Weird shit I see in Korea

So I see a lot of strange things here, and I felt like sharing them with you.

First off, proof that i secretly live where Hatoful takes place.





Birds are a recurring motif in the town where I'm living. It kinda confuses me. Even the Air Force base (which is named after a town) follows the avian theme with the name Osan -- which translates to "Crow Mountain."




In Korea, they actually encourage plastic surgery. Pretty much every celebrity you see has some form of work done, from something as innocuous as Double Eyelid surgery, to something as drastic as V Line, where they reshape your fucking chin. This was snapped in the subway station on my way to a mall in Gangnam (so the "classy" rich people district (No Psy jokes please)). The text is hard to see, but it says "Before" and "After" beneath the emoticons. Large Version here.




This little phone charm is from a set of hand gestures. You can see on the bottom that it has a little lexicon of what the different gestures mean. The best part is that the middle finger means "Okay."

What.




This one I know I've posted in Angie's Love Revo thread, but yup, found this in the Nintendo store. While I was very tempted to get it for Reasons, i'm not about to drop $40 on an anatomy fail game.




While not really that weird, this is a doggy dress I got at a dollar store (well, sorta. It's a store where things don't go over $8 in price, and they have all kinds of things, including cooking utensils) for shiggles so my dog would have a Halloween costume. The thing is, she actually likes wearing it.

Oh, and that green, plastic liter bottle there? That's not sprite, that's Soju, which is basically Korean Vodka. My husband got it by mistake because it was by the register and he thought it was water.




Occasionally, I see some really cute things. This is a bento I picked up at the same bargain shop where I got the doggy dress.




Thermal Underwear is very important in Korea! When it's cold, don't forget your FAP!




One of my favorite foods is Taiyaki, but sometimes the ones here are not fish shaped. This was a poop shaped one, and incidentally, the filling was chocolate flavor. It was actually surprisingly tasty.


And last but not least, There's the Gachapon machines. Pokemon is really popular over here, so you see a lot of the same gachapons that Japan gets, but never see the light of day outside of Asia. Of course, I carry googly eyes with me for photo opportunities, so I felt compelled to spruce up this machine:



Much better.

I am a immature and awful human being, so the poop taiyaki and the fap is making me laugh so painfully hard that I'm on the floor, clutching my stomach.

I'm sorry.

The fact that I took pictures of them is proof that I'm an immature person too.

one of my friends have a bunch of Korean college friends, apparently instead college fund, their parents set up plastic surgery funds for them..

I think it's mostly first generation Korean families though.

I've heard of some people getting Double Eyelid surgery for their kids as graduation presents :/

Nowadays, it's pretty much become so common that if you want to know what your kids are gonna look like (assuming you are marrying a korean) then you should look at their grandparents, because their parents probably had some work done too. I've even heard some stuff as bad as girls getting muscles in their calves taken out so they don't look "fat."

Needless to say, none of the clothes here will ever fit me, as my bone frame is too large.

How will they explain it to their kids!!!!

Poor baby girl. I think she's cute :(

How does that even work? Can they still walk properly afterwards? /mentally facepalming at the world

Looking good is more important than walking!

Which is ridiculous because Korea is a very commute heavy country. It's way faster to take the subway anywhere than to drive, especially within Seoul. Like, I live 60ish miles away from Seoul, but it takes us at least an hour to drive there D:

Dear god, the calf muscle thing sounds painful. D: Reminds me of those pictures of bound feet I saw in my Chinese history textbook.

Beef is expensive in Korea, you take what you can get.

(I have no idea how much they cut out, I'd rather not dwell on it.)

...................

This sounds almost worse or equally ridiculous to me. At least you could still kind of walk with bound feet (the walk style was actually why they bound the feet).

I saw some Gangname Style socks at one of the local street vendors, I'll try to snap a pic next time I'm out (It's snowing here though). There's also those horse head masks and stuff.

/Mitchi is in Seoul
/My favourite and only kpop band I listen to is in Seoul
/Sneak into their house for me? =D

I GUESS HATOFUL IS REALLY POPULAR THERE HUH. I bet fatbird is doing all those cosmetic surgeries...

Nope.

So lately, it was warm enough that all of the snow from last month finally melted, then within two days this shit happened:



4 fucking inches of snow, I don't even. Oh well, my dogs seem to enjoy it.




Dude, this is NOT the weather to be drying your clothes outside.




These are manual exercise machines, found overlooking the neighborhood park. There is an eliptical machine, which is weird but at the same time kind of awesome, and i don't know what the other things are.




Many of the houses and apartments in Korea (At least where I live) use number pads to open the doors. It's pretty nifty, since I tend to forget my keys usually.




Found at a local convenience store, in the cold food section (where the sandwiches usually are, except in korea it's rice balls, not sandwiches). Koreans fucking love spam like woah. I think they love it more than hawaiians. It's expensive over here for some reason (about $5 a can) and it's seen as fancu and a perfectly accepetable gift to give someone for say, idk an anniversary present or housewarming gift. They even have gigantic gift packs of spam, and I'll try to snap a pic of one if I see one (they're usually in bigger grocery marts)




This is soju, which is basically vodka. In plastic bottles. Right next to the register.

Did I mention that koreans love to get drunk? It's considered really rude to decline going drinking with someone (unless you have medical or religious reasons).




