Beloved Korea

At times it can be hard living in Korea. As expats or as travellers there are always ups and downs and learning to deal with them is the most important thing to being abroad. Ninety-five percent of the time I have no problem here but there can be somethings that just grate on your nerves. My top four here are..

1st...People horking up phlegm inches from your person.
2nd...Overly crowded subways/buses/roads and pushy people creating space to get into these when space doesn't exist.
3rd...Idiots that hate you just because you're a foreigner.
4th...Many Koreans constantly do things at the last minute. I'm all for procrastinating but if something big is coming up I'd like to know about it more than a day before.

Obviously I'm on holiday this week so everything has a cheerful glow but this week really has been great. Another handy top four:

1st...New subways on Line 4. It's so retarded that this makes me happy but the trains running this line are usually old, stinky and if you travel at the wrong times, extremely full and not just in a westerners sense of space invasion. Think no inch on your body not being touched and fondled. This week I've hit brand new trains three times and they make me smile. They have a the new car smell and the connecting doors between cars where I usually stand open by a simple push of the button. Ah, technology.

2nd...I have a new fruit lady. Yesterday I finally tried out the ajumas stall nearest my house and the lady was a bubble of love. She pushed me hard to get the good strawberries and although I understood all her Korean she summed up her whole spiel in English, "Number 1 Strawberries!!!" She also threw in the all important "service" fruit making my day.

3rd...I dropped twenty bucks on the sidewalk the other day and a young University student, who like all University students, could of had a great night out on this. Instead he back tracked and handed me the bills and pointed out the site miles away where I had dropped it. I love good people.

4th...Did I mention I'm back on vacation? Please excuse this overly joyful post. I'm off to see Jumper tonight and the pessimist in me fully expects it to annoy me.