Hellie Pol-tor

If you teach English in Korea, you are asked about what you like on a daily basis.

"Teacher, you like Kimchi?" For example. If you have not been asked this one million times then you are not teaching in Korea. The other standbys are if you like "rice", depending on your sex Korean "women or men", Korean food (which for some reason is a separate category from rice and kimchi), and various K-pop bands and Korean celebrities that are virtually unknown to anyone not born on the peninsula.

However there was one thing I kept getting asked that I had no Idea what it meant.

"Teacher do you like Hellie Pol-tor?" I would be asked randomly

"What?"

"Hellie Pol-tor?"

"What the hell is that?" I had no idea what the fuck they were asking me, and one student in particular would ask me it about my opinion of "Hellie Pol-tor" once every two weeks. The student who asked was actually one of my better students, and spoke English fairly well, but would get very frustrated when I asked him to explain what the fuck a "Hellie Pol-tor" was.

I eventually figured out that it was a movie, but did not know if it was Korean or mainstream. Then one day I was browsing movies at the local library when all of a sudden it hit me. "Hellie Poltor" was known in America as "Harry Potter", one of the most popular book and movie franchises of the recent decade.

I cant believe it took me like 6 months to figure that out.

I miss variety

That is the one thing I really miss about America. There are a million stores selling a million brands of a million products. You could buy almost any type of fruit or vegetable year round, shop for clothing of any size and brand, or buy things online for incredibly cheap prices.

In Korea, not so much. Every town has the same cell phone stores, book stores, clock stores(they are really into clocks here)and bakeries and they are all selling the exact same products. You might find a little more variety at your e-mart or homepluses, but the bulk of what they sell is exactly the same as what everyone else is selling.

There are foreign markets in Seoul that sell some a lot of products that you cant get anywhere else, put the prices are high and the selection is limited.

There are places that sell foreign sized clothes, but the last pair of jeans I looked at were $150.00 and looked pretty shoddy. And forget about a good pair of running shoes. Unless you want a stylish pair of rocking elevator shoes.



Oh well, I least I can afford to buy shit over here. Back in the good old US all my money went to rent, food and heat.

Super sized me

Apparently I am grossly obese. I have always thought that I needed to drop 10 lbs or so, but I think that all and all I look pretty normal. However, one day one of my wife's coworkers saw me waiting for the bus. She told my wife about it the next day.

"I saw husband. He vely fat!"

Maybe by Korean standards, I am vely fat. Although there actually quite a few chubby bastards running around here, since I am tall (er than them), and wider than them, and American, I am automatically fat. I also have either been working out, or working a physically demanding job for most of my life, and dont have noodle arms and legs like the dudes here, running around in their skin tight girl pants. I would say I probably outweigh 90%of the natives by a good 50lbs or so, of course I am also at least 4-6 inches taller than most of them too.

I don't really think I am that fat. My wife says I think I am skinnier than I actually am, that I am vely fat, and its like I have reverse anorexia or something.

This is most likely not a good idea, knowing the people of the interwebs, but her I am in all my glory.

Too much white....

I am fat? Only by korean standards, by american standards? What do you think?

My wife has wanted me to set goals for losing weight (bikini season is right around the corner!), but I am not all that passionate about it. So she is now trying to bribe me. If I lose an inch off my waist, I get to purchase an expansion on one of my games from xbox live. Or if I lose 1 1/2" I get to buy a new game. So if I wanted an expansion and game, I would need to lose 2 inches total.

For all the VG nerds out there, I am eying the expansions for fallout 3 and fable 2 and maybe mass effect (1 is available for download on Xbox live)

I decided to measure my waist to see where I am at right now. We searched our whole rice patty of a town, and could not find one fucking measuring tape. I had to use a belt, marker, and 12 inch ruler to figure it out. Right now my waist, at the belly button is 37inches, which is actually a lot bigger than I thought it was.

Maybe I do have reverse anorexia...?

Christmas presents

When my sister in law returned to the states, my wife and I bought about $100.00 worth of fancy korean rice cakes, cookies and fermented bean paste thingies from the Hyundai department store. They were all in fancy packaging with Englishee descriptions of the contents. One description said that "the taste is quite tedious", and I wish I read that before I bought the darn things.

All my wife's family and my parents and younger brother were at her aunt's house for Chirstmas, so we thought they would love to try something new, fancy and exciting. Well my sister in law brought them out, and apparently only two people tried them, (two of my wife's cousins) and they said "they taste weird". No shit they taste weird, they are made out of fucking rice, like every god damn thing in this country.

My parents and brother showed up late, so my sister in law held back a box to give to them. They tried the candies and liked them. They also thought they were weird tasting, but good. For 100,000 won they better god damn taste good!

One of the best parts of traveling to other countries is trying the local foods. And if you are not the one traveling, to have strange delicacies sent to you is the next best thing. To not even taste something that was sent over 3000 miles, just for you is unforgivable in my book.

I cannot even find images of the stuff we sent over, and I really wanted to post some, they were so cool looking. They looked like eggs, and kiwis with flowers and fancy designs.

And people say koreans are afraid to try new things.

Its goddam candy, how bad could it taste? Its not like the shit is filled with kimchi and dog testicles. Well maybe a couple of them are, but still that would be something you never could forget, even if you wanted to.



Dave eats pieces of shit like you for breakfast, and you are what you eat. The mods at ESL cafe get off two girls one cup style.