Practicing Korean at E-mart

A pretty normal Saturday. After class I went to E-mart to try to find hot dog buns. They have a larger selection of bread than most supermarkets, but nothing resembling what I needed. I approached an employee and tried my Korean, "Excuse me, but (the really, really polite word) is there bread (motion with my hand to the shape of the bread) pig meat (motion put into the bread)?" She carefully listened and watched my hand movements, then after only a split second of confusion I saw the "lightbulb" look and she said no, sorry, they don't have them. She answered confidently, so I was sure they didn't have them. If she had had any doubt about what I was asking, she would have gotten another employee to help, probably one who spoke English. But since there was no doubt, they didn't have them. That's just how things work here. I grabbed a couple of loaves of bread as a substitute and started to another section of the store. A couple of minutes later she found me and brought me back to the bread section to show me what looked like HAMBURGER buns that a different employee was just putting out on the shelves. I looked at them and said "No . . . " and again made a motion as to the shape of the bread. The stocking-the-shelves employee agreed, "That's right, hot dog buns are longer" (something like that!). I took another look and decided that what looked like hamburger buns would do. You do notice that I say "what LOOKED LIKE hamburger buns" and not "hamburger buns," don't you? Anyway, I got a few more things, checked out, and then made the long trek to the bus stop. The store is nice, with a good selection and low prices, but too far away from the bus for me to come back.

At home I ordered pizza and chilled for the rest of the evening.