~~her name was lola~~: one man's trash is another man's treasure

One's man's trash is another man's treasure...This well-known phrase has never rung so true as it has in Korea. Let me introduce you to some of my "treasures": a tall bookcase, a small/round Korean table, an awesome/huge white, thick-matted wall frame, and the cutest vintage turquoise-y blue night stand you've ever seen. Yes, it's true~~these are all things I have found on the side of the road as someone else's "trash" (minus the blue night stand...Jade found that on the street, and I inherited it). I would never have believed it myself, and I was still apprehensive my first time just grabbing furniture off the side of the road and lugging it up the stairs to my apartment, but now, strangely enough (an embarrassingly enough!), I find myself scanning others' trash piles for some "new treasure" I might uncover. Most of the time, it's just rotten food or piles of recycling and waste or the crazy wild cats that roam around my neighborhood (more on that later), but every now and then, you get some real treasure!

Ok, so let me explain this a bit further for those of you who are simply stumped and lost right now at what I am saying. Here in Korea, things work a little differently. Garage sales and flea markets (except for a few HUGE ones in Seoul or a special event here and there) are NOT common here...and soooo....when someone doesn't want something anymore--be it a table or blanket or chair or bookcase or closet or whatever--they just put it out on the street along with the rest of the trash (In Korea, there are not trash bins: you just put your trash in a special color/kind of bag and lay it on the side of the street wherever you see other trash piling up. See my upcoming blog on **Trash and Recycling in Korea 101**). These things they throw out sometimes even look brand new, but they simply wanted something new and were getting rid of the "old." It's stunning. Now, I would not have known about this if I had not read about it on someone else's blog before I came here, and even still, as I said, I was a little apprehensive. In the USA, if there was furniture outside, you would never take it unless it had a "free" sign taped to it or it was CLEARLY heading for the dump (especially not perfectly good/new looking things!).

Haha, well let me tell you about my first time finding a "treasure." It was in the evening and I was walking to the market, and this big pile of trash/rubbish across from my apt catches my eye. I see this cute bookshelf and think about how perfect it would be in my apartment. With a little work...well, it definitely had potential...I think. I'm not certain because--yes, have fun imagining this one--at this point, I am trying to catch quick little glances out of the corner of my eye so it doesn't look like I am scanning it out. I mean, I don't want to have someone seeing me gazing and grinning over a pile of smelly trash! How embarrassing! Thankfully, though, it is dark by this point, but I still try to casually (or not-so-casually lol) look ahead of me and behind me to see if there is anyone in the street witnessing my crazy behavior. I felt like I was in a movie scene where the lone girl is walking down a street under the dimly lit street lights...a set up to where the person hiding in the shadows jumps out and makes his move. I look ahead of me, carefully scanning my surroundings and then turn to the back...Although not seeing anything on first glance, I am still unsettled and get this feeling perhaps I'm not alone. .....Haha, but in my case, wheeeew, safe. No one around. And yet, it was still too weird to me to just TAKE a perfectly good bookshelf off the street and march back home with it. It just doesn't make sense. I bargained: Ok, Laura, if this bookshelf is still here when you get back from the market and putting your things away, you have to snatch it.

And well, you know the ending to that story: my first "treasure" is now sitting in my front room proudly displaying many plants, pictures, and books.

So....moral of the story (?)...when in Korea, one man's trash really IS another man's treasure!