Rants & Raves: Daehanmingook

**I got into a taxi this morning to run errands in Myungdong - I needed to get my shoes re-heeled and pick up my gram's glasses at her optometrist. On the way to Myungdong we passed City Hall, in front of which there is a large plaza. Gathered on the plaza were a couple hundred bicyclists decked out in their gear with their bikes, I assume to start some sort of bike tour. My taxi driver kept ranting to me about how such useless gatherings are destroying the city and causing too much traffic and such a senseless waste of money and time and space, etc. As we passed Namdaemun Gate, which was burned down by some disgruntled Korean ahjusshi months ago, he started ranting about that as well. I kept silent but I really wanted to say: "shut the hell up and just drive me to my destination; I didn't get in your cab to be your therapist about everything that makes your day miserable. Really, shut the hell up." I hate people who think I give a f*!$ about their day and ruin my day by being so negative.

**Yesterday at the breakfast buffet at my hotel, I stood to a corner of the toast machine buttering my bread before putting it in the toaster. Buttering the bread before you put it in the toaster makes it taste infinitely better. I wasn't in anyone's way and the area around me was completely clear. The toaster is one of those industrial size contraptions that can toast 6-10 pieces at a time. No one was using it, no one was in line to use it. Some ajushi comes up to me and says "Table-eh gah suh bal-lu-shi-juh (you should butter it at your table)." I reflexively answered "Bal-lu-goo gwuh yah-ji mashissuh-yo (it tastes better if you butter it before you toast it)". And then I thought: "Motherf*cker why is it your concern where or when I butter my freaking bread? Am I bothering anyone by buttering my bread here?"

**My hotel has a sauna/steam room that is mogyoktang style (Korean bathhouse) with a hot pool, cold pool, sauna, steam room, open showering facilities, etc. I have never gotten used to being buck naked in front of strangers so I wore my bathing suit to use the facilities after using the gym. There were two Korean girls using it as well. For some reason, everyone in Seoul seems to think I am Japanese - whenever I go out and about, vendors speak to me in Japanese until I tell them I am Korean. Apparently I no longer smell like dwenjang (fermented bean paste). I think these girls thought I was Japanese as well because they started saying to each other in Korean: "who wears a bathing suit at a mogyoktang?" I didn't let on that I understood them but I couldn't help thinking: "Who the f*ck cares whether or not I wear a bathing suit? Honestly, does it impede on YOUR use of the facilities?"

Being in Seoul gives me the dirtiest mouth. I don't usually cuss unless I really strongly dislike something or someone. Korean people in Korea have a way of grating on my nerves.

**Even though rude, meddling Korean strangers who have no problem telling you what they think when you never asked and don't give a f*#! drive me crazy and give me the foulest mouth ever (or rather, a foul mind, since I never actually say any of these things out loud), I love my country and my people. The only reason I criticize it so much is because I love it so much.

**If I could describe Seoul in one word, it would be pyunli-heh, which means convenient or comfortable. Cabs are super cheap and easy to catch. The subway is even cheaper, super clean and arrives every couple minutes. You can find anything or any service you need or want within a half-mile radius. Heel worn down? You can get your shoe re-heeled in minutes for about $4-5. Skirt too long? Hemming can be done for $3-10 faster than you can go to Starbucks and come back. Haircuts, magic straight, perms, conditioning, blow outs, etc. - Korea has the most advanced hair technology and products in the world, for much less than the price for inferior services in the States. Need new glasses? You can just take your current lens to an eyewear shop and they can make you a new pair, or test you for new glasses - no need for an optometrist. Feeling ill? Stop by a pharmacy and tell them your symptoms and they can give you the appropriate medicine - no need for a doctor or a prescription. You can get pretty much get any restaurant to deliver to your home, usually using real plates and utensils, which the restaurant will pick up after you are done. Seoul is so convenient.

** If you go shopping at any of the boutique stores aimed at younger women (i.e. non-ajummas) in Kangnam, there is only one size: 55 (called oh-oh, which means five five). It's equivalent to about a size 0-2 in the States. If you go north of the river to Myungdong, you might find two sizes, 55 and 66. The Six Six size is equivalent to a US size 4. You will almost never find any size larger than that unless you go to an ajumma store (and by ajumma I mean 40+). Basically in Korea it is socially unacceptable to be fatter than a size 4. So socially unacceptable that they don't even make clothes in a size above it.