Korean Job Discussion Forums

[kermo]

I spent last year living in The Sticks. The place was so small it didn't even have a room salon (though there was a hotel sauna where I was told "women do bad things for men"). I didn't recognize much of what was offered in the local grocery store (there was only one medium-sized one) and didn't know how to cook much in the way of vegetarian Korean food, so I indulged at THE local pizza place fairly often. To get to a Walmart or a department store meant at least an hour on the bus. I once tried to buy a hairbrush, and had to take the bus 20 minutes out of town.

I've just spent a few weeks in Canada, and my main priority (after visiting with my family and close friends of course) was *eating*. I fulfilled my long-cherished fantasy of strolling down the aisles of a Safeway, idly chucking avocados and good-quality cheese into my cart, and it was with much sorrow that I said goodbye to cheesecake, brownies, perogies, guacamole, pre-made hummus, etc etc.

I returned a few days ago to a new job in the Killbox. On my second night in Seoul, I set about exploring the neighbourhood near my new apartment (I live a stone's throw from the Express Bus Terminal). You may not understand this, but I could barely contain my glee when I found a jar of dill pickes on the shelf. I stared slack-jawed at rows of spices (back in little Jeondae-ri, they had pepper. That was it. Just pepper.) Even finding real M&Ms, or chips and salsa around here is a real treat for me. Last year, I trekked out to Costco and seized a huge bottle of balsamic vinegar, thinking it a real treasure. Shinsaegae has got heaps of different kinds, and a smorgasbord of pasta. That place had CAPERS. Do you know what capers are? Capers! I melted with delight when I saw cauliflower for sale. I actually had a dream last year that I was buying cauliflower.

Okay, so before the puddle of drool starts to spread too far (it's a good thing I didn't tell you about the organic grocery store down the street *shudders with pleasure*) I just wanted to point out that you cats who live in Seoul have it pretty good. Hi! Seoul. I heart you, Killbox.

[numazawa]

Next you'll be telling us that food is better than sex and that, moreover, ye are a willing accomplice in the inexorable machinations to draw the end of the world closer.

[kermo]

[numazawa]

I'm very well acquainted with capers already, ma'am. Why, I'm pulling a new one practically every day.

Seriou [oh-oh-- sorry, that word always sticks on my keyboard], I like capers. On a recent trip to Nagoya, I fell aghast at the vast selection of imports at the Meidi-ya store downtown. Shelves of pesto, excellent yoghurts, innumerable varieties of pungent cheeses, Thai curry mixes, great swathes of floorspace given over to all manner of European exotica (albeit limited to foodstuffs) -- really, too much to blather about here. It was enough to make me want to plot a return to old Nippon. Of course my Nagoya-based nymphettofriend was thoroughly in on the plot. Drat!

[Swiss James]

Seoul rocks- why do you think so many Koreans live there?

[mindmetoo]

Anyone ever notice that recipe column in the Korea Herald on Saturdays is next to useless? Many of the recipes look very nice but 90% of the time the recipes require ingredients that are either unavailable in Seoul or you'd have to run to Gangnam, Itaewon, and Mokdong to acquire the ingredients. I look at these stupid recipes and think "Yeah, right, I can just pop down to my local Lottemart and get some goat cheese, pesto, and artichoke..."

[Swiss James]

it's marginally better than a review of some photography exhibit in Washington DC.

Sometimes it's surprising what you can find though, right now I've got anchovies, capers, pesto, courgettes, saffron and mustard powder in my cupboards

[paperbag princess]

costco! costco! what would i do without costco! *sung to the spiderman theme*

[Return Jones]

And people say globalization is a bad thing!

[hypnotist]

[bundangbum]

In all fairness i think living in seoul sucks. Too busy and crowed and too stressful etc. Why not just live outside of it. I find it better. Bundang is a really nice place too.

[JongnoGuru]

Seoul in 2005? For a Canadian, I believe that means you can no longer claim to be living abroad. It's an 11-million-strong Koreatown suburb of Toronto or Vancouver, isn't it?

The greater variety of foreign food. Yeah. Seoul offers Westerners more money-spending options, including food. But I regard that as a mixed blessing. A year or two in Korea used to do wonders for many a Western waistline. It's a year or two of discomfort and dispair, but it seems to be effective. Korea has also helped lots of Westerners claw their way out of debt. Now, with so many foreign restaurants in Seoul, all the imported food, the increased availability of imported spices and ingredients, it's 'Look out, waistline! Look out, bank balance!'

And once Koreans make it easier for foreigners to obtain Korean credit cards, I expect the streets of this city to be littered with the bodies of obese, over-their-head-in-debt Westerners. Obese because they live in Seoul with its wider selection of imported/foreign foods. Over their head in debt because that's what happens when you give credit cards to people.

I'd say somewhere in the deeeeeeeep rice-&-kimchee countryside -- and no Korean credit card -- would be a much safer, much healthier lifestyle choice for everyone. Except me.

And I'd be right.



Kermo, this is my way of saying, Welcome to the Belly-button of the Universe.


Hypnotist? Orange juice works in a pinch. Go here for others: http://www.hintsandthings.co.uk/livingroom/cocktails3.htm <-- But in place of *beeb*, type "c o c k t a i l s 3" (while leaving out the spaces).

My gripe is they won't sell tonic water in larger bottles.

[Swiss James]

[bundangbum]

Bastard. ya got me. Yeah but when have you not lived in Seoul?

[JongnoGuru]