Sunday, November 23, 2008- Dan Moment

It is only natural that I have a 'Dan moment', as my friends put it, at some point during my travels throughout South Korea and Asia. Only I would have hoped that these unfortunate incidences would be few and would only seem as natural and well needed moments of humility in amongst good solid adventures. However, lady luck has decided to visit me early; floating down from the heavens above, she smiled benignly and slapped me across the face (limp wristed of course). Although this story doesn't rank in the pantheon of my all time greats, it is worth retelling.

Today started off with a headache as the apartment is infested with a bad case of mold and I couldn't get to sleep any earlier than three in the morning. Being allergic to mold, I see many trips to the doctor ahead of me. But, that being said, I grabbed some Tylenol an ran to meet my new friend Greg at the 'LOWTOE MARKETA' (a very cool huge super store/huge grocery store and spelled for you phonetically, more on that place later in the story). We took a cab and met up with his friend Jason at a bus stop, hopped on a bus and ended up at Sangsae (something like that) station in Busan and then rode the Subway to Nampo-dong. Nampo-dong, a district of Busan, is a huge market stretching countless blocks: Small stations filled with Hello Kitty blenders, socks, ties, cheap nick-knacks, clocks, tools, lamps and old men and ladies selling their food on plastic stools crowd the narrows of Nampo-dong's alleys. These alleys are flanked by buildings which are occupied by even more vendors smiling, pointing and muttering greetings and prices. Everything can be seen, smelled and bought. Occasionally motor bikes and cars honk their way through the crowd; people move out of the way not really aware of what they are doing. After a while, you start to drift along with the crowd less aware of specifics or destinations; passively wandering from station to station.

I did buy some things. Not without regret in retrospect, but useful items nonetheless: a day bag, sandals and a shitty mick shit alarm clock (of course it doesn't work). Altogether I didn't spend that much, my funds are dwindling and I have till the tenth to survive on what I do have. I need to be more careful and do things like hike, run or take long walks. I need to stay away from monetarily draining activities.

Around four o'clock or so we decided we had had enough and hopped the Subway to the Bus station. From there it was back to Jangyu and a short cab ride later I was back at the Lowetoe Marketa. Greg took off and I thought I'd pop in to get some things for dinner. This is where my night went south. I started off by bumbling around the store with my shopping cart aimlessly looking for what I wanted to eat. I grabbed some milk, orange juice, peanut butter, jelly, bread and, since I had left over vegetables from the night before, I thought it would be a good idea to grab some meat and do a simple stir fry.

There are three things that should be known for the drama of this story to take shape: 1) The meat and fish section of the store is big, noisy and crowded, 2) None of the meat or fish is priced, which means that I have to interact with store employee's, and 3) I don't even speak functional Korean yet (I haven't even tried to study.... that changes tomorrow). Up to this point my experience at the market has been; grab things that are priced, tally said price(s) in my head, prepare cash in advance, wait in line, let them scan products into the computer, hang head down, hand them cash and say, "Gomapsumnida" and leave. The procedure is simple and has no room for major error. Interacting with the Korean public is not for amateurs and shouldn't be tried unless one has put in the hours of study. However, today I decided to get ambitious and walked up a meat vendor selling what looked to be tasty raw beef mixed with spring onions and herbs and asked, by pointing at the beef and price sign, for help. He immediately sprang into action, grabbed some beef with a plastic bag and put it on the scale. He then said something in Korean and stared at me. I said, "What?". And I immediately knew I was in trouble. He kept staring back at me. I said, "What?" and blushed. He then said, "tenty thoulanad, Kobai beeffft". I am not sure why I did this since I had NO intention of paying close to twenty bucks for a handful of beef, even if Kobe Beef, but I grabbed my wallet in my front pocket and began to pull it out. Earlier that day I had bought some Kimbop from as street vendor in Nampo-dong. She gave me the change that promptly fell out of my pocket. Some of the change hit his table and fell to the floor, rolled around and came to a stop. And some arced straight into the huge pile of very expensive meat and disappeared with a slight plop sound. Fuck.....fuckety fuck fuck. But to my surprise all the vendors at the meat counter were on the floor looking for my change and hadn't seen the very dirty coins contaminate their prized meat. I stared straight at the pile of red and white marbled beef and realized I couldn't see the coins through the sauce. I paused, probably in shock; Do I tell them or not? They handed back my change and gave me my tasty red bag. I looked at them, bobbed my head and said, "Gomapsumnida" and walked away quickly. I flirted with the idea of veering off into an isle and posting a lookout to see what happens when a Korean paying customer sees a silver five hundred won in amongst his dinner. But I wisely decided that I needed to get the hell out of there before the fireworks began.

Being as distracted as I was I didn't have an easy time checking out either. I had learned earlier in the day, that you can use your Visa card. I thought this might make it even easier to purchase things. It didn't. The man checking my food asked me several questions to which I had absolutely no answer. I just stared at him and shook my head. Koreans are notoriously impatient and the line behind me started to mutter. Eventually he gave up and finished me up. I grabbed my shit, shoved it in a bag and took off. Prematurely that is. I apparently left four things on his counter and was half way to the door before he caught up to me. The walk of shame back to the checkout line to gather my missing items was VERY uncomfortable. The disgusted Korean gaze is powerful. blech.

I start me second school week tomorrow. Yippy.