Yongsan, Chuseok, and an American President
Well boys and girls, Happy Thanksgiving! If you're in this country at least. I had off of work Sat-Mon of this week due to Chusuk (I've also seen it spelled Chuseok), Korean Thanksiving. My middle school-aged class told me that Koreans give thanks to their ancestors for creating their family and keeping it peaceful. I'm sure there's more to it than that, but it's the second largest holiday nonetheless.
Saturday, I met a friend of my Tennessee friend Tim who is also here in Seoul. (As it turns out, Stephanie is only one subway stop over!) We met her uncle's friend, Gene, who signed us on to the US Army base, which is pretty much just a small American city inside Seoul. We got to eat American food (or Italian, as I would have it), see an abundance of American cars and faces that weren't completely unfamiliar. We went to the Soldier Show-- a musical performance by soldiers stationed all over-- from Seoul to Fort Polk, Louisiana (woohoo!), NY, Ga, NC, etc. They were a pretty talented group of uniformed men and women singing and dancing to Ciara, Usher, Rascal Flatts, Gretchen Wilson, Maroon 5, etc. I think I especially enjoyed it because I didn't realize how much I miss my music! Seeing as I brought no form of tunes with me (CDs, mp3s, nada!), it was fun to understand everything they sang. Don't get me wrong-- America most certainly exports culture by shipping our music all over the world. It's highly amusing to walk into a fancy department store or restaurant and hear a hip hop song with no profanity bleeped out simply because these people don't understand the lyrics. Still though, the luxury of getting in my car or turning on my computer and having music at my disposal instantly is nonexistant here, so it makes me appreciate such a simple thing so much more. And so! We went to a bar/lounge afterward. Gene is in charge of bringing musicals and such to the base (I think that's his job description pretty much), so he knew the band at the lounge, too. Really cool cover band called Blue Eyze-- American guys with a Filipino singer. We got to hang out with them while we waited for the director of the Soldier Show to meet up with us. When he did, he brought two army men with him. One was from St. Francisville! He went to LSU for 2 years before he joined the army. It was cool to talk about the big BR and tailgating with James. The other guy was from Iowa, "That place between LA and New York" he called it. All the people involved with the show are on leave from their normal jobs in the army to travel for 6 months and perform at bases all over the world. "Entertainment for the soldiers, by the soldiers" was one of their taglines. (Think they should sport FUBU shirts?) Seems like such a neat thing to be doing, but they said they get sick of living in hotels.
Steph and I spent the night in a hotel just off base, got up Sunday and had lunch in Itaewon (the hot spot for foreigners where you won't get a second look just for being a tall white girl), shopped a bit, and then went to Stephanie's home-stay. She lives with a Korean family and helps their 21 year old son practice English. She came to see my apartment, then left to go tutor, and I headed back to Itaewon to meet Amy for dinner.
Shortly after sitting down to wait for Amy (I was way early b/c I wanted to see how long it took me to get there if I only changed trains once), I was approached by a random guy named "Kennedy" who was from Nigeria-- or his Nigerian name which meant "Blessing" in English he said. He talked about his business of buying and selling fabrics and furniture and how he's been in Seoul for 15 months. He talked about being my boyfriend, me meeting his parents, asking if I loved black men, gave me his e-mail and phone number and asked for mine (fortunately, I could honestly tell him I have no phone! I didn't give him my e-mail either though, I told him to wait to hear from me), and when Amy arrived even asked to join us for dinner, offering to pay. He asked when he'd see me again and I told him that this was it. Strange, strange deal. Not only did a little red flag go up when this complete random asked for my friendship and then asked me if I wanted to check out this international store upstairs from Burger King ("Nope, I'm sitting right here waiting for my friend" I said. "Oh, you can come upstairs and call her when she gets close," he responded. "Nope, no phone, I'm staying here, thanks" I told him nicely but firmly), but he said that when it's 10pm here, it's 7am in Austin, Texas, where his family is. Seeing as I've lived in La all my life and managed to make it over to Texas a time or two, I know they are in the same time zone. Especially if you've been here for 15 months, you should know it's a 14 hour difference. Making it up? Who knows. I wasn't particularly scared because Itaewon is buzzing with people and we were on the street across from the subway exit, so there were people everywhere. I wasn't mean, but when Amy arrived we linked arms and said we had a date, and were on our merry way.
We ate at Poncho's! Not the same as the one back home, but it was most definitely Mexican with our REAL margaritas in a cactus glass. (The only other margarita I had here tasted and looked like frozen green Jell-O). We walked around a bit, located a Russian area, an international store, and a Baskin Robbins (c: As we were crossing one street, I saw one of the girls I talked to at the Korean Embassy in Osaka. A city of 12million people and I can run into people I know (sorta) without having planned it out!
Monday I spent prepping for classes this week. I have a busier schedule than normal to make up for having the weekend off. This morning I picked up my residence card, so I plan to get a phone as soon as possible (i.e. today, as soon as Mr Lee arrives and can join me!) Get yourselves some international calling cards and let's make a date to talk soon!!!
