Adventures in... Toothpaste

Saturday, I met Diane in Seoul.  We've starting referring to our excursions as Saturdays in Seoul.  It's not so much a question of whether or not we will meet up, but rather where we will go each time.  Saturday, we found ourselves at the 63 Building, which is the tallest building in Korea.  During a fairly roundabout attempt to find the building's attractions, we happened upon two Korean weddings.  The pictures on display outside the venue looked like high gloss magazine photos.  They were beautiful.  We finally found where we needed to be and ended up eating traditional Korean fare (bibimbap (lots of vegetables mixed with rice and pepper paste) and mandu (dumplings, usually filled with pork)) in the food court in the basement of the building.  Then we saw a 3-D movie about dinosaurs.  Between being in a bit of a food coma and the soothing notes of Michael Douglas's narration, Diane and I both fell asleep during the film.  Oops.  We opted not to go to the top of the building because it cost 12,000 won, and instead spent some time in a cute cafe drinking lattes and chatting.  The 63 Building is in the same neighborhood as the site of last weekend's Fireworks Festival (which, according to our friend Heather's photos, got a lot more impressive after we left, but the nearest subway exit was also closed for fear of a riot breaking out, so I don't regret our premature exit!).  We went back to the park and wandered around near the river.  We saw several adorable kids, couples in matching clothes riding tandem bikes and random groups of older businessmen enjoying an afternoon soju-fest with their pals.  There is always something to look at here!  Also, while we were investigating a possible ferry ride on the Han River, an adorable eight or nine year old girl came up to us and said hello.  She was closely followed by her little sister, who was dressed in an almost matching outfit.  She was also a chatty cathy!  They were so cute!

Next, we headed to Myeongdong for some shopping and dinner.  Earlier in the week, Diane had mentioned that she wanted Indian food.  Lucky for her, I am an observant creature.  As we were walking the packed streets, I noticed a small sign that said something about Indian and Nepalese food.  It was next to a seemingly random elevator.  We tried our luck and happened upon a really great restaurant on the fourth floor of a building that seemed to only be accessible via this Harry Potter platform 9 3/4-esque elevator (it was that random to find)!  My first taste of Indian food was a total success!  I also almost found a nice pair of brown leather boots being sold by a street vendor.  I had picked them up to show Diane that those were the boots I was looking for when the proprietor came over and asked what size I needed.  I told him I was just looking and that I have huge feet (by Korean standards...).  He asked me what size I needed again, so to humor him, I told him size 260 (they measure shoe sizes in millimeters here) thinking he might laugh and say there was no chance.  He ran to check and produced a pair of the boots in size 260.  I was baffled.  Alas, my feet were too wide for those particular boots (and I didn't have 49,000 won on me at the time) but now I know where to look for big people shoes!

Sunday was a lazy day.  I slept until almost noon, toodled around on the internet, worked on my TEFL class a little (read: very little) bit, made some real good fried rice and planned this week's lessons.  I also skyped with the folks...always a pleasure! :)

Today's teaching wasn't anything to write home about...just three classes.  Pretty average day.  My students are continually getting more used to me, as I am them.  They've picked up on my quirks and seem to enjoy them, so I guess that's a good sign.  Even though they are not always impressed with my lessons (I can't blame them...the first time I teach each lesson, it inevitably bombs a little...or a lot.), they are always really grateful to me when they leave class.  They always warmly greet me in the hallways, the office and outside of school and they've even stopped to have conversations with me rather than their previous habits of just saying hello and running away.  I also may start tutoring a girl after school a couple of days a week to help her strengthen her speaking skills for when she moves to Missouri next fall to attend a small Christian college that is affiliated with our school.  It should be a good time...more on that when it actually starts... :)

Now for the title portion of this post: Korean toothpaste.  Last week at lunch, a couple of the Native teachers who have been in Korea for awhile started talking about Korean toothpaste.  The only toothpaste I had bought here seemed normal, so I was intrigued to hear them talking about the wacky flavors that can be found here.  I went out that day and bought apple flavored toothpaste after a long debate between that and strawberry.  Today, on my weekly (whether I need to or not...) journey to E-Mart for duk boki and groceries, I found coffee flavored (no joke!) and purchased some tubes (yes, tubes... Koreans are so obsessed with brushing their teeth that toothpaste is more often than not sold in bulk!) that have pine needles on the box, are described as being naturally salty and seem to smell like biofreeze and/or Vick's Vaporub.  This flavor was recommended by both Native teachers, so I had to try it.  If you come visit, don't bring toothpaste.  I've assembled an arsenal.  I think I'll send some home for folks to try too.  This stuff is bonkers!