after work yesterday i had plans to meet up with one of my korean friends from the past summer's epi program so we could go eat. there also happened to be a party going on at work, so my coworkers all expected me to stay. there is a pattern developing here, where significant events are occuring that i would really enjoy attending were i ever told ahead of time when they were occuring. if someone had told me about wednesday's party on monday, that would have been swell, but instead they tell me there's a party as the party is already underway. and they look hurt and disappointed that i'm not attending.
we ate, it was good, then we decided to walk around the yeon yeong dong area. it's quite a study in contrasts to walk past lotteria and baskin robbins, and then see rows and rows of agimas displaying their fishy wares a mere 8 feet from the entrance to said "modern" shops--seems to sum up the dichotomy that is korea. there was one old person (the wrinkled face made it difficult to distinguish gender) who sounded like his/her lung was going to pop out onto the sea creatures in front of him/her. anyhoo, shin young and i were walking and a middle-aged man sees me and immediately wants to shake my hand, i guess temporarily forgetting that if his left hand is his cigarette hand, his right hand must be his fish-grabbing hand. so he shook my hand, and it felt like death--cold, clammy and fishy. and wet. it also was discolored and looked like the skin was peeling off. so he looked apologetic, and then he picked up an octopus to try to give it to me. i declined. in retrospect, i should have accepted and taken it to my korean class. but hindsight is 20/20. next time. so i immediately went and washed my tainted paw.
the end.
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