Today was my birthday, so we went out for dinner. Nolboo, which was my favorite new restaurant in the area, has slowly been slipping in quality with every visit. This time, they had about a third of the staff they usually have. Not only that, but the food wasn’t as well portioned, the meat had an excessive amount of bones, the vegetables weren’t fresh, and they didn’t replace our grill mesh fast enough, resulting in a lot of charred and burnt meat. The wife was slowly brimming with rage with each added inconvenience. By the end of the meal she was absolutely stewing. She claimed she was going to log onto popular websites and raise "Netizen awareness" about the store. Blacklisting stores online in response to poor service is very effective in Korea. The food wasn’t good for the price, and we won’t be going back there any time soon. My wife used to never be the type that would complain about poor service because she felt guilty about it. Now that I’ve rubbed off on her a bit, she’ll speak up and tell people when she expects better.
We needed a few items at the store. We were shopping at E-Mart, a retailer I now despise because it no longer carries Corona beer. They reduced space for more domestic beer! The ironic thing is the they only started carrying lime once they stopped carrying Corona. That’s particularly cruel for me, since Corona with lime has been my favorite beer of choice when I drink for past two years. Anyway, as we walked around the store, every few minutes there were announcements on the loud speaker welcoming people to the store. This would happen so often that it was really odd. They were training people how to say, "Hello," and how to greet people. Odd.
Also, as we were looking for some items we needed during the week, we passed the bagged kimchi aisle. I live a life of luxury, where relatives create enormous amounts of kimchi from family owned farms. We don’t ever run short of kimchi in this household, so we don’t purchase bagged, store made kimchi at all. However, as we were walking by, there was a loud POP, and then a bag of went flying to the floor. DEFECTIVE BAGS! All the people in the aisle were quick to issue denials. "We didn’t touch anything!" was the first word out of someone’s mouth. What probably had happened was that the fermented gas from the bacteria in the kimchi had simply swollen the bag to the point where it burst. Beware exploding bags of kimchi!
We got home and ate some cake, took Yoshi for a walk, and settled back into our lazy Sunday routine. We had made plans to celebrate more this weekend, but both of us have been so exhausted from work recently that we didn’t feel like staying out late. My birthday present were some pants, and I was happy about it. I even delayed my techno-lust about getting a new gadget yet again.
I’ve gotten no gadgets for our Wedding anniversary, Chirstmas, or my birthday, which is a record. I want to wait and see about something just around the horizon instead of going immediately to the store and picking something up when the mad urge strikes me. This is my wife rubbing off on me, keeping me from spending all the hard earned dough when their might be a deal around the corner on something better I might really like. I’ve been given the go ahead of a future Nintendo Wii purchase however, so even if I don’t get the latest toy, eventually I’ll get something cool this year, so I’m happy.
