I may start to sound like a broken record, but I truly feel like I've been here for months and months. I'm not sure what it is about our brains that make the passage of time feel like this--but it's worth studying.
With all that I'm doing, I realize that I may run out of new experiences relatively soon, but I will continue to share them as they come along.
Well, this past week finally allowed me the chance to move into my apartment, where I'll be for the rest of the year. Up to this point, I'd been living in a small dorm-type room, with two twin beds, two desks, a small room with a toilet, and a small room with a shower. No place to wash clothes, no microwave, no stove/hot-plate; no way to cook food. So, finally, this past Wednesday, I got the OK to move into my actual apartment. The apartment buildings are named after our galaxy's planets. Chad, Chris, Sarah, and Mike (among others) live in Mars. Candy, Alena, and Tonya (among others) live in Jupiter. I live in Saturn. How nice. I'm the only edutainer (I think) that lives in Saturn. We're all relatively close together.
So I moved all my things into my new place, and did my best to get situated. It was, by all accounts, freezing cold in my apartment. The phrase "freezing cold" has taken on new meaning here...a more LITERAL meaning. I now realize how flippantly people use that phrase back in sunny, southern California. While I spent 4 years in snowy Pennsylvania, I am still getting used to walking out into the air and immediately wanting to go back inside and get under the covers.
Every Wednesday, we have a company meeting. This week was my 3rd meeting. Basically, it's just a time for us all (the edutainers and our immediate supervisors) to come together and talk about what's going on and make announcements and stuff. Well, at the meeting this week, the subject of our gas prices came up. Apparently, we are being charged an exceedingly high amount for gas. Gas runs our heat, and our hot water. Well, in my first living space, I wasn't paying for the gas...since I wasn't in an apartment, so I felt free to use my heat. Well, now that I'll be paying for my own heat, I want to be more cautious. I don't know exactly what's going on with the prices we must pay, and I certainly do not want to make enemies here, but it sounds like we are being treated unfairly. By whom, I do not know exactly. One of my co-workers says she has not used her heat in three months, but is being charged up to 100,000Won ($100!) for heat per month. I refuse to allow that to happen to me. If there's one thing I love, it's a good fight over injustice. I don't want to make threats, but I will not be crossed.
So, albeit reluctantly and rather stupidly, considering the weather, I decided NOT to use my heat through the month of December. This way, I can see if I will be charged, and determine for myself whether we are being treated fairly. Believe me, I am not opposed to paying for something--if I am paying what is reasonable. Not one of my co-workers feels the rates they're paying is reasonable or fair. In fact, there is some mystery surrounding exactly what is going on. So, until I know more...I have chosen to allow myself to freeze to death in the confines of my humble abode.
This all leads somewhere. While my space heater is wonderful...the space it heats is quite small. If I have it at my feet, my lower half is fine, while my upper half freezes. If I have it on my desk, my hands and face burn off, but my feet are freezing. And attempting to sleep the first two nights was murder. I did not sleep well...because I was so cold. I had a shirt, a sweatshirt, long pants, two pairs of socks, and a beanie hat, and I was still cold under two comforters. So...I needed to do something. An electric blanket was suggested. Brilliant idea. If I was in America, I could have simply gone to Target, asked a nice employee dressed in red, "Where are the electric blankets?" and would have received an answer. This is not possible in South Korea.
I went into Ilsan, which you're all familiar with now. It costs about 17,000Won to take a cab there, and if you travel with others, it's a great way to get there. While the bus is cheaper, at only 1,500Won, the bus takes nearly 3 times longer. There is a free shuttle from English Village (EV) that takes us there on Mondays, but otherwise, a cab is the quickest way to get there. In that way, this place is like NYC, there are cabs everywhere in town.
I went to Ilsan with Chris and Sarah, two other edutainers who are great people who I enjoy greatly and get along well with.
