Jae Hak's Korea (and Asia) stories

Test

2011-11-01T09:12:00.001-07:00

Yo test 1

Busan/Haeundae Travel Guide

2009-07-20T18:13:00.000-07:00

I wrote this for a job ap, and I'm gonna move it to a new forthcoming blog soon. I'll just leave this here now.

Haeundae

Korea’s most popular beach lies on the peninsula’s southern coast, on the eastern side of the city of Busan. Dalmaji Hill and the mountains beyond gives Haeundae a Mediterranean feel, or at least as close as one can get in Korea. The rough white sand beach stretches for 1.5 kilometers between Mipo Wharf on the east and the Westin Chosun and Dongbaek Park on the west. The beach is taken over by enormous throngs of Koreans in July and August, and downtown Haeundae-gu has enough hotels, restaurants, bars, and karaoke rooms to handle them. Fortunately for the traveler, this means that hotel rooms are both inexpensive and easy to find throughout the rest of the year. Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF), Korea’s largest and one of the biggest in Asia, takes over Haeundae the first week of October. This is an excellent time for film buffs and Hallyu (Korean Wave) fans to head to the beach.

Arrival, information, and accommodation

Trains call on Haeundae Station from Ulsan, Gyeongju, Daegu, and ultimately Seoul, However, these trains are infrequent and slow, taking 6 hours or more to arrive from Seoul. You are better off reaching Haeundae by using Busan Station. It has better connections to Seoul via KTX train, which whips to Seoul in under 3 hours ( www.info.korail.com/2007/eng/eng_index.jsp). Subway Line 2 also stops at Haeundae Station, which is the easiest connection from Busan Station, the bus terminals, and central Busan. Use exits 3 or 5 from the subway to reach the beach, a ten minute walk from the station. The city Bus stops at Haeundae Station. Bus 302 connects Haeundae with downtown Busan. The Tourist Information booth at Haeundae station is a bit difficult to manage for non-Korean speakers, but there are free maps in English. The Busan Station Tourist Information kiosk is more user friendly. You can also call 51/1330 for tourist information in English.

Not surprisingly, Haeundae has a surplus of hotels in every category. Novotel Ambassador Busan (51/743-1234, www.novotelbusan.com/eng/index.php) is in the center of the beach. The Novotel boasts Murpii (51/743-1234 Ext . 6071, www.murphys.co.kr/) , the most popular dance club on Haeundae. The Westin Chosun (051/749-7428, www.westin.com/busan) dominates the western edge of the beach, and is still considered the standard of Haeundae luxury. This hotel features great sunrise views and posh O’Kim’s bar, along with top end restaurants. Hotel Riviera (51/740-2111, rivierahotel.co.kr/EN/index.html) is a midrange hotel five minutes off the beach, halfway along the main road between the Novotel and Haeundae Station. Gangnam Motel (no phone listed) is located just off the beach. Follow the main road away from the beach, with the Novotel on your right, turn left at first stoplight, then left again at the first alley. Outside of peak summer season and early October, rooms run about 30,000 won per night. Rooms are clean, though small and drab. Several dirt-cheap motels stand a few blocks west of the Novotel, some as low as 20,000 won a night, though they are definitely on the seedy side.

The Town

Chock full of restaurants, entertainment options, and the best people watching in Korea, it’s easy to see why Haeundae is so popular. Busan Aquarium (51/740-1700, 10am-9pm weekdays, 9am-10pm weekends and holidays; adults 16,000 won, children 11,000 won; www.busanaquarium.com/eng/f_main.html) is Korea’s largest and best, featuring a large glass tunnel through the massive shark tank. Glass bottom boat rides over the shark tank are also available for 5,000 won. Dongbaek Park lies on the west end of the beach, near the Westin Chosen. It’s a great place to walk or jog past sweeping views of the Gwangan Bridge, Korea’s longest and most beautiful. At the east end of the beach, Mipo Wharf offers boat rides along the beach and around a nearby uninhabited islet. The Haeundae Open Air Market is a couple blocks north of the beach, and offers all kinds of goods. After the sun sets, several impromptu peddlers along the beach sell Roman Candles and other fireworks for your pyro pleasure.

