Friends in high places

In the following post, I will address several seemingly unrelated issues. They'll tie together at the end, I promise.

Those who have traveled with me before are very aware of this - I am a relaxed traveller, but I do demand ice cream treats with some regularity.

Cut to Katrina extolling the virtues of Koreans... being a foreigner in Korea, I stand out like nobody's business. There is no way I would be mistaken for an ethnic Korean, ever. This means that sometimes, I'm an object of fascination, sometimes, I'm an object of rude stares, and often I'm an object upon which friendly Koreans want to practice their English...

Side note: my favourite, favourite thing is when a little kid gets a look of shock on their face and says something to their mom or dad like "waeguk saram" (foreign person) or "waeguk imnida" (she's a foreigner). Being the wiseass that I am, I jump back with equal shock and say "hanguk saram!" (korean person!) or "hanguk saram imnida!" And that REALLY shocks them, which make me and the Korean adults giggle ㅋㅋㅋ

Back to the story... I have now met a Korean university student who works at an ice cream shop, we are emailing back and forth... I also stop in to help with her English! (No, really, for the English, not for the ice cream!) How great is that! (It should be noted that we did not meet at the ice cream shop, but instead at a middle school I was teaching an English camp at). WOOT! Last night, rainbow sherbert! :-)

This country just gets better and better!