15 March 2015
I shrunk my pants
Eating Ramen in Busan
I think using a dryer on my clothes earlier has shrunk my pants. At least I hope thats whats happened, otherwise I really need to step up my mountain climbing because my girth has expanded.
I have put on weight on such holidays before, now I am deeply concerned. Perhaps on Tuesday I can walk to Gwangju. Perhaps Korea needs to understand skim or on fat milk, or aspartame. I have so many reasons, none of them seem to involve overeating. Now I sound more like a woman than ever.
Anyway, enough about my pants. Today I decided to go to the station where there are 3 universities, because the internet said its a very exciting spot. The internet lied.
There is only 2 streets of shops and restaurants, and a whole heap of cheap looking pubs selling fried chicken. The streets here were also filled with rubbish. Because students are filthy, and eating chicken and drinking beer I paid for. Yes this applies to Korea, because there was a shop called Aussie burger which I am just going to assume is staffed by Australian students on a permanent holiday in Korea at my expense.
So instead I walked back to a busy area, and got lost. I kept crossing the road using the underpasses, some of the junctions had 12 exits. Each time, no matter how I tried, I came out in the wrong place, then walked the wrong way. At one point I ended up somewhere I had been previously.
An hour or so later, I managed to climb up the stairs and get to the area I wanted to be. Despite it being Sunday, it was really very busy.
I think I saw a flash mob, does that still happen? 2 People were walking down a busy street and all of a sudden people came from everywhere, linked hands in a circle around them and ran in the circle as fast as they could yelling something. A bus obscured my view, and camera. The crowd then ran off in every direction.
Then I saw a guy who had something similar to the waffle sandwich, but 4 times as thick, so thick it wouldnt fit in his mouth, so he squeezed it, and cream flew out of it all over his girlfriend.
She then ran up and down on the spot stamping her feet and yelling, and got her phone out to look at herself, whilst her little white dog went crazy. The guy thought it was hilarious though!
Because there wasnt anywhere to eat at the University area, I had to have a pre dinner snack.
In many subway stations there are places called Yam Cafe, selling things made from yams, whatever they are.
They have lots of signs telling me how healthy they are, for long life and wellbeingness. I dont really know how a cake can make such claims.
What was surprising is that its completely flavourless. A waste of calories, further pants issues as a result.
Also near the universities is Gunmart. Now everyone knows that Korean students always go on shooting sprees in U.S. and Canadian schools. Its a fact.
So they need to get their guns from the gunmart.
Presumably they post them to themeselves in the U.S.
LG shops, which have a song playing that goes something like LG SHOP, ITS BEST SHOP, BEST! always have one of these british fluffy hat guards out the front.
If you look closely, you can see its standing on a black bucket thing, its inflatable. When I arrived in Incheon a week and a half ago, I thought these black buckets were all recycling bins.
No, they are inflatable advertisements, and they are everywhere.
Busan has a casino. A real casino.
I dont know if the rules have changed, but when I was in Korea in 2011, there was a casino in Seoul, but Koreans are not allowed to go to it, only foreign passport holders.
Tonights random neon, slightly different, just one building.
And then for dinner, I had delicious ramen. Very good quality noodles and pork. This was inspired by my mother, who asked me if they have gyoza in Korea, yes, but only in the thousands of Japanese restaurants.
They do of course have mandoo, Korean dumplings, but thats not the same thing.
As nice as this was (and cheap), I actually tried to order something else that looked like it had a lot more vegetables, but the girl wouldnt let me order it, she spoke in Korean, I think she was telling me it was soba not ramen and I wouldnt like it.
No amount of me telling her in English that I just want to try it anyway would convince her, so eventually we compromised on item #1 on the menu.