Eating, drinking, and entertainment

Haeundae is a top dining and nightlife destination, and has the largest culinary variety of any neighborhood in Korea outside Seoul. Along with all manner of Korean delights, you can also choose from Thai, Indian, Turkish, Mexican, Italian, as well as American chains such as Outback Steakhouse and TGI Friday’s. Nightlife ranges from trendy clubs and posh bars in the high end hotels to soju and Roman Candles on the beach. For gamblers, try your luck at the casino in the Paradise Hotel, next door to the Novotel on the beach.

Beers Plus A few blocks north of the beach along the main road. This is a Korean-style hof, which requires the purchase of food to buy draft beer. Decent nachos. This hof is on the 8th floor of its building, and features a roof deck.

Dairy Queen Located in the concourse under the aquarium, which has stair access directly from the beach. Korea’s only outlet of the franchise, so it’s the only place in the country to get a Blizzard. Ice cream only.

Mipo Wharf On the far east side of the beach. Take your pick of seaside raw fish restaurants. On the pricy side, but you can’t find fresher fish.

Starface On Dalmaji Hill, the best way to get there is via taxi (2-3,000 won). Ask the driver to take you to “kim-sung-jong joori-moon hak-gowan,” which is next to the bar. Cheap drinks, nice views, and live music.

Taco Al Puebla A little difficult to find, walk away from the beach on the main road, turn right through the market, cross the street and turn left after the market, turn right in the first alley. It’s tiny, but may have a line out the door. Possibly the best Mexican food in Korea, and quite cheap for non-Korean food.

U2 Bar Just north of the beach, across the street from Novotel. A rowdy expat bar that serves delicious free popcorn, a rarity in Korea. Live music occasionally.

Korea 1

2009-04-19T22:31:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 10/1/06

I don't even really know where to start. I don't have the Internets at home yet, so I'm at an internet cafe. Maybe I'll start there. Internet cafes here, they aren't like the type you run into in the U.S.. or Europe. The chairs are comfortable, the lights are dim, it's loud, and you can smoke. And they are cheap, like a dollar an hour.

When I landed here Thursday night (Wednesday night so far as I was concerned, because the sun was out for the entire flight), I was picked up by driver holding a sign that said "Tobb xxxxx." I got in his van, and headed off from the airport, without a clue as to where I was going. At some point on the aimless drive from Incheon to Seoul, he got a call on his cell phone, and it was for me. Somehow, this made sense.

Anyway, I ended up at a motel that the school had put me in for the first couple of nights. It was clean and tasteful, but I'm pretty sure it was a hooker motel. The massage oils and condom (wrapped) on the dresser table was a pretty good giveaway there. Plus, the TV got free porn. Two different channels of free porn, in fact.

I haven't started work yet, I start tomorrow. It sounds like it won't be too bad after the first few days, plus this is only a 3 day week, Thursday and Friday are holidays.

I am already 85% sure that this country will kill me. The bars don't close. Ever. Any of them. Neither do the liquor/convenience stores. I've already had a night where i was out until 7 a.m. It's like a Vegas or a New Orleans, only there's 11 million people. Plus, you can smoke everywhere, and cigs are 2.50. I am also learning the evils of soju. It's this rice wine, it's 20% alcohol or something but feels like more. It's fairly bad straight, but I mixed it with juice, and discovered that the ratio of the drink can be like 90 percent soju and 10 percent juice, and it just tastes like juice. Oh yeah, and the bottles of it cost like 90 cents. And apparently, the Koreans don't drink like say, the french. It's not a bottle of wine with dinner. Everyone is out to get completely shitfaced. You see guys in business suits passed out at the bar, and nobody cares. From what I've heard, the entire city's policy on kicking someone out of a bar makes the Replay look draconian.

