![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/IMG_5084-e1595818883310.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The following is more or less going to be a list of random observations I made while in Korea that didn\u2019t really fit into the mold of any one chunk of posts.\u00a0 That being said, it\u2019s also indicative that I\u2019m pretty much at the end of the rope when it comes to writing about my experiences in Korea.<\/span><\/p>\n Internet is as good as you\u2019ve probably heard<\/strong>: When you use the internet in Korea, coming back to America and using my Comcast \u201chigh-speed\u201d service that I pay a premium penny for on a monthly basis feels like going from a jet to a Ford Festiva.\u00a0 Wi-fi, at a public hotel, with many users concurrently connected, was still pulling 60 down and 60 up, speeds that rival my own private connection, hard-wired.\u00a0 And it was like that everywhere I went; I know, because out of curiosity, I was running the SpeedTest app just to see how good Korean internet speeds were.<\/span><\/p>\n Cabs are dirt cheap<\/strong>.\u00a0 I was often doing math in my head while in Korea in regards to trying to find the USD equivalent of everything I was spending.\u00a0 It\u2019s easiest to round up or down, to where it\u2019s a 1 to 1,000 when converting a dollar to Korean Won, so basically chopping off the last three digits was the easiest to rationalize the dollar amount of things.\u00a0 I rode in a lot of cabs, because after the amount I was walking, sometimes I just didn\u2019t want to hoof it for more miles to get to the nearest train station.\u00a0 But whereas in the States, a cab ride for just a few blocks easily ticks its way to $10 and up, I was baffled to see how often times a cab ride for a considerable distance, often started at roughly $3, and only once did I spend more than $10 on a cab ride, and that was a good distance.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Buses are even cheaper<\/strong>.\u00a0 When I was exploring the idea of separating from the tour group so that I could see to my own personal interests in Busan, I had to figure out how to get from Busan to Gyeongju on my own dime and time.\u00a0 Upon a cursory check on Rome2Rio<\/a>, I was getting hits for alleged $4-5 bus fares from point A to point B.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t believe this at first, but when I cross-referenced Google, and the bus providers themselves, it turned out to be true.\u00a0 Knowing this, I still was awestruck at the bus station itself, and I\u2019m paying $4 and change for an hour-long bus ride from one major city to a smaller one.<\/span><\/p>\n Liquor is cheap too<\/strong>.\u00a0 One of the more amusing street carts I saw, was one for a mobile cocktail bar.\u00a0 Mind you, beer in Korea, for Asian brands like Hite and Cass are surprisingly not cheap, but at this cart, you could get some pretty serious cocktails, for the equivalent of $4.50 USD.\u00a0 Not just shot-sized either, but probably roughly a 6-8 pour, hard to tell, because they were served out of what looked like IV bags, with straws in them.<\/span><\/p>\n Korean food is cheap<\/strong>.\u00a0 However, most any other food is not.\u00a0 This was fine with me, because I had little interest in eating shit like pasta, pizza, churros, tacos or hamburgers while in Korea.\u00a0 But traditional Korean dishes rarely surpassed the $10 mark, if it even passed the $8 mark in the first place.\u00a0 Barbecue is the only thing that really runs a little high, but I treat it much like I treat K-BBQ in the states, more like a once-in-a-while delicacy.<\/span><\/p>\n Salt and pepper shakers are a rarity in Korean culture<\/strong>.\u00a0 Whenever I sat down at a Korean restaurant, there were usually two things: a box that contained spoons and chopsticks, and a box of the flimsiest, most ineffective napkins on the face of the planet.\u00a0 But that\u2019s about it.\u00a0 Salt shakers, and pepper shakers were pretty much non-existent in Korea, which sucked, if you found something to be a little bland.\u00a0 Fortunately, it wasn\u2019t a big deal for me, but it didn\u2019t go without notice.<\/span><\/p>\n Creamer is not a big thing in Korea either<\/strong>.\u00a0 There may have been no shortage of coffee shops throughout Seoul, and the other parts of Korea that I visited, but I was still often times pining for a good cup of coffee, because creamer is not really a thing in Korean coffee culture.\u00a0 I can drink black, but it\u2019s basically equating to bean water at that point, and I like some cream to take the edge off the bitter.