Before I get too carried away with the complexities of life today, I wanted to send a lil' shout out to ma gurl Alissa. It's her birthday. I've known Alissa since her rowdy college days when she would try to pick up boys from Facebook and yell a lot. Now that she's happily in a relationship again, I think she's stopped doing one of those things. When I think of Alissa, I think of her strong personality, her love of photography, and her nursing career. And usually I imagine her wearing her Doc Martens (the black and white ones). Anyway, it's her birthday today. If you see her, tell her I said, "Shut up." And then when she either laughs or starts pouting say, "And happy birthday." But not before saying, "shut up." That is essential to the joke, see? I can't count on you for anything, can I?I really don't have much else to say, but I'm going to try anyway.
And fifteen minutes later I still hadn't typed anything. Ok, so I'm going to Seoul this weekend. Should be a good time, I think. I'm kind of aimless when it comes to reasons why I'm going, but I told some folks I would, so I am. The Seoul Metropolitan Area is a funny place. I don't consider it real Korea. The people who live there are stuck in a bubble that reminds them via loudspeaker, "Seoul is the best place in Korea. You never need to leave," maybe once every three minutes or so. As such a place allows, they can survive without even knowing how to read Hangeul. This is a little bit appalling to me. Despite this and the fact that they almost never leave the Seoul area (some of them never do), they're still good folks and I enjoy their company. It may be just the areas that I've visited in Seoul, but there sure are a lot of foreign people and a lot of English speaking.
I'm not sure if I'm genuinely upset about this or just slightly green with envy. I suppose if I arrived and lived in Seoul and never lived in Daegu, I'd probably feel that all there was to Korea was in the Seoul area, too. After all, everything you'd ever need is there. All the Western comforts, many of the cultural heritage sites, etc. Plus, depending on where you live, the infrastructure can make it very difficult to leave Seoul. Living in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world means it can literally take hours to get somewhere else in town. That would definitely be a turn off to traveling outside of Seoul if you had to take a two hour bus ride to even get to the train station to then travel somewhere else. So, it's kind of a paradox, but I do still think that there are many lazy foreigners living in Seoul who buy into that whole "trendy" scene. They dabble somewhere exotic, but certainly don't live the Korean experience. I'm not saying I'm worldly by any means, but I don't think one who lives in Seoul for a year after college can call themselves worldly, either. But there are those who do. I'm just saying. It's like going to Paris for a week and saying you've seen France.
On the other, more positive hand, Seoul is a good, fun city with a lot to do. Hence why I'm taking my third trip there in as many months. I'll let you know how it goes. Ciao!
No comments:
Post a Comment