A little slice of the American Dream

For the last seven months or so, I have been living and working in South Korea. Doing that has led me to numerous interesting experiences and exciting events, many of which I’ve documented in this blog. There is one thing, however, that I’ve been dying to do basically since I landed in Asia: eat a deli sandwich.

This might seem like a rather mundane and altogether ordinary experience for those of you in the good ol’ U S of A, where the SUVS are built big and the deli meat flows like water after a pleasant spring rainfall. Here in Korea, though, the word “deli” does not exist. The closest thing I’ve eaten to a solid sandwich has come from Subway, and while I’m no enemy of Jared’s, after a while the three slices of meat you get there just don’t really cut it for me.

When my family came to visit me in December, they did so bearing with them bountiful amounts of dried dates and figs, all of which I was more than happy to take. But the one thing that I really wanted was a double-stuffed pastrami and tongue sandwich from Rubin’s, and unfortunately they didn’t think it would travel well on the 15 hour flight over here.

You might think I’m joking or exaggerating, but I have literally spent hours day-dreaming of reubens and coleslaw. This is serious business, people.

Last night I was out with some friends and ended up crashing on their couch, which I’ve been known to do on a rather regular basis. In the morning, I was about to head back to Pyeongchon when I heard an altogether unfamiliar and exciting word uttered in the apartment.

“Costco?” my friend asked. “Anyone feel like making a Costco run?”

Since coming here, I’d heard rumors from friends and acquaintances of the existence of the American mega-giant-super-store, but had never actually been myself. When my parents were here, they felt so bad for me and my American food deficiency that they offered to give up a day of sightseeing to take me there, but I felt too bad to let them do that. This was my first real opportunity to get access to a large variety of real American products in classic American-sized quantities.

“I’m down like Chinatown,” I said, probably a little too enthusiastically.

There are two Costco locations in the greater Seoul area, so we left for the one that is closest to my friends’ apartment—only a 6,000 won cab ride. As it turns out, there is actually a giant E-Mart right across the street, but apparently there are enough frugal-minded Korean shoppers to keep both in business.

Walking into Costco was kind of an eerie experience, almost like taking a step back into America, but not. In a lot of ways, the place resembled the Sam’s Club that I’m used to shopping at with my family back home in Worcester. A big, warehouse-style building with appliances and goods stacked dozens of feet to the ceiling. Greeters to welcome you into the establishment and check your receipts on the way out. Shopping wagons big enough to hold the grocery list for a small village.

At the same time, though, this Costco was very much Korean. To begin with, on a Sunday afternoon it was packed with Korean families doing their weekly, monthly, or yearly shopping (and I mean rush-hour-subway packed). If you thought it was hard to maneuver your way around a discount shopping center back home, try adding a few thousand people to the mix, all of whom seem to have very little sense for walking in any semblance of a straight line. Also, while the place was filled with many, many items that are almost impossible to find in any standard Korean supermarket (a 54-pack of rice crispy treats, for example), there were also plenty of Korean food staples in giant quantities as well—four pound packages of kimchi or giant containers of shelled oysters.

After grabbing a rather rushed lunch of giant pizza slices at the ridiculously crowded food court (a few Korean families stood hawk-eyed over us as we ate, waiting to snatch the table as soon as we were through, using their very hungry-looking children to guilt trip us into standing up quickly) we began our shopping spree. I made up my mind beforehand to only get those things I wouldn’t be able to find at my local E-Mart, and decided to go shopping cart-less to avoid any unnecessary purchases. In the end, my list of purchases was short but oh-so-sweet: a 3-lb. box of Honey Nut Cheerios, a 3-lb. bag of almonds, and the Holy Grail—an 8 oz. package of sliced turkey and a 2 lb. block of sharp cheddar cheese. Woooo! Damn it feels good to be a gangsta.