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t really until I got back to America did I really have some good coffee again, but Korea would be great if there was just some more creamer available at their legions of coffee shops.<\/span><\/p>\n Koreans don\u2019t lift<\/strong>.\u00a0 Obviously, this doesn\u2019t apply to all Koreans, but at least in Seoul, Koreans don\u2019t lift.\u00a0 I\u2019m not the most muscular guy in the world, but next to the average guy in Seoul, I must look like Big E Langston<\/a>.\u00a0 Arms on all these guys were small and wiry, and I really don\u2019t think there\u2019s much concern for weight lifting in the Motherland.\u00a0 Occasionally, I\u2019d see the rare meathead who clearly lifts, but when it comes to police and military men, I\u2019m pretty sure any sort of weight lifting is not in their training regimens.\u00a0 Subsequently, in Korean clothing sizes, I am an XL, as opposed to the L I wear in the States; mostly on account of my chest and shoulder width not being puny.<\/span><\/p>\n Which explains why Koreans must love sweatshirts so much<\/strong>.\u00a0 I knew I wanted to buy some clothing in Korea, preferably from clothing makers from Korea.\u00a0 Support the Motherland, y\u2019know.\u00a0 I went to quite a few stores during my numerous shopping ventures, but I was surprised at just how much of Korean basic clothing revolves around, sweatshirts.\u00a0 And not like hoodies or zip-ups that can be designed and more preferable to my personal and more Westernized aesthetic, but just straight up sweatshirts.\u00a0 And it wasn\u2019t even cold for most of the time I was in Korea, at least not to the point where I\u2019d consider wearing a sweatshirt.\u00a0 But Koreans love their sweatshirts, and it actually was problematic just how much of stores were stocked to the gills with sweatshirts, and not enough of anything else.<\/span><\/p>\n Speaking of fashion, one prevalent thing seen throughout the trip were obviously, facemasks<\/strong>.\u00a0 Honestly, my biggest pet peeve of the entire trip was the fact that from the time I got onto the Korean Air jet in Dulles, from when I got off the people mover in Dulles, I was surrounded by Korean and other Asian people who simply were not brought up and taught to cover your fucking mouths when you cough.\u00a0 Nothing drew my ire more than seeing Asian person after Asian person coughing into the vast expanse, spreading their SARS and Bird Flu and H1N1 for everyone else to get infected with, and I often altered my walking paths to take the widest berths around problematic carriers.\u00a0 It astounds me how an entire culture can not be taught something so basically courteous that so many in other countries are astutely conditioned to consider.<\/span><\/p>\n One Piece <\/em>and The Simpsons <\/em>are huge in Korea<\/strong>.\u00a0 Okay, One Piece I understand, it\u2019s been a fairly popular anime for quite some time now.\u00a0 But The Simpsons?\u00a0 They haven\u2019t been relevant in American television for quite some time now, and I\u2019m not even entirely sure that the show is even still in production, it\u2019s that irrelevant in my little world.\u00a0 But Korea hasn\u2019t seemed to have gotten the memo, because Simpsons merchandise, and co-branding is all over the place.\u00a0 Most of the time it was like Bart or Lisa\u2019s head, naturally on a sweatshirt, with some basic English statement.\u00a0 But it was the Simpsons just the same, and it was all over the place, along with One Piece stuff.<\/span><\/p>\n And with that, I think I\u2019ve pretty much said everything I had wanted to write about, in regards to the Motherland.\u00a0 All that being said, I still feel greatly rewarded with my experience in Korea, and I feel that I will be better equipped and prepared for the next time I some day go back, which is something that I greatly look forward to, one day.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The following is more or less going to be a list of random observations I made while in Korea that didn\u2019t really fit into the mold of any one chunk of posts.\u00a0 That being said, it\u2019s also indicative that I\u2019m pretty much at the end of the rope when it comes to writing about my … Continue reading Korea Stories: Random Observations<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[97,79,100,56,103,83,25,65,166],"class_list":["post-44150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-booze","tag-cashmoney","tag-comparison","tag-food","tag-motherland","tag-observations","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-vacation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44150"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44164,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44150\/revisions\/44164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![Big E Langston<\/a>.