Man-Purse me.

I need to get over my Korean speaking self-consciousness. I am a lot better than I thought, but still, in most situations, I can't string together sentences confidently so it always ends up with me kind of mumbling the last few words. Argh. 

Yesterday, I went to 명동 (Myungdong) with Jina Lee, an Ohio friend. Myungdong is a gigantic outdoor shopping street with just tons and tons of cheap and expensive stores. There is a Forever 21 there that is THREE stories. Ridiculous. I tried my best to find a fobby fobby outfit. I succeeded but didn't take a picture of it, my b. 

I, just as predicted, look very American. People trying to sell things to me would be all "Oh, are you a foreign student?" and I would start to say no, but then realize I was now that I was in Korea. Some girl trying to sell me a dress was just all "Oh, are you from America? You have a great bod, this dress would look so good on you!" Psh, I fell for it (as I always will. Not the great bod part, but the slight persuasion) but came back an hour later to exchange it for something else. When I said I wanted to return it, one of the girls said exchanges weren't allowed on items on sale and immediately I go "Oh, okay. My b" but Jina fights for it, and eventually the girl allows it. Shows how persistent I am. 

Myungdong attracts a lot of Japanese tourists. 

After shopping for an exhausting 4 hours, we FINALLY found a place that sold 팥빙수 and seated ourselves by the window to people watch while we ate. We found an alarming amount of Korean males sporting man-purses. Observe:

Okay fine, so SOME of these guys could be holding their gf's purses, but still, no shame no shame. 

I did accomplish one thing yesterday that I will never try again. I wore my wedges out ALL day. I came home and about died. My whole body was aching, even my arms for some reason. No blisters, but wasn't worth it. 

Observations ... 

• In a lot of the subways/streets, there are a lot of old seniors working. They do manual labor like delivery or truck stuff, and the other day, I saw a grandma selling rice cakes in a tiny cart. She wore a large visor and kept her head down, while still her announcing goods. I felt so utterly miserable watching her. In a country that lacks government retirement care, it's the saddest thing when seniors who should be retired still working their asses off to survive. I was going to buy ricecakes from the lady, but I literally had zip money. 
• I showed my extended family some clips/pics of my life in America. In a clip from the JCA freshman boys appreciation dinner, we were all sitting in a circle playing "Mr Commissioner" and my aunt commented how it was the weirdest thing to see people who look so Korean speakin English. Like it's not at all what they expect to hear. I never thought how weird it really is that we all speak English like someone is dubbing over us.