Adventures in pizza
I’ve officially arrive in Korea. I’ve been here about a month and have been trying to acclimate myself to my new surroundings. Every now and then I will get the smart idea to try to be a fully functional adult and get food from outside my apartment. The first time I managed this, I took the subway for the first time and was able to make it both to and from Homeplus by myself. I was pretty proud of my grocery trip, but I’ve been eating the pasta from it for about two weeks now. Last night I tried venturing to find a chicken place one of the GETs that’s been here for a while had showed me. Thinking I had gone too far down a road and thinking it was a lost cause, I headed to Daiso. On my way home that had I taken a left instead of the right needed to get to Daiso, I would have seen that I was half a block away from the restaurant. Either way, though, I managed to get there. 500 experience points to me. Tonight, however, has been a challenge all of it’s own. One of the teacher’s at my school showed me a food delivery app and I rushed home excited to try it. After spending 45 minutes on my dying phone, I decided to simply pull it up on the computer. This would make having to go back and forth between translating easier. Fast an hour later, and I’ve gotten my pizza order exactly how I want it. I enter my address that my lovely teacher gave me and hit send. No more than two minutes passed before my phone went off. There’s a lovely korean woman on the other line and there is something obviously wrong with my order. After fumbling through telling her that I don’t speak much korean, she answered back ‘address, checking, no’. She then said ‘cancel’ to which I glumly agreed.
Devastated, I took to Facebook hoping for help with my order. The previous GET from my school took up the challenge. After an hour of figuring out what my address should be, I finally have the correct format. There is then another half hour of me both putting my order together and coming up with the courage to hit send. I’m generally uncomfortable on the phone, and it’s worse when I don’t speak the same language as the person on the other line. I eventually get the bright idea to write in the prep instructions: No corn please,
My address.
Billing address is same as above. Sorry for my bad korean.
And I hit send. Shortly thereafter I get another phone call. This time from a Seoul number and it’s a man. All I understood was 'pepperoni pizza'. So I said 'pepperoni pizza, yes'. And then 'sorry'. In English said I can't speak Korean. The nice man said something else in Korean with a nervous chuckle, then hung up. I thought that it was strange that a Seoul number had called me, but I thought maybe the guy had just got the phone in Seoul then moved. I also assumed that it was the restaurant calling to confirm my order since I didn’t hear the words ‘cancel’ or ‘sorry’. Turns out that it was Yogiyo, the website I had ordered through, calling me. They had an English speaker call me back. I was thrilled to hear ‘hi’ in response to my tentative ‘hello?’ Paraphrasing, he was said 'sooo, you said you don't want corn, but there's no corn on a pepperoni pizza sooo....you want we just go ahead and order it for you?' I didn’t even mind that I could tell that he was laughing at me. I was just happy to get my pizza...Four and a half hours later.
P.s. The sauce is a trap.