The inevitable downside

I've been in Korea for 5 months now and it's gotten to the point where I now consider this place home. There have been many good parts, but considering my personality, no blog would be complete without a list of my complaints. Some of them are very petty... actually, all of them are pretty silly and none of them really mount to anything major, but for those of you that have never spent time in Korea, they are things you would probably never think of on your own.

In no particular order...

1) Separating the trash. People had warned me about this, but I didn't realize how annoying it was until I experienced it. Not only do you not have a food disposal in the sink, but you have to separate out all your food trash in a separate bag... AND THEN you have to open the trash can lid, dump the food out, then place the bag in a separate trash can. It's gross. Recycling is not only mandatory, but you have to separate everything out... cans, plastic, paper... it is a total pain.

2) The lack of reasonably priced good food. There's good cheap food... there's good expensive food... and that's about it. There's no solid restaurant you can go to in the 25-50 dollar per person range where you will be satsified and full. I find this somewhat difficult to comprehend... it almost seems as if to become popular in a certain cuisine, you have price your food above $50 to get recognition. It's ridiculous.

2a) The food around Kangnam Station. The area I live in has a ton of restaurants... other than samgyupsal and a few other places, the food has been pretty disappointing. I would venture to say that the drinking food is better at Dwitgolmok in LA than a lot of the places I've been. Just by the sheer numbers, a lot of these places stay in business.

2b) The lack of people willing to venture to new places. There is an odd hierarchy of neighborhoods, a structure I wasn't really exposed to living in LA. If you have money, you play in Apgu or Chungdam. We wind up playing in Kangnam because its a) close to work and b) close to where most people live. That's about it. Garo-sugil is an extension of Apgu... Kangnam I've already hit, Apgu and Chungdam... you get $20 Gin and Tonics and a lot of obnoxious people trying to speak in English to show off. Apparently there is a whole other side of Seoul, but because its a 30 minute cab ride, most of the people I know just want to go to the same places over and over again... sigh...

3) The traffic. It's bad. So bad. I have nothing to say really other than its really bad, especially where I live. I want to move somewhere else just to get away from the traffic.

I think that is about it... I guess if that's all I can grouch about, it's been a not too bad 5 months in Korea... I promise, I will be back with some more rants at some point in the future.