Chris and Sarah walking in Ilsan--
I desperately needed to get an electric blanket. Chris and Sarah were kind enough to guide me to a place where I could get one. But first, I needed to eat. No use looking for something to warm yourself while sleeping if you're dead from not eating.Chris mentioned that there was a Burger King not far. I chuckled. I'd seen KFC, Pizza Hut, and McDonalds, but not a Burger King. I do NOT eat burgers from McDonalds. I honestly think it has been a full 10 years since I last ate "beef" from McDonalds. I have nothing against McDonalds (I thoroughly enjoy their McFlurries and McNuggets), but I do have something against what they call "beef"...for it certainly doesn't taste like beef. Regardless, I really hope to go one year without setting foot in a McDonalds.
The Ilsan Burger King--
But Burger King is another story. Their flame-broiled burgers make me very happy. I hadn't eaten Burger King since arriving in Korea, and even the thought made me smile. So we ate at Burger King. I got the number 8, which was a double-cheeseburger with bacon. In Korea, it isn't considered a Value Meal, per se, it's called a Set. If you order the number 8 Set, you get fries and a drink with it. While the fries tasted sort of fishy (and I mean that literally), the burger was everything I'd hoped it would be. It was even better than the burger I had at TGI Fridays. It's nice to know that some things don't change; whether they're artificially flavored, then frozen and shipped to California or South Korea. BK will be my home away from home.Oh, in case you were wondering, men talk on their cell phones while using the bathroom here in Korea, too. That disgusting and unjustifiable breach of etiquette is not limited to America. Just thought I'd clear that up if that was a mystery to anyone.
After the intake of way too many calories in a bovine fashion, it was time to find an electric blanket. Little did I know of the difficulty this seemingly innocent task would cause.
First, we went to a store called "HomeEver" which Sarah and Chris thought for certain would have an electric blanket. When you enter stores like this one, and also E-Mart, you are greeted by an employee who smiles and bows and welcomes you. At "HomeEver", a nice young girl greeted us in English. Something I've learned, it is not uncommon for Koreans to stop a foreigner and attempt to converse with them. For instance, Chad and I were stopped in the subway station in Seoul and asked where we were from. When Chad replied "Canada", the man started talking about how he'd been to Calgary, etc. I guess they get so few chances to practice English, they take every opportunity.
Anyway, when we entered "HomeEver" the nice young girl greeted us in English, which is very nice and uncommon. We started looking around for electric blankets. Comforters and blankets were everywhere, but nothing we recognized as an electric blanket. After searching for a while, we found the heater and dehumidifier section. I have never seen something like this before, but they have electric mattresses for sale. You are not to sleep under them, as with a blanket, but you are to sleep on them...directly on them, like a mat on the floor. And they aren't designed to go on a bed, they are actually designed to be on the floor. Chris and Sarah weren't surprised. They said that when they first arrived in Korea, they stayed at a hotel, and the hotel had no beds, just these type of heated mattresses on the floor. You probably have the picture in your head that this is like a mattress...thick and fluffy. Well, no. It isn't more than two inches thick, and isn't really padded at all. It's just a mat you put on the floor. Very bizarre to me.
This wasn't what I needed, or wanted, so we asked around. Well, no employee spoke English well enough to understand us, and we didn't speak good enough Korean for us to understand them; so we were at an impasse. Then we remembered the nice girl at the front who greeted us. We ran to the front to try and describe to her what I needed. It's amazing how difficult it is to describe these two words: electric and blanket. Well, I acted everything out. I got on the floor and covered myself up with an imaginary blanket, then I got up and plugged the imaginary blanket into the wall and rubbed my hands on my upper arms--showing that I was warm. She got the word "blanket" and the word "electric" and started walking very quickly...we followed. She arrived at the section with the electric mattresses...foiled again. We thanked her and she went back to her post.
Perhaps they did have electric blankets, but we'd exhausted our current resources. So we left. When we passed the nice girl again, she said, "See you tomorrow." It was very funny. I don't know if she meant to say tomorrow, as in the next day, or meant simply at a later date.
Chris and Sarah had another idea. We then walked to a place called "New Core Outlet". It's basically an outlet mall. Neato.
