- The price of gasoline here is about $6 per gallon. The price of a cup of Starbucks drip coffee is about $3.50. I think the ratio of the cost of coffee-to-gas is about the same as in the US.
- From observation, about 95% of Korean women routinely wear heels at least 1.5 inches high. You can see their ankles wobble as they walk, particularly on brick or cobblestone sidewalks, but we haven't observed any broken ankles yet.
- Our hosts tell us around 50% of Korean men smoke, and around 40% of Korean women. We don't see many cigarette ads (at least we don't see ads with pictures of cigarettes) but the penetration is still very high.
- If you scratch the facade of Americanism on many of the stores here, you find Korea inside. For example, I found a Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast and went looking for my usual cake donut. Instead, I found a "Sticky Rice Dough Honey Stick" and a "Mocha Coffee Roll". The Honey Stick is chewy dough, kind of like a very sweet bagel, that's made from rice. The Mocha thing is just a sweet roll with mocha flavoring mixed in. Of course, the veneer still holds -- both were liberally covered with donut icing.
- Having solved the problem of being unable to order beer, our next linguistic challenge is coffee. All the coffee bar servers assume we want a "Coffee Americano", which is an espresso shot blended that's diluted with hot water. And it tastes like it sounds -- like watered-down espresso. What I want is a normal "drip" coffee, but I just don't know the word for it. I point and pantomime, and I keep getting Americano. Grrr...
- There are two kinds of taxis. The black ones have leather seats and nice air conditioners and hang out around hotels. The white or light-colored ones are for the masses, and they patrol the streets looking for fares. They can actually pick up multiple fares at a time, so you might detour a little on the way to your destination. The black ones are about twice as expensive as the light ones. Both are clean and neat, however. I got in a cheap one this morning with my Dunkin' Donuts coffee and the taxi driver gave me a lecture about not drinking coffee in his cab. At least I think that's what he said.
- At Korean restaurants, the servers don't come around contsantly to see how you're doing and whether you need anything else. Instead, there's a button bolted to the table that you press when you need something. When you press it, the server literally jogs over to your table to find out what you need. Not a bad idea....
- There's no tipping in Korea. A standard 10% "service charge" is added to the bill. And there's still darned good service.
More as they come...
No comments:
Post a Comment