Lots of other cultural things I can talk about here, but I'll save it for later. Like, environmental stuff, I guess, is taken a lot more seriously than in the U.S. Like, you don't get bags at the grocery store, you bring your own, like Aldi. Which is a weird way to end a blog, but is the way this one ends.

Itaewon

2009-04-19T22:21:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 10/6/06

Well, we're coming at you LIVE, from the belly of the beast at Itaewaon. Obviously, this night is not too exciting, as I am in fact on the Internets and ripping off Bill Simmons introductions.

Anyway, so last night was awesome. I came out by myself, and ended up meeting like 20 people, including the cliche gorgeous long haired brunette that, inevitably, ruined my life, if only for a short period of time. These things happen, I suppose.

Tonight, not so much on the interesting action. I still can't quite figure out the bars here. I was at a joint called Spy Bar, and drinks were abnormally expensive (like 5 bucks! fucking hell) and the place was chock full of ridiculously gorgeous girls, and generally schlub dudes, like myself. I figured, surely I must be in a ho bar, so I immediately left (well, after my overpriced beer). Now, if I were in a smiler bar in say, Chicago or LA or Paris or whatever, where all of the girls are basically model quality, and all of the dudes are the type that I can compete with, and well, defeat, then there's no way in hell I'm leaving. But, I've never been in such a bar in LA or Chicago or Paris or whatever, so I just assumed it must be a ho bar. Anyway, I ended up making friends with some dude that owned a bar down the street, and he said that it's not a ho bar, that it's totally legit, and that abnormally hot girls like to hang out in said bar.

Wait, why am I telling you all this? I'm going to fucking Spy Bar. End communication.

It Continues

2009-04-19T22:11:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 10/7/06

I've been to Itaewon for four straight nights. Which is like being at the Replay for 4 straight nights, if the Replay was open until 5 or 6 a.m. or something. I'm not going tomorrow though, I swear.

Last night, after posting, I ended up going to like 5 or 6 more bars, including the eternally evil Polly's Kettle House, where they serve up these horrible drinks called kettles. These basically consist of 15-20 ounces of soju and some mixer, for 5 bucks. Brutal.

So, hilarious thing about Korea, and I guess many countries in general - the gangsta wannabe type dudes. I was at The Loft tonight (a bar where girls drink free, yet tonight, no cute girls) and there's all these Nigerian dudes wearing random U.S. sports jerseys, clearly influenced by hip hop/rap videos. Yet, these guys have no knowledge whatsoever of U.S. sports, and all of the jerseys are fake Korean street vendor fare, so there are lots of dudes wearing jerseys of, like, Eddie George and Merton Hanks, and other random players like that that had 5-6 good years several years ago, but that nobody back home wears ever.

In a more serious and sad note, I am infinitely depressed by the death of Buck O'Neil, and all the more angered by the idiot hall of fame committee that decided a long dead Newark secretary was more worthy of enshrinement than baseball's greatest ambassador. For my own very small effort, I did spend much of the night telling rabid Korean baseball fans about Buck. I'd like to dedicate tonight's blog entry to Buck O'Neil, but I won't, because he deserves far better than a dedication here, on the interweb's most bush league address. I will say this: though I didn't know him, I feel like I have lost a friend. The world in general, and Kansas City in particular, is a worse off place today.

Good night (or good morning?) from Seoul. I'll write more about random hot Canadian girls later, but right now, I want everybody who reads this to think about Buck. Read Posnanski tomorrow (kansascity.com), I am sure it will be the column of his life, and one that i am not looking forward to reading.

Fearing North Invasion and Fan Death

2009-04-19T22:00:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 10/14/06

It's a beautiful day in Seoul, so of course I've been spending the afternoon sleeping, watching Korean MTV, and sitting in the subterranian interweb lair. Just thought I'd write on a couple random things I've learned so far...

