Having a Ball

Matt was lucky enough to have a five day weekend because of a school birthday in the same week as Korean Memorial day. So, I enjoyed having a roommate for five days during the first weekend in June. We started off Matt's five-day weekend at his first baseball game. We watched the LG Twins. The fans seemed to be sporadic in cheering, mostly checking their smart phones until something major happened, such as a hit, or more likely, a "base on balls" (a walk). In fact, they seemed to consume so much energy cheering at the walks that when the Twins won, fans let out a small cheer and quickly vacated the stadium leaving Matt and I to take our victory photos in peace.

The next day, Matt finally convinced me to go to the amusement park, Lotte World. It is a rip off of Disney Land in miniature (even the sign has the Disney castle on it). You will find that the Adventures of Sinbad ride resembles a much shorter version of Pirates of the Caribbean and that The Pharaoh's Revenge is a minute version of Indiana Jones, to name a couple of examples. However, unlike Disney Land, Lotte World sits on the third floor of a Lotte shopping mall, with most of the rides inside (including a roller coaster). The rest of the rides are located outside on a small island. The theme is supposedly a "medieval European village," and there are a couple of timber-framed buildings, a couple of fairy-tale castles, and a random mural of Spanish dancers in the bathroom, but mainly the theme is Ottoman or Persian with some 18th Century pirates thrown in along with the park mascot, which is some kind of raccoon. But like a good theme park, it feels as if you stepped off of the escalator into some fairy-tale book and it isn't hard to have fun. I really did enjoy myself, despite getting sick. And the fact that I just cannot do the high/fast rides, which puts quite a limit on my entertainment. Also the lines were about half an hour to fifty minutes long for such short rides. But like I said, it was fun! I also introduced Matt to the temporary healing wonders of Taco Bell.

Lotte World--photo by Matt

I went to work on Monday and Tuesday, while Matt ran errands around Seoul. He also found time to straighten the apartment, do the dishes,  and do some chores I had been procrastinating. It was so lovely to come home to a friend and a clean  place (thanks, Matt!). We spent the evenings wandering the city and playing Yahtzee.

By Thursday I was so sick that I finally went to the doctor. The Dr, convinced of a burst appendix, rushed me to X-rays and an intensive ultrasound,  only to discover that "Korea is stressful" for me and that I cannot eat the food here (duh on the food part).  So now I am on a strict diet of fruits and vegetables--so basically, bananas, tiny yellow melons, pineapple, green peppers. and cabbage. These are the only Carmen-friendly foods I am willing to pay for as cherries are over $10 for less than half a pound,  package of ten kiwis are $20,   watermelon is over $18, and green beans are $1 per bean, asparagus (very large and woody) is about $2 per stalk, and cauliflower and broccoli always seem to be mushy.

Matt came back on Friday, and we spent the weekend wandering around streets we had never explored and re-discovering the traditional market near my apartment. While wandering around the market, we discovered an adorably friendly, blue-eyed kitten. And because we spent so much time playing with the kitten in front of the nut-stall, we had to purchase some sunflower hearts from the stall-owner. We finally moved away from the cat to explore the Chinese medicine stalls, buckets of live turtles next to jumping eels, and Styrofoam coolers brimming with chicken feet lying next to hundreds of fly buzzing, skinned chickens lying under sun-beaten tarps. Luckily the smell of salted fish and steaming chickens was partially covered by hunch-backed ajumas peeling garlic amongst a mountain range of the reeking bulbs (impossible to capture on camera because of the sheer size of these piles in the tiny area and the fact that whole office spaces are buried in garlic).

We finished off the weekend with our first 4D movie. 4D, for those of you who do not know, is a 3D movie with moving seats, air bursts, water sprays, and light effects. Light effects were good and the moving seats, but the water was quite annoying as was the air bursts. However, when the alien jumped out at the movie star at the same time as the air hose whipped my leg quite painfully, I thought for sure an alien had bit me. I kicked my shoes, threw my 3D glasses, screeched, flew over the armrest, and landed in Matt's lap trying to save myself. It was quite embarrassing.