Monday, July 17, 2006
"English?" "Costco?"
Costco. The word brings with it images of massive quantities of food, samples gallore, large shopping carts, and discount hotdogs. It's almost magical, really!
That is, unless you're Sam and Becky Jones trying to figure out Korea...and then the word musters up images of rain soaked clothes, lost wanderings in Seoul, and throbbing muscles. Let me explain...
This afternoon at around 2:45, Sam and I decided to go to Costco. We looked up "Costco Korea" on the internet, found out what subway station was closest to the nearest store, viewed a simple looking map that showed Costco as being one block down and one block over from "Yangjae" station, and set out with high hopes of bringing home delicious food that we knew how to prepare. It was a rainy day, but we figured we'd be fine with our new umbrella.
The subway ride there was great. We only got on a wrong train once, and it only took us one stop to realize what we had done and fix our mistake. Not a bad trip :0) It was when we got to Yangjae that our troubles began. We knew Costco was supposedly "one block down and one block over" from the station...however, there were tons of station exits leading to various street corners and starting points in the world above the tracks. We took one that we thought sounded familiar, and stepped out onto the streets of Seoul. Our plan was to try every "one block down and one block over" combination until we randomly stumbled across Costco. Our first 15 minutes were mostly us walking the ways we "felt" would lead to Costco ("Becky, I feel like Costco is to the left", "Ok, Sam...but if it's not, then I feel like it's back that way"). After about 20 minutes with no luck, Sam had the great idea of pulling out our Costco card, showing it to people who were walking by, or people in the stores, saying "English?", and then "Costco", and hoping for some look of recognition and a pointing in the right direction. We tried that plan only to find out that people had no idea what we were saying or why we were waving a card around. Slightly frustrating...keep in mind that it's pouring the entire time, and although sharing an umbrella is fun and romantic at first, it doesn't really do the greatest job of keeping both parties dry!
When we reached the hour mark of "feeling" our way to Costco, it wasn't fun anymore! In fact, it was down right frustrating. Noone understood us, we had no idea where we were, or where we wanted to go. We came to a "Fedex" store that looked promising because all the words on the sign were in English. We went in, asked if anyone knew how to get to Costco, showed the membership card (we were still using that plan), and were told that noone knew. We went outside, crossed the street, and decided to call our friend Dave to see if he knew how to get to Costco (he's been here in Korea much longer then us!). He told us he didn't know, but that it was within 10 minutes walk of the station, and told us to try to catch a cab. When we hung up the phone we heard someone yelling "Costco" behind us, so we turned around and one of the Fedex guys was waving us back. I guess he had gotten on his phone and figured out where it was. Then - get this - him and his friend decided they would drive us there! Isn't that amazing!! It took them about 20 minutes to drive us to the store...so much for the 10 minute "one block down, one block over" map on the internet!!
Funny story - when we got to Costco, the first thing we saw was a dad run out of the entrance with his son, who abruptly whipped down his pants and starting peeing on the Costco wall right near the door. We were so shocked, and didn't know whether we wanted to hug the greeter since we were finally there, or pee on the walls too, because of the fact that it had taken us 4 hours of travel time to make it to the entrance! We opted for neither and entered the wonderland that was Costco!
We had tons of fun...and were able to find things that aren't in any of the grocery stores in Osan. We now have spaghetti and spaghetti sauce! We got 12 boxes of Kraft Dinner...so fun! We got Curry packages, chicken, fruit for smoothies, pickles, real cheese, and even granola bars! We also found bagels, tortilla chips and salsa. It feels more normal in our kitchen now! And best of all - we treated ourselves to some food in the Costco food court - a hotdog for Sam and a chicken bake for me - tasted great!
Now, in any Costco in North America, you'd never expect someone to enter the store, buy a bunch of "warehouse sized" items and then carry them home. SUV's and hummers grace the parking lots...waiting to drive home the massive purchases. But, this isn't a Costco in North America...and we don't have a car, and so we carry home our purchases! They even sell "Costco" cloth bags to make the carrying more "fun"! Lets just say 60 pounds of food gets pretty heavy when you have to walk for 50 minutes to get to the subway station, switch from the orange subway line to the green subway line to the blue subway line and then the purple subway line, and then walk 15 minutes from the station to our apartment (Sam had both big Costco bags thrown over his shoulder and would run through each of the stations to try to get to our next train before his arms gave out...I was always trailing him by a few meters...not able to keep up because the heavy backpack kept throwing off my run...it was probably the pickles sloshing around). All in all the trip to Costco took us 8 hours...not 8 minutes like at home...8 hours (we got in at 11 p.m).
You know what? Looking at our full cupboards, I can honestly say - it was worth it :0)
That is, unless you're Sam and Becky Jones trying to figure out Korea...and then the word musters up images of rain soaked clothes, lost wanderings in Seoul, and throbbing muscles. Let me explain...
