'Preparing' for my Trip to Korea

Yes, people. I am finally going to Korea. August 2016 will hopefully be one of the best times of my life. For any journey one plans to undertake, one must always make preparations. Obviously I must prepare for my trip. However, in addition to the physical things that I need to get ready, I also plan to put some other preparations in place.

I am not the most normal person in the world and so my preparations are a bit...strange. Besides the basic travel phrases, I plan to learn two main things:

1 Swear words

2 How to play Go Stop

The reason for number 1 is this. When I went on a one week trip to Guadeloupe with my secondary school, one of the places we visited was Pointe-à-Pitre. We decided to do a little shopping there. At one point in time our fairly sizable group was taking up the whole sidewalk..... Oops! There was this man who walked by and shouted something at us. We had no clue what he was saying. One of the teachers who was with us then told us that the man had said "Allez vous faire foutre" and gave us the translation. The man had cursed us à la française. From this experience, I always said I would learn a few swear words before going to any other foreign land. I found a source here on Wikipedia that is quite sufficient for my trip. Although they say ignorance is bliss, I would rather know. In addition to these general curse words, I decided to look up the Korean equivalent to the word 'nigger'. As a black person going to a practically racially homogeneous country I just thought it would be interesting to know. Turns out that the word used is 검둥이.

The reason for number 2 is because my mind tends to run wild over simple things. Even though I have not even set foot in Korea I have imagined so many possible situations that could occur already. SIDE NOTE: This is a good way to make you seem more fluent. If you practiced being in a situation beforehand you will have the answers to many questions that could possibly be asked. Anyhow, one of the situations I 'found myself in' was that I had joined some 아쩌씨들 on the street to play Go stop. (I think I watch too many dramas). The thing is, I have no clue how to play this game so I decided to just look up the basics of the game. I found a pretty comprehensive site and also a video by Simon and Martina. I can't let myself lose any opportunity to interact with the locals. Lol. I always wanted to learn how to play the game anyhow. It seems that it can really get complicated though...


Well this is my foolish, little plan. Wish me luck. :)