Friday, September 15, 2006

The Lost Korea Blogs: The Shopping Experience

It was time to go to the store. I had been in Daejeon (i.e. Taejon) for only a weekend and I was missing some of the necessities, most importantly peanut butter crackers. (Peanut butter crackers would become part of my surviviel, *cough* diet, in Korea. Peanut butter crackers and pepsi was how I survived until....)

I was determined to get these necessities so I sat down with my Korean labmates and tried to learn the Korean name for everything I wanted to buy. However, there was no Korean name for granola bars. (I don't think there is a such thing as granola bars, *sniff sniff*, in Korea. I should have followed Mike's lead and brought my own stash of granola bars).

Eric and I decided to walk to the store. Before we hit the store (Garrefour) we got some popsicles. It was real interesting popsicle that had like a starburst fruit flavor.



So we walk across the street and along the river, under a bridge, and finally ended up at the store. We walked in on the first floor and I am like Garrefour is big. Then Eric corrects me by letting me know we haven't gotten to the store yet. So we take the escalator as these girls start laughing at us (We should have holla at them, they were cute).

When we reached Garrefour I realized how people in Korea love cutesy stuff. Everything was in pastel colors. I am like why would I want a bright blue or pink fan or washer machine. You know, I feel many women would love to go shopping in Korea because everything is cute here. As I waited for Eric to get the shopping cart, I walked by and behold the special toilet lids with special features. I don't know why someone wants their toosh warm while on the toilet but like the famous quote, "to each their own" or something like that.




After the toilet lid episode, I went searching for a fan. That's when I realized things are EXPENSIVE here. I was ponder to myself that things should be cheaper. That's when I had another realization: I AM NOT IN HONG KONG. After picking up a pillow and other things, I splurge on what every black guy would get while in Korea (Not women, that is what every guy would do in a foreign country):



A basketball. Yes, I was being so cliche. Oh, did I mention they were selling tape players here. Korea is sometimes confusing because they are high tech and low tech at the same time. I haven't seen a tape player in commercial stores in a long time in the US. Not an expensive one. Tape players should be in dollar store, not be costing $40+.

Our day of shopping finally ended with buying, eh...well trying to buy garbage bags. We ask and ask but nobody heard of this thing called a garbage bag. The closest we got was that we were told to go to the checkout line and ask for green. This information did not help. Later we find out the green bag is the garbage bag used here in Korea and you get the bag at the checkout line by asking the cashier. Go figure, who would have ever guessed.

1 Comments:

Blogger Helena said...

"garbage bag" is "sulegi bongtu," I believe.

1:04 PM  

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