Cool things about Korea Number 3: Teddy Bear Robots!

I just discovered these this last weekend, and I think I'm still giggling like a child.  I walked past them without giving them much thought at first, and then I was like, hang on, how do those carts move??  Well, the teddy bears walk!

I was with a bunch of other foreigners when we made the discovery, at which point we all rushed the extremely bemused guy running the show and got our very own teddy bear driven cart for 3000 won each - about $2.50.

Amid the general hilarity that ensued we quickly became aware that we were becoming quite the sensation with the locals.  We learned after that the carts were only meant for children, so the sight of several fully grown foreigners merrily going round and round in these kiddy mobiles had a lot of people laughing and taking photos of us with their smartphones.  Luckily I'm pretty used to being a 'celebrity' now, so having my photo taken by lots of strangers was fairly run of the mill :-)

So yes, teddy bear robots, cool!

Cool things about Korea, Number 2

Coming up with number two was really tough, not for lack of subject material but just 'cause there's too many choices. I decided to make the choice easier by having this week's topic relate to last week's (yes, my definition of 'week' is a little flexible). So, cool thing about Korea number two? Korean movies. There's actually a term for them - Hallyuwood. It's not just a Hollywood reference; Hallyu refers to Korean wave, the idea of Korean culture spreading around the world. And ah, yes, 'wood' refers to Hollywood. The cool thing is that Korea is one of the few countries in the world where they watch more domestically produced movies than imported (i.e. American) movies. And I can see why, as a lot of them are very very good. I do have to add an aside here however; I began my Korean movie experience by googling top ten lists of best movies, so I had some idea of what to look up first. The result is that I had this incredibly skewed idea of all Korean movies being unbelievably fantastic. It's kind of like if someone googled Hollywood and then watched The Godfather, Shawshank Redemption, and then maybe Casablanca or something. They'd think that all Hollywood movies were awesome right? Well I had a similar thing with Korean movies until a string of simply awful movies convinced me that unfortunately I'd started at the top and was working down. But there are still some crazy good Korean movies out there. These are my favourite three;

The Good, the bad, the weird. Yep, it's a Korean western, based back when Manchuria was ruling Korea. This movie is so much fun I've watched it twice in one month, and I'm looking forward to seeing it a third time sometime soon. Some of the jokes might not translate well if you haven't lived in Korea (for example the 'bad' guy's perfectly quaffed hair that never goes out of place despite being on horseback, riding on top of a train or whatever) but I think just about anyone will like this movie if they don't take it too seriously - and if they don't fall asleep during the horse chase at the end that seriously lasts at least 30 minutes.

Memories of Murder. This is a very different sort of movie, based on a crime back in the days before Korea got democratic. It's completely compelling, beautiful and often shocking. This would be my absolute favourite Korean movie if it wasn't so tough to watch again - plus I'm a sucker for fun popcorn fare over serious viewing any day.

Tae Guk Gi - or Brotherhood of War. I watched this last week and it totally destroyed me, as you'd probably guess from a movie based on the Korean war. It entirely revolves around two brothers who are made to join the army when Seoul is invaded by North Korea, and you follow the war through their eyes. The ending is superb, but I think I just about used up a box of tissues over it, so be warned!

There's a heap of other movies I could include here but then I'd go on forever and this would be one long never-ending post. I should mention that Koreans have no qualms about sad endings - it's enough to make me run screaming back to Hollywood in search of a cheesy happy ending every now and again. Oh and they're doing a Hollywood remake (of course) of one of the most popular movies here, Oldboy, so I'll be interested to see how that turns out. Dare I say I think it's too twisted for American audiences? When I said this to my Korean-American friend he was a little insulted, but I couldn't work out if I'd insulted his Korean or his American side... Anyway; Korean movies! Awesome!

Blatantly stealing other people's ideas.

It's probably become rather obvious at this point that I have run out of ideas for this blog; the drawback of living in one place for two years is that everything that was once new and exciting becomes mundane and boring. I'm fairly sure nobody wants to hear about my Friday night spent on the couch watching Alcatraz. On the other hand there are still heaps of cool things about Korea that I haven't posted on here, things that I have grown to take for granted and will probably miss when I leave. So I've decided to steal someone's else's idea for a blog post, and yep, it's called

Cool Things About Korea

No 1. Vibrating chairs in movie cinemas. I actually only just experienced this on Saturday, when I watched Chronicle at the movies here (ahem, side note; I really liked it, but then it appears that pubescent boy humor strangely appeals to me, possibly because it's a step up from the pre-pubescent boy humor that I have to deal with at work). At first I was a little bemused at paying an extra thousand won for the experience (about 80 cents), but then I quickly decided I was a fan. There's a whole minefield of sexual innuendo here that I'm going to try to avoid as I explain why. Mostly it's just the big bang moments that your chair vibrates at, so it's not like you're in a non-stop vibrating chair. There was a scene where they were in a rave, and my chair was going off like crazy, and then they suddenly switched to being outside and my chair stopped accordingly, and I actually had that kind of numb feeling that you get when you leave a really loud club. It was pretty cool too when you've got gradually increasing music and tension building and your chair is keeping pace with it. So despite being slightly disconcerted at first by my vibrating chair (and feeling like I should be someplace private for the experience), I'm now looking forward to seeing the Avengers in 4D :-)