When we arrived at New Core, we went to the 7th floor, which was the House Wares and Bedding level. We saw much of the same brand comforters and blankets that we'd seen at HomeEver...but no electric blankets. I confronted a nice older lady who was restocking some shelves and asked about "Electric Blanket"...she just looked curiously at me (the way a dog looks at the answering machine when it hears a voice coming out of it), and began looking for another employee. I'm assuming she was trying to find someone who could speak English. I followed her to another nice older lady who attempted to help me. She knew a few words of English and did her best to help me. I again did the charades game of pulling a blanket up to my neck and then dragging a pretend cord to a pretend plug...and it worked. The woman knew what I meant. She was searching and searching for the right words. She was trying to say something like "We have it, but not here" and Chris specifically asked, in Korean, "Not here?" and she nodded. She pointed downward and said "One". I didn't know if she meant the first floor or go down One level...so I said, "Sixth floor" and put up 6 fingers. She nodded no. Again, she said, "One". We all said, "First floor". She nodded yes. Okay. Great. We were pretty sure she got what we were looking for.
So we went back to where we started from. The first floor. We walked around the first floor--and found nothing that resembled a blanket. While we walked around, with amusing looks by the workers as we circled the entire floor twice, Chris noticed the floor below us, B1, said it had miscellaneous items. He suggested we try there.
All these floors are relatively small, and you can go up and down on escalators over and over and over and over again, or if you're lucky, there's an elevator. Anyway, we took the escalator down to floor B1 and began to search. This was the Food Court floor, in addition to the other miscellaneous things. Then we saw there was a sort of general store in the corner. As soon as we walked in, Chris noticed a shelf RIGHT BY the registers with bags of blankets that said, "Electric Blanket" right on it--in English. Success. I was thinking I'd have to pay around 50,000Won for a blanket, but this double size blanket was only 39,000. Excellent.
The darling older woman on the 7th floor was absolutely right. I knew there was something else she was searching to say to us, but never got it out. I'm certain she was trying to say "B". I sent blessings to her telepathically (did you know that Koreans are all telepathic?). I finally found my electric blanket.
We shopped some more and then headed home.
Now to put the blanket on my bed. As I mentioned, I hadn't slept well the previous two nights, due in part to the cold weather, and was hoping for a good night's sleep using my new blanket.
Once I opened the package, I found the directions...entirely in Korean. That shouldn't be a surprise. Fortunately, they had little drawings to help describe whatever was written. Thank goodness for those. And just as a note, I want to say that most drawings or diagrams that you see in Korea are very cartoon-like. These drawings on the directions weren't of actual people, but looked more like little anime people. Very funny.
Anyway, I noticed a picture showing a person holding the blanket up to their neck, just as I'd done earlier when playing charades with the various store employees. But this picture had an X on it. Hmm. This seemed to say I cannot use it as a blanket. Then I saw another picture. It showed a person laying flat on the blanket. The cord was to be on the side near the head, not the feet. The picture next to it showed a person lying on the blanket, but with the cord near the feet, and it had an X on it. The one with the person lying on the blanket with the cord near the head had a Circle on it. I assumed this was the correct form.
Fine. Weird, but fine. Fortunately, I found no picture saying that I could not put it on my bed, so I did. But instead of using it as a blanket, I guess I was to use it as a sheet. So I put it right on top of my fitted sheet, plugged it in, and turned it on. It started to warm up. Good. I then took a shower and happily awaited my warm bed.
I got into bed, right on top of the blanket. I began to laugh, because it was SO wonderfully warm. I just lay there on my back enjoying the warmth. I had on a shirt and sweatshirt, socks, and long pants. I soon became so wonderfully warm and decided I didn't need the sweatshirt or the socks. Plus, I turned down the dial.
I went to sleep warm as I'd been since leaving California. However, I cannot say that I slept well. Ultimately, I think it was too warm in there.
For the next night, I warmed the bed like usual, while taking a shower, then when I entered the bed, I lowered the dial to below one. This was much better...but I didn't necessarily sleep better. While I do not know why I did not sleep well on the blanket, I do know that I had some very strange dreams while sleeping on it.
I'm sure I dream every night...but I very rarely have vivid dreams or even dreams that I can later remember. That is not the case with my first two nights sleeping on the blanket.
