Korea Life Blog - Frozen Pipes and More Gripes


My three day holiday has been marred by frozen pipes and no water. Julie called the landlord for me, and he wanted nothing to do with it. He claimed no one else complained and it must just be my problem. It turns out everyone had been complaining in this building and the next. After a lot of pressure he came by and checked everyone's apartment and said he'd have it fixed by this morning. It's 7:00 PM and there's still no water. I have to wait until tomorrow morning, Sunday, the last day of my holiday.

I just checked with my neighbor. Turns out they came to fix it today but it's a bigger problem than anyone thought. They have to come back tomorrow and dig underground. Maybe there's a ruptured pipe or it's frozen down deeply. I hope they can have it fixed soon!



The dishes are piling up. The cockroaches are moving back in. It's funny how you take running water for granted. Life without it is sure different. Especially when it's time for number 2 and you have to run off somewhere to find a public toilet - which in this small town are squatters. As for bathing, yesterday we went to a jimjil bag public shower/sauna/hangout place. It was nice, but too many people were there - too many kids running around screaming and yelling. I don't know why families hang out there really. Especially I can't understand why they sleep there. It's too hot and noisy. Anyway, that was two days ago and I'm starting to smell. Time go fill up some more bottles of water at the pizza shop and wash as best I can.


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written by shawn matthews   -|link

Korea Life Blog - Tattoo Removal (1)

I was fourteen. Three of us were at my best friend's house. His parents were at camp for the night. We snuck into the liquor cabinet and got drunk. In our drunken teenage maniacal metal-head wisdom we decided to get some Indian Ink and cement our friendship with tattoos of a cross - something that for years would become a source of embarrassment for us, a cruel reminder of our dubious past.


Well, I always wanted to get it removed, but I put it off and off and off, not really sure how to go about getting it done, denying the fact that it even existed, hiding my head in shame whenever taking my shirt off. Then one day, I found an ad in the Korea Herald for a skin clinic in Seoul that offers tattoo removal. After 15 long years, the time had finally come.


Here it is. I took this picture in the bathroom shortly before visiting with the doctor. While I figured a laser would be involved I had no idea really what to expect. I hoped it wouldn't cost too much being as small as it is. There was a 30,000 won consultation fee (consultation: 2.5 minutes). Then the cost of the laser would be 100,000 won won, but since I'm a poor English teacher, as he said, he gave me a 20,000 won discount.

Not too bad overall, and I was excited until he told me it would take 5 visits, one every 6 weeks, to remove it fully. However, each time the cost of the laser will get cheaper, since there will be less to remove. I can't imagine how much and how long it must take to remove big tattoos.


I paid and the nurse applied some anesthetic cream and I was told I'd have to wait one hour for it to take affect. Poor Julie was stuck with me. One hour ended up being 90 minutes as the place was really crowded that day with various other skin treatments. Finally my turn came. I laid down in a chair and closed my eyes. The laser sparked my skin for less than 2 minutes and the doctor was finished. I looked at the tattoo. All that reaminded was the shape of the cross, completely white with specs of blood on it. The doctor said as it healed the pigment would come back again, hence the need for five treatments.



OK, here it is 4 days after the laser treatment. It actually looks better than in this picture. I can't imagine it will take 4 more visits. It's looking pretty good already, but we'll see as time goes on. I'll do an update later on it.


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written by shawn matthews   -|link

Korea Life Blog - Yongsan

Sit back and relax and enjoy pics from Saturday in the electronic-dong: Yongsan. There's pretty much every electronic you could ever want available in Yongsan at the cheapest prices in the country. The difference in price between here and in departments stores is amazing, leaving me to wonder why anyone buys anything at a department store. I've seen computers and TV's over 500,000 won cheaper here.



Here's a shot of Yongsan from the new subway station. Notice the building there with a huge robot on it. Wait - is that my old hero, Voltron, Defender of the Universe?




Another shot off to the side. Looks like the end of the line for subways, a lonely site indeed.




OK, you come out of the tunnel from the station into this long shopping corridor. There's electronics everywhere. As with anywhere in Korea, if you stop to look at anything, you will be bombarded by salespeople.




Lots of music and DVD shops as well as digital cameras and handphones. You can see that guy there under the MP3 sign. He's yelling at people to look at his goods. They all seem pretty desperate, probably because there's a lot of competition. There must be a hundred places here to buy the same exact things. Profits must be really slim.



