The Been Briefing

Shopping in Korea

me, mrs. jung, esther at dongdaemun

Last week through Saturday was busy. One day (I already forget which!) a Korean-Canadian young lady by the name of Danby came to ERC to observe my little kids' class. She was to start teaching at another ERC branch the following day and was feeling slightly ill-prepared for her task. Apparently she's here in Korea visiting her grandmother for 5 months and just wanted to pick up some money. In any case, during the course of the class, I pulled out Wendy's 5th tooth. We (Wendy and I) have been working on it every now and then for over 3 weeks.

Danby: Does this happen often?!

Me: Ha ha. Nope. This was a first for me.

Danby: Are you always so calm?

Me: Try 24 four year-olds! Also, I'm one of eight kids.

When I met her I was immediately struck by her appearance. She was what most would consider 'beautiful' and stylish. but when I made a comment at dinner to the other teachers, they all disagreed. I was surprised, thinking that surely there must be some threshold where beauty is universal. The other teachers, however, said that Danby would not be considered 'beautiful' in Korea; she is not 'cute' and there's just not that something in the atmosphere around her. Perhaps she would be considered too bold, too aggressive, to up-front. I don't know. When I thought about it later, I realized there really is a difference in Western and Korean ideas of beauty. If you look at all the advertisements around Korea "cuteness" and soft girls in breathy, pastel colors definitely dominate over the confident, bold and striking. And I realize the Korean advertisements would never cut it in the States.

Changing topics... the picture above is at dongdaemun, an all-night shopping mall in Seoul. The party starts around 10 or 11 and continues until morning. I've never seen so much traffic between 12 and 3AM in all my life!

And here's Hannah and I. Hannah is 28 years old (Korean age) and is often the one Mrs. Kim leaves in charge at school when absent. I like Hannah a lot. I'll never forget when I first met her. I found out she'd studied in California for 3 years, so I asked her if she'd liked it and if she missed anything about it. Her response: The Cheesecake Factory. lol. What a hoot!

And here I'm getting my coffee so I can stay awake for the long night of shopping. Jennie, the Australian/Korean teacher at ERC, has the camera. :) 

The six of us split into two groups; I went with Jenny and Hannah... and neither group found anything. LOL. By 3:30 we called it quits. Even though it wasn't so successful in shopping, it was a fun time with the teachers. :)

And then yesterday Laura and I went to COEX mall at Samsung station. We passed by a sign that said 'WORLD TRADE CENTER SEOUL" and we figured it was a pretty important place, so we decided it was worth a picture. It was a really fun time.

We browsed, shopped, had lunch at a fun sit-down pizza restaurant, got ice cream at Baskin Robbins, and then browsed and wandered some more. It was a really fun day, and Laura's random, hilarious stories and comments had me rolling on the subway.

There was some show happening in the outdoor part of the COEX mall when we arrived. We didn't stay to find out what it was. Laura guessed it was hardly worth the crowd it drew. And the Pringles? I have no idea. Some Western things in Korea just DON'T make sense. LOL. After COEX, I stopped by Dave and Winnie's for a few hours. I have missed them... and then today was church and Emily time. As usual, that includes much laughter, talking, coffee, and shopping. I praise God for such a friend.

So that's all. I'm off to grade papers and settle in for the night. ^^

The Lord will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy, O LORD, endures forever; Do not forsake the works of Your hands.
~ psalm 138,8