It has started to get chilly in Gwangju. There were a couple delightful weeks where I would look at the forecast here and see 60s and 70s and look at the forecast for Syracuse and see the oncoming tundra wasteland that is Syracuse winter. It was quite satisfying and I highly recommend it for any grad who has moved to a kinder climate than that of Syracuse. But it has started to get chilly so I'll bite my tongue. The awesome thing though (which I was actually told about before I came here) is that fall in Korea is really beautiful. It sort of happens overnight. One day it's 75 degrees and the trees are green and the next morning everything is yellow and red and it's 50 degrees. Apparently that's how all temperate weather in Korea comes in (and out). Abruptly. I have taken a few pictures out the back window of the apartment to give you an idea of the view we are working with. (These were taken about a week ago, so it's even more colorful now).
Also! Here is a video out the window of a bus to give you an idea of the area near downtown/the pretty tree business.
Enough about that! On to the shopping tale. So Ben and I got paid on Wednesday after seven weeks of living off the money we brought with us. We did fine off of that, but it was pretty exciting to start filling in the gaps as far as kitchen supplies, house stuff, groceries we didn't need but wanted, AND PLANTS. Two other things we were really looking forward to investing in were a beer brewing kit (Korean beer is like Natty Lites sad cousin) and an oven. (Koreans do not bake much, and so do not consider an oven a necessity. Because so many foreigners do consider it a necessity and we are cooking people we decided to buy one that we will easily be able to sell on when we leave). We tried to buy one online at a store called GMarket, which is the Ebay of Korea. This did not work for us. Apparently sometimes it can be a bit faulty. It was for us. So in person stores it was! First we went to Home Plus, a big department store that is connected with Tesco, a department store in the UK. This makes finding certain things easier. Alas, their ovens were wildly expensive. We also couldn't find a good number of the things on our list. We decided despite the fact that we had been shopping for around two hours, that we wanted to get everything on our list and we would venture to Emart, another department store nearer to our house. We returned home, unpacked, and took the 20 minute walk to Emart. Both of us were oddly nervous as we headed to the ovens. And with good reason. Once again there were only five-ish ovens there and they were well out of our price range. Highly disappointing. It was at this time that I started to feel exasperated. The phrase "come on, Korea" was said a couple times. It was only after we failed to find the correct (and much needed) vacuum bags for our vacuum, and a freaking pot for less then 60 dollars that I really lost it. Thus far it is the first time I have noticeably felt culture shock. There have been plenty of instances where I have noted cultural differences, or been told about Korean beliefs or customs that are greatly different from American ones. This does not rattle me. But having a good number of things that we need, or have been really looking forward to getting and being totally incapable of getting them was pretty daunting.
Luckily, we managed to figure out the oven purchasing online. Now we are just crossing our fingers that it comes before Thanksgiving (which we are hosting). So long story short, everything worked out, but I had my first noticeable and distressing culture shock experience! Still having a blast and learning a lot. Now off to write some tests! Toodles.
