So, after giving up sleep, money and blood, my efforts have paid off. I have finally become recognized as an alien! My little emoticon is now truly indicative of me! Sting's song "Englishman in New York" has been playing over and over in my head as my personal theme song for the day.
Today I got my alien registration card from the Korean Immigration Bureau. I feel like a real person now! I have a recognized ID in this country. Yay! If only I'd known that the awful passport picture I took in Costco was going to be on an ID...
Speaking of Costco, if you were totally curious (and I'm sure you were just waiting to hear this), Korea has Costco here. Now, you may think you've seen Costco, but you've seen NOTHING until you've seen Costco in Korea.
For starters, my Korean coworker who had invited us along on this merry shopping trip told us allot about 4 hours for the experience. I didn't really believe her because really, how long can Costco possibly take? Sure, we had to drive there, but it was only about 30 minutes away. Who can really spend 3 hours in a warehouse grocery store?
The answer to that: ALL OF KOREA!!!
My first hint about how things were about to go started when we got about a block away from Costco and my coworker pointed to the right hand lane. "That's the queue." (she's Korean, but learned English in London)
Us (being myself and the other new teacher whom I hang out with a lot. He really needs a name, don't you think? Maybe I'll call him Desert Boy, since his desert upbringing makes him somewhat allergic to Korean cold weather- we complain about it a lot together. Btw, thank you to Britt for the idea of blog names) : "The line for what?"
Korean coworker: "To get into the parking lot."
Us: "..."
Whereupon Korean coworker's husband tried to cut the line. This then lead to us being schooled by one of the six men directing traffic into Costco. We had to go around again.
(Starting to get the idea?)
As it turned out, there was another line, so we got into that one. We only had to wait 20 minutes to get into the parking lot after that! And then I discovered one of the most fascinating mechanical devices I have seen since the advent of the cell phone.
Car elevators.
They exist. And they are totally terrifying. I can only be incredibly grateful that I am not claustrophobic and that I was not driving. As it was, I am not sure that I ever want to experience driving into a tiny space, getting closed in and then lurching upwards in a slowly rocking car again. (I'm not sure why our driver didn't throw the parking break)
Then there was Costco itself. On the first floor you had your standard non-food items and this all seemed relatively calm. Korean coworker directed her hen-pecked husband to take the shopping cart and stand in the the line that snaked around the perimeter of the store. This was the line to get downstairs, to the food. Then we took to browsing the aisles for the next 20 minutes while poor husband was standing in line. When husband reached the moving ramp, we joined him and moved into the food basement.
It was nightmarish. People were crammed into the aisles, shoving past each other to get to food and get by. There was a line to walk from one aisle to the next. I have never been accidentally touched by so many people in a grocery store before. Desert Boy got almost pushed over by a cart, which may have then led to imminent death, and both of us got rather bruised ankles from too many aggressive shopping cart drivers. Hen-pecked husband continued to wheel around the perimeter while we went about collecting items and returning to the home base to drop things off. I felt a little bit like a bee, or an ant.
So, grand total, the trip took us from 1:40 PM to about 5 PM. So maybe not quite 4 hours, but closer than I would ever have liked it to be.
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