Estrogen Fests

This past week I met my friend Sally and we walked past the Jongno area of town and found a huge fabric market. (There was food as well, and even some electronics and other goodies). There are endless, narrow alleyways under a greenhouse-type roof with myriads of small shops. If you actually bought something here and had to return it, it would be to the seller’s advantage, because you’d have a heckuva time finding it again! You search all the rolls in all the stores and when you finally find a fabric you like, you buy it and the tailors are all centrally located, so you bring your purchases to them and have them whip up whatever creation you have in mind. It seems that Sam will be in Korea until mid June, so I was on the hunt for something from which I could have a dress made, so that I might not have any twins when I go with him to the Army Birthday formal. Sally and I finally located a really cute black material with black polka dots—nothing fancy, but just jazzy enough for me. We were trying to explain to the owner what I needed—I drew up a dress that I thought might be simple and classic. The material was going to be $12 for 3 yards. I thought something was off. So we went back and forth trying to explain ourselves and finally we found someone who was bilingual. As it turns out, we were in a lining store. The entire shop, however small, carried one thing: lining. All these colors and patterns we were looking at were supposed to go INSIDE whatever you’re having made—not be the main attraction. Well shoot! We sorta laughed and sighed and rolled our eyes, and then went on our merry little way and walked down into one of the underground markets. I talked to a tailor and in my very broken Korean managed to discover that his price for simply creating a dress, material not included, was $120. Flabbergasted, I told him that that was extremely expensive. (This is Korea, after all). He asked how much I thought I should pay, and after some finagling, we agreed on $34. Now I just had to find the material! So we headed to Itaewon. Yes, it’s the foreign area of town I’m not particularly in love with. But it’s also known for leathers and tailors. We went into two different shops before finally finding a winner with JJPark. This man and his very cute, petite wife spent time in Shreveport and Bossier, Louisiana. Well I’ll be a suck egg mule—what a small world it is! I looked through his materials and he quoted me a price I thought was a bit high. He came down a bit and I was more inclined to agree after he told me that the pure silk version would be $450 (I’m a good bargainer, but he’s a good salesman!). I put a deposit down on a satin/silk mix (I certainly can’t tell the difference in the materials. And for more than $250 difference in price, I won’t ever care to know!) and designed my own little number whose first fitting will be Friday. Hopefully all the trouble and bargaining will prove worth it!

This past weekend I was all set up to have what my friends back home and I used to call an Estrogen Fest. Get the girls together, have dinner, go to a movie, have ice cream, or just get together and solve the world’s problems, and sometimes our own. Well everyone seemed booked up on Saturday, so I decided I’d invest some time in discovering what all the fuss is about regarding The DaVinci Code. I haven’t ever had an interest in the book, but I figured that Tom Hanks’ talent and an opportunity to listen to some French would be reason enough. I went a couple of subway stops over and attempted to get tickets to the 9pm showing, but the first available was midnight. Had I not had Freakonomics with me, I would’ve headed home. Instead I sat near the fountain at Gimpo Airport’s CGV theater and read for more than two hours while I waited for this theatre to open. Seeing the movie was, once again, a great escape. My comprehension of the parts in French was fine, but it was the Italian that got me! Sure, it was subtitled at the bottom... IN KOREAN! So much for that! I guess you get the bottom line in the end, anyway, but it’s just funny reminders like that that I am where I am.

Sunday, the girls seemed to free up. Amy, Sally, Heeyun, Jennifer and I met up at Sortino’s, a true Italian restaurant with a chef from Brooklyn, New York. And they had all varieties of noodles! Penne, fettuccini, spaghetti of course, and more! You could’ve put moving octopus on top of this pasta and I probably would’ve picked out the noodles and eaten them because of how excited I was! The food was pretty good, and certainly reasonably priced. Jennifer, who had very obviously been drinking since 1:30 in the afternoon, invited her friend, a US Diplomat, to join us. She warned us in advance not to ask many questions because he doesn’t like to talk about his job. I thought he was either really important or really pretending. And my Google searches since have concluded the same, because if I’m spelling his name correctly, I’ve come up with nothing. Hmmm... Regardless, we all enjoyed the heck out of our dinner. The diplomat split early, a frustrated Jennifer followed suit not long after, and the rest of us went to get ice cream. Sitting on the curb outside of Baskin Robbins, we asked the group of guys next to us to take our picture. After having a good time and making some jokes with one another, a group of Latin-looking guys passed us by. One of them pretended to shoot us with his gun made from his hands and another one gave me a branch of orchids! It was so random and funny that I just laughed right out loud, and as they continued walking, they did the same. Little things make you happy, they really do.

So yes, it’s been a long time nearing and now it’s here! My long-anticipated vacation has arrived! I have been researching and nitpicking details so much that I’m almost going to need a vacation from my vacation. That stuff can really be exhausting! However, there’s enough adrenaline that comes with the excitement of the whole thing to keep you going! (In my research I discovered that the Korean Won has a better exchange rate in Thailand than the US dollar does. But in Australia, the US dollar is just high enough to encourage me to bring this form of currency instead of Won!) I will spend Saturday through Tuesday in Bangkok. My cousin will join me for the weekend, so I’ll be solo for two days after he leaves. I then get to Sydney around lunchtime on Wednesday, and will eat with my friend Kurt there (the same one who came to Seoul in February), then probably tour around the Harbour and whatnot. Thursday I will fly up to Cairns, where I will stay for two nights and take a tour of and hopefully snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef! (I hope one of my flights shows Finding Nemo!) I’ll get back to Sydney on Saturday afternoon and check out a few more things in the city then—like koalas and ‘roos— and indulge in "expat laundry heaven" as Kurt called it when he obliged my inquiry as to his washing facilities (Korea doesn't have dryers, so this is more exciting than you may know). He is having some people over that evening, so hopefully a relaxing Saturday night will be a great way to wind down. Sunday we plan to go surfing and then to Bondi Beach, where stars are commonly spotted. This white girl hopes there are big umbrellas—not so that I can inconspicuously view celebrities from behind a newspaper and large set of sunglasses, but so I can hide from the sun! I leave Sunday afternoon, so maybe some souvenir shopping or a tad bit more touring will also be in effect that morning. WAHOOOOOOOO!

My flights are below:

Thai Airways
TG 659 27MAY Incheon to Bangkok 0930 1305
TG 995 30MAY Bangkok to Sydney 2355 1155+1
TG 996 04JUN Sydney to Bangkok 1630 2255
TG 658 04JUN Bangkok to Incheon 2350 0715+1

Within this, I fly JetStar out of Sydney on Thursday, June 1 (Flight JQ 954) at 3:50p and arrive in Cairns at 6:50p. I am staying at the Cairns Central YHA Backpackers Hostel for those 2 nights. I leave Cairns Sat, June 3 at 12:30p (Flight JQ 949) and arrive back in Sydney at 3:20p.

Copyright 2006 Olivia R. Reed