So yesterday the powers that be decided to fumigate the dorm where I live, and in a spasm of common sense that is MOST uncharacteristic around here they decided to tell us first so we could clear out. (They must be slipping! Normally we’d learn about a fumigation when the room filled up with cyanide gas, or whatever they use…)
Astrogirl and I cleared out.
But where to go? We have a few hours to kill before we will be allowed back in the dorm, so we decided to go to Itaewon, have lunch, and go shopping (I need some shoes!). We had lunch at a Chinese restaurant that actually has westernized Chinese food (the Ho Lee Chow if you ever get to Seoul… good stuff! Run by a Canadian-Korean guy.), and then went looking for shoes.
Shoe shopping when you wear a size 16 shoe (especially in Korea!):
*Walk into shoe store…
Clerk: “Can I help you?”
Me: “Depends… you got anything in a size 16?”
Clerk: :eek:“Oh my God no!!”
Me: “Well, I guess not, then…”*
It’s a cold, hard world when you have size 16 feet.
So the shoe shopping was a bust… but while shopping around, I saw something that I have been wanting to buy for quite a while: Mink blankets!
I love Mink blankets, so I decided to buy one. Mink blankets, apart from being very soft and cuddly and warm, have pictures on them. Mostly animals, you know, lions, and tigers, and bears (oh my!)…
We looked at several different designs.
Me: “Which one, honey?”
AG: “Oolp.”
Me: “Huh?”
AG: “Oolp!”
Me: “What?”
AG: “Oolp! I told you!”
Me: “What is a ‘Oolp’?”
AG: “Nuk-dae!” (Korean for ‘wolf’)
Me: “Oh! The wolf…”
AG: “That’s what I said!”
Me: “No you didn’t; you said ‘Oolp’… (Astrogirl has trouble with her /W/'s) Honey-shi! Tara-ship-shi-o (Korean for repeat after me): ‘How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?’ Now you!”
AG: “Candy store is closed!” (Astrogirl-ese for ‘If you don’t shut up and quit hassling me about my pronunciation you ain’t gettin’ any for a LONG time!’)
Wisely, I shut up… we bought the wolf blanket. Then the clerk asked if we needed any sheets. Well the one sheet I own is getting kind of ratty, so yeah what the hell? The clerk brought out a few packages of sheets, and Astrogirl selected a set of really nice silver SILK sheets! Oh, BABY!
We hurried home (having wasted enough time to do so safely), and made my bed up with the silk sheets and Mink blanket! Tearing off our clothes, Astrogirl and I slid into bed… and almost continued right on a’sliding out the other side! But we held on and just bathed in luxury for a few hours until she had to go home.
So now, I may be shoeless by Christmas, but my bed has been transformed into a pit of deep DEEP comfort. I love my new bedclothes! I may just call in sick to work tomorrow and spend the day in bed.
