Monday, November 12, 2007

Only in Korea

Good for what ails you. I know that I was always told that you get warts from touching them, In Korea, frogs cure skin imperfections. I am a tad curious how to get a frog out of the pot with a ladle though...
Here are some of the more creative lanterns at the lantern festival, there were also a large number of Sponge Bob lanterns. A patent lawyer could make a killing here, I saw a cigarette vending machine with donald duck smoking a cigar as a mascot...
With cars like that, who wouldn't want to be a cop? Where do you put the "ship-won"?
Breakfast of Champions, banana milk and coco balls.
Neo-Confucianism will never die. This is the traditional meal left out on Korean Thanksgiving for the ancestors. Korea is a beautiful mixture of the future and the past. Some customs will never die.
Monument to the man who engineered the seedless watermelon. This is right across the street from the mission home.
Make graffiti not war...
This hood is run by Santa and his elves, better be good or they will break out their nines and bust a cap in your stoking.
Will explain this one later...
The priciest picture in Korea. At first I thought the nice old lady was being nice taking my picture with my camera on a trail near Haeundae beach. Little did I know that this was a service that required me to do something for her. She was selling nuts and rice cakes (I am not a big fan of either) in appreciation for her taking my picture I offered to buy some nuts. She filled a bag then threw in some cakes and told me it cost the equivalent of about 5 dollars, I was pretty shocked but I didn't want to make a scene so I pulled out my wallet and just as I was about to leave another lady said, that was just for the nuts, the cakes will be another 5... I was grateful for the picture but 10 dollars is irrational I told her that I didn't have any more money and that I didn't like rice cakes anyways then she told me that I was just like all foreigners, wanting something for nothing, when I tried to give her back her cakes she told me to just leave. I left felling bad but what could I do???
Baptising Buddah, I can finally mark that one off my missionary goals:)

3 comments:

Corinne said...

HMMMM, after reading one of those captions you've got me thinking about something...

Cami said...

Sheesh! that is a pricey picture. Don't feel bad, she knew she was laying it on. Tricky lady.

Kim said...

Seriously! Foreigners? No, no, no, it's the natives! When I was in Ukraine, a guy at the market tried to charge me more than double the price for a kilogram of apples because I was a "foreigner," and he didn't think I'd be able to translate fast enough to understand what was going on. I think she knew she was cheating you, and because you didn't pay her in full, you were charged some extra guilt. Man!