"Baxter, you know I don't speak (Korean)!"

Trying to find out where to take my garbage was like playing at a scavenger hunt. It seems that there are no public trash bins of any kind around here or at least none that I have been able to find. I had a small build up of trash in my apartment since moving in and had put it all in a plastic shopping bag. I finally found the garbage room, recycled my plastic bottles, but didn’t quite know which bin to put my trash in. I was about to dump the bag into one of the bins, when one of the security men came inside and yelled at me and grabbed the bag. I realized that the trash needed to be completely separated; plastic, paper, food scraps, glass, thicker paper, misc. items before being tossed into the bins. I was trying to ask him in English what I needed to do and all the while he was yelling at me in Korean. He gave up trying to argue with me and then shooed me away with the motion of his hand. He began to separate it muttering to himself. I walked away feeling embarrassed and really bad that this man had to pick through my garbage. I have decided that from now on I will try and separate my trash as best I can and sneak my garbage out late at night in hopes of avoiding another scolding.

While at the grocery store yesterday I picked a few bananas and put them into my bag and into my shopping container. When I arrived at the check out I set the bananas on the counter and the woman began telling (or asking?) me something about them in Korean. She was pointing to them and speaking Korean and I was shrugging my shoulders. I had no idea what she was trying to tell me. Then she leaped over her station and ran back into the store. A few minutes later she returned with a bar code sticker on the bag. Opps.

I stood in what appeared to be the laundry and cleaning product isle of the store for a good ten minutes trying to decide which product was laundry soap, fabric softener, and dish washing soap. I have no idea which one I ended up buying.

There was a strange bell that sounded in my apartment yesterday morning and I had no idea where it was coming from. Then came an announcement in Korean, and I realized that there was a speaker on my ceiling I hadn’t noticed before. I obviously had no idea what was said so I peaked outside my door slowly to make sure it wasn’t some sort of emergency evacuation plan or something and realized it was all clear. I went about my morning and then jumped in the shower. Freezing cold water sputtered out of the showerhead. I was desperately trying to turn the handle to the hottest water setting without any success. I quickly put two and two together and understood what the Korean announcement had been trying to tell me.

Namaste