the korean way

as i've mentioned numerous times the simplest task in korea is never that simple. case in point. a few weeks ago i need to get toothpaste. one would think that you could simply walk into the grocery store and pick of a tube. right. wrong. first you have to figure out which brand to get. none of them looked like menta dent or crest. all they all seemed to come in bundles of four or more. seeing that toothpaste can vary in flavor and effectiveness i didn't want to buy a bundle for fear that i might hate that particular brand. after searching for over twenty minutest i found one brand that was sold in singles. that brand happened to be 2080 where the slogan was "keep the 20 healthy teeth til 80 years old". now my question is what happens after 80. do they expect people to start dying off around then. or perhaps around 80 people start losing their teeth. i'm not quite sure. all i do know is that 2080 is not as good as crest. however, i'm stuck with it until the tube is done and hopefully the next time i venture out for toothpaste there will be more of a selection for single brands.

the toothpaste was just one incident. i ran into the same problem when purchasing toilet paper. i couldn't believe how expensive it was. most of the brands ran around $10 or more for like 6 rolls. do koreans not wipe their ass. if you go into the public restrooms one would think not. there are never any toilet paper rolls nor is there sopa or hot water. what's up with that. after searching up and down the toilet paper isle i finally found a brand that was ultra cheap and you got 20 rolls. the catch was that it's herb fresh scented. how nice is that? finally after three months of using this stuff i realized today while blowing my nose that the smell reminding me of my great-grandmother. you know how some people have certain smells. well my great-grandmother smelled like the herb fresh tp i bought. now whenever i get a good wiff of it i'm thrown but in time at my great-grandmothers apartment. its actually a nice feeling. my great-grandmother has been dead for some time now and i haven't really thought of her much in the past. now i think about her daily. of the time we'd go visit her or when she'd come to florida to visit and our dog would chew the buttons off her night gown. or if he could find them chew her slippers. its weird have things can trigger memories like that. i guess being so far away from home opens your mind to events long ago. i look forward to finding more things that unleash such memories while living here. its such a nice feeling.