American living in Seoul

I've lived in Seoul for a little over a year now. This is my first duty station in the US Army and the first country I've been to outside the US. There isn't very much I like about Korea to be honest, but I'll tell you the stuff I do. I love their transportation system! Cabs are absolutely everywhere and pretty cheap. Drinking and driving isn't too frequent here because of that. I'm from CO and it's not only a pain in the ass to get a cab, but expensive as hell. Also Korea has a very expansive subway system that is cheap to ride and also the bullet trains. It literally cuts your travel time in half. This is a really great option because Korea traffic blows. Very congested. Not only because Koreans can't drive for shit, but also because their roads are a joke. Not so much the highways, but the side streets. THey're all twisty and windy and make no sense. It's like one day they said "okay we'll build a road here" without taking into consideration future expansion. What also sucks is the streets don't have names. You can't be like "take me to 6th and main." You have to tell them either the city you're going to or a landmark and once you get closer to where you want to be then you give directions like "okay go left..now right.." etc. You have to say it in Korean of course. A funny note to add: my friends and I were going to a club a month or so ago and they were drinking Southern Comfort out of a flask. They offered the cab driver a swig and he actually took one! (haha there goes what i said about not drinking and driving. Oops, lol.)

Another thing I like about Korea is the spas and treatments. They make American pedicures and manicures look like a joke and they are half the price! I tell my spa ladies I wanna bring them back to the US so they can start their own nail salon. They would make a killing because they are so so so good. Also, after every treatment at a spa or salon, you get a massage. And not a crappy one. A badass, hard, deep tissue massage. After they cut your cuticles they massage you. After they polish your nails they massage you. After a haircut..massage. I mean after everything!

The last thing I like about Korea is the shopping.THere are some things you can get for really cheap. For example, I have a DVD guy I go to. I went last weekend and got 16 movies for $40. And they're all good quality and new movies..some and most are still in theatres in the states. You gotta make sure you say ONLY good copies, or else they'll just sell you whatever.And you have to bargain, otherwise they charge you $5 a piece. I also have a fake coach wallet i paid $8 for and a purse I paid $25 for. I've bought 3 Broncos jackets out here..if I sold them in the States they'd probably be like $700 and I paid less than $200. I had a desktop computer built for less than $1200 which I could sell in the States for $4000. There are a lot of bargains here. Unfortunately, it's kinda hard to find out about all this unless you're living here for a while or you travel here and meet up with people that live here and know where to go.

Youre probably wondering why I don't like Korea. It smells like shit at all times. Literally you'll be driving by the river and just want to puke cause it smells like sewage. Koreans liter like nobodies business too. It's funny how they're all about recycling all their trash into different bins but they'll walk down the street and not even look for a trash can if they have trash in their hands. There is so much pollution here that I ended up being diagnosed with asthma, yet I've played soccer since I was 4 yrs old and never needed an inhaler. KOrea gave me asthma, literally, as well as many others here. The pollution and water is so bad here that my scalp is all gross. It gets all dried out and i can pick scabs off of it and it always itches. It's embarrassing cause I've got nice hair dammit. I work at the hospital here and SOOO many people have to be prescribed Eucerin (potent lotion) because the weather and environment here just screws everybody's skin up.
As far as Koreans themselves go...if you get to know them they are very kind and will do about anything for you. I mean they would go to all lengths. But if you don't know them, haha, they'll hit you with a car and not even stop to see if you're okay. That's not even an exageration. That's just how they are. It's so populated here in Seoul that they bump into you when they are walking past you and don't even look back. They would totally knock over an old lady and not even notice. This is "normal" here. It's hard to get used to. You just wanna punch them sometimes. Especially on the subway. Also, they butt in line. If you're buying a ticket for the subway or standing in line in a bank and it's your turn, if you don't have your money or whatever RIGHT then, say you have to open your purse, they'll literally bump you out of the way and the teller will help them instead of you. This is normal and they all do it to each other and they don't get mad. It's weird.
Hmmmmmmm what else.........

All of the "clubs" I've been to here are extremely small. They all look like hole in the wall dive bars and the cheapest I've ever found a Corona for is $7. Usually they are $9 and if you go to the Hyatt hotel they are about $17. You end up drinking their version of budlight or coors light just cause imports are too expensive. Their main beer is called "OB." Kinda funny.

Okay, well I think that's about all for now. Just had to get that out of my system!