Sunday, August 12, 2007

Shopping and Staring

I still don't have internet at Peter's place, so I went into work today to use the internet and catch up. This combined with flat out laziness explains why I haven't posted in a few days. I think I've found an apartment; my biggest concern is getting all the necessary approvals (there's so many!) before the landlord backs out. It's an awesome place with a great view from the 28th floor that comes furnished. If it falls through again, I'll be homeless for at least another several weeks. I just want a place I can call home.

Friday night we had a small party at Peter's place. About 20 people showed, and at 4am the half that remained went out to a small club in Abkujeoung (the "Beverly Hills" of Seoul) which was deserted. It was lame so we stayed an hour then called it a night.

I got stared at all day Saturday. I went furniture shopping (since I need to pick up a few things if my apartment deal goes through) and then to Techno-Mart, a 10-story mall that sells nothing but electronics. The closest US equivalent I can think of is a Fry's, except an order of magnitude larger and hundreds of individually owned booths, so the prices are very competative. The whole day the only foreigner people I saw was an Indian couple. Since Seoul is so homogeneous, everybody stares.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like IDB Bawban in Dhaka. Five floors of individually owned booths selling computer stuff.

Unknown said...

Tokyo was the same in terms of how homogeneous it is. If you see a foreigner, it's usually because you're meeting up with someone. The funny thing is, after 5 years in Tokyo, I was so used to being surrounded by Japanese people that when I moved back to the States it was positively weird having all these white people around. :D

quailbot said...

Greg, I felt the same way every time I visit Hong Kong. It takes a few hours for me to adjust to the homogeneity. I wish Hong Kong and Tokyo have "American Town", like the "China Town" and "Little Italy" of NYC. Maybe they do-- I don't know.