Part One: Friday August 10th.
Five of us decide we want to ditch the celadon tour plans and go one of the thousands of island of Korea, Jeju-do. We have the requisite complications in trying to find out bus and ferry schedules with our non-existent Korean... I took to drawing stick figures and lots of miming to explain to my host family where it was we wanted to go. I'd still speak to them in English, but broken English:"Bus time? Need help. Ferry. Ship. Ship schedule? Not certain. Maybe we go to Jeju-do? Ferry time [question mark, arrow to port name, etc.)"
Fan-fucking-tastic. Miming. It's not just for the French or circus freaks. Seriously, it works. If I come home and speak to you with a total lack of prepositions and articles, but extensive line drawings and hand gestures, please don't mind, it will go away soon enough. Anyway, back to the story.Two of our Korean co-teachers offer to give us rides to Mokpo, where we can catch the ferries, and one even sets us up with one of her elementary student's family-- who invites us to stay for free in their spare bedroom (on the floor, 5 to a room, but with a bathroom and no expectation as to when we come or go. not bad, really).
We are dropped off in this friendly stranger's house and we leave again almost immediately to pick up a few things at the local e-mart (e-mart-euh, as the natives say) and head out for dinner and drinks. At the e-mart (think walmart, meets costco, meets a weird mom & pop store (the girls working in various departments have matching uniforms, including leg warmers) we wanted to purchase a couple of ice cream bars; it was hot and they are tasty chocolate coconut milk things, but we were chastised by an older Korean woman working the frozen food section. She gave us a bag. We put our ice creams in the bag and began to walk away. We were chastised a second time. She took our bag away and put out ice creams back in the freezer. She pointed to the Korean sign. We had no idea what to do.
"We want three," we say, holding our fingers up and gesturing. She says" anio," and crosses her wrists to indicate no. We walk away not understanding why we are not being permitted to buy ice cream. We encounter a clan of Korean school girls in uniform. "Hello," they say, in unison. "Where are you from?" [giggles ensue.] We tell them and then enlist their help. Please help us buy ice cream. They lead us back to the cranky Korean lady. Eventually we learn that we can buy eleven ice cream bars, or we can't buy any. Silly. We buy cans of bubbly wine (ewww, but a novelty) and then leave to get pizza.
After pizza, we decide we really want ice cream. We buy eleven. We eat as many as we can and then Wim begins to distribute the remaining ice cream to random parentless children. He wasn't seeking them out; Korean children seem to wander around at all hours pretty much unattended. Even late. It wasn't creepy by Korean standards, but we laughed at him as though he were a creepy old man. What I haven't mentioned thus far is the rabbit hutch. Yes, a rabbit hutch. Just sitting outside the e-mart, randomly. Seven bunnies in their cages, apparently for customer entertainment. They looked hungry. They licked our fingers through the cages.
"I wish we could feed them. There's some old lettuce in the cage; they look fed, but they seem hungry." One of us said this, or something like it. I think either me or Fallon. We sat down on the bench and watched the rabbits and ate ice cream and laughed at Wim and the children. Then a man walked by with a huge bag of lettuce and he proceeds to drop it on the ground and walk away. We exchange glances. Bag of lettuce falls from sky. Sweet. Fallon and I rip into it and feed the bunnies. They love this about us and no one seems to have a problem with it, so we feed them some more. But the evening is young. We decide to go out for drinks. "
Next up: the sexy T girl bar, the fish and peanut bar, the random white people on the street and our walk home.
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