Copyright 2005 Olivia R. Reed
Saturday, I met a friend of my Tennessee friend Tim who is also here in Seoul. (As it turns out, Stephanie is only one subway stop over!) We met her uncle's friend, Gene, who signed us on to the US Army base, which is pretty much just a small American city inside Seoul. We got to eat American food (or Italian, as I would have it), see an abundance of American cars and faces that weren't completely unfamiliar. We went to the Soldier Show-- a musical performance by soldiers stationed all over-- from Seoul to Fort Polk, Louisiana (woohoo!), NY, Ga, NC, etc. They were a pretty talented group of uniformed men and women singing and dancing to Ciara, Usher, Rascal Flatts, Gretchen Wilson, Maroon 5, etc. I think I especially enjoyed it because I didn't realize how much I miss my music! Seeing as I brought no form of tunes with me (CDs, mp3s, nada!), it was fun to understand everything they sang. Don't get me wrong-- America most certainly exports culture by shipping our music all over the world. It's highly amusing to walk into a fancy department store or restaurant and hear a hip hop song with no profanity bleeped out simply because these people don't understand the lyrics. Still though, the luxury of getting in my car or turning on my computer and having music at my disposal instantly is nonexistant here, so it makes me appreciate such a simple thing so much more. And so! We went to a bar/lounge afterward. Gene is in charge of bringing musicals and such to the base (I think that's his job description pretty much), so he knew the band at the lounge, too. Really cool cover band called Blue Eyze-- American guys with a Filipino singer. We got to hang out with them while we waited for the director of the Soldier Show to meet up with us. When he did, he brought two army men with him. One was from St. Francisville! He went to LSU for 2 years before he joined the army. It was cool to talk about the big BR and tailgating with James. The other guy was from Iowa, "That place between LA and New York" he called it. All the people involved with the show are on leave from their normal jobs in the army to travel for 6 months and perform at bases all over the world. "Entertainment for the soldiers, by the soldiers" was one of their taglines. (Think they should sport FUBU shirts?) Seems like such a neat thing to be doing, but they said they get sick of living in hotels.
Steph and I spent the night in a hotel just off base, got up Sunday and had lunch in Itaewon (the hot spot for foreigners where you won't get a second look just for being a tall white girl), shopped a bit, and then went to Stephanie's home-stay. She lives with a Korean family and helps their 21 year old son practice English. She came to see my apartment, then left to go tutor, and I headed back to Itaewon to meet Amy for dinner.
Shortly after sitting down to wait for Amy (I was way early b/c I wanted to see how long it took me to get there if I only changed trains once), I was approached by a random guy named "Kennedy" who was from Nigeria-- or his Nigerian name which meant "Blessing" in English he said. He talked about his business of buying and selling fabrics and furniture and how he's been in Seoul for 15 months. He talked about being my boyfriend, me meeting his parents, asking if I loved black men, gave me his e-mail and phone number and asked for mine (fortunately, I could honestly tell him I have no phone! I didn't give him my e-mail either though, I told him to wait to hear from me), and when Amy arrived even asked to join us for dinner, offering to pay. He asked when he'd see me again and I told him that this was it. Strange, strange deal. Not only did a little red flag go up when this complete random asked for my friendship and then asked me if I wanted to check out this international store upstairs from Burger King ("Nope, I'm sitting right here waiting for my friend" I said. "Oh, you can come upstairs and call her when she gets close," he responded. "Nope, no phone, I'm staying here, thanks" I told him nicely but firmly), but he said that when it's 10pm here, it's 7am in Austin, Texas, where his family is. Seeing as I've lived in La all my life and managed to make it over to Texas a time or two, I know they are in the same time zone. Especially if you've been here for 15 months, you should know it's a 14 hour difference. Making it up? Who knows. I wasn't particularly scared because Itaewon is buzzing with people and we were on the street across from the subway exit, so there were people everywhere. I wasn't mean, but when Amy arrived we linked arms and said we had a date, and were on our merry way.
We ate at Poncho's! Not the same as the one back home, but it was most definitely Mexican with our REAL margaritas in a cactus glass. (The only other margarita I had here tasted and looked like frozen green Jell-O). We walked around a bit, located a Russian area, an international store, and a Baskin Robbins (c: As we were crossing one street, I saw one of the girls I talked to at the Korean Embassy in Osaka. A city of 12million people and I can run into people I know (sorta) without having planned it out!
Monday I spent prepping for classes this week. I have a busier schedule than normal to make up for having the weekend off. This morning I picked up my residence card, so I plan to get a phone as soon as possible (i.e. today, as soon as Mr Lee arrives and can join me!) Get yourselves some international calling cards and let's make a date to talk soon!!!
Copyright 2005 Olivia R. Reed
posted by LSULiv | 9:45 AM
1 Comments:
Gracie--
No shiz! I'll delete any that aren't cool, which is the majority. Holla!
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