Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

If you leave your apartment at all while you are in Korea you are all but guaranteed to have an adventure and a few laughs. Everyday experiences are a thing of the past. Here are a few of the more amusing ones.

This Place is Bananas

Within our first week of moving to Korea we set off to the grocery store. Now just being at the grocery store is a bit overwhelming let alone trying to figure out what everything is and then making a purchase. Since produce is more or less safe, we started our grocery adventure that the banana section. In Korea, they sell everything in bulk. You can only by tomatoes by the dozen or cans of corn by the gallon. Bananas are no exception.Here they have all the bananas in bunches of about 15-20.

Since I obviously can’t eat 20 bananas before they go bad at the unbelievable pace that they do here, I broke off 4 or 5 and set off to tackle another section of the grocery store. That’s when this middle aged woman comes running at me out of nowhere and starts speaking rather quickly, in Korean, and shoving another bunch of bananas in my face. I confusedly take the bunch of bananas and put it back in the pile. She then picks them back up and gives them back to me. This goes on for a couple of minutes, until she finally puts the bananas in a bag and puts them in my cart and leaves.  At this point, I’ve resigned myself to just buying all of the bananas because that seems to be the easiest option.

As we’re pulling away from the banana station, this lovely man comes up to us who thankfully speaks very good English. He explains to us that the bananas are on sale, but the sale is for the whole bunch, not by weight. So I guess in the end this woman was really just trying to be helpful but her approach left a little to be desired.

That will be 6000W for your free brownie

After wandering around the Busan University area last weekend we stopped at Cold Stone Creamery for some dessert. After our ice cream we went outside and were given a coupon for a free brownie and two for one coffee.

Jacob and Nollie went back inside to collect our winnings only to be charged 6000W for the whole thing. After a lot of gesturing and attempts at arguing the cashier finally told them she couldn’t give them a free brownie because they could only use one coupon and she had a headache. After finally paying for the free brownie she told them she loved them and they left the store.

I Have Swine Flu

The Koreans are crazy about germs. It’s not uncommon to see people walking around with masks and gloves, even if you are hiking or at the park. So, as you can imagine, Swine Flu  – or as they call it the new flu – has caused mass panic.   At the airport everyone entering and exiting the country is thermally scanned for any signs of a temperature, at school the kids are all sprayed with anti-bacterial lotion upon entering and exiting the building. At the public schools all of the kids have to arrive 20 minutes earlier than class so that everyone can have their temperature taken.

Some of the more cautious locals have taken it one step farther. Since the flu originated in a foreign country, they assume that all foreigners are just walking swine flu time bombs. If they see you approaching, they will take a deep breath about 5 feet in front of you then cover their nose and mouth and run past you with this look of terror in their eyes.

This Isn’t Tim Hortons

Food in Korea is always a bit of a mystery. You really just eat here to sustain. Everything you eat is a risk and there’s a lot of sniffing and examining before taking a bite (Karen, you’d be proud).

We decided to try street food last week. We stopped at the little stall across the street from our apartment and bought two sugar coated pastries. One was shaped like a long twisted pretzel and the other like a jelly filled donut. We’d had the twisted one before so we knew that was pretty safe but we figured there wasn’t much that could go wrong with a donut.

We get home and take a bite into the donut expecting some kind of fruit filling. It is a donut afterall. Apparently, their list of acceptable fillings includes more items than the Tim Horton’s menu as the donut was filled with a lovely red bean paste.

Needless to say it went straight in the garbage. I guess I should have known it wouldn’t be normal.

I Went to the Gym and Ended up in a Paula Abdul Video

Since I have an extraordinary amount of free time here, I only work 30 hours a week, I signed up for a gym membership at the gym near our apartments. Going to the gym is like going back to the future.

First of all you have to walk into the locker room which normally isn’t a big deal, but as Jacob has mentioned Koreans have no shame. All of the women walk around in this locker room completely naked. I don’t mean with a towel naked, I mean I walk around with  my eyes focused on the floor naked. It’s like that Seinfeld episode where Jerry’s girlfriend does everything in the nude. These women wash each other, do their hair and makeup and then get dressed.

After surviving the dressing room I headed upstairs to hop on a treadmill. The running was mostly a normal experience except that the treadmills come to a dead stop after 30 minutes and I am clearly the fastest runner in the place. Most women go and walk backwards on them. They also have a woman who cleans the treadmills while you are using them. Zanelle even had someone fix her bike while she was on it.

The highlight of the gym experience though has to be the women’s fitness classes. These women must have just kept their outfits from the 80’s and then dyed them brighter colours and cut them into shorts and tanktops. I’ve seen women with scrunchies, fishnet stockings, high heels, a lot of leg warmers and midriffs. I think this is where Paula and Madonna got their inspiration.