But can you eat the walls?

This is a noraebang, a singing room. It's like karaoke but for small groups in a private room. It's so fun and they are on every corner. I don't know what chocolate has to do with this one.

Dance with me!

Yet another pencil case! They seem to be everywhere here. I think this one has a strange image for a young girl to have. I suppose at home the Bratz can be worse. Still, the black lacy bra-top is a bit of a slutty image. The camo pants are interesting though.

Fineapple sunshine!

I was scanning the cocktails menu at a bar a couple weeks ago and noticed a few strange things...



Also...what's a Gold Medal List?

A few strange places...

This is a PC bang, or an internet gaming room. They are everywhere here and very cheap. But...what is a Mug Game? Am I out of the loop on gaming? Also, many things in Korea seem to be called "story" or "school". One of my favorite pizza shops is Pizza School. I also knew of a Beer School.


Sorry about the blurriness of this pic. Still, you can tell what it's called. Sounds like it should be a brothel (which they do have here).


Along the same lines, they also have hostess bars here. Now this place is probably just an innocent drinking establishment, but maybe it's a hostess bar where the waitresses provide just what the title implies. >.> Me and my dirty mind. I've walked down Hooker Hill one too many times, I think.

The windmills of my mind

I saw this green-painted wall section inside a take-out restaurant the other night. I tried very hard to unobtrusively photograph it, so this is as close as I could get. It says:

"bon-food thinks the customer when first.
And the product thinks the customer first."

Now, does that make any sense? I thought not. And what's with the dutch-like windmill? This was a Korean food take-out, which is unlike anything in Western Europe. Here's the menu board below that open window.

Heigh Ho! Heigh Ho!

This little fellow stands outside a nearby restaurant. He's kinda creepy, isn't he? At first I thought it was a loose interpretation of Disney's Happy. But looking again, I'm not sure which dwarf it's meant to be, although you can clearly see the Disney influence. Here, I'll let you decide:

What's with the big long nose?

No more Mr. Nice Guy!

I love that guy's hair. All guys want their hair cut like that, don't they?

And on a similar theme:


(Sorry about the darkness of the photo). Maybe they *meant* to say CLEANIC. It's a clinic where you get your hair clean?? :/

Climb Ev'ry Mountain!

Some mountains are worth climbing, eh?

For all holics everywhere

Well, if they serve Soju, there will be plenty of holics there.

Good vibrations

This is a common sight. It's a game of some sort (I've never played it) but I think it's similar to the claw games where you grab a prize. I was looking at the prizes, which included mp3 players and stuff when I noticed one thing:

This butterfly massager I think is intended for massaging a certain part of a woman's body, if you know what I mean. Click on the picture for a close up. Some of the uses it claims to be for are acupuncture (how?!) and screpping, whatever that is.

Pet Please

These handy little things are made of a squisy foam material. You put them on the door to prop it open so your pet can run from room to room. First of all, in my experience with Korean apartments, only the fairly weathy have door in their places. Most apartments I've seen have sliding doors which really wouldn't work with these. (Houses are pretty rare in the city.) Let's take a closer look:
Cute, isn't it? Dogs are the main pet here. I've only seen cats on the streets and they are pretty sad looking. Dog pets are mainly the toy and small variety and they adore them! They dress them up and dye their hair pink and purple and stuff. Not everybody eats dogs!

Yahoooooooooooooooo!!

This store is in the popular part of Seoul called Itaewon, that is full of western culture. Obviously, they have absolutely nothing to do with the famous search engine. Copyright infringement doesn't seem to exist here. I see the blatant use and misuse of many American logos, brands and characters EVERYWHERE! This is why you can get pirated DVDs for $2.00 BEFORE they are even released in theaters...and they are found on every corner.

A fairy tale of a restaurant

This restaurant/bar is 1 block from my apartment. It looks like they give really, really good service! ;)

WTF Clown

I found this guy hanging over my head in a bar last night. Many bars here in Korea cater to the western crowd, especially if they're in an area where a lot of military folks hang out. I don't know what they're trying to say with this piece.

Somebody's watchin' you!

Okay, I gotta put in my 2 cents about these Geico ads. I was away from the US of A for a year so when I returned I see that Geico has a new "mascot" (if you will). I mean, I remember the gecko, the cavemen, the fake commercials they used to do. Then I see this pile of money with Cookie Monster eyes. And they're playing Rockwell's "Somebody's watchin' me". Am I the only one who thinks these are stuuuuuupid?

Where's the loo?

I'm sure you've seen these ads. They're just tooooo corny. My grandma would've found this funny though. I like to think of it as a male cat about to get fixed looking at the vet "Don't you dare come after me with that knife!"

What a pity

I know, I know....."enough with the pencil cases already!" This is the last one (until my next trip shopping). I'm not sure what Doburoi, Awaseru is. Perhaps it's a place in Russia. I'm not knowledgable about Russia, so I don't know and I'm too tired to look it up now.

Below it says "A pity behond all telling is in the heart of love. in Russia."

The most beautiful hing

Another pencil case for you! I love the missing "t" from the word "thing". I also think the message is quite a deep concept.

Storytime

Here are some more pencil cases!


Story of Music - "I believe that people who love music cannot stop listening to it and living it all the time."

Story of Travel - "Our trip got off to a flying start because the weather was good and the roads were clear."


Story of Butterflies - "One of the smallest moths flew to ask the queen of the butterflies for help."

How another chocolate

These two pencil cases aren't too bad except for "How another chocolate" and "How another strawberry". Now these two are flavors, so I can't quite figure out how this next one fits in:

Okay now carrots, tomatoes, oranges are either red or orange. But prunes?

Believe in the Omnibus!

"LOVE, which is a wonderful feeling, comes to everyone at sometime believe in the best_omnibus"

That's preposterous!!

This week, I'm going to show a bunch of pencil cases that I've found here. Pencil cases are hugely popular. Click on the picture to enlarge it. Personally, I like the quote "the more we learn about love, the more preposterous and mysterious it is likely to appear."

Everybody loves a little Booby

This was a pair of scissors I just bought. Not only is this little character apparently called "Booby", but they have to separate his name too.

It reminds me of a t-shirt I saw a woman wearing last night that said:

PEA
CE.N

Peace.n?

Wish I could've asked her for a pic.

Where's the rest?

This tiny package was another set of stickers. Seriously, it came just like this. So what have they got against the other letters of the alphabet anyway?

Whory Potter?

This was on a sheet of stickers I bought. The Harry Potter logo looked authentic until I examined it more closely. Click it for a close-up.

Crazy Stationery

These are some folders and binders I bought today for school. The yellow one says:

Arrange your paper clearly with this.
It makes your feeling fresh!

Oooookay.

Here's a couple more:



The blue one says:

The peaceful sound of waves always makes me relaxative, just like this.

The green one says:

The beautiful evergreen is in my heart now. Can you remember our happy childhood?

Arousing stuff

Now this stuff was in my apartment when I moved in. It's not been opened and it's filled with liquid. Other than that, I have no idea what it is. Most of the writing is in Korean (which I do not read or speak). There is some interesting English on the bottom of the package. Unfortunately, it sheds no light on what this stuff is. Let's take a closer look:

It says:
A rose is a flowering shrub of the genus Rosa, and the flower of this shrub.
There are more than a hundred species of wild roses.
The exquisite scent of rose brings softness and an arousing feeling.

What the heck are these Koreans thinking when they put things in English that make no sense? At least they could say what the product IS if they're gonna go to all that trouble :P