Day 18: Food On The Brain

So there's no feeling "lovelier" than having an empty cupboard, being absolutely starving, and having no money at all cause every bank or currency exchange place you visit doesn't want your Canadian traveller's cheques!!! That was my situation today! NOT FUN!

I ran out of Korean won on the weekend and had to wait until today to try and cash in my American Express traveller's cheques (all are in Canadian dollars.) I was told, by numerous sources before leaving Canada, including CIBC, that I would have no problem cashing in my Canadian TC's. Boy was that ever a lie!!! I went to a major bank today, and after standing in line for nearly an hour, was redirected to another line, and then was told that my cheques could not be cashed (after they stared at them in utter confusion for a good 5 minutes.) I felt like saying "Yes, there are other currencies out there OTHER than the American dollar!!!" I was redirected to a whole other bank, one located in Bucheon - What? NO BANKS in Shihung City handle this kind of stuff? Grrr.... And the problem with this other bank is that it's only open (assuming I can even find it) from 9:30am - 4:30pm M-F...which is right when I teach!! How am I supposed to be able to go to this damn bank when I'm at work all day? I WAS NOT IN A GOOD MOOD!!

I was about to have a bit of a meltdown, but then worked out a plan and it's seeming to be working out so far... I explained the situation to my boss and he's lending me 100,000 Won until we get this sorted out, and has even offered to drive me to the bank tomorrow morning to help me out with this. It's all been very frustrating indeed, but I think that having a Korean with me who can converse with the bank staff will make all this much easier. You can definitely add this whole thing to the VERY LONG LIST of "Why I Hate All Banks!" I've learned that cash is definitely the way to go here in Korea.

So I went to the Kolon-Mart tonight and bought a big-ass load of groceries - I'll be more than fine for the rest of the week now! It's still interesting to see what products can (and cannot) be found in the stores here - there's so many that they just don't sell at all and it makes me wonder why - like why cream cheese, but no bagels? Or why a million and one kinds of Thousand Island salad dressing, but no Ranch? Why only sliced processed cheese, and not block cheese? Why sliced ham (red meat -ewww) and not like turkey or chicken? I guess these are all just small cultural differences between Korea and Canada. I've had a few friends (and family) back home offer to send me care packages of stuff that I'm missing - how sweet! People were looking for suggestions, so here is a random list of things that I wish I could buy in stores here, but can't. Most of this stuff you can't even mail anyways, but this is what I'm craving:

-bagels and cream cheese
-Ranch dressing
-Cadbury mini-eggs
-CHEESE!!! marble or cheddar or swiss or brie or camembert...whatever...any kind sounds good to me.
-a kind of bread other than white (I am soooo missing brown or multi-grain bread!)
-Michelina's microwave dinners
-Kraft Dinner
-Cambell's Chunky Soups (like Chicken Noodle or Clam Chowder or Chicken Vegetable...)
-Lipton Sidekicks - those instant pasta and rice thingies - especially Garlic Raefallo pasta(sp?), or Broccoli & Cheddar Rice
-Lipton Iced Tea (the one with the blue lid, not the gross one with the yellow lid)
-Caramilk or Oh Henry or Crunch or Snickers bars
-nachos!!! with cheese and sour cream and guacamole...mmmm.....
-2-bite brownies
-Ritz Bitz sandwiches (the cheese kind)
-those Swiss Cheese crackers
-cookie dough ice cream
-cheesecake (actually they do have cheesecake here, in bakeries, I just haven't bought any yet)
-a million and one other things that I just can't think of right now! :-)

Oh yeah, if anyone feels like mailing me an OVEN, I'll be more than happy to give you my first-born child! I was never really much a cook back in Canada, but 90% of the cooking that I did do was in the oven - like casseroles and frozen stuffed chicken breasts and pizza and stuff like that. GOD DO I MISS MY OVEN!!! For whatever reasons Koreans just don't do ovens. Apparently they're slowly starting to become popular here and are available in newer homes, but traditionally they just do not exist in the common Korean kitchen. I do have a microwave, so anything that can be microwaved is great...but unlike North America, there's not a lot of things in Korea that can go in the micro.

One more thing...and if anyone can figure out how to instantly beam over a meal cooked by either my mother or by my friends Tom or Benoit (and in all honesty, it can be *ANYTHING* cooked by them) so that it still arrives still hot and fresh and yummy, I'll give you anything that you want! You name it - it's yours!! (and hey you'll also win the Nobel Prize for...Being An Amazing Scientist?) Just an idea anyways!

:-)