This afternoon at around 2:45, Sam and I decided to go to Costco. We looked up "Costco Korea" on the internet, found out what subway station was closest to the nearest store, viewed a simple looking map that showed Costco as being one block down and one block over from "Yangjae" station, and set out with high hopes of bringing home delicious food that we knew how to prepare. It was a rainy day, but we figured we'd be fine with our new umbrella.
The subway ride there was great. We only got on a wrong train once, and it only took us one stop to realize what we had done and fix our mistake. Not a bad trip :0) It was when we got to Yangjae that our troubles began. We knew Costco was supposedly "one block down and one block over" from the station...however, there were tons of station exits leading to various street corners and starting points in the world above the tracks. We took one that we thought sounded familiar, and stepped out onto the streets of Seoul. Our plan was to try every "one block down and one block over" combination until we randomly stumbled across Costco. Our first 15 minutes were mostly us walking the ways we "felt" would lead to Costco ("Becky, I feel like Costco is to the left", "Ok, Sam...but if it's not, then I feel like it's back that way"). After about 20 minutes with no luck, Sam had the great idea of pulling out our Costco card, showing it to people who were walking by, or people in the stores, saying "English?", and then "Costco", and hoping for some look of recognition and a pointing in the right direction. We tried that plan only to find out that people had no idea what we were saying or why we were waving a card around. Slightly frustrating...keep in mind that it's pouring the entire time, and although sharing an umbrella is fun and romantic at first, it doesn't really do the greatest job of keeping both parties dry!
When we reached the hour mark of "feeling" our way to Costco, it wasn't fun anymore! In fact, it was down right frustrating. Noone understood us, we had no idea where we were, or where we wanted to go. We came to a "Fedex" store that looked promising because all the words on the sign were in English. We went in, asked if anyone knew how to get to Costco, showed the membership card (we were still using that plan), and were told that noone knew. We went outside, crossed the street, and decided to call our friend Dave to see if he knew how to get to Costco (he's been here in Korea much longer then us!). He told us he didn't know, but that it was within 10 minutes walk of the station, and told us to try to catch a cab. When we hung up the phone we heard someone yelling "Costco" behind us, so we turned around and one of the Fedex guys was waving us back. I guess he had gotten on his phone and figured out where it was. Then - get this - him and his friend decided they would drive us there! Isn't that amazing!! It took them about 20 minutes to drive us to the store...so much for the 10 minute "one block down, one block over" map on the internet!!
Funny story - when we got to Costco, the first thing we saw was a dad run out of the entrance with his son, who abruptly whipped down his pants and starting peeing on the Costco wall right near the door. We were so shocked, and didn't know whether we wanted to hug the greeter since we were finally there, or pee on the walls too, because of the fact that it had taken us 4 hours of travel time to make it to the entrance! We opted for neither and entered the wonderland that was Costco!
We had tons of fun...and were able to find things that aren't in any of the grocery stores in Osan. We now have spaghetti and spaghetti sauce! We got 12 boxes of Kraft Dinner...so fun! We got Curry packages, chicken, fruit for smoothies, pickles, real cheese, and even granola bars! We also found bagels, tortilla chips and salsa. It feels more normal in our kitchen now! And best of all - we treated ourselves to some food in the Costco food court - a hotdog for Sam and a chicken bake for me - tasted great!
Now, in any Costco in North America, you'd never expect someone to enter the store, buy a bunch of "warehouse sized" items and then carry them home. SUV's and hummers grace the parking lots...waiting to drive home the massive purchases. But, this isn't a Costco in North America...and we don't have a car, and so we carry home our purchases! They even sell "Costco" cloth bags to make the carrying more "fun"! Lets just say 60 pounds of food gets pretty heavy when you have to walk for 50 minutes to get to the subway station, switch from the orange subway line to the green subway line to the blue subway line and then the purple subway line, and then walk 15 minutes from the station to our apartment (Sam had both big Costco bags thrown over his shoulder and would run through each of the stations to try to get to our next train before his arms gave out...I was always trailing him by a few meters...not able to keep up because the heavy backpack kept throwing off my run...it was probably the pickles sloshing around). All in all the trip to Costco took us 8 hours...not 8 minutes like at home...8 hours (we got in at 11 p.m).
You know what? Looking at our full cupboards, I can honestly say - it was worth it :0)
# posted by Becky @ 1:13 AM 
Comments:
<< Home
Man, sounds like you guys enjoyed Costco!! Lucky for us, we are located 10 mins away by bus from the Yeungdeungpo-gu Office location! We had our last meal in the food court this weekend. BTW, you guys have an awesome blog going on here!! Cheers!
Post a Comment
<< Home
