Escaping Unusual Situations

Life is definitely not dull in Korea. I have escaped 3 unusual situations in the last 24 hours. Let me tell you about them.

Situation 1: last night I went with the girl from church who is going to spend a week with me in Thailand to the mall at Yongsan: to eat Thai food, prayer walk and shop. When we went into the store there I had the Bridget Jones 2 movie in my purse. (She had borrowed it to watch the sceens on Thailand.) When we were going into the store I asked her if she thought I should take it out... then I reasoned through my own question with the fact that it's region 1, clearly American and clearly not available at that store. We proceeded into the store. The metal detecters beeped when we went in, but not till after I went through. I thought maybe it was from the glass bottle in her bag from the Thai restaurant. The guard's didn't say anything, but radioed to someone. Likely saying "2 meegook people are entering with something that set the alarm off, watch them." So we went to look at the things she wanted to look at, then I proceeded to get my Cranberry juice. When we went to pay we set off the detecter again. The cashier wouldn't give me my card back and kept asking me what was in my bag (in Korean of course). So naturally I was freaked out thinking they are going to arrest me for bringing my own movie in to the store. So I took the movie out, showed it to her and explained (in English and some Korean) that it was from "meegook" and that it was mine. She said OK and told me next time not to bring it in. Yikes! Fortunately no arrest!

Situation 2: This afternoon I went to the dentist. When I got to the building I hesitated outside double checking that it was the right building. When I was certain, I went in to the elevator. Right as I was pushing the button for the elevator a Korean man comes running in and starts asking me where I am going. The he proceeds to ask me if I will teach him English. I tried the best to explain to him that I am going to be busy over the next 3 months and that I was going to a dentist appointment. He proceeded to try and persuade me telling me he'd pay me $30 for just 10 minutes of English lessons. Then he asked when I would be done and said we could go study English at a hotel. I tried to explain to him that I had to go home to my "nampyon" husband after the dentist. Usually that gets them to leave me a lone if I think they are interested in more than just English lessons. Well, it didn't get rid of him, and he wanted my phone number. So I gave him Allen's number. Well, then he asked me if the number I gave him was mine. Naturally I didn't lie. He wasn't happy and kept asking for my number. I told him that my husband would be available to teach him English. When that didn't seem to be good enough, I got the impression he wasn't going to go away, so I just told him no, I can't. Finally he left.

Situation 3: The dentist itself was an experience. This was my first time getting my teeth cleaned in Korea and they did something called scaling, which hurt like heck and made me bleed all over. It was so bad there was blood on my shorts from my mouth. Gross. The pain was so horrible at times because my gums are sensitive that I had to ask them to stop. Finally, she resorted to only using the hand pick. Thank the Lord! Fortunately I came out alive and the dentists chair is still intackt. I was gripping the arms pretty hard to displace the pain. Weird thing is I had a dream about the dentist visit last night and it was pretty bad. I must say it was my worst experience at the dentist to my recollection. Especially since I appear to have 7 cavities. Yuck!