\u00a0 Arms on all these guys were small and wiry, and I really don\u2019t think there\u2019s much concern for weight lifting in the Motherland.\u00a0 Occasionally, I\u2019d see the rare meathead who clearly lifts, but when it comes to police and military men, I\u2019m pretty sure any sort of weight lifting is not in their training regimens.\u00a0 Subsequently, in Korean clothing sizes, I am an XL, as opposed to the L I wear in the States; mostly on account of my chest and shoulder width not being puny.<\/span><\/p>\nWhich explains why Koreans must love sweatshirts so much<\/strong>.\u00a0 I knew I wanted to buy some clothing in Korea, preferably from clothing makers from Korea.\u00a0 Support the Motherland, y\u2019know.\u00a0 I went to quite a few stores during my numerous shopping ventures, but I was surprised at just how much of Korean basic clothing revolves around, sweatshirts.\u00a0 And not like hoodies or zip-ups that can be designed and more preferable to my personal and more Westernized aesthetic, but just straight up sweatshirts.\u00a0 And it wasn\u2019t even cold for most of the time I was in Korea, at least not to the point where I\u2019d consider wearing a sweatshirt.\u00a0 But Koreans love their sweatshirts, and it actually was problematic just how much of stores were stocked to the gills with sweatshirts, and not enough of anything else.<\/span><\/p>\nSpeaking of fashion, one prevalent thing seen throughout the trip were obviously, facemasks<\/strong>.\u00a0 Honestly, my biggest pet peeve of the entire trip was the fact that from the time I got onto the Korean Air jet in Dulles, from when I got off the people mover in Dulles, I was surrounded by Korean and other Asian people who simply were not brought up and taught to cover your fucking mouths when you cough.\u00a0 Nothing drew my ire more than seeing Asian person after Asian person coughing into the vast expanse, spreading their SARS and Bird Flu and H1N1 for everyone else to get infected with, and I often altered my walking paths to take the widest berths around problematic carriers.\u00a0 It astounds me how an entire culture can not be taught something so basically courteous that so many in other countries are astutely conditioned to consider.<\/span><\/p>\nOne Piece <\/em>and The Simpsons <\/em>are huge in Korea<\/strong>.\u00a0 Okay, One Piece I understand, it\u2019s been a fairly popular anime for quite some time now.\u00a0 But The Simpsons?\u00a0 They haven\u2019t been relevant in American television for quite some time now, and I\u2019m not even entirely sure that the show is even still in production, it\u2019s that irrelevant in my little world.\u00a0 But Korea hasn\u2019t seemed to have gotten the memo, because Simpsons merchandise, and co-branding is all over the place.\u00a0 Most of the time it was like Bart or Lisa\u2019s head, naturally on a sweatshirt, with some basic English statement.\u00a0 But it was the Simpsons just the same, and it was all over the place, along with One Piece stuff.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd with that, I think I\u2019ve pretty much said everything I had wanted to write about, in regards to the Motherland.\u00a0 All that being said, I still feel greatly rewarded with my experience in Korea, and I feel that I will be better equipped and prepared for the next time I some day go back, which is something that I greatly look forward to, one day.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The following is more or less going to be a list of random observations I made while in Korea that didn\u2019t really fit into the mold of any one chunk of posts.\u00a0 That being said, it\u2019s also indicative that I\u2019m pretty much at the end of the rope when it comes to writing about my … Continue reading Korea Stories: Random Observations<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[97,79,100,56,103,83,25,65,166],"class_list":["post-44150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-booze","tag-cashmoney","tag-comparison","tag-food","tag-motherland","tag-observations","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-vacation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44150"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44164,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44150\/revisions\/44164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net\/prowrestling\/images\/6\/6c\/BIG_E_LANGSTON_in_WWE.png\/revision\/latest?cb=20130805204445\"){kind=link}