handuh-phone land

i got a cell phone today! i'm actually feeling more settled now. i got my debit card yesterday (that was an event in itself, resulting in the bank's security card hovering over me trying to use his killer english skills to help me understand what was going on). so this morning i went to the sktelecom headquarters and got a cell phone of my very own.

for those of you who are thinking about coming to korea and are wondering about how to acquire cell-phones... you may have heard that unless you have a korean to sign for a plan under, you have to stick with the prepay cards, which ends up costing you more. not true! if a place doesn't let you do that, go to another. i heard from fred, my coworker, that he had problems the first year with that, but i think when he went to renew his phone or something he went to the company headquarters and they gave them no problems with that. same thing today, although it took me a while to get them to understand what i wanted (a lot of "no prepay... no carduh... i want plan... pay every month") i was soon on my way to becoming a part of technology again.

oh yeah, something else, again if you are planning on coming to korea, make sure to ask for a phone with an english menu. luckily i knew to ask for that and was my number one requirement when i chose my phone- there's a pretty good selection of them available, too.

anyways, i got to talk to my parents and celeste, and i tried calling amber but she didn't answer her phone and she wasn't at work. hopefully i'll be able to talk to her sometime too.

oh, i told my parents and roommates this story, but i'm sure you all want to hear it too. i have encountered quite a few strange things here, but here are definitely the top two:

first, last week when i was walking home, i walked by what must have been a hospital or clinic, i'm not sure, but out on the sidewalk, just kind of chilling, strolling around, was a man in his 40s or 50s... wearing his hospital scrubs and hooked up to an iv stand. i have no idea what his deal was but i thought it was very weird and kind of forgot about it. then yesterday again i was walking by the same place, and there was a different man, the same age, hooked up to an iv stand again wearing his hospital scrubs. but this time the man was leaning against the building smoking. correct me if i'm wrong, but if you need to be hooked up to an iv, should you be standing around smoking? oh korea.

the next story is not for those with queasy stomachs. i was walking by a bench on sunday, watching a man who was sitting down, thinking about the groceries i was going to buy (in particular, thinking about ice cream). this man was kind of posed like the "thinking man" statue so i was just staring at him, wondering what his deal was. at that moment, he opened his mouth and i got to see his last meal, which appeared to have been a chocolate milkshake. by then the damage had been done and for some reason i couldn't take my eyes away. seems that he might have started happy hour a little to early- it was only 5 or 6 pm. needless to say, i was no longer craving ice cream.