So that's the first in my 'cool things about Korea' series; I will endeavour to post number 2 next week, and not six months from now. :-)

Going to the dentist in Korea

Since getting back to Korea I seem to be doing everything that I was too scared to do in my first year in Korea, most notably a trip to the dentist. To be fair, a trip to the dentist is scary at any time, particularly so in my case as it had been 9 years since my last visit. Why so long? Because I knew it was going to involve a lot of pain and money, and I'm a big believer in 'if I ignore it maybe it will go away". It didn't, as these things tend not to, so when I happened to walk past a door saying 'International Dentist' I decided it was too good to ignore. Because of course, in Korea there's the whole language thing, which I can normally bluff my way through with a somewhat dignified rendition of charades, but I thought this would be a little more difficult from a dentist's chair - although 'ow' seems to be fairly universal as it turns out.

First, let me just mention the waiting room, which is pretty much how I imagine a little waiting room somewhere in Buckingham Palace. There are three chandeliers, in a room about the size of the Library conference room, in addition to two sets of Victorian era tables and chairs, oriental rugs on the floor, and legitimately nice paintings on the wall. When you get further in it turns into something that resembles a very modern hotel, all glass and marble and statues and flowers. For some reason only women seem to work there - I've met about 6 different dentists so far, and not a single one has been a man.

None of this makes the actual dental procedures any better unfortunately - oh and by the way, you know it's bad when a dentist looks in your mouth for the first time and gasps. So it turns out that I am in need of four - four - tooth extractions, two of which will need to be replaced with implants, one root canal and crown, plus several more minor treatments. The amazing thing? The total bill is coming in under $2000. They keep apologizing for how expensive it is, and asking if I'm sure I don't want to get it done in Australia. I try not to let on just how much money I'm saving and demur vaguely.

So despite the fact that I am now booked in for a weekly trip to the dentist from now until I leave in February pretty much, I'm feeling pretty happy about my Korean dental experience :-)

Quickest Visit Ever

So I've been back for a week now from what felt like the quickest visit home ever, probably because I crammed so much into the space of 2 weeks. It felt really strange at first to be back in Australia - everyone was speaking English! And the guys at Customs all had Aussie accents! I couldn't hear it on anyone else after getting through Customs so I'm assuming that my ability to hear an Aussie accent wore off very quickly, or else Customs guys are employed solely on the basis of their over-accented way of speaking. I swear all the girls were blonde and buxom too... Anyway, it was great to be back in Australia; the first thing I did (seriously, even before getting to my friend's place) was go to a supermarket and stare at all the people and revel in the fact that I didn't stand out - aside from being the freak staring and grinning at everybody anyway. Of course the second thing I did was have a beer, and that was pretty nice too.

I thought it would be hard coming back, but I was strangely excited when it came to it, so that was okay. Unfortunately the excitement didn't last after missing a connecting flight in Shanghai and sleeping in the airport whilst I waited for another plane - word to the wise; don't ever fly China Eastern Airways, no matter how cheap they are. They don't even have movies!

As soon as I got back into Korea I had to move apartments, so I might have to post another video soon. I really like my new apartment, even if it is much smaller. There's roughly about enough room to swing a cat if I really wanted to, so that's okay. Now I'm procrastinating doing all the study that is waiting for me...

Speaking of which, I was informed of this cool thing they do in Korea for study. Instead of studying in libraries, they pay money to study in special buildings where everyone has their own cubicle. The rules are super strict, so you have to unzip everything and open everything before you enter, so as to make as little noise as possible. And if you do happen to make a slight noise people will come and put post-it notes on your desk telling you not to do whatever activity it was that made said noise, i.e. blowing your nose, sniffing, coughing, scratching your head etc. Intense! I think I'll just study at home.

Everland

Everland

So I finally got around to visiting Korea's big theme park, Everland, a couple of weeks back, and despite my original impression that it was the perfect setting for a horror movie (think homicidal clowns and ravening oompa loompas) I have to say that it was pretty much the most fun I've had as an adult. I guess fairy floss and over sized cartoon animals never get old, but the real draw for me was the crazy rides. I made the belated discovery that I'm a huge wooss when it comes to rides (I swear I remember myself to be much braver as a kid), so I spent a lot of the time at Everland with my eyes squeezed shut and my hands in a death grip on whatever safety bar was at hand. The main event was the T-express, a great big wooden monstrosity that has the claim to fame of being the most vertical wooden roller coaster in Asia. I have to say that I was genuinely scared shitless, and I'm pretty sure I dropped the f-bomb a few times at the top of my lungs, but it was a total blast.

When we weren't on rides (or in queues for rides) my friend and I amused ourselves by counting the color coordinated couples. It's a thing here in Korea that couples will coordinate their clothing to match one another. A lot go all out and have identical outfits, right down to the shoes and socks, but others are more inventive, like the couple we saw all in black and white but with opposing items of clothing, i.e. one white hat one black hat, one white shirt one black shirt etc. I find myself completely bemused by the whole thing, as I can honestly say that it never occurred to me to match what my boyfriend was wearing, but for all you couples out there, there you go...

Everland

Everland, a photo by kirijae on Flickr.

Note the insanely scary roller coaster in the background.