Afrikaans and DVD방s

It was raining when I woke up this morning. It was also already 11:00am when I woke up, meaning that I was late to church! But I'm glad I decided to go anyway, one hour late as I'd be, because Elani had mentioned that her birthday is today and she wanted to go out to lunch with friends from church.

Due to the rain and its associated problems (I couldn't find my 우산 (umbrella), there was a lot of 교통 (traffic), the bus driver was, as usual, insane and pulled into the wrong lane to make a left turn rather than wait for the light, etc.), I arrived at church at around noon. I was just in time to catch the last fifteen minutes of the strangest sermon I've ever heard. But anyway...

After church, Elani and the cohort of South African expats that I've been hanging out with went to her favorite eatery in Changwon, which was a burger joint! It's called Sangnam Burger, in 상남동 (the Sangnam-dong neighborhood). I was hesitant at first, because I don't know if I want to get into "fast food" at all while in Korea. But I couldn't have under-estimated the quality of these burgers more. My burger was small, but made with love, and had some magical sweet sauce on it that made every bite absolutely amazing. With the meal set came crispy fries and a soda that I decided not to drink. All of it was less than $4.50; a good deal in my book. Service was slow; there's only one guy working there, but he makes each burger, as I said, with love. It shows! Super-맛있어요! I'll be back soon to try their potato burger, tonkatsu burger, and more.

Sangnam Burger! Though small, it was the best burger I've had in a long time, which includes the two years during which I didn't eat any meat at all.

During lunch, I realized that I was the only American sitting at a table with five South Africans. I decided that it might do me good to learn a bit of Afrikaans! Though most all South Africans can speak English fluently, the portion of the population with Dutch ancestry speaks Afrikaans, as well. It could be loosely described as a mix of Dutch and English. "Hallo, hoe gaan dit met jou? Ek is goed, baie dankie!" It was fun; looks like I might be dabbling in more than just Korean while I'm here!

Then, the group joined up with some Americans and we went to a DVD방 together. A "DVD room" seems to be a Korea-specific or Asia-specific thing. Similar to the 노래방 ("singing rooms") that are plentiful all over the country, a DVD방 is like a mini-cinema with hundreds of DVDs, where you can hang out with friends in a comfortable private room to watch any movie you choose on a huge screen! The selection was vast, with lots of recent American titles as well as Korean and other Asian movies. For our group of eight, the price came out to 4,000 Won each. 와우! That was cheaper than my lunch!

Church friends having a movie afternoon! I admit the photo's of pretty poor quality, but I took it on my phone (and I've only just figured out how to transfer photos from phone to computer via Google+).

We decided to watch a movie that Elani really likes, called We Bought A Zoo (2011), starring Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson. I'd never even heard of it before, but it was a good movie! The cinematography in particular was just beautiful, and the soundtrack (composed by Jónsi!) was fantastic.

I'm pleased that I've found two great new things in Changwon: burgers and DVD방s! As they say in Korean: 짱! And as they say in Afrikaans: Lekker!

Bread with Ice Cream

Let it be duly noted: Changwon bus drivers have insane road rage.

So, my good college friend Sung Min came to visit! He is originally from Daegu, and went to high school and college in the States. Since he only has a few days left in Korea before going back to the US to study, he hopped on a southbound train and came to Changwon!

"Downtown" Changwon, the Sangnam area. It's fairly lively! Nothing compared to a big city, though.

At 할매 낙지 for dinner!

After introducing him to my host family and catching up, we bussed to Changwon's 시내 (shinae, or downtown), although to be honest there isn't much there. It took us maybe twenty minutes to walk around the entirety of the few blocks. The district is called 상남동 (Sangnam-dong), and it along with 중앙동 (Jungang-dong) are what seem to be the nightlife-oriented areas in town.

To that end, there are plenty of bars (술집; suljip) and restaurants, more than a few 노래방, at least one club, and lots of people walking or wandering around. There are also three huge department stores (E-mart, Lotte-mart, and Lotte Department Store) and a movie theater that are open pretty late. Ooh, and apparently there is a dog cafe and a cat cafe! (Confused? Read here.)

Sangnam and Jungang are pretty small, but since this was only my first time visiting, I still have some exploring to do! I want to check out the traditional market (시장, shijang) and the secondhand store (who knows what crazy stuff I might find?).

Sung Min and I ate dinner at a place called 할매 낙지. 할매 (halmae) is roughly equivalent to "Granny" in English, and 낙지 (nakji) is a type of small octopus that, as it turns out, is absolutely delicious if you stew it with 불고기 (bulgogi) and tons of onions. So, Granny's little octopi made for a great meal. Haha, what a weird sentence. No but really, it was 맛있어요 (mashisseoyo)! And only 7,000 won (less than $7) per person.

불낙 (bulnak), which is bulgogi + nakji. Mmm, look, you can see little suction cups. Haha.

After dinner, shopping for some workout clothes and also chancing upon an awesome promotional sale being held outside the Lotte 백화점 (baekhwajeom, department store) and picking up some more teaching clothes, we went hunting for dessert. In the department store, there was an Angel-in-us Coffee, which is just one of many, many new coffeeshop chains popping up all over the country. There, we indulged in something called "Maple Ice Cream Bread".

It is literally two slices of white bread (the fluffy Korean kind, though), flavored with maple and served a la mode like a slice of pie or something. It was bizarre. It was also delicious.

Bread with ice cream! For the noms!

It was so great to chat with Sung Min all evening about everything from future plans to Korean stereotypes to the latest news about our mutual friends. And of course, being Swatties, we had to talk about other Swatties. In fact, Sung Min is the seventh Swattie I've met in two months here in Korea! There was also Jeewon and Se Eun, Melinda, and Hae-in and Jung Hyun and one of their friends.

Ah... I've just realized that I never finished my Seoul weekend series. The last two posts were supposed to be about spending Sunday afternoon with Hae-in and Jung Hyun and the KLCC graduation ceremony. Well, I'll do that later. I think what I originally wanted to talk about in this post was about how crazy Changwon bus drivers are, and I got way off topic thanks to maple ice cream bread and the like.

In any case, it's just that I took the city buses four times on Sunday, and each time the drivers seemed to become progressively more reckless. In the morning, on the way to church, I noticed that the bus was taking pretty fast turns; on the way back, careening around the giant roundabout in the middle of the town nearly knocked me off my feet. That evening, when I was riding with Sung Min, we both realized that our driver was going at least 15mph over the speed limit, as if he were racing to get to each stop. At night, this became almost terrifying because our driver would honk at anything in the way and ruthlessly cut in front of other vehicles; at one point we narrowly missed hitting another bus!

I speculated that our driver just really wanted to finish his shift and go home. I couldn't speculate more because I was actually a little dizzy by the time I got off the bus.

Well, it's either get a Nubija pass, buy a bicycle, or embrace the adventure of mad bus drivers for a year... I want to see more of downtown Changwon; I guess I'll just have to risk my life to do so!