District 1260 Blog

Well what a day! I am sitting in a somewhat seedy internet cafe surrounded by Korean gaming nerds. The only thing on their mind is the screen and game, so I am, in truth, as safe as anywhere  in here! Amanda has run off with her laptop and is at a homestay and I am home alone at the Seoul Residence so I had to come here to communicate with the uk.

Well we had another Rotary club meeting today in a posh hotel. I was reminded of some of the Korean habits while musing over another meal at the meeting.

Afew 'habits' I will not miss  about Korea and its inhabitants when I get back home are as follows.

1. Slurping during eating. Koreans of all grades make the most almighty noise quite unashamedly when eating. The noiser the better. Noodles, cornflakes, kimchi, all get sucked in with a noise to make a Dyson rep weep. As a trainee slurper the risk of this habit is that the noodle, say, or other food item,  gets a 'swing' or momentum of its own, on its way 'up' and smacks you in the cheek covering you in soy or chilli sauce. I have been very concerned about my contact lens at times!

2. Making a coughing- up sound at the back of the throat, as if about to expel a large globule of phlegm with force.  Femininely attired ladies also make this noise and it is often heard in the ladies lav where they scrub their teeth in public after food.

3 Being ordered I have to take a picture, or being told I have to be in a picture. My god they like a picture here. They snap anything and everything, and always twice. I am not usually the type of person who has many posed photos in my collection so friends and family are going to be quite shocked that my photos of panoramic scenery on this trip will always have a large bunch of grinning Koreans or Rotarians in them!

4 People driving with mobile phones glued to ears and tvs playing on the dashboard and driving thru  red lights. Tonight is an example. I get into someones car after dinner. I belt up at the back and the Korean women all start giggling  and laughing. They find it highly amusing that we use the seat belts!

So anyway today, after the Rotarian meeting and my musings, we all trooped off to Seoul womens college of Nursing for some vocational time for me and Amanda was very interested in this trip too. We were very warmly and grandly greeted by the Dean and other lecturers and profs. After a  tour round the amazing school of nursing where they had an impressive ward of plastic patient simulators for nurse students to practice 'procedures' on, we also discovered a curious nursing home with real patients in it, situated above the college, and I still havnt understood that bit but hey, I am not worried, the patients looked well cared for!

We were then  'mobbed' by student nurses after a giving a presentation about our jobs, ( I gave a bit more detail about my field of work being of greater interest to them I guess). I wondered if Callum was going to get underwear thrown at him at one point! The girls screamed and shrieked and giggled to be sitting with us, near us, to have pictures taken with us........ very strange!

I've just had supper with some quite important ladies associated with the Midwifery Associations and professors of Nursing. They want to meet up with me in the uk and get a tour of the hospital.

So I shall blog off now. Back to Hotel lonesome, a bar of choc, and Korean tv. Paula x