Life in Korea

There are many things I am learning about Korea – here are just a few:

Road rules: as far as I can deduce, whoever is on the road makes the rules. Which, in a city of two and a half million makes for exciting driving anywhere you go! It is essentially a free-for-all, with no attention paid to road markings, give way rules, and the age-old ‘footpaths are for people’ school of thought. I think it was summed up precisely by the POE coordinator, who wrote “the main danger in Daegu comes from traffic, particularly motorbikes and scooters delivering food at break-neck speed on the sidewalk! Always keep your eyes open when walking around and, secondly, keep your taxi driver focused! Having your man turn around to you in the back to practise his English as you whiz round the schinchandero is not wise! Inform him of the turn in the road! The truck swaying into his lane! The police checkpoint! His glass of soju tipping, precarious...” and the scariest part is, it’s true.

Buses: I have discovered the ‘rapid’ bus, which leaves from near my house and goes straight to Jungangno in the city centre. As far as I can tell, the name ‘rapid’ bus comes from the nature of the driving – foot flat to the floor, hand on the horn and slamming on the brakes at the very last minute irrespective of how many little old ladies are on the bus. It seems as far as they’re concerned the more agima they can get plastered across the back seat the better. You have to just about take a running jump off the bus, as although the door opens, the bus doesn’t actually stop most of the time, it just slows down. That makes for exciting travel, particularly if you’re wearing heels and/or carrying bags! I also stand corrected when I say the bus doesn’t stop most of the time. It stops at 11pm. On the dot. Regardless of where it is. It might be half way through the bus route (and effectively the middle of nowhere as far as I am concerned as I don’t know the city at all!), and the moment the big hand hits 11, that bus stops. The driver will order everyone off and you can bloody well make your own way home from there! That’s not much fun after you’ve been in town drinking baggie drinks and you’re feeling a little tipsy, and even less fun when you forget to take your written address with you. After consulting with taxi drivers in broken Korean, English and really bad sign language you might eventually get where you want to go – if you’re lucky.

Food: amazing. I absolutely love the food here, and I can’t wait to try more of it! I’ve been getting the names of everything we have at school and writing it down so that one night when I’m too lazy to cook I can go down to one of my local takeaway stores (which are entirely Korean, no pictures or anything English) and order something. I really don’t like eating at western food places here, as it tends to be overpriced, predictable and a little bit strange. A good example of this is a place called ‘Bennigans’ in the city. It is supposedly an Irish pub in America that doesn’t serve Guinness. Go figure!

Baggie drinks: Yup, drinks in a plastic bag. The ultimate in class! They are large, hideously strong and really cheap (£2 for a massive long island iced tea/cosmo etc). They will pour the drink, pass it over and ask you to taste it and tell them if it needs more alcohol! (“Er, no thanks, I think I’ll just sit and sniff this until I pass out”). They also give you free stuff with them, like fireworks. Now that’s my kind of street stall! London, you can keep your £8 single G&Ts!

Clothing: The more English words the better, irrespective of how much sense it makes. The engrish over here is fantastic – I’m trying to write down some of my favourite ones I see around. So far these include “an oily substance” (proclamation on one of my 5th grade student’s shirts), “put on this cloth, stem boat willy” (seen on a mickey mouse tshirt in town) and a handbag shop called “the lord is my banner” (of course!).