the day my wall fell...

So upon my arrival in my apartment, I found that the wallpaper under and around my window was falling off. The guy that lived here before me tried to tape it up, but the tape was no longer sticky and it no longer was holding it up. Day after day the wallpaper continued to fall even more until finally it was hanging on by one small corner. I said screw this and told my teacher about it. She then proceeded to call my front office, who said they would send a wallpaper repair man to come and fix it.

Imagine a Korean woman and a Korean man, both of who don’t speak a lot of English and me, who speaks probably about 5 words in Korean in my small apartment for a good hour or two trying to communicate. Needless to say the woman used her dictionary in her phone a lot and I was able to put my Korean phrase book I bought the first weekend in Seoul to use.

I am not entirely sure why I needed to be in my apartment while he was doing the new wallpaper. I mean I guess I felt better about being there than having two strangers in my apartment while I was working. Watching the man while he proceeded to tear my walls apart and rebuild them was rather let’s just say interesting. On top of that he was trying to explain what he was doing while he was working, all in Korean mind you. So I just sat there, smiled and nodded my head.

My new wallpaper does not match my old wallpaper at all. The old stuff is very plain and just white with a lined pattern. No texture or design to it really at all. My new wallpaper, that will be around my window on all sides and completely covering the whole wall below my window has this sparkly affect to it. Very different. So basically I am going to have different walls. Hopefully I will be able to cover a lot of my walls with the pictures now that I have string and tacks.

I am fairly certain in the middle of this little adventure of watching the man put the wallpaper up, the woman that came with him asked me a series of questions, including,

“You speak Korean?”
“Is this your first visit?”
“Are you a native English teacher?”

“How old are you?”
Which of course she was shocked that I was only 23. “So young and so beautiful.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”
Which again shocked her when I said no. Which is not the first time I have gotten this response either. Apparently at 23 I should have a boyfriend. Typical.

“Do you like to drink beer?”
Which led to her I think telling me that she should go have Korean food and beer together next weekend. She gave me a business card and wrote down her name and everything. Though I am not entirely sure how I am supposed to communicate with her if I actually call her. She was very sweet.

She was also completely fascinated by my pictures that I had laid out. Since I finally got my packages, I am now able to hang my picture how I want to. (Though I did learn that both the wall that my bed is on and the wall straight across where my desk is refuses to take my tacks, I have broken 4 already) She went through all my pictures that Dani backed for me as a gift. Awe-ing and asking if I was related to certain people. When she came across the picture of Jared “proposing” to me from Pacesetters in 2007 she got very excited. I laughed extremely hard and shook my head and tried to explain that it was a joke. Actually every time she saw a guy (Mark, my cousins, Jared etc.) in my pictures she was very excited.

She saw the tattoo on my foot and had a very shocked look on her face. Apparently the only people who have tattoo’s in Korea are men in gangs and such. I think everyone that has seen my tattoo has either been shocked a little or told me that it’s “cute”.

Finally once the wall was done, the cleaned up their mess, which was gigantic and all over my apartment, and said thank you at least 10 times, and left, only to come back 2 minutes later because i had to sign off on things at least 6 different times.