Seoul Survivors’ podcast on how to practice “defensive walking” in Seoul. This is so true, and conveys the reality of the situation much more accurately than all my previous complaints on the subject do.
Hat tip: Lost Nomad
From the category archives:
Things I Miss About Home
Update: So, yeah, I’m an idiot. It turns out Clapton did play Seoul. Still, no John Mayer. ‘Why John? Why?’ Or am I wrong about that, too?
Original post: So, this afternoon as I was listening to my iPod on the subway, thinking how great it’d be to go see John Legend live, it hit me. Why don’t major U.S. music acts come through Seoul? Eric Clapton plays Shanghai, and John Mayer does two shows in Tokyo, but neither hits the mega-metropolis a mere two-hour flight from both.
It’s not like we don’t have a sizeable expat population and fan-base. I would think there’d be more Clapton fans here than in Shanghai. (And, I do know of a few who flew over for the show.) And a lot of U.S. artists have Korean fans as well.
Maybe I’m just uninformed. I’ve never been someone who keeps up with tour schedules months in advance, and maybe I’m missing some well-known acts because of my sort of fogeyish taste in music. (Not that either of the Johns, nor Eric—well, maybe Eric—is a fogey, but Fall Out Boy they aren’t.)
I was really happy to hear about last year’s Busan International Rock Festival and the Pentaport festival. But it does seem like we’re missing something. Am I just out of the loop?
It’s strange how fast you get used to sharing the sidewalk with motorcycles and cars here.
On the up side, I realized this morning that I must be more adjusted to life in Seoul than I thought. While walking back from the YMCA I didn’t even give a second glance to the driver of the tan station wagon taking a shortcut to the convenience store halfway up the block. I just stepped aside to let him pass. The light at that intersection does take a long time to change.
Still, I miss being able to window shop without keeping one eye out for delivery guys who are running late.
As of yesterday afternoon, I am the proud owner of a snazzy new cell phone. (In Korea, they’re known as a “handphone,” the English pronunciation of the Korean word you see above.) And, I have an accompanying contract with LG Telecom for monthly service. All thanks to Jenny Oh at Jenny’s Cellular Service in Itaewon.
I realize that for readers not living as an expat in Korea, this does not sound like a big deal. Let me explain. If you live in Seoul. You need a cell phone. I’d say it comes short on the list after, say, food, shelter, and oxygen.
You do not want to get lost near Itaewon looking for your friend’s apartment without one. (I did, that’s how I know.) Almost everyone here has a 핸드폰 (or a 휴대전화 to use a more Korean, less Konglish, term). Consequently, pay phones have gone the way of dialup. People are likely to have heard of such a thing, but they’ve never actually seen one.
If you are a foreigner living in Korea, however, getting a cellphone is not as easy as you might think. Just because the websites for the big wireless providers–SK Telecom, LG, and KTF–say that they will sign up a foreigner, that doesn’t necessarily mean they will.
