costco: the korean battle field.

refering to my last post, i really like the way matt put it in his comment: that, regardless of the language we speak or the country we are in or our belief or non-belief, humans are created in the image of God, and we should treat them as so. the way we treat other human beings should reflect that. and so often it doesn't!

My weekend was very Korea-esque. On Saturday afternoon, Hannah, Raquel and I headed into the city to meet their friend Shane for some Indian food. it was the most fabulous indian place i've every been to i think! even better than our favorite place right off devon ave in the indian neighborhood. (ah, chicago...) it was in this random alley, tucked away on the second floor of this random building, and i will definetely be going back. yum. and then we headed to Myeongdong and went strolling through all of the busy shopping markets, which i love! outdoor and indoo, clothes and jewelry and scarfs and shoes and bags and coffee and it made me feel much more oriented in this massive city. (i found out this weekend--22 million people here in the greater seoul area!) we then headed to our friends' place who live in an apartment on the 28th floor in a building right in the middle of the city and watched, through their wall-sized window, the yearly korean tradition of the fireworks competition. what, a fireworks competition? yes, a fireworks competition. i've never heard of that either. korea vs. america vs. japan. each country got a portion of time to show their tricks and amaze the audience. it lasted nearly 2 hours! i'm not sure if there was a winner (in my opinion, it's not a competition if there's no winner at the end...), and i don't mean to be un-patriotic, but if i would have to choose, my "most-spectacular-fireworks-show award" would have to be presented to korea. i've never seen fireworks done so artistically and beautifully. usually fireworks seems to be about big bangs and as big and colorful and impressive as possible. but korea's were very subtle and technical and almost mesmorizing. it was an experience.



sunday we headed back to their apartment and had home church, which is esentially a group of friends who listen to a sermon, watch a movie, sing a little, pray, fellowship, etc. after going for lunch, i headed to costco, about a 45 minute bus and cab ride from my place in ilsan. so i followed the directions from hannah and raquel and geared up for my first costco experience in korea. i got as close as public transportation will get and tried to find a cab driver who knew where costco was. after many MANY rounds of opening the door, saying "Costco? cost-co." c-o-s-t-c-o" and them saying "ne ne ne ne" (yes yes yes yes) and me getting in, happy to find a driver who knew where he was going and then having them take off, turn right when i knew we had to turn left and scratching their head and saying, "mmmm, costco? costco? mmmmm..." and me screaming "so you DON'T know??? do you know where we're going or not? where are you taking me???" and them yelling something in korean and both of us turning red from frustration and me turning more red b/c the cab drivers here pretend to know where they're going and then have no idea and me yelling "aneyo aneyo aneyo" (no no no) and finally getting them to stop and storming out refusing to pay, I finally found a driver who didn't know where he was going but somehow stumbled upon it anyway. so i got out, locked up my GIANT hiking backpack in a locker that was too small (you can't take bags into the store with you), grabbed a shopping cart, and faced my next obstacle: korean shopping on sunday afternoons. it honestly took every oune of the patience i had left to get through my first costco experience. there was a line-up 10 minutes long to go down the escalator thing with your cart to get to the food section downstairs, and once down there, it took me nearly 10 minutes just to get up or down each aisle. and in korea, people are not polite about crowds. there is no "excuse me, may i get through?" or "i'm sorry, did i bump you?" no no no, it is each man for himself. shoving, bumping, banging into my cart over and over again as a way of telling me "move, i'm trying to get through." there was much glaring, many clearly noticeable sighs of annoyance, and even a few disgruntle words of immense hatred that i'm hoping they didn't understand(or am i?) coming from yours truly.

after fighting through world war 3, i finally made it to the register with excitment oozing through me from finding frozen blueberries, boneless skinless chicken breast, american granola bars, 100% cranberry-grape juice, frozen gaucamole!!!, and the list could go on. and the list did go--so long in fact, that i didn't take enough cash in with me to buy half of what i had put in my cart. you can imagine the anger of all the people in the line behind me when i had to take half of my order off and start over. but, sigh, i was finished. so i thought. i finally got up the escalator after waiting another 10 minutes in line with my cart full of food, headed to my locker, pulled out my giant backpack, and started loading up. i barely BARELY squeezed it all in there, and quite litearlly had to lay on the floor in order to get the bag on my back. hobble hobble hobble, get a cab, more frustrating communication, drops me off a 10 minute walk from where he was supposed to, hobble hobble hobble, wait for a bus, climb on the bus with 4 people helping me lift my bag up the stairs, standing room only, 30 minute bus ride home, barely roll my bag off the bus before the doors close on it and it takes off with all my goods, lay down on top of my backpack to get the straps in, heave myself up, hobble hobble hobble, break, breathe, rub my back, hobble hobble hobble, into my apartment building, up the stairs, into my apartment...

i felt and still feel like i had just single handedly moved a house on my back from china to norway. can you imagine if i HAD had enough money to buy all i wanted to? a scary thought.