Costco "invades" South Korea

Hello blog readers! It's me again from Korea reporting that Costco has invaded Korea and is a permanent fixture in the culture and landscape. Tonight, a group of us teachers ("Sung-sang-nims" to those who are not in the know) descended onto the hallow realms of Costco in outer Seoul to stock up on American snacks and items.

There were six of us in the language institute van driven by Dr. Jay. No, not the veteran 76er basketball player, but a short Korean guy with a hearty sense of humor and an amazing driving prowess – the ability to talk on his cell phone while navigating the narrow and busy streets of Korea! He was kind enough to take us on his Saturday night to Costco to pay homage and money to the imported American devil!

Why pay $2.50 for snickers in a pound bag in the U.S.? Buy in Korea for 8,000(Won) instead. Frozen Kirkland beef patties, five pounds of ground beef all available for the low Costco import price. Well, not low but available and nicely packaged in that Kirkland / Costco kinda-way. As you know beef is expensive in Korea. It's not beef with noodles. It's noodles with beef. For example, 100 grams of fresh beef, the blood dripping kind that the local butcher sold me two weeks ago was almost $6.00USD. That's like 3oz of beef. It's snack size by American standards. Expensive my friends especially for the American use to heavy protein meals at affordable prices. Wahoo's tacos of Santa Monica, anyone? Anyways, who gives a shit. Let's move on with this before I go home and make note of my rice poop.

Costco was freaken busy! It's Saturday night, my peeps, at 8pm and the parking lot is jammed to get in and jammed to get out! WTF! It's Saturday night. Time to take the girl friend out for some event other than Costco. I couldn't believe it! There were a dozen of parking lot attendants directing traffic--almost all wear those cool Korean masks to filter out the pollution--Angelenos take note, homies. We parked and finally got in to Costco and descend the metal grate escalators that "lock" your Costco cart wheels into place and wham! There must be 3,000 people in the store buying everything from snickers bars to rice to my favorite, peanut butter. Ah, yes! Mac Bernstein owner of Mac Bernstein's peanut butter emporium, if he was still alive and kicking, would say: "What's the score?" And I would report back: Mac, there's organic peanut butter at Costco in Korea! He would be amused. I scored some good peanut butter tonight my yawning blog reader. My life is complete. My soul food in Seoul. Right?

As you may know, Costco has like one sample lady per aisle in that warehouse of free Costco samples. I didn't eat any because by the time I got to a free sampling of chocolate or food, the lady was busy opening another sample. We were hungry blog readers. After a bill of 550Won for six people's worth of Costco goodies, half of that peanut butter, we walk over to feast on the fast food restaurant and share a table with some local peeps. The woman behind me kept bumping into me because the bench style seating is so close. And it's warm in there and I am nervous about taking off my heavy and warm Gap Navy P-Coat. I'm stinky from teaching six sweaty hours that day dancing with my kids in a warm class room. I smell like a coyote. No one notices though. The air is filled with the smell of pizza and bulgogi sandwiches. The lines are long but they take a few minutes. No one pushes or shoves and the line is orderly.

Some of the teachers had a hot dog and soda for 2,000Won and I had a 3,500Won Bulgogi sandwich which was heavy on the dough, taste and grease. A few of the teachers had Costco ice cream. A big cup of vanilla or chocolate in a paper cup. It looked good. We left Costco satiated. We hit rain and traffic back to Suwon. I listened to a very "hip" mix of Janet Jackson, Dave Mathews and lots of stupid-ass rap music for thirty minutes in the van on the way back.

I hate most rap. I hate it. There are so many great musicians out there and what does contemporary culture promote and propagate? Rap. Angry rap. Gangsta rap. Kill whitey rap. F##$%$ your $%itch rap. And I thought I "escaped" rap music when arriving in the land of the morning calm and the ominous sucking and chewing sound of duk (another post forthcoming). I am off on a tangent. Yes, kind reader, Costco has landed in Korea. It's been over ten years now and it's threatening to make this society more convenient and cost effective to the Korean people. But how do the mom and pop stores survive?

They do blog reader. Every corner there's a mom and pop store that sells fresh produce and dry goods in small, easy to carry home packages and containers. They don't have strip malls in Korea. They have produce and convenience stores every where. America take note!