Homesick in Korea?

If ever an American is homesick in Korea, there is one place guaranteed to ease the pain. Cosco. Yep, the giant wharehouse store full of bulk goods. Just a 20 minute walk from my apartment sits a Cosco, exactly the same as the ones at home. Well, maybe not exactly- there's a bit more in the way of chili paste and fish flavored things, but look hard enough and you'll find such delights as string cheese, sour cream, ravioli, and Go-gurt. In the frozen section, taquitos, chimichangas, corndogs and all the other guilty microwaveables. At the bakery counter you can order the enormous sheet cakes with tacky icing- as blah as they are at home, I'm sure, but familiar nonetheless. L'oreal fruity kids' shampoo, Altoids, Chips Ahoy, and Otis Spunkmeyer! It's like a foreigner's fairyland. They even have the good old food court with hotdogs and pizza and chicken bakes and soft serve. And, alas, they have tortillas.

I'm budgeting myself this month so when I went to Cosco last night, I only had a few items on my list. It is easy to go overboard at a place that sells candy bars in packs of 50 and enough microwave popcorn in one box to run a movie theater for a day. First, my friends and I dined for $3 a piece at the food court. Sitting on the red plastic swivel chairs enjoying my pizza, I looked around happily at all the Koreans enjoying the same food as me. Really the only hint that gave away that we were in Korea at all were the plates of relish and onion mashed together in the center of all their tables. A pretty clever way to get the pickled side dish they require at every meal.

After eating, we spread out to shop. I secured my giant loaf of wheat bread and 2 pack Kashi cereal and began my search for the rumored tortillas. There they were, next to the frozen potstickers. I lifted it out of the freezer and admired the frosty bag. Mi Rancho Tortillas. San Leandro California. I was delighted. From home! Thinking about how the tortillas had come just as far as I had made me quite happy. Silly, I know. A whole lot of crap travels all over the world all the time. The majority of the food in that place is obviously from the States. But reading the words San Leandro made me feel like I wasn't really so far from home at all.