Bras
For
many women,
shopping in Korea is a fashionably wonderful experience, where the
clothes are
cheap and fun to wear. Clothes are also available everywhere, with
shirts and
skirts for sale on streets and underground markets, as well as subway
stations.
If it’s easy to shop for clothes, how about bras? Buying a bra in Korea
would
be obviously impossible for a large-chested woman (since the biggest
size of
bra available there is about equal to a C-cup), but what about for a
smaller-framed woman? Still impossible. I don’t know one non-Korean
woman who
can fit into a Korean bra. They are heavily padded, and tend to be very
small
around the ribcage. My friend Yoomi once told me that Korean bras are
made for Korean women only. I'm still not sure if it's true, but Korean
bras certainly don't fit me. So, if you're planning to be in Korea for a
long time, it’s a good idea to bring your favourite selection of bras
with you. |
| Not hard to find - a leopard print fuzzy case with tail for your smartphone |
Tampons
After having a coffee
with my friend Joo, we were walking in the street and we came to a special
pharmacy in Korea called Olive Young. This is one of few stores where you can
buy tampons in Korea, so I asked my friend if we could go inside. Once I found
what I was looking for, Joo looked at what I had in my hand and was obviously
shocked and uncomfortable. “Kerri, you use those??”
She reacted as if I was buying illegal drugs. The concept of tampons hasn’t
really caught on in Korea, yet, and most of my Korean friends don’t use them.
For this reason, they can be hard to find. When you do find tampons, they are
pretty much like the cardboard tampons of ten years ago – stripped of the
modern flashy specialties offered in North America. Perhaps with a little
pretty packaging and a Korean idol spokesperson, we can make tampons the next
big thing for women in Korea.
Deodorant
 |
| Not hard to find - a hippie group of foreigners hanging in the grass |
Deodorant
Do Asian people just
win at the game of sweating? Do they just not have body odour? In my hot summer
classroom without air conditioning, I’m wiping the sweat from my forehead while
my students keep their spring jackets on. Even when they came into my class
right after a volleyball game, they still don’t seem to smell. I don’t know how
it works, but I somehow have never smelled B.O. from my Korean students or
friends. Perhaps due to the lack of suffocating B.O., deodorant just has no
place in the Korean drug store. Or perhaps everyone here has a secret to
preventing B.O. that I’m just not in on yet. Either way, finding deodorant is a
challenge, and like the tampons, when you find it, there isn’t much selection.
Are there any items from home you haven't been able to find on your travels?
 |
| Not hard to find - cars parked everywhere and anywhere |
Are there any items from home you haven't been able to find on your travels?
