Long strange day, well not that strange

My blogging is very sporadic. No post for 2 weeks and then 2 days in a row.

I actually made it to the YMCA and took my Korean class. It went alright. I was able to follow most of it. My pure Korean numbers need some work. I don't understand why they need 2 different sets of numbers. Korean numbers only go up to 99. The other set is Sino-Korean which is Chinese. I'm much better with Sino-Korean. il, i, sam, sa, o, yuk, chil, pak, ku, ship. All the way to 10. Impressive, right? I could count higher but I don't feel like it. It seems that practically all the foreign teachers in Korea are Canadian. Strange that I'm spending more time with my people here, on the other side of the world, than I have since 2000. I decided against signing up for the classes though. There are 6 classes left in the session and I'd have to skip 2 most likely. I'll just wait. Afterwards, I decided I'd go buy some clothes. I have such unprofessional looking clothes. My pant rotation is very short. I need to do some laundry.

Everything went fine, I guess. I managed to buy a shirt and a pair of pants. The pants were so cheap. $17 US or something. I was expecting to pay $50 or something. No price tag. I only got one handsome boy there. Actually they were two separate stores but the same company. I also decided to go the bookstore and see if I could find a decent book to learn Korean. I would have to purchase a book to the take the YMCA class. I met some guy there. He was hanging out in the English section. Waiting I think. He offered to give me Korean lessons. He said for free but I don't think that's what he meant. Maybe he did and just figured he would improve his English. I really didn't want to at first but then imagined myself becoming some Korean all-star. I wouldn't even mind paying, well not some ridiculous amount. His name was Chong-Ju. I don't know why or how it happened but we ended up making dinner plans. Maybe I've become desperately lonely. Actually that's only part of it. It could be an interesting story. That guy at the gym even offered to take me to a restaurant with his family sometime and I seriously considered it. I don't think I'll be going to the gym for awhile though. With my parents coming for about 2 weeks, I know I won't be going during that time and what's the point paying for a full month to only use half. Anyways, I ended up missing him where we decided to meet. I was 10 minutes late. I don't know what the Korean take on tardiness is. Maybe it's unheard of or maybe Chong Ju has been stood up before by people he meets while pretending to look at Korean language for foreigners material. I have his number and email though. I should at least apologize. Who knows?

I ended up having a few hours to kill between the meeting and the next meeting. I continued my shopping. I'd only bought the shirt by this point. I forgot to mention my stupidity. I had to take out some money and ended up taking way more than I meant to. I took out 700,000 won or about $700 US, $850 CDN. I just saw 70 and wondered why there was nothing bigger than 70,000. Turns out it was 70x10,000. So I know have this huge wad of case. 65 bills. During this time, I ended up walking around a lot and going into a few stores. It's so weird shopping here. I felt like each customer service person is assigned to you as soon as you walk into the store. One someone just followed me around the store. That wasn't so bad but I was so embarrassed at this other store. Everything was normal at first. There was one girl helping me. She didn't speak much English. Then there were 2 people helping me and all of the sudden there were like 5. They all called me handsome boy . I felt so trapped being in the store with 5 people surrounding me showing me stuff that I didn't really want. I was glad to get out of there.

I spent some time in the park and read from my Teach Yourself Korean book. I saw a few nice things. I saw the giant bell in the park. That was a nice park. I should go back there sometime. I felt very foreign there. There's something about the chaos of the street that makes you blend in but walking through a park while everyone is just relaxing on benches makes you much more visible. After spending 3 hours walking around downtown I decided to go home and drop off my bags. That's why I was late meeting that guy. Maybe it wasn't meant to be. I never really respect people who believe it signs and think it's stupid if they pay to much attention to them. Of course, the universe sends me messages because I'm that special and hypocritical.

Someone left a comment yesterday. Unless someone leaves some comment I just imagine that no one is reading this. I wonder how many other people I don't know read this. I can't imagine it's very exciting to read.

I went to the meeting place at the bookstore but no one was there. Some girls in their early teens asked for my help choosing a book. I thought they meant it was for them. All of the books they were looking at were way too advanced for them. Catcher in the Rye didn't have that complex a vocabulary so I got that for them. It's interesting right? The only word they were using. Afterwards, I realise that it was a gift for their English teacher. Oh well.

I didn't want to hop right back on the subway so I decided to walk part way home. I ended up walking all the way back home. It took me over 2 hours. I saw a few interesting things though and now I know what the world above the subway line looks like. I saw a giant temple, or pretend temple, with giant lit animals and a park with some rock supposedly shaped like a man with a hat. It was too dark and I was too close to see that though. I bought some meat on a stick and heard handsome boy again. Then while walking two early teenage girls asked me my name and I heard it again. For some reason whenever I tell anyone my name they think I've said Tiger. I figure there's no point correcting strangers since I'm not going to see them again and hardly anyone I see ever calls me by my real name. That just makes the whole experience a bit more surreal. I'm kind of proud of myself for doing it though. I got lost a few times by not turning at major intersections but I made it. I bought some chicken and came back home.

I went to the convenience store downstairs and was going to buy water. The only water they had has a really bad name. It's called 'Pocari Sweat.' That's such a bad name for water. I decided to actually buy it. It's an Ion Supply Drink so it's probably a drink for when you sweat. It's still a bad name though. There's a store downtown called Skin Food. I think it's food for your skin but that it the first thing I think of. My washing machine is called Big Wash: Human Fuzzy Washing Machine. I have no idea what that was supposed to mean. Renee has seen underwear called Big Yank. If only they'd put the e's in there would be no sexual connotation. Some kid on Friday after saying skunk just said skanky. I know he wouldn't have any idea what that meant. Language is a funny thing.