Thursday, April 29, 2010

at the cinema

Like Vincent wisely said about the difference between Europe and the States in Pulp Fiction (and I think it's largely true regarding South Korea and the States), "it's the little differences. They have the same sh** there that they have here, but there it's just a little different."

For example, at the theater I went to recently to see Shutter Island, one had to take a ticket to line up and get a ticket. There was no one at the counter and not an awful lot of people around. It reminded me of that great scene in Meet the Parents Ben Stiller's weekend at his prospective in-laws has crashed to a halt and he fumes while a punctilious clerk runs through the routine of the checks she has to do in spite of the fact that he's the only passenger.

Anyway, one goes up to the ticket counter and tries to buy the ticket. It was just two foreigners, neither of whom speak a lot of Korean....but fortunately many of the movies are just Koreanized versions of English names so indicating which film we wanted to see wasn't too much of a challenge.

But in Korea one has to choose one's specific seat. So the ticket clerk turned the monitor around and I indicated lamely where we wanted to sit-cheogi (there!). They have all kinds of healthy refreshments at some theaters although I don't remember whether they did at this one. The portions aren't so huge though. No 64 ounce sodas or popcorn that requires its own seat. Sometimes they have apples and bananas and other things which are better for kids than monster servings of popcorn and nachos. The theaters are quite nice though at least the auditoriums I've been in have fewer seats than many in the States. The seats are a little bit cushier.

2 comments:

  1. Yaay! You have a blog! (I know, I'm a little late to the party) but I'm looking forward to reading more about your adventures in Korea :))

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  2. Thabi-glad you enjoyed the post.

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