eel fishing!

The following post was taken from an email I sent to my friends, so I figured it was still good, interesting, blog-worthy info, so I am posting here. And then I added more at the end of more recent things... It may be repetetive, but oh well. Also, sorry for the lazy grammar errors and random korean symbols...still getting used to this keyboard.



The fashion is crazy here, its so crazy.and its soooooo cheap...tons of cool stands on teh sreets and little shops selling the long shirts and just cool shirts and skirts for usually about 5 or 6 thousand won...(about $5 or 6)..sometimes 3 and sometiems 10. long tshirts are super popular here, with completely random designs or words (usually in english, ive seen french and german too) on them, usually with incorrect grammar or just completely random words strung in a line as if to be a sentence. long and really baggy is also in, so that some girls where their shirts to their knees with skninny jeans, looks really cute. yesterday mong and i went to a big shoping spot, hap-seong dong, which is under the streets...like a little mall, but all self owned stores. that means you can bargain:) i got a really cute pair or sandles there last week. and yesterday we went on a mission to find a cool pair of jeans. first we went to an outdoor market...same little self owned shops but outdoors and just a couiple blocks from the apartment, also near the huge fish market. i think i probably tried on 7 pairs there and then at hapseong dong i tried on another 8 till a pair fit. the korean girls who are sellin are so kind---they always offered a size or 2 smaller but they failed to see that im not korean and i hip/buttless...so i always ended up havng to call ㅡㅐㅜㅎ (oops) mong and tlell him to get another. another thing i have noticed is that most korean women wear heals, as i mentioned earlier. i dont know how they do it. especially since a lot of the sidewalks are not even concrete and are kinda like cobblestone but asian style cobblestone i guess. there are a lot of side venders ...who often come out at nighttime to sell their stuff near the bars and night life place. they sell random things from hair clips to belts and sunglasses, to melons and dried fish. especiialy when you get near the fish market, where there arent actually many bars, ㄷ people still sell fish till at least midnight, as thats when we walked home tonite and they were still open. 소

The fish market in masan (and pretty much all fish/veggie/fruit martkets) is made of of wooden boards, boxes, and hanging plastic tarps and sheets, with each vendor a little section, with haphazardous roofs. u walk by and every one of them says something, mong said they say fresh cheap fish fresh cheap, you want to sample? some of the ones that dont have a section under the roofs just plop down on the corner with a little cart and ever so few vegetables so perfectly arranged around them selling them on the street, its so cool. You can tell they probably grow these veggies in their own garden because tey might have 25 tomatoes, 10 cucumbers, a couple bowls of moutain rasberries (one of the best fruits i have ever tasted, soooo good), 20 carrots, and maybe a few onions or some garlic. AND everything is covered in dirt, with some roots and leaves still attached. Other venders with larger amounts of them probably buy from somewhere, becasue they are cleaner and often have little ties around bundles of veggies.

most koreans over 20 and under 10 dont speak english, or if they cabn, it is one of these words: hi, nice to meet you, hello, i love you, you like soju?(soju is korean alcohol), korea, you like?, no, yes, welcome. thats about it. the little kids are the cutest because they start learning english at either 7 or 13 (about) and so the ones that know it will randomly see me and yell ou HI or "NICe toh meet youh" (kroean accent there) and then run away snickering. or they will just see me walking by and just say hi and then pretend they know no more. i have only seen about 20 nonasians, so i guess blond hair and blyue eyes is kinda an anomaly. The other day we were walking down a street and a group of girls, probably 15 or so, were sitting in the window of a restaurant and one looked at me, turne and told her friends, then they all peared out the window, saw me look up and turned their heads, then i looked up and waved and they all looked surprised and happy and started giggling. or if i speak somethig in korean, bow, or show some kinf of korean respect (like when u drink something, [mostly just with alcohol, but if u want to show a lot of respect, with regular drinks too] with people older than u, u have to turn your head when you drink it or when theyre pouring it, u must hold the cup in two hands, same if u are pouring).

They dont use shower curtains so the floor gets wet tbut there is a drain built it. The water just gets everywhere but its the norm. They do makeup and hair and everything else in a bedroom--the bathroom is a watery place, in all homes ive visited. Although i almost slipped and knocked myself out about 6 times already. Almost all *regular* toilets have built in douche systems...ive yet to give it a shot---ive never done a douche and im a little frightened. There are about 10 buttons on the side but i have no idea what they all mean...maybe temperature, stream or spray, mist or blast?? a regular toilet is one u sit on. most public toilets are built into the ground like in italy, so u have to squat. the actual stalls are way more dirty but theya re more hygenic i spose cause i dotn touch anything. oh, and they also ahve a lack of toilet paper in bathromos, but an abundance EVERYWHEer else. they use TP for everything...in somr restaurants they have rolls hanging on the walls for people to use for anythign since they dont give napkins. just use tp.ㅠㅅ but inthe bathroom, there is only TP abuot 30% of the time because i guess they expect people to bring their own. or, there is one dispenser in front of te bathroom door and you take what u need beforehand. in office buildings the people just take their own in there.

In most restaurants you sit on the ground. There is almost always floor sitting option, except in bars or western and/or western-eatern restuarants (they call these fusion restaurants---we went to an italian korean fusion place and the spaghetti sauce consistency was that of sweet and sour sauce, as if it were made with corn starch (weird) and it was super spicy...go figure haha). Lots of food is cooked right on the table. All korean restaurants (80% of rest.'s are korean food, of course) have built in gas burners on every table...so one 4 person table has one burner, if it is longer there is another burner. if the burner isnt being used they put a cover over it.

Yesterday we went to an elementary school and Mong and I spoke to 2 5th grade classes. Just like on the streets, they were excited to see me. The entire hall was only 5th grade classes---there were 9 of them, with 35 students each. WOW. the hall has windows to the classrooms, but there is no glass, just open (because its really humid, to ventilate) and they keep the hall doors open. As we walked by, the kids started calling out hi and hello and nice to meet you and one random kid followed me down the hall asking me if i knew of some korean boxer haha. I felt like a celebrity! they get so excited if you wave or smile at them! Also, all students have to wear little rubber slippers at school so they dont scratch the wood floor, so they change into their slippers when they get to school...the boys where blue and the girls pink.

Last saturday night we went eel fishing. Mong and I and his friends, and our friend from redding who is studying in another city in korea, Joe, came down for the weekend so he came too. We drove to teh other side of the bay, and basically you fish off the street. I was surprised people caught any because there were cars parked front to back along the water on the side of the street for about one or two miles. So there was one person fishing at least every 50 feet or less. then they just plop down between cars and have a picnic. All koreans have portable gas burners (super cool) so most families or groups of people there had a burner and were cooking something in it. we made korean style ramen noodles and fished. You dont need a lisence and we fished with worms. you just cast and let it sit and then after 5 or ten minutes, pull it in, or drag slow if u want. On one reel-in I snagged an eel, and 2 starfish. Maybe thats why they are all plastered to the ground dry and dead--starfish eats the worm and sticks itself to the line and the hook and then it gets reeled in. We kept 5 or so eels then when we got back mong's dad looked at them and put them in the compost. they were too small ...not worth it I spose. oh well...now we know what size we need for nezt time. okee,....my hands hurt, im going to sleep....