#59. Bank accounts in Korea are intensely complicated. Foreigners who want to send money home have to have two seperate accounts. One account is for solely Korean expenses. One is for currency exchange. Apparantly they don't just have one account that can do both. Point for American banks.
Clearly from the above I finally opened my Korean bank account(s). Eventually they were opened but the process was quite the experience. For the first time in my life I was discriminated against for being American. Over and over again. My director went with me to translate but at every window they took one look at me, did the hand signal for no and said "No English. No American. No." and promptly waved a Korean forward. Ouch. Now I know what being discriminted feels like. I guess I just never thought that being an American was something to be discriminated against. Look at me and my pompus "Americans are the best. Who would hate us?!" attitude.
#60. Postcards in Korea are hard to find. It is not at all like America, with post cards in every touristy city. Hell, there are post cards in every non-touristy city. Brownsburg has post cards. Sorry Brownsburgians (Brownsburgians? Brownsburgites?) but who seriously would wants to write from Brownsburg with a post card. "Hey. I'm in Brownsburg." Thrilling.
Today was my first field trip with the munchkins. We went to Gyeongju (pronounced just like it looks) which is about 40 minutes by van. We walked around and took in the scenery (gorgeous) and took so many pictures. The kids didn't seem all that impressed but Jen and I certainly were. There is so much history in the temples and statutes that it's ridiculous. Hand painted statutues, murrals on walls, intricate scrolls on the tops of buildings...it's intense.
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| Gorgeous temple in the middle of Gyeongju |
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| Ghoup shot before we left. |
Right as we were leaving we took a picture in front of a huge rock that had a Korean inscription. Don't ask me what it said because I don't have a damn clue. It was huge and other people took pictures in front of it like it was important...so we did too. Right as we were getting up to leave a group of about 20 people started yelling "American American! Come. Come." We ended up having to take pictures with a group of Vietnamese tourists
They were so excited to take their picture with us and every single person wanted their own photo with the Americans. They kept jumping up to switch out cameras and just kept smiling. We were smack dab in the middle of the group and it was all I could do to just keep smiling. How can I not. If taking their picture with me made them happy then why the hell not. I'll do it.
When will I ever be such a celebrity again. Not in America. Definitely not in America.
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| Sally. The cutest tiny Korean cowgirl ever. |
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| The amazing feats we had for lunch. Kimbap (Korean sushi), fresh fruit, rice balls and egg battered crab. Yum! |
I agree Jenn the picture of you and Sally is the cutest. I think you had an awesome field trip with the little darlins. Where there only 5 on the trip? The food doesn't even look bad. The sites you will see and I guess we will too. Love you
ReplyDeleteThat picture is adorable! So jealous of the awesome things you are getting to see. Don't worry about the discrimination. They just can't fully appreciate how awesome you are!
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