Believe it or not, that was one of my Mother's favorite expression...one of her many expressions that we would grow up hearing...thanks for your sensitivity and watching your language around children, Mom. I always hated it. What if the witch was a white witch, a Wiccan...she would be warm hearted and I am sure that her body would be warm too?
Anyway, I am thinking of that expression since I was trying to think of an expression to describe the atmosphere and reception that I got as a female tourist in Seoul. Since that expression was programmed into the deep recesses of my mind, it came up.
In Seoul, I spent a day just walking around by myself. I was pretty much invisible.
I was staying in in the Gangnam area and just walked about 2 hours from my hotel. I walked through the fashion district and wanted to see if I could reach the mountain in the distance, since it didn't look very far and I like to walk. I walked and walked and passed many people...students, business people, a handsome care lot attendant that I had to say "anneyang hasseyo" to(and actually got one back...ahhh).
I walked up past the turn-off for Co-Ex, passed many apartments with busses loaded with children going to their after school programs. I walked around a small, backstreet market around the Gaepo-dong starion, then headed back toward the hotel.
The area was really nice...underneath the underpass there was a recreation trail where people were exercising, well kept apartments and a nearby moutain. I could really handle living there...a mountain, recreation trails, fresh air...a subway station "right there".
My walk back included a stop at the Hyuandi store foodcourt for some Juke and then walked back in the pouring rain, where my trendy paper Hyuandi shopping bag got soaked broke open, spilling my recently shopped items on the sidewalk.
On my return to the hotel, no one at reception even looked up from there work or even looked surprised as I was carrying an armload of soaked boxes and dripping puddles of water through the foyer.
So for the most part, no Seoulite really extended themselves to me that day, even when my shopping bad broke. Were they cold? Well, they weren't "warm and friendly", that's for sure...but I've been to the East Coast of Canada and have been spoiled there by otherworldly hospitality. But of course, I didn't really go out of my way to interact too much either. I think that my big city is pretty much like that too...I don't smile and wave at all the tourists because there are just too many of them.
But come on, the hotel staff should be friendly...they just weren't. It was like "oh no, single female in a room...she's diseased...don't look, it's Medusa!". Hotel staff should at least be friendly...how the hell did they get the job in the first place?
