Crane Game

In Canada, you can sometimes find crane games at arcades, where you use the crane to pick up a stuffed animal in the hopes of winning it.  In Korea, they have the same thing, but much much cooler.  You can find these crane games outside of tons of convenience stores, and the prizes in them can range from lame key chains, to pretty sweet stuff like mp3 players and electric razors.  For one dollar, you can get six attempts at picking up a prize. Each prize is held inside a little wire box/cage and you need to pick up that box with the crane.  They will often put weights inside the boxes to make them more difficult to pick up.

I've been almost addicted to these things since we arrived.  Not to the point where I'm wasting tons of money on them, but it is hard for me to pass on without seeing what prizes are inside and giving it a try.  Initially, I couldn't win anything.  It seemed like some of the cranes were really weak and couldn't pick up the prizes very well.  For the longest time, I wasn't able to win anything.  Kristin won on one of her first tries, so I set a goal of winning something before the end of the year.  

Great news, I managed to achieve my goal as I won a nice ashtray at a convenience store just beside my apartment.  This happened to be the same place Kristin won her prize.  We came to the conclusion that this crane game was the shit, and the crane itself was clearly the most powerful in our neighborhood.  Obviously, if its the best, you have to keep playing it.  I've been back a couple times in the last week, and I own that crane now.  I've since won two more times, increasing my win total to 3.  Last night I won a nice utility knife, and today during a little break from school, I won a little box of candles and incense.  Ya, I know that sounds pretty lame, but you shouldn't judge me on the prizes I've won, but instead on my amazing ability to have three wins in the past week.  When you win, you need to bring the prize inside to the store owner so they can take it out of the little cage.  I'm certain that if I keep up this pace, I won't be allowed to play on that machine anymore.  Now that my goal has been easily surpassed, my new goal is to win 5 more times before New Years.  Surely amongst all these future wins will be a prize that will actually be worth a bit of money.

Annoyances and Random Thoughts

I tried to post a picture of the Dunkin Donuts with my last post, but I couldn't really figure out how to do it.  If your really bored though, you can look at it under my photos in my profile on this site, I think?

Speaking of Dunkin Donuts, I've been there many times since the incident and no one at the store ever brought it up.  I stopped by there though with a guy from my school, who happens to be Korean, and sure enough, the manager starts chatting it up with him and I'm certain that its about the window because no one really chats it up with the DD workers.  Turns out, it cost $80 to replace the window, and since no one that worked in the store could speak much English, they never told me.  Now they want me to pay $40 to replace it.  At first I thought I should pay because it did happen because I'm an idiot, but I decided against it.  I've come to my senses and think that they obviously should have had warning signs that there could be glass panes in your walking path while in the store.  If I was in the US, and was cut by that glass, I would have been a millionaire.

Now on to some of my annoyances.  In Canada, most people don't hock up loogies in public, and if they do, most are pretty discrete about it.  Not here, everyone does it, and loud and proud.  You'll even hear old women do it, its really gross.  Bodily noises don't seem to be a big concern here in general.  The old women will also burp loudly in public.  I've actually let a few farts slip out in class, and my students don't even laugh.  I beginning to think that elderly women tend to do whatever the hell they want.  Kristin and I were waiting for a cab one day, and when the cab pulled up, just as we were about to get in, a 70 year old woman stole the cab from us.  After that display, I'm not so nice to these old women.  They aren't kind, and its apparent they don't give a shit about me.

I'm told that the rules of the road are the same here as they are in Canada, but you'd never believe it if you were here for a day.  It's illegal to run a red light, but everyone does it.  They just treat them as a stop sign and proceed if no one is coming.  I nearly shit my pants when my cab driver was running them every chance he got.  Motorcycles and scooters, which there are tons of, will drive on the sidewalk.  It's also illegal, but everyone does it. You could be on a sidewalk that is packed full of people, and yet there will still be people driving there scooters.  I haven't been hit by one yet, but I know its gonna happen.  Korea has been rated as having the most auto accidents in the world, and its pretty obvious why.  They do whatever they want and you rarely see any police cars driving around, and even if you do, they never pull anyone over for any of this stuff.

I think its acceptable for couples to have outfits that look good together/don't clash, but never is it OK to match outfits.  This looks somewhat cute when people have twins and their 5 years old and under, but not when your 25 years old.  Couples will wear matching sweaters and ball caps (always MLB ones) or they'll having matching track suits, or matching plaid shirts.  Its retarded.  I don't know if there is a store where you can buy these matching outfits, or maybe the girl is wearing guys clothes, or vice versa.  Either way, whoever the hell is selling these things should be shot.  Its fuckin ridiculous looking.