i'm so korean now…

i'm now mastering the nap on the subway just like all the other koreans. i'm so korean. soon i'll be blending right in with them. the best thing about the subway seats are that they are heated. very nice for you butt. this weekend i found myself going into seoul twice. on saturday i met "j" from my taekwondo class and we went to yongsan. the place where on goes to buy electronics. i'm actually glad she came with me because it was quite overwhelming. i'm not sure what i was expecting, yes i do a best buy of sorts, but thats not what it was. instead i found 5 floorss of tiny shops lined up and down the aisle all seeing the same stuff. i didn't even know where to begin. the best part of it all is that there are all these koreans yelling to try to get customers to the store. my mission for the day: 1. camera battery charger 2. ac adapter for my speakers 3. harddrive for computer. the camera battery was taken care of in the first 20 minutes. after going to two different shops i realized the price was going to be the same. at the third place i actually bartered with the guy and got the charger for 5,000 won less then the other places. i guess all that shopping in thailand paid off. trying to get the ac adapter was a different story. at one point we had left the big building and walked around outside where we found a store called computer mart. thinking that this might be a good place we went inside only to find most of the place closed. we did find some guys sitting around so i decided to ask them if they knew where i could find an adapter. of course not only did i have my broken adapter with me but i also had the subwoofer and speaker. the nesxt thing i knew the spacepod that is my subwoofer was on the floor and there were 6 korean guys gathered around it talking. jenny and i just laughed cuz we had no clue what was being said. finally they told us to go the some bank which we couldn't understand what he said just that it was a green sign and across from that was speaker world. so off we went still not knowing for sure where we were going. luck being on our side we find "speaker alley". i went into a few places with no luck. finally i went into this one shop which had a lot of high end speakers figuring if they couldn't help me i might as well give up. i busted out the adapter, subwoofer, and speaker and explained the best i could about what i needed. one of the guys left and came back with a device that would convert my 110 to 220. i told them i couldn't use mine because i blew it up. in which they responded ok and then the guys went out the store again. so jenny and i sat there not really knowing what the outcome would be. as we sat there the guy that was helping us told me i looked like a movie star. see i'm famous in korean. i thought about telling him i was on some obscure show but figured he wouldn't get it. a few minutes later the guys returned with what looked like an adapter. now the moment of truth was upon us. did i damage the subwoofer when i blew up the adapter? they connected it all together and presto it worked. i was so relieved. now i can listen to music really loud. it looks like my luck is changing. the hard drive was another story. it looks like i might have to put it together myself which i guess is fairly easy. i decided to come back and deal with that another time. i'm thinking now i just might invest in an ipod since i basically want the hard drive to store my musice anyway. these are the things that are keeping me up at night.

today i went back into seoul to meet a friend for dinner. i went to shinsegae which is a giant department. there was a really cool ice fort infront of the building with a castle and a slide. i was very tempted to go down the slide but it looked kind of small so i decidced not too. there were so many people at this department store that it was sensory overload. its like being at the mall at christmas time. it was so crazy. i did find a learning korea book that came with tapes. hee hee. on my way home i stopped in at carrefour and bought a cassette player for $7. i can't believe i just bought a cassette player. didn't i just sell one at my garage sale. i took pictures of the ice fort so i'll post them this week.

i forget to mention that on friday i went out with the taekwondo crew again. like every time we go out one drink only turns into getting home at 4:30 am. its amazing how time flies but then i realized there is no last call to give you that alarm that says "oh i need to get home". at least thing time "tb" from class gave me a ride home. it was cold out. all right i'm yawning like noone's business so i must get off to bed. its almost midnight. i know i've been saying this for weeks now but i WILL have the travel blog posted this week. nightie night.