Rooney

I have it on good authority from an actual British person that Wayne Rooney (of England's World Cup team) will eat your face off.

Go America/England/Korea this weekend! I'm so excited for the second round of World Cup.

Fridays are so great. I love them. I could marry them. (And think, then you'd wake up every morning to Friday. I could live with that. No, actually, I'd probably cheat on it with Saturday but let's not get into that one.)

Gmarket, You Are Evil But Glorious

I am a tall girl. When I told my students my height during a lesson, they actually pointed and shouted “really? 177??? REALLY??!!!” I love living here, but being the same height as many Korean men can sometimes be rough, mostly when it comes to shopping.

Point being, it is hard to find clothes and shoes sometimes. Here comes in Gmarket (www.gmarket.com). This site is basically the ebay of Korea - individuals buy and sell stuff online. It works perfectly with the Korean style of having a thousand small businesses that all sell basically the same thing. It further embodies everything Koreans seems to love by being incredibly cheap and massively overstimulating.

It can be a little challenging to navigate for foreigners, even with its “English” website, since most of the information provided by the seller is still in Korean. However, don’t let this deter you! They ship the the US too! OMFG!

With my small range of Korea skills, I've become fairly efficient at shopping. For anything larger than a medium in clothes or a size 8 in shoes, you search for "빅사이즈" - "Big Size" in Hangul. Or, you can just use the helpful tabs at the top of the screen (to anyone reading this who actually knows Korean, please don't laugh too much at my pathetic-ness).

Look! I bought this cool blazer!

And these shoes (only $20)!

And a wig!!

And so, so much other crap I don't need.

I'll leave you with this photo.

Don't I look Korean? ^_^

Dental Offices and Ballet

Seoul has many little oddities. For one, the high frequency of "barber shops" in a city of so many metrosexual men. There are barber polls seemingly everywhere.

A slightly less common business is the dental office (치과 in Korean). There are soooooo many, yet Koreans on the whole don't seem to have the best teeth. I had a dream last night that I went to go get some dental work done here, only to find out that they were all, in fact, brothels. Although it would explain everything, I have it on good authority that this is not actually the case.

I signed up for ballet classes this week at a studio in Hongdae. This may sound like something I should have grown out of when I hit age 10 or a height of 5'5. But I've been wanting to take up some new hobbies, improve myself as a person, etc.

When I went the ballet store to get proper clothes, the store clerk started asking which leotard styles I liked the best. Then I told him I was 177cm tall. He dug around for a minute and then pulled out an XL leotard, tights and shoes. Because in the entire store, there is only one single XL of everything. Oh, Korea. Or is this more a case of me choosing an activity known for its eating disorders?

Pictures to follow of me all suited up, provided they are suitably hilarious.

I'm a Monster

"We must buy you underwear," Kyeong said. Mr. Shin nodded seriously. It was a strange Tuesday.

I came down with a cold over the weekend and called in sick to work on Monday. Today, when I returned, my co-teachers asked if they could take me shopping to buy warmer clothes. I am very obvious in my cluelessness about how to dress for weather more severe than 60 degrees farenheit and partly cloudy.

Since it's so cold here, everyone wears long johns (thermal underwear. Possibly only my family calls them 'long johns'?). So, Mr. Shin and Kyeong agreed that I should get some also and took me to the underclothes department.

The saleswoman there tried to help us find the right size. There was a lot of debating in Korean between she and Kyeong, then gesturing to me (arms stretching outward in an attempt to show my measurements), then debating more. Finally, Kyeong showed me a size 100 and asked 'is this alright?' Which she probably asked because a size 100 is a size XL. Hah. I'm a monster.

"It's just for the arm length," she said, though I couldn't help feeling I'd just been called many unflattering euphemisms during the sale and was glad I understood none of it.

My feeling of giant-Godzilla-esqueness only increased when Mr. Shin suggested I also needed to buy shoes. 'They don't have my size here,' I told him, 'I'm a 270.'

'Oh!' he said, 'that is my size!'

Rawr.

I can't complain, though. They bought me a duvet! And they fed me! They even tried to buy me Ugg boots. They are so great, even if saying these things makes me feel a little bit like a 14-year-old girl.