Movies in Korea
So, even though I am in a foreign country, I can still watch pretty much any Hollywood blockbuster I want to. There are a lot of American movies that play here and none of them are dubbed. They all have subtitles! After a few minutes it gets really easy to ignore the subtitles.
I went to see "Stardust," which is a movie I have been looking forward to for a while. Its a great fairy tail from Neil Gaiman (If you haven't read it you are really missing out on a wonderful story.) I was pretty nervous about the movie since movies made from books don't often meet the expectations of the book's readers. But this was a rather short book, so I figured it was possible to do it right.
There were very few spots in this movie when they deviated from the book, and that made me really happy!! :) I highly recommend this movie, even if you haven't read the book, I also think anyone over the age of 12 would be able to see this movie... there is some sexual innuendo, but no actual sex, and a little violence, but typically it is over the top stuff that seems a bit comical. All of the actors were wonderful, especial De Niro, whose character is a little more... colorful than the book's character! :)
But enough about the movie, how about the movie experience in Korea? Well it is certainly different. John and I went to a pretty new theater. The building was at least 11 stories tall, our theater was on the 10th and 11th floor. They had two elevators and escalators that could carry you up or down the middle of the building.
When you want to order a ticket, you don't wait in line. You actually go up to a number generating machine, just like at the Wegman's deli and get a little piece of paper with your number on it. In fact, these machines are really popular. My bank has one as well, you grab a number and go sit down, its like no one wants you to stand around for any period of time. While we wait for our number, and I could be crazy but... it seems like they are prepping for the foreigners. I think they must say something like "Ok, who has good Englishy (thats how they say it here?)... not me, I can't talk to them! What if they don't know any Korean? eek! Where is the manager!" And at some places we actually only get the manager, especially at restaurunts. Well we got up to the counter and said "Sew-ta da-sew-tew, two" and held up two fingers. She smiles and then turns the computer monitor to us and tells us, in Korean, that we have to choose our seats. Now, we had heard of this, but had yet to experience it. There were black seats and white seats, and I'm sure there was a key somewhere to tell me which were taken and which were free, but instead of wondering I touched the screen in between a black and a white seat and hoped that was good enough. The tickets were 7,000won each (which is much higher than I expected... but it is a new theater.) We grabbed our tickets, and they really are cute, I want to find a scanner so you can see them, and we sat down in the lobby.
The movie didn't start for about 40 min, and it's not like we had to get there early to save our seats, so we could do what ever we wanted. People watching is a lot of fun here in Seoul, so I love wasting my time doing that! They sell both butter popcorn and caramel popcorn at the snack bar. They also sell dried octopus, which I hear is a common treat during movies. The popcorn was a little cheaper than in the US, but not by much, and they don' have extra butter to put on like we do (at least I didn't see any anywhere.)
About 15 min before the movie started we decided to take the elevator up to the 10th floor. There was a small lobby with some seats and little vending machines selling small toys (for 2,000 won!) and two internet computers that a bunch of kids were using. There were two theaters on this floor and some bathrooms. The bathrooms were actually really nice. There were two theater people standing between the small crowd and the theaters. A few minutes before the movie was to start they announced something and everyone started moving toward them. We showed them our ticket and the guy looked at us and must have figured we would get lost on the 10ft walk down the hallway, so it smiled and motioned for us to follow him. There are actually a ton of people in this country who are nice to us like that, its really cool. Well, just like in America there are commercials and then previews. I think the previews were all American movies too. The seats were awesome! I could watch LoTR three times in a row here and feel fine!
In the middle of the movie, tragedy struck and I REALLY had to go potty! I hadn't noticed anyone get up and there were two Korean guys between me and the aisle! I tried to hold it, but that wasn't going to work. I practically fell over them since only one of them actually moved when I came by. I ran to the bathroom, which was right outside the theater door, very convenient, and then ran back. Again, that second guy didn't move... kinda a jerky thing if you ask me, but people are always bumping in to people here and they say nothing, so maybe this is another cultural difference...
Anyway the movie ended and people left, just like us they leave their garbage all over the place. Well I still took mine with me, even though I had no idea what the protocol is. When we left the theater, we used a different door than the one we came in by. Just outside the door were several garbage cans and an old woman who was sorting the garbage. Pretty much everyplace I have been to here sorts and recycles most of their trash, restaurants even compost their food trash and recycle takeout cups. Well I handed my trash to this lady and she did her thing with it. This job seems to be done by older women all the time. Seriously, these women should be retired, I'm not sure why they do this job... but I'm not sure I like it, I want to know where their kids are... For all I know these ladies don't want to live with their kids and they want to be on their own, but since minimum wage in Korea is less than $4, I can't see how she could support herself with this job, but I think I can save that for another post.
So we took the escalators down 1- flights, it was a strange line, moving even though we were all standing still. In the end I think it is a really nice theater and I think the idea of reserving seats is a really good one, and we should do that too. From what I hear seats close up cost less than those in the back, I'm not sure though.
I didn't have a camera at the time, but this is a picture I found on the web of a theater that looked almost exactly like the one we went to. Our theater was smaller though. Those flat screen TVs in the back constantly displayed how many seats were left for each show. They would show the promotional posters for the films sometimes too.
