Alien Skin

It's the middle of summer and around 100 degrees, so it's perfectly logical to wear shorts, right?  Exactly.  Only, I shouldn't wear them to work, so I usually wear them only on Saturdays.  Today it struck me how very white my legs are.  Pretend that there's a scale of white-to-tan where 0 is the whitest-of-white, the "I've been hiding in an underground shelter for years" kind of white and 10 is the deepest lifeguard tan at the end of the summer.  About a 5 is the normal-looking, "healthy" look (if you don't mind a little skin cancer).  A British tourist in Florida is a 2.  Well, from all the walking I've been doing and the walk to the bus stop every morning, my arms are about an 8, and my face is about 5~6 (from wearing a hat and occasionally sunscreen).  My legs, however, are a 1.  The contrast between them is so huge that it makes me look like an alien.  My feet display a lovely sandal tan, while the back of my neck and my chest are slightly sunburned at the moment.  My legs have a combination heat rash and razor burn.  Great.

Some of my students are getting pretty dark from being outside so much.  The backs of their necks are a completely unnatural black color.  Some of the older girls are careful to stay out of the sun to preserve the pasty white color that's popular here.

Korean class was fine.  Wen, Wabs, and the Japanese girl were there.  After about 90 minutes, I lost all concentration and felt really drowsy.  Despite the air conditioner, the coolest it got in the classroom was 85 degrees.  The class lasted 2 hours 30 minutes today.  That's too long to study at one time!!

Wen offered to drive the Japanese girl and me to Samsandong.  (I'll learn her name one of these days, but it's so long and difficult!  Aigo was a lot easier to remember.)  She lives there, I was going to the train station, and Wen often goes on drives on the weekend.  We dropped Wabs off at her mother-in-law's restaurant before going to Samsan.  I sat in the back seat, and used a seat belt.  Usually the taxis don't have seatbelts in the back, but I feel fairly safe because they're professional, if insane, drivers.  Wen, on the other hand--I'm not so sure about his vision, from how he reads during class.  His driving was fine but a couple of times I felt like telling him to watch the road, as he was getting a little too close to the car in front of us and a little too into our conversation.

I'm so used to the Korean way--if someone is going to my area of town they'll offer to drive me there, then I often still have to take a bus or a taxi or walk a ways to get to where I'm going.  That's fine, because we can talk on the way and it's faster, more comfortable, and not as hot as the bus.  But Wen asked both of us where we were going in Samsan.  The train station was on the opposite side of the road from the way we were going.  A Korean would have just dropped me off in the most convenient place.  The American, however, got into the turn lane, waited for the light to change, did a u-turn, and pulled into the train station and right up to the door.  Thanks!

I went in and puzzled over the schedule for nearly 10 minutes.  I tried to compare the normal train and the KTX (bullet) train.  Finally I asked the lady at the information desk "KTX Ulsan ("to" gesture) Seoul time?"  Yes, that's a lovely grammatically correct sentence!!  She understood, and told me four hours.  Then I asked her how much it cost, and she replied really fast.  I asked her to repeat the price, and she did so even faster.  Wait a minute!  Slowly!  Before I was able to plead, "chun-chun-hee!!" she motioned for me to follow her to the ticket counter.  She waited until a clerk was free, then he helped me.  He didn't speak much English, but understood well enough.  It's only about $4 more to take the bullet train, which is 4 hours compared to 5 hours 30 minutes for the normal train, so might as well.  Another plus is that the normal train leaves at 7:30 AM, and the bullet train leaves then, too, but also leaves at 9:20 AM.  Guess which one I'm taking!!  It'll also be cool to compare the Japanese and Korean trains.  When they finish the bullet train it will be even faster, but for now about half the time is on a normal train, before a 30 minute "layover" to change trains to the KTX train.

Oh yeah, where am I going and when and why?  The school is closed August 2~4 so since there are no tickets out of the country (I found out about the vacation too late, then waited to contact a travel agent) I'm going to check out some more museums in Seoul.  I'll leave Sunday morning, then come back either late Monday or late Tuesday night, I haven't decided yet.  The normal train leaves at 10 PM and gets back to Ulsan at 3:30 AM, so is good as far as being able to get in a full day in Seoul and not have to pay for another night in a hotel.  I've started making a list of what I want to see and operating hours and subway stops, etc.  I hope the subway strike won't be a problem!

After the train station I walked to E-mart where I ate a late lunch (5:30 PM by then) at a newly-opened Popeye's.  All the rest of them have closed.  I got the chicken wrap thing like I usually get at KFC, except at Popeye's it comes with a chicken salad instead of with french fries.  MUCH better.  There are less chicken pieces in the wrap, but that's good because it stays together better.  The clerk gave me three choices of dressing.  No English anywhere, so in response to my blank look as I looked for the names on the packages, she read me the names.  Tomato something, pineapple something, and something something something (it sounded spicy).  Tomato is probably like french/catalina dressing--not my favorite.  Hot dressing on salad--I like spicy food, but no.  Pineapple dressing??  Sounds very weird, but I'll try it!  It was actually quite good.  Reminded me a bit of ranch dressing, but with the tart taste of pineapple and without the fatty taste of ranch.

I explored the first floor of the very popular store that's been open for less than a year.  There was a whole aisle of dried seaweed, some in sheets taller than me!!  It was chaos with all of the people shopping and the children running around.  I grabbed a few items before heading home.  There isn't a convenient bus stop from there, but I chose the wrong direction to walk--it was a half mile with my heavy bag and backpack.  The first 401 bus passed without stopping; I started to get a little worried about my milk and yogurt being exposed to such heat for so long.  When I got home I put them away immediately, then did some laundry and cleaning before showering and finishing off the night with an airplane disaster movie.