CREEPY FUCKING MASKS.

Gonna get one eventually. One day.




GANGNAM STYLE REFUSES TO DIEEEEE

Also Koreans love Angry Birds. I don't even know why.


Now for something that bothers me about Korea.

I don't know if it's just the town where I live, but Koreans fail at waste management. There's not a whole lot of designated trash cans, and they don't seem to know how to recycle properly. For example:



This is a typical trash heap that's just by the side of the road. It's next to the sidewalk, and, well, this is basically the trash can. :/




These are the recycling receptacles. You can clearly see that they say "Glass," "cans," and "plastic" above the bags BUT YOU CAN SEE HOW WELL THAT FUCKING WORKS OUT. There are eggshells in the plastics bin, and plastic in the glass bin. The cans bin was destroyed and never replaced.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I've seen some bins that have like seven categories: plastics, aluminum, food waste, paper, cardboard, etc.

It can be trouble just keeping enough trash bins at home.

The ones in fast food places are like that, but for fuck's sake, there's three bins there and no one can get it right D:

Yeeeaaah... the ones you posted just look hideous. I would guess the system just feels like a nuisance?

Whoa those masks. O___o

I went to the local stationery store (yup, stuff like paper and cute erasers and whatnot) and guess what, they're ready for valentines! The got rid of all their cold weather/winter stuff and put out a fuck ton of chocolates, candies, and things covered in hearts.




Part of the main chocolate display. Yup, those are poop shaped chocolate lollypops (yes, I got one. For science. Also they were only 500 won (approx 50 cents)). Apparently Koreans think that poop is cute or something.

Oh, and on the left there is fake Ferrerro Rocher. Koreans love Ferrerro rocher.



It's good, I will admit, but I don't understand why I see it EVERYWHERE on holidays. Korea has two big romantic holidays; Valentines and Pepero day. Pepero is basically the korean version of pocky, so giving chocolate covered cookies is totes romantic. But giving chocolate in general is considered a big part of the romance.

If you've ever watched any anime that has a valentines episode, you'll notice that there's always a girl making chocolates for some guy she really really likes.

Well, they do that here too, apparently.



This is just a small portion of the wall length display dedicated to homemade chocolate (which is really just melting and pouring into a mold, most of the time). There's various toppings and mix ins, cute decorating packages, and even little chocolate filled pens for writing things. On the bottom there, we have melting chocolate. Off to the side (not pictured) they even have spatulas and double boiler pans for actually melting the chocolates.



You use the pens by soaking them in a mug of hot water for a bit until the chocolate melts, then you unscrew the cap and draw penises write sweet notes to your lover.


Of course, beauty centric Korea would never have a stationery store that doesn't have cosmetics and accessories.



For those that don't have their double eyelid surgery yet, there's eyelid tape!




Blythe hair dye. This is not hair dye for Blythe dolls, this is for humans, it just has Blythes on it. I've seen some brands that have Barbie O_o




A lot of the shops have these really cool high tech doors. Instead of being automatic, or just having handles, you press the button and they slide open.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have tiny konepeito and chocolates to enjoy.

I admit those doors are really cool, but I seriously question the practicality of them.

Does Korea do Valentine's day / White day like Japan, or guys are supposed to give presents to girls on V day?

Edit: the doors are super practical. Almost the convenience of an automatic door, without the waste of opening any time someone walks by even if they aren't trying to go in.

They're great for when your hands are full, you just boop it and suddenly, open sesame~

I get the impression that they do it more american style, where you just give chocolate to someone you like regardless of what gender you or they are. They don't have white day, but on April 14 they have Black Day, where all the single people can get together and commiserate over the fact that they have no significant other, while eating jajangmyun ((짜장면) Noodles with Black Bean sauce, it's actually super duper tasty).

Sounds like my kind of holiday!

So how did the poop candy taste?

I have played enough Tokimeki to know how to melt and mix chocolate like a goddamn pro.

POOPSICLES YAY

Like strawberries.

I am trying to claw my way through my god damn computer screen to arrive at those amazing chocolate-making tools. Why does my grocery store not have them? Why do I have no idea where to get any such things locally? I want to make chocolates in little molds and write on them with colored chocolate pens! God dammit, I could make so many amazing things with these. SO MANY.

*paws at the screen futilely*

I will never understand this obsession with poop.
I just don't understand.

Every day is Black Day for me.

Get your mind out of the gutter, Ely!

We should start a club.

Together alone?

Double-boiler is for suckers when you want to melt chocolate. Just use a microwave-safe ceramic bowl and your microwave. Nuke for 30 seconds, stir, let it sit for a minute and stir, another minute and stir, and if you still need some heat you can nuke it again for 10 seconds. The heat from the bowl will very gently melt the chocolate so you don't risk doing anything bad to it. Ceramic bowl + oven that was brought up to your lowest heat setting and then turned off also works wonders, just takes longer.

I've a craving for chocolate now D:

I never felt particularly wowed by Korean chocolate, to be honest. Am I the only one?

WAIT A MINUTE.

I just had a brilliant idea.

Chocolate + silicone ice cube trays = CHOCOLATE SHAPES

I'm going to have to go buy some ice cube trays now. BECAUSE WHO WOULDN'T WANT BATARANG CHOCOLATES

Probably someone you wouldn't want to marry anyway.

...Marry me ?