For you, for free!

We were out having a drink at our friends’ bar (Jazz bar at the time), when one of the staff gave us a fried egg on a plate and said: “Suh-bis-uh”.
This is Konglish for “service”, a word used for the free gifts you get when buying things in Korea.You get them everywhere, from restaurants to cosmetic shops.

I’ve received more samples of face-wash and creams than I can count. Although those are great when travelling, the little bottles are very impractical and I usually end up with no cream on my hands, but a lot of cream all over my the bathroom.

Etude house’s policy of givingboxes of cotton squares has helped me remove tons of make-up and the tri-pod I got with my camera has come in very handy when taking pictures of myself. I’ve also received guitar picks, hairbands, some candy, socks, ribbons and a nailcare set.

Customer care may not be of the best quality in Korea, but at least they try to gain loayal customers who will keep coming back.

Bauzen Brau (Or German bar, as we call it) is the only socal gathering place that has realized that a big group of foreigners may be noisy, but they bring in the money. Every time we go there, I can see their shoulders start to sag and their smiles falter a bit, but it is not long before we get enough plates of French fries to feed everyone there.

While packing this past weekend, I realized I have a whole container of unused freebies to get rid of, but I will miss getting them when I go back to South Africa, where you only get what you pay for and sometimes even less than that…

* I'm sorry that I am only posting these now. Turns out packing and relocating is a pretty time-consuming activity...*