Outside you come across the arcade alleys full of more handphone and electronic shops. I can't figure out why there are KTF and SK handphone shops literally everywhere. You can walk by one SK and then see another 3 shops down. It's ridiculous. Can't they combine shops and lower costs?




Upstairs in one of the main shopping buildings is the video game floor. If you like video games, this is the place to come. It's a gamer's heaven. I felt like a little kid again. Here's the display room for Nintendo Game Cube. There's 6 or 7 TVs set up with games and all the extra gadgets to try out. And nobody bothers you in here. In the Xbox room I beat Julie in a fighting game at least 5 times.



The whole reason I came to Yongsan was to check on prices of Playstation and Xbox. A Playstation near my home will cost 250,000 won bare bones. Here you get one for just around 200,000 if you barter. I bet you could get a few extras thrown in as well. You can also find any game you could want ever want. I'm not exactly this applies to games in stock, but if they don't have one in stock (shh!) buy burned copies for around 12,000 won.
Like at the pirated CD stands, some shops have huge booklets of games to thumb through.


I didn't actually buy anything. Like I said, I was just gauging the prices. I'm trying to decide between the Playstation and the Xbox. I want to play some games like Rocky and Tiger Woods Golf as well as use the system as a DVD player. The Xbox is 50,000 won cheaper, but it's not very popular in Korea and it could likely fail. In that case, games and/or service would become hard to find. The Playstation is becoming more and more popular. I read that 700,000 units were sold last month alone (compared to 60,000 Xbox's). That's pretty amazing for a population of around 40,000,000. If anybody owns both systems and could give me some advice, please do so.


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written by shawn matthews   -|link

Korea Life Blog - Dubu Date


Here's the rest of the shots I took on Saturday. Julie and I had a wonderful dinner at a small traditional style dubu (tofu) restaurant on the outskirts of Nowhere-dong. It was a beautiful, snowy day, perfect for some hot dubu dishes.



And here they are. Yum. I totally forgot the names of these soups. The one Julie is eating smells exactly like stinky feet, but it tastes delicious, similar to dwenjang chigae but thicker, stronger. Both of them tastes absolutely wonderful. Especially on such a cold day and we were both very hungry.




Julie was practically in Heaven. I've never seen her so happy. Hmm, I thought the quickest way to a man's heart was through his stomach, but maybe it's the other way around with her.




A closeup shot of the smelly feet soup. It tastes much better than it smells, but it really does stink.




This is something I don't get. Here is a cozy, quaint, traditional restaurant, and they hang up stupid modern promotional posters - something that is totally tacky and takes away from the atmosphere. Also, outside there is a big ugly vending machine right next to the entrance. (I took a picture of it, but it didn't come out right). Meanwhile, the ajummas look like human soju bottles in their soju promotional aprons.




Here's some of what they call Korean pizza. It's made from some sort of expensive bean, though tastes more like potato to me. Supposedly this is really good for your health, though I'm not so sure why. But they certainly are delicious! They should be at 10,000 won for three.

I hope you enjoyed the meal as much as I did. Stay tuned for some pics from my short trip to the electronics markets in Yongsan.


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written by shawn matthews   -|link

Korea Life Blog - Busy Thinking

I've been really busy this weekend. I had an interview with a University nearby on Saturday and they called me today to offer me the job. Now I have to decide if I want it.I don't really know much about but the college but it could be the beginning of a career. The pay is decent and I would only be working 4 days/week, 15 teaching hours, and I would get 6-10 weeks vacation. On the other hand, I'd have to pay my own housing, so I'm confused.

For now, here are a few pics from Nowhere-dong.



This was taken outside the Dubu restaurant Julie and I went to today. We had a wonderful lunch, and I'll show you all about it later. The scenery today made me a little homesick. It looks like some backroad place in New York State. All that's missing is a little diner. However, the little Dubu place was much healthier.



It snowed a lot today. When I went out to feed the cats, I saw some kids making snowmen and sledding down the small hill. Notice the snowmen in Korea only have two parts, not three. I guess that's because there is less snow. It was a beautiful day and again, felt almost like home. Maybe that's because this is my home now...

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written by shawn matthews   -|link