Endless Rows of Stuff (or Korea, Days 1 & 2)
After some resting in the late morning, we took our first ride on the Seoul subway system to Wangsimni station so we could go to E-Mart. The closest US comparison would be Walmart, I think, except this place not only has a greeter at the door, but it has an attendant for every aisle, kiosk, and island. I was not prepared for how overwhelming food shopping could be in a completely foreign environment. Some products have pictures or small bits of translation, so they are pretty easy to identify. A few others are easily recognised by the branding even if the text is all Korean. But you are out of luck for the rest of the offerings, even if the packaging is see through. And unfortunately the situation is not helped by the vast number of attendants, almost none of whom speak English in any way. Several times I was led to believe I was not allowed to purchase something or that I was trying to buy an item that might be dangerous. Or they were trying to help me save money. I'm not really sure, but man they were trying to tell me something and no amount of gesturing could properly communicate the idea. They were definitely trying to be helpful though.
The experience is kind of like shopping in the "ethnic" or "gourmet" foods aisle in any US grocery store, but in this case it was the whole store. I can easily buy soy sauce in NYC not only because there is English on the bottle, but there's usually only 4 different brands and they're all next to one another. As far as I could tell, there were maybe 400 different kinds of soy sauce yesterday and they were all over the place, organized in little groups here and there. Or those might have been bottles of something else. Basically, I still don't have any soy sauce.
The strangest thing at E-Mart, and maybe at any grocery store I've ever been in, has to be the neat stacks of lettuce and greens. And by stacks I mean the leaves were cut and stacked in nice little piles that were overseen by an attendant. If you wanted any, you had to go through her. I would've taken a picture of it, but since they had already stopped me from taking a picture of the coin deposit shopping carts, I figured photographing things actually in the store wouldn't be kosher.
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We read in the culture books that the Koreans really like babies. After a few days here I know for certain that REALLY, REALLY like K. She draws so much attention, from nearly everyone on the street. Old, young, male, female, rich, poor, doesn't matter. They all seem to adore her with a vigor that is pretty overwhelming. She's fawned over and touched a lot. People have taken her picture. It's...I'm not sure what. I don't want her to feel objectified, but it is nice that people are so interested and friendly. She is such a charming girl after all.
During this shot there were four schoolgirls behind me waving to her, laughing, and talking about her.
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The political situation here is hard to get a bead on. The news doesn't appear too good, what with North Korea testing more nukes and the former president committing suicide. It's been a pretty tense couple days here in the SK. Unfortunately, our hotel is in a fairly boring part of town and we aren't much able to interact much with the locals, so it's hard to know how anyone here truly feels about it.
At least I can figure out how they feel about President Obama:
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Finally got some exploring of the neighborhood in today and I know one thing for certain: my widest wide angle lenses may not be enough. There's so much thick detail, but very little way to isolate anything. The 20mm end of my 20-35 has already gotten a work out on my SLR, but my 35mm on my rangefinder was useless to me today. I think I'll be lugging the 12mm around more tomorrow. And don't even ask about the poor little G9. Good as it is, it's overwhelmed by this place. Example:
While this isn't the most interesting view (out our hotel window), there's more available than what the G9 can do. There was a nice haze in the distance with the mountain and some notable features of the small buildings below. Alas, just can't fit it all in. I'd get a wide angle adapter, but that's just blah.
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I'd intended to write about the vast markets K and I toured today and the endless amounts of things one could get, but the jet lag is doing me in. Read it tomorrow.
OF COURSE they all love K. She's the best baby there is.
That Obama picture almost made me spit my coffee all over the screen of my laptop. What IS that?
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As far as I could tell, it was a sports store that also sold supplements. I think they were trying to say "take our supplements and become big and strong like Obama." Although, I think Obama actually only weighs like a buck sixty, so illustrating him as muscle bound is probably more of a selling point.
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Oh, and A, you should read the words on the marquis over the entrance to the hotel (in the pic with K). I know you like words in your pictures, so I took this just for you.
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Don't worry--I noticed. It does seem odd that they're in English, though. Kind of stretches your credibility being in a foreign country and everything.
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All I know is that I'm still waiting for the fantasy AND the romanticism.
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