Falling in love?

Just a simple thought- some things large and small that I love about Korea, after 3 months.

1. Korean high school boys will tell you it is "scientific fact" that playing basketball will make you taller.

2. Koreans are genuinely pleased if you know a little of their language. Some actually feel bad because they struggle to communicate with you, in their country! Again, Koreans are some of the warmest, friendliest people I have encountered.

3. You can drive- and park- on the sidewalk. Even as a perpetual walker, I love this. I fear for my life sometimes, but it all adds to the thrill.

4. When you turn on my washing machine, it sounds like "Live and Let Die" (G n R version). When you start a wash cycle, it sounds like when you die in Super Mario 2 or 3 (don't remember which).

5. They have bowling alley style games of skill everywhere here. The difference? In Korea, you can find machines that have live lobsters as a prize. This year, Pinchy will be mine and I will walk him just like Homer Simpson.

6. Exit subway. Climb mountain. Return to subway. Awesome.

7. Free food. Not 2 days passes without some sort of yogurt, fruit, or ginseng beverage being given to staff. And food- rice cakes, pastries, pizza slices (complete with sweet potato, of course). I've lost track of how many times the school has bought me dinner. Also, lots of fruit, which is expensive here.

8. Korea is Manchester United till it dies (perhaps a poor turn of phrase given our unpredictable friends to the North...). On United matchdays, Korea looks like a checkerboard from space (red jersey, black hair).

9. Korean baseball games. The crowds never stop cheering, the cheerleaders are gorgeous, and the tickets and beer are cheap! The only way I can explain it is if Americans got ahold of the singing and shouting of a special European soccer match and ruined it with over the top piped in music and cheesy chants. Yet it's perfect...

10. Korean women are very... stylish. I think in many western countries their style (notably their footwear) may be more associated with those who work on their backs for a living, but here it seems to be sexual yet innocent, which we can all accept drives men even more wild.
Author's note: Jenny, this does not apply to you. You are stylish and beautiful and don't look like a street walker. (God, every time I write a blog something makes me fear an angry phone call...)

11. Related somewhat to that, even at high schools boys and girls generally sit separately in class. So my high school habit of staring at the beautiful girls without saying a word would have been perfectly normal in Korea- and they love standardized tests?? I was born in the wrong country...

12. Noraebang (sp?)- Korean singing room. There is something joyful, and again, innocent, about getting sojued up and then belting out some Journey with your friends. How many fights could be prevented in the UK on a Saturday by a drunken chorus of "Common People"? (are you listening, health secretary?) How many drunk drivers would put down their keys for the chance to butcher "Glory Days" in the USA (yeah, that was for you, Jud!)

This is sort of a celebratory blog, because as best I can tell by comments and emails, I have broken into double digits with 10 readers!!! So, to show my gratitude, if any of my readers bump into me this weekend and mention how much you like my blogs (my writing self esteem could always use a boost) I will buy you a drink. And if in order to do this, you have to fly from America, Europe, or Australia, I will make it two rounds!