Life in the east (March 2008)

I am now in Korea and everything seems very strange. I mean everything! The people and the environment. Its the end of winter here and Korea seems so dead...everything is dry, maybe its because when I left home the leaves were green. Its also very cold...I wonder if I will be able to survive in this cold weather. What am I talking about? I survived Barkly East!

I met a few Korean people and they seem nice. They love bowing...I didn't know that they take bowing so seriously. The first time I saw them doing it...I couldn't help but laugh. No don't get me wrong...I knew about the Korean way of greeting but eishh seeing the Koreans do it is hilarious. Talk about cultural differences!

Cultural differences

On a bus from Suwon(my nearest city) to Joam(where I live) with a friend; a fellow South African, we were talking and the bus driver said something in Korean. We ignored him thinking he was speaking to other passengers on the bus...he said something again and he did not look happy. We realised that he was speaking to us when everyone looked at us. He was shouting at us telling us to keep quiet.(that's what we thought) I was so shocked, I didn't know that Koreans were so antisocial! Apparently people are not supposed to speak on the bus. Iyoooo! I don't think that's true. I think the driver was irritated because we were speaking in a language that he did not understand. He wanted to know what we were talking about...orata ditaba tsa batho! lol.