Yesterday U-rim had a day off (as did I), so we got to spend the entire day together. Woohoo! So we started off the day with some lunch at home (U-rim is of the “early to bed, late to rise” school of thought on her day off), a watched some god awful movie called, Thrillseekers.
After lunch, we headed out to get my new phone turned on. When my boss departed for America, she gave…or sold her old phone to me. The phone is a lot higher quality then my old phone (it actually rings when I get calls), so we headed to the phone company to get my phone number switched over. While we were in the process, I thought it would be more outstanding if instead of the crappy prepaid phone service I had (I had to go to the phone company and give them about $10 every time I wanted to be able to make 30 minutes worth of phone calls), I could recieve an actual phonebill. First there was some crap about me being a foreigner and it being unacceptable to give me actual phone service, so U-rim told them that we were engaged, so they allowed her to co-sign for my phone…like it was some kind of car loan. After that I had to get a new phone number, since my previous phone number is for prepaid phone accounts only. So now I have two cellphones and two cellphone numbers, damn I’m such a playboy now.
After fixing my phone U-rim and I went shopping for U-rim’s birthday present(s). She wanted a black skirt so we went to like 90 different shops attempting to find a black skirt. You’d think a black skirt would be easy to find…like a white t-shirt or something, but it took forever to find said skirt. I didn’t really mind, since while U-rim was trying on various skirts, shoes, and shirts, and browsing through clothing racks, I was having conversations with the sales clerks in Korean about really bizarre stuff.
Fur (and fake fur) are really popular here right now, so a popular question yesterday was, “무슨 털 입니까? (Musun tol imnika?)” which is something like “What kind of fur / body hair is this?” since in Korean the words for body hair and fur are the same. So they would answer random animals, or tell me it was fake, which would prompt me to ask follow up questions. For example (translated from Korean):
ME: What kind of fur is this?
SHOPKEEPER: It’s goat fur.
ME: (In my most indignant and outraged voice) Goat fur? Goat’s don’t have spots!
SHOPKEEPER: (laughs)
ME: I mean is it some kind of leopard goat or something like that?
U-RIM: (in English)Shut up…
So I repeated this in serveral shops…or I asked them where “man skirts” where located, since recently on a fashion show (or in a magazine) here, I saw said items. However, no shops here in Shinchon or Ewha for that matter carry said items.
After shopping for a black skirt (which netted a shirt, a sweater, a pair of high heels, and a black skirt), we had some 칼국수 (kalguksu) for dinner, and then headed home where we had some brews and watched some bloppers show on TV. In all not a bad day.
Now for all of you back in English speaking lands (or those of you here, I’m going to give you a couple useful shopping phrases and expressions that you won’t find in a Korean phrase book.
무슨 털 입니까? (Musun tol imnika?) - What kind of fur is this?
남자치마 있어요? (Namja chima issoyo?) - Do you have man skirts?
가죽팬티 어디 있어요? (Kajuk penti odi issoyo?) - Where are the leather panties?
Ah one other thing. While we were shopping at one of the large department stores here in Korea, some sales clerks were next to us on the escaltor. They were Korean-Americans, Canadians, or something like that. Anyhow they were speaking English to each other, when one of the girls saw me she motioned to her friend and then they started speaking in Korean, which propmpted me to start speaking Korean to U-rim…the girls hearing me, went back to speaking in English.
If I end up partying too hard tonight, and don’t check back with you tomorrow, have a happy new year people.
