12.09.2006

Luck be a lady...

I do believe luck is on my side.

I just won a box of cookies, a free Duncan Donuts coffee, dinner for two at Bori Bap restaurant, and a month's worth of free yoga classes. All from a Christmas party during which I was half asleep from jet-lag and the main course was turkey and stuffing, of which I've recently had my fill, but was pure delight to the others who have been here in Korea for more than one day. Thus concludes my first day in Cheonan, and I say not bad.

The flight over was longer than I thought; 13 hours. It was uneventful. I watched "The Illusionist". They let me in the country with no problem. Do they even look at those customs forms? I'm pretty sure I could have smuggled in a small donkey, just as long as it had rollers and a handle. My baggage came through fine. By the way, I would like to proudly announce that they were, respectively, 49.5 and 50.00 lbs. Take that, 50 lb. limit!! And I slept like a brick last night, so I'm on my way to conquering jet-lag.

Earlier today, I went to the store to buy soap, peanut butter, jelly, and a towel (I dried off after my shower this morning with some pajama bottoms). The church group on campus gave me some milk, cereal, bread, bananas, and a 30,000 won ($30) gift certificate to Lotte Mart, so I was living large. Even at the grocery store, you're carefully watched by eager saleswomen, perched at the top of every aisle. Just a slight turn of the head is enough to start them jabbering their sales pitch, even to an obvious foreigner like me. Needless to say, I couldn't understand a word.

I managed alright until I stopped at the ATM to get some cash. I knew where they were from the last time I visited Cheonan and knew they had an "English" button for us gringos. However, in some scheme to frustrate the very small non-Korean speaking population, they removed those ATMs and replaced them with Korean only machines. So, after a series of random button pushes, I left with my wallet still empty. But I got a tip tonight at the Christmas party: look for the button with the most fingerprint smudges on it. That usually gets a withdraw. Genius, eh?

So, I'm here. And it's off to a good start. Let's hope my luck sticks around for when I try the ATM tomorrow.

5 comments:

LMK said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
L. Kuah said...

free yoga classes? :) right on! i'm so jealous... heheh. anyhoo, i'm glad you made it to korea all right and hope that you're more successful with the ATM next time. tell mipa lee i said "ah na ha say oh" (sorrie for the misspelling from my non-korean brain) and keep those updates coming!

btw, i got skype finally!!! but it doesn't seem to work on my computer... any clue as to how i might be able to fix them?

Anonymous said...

Hey dork. You need to take a class on blog etiquette... you don't need to send group emails once you have a blog because you're supposed to write it on your blog!!! That's just a tip from your older and wiser cousin (i'll give you that one for free).

Anonymous said...

Don't listen to that WISEcASS character, I still love you. Just pay more attention to me.

Shar said...

Betsy- just a tip from your older and wiser mother (I'll give you this for free) that you CAN send group emails because I might not look at the blog every day. Good manners or not, I'm going to miss stuff either way! Thanks guys for keeping me in the loop.