I went to see "Stardust," which is a movie I have been looking forward to for a while. Its a great fairy tail from Neil Gaiman (If you haven't read it you are really missing out on a wonderful story.) I was pretty nervous about the movie since movies made from books don't often meet the expectations of the book's readers. But this was a rather short book, so I figured it was possible to do it right.
There were very few spots in this movie when they deviated from the book, and that made me really happy!! :) I highly recommend this movie, even if you haven't read the book, I also think anyone over the age of 12 would be able to see this movie... there is some sexual innuendo, but no actual sex, and a little violence, but typically it is over the top stuff that seems a bit comical. All of the actors were wonderful, especial De Niro, whose character is a little more... colorful than the book's character! :)But enough about the movie, how about the movie experience in Korea? Well it is certainly different. John and I went to a pretty new theater. The building was at least 11 stories tall, our theater was on the 10th and 11th floor. They had two elevators and escalators that could carry you up or down the middle of the building.
When you want to order a ticket, you don't wait in line. You actually go up to a number generating machine, just like at the Wegman's deli and get a little piece of paper with your number on it. In fact, these machines are really popular. My bank has one as well, you grab a number and go sit down, its like no one wants you to stand around for any period of time. While we wait for our number, and I could be crazy but... it seems like they are prepping for the foreigners. I think they must say something like "Ok, who has good Englishy (thats how they say it here?)... not me, I can't talk to them! What if they don't know any Korean? eek! Where is the manager!" And at some places we actually only get the manager, especially at restaurunts. Well we got up to the counter and said "Sew-ta da-sew-tew, two" and held up two fingers. She smiles and then turns the computer monitor to us and tells us, in Korean, that we have to choose our seats. Now, we had heard of this, but had yet to experience it. There were black seats and white seats, and I'm sure there was a key somewhere to tell me which were taken and which were free, but instead of wondering I touched the screen in between a black and a white seat and hoped that was good enough. The tickets were 7,000won each (which is much higher than I expected... but it is a new theater.) We grabbed our tickets, and they really are cute, I want to find a scanner so you can see them, and we sat down in the lobby.
The movie didn't start for about 40 min, and it's not like we had to get there early to save our seats, so we could do what ever we wanted. People watching is a lot of fun here in Seoul, so I love wasting my time doing that! They sell both butter popcorn and caramel popcorn at the snack bar. They also sell dried octopus, which I hear is a common treat during movies. The popcorn was a little cheaper than in the US, but not by much, and they don' have extra butter to put on like we do (at least I didn't see any anywhere.)
About 15 min before the movie started we decided to take the elevator up to the 10th floor. There was a small lobby with some seats and little vending machines selling small toys (for 2,000 won!) and two internet computers that a bunch of kids were using. There were two theaters on this floor and some bathrooms. The bathrooms were actually really nice. There were two theater people standing between the small crowd and the theaters. A few minutes before the movie was to start they announced something and everyone started moving toward them. We showed them our ticket and the guy looked at us and must have figured we would get lost on the 10ft walk down the hallway, so it smiled and motioned for us to follow him. There are actually a ton of people in this country who are nice to us like that, its really cool. Well, just like in America there are commercials and then previews. I think the previews were all American movies too. The seats were awesome! I could watch LoTR three times in a row here and feel fine!
In the middle of the movie, tragedy struck and I REALLY had to go potty! I hadn't noticed anyone get up and there were two Korean guys between me and the aisle! I tried to hold it, but that wasn't going to work. I practically fell over them since only one of them actually moved when I came by. I ran to the bathroom, which was right outside the theater door, very convenient, and then ran back. Again, that second guy didn't move... kinda a jerky thing if you ask me, but people are always bumping in to people here and they say nothing, so maybe this is another cultural difference...
Anyway the movie ended and people left, just like us they leave their garbage all over the place. Well I still took mine with me, even though I had no idea what the protocol is. When we left the theater, we used a different door than the one we came in by. Just outside the door were several garbage cans and an old woman who was sorting the garbage. Pretty much everyplace I have been to here sorts and recycles most of their trash, restaurants even compost their food trash and recycle takeout cups. Well I handed my trash to this lady and she did her thing with it. This job seems to be done by older women all the time. Seriously, these women should be retired, I'm not sure why they do this job... but I'm not sure I like it, I want to know where their kids are... For all I know these ladies don't want to live with their kids and they want to be on their own, but since minimum wage in Korea is less than $4, I can't see how she could support herself with this job, but I think I can save that for another post.
So we took the escalators down 1- flights, it was a strange line, moving even though we were all standing still. In the end I think it is a really nice theater and I think the idea of reserving seats is a really good one, and we should do that too. From what I hear seats close up cost less than those in the back, I'm not sure though.
I didn't have a camera at the time, but this is a picture I found on the web of a theater that looked almost exactly like the one we went to. Our theater was smaller though. Those flat screen TVs in the back constantly displayed how many seats were left for each show. They would show the promotional posters for the films sometimes too.
3 comments:
since you mentioned the nice bathrooms, i can't remember for sure, but i think it's by or in the arena where they had the olympics in 88, it was ranked as one of the top 10 nicest bathrooms in the world. cool huh!
Heh! yah, I have also heard that there are bathrooms that give you an enema, and they advertise for them on TV and in the subway!
dude, that's werid!
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