Kimchi, not for me

It's weird how used you can get to not knowing what's actually being said around you. Not even around you...in the English section of the bookstore I get rather annoyed with the other English speakers, cause I can't block them out and focus on my browsing. But like I know the taxi driver today was apologizing for not knowing English. I know that my student in K-6 was telling me that the other boy pushed him (and I didn't see the pushing). One of the Korean teachers was telling me about a movie she really loves (just forgot the name of it though) and how she bought it when she was in the States, so it doesn't have Korean subtitles. She said she's watched it at least 10 times and she gets it, even though there are still parts where she doesn't understand the language. I dunno, language is weird to me. I don't learn languages easily - at least that's what I've told myself so far. There's a lot of little stuff I know here and there...but overall my knowledge of Korean is spectacularly unimpressive. Despite this, I understand a fair amount of what goes on around me.

And two random stories:
1. Kylie and I were sitting waiting for our food in a restaurant close to our house, when this woman walked into the restaurant and up to our table. She said hello and asked where we were from. We told her, and she said, "I want to make friends with you." Umm...okay. We then proceeded to have a semi-awkward conversation where we exchanged phone numbers. Kylie actually told a fib and said she didn't have a cell phone in order to avoid the inevitably even more awkward conversation that would take place on the phone, and just gave her her email address. (All the while praying Donovan wouldn't phone her cell phone at the moment and blow her cover.) She was very nice, and I'll certainly be friendly and nice to her, but she was a good ten years older than us (and an age difference of more than three years is substantial in Korea - especially for boy/girl relationships, but it's still a little weird for friendships), and she only wants to be our friends for free English lessons. She then left the restaurant. It ends up she was just walking by, said she had seen me a few times before, and wanted to make sure she could talk to us this time. A little weird, but still refreshing. I'd prefer it to being glared at or pushed around on the subway any day (though the pushing isn't necessarily just cause I'm white).

2. I walked into this itty-bitty store on the corner to buy some bottled water, and the lady there was talking to a male customer. She said hello to me (especially loud) and then asked where my dog was (her actual words were "dog??") , I said "home" (we have this exchange every time I come into the store sans Daive, and I'm still not sure if she knows what "home" means). Then she started talking about me to the man, which made me feel uncomfortable to a point I cannot even express (even more so cause it's not like I could hide behind an aisle, cause the store doesn't have one), so I just looked back at them (in a semi-defiant way, I confess) and the woman motioned to her face and said "yepo," which means pretty. She also said the word "mask," and I'm not entirely sure what she meant by that...but in cases like this, I'm going to take the compliment and dig no further. Thanks very much.