Fan Death - I'm really excited about this one. Apparently, in Korea, fans can kill you. Ceiling fans, oscillating fans, anything, I guess. You can't run a fan in a room without the window open. It's forbidden. Obviously, the fan will suck the oxygen out of the air, and you will die.

Kim's Club - this is what a grocery store should be. I love this place. It's huge, and underground, and beats the hell out of any U.S. or European grocer. First off, there's a veritable army of hot girls in short skirts and knee socks that work there, they are set up with samples of free shit in every aisle. There's free samples of, like, everything, including Heineken. Yes, that's right. Kim's Club has a hot girl in a short skirt giving you free beer. Not much of course, but I think it's really the principle that matters here. I've yet to make it out of the store in less than an hour. I can't find the salt and pepper that I seek there, and nobody speaks any English at all, but what the fuck, free beer.

The job has been okay. A couple of the classes are really bad, chock full of bad kids. One class has this horrible, possibly evil kid, and when he gets going, he's a bad influence on another student, whom I'll call Lou here. Lou is really dumb. He's like, the Kerney of the class. I think he is probably 24 or so. He speaks almost no English. One of my co-workers theorized that he probably can't speak any Korean either. Yesterday, he got 100% on his test, so I am positive he must have cheated. He handed me his test book and said, "me smart."

Some of the textbooks are awesome. In one passage, in a dialogue about eating unhealthy food, one of the characters says something along the lines of "I don't care if I grow bigger eating sweets. I must satisfy the desires of my mouth." I actually have to not laugh at this in class, which is really hard. There's a ton of other hilarious Engrish examples in these textbooks as well. There's a pronunciation book, which is just speech drills on certain sounds. The other day, it was the -ar sound we were doing, so of course, I couldn't resist getting the kids to do it pirate-style. good to see that pirate humor is international.

I've been pretty low-key in the going out scene this week, so I have no stories there, but that should change tonight. Hopefully, I should have something interesting to say.

Japan

2009-04-19T21:49:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 10/24/06

A few random notes on my brief stay in japan:

I noticed, and maybe this is a new development, that when I flew to Japan on Monday morning, (okay, Sunday night in my book, since I didn't sleep and I left for the airport at 5 a.m. after winning the Madden Superbowl) that flights can be quite hair-raising and scary when you are sober. I mean, you are flying in this enormous (and I don't know what the deal with Korean Air is, but I was in row 40 yet I was on the wing. There must have been 900 people on this flight) plane, and it's an hour flight, so pretty much the whole time its either taking off or landing, which I'm used to on a 737, but on this behemoth of a plane (an Airbus, which I don't know much about. I think an A-300) it's all the more scary. But then, I discovered, on the return flight, on the same type of plane, in perhaps worse weather, the trip was an absolute beaute, and I wasn't remotely nervous. The difference? Well, on the return flight, I was absolutely hammered. I think I may be onto something here.

Fukuoka, by the way, has a fine airport, in my opinion. The international terminal was totally empty. My flight was the only one leaving from it. And in this case, international is like 400 miles. 2 cool things at the Fukuaka airport: there are two observation decks, outdoors-ish, so you can watch planes take off. Which, despite my problems with flying, I enjoy doing, because it re-assures me to see planes not crashing. Plus, though I could not find a bar, at least in the international terminal, I found something better. There were convenience stores that sold beers for like a dollar. And it's totally kosher to walk around the airport drinking them. At least, I assume it was. I mean, hell, they sell them past security, and you can't bring liquid on the plane, so where the hell else are you going to drink them? Plus, on top of that, the beers are 7% alcohol, and they sell them in weird flavors like lemonade and orange, so you can knock one back in like 20 seconds or so.

