies.

So I went in to the local pharmacist (strike that, one of the 10 local pharmacists). The guy there is very kind, and speaks English fairly well to boot.

There's a basket of the tangerines out, free to take, which is nice.

As I pay for my medication, the guy says, "Drink?"

I, thinking he means, 'You should take these pills with something to drink, to make swallowing their giant form possible' say, "Yes."

He turns round to the little gas station fridge behind him, and flips back with a two-shot bottle of Concentrated Vitamin Beverage, and hands it to me free of charge.

Which is very cool-- the pharmacies here don't just get you what you pay for, and send you on your way. They see their jobs as keeping people healthy. So they try to.

I dig it.