The first nights dream is the most bizarre of the two. What I remember is being in a store, much like "HomeEver" and seeing Ashley Simpson (sister of Jessica Simpson) grow angry, then dump her shopping cart, which included her baby, into a trash can. Hmm. In the dream, I knew exactly who this girl was, and I ran around the corner to find her sister and tell her what Ashley had done. But in my dream, her sister wasn't Jessica Simpson, it was Britney Spears. Yeah. How bizarre. Well, anyway, I told Britney Spears what her sister was doing, and she got angry and went to fix the situation. From there, all I know is that I was hanging out with Britney Spears and talking to her all about the pressures she's been facing, and how mean the public is to her. It was a very interesting conversation. While walking with her, anytime she would see anyone, she would smile and speak very politely to them, I assumed in an attempt to change her public image. It was very strange. From there, I was at Britney's house...which wasn't a house at all, but more like a group home. It was one story, and looked sort of like an old dentist's office from the outside. Very strange.
I was then somewhere else. To my left was the singer Steve Green (who I just saw in concert in Monterey, CA before flying to Korea) and to my right were two guys I'd never seen before. We all walked until we found a bench, and sat down. The guys to my right never spoke, but I was in constant conversation with Steve Green, the subject of which I cannot recall. All of a sudden, a brilliant lightning storm began. Though the action was in real-time, the lightning was going in slow motion. It was nighttime, and the lightning was very clear above us. Then, to the left, lightning started to streak upwards from the ground. It was quite something. That's it for the first dream.
The second nights dream involved me taking an airplane trip from somewhere in America here to Korea. But I apparently was on the wrong flight. I was on Korean Airlines, instead of Asiana Airlines, which I actually took to get to Korea. I was with a large group of people, none of whom I knew, and I was in the plane right behind the captain. No one seemed to be able to tell me where we were going; not even the captain. I was deciding whether or not I should get off the plane and find the one that would take me to Seoul, my actual destination. That's all for the second dream.
So perhaps I've purchased some sort of cursed voodoo blanket...I don't know. Regardless, my bed is much, much warmer, and I wouldn't exchange that for anything.
On a completely different subject, I have somehow hurt my right foot. I am not a dancer. This should come as no surprise to anyone. However, part of my duties during my time here in Korea, unfortunately involves dancing. So, once I got here, I was involved in several dance rehearsals. This means I take off my shoes and flail around a room on a somewhat hard surface. Within my first week here, I began to notice a slight soreness on the very bottom of my right foot. I figured it was from my dancing.
During my second week, I played an awesome game of Ultimate Frisbee out on the big soccer field here at EV. My foot remained sore up to that point, and continued sore afterward; frisbee didn't seem to make any good or bad difference there.
The Soccer Field--(notice the large & colorful letters in the background)
But now, into my third week, my right foot is in extreme pain. My big toe cannot be moved in any direction, lest it shoot pain through my entire body. My foot is somewhat swollen.I know not what to do.
I will see a doctor within this next week, and I'm sure things will be taken care of. In the meantime, I'm taking it as easy as I can, considering I must walk everywhere around here, and there are literally a million steps all around to get anywhere. Also, I'm icing my foot to keep the swelling down.
I'll be fine. I have medical insurance here and will have to travel to Seoul to do everything, so it'll have to wait until next week.
Christmas is coming. There are Christmas trees and other decorations all over EV, and while it's very exciting, it just doesn't feel like Christmas. Either because it's so cold and there is no snow, or because my family is no where in sight. Either way, I know it's coming, but it just seems so strange.
If you're feeling particularly caring this time of year, feel free to send me a care package. I would love it.
JASON HAMMOND
GEV, PAJU CAMP
1779 BEOPHEUNG-RI, TANHYEON-MYEON
PAJU-SI, GYEONGGI-DO, 413-780
REPUBLIC OF KOREA
Just a thought.
Anyway, while the weather still continues cold (and promises to be even colder), I am enjoying some of the pictures I'm able to take. The occasional frost or light snow dusting are quite lovely to photograph.
The Frost--
Blessings upon you.
No comments:
Post a Comment