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Fountain in a park in Downtown Daegu. I finally met my interpreter Starrlite. She's an American who's father was in the US Army and her mom is Korean. She turns 19 on October 12 and I turn 37 on October 16! Party time for everyone! We sat and talked about our upcoming work developing the program. She also explained all the household appliances. I have a Kim chi refrigerator, some thing where you can sterilize your cutting board, a washing machine that dries the clothes after the wash cycle and a wall thingy that not only makes the water hot, but it heats the floors in the winter! I asked her about a couple of things that were missing in my apartment. Like sheets for the bed and a shower curtain. She said Koreans don't really do sheets or shower curtains. It turns out that you wear sandals in the bathroom and porches if you have them. Inside the house you wear either socks, slippers, or go barefooted. Luckily, she said she can take me to the military base and I can buy some comforts of home from there. Before our trek to downtown, I asked her to go with me to some of the restaurants that were within walking distance of my apartment. She read the signs and explained what was on the menus. A lot of the places serve similar things, just differently. Some places specialized in stone pots of rice, meats and vegetables and others served pig intestines. She pointed to one place and said don't go there. I asked why and she replied "They serve dog there." That's right...ruff ruff...Rin Tin Tin. She said some people actually raise dogs like cows or pigs to cook, etc. She said it's supposed to be good for you and taste good. I came here to experience the culture and try new things, but I'm going to draw the line there. If I'm eating anyone's pet, it's a friend of mine's devil cat in Chicago that attacks me every time I walk near it.
She then took me to downtown Daegu. I don't live far from it. Maybe 10-15 minutes away and a 3000-4000 won taxi ride. Downtown Daegu is basically a lot of very narrow streets with tons of people, cars, and scooters trying to kill you. It felt like it was a festival with a zillion shops lining the streets. Some of the streets and alleys had a particular theme. Like some sections had a lot of cell phone stores, another had lots of clubs, another with tons of shoe & boot stores, etc. We went to a place that serves hamburgers, fries and chili...my kind of place! They even had a double double like at In-N-Out in LA! The bowl of chili was super small, but the food was pretty good. The funniest thing about downtown was seeing a Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robbins, Bennigan's, McDonalds, Burger King, and KFC!
The whole night, I saw 2 other Americans, a Canadian couple, a few Indian guys, and about 2.5 million Koreans. We walked for a couple of hours and then called it a night. What I learned today about Korea: 1) They don't have heating & air ducts. If you're lucky, you can have an air conditioner and something that warms the floors. 2) Daegu has a population of 2.5 million people...well, 2.5 million +1 big American guy now. 3) They have a KFC here!
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