koreanisms

transportation:
bus- the bus driver yelling at everyone for talking too much. buses are libraries. actually all public modes of transportation are libraries. shhhh.

motorcycles/scooters - as the motorcycle turned the corner, the riders sandal fell off. and as he wheeled his bike back to get the sandal, i thought, forget about lack of helmets, how bout just some proper foot gear. or better yet, how bout not carrying a big metal case in your hand as you ride.

subway - the rule applies that everyone should be quiet... unless you're a solicitor that stops with a cart of junk and announce your sales pitch. the best solicitors of course are the ones that sell compilation CDs from the 60's of generic music. and then they play the music to let you "enjoy".

cars - screw child safety seats, we'll do things korean style.

fashion
notables - i saw a guy with little teddy bears dangling from his ears. i think they were supposed to be on a keychain.

konglish- even my english don't really read what the english on their shirts say. and they definitely don't pick up on the atrocious grammar. i liked the shirt that said "Jesus I will save you"

Observations - fluorescent is coming back in. and also currently girls still try to look like magazines, and they succeed more often than in Canada. Lastly I noted in many of my classes an element of superficiality. Actually more than an element. I asked what makes a person a good person and they said if they are good looking. I asked if an ugly person could be a good person. they said no. partly joking. only partly. so i asked if their mother was good looking. and they were a little stuck for an answer. check and mate.

Food
Sales- whole watermelons were about $10 and half watermelons were about $4.

Extra - if you thought we were bad for extra packaging, come here. Plus everything in the grocery store is wrapped with another random product. Example, i got pencil crayons with my cereal.

soju - the ultimate teenage pressure system plays out in korea. except it's not only with teenagers. the bosses take their employees out drinking, and they need to accept, and then they need to drink soju a horrible tasting cheap alcohol. it's gotten so bad that sometimes these employees carry an extra empty bottle with them so they can pour their drink in it when the boss doesn't look just to avoid drinking. my friend that has started university told me that she will need to drink a lot this weekend even though she doesn't want to. all the students are forced into drinking games... with their professor for frosh week. it's funny, i remember my university completely banned drinking during frosh week.

that's all the koreanisms for now.