The Cheese and Noodle Chronicles

This weekend, a large group of foreigners and I went to the Inter-Continental Hotel in Seoul. The hotel offers a buffet every Saturday for 30,000 won ($30) that consists of side dishes and alcohol. The best part of the buffet is the AMAZING selection of cheeses. For those that don't know, Korea does not have real cheese. They have the make-shift cheese like Kraft Singles, but other than that cheese is hard to come by. You could go to Costco and pay a fortune for a block of cheese, or go to the local grocery store and spend about $20 for a small container, but basically NO CHEESE! I ate about 3 plates of cheese and fruit (also expensive). Most of the other foreigners came for the large selection of all-you-can-drink wine, champagne, beer, and sangria, but I came for the cheese! It's safe to say that I ate my $30 worth!

Also this weekend, the weather finally became enjoyable. We were outside in long-sleeved shirts and not freezing our bums off! The snow is entirely melted and the cherry blossoms should be blossoming in the coming weeks!

An interesting thing happened today at the grocery store. I would like to share this with you because Korea is notorious for being kind and hospitable, but it's to prove that crappy people are everywhere in this world. I was with some of the other teachers and we were debating our future in noodles (because the noodle section is an entire aisle of choices) when this woman, maybe in her late 20s or early 30s, starts mocking us by repeating everything we say in a snotty voice. Now, I'm not sure if she was perhaps mentally challenged and didn't understand the concept of ears and that we can hear with them or if she didn't understand that we can in fact speak fluent English, but she was blatantly insulting us. We were not being loud or rude to anyone else, but we were simply examing the endless options of noodles ahead of us. I just wonder what goes on in the brains of people who would behave this way? One theory is that she is so ignorant of other people that she feels the need to put us down to make herself feel more superior. My other theory is that she is simply a huge B**CH. I can't decide which theory to go with, but I'm going to say it's a combination of both.

Even with that unfortunate incident, I do have to say that I encounter more good people than bad in Korea. It is really sad when things like that happen though. If I had just been visiting Korea for a week or so and something like that had happened, I would have a really bad impression of this country. Fortunatley, I've had plenty of time to meet some very cool people and make better assumptions about the rest of the country. Another sad thing is how ignorant people really are. Not just in Korea, but everywhere. This is the 21st century. We have more technology in this world than we know what to do with. Clearly, we can watch the news, go online, communicate with people across the globe and yet people still believe they are the only ones in this world. People still believe that their way is the right way and every other way is wrong. Many things in Korea are different. The way people talk to each other, the way people drive, the way people eat, etc. is all different. Does that mean it's wrong because I do it differently? No. Does it mean that I'm wrong for eating with my elbows off the table? No. Is it wrong that I abide the traffic lights when driving a car and Koreans don't? No. My final thought (I promise I'm almost finished ranting) is that if everyone in the world did things the exact same way, than what the hell am I doing in Korea? Why would I travel 6,000 miles and live away from everyone I know and love to go to a country that was exactly like the one I left?! The world would be "un-explorable" (not a word, but I'm making it one) if we all spoke the same language, drove on the same side of the rode, and all ate our food extremely loudly. Half the experience of taking this job is getting to learn a new culture! And despite the occassional b**tch, I'm loving every moment of it!