Don't get me wrong, I like beer, beer that tastes like beer, and I am totally opposed to the "flavored malt beverage" thing, like your Mike's Hard Lemonades and your Smirnoff Ices, but the Japanese have managed to get around all possible issues with such drinks and their effete nature by taking 5 key steps, in my opinion:

-They really do taste like lemonade, and lemonade is good
-They put a higher alcohol content in these than regular beer
-They make it the cheapest drink available
-This is key – they put it in cans – no queer yellow or cloudy liquid in a clear bottle
-They sell them for nothing at the fucking airport

Other funny things about Japan in general include the fact that you can't smoke while walking. It's the law. It's perfectly legal to stand on the street, pretty much anywhere, and smoke, but if you walk down the same street, it's illegal. CC told me it's because it goes against the Japanese notion of the group dynamic, which makes smoking in a restaurant or bar or with others on the street perfectly okay, but that walking down the street while smoking is going too much your own way, and it upsets the group dynamic, to the point where they actually made a law against it. So far as I'm concerned, this is the equivalent of the internet being legal, and porn being legal, but internet porn being illegal. I mean, doesn't walking and smoking go together like the internet and porn? And don't kill me for having a lame punchline here, I honestly was trying to make a point rather than set up a joke.

Speaking of CC – for anybody who has read this before, you know that I don't usually use this space to, ah, what's the opposite of make fun of people? But anyway, I just want to re-affirm in public what most of you know already – that CC is awesome. She's the type of kid who would in fact give you 3 grand, no questions asked, after a desperation 4 a.m. phone call from, say, an Indonesian jail cell. Or, as she did, give you a fistful of yen after a frantic phone call from the American consulate at 4 p.m., which is the same as 4 a.m. so far as Japanese banks are concerned. And then buy you beers all night to boot. So, props to CC.

Just a couple more funny things : at the airport in Seoul, there's an ad for SK Telecom, which is a pretty big company here. But the ad says: "SK: The Ubiquitous Leader." I don't think even Microsoft would have the balls to pull off that slogan.

And finally, for Wiley, a little drunken patriotism: so on my flight home, the pilot gave his announcements in Korean, Japanese, and English, and in English, he said that our current speed was five hundred MILES per hour. Yeah, that's right, miles. So basically, he was saying, suck it Brits, Kiwis, Canucks, Aussies, South Africans, and whoever else speaks English and deals in metric. Oh beautiful, for spacious skies…

By the way, I really do kind of want to write about airports. Fukuoka was my 8th in 2 months, and 12th this calendar year, both of which I believe are personal records. If I did write about airports here, would anybody other than Wiley read it? And this questions goes to the giraffe people as well. Answer in comments, yo.

Horse Shit

2009-04-19T21:40:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 10/29/06

So, I'm pretty much on to the really annoying poverty period, that I suppose is inevitable any time you don't get paid for 43 days. Really, there's no amount of money that works for starting out such a streak, when you are taking a lump sum to a new country. I could have brought 10 grand with me, and I am fairly certain I would still be broke now. 12 more days to payday now, I'm fairly certain I can tough it out, ghetto food style, and with the assistance of lots of PS2.

Knowing that I am broke, PS2 was exactly my plan last night. I was walking home at around 6 p.m., fully ready for hours and hours of Madden action, and I was almost there when I ran into two fellow teachers. Who, of course, said to me the 6 most deadly words in the English language for the budget minded person in Seoul – "We're going to Itaewon. Wanna come?" Arrrr. I try to refuse this invitation, but realize I have little choice. After all, pretty much the one cardinal rule for those who do not own a cell phone is that you always go along with friends that you randomly bump into when they are on their way to the bars.

Off we went, first eating at a tiny Moroccan restaurant. Basically a one-man operation. 4 tables, one guy serving and cooking. Pretty impressive restaurateur as well. By my count, this guy was either fluent or damn close to it in English, Korean, French, Spanish, and Arabic, judging by his conversations with the rest of the clientele. Cool place, overall. Meanwhile, I still know a cool two Korean phrases – hello and thank you. I don't even know the standard excuse me, but judging from what I've seen of Seoul subway etiquette, there's no need to learn it.

Anyway, so the horse mask thing in my picture (pic omitted - but it was of my and 4 others in horse masks). Maybe this is the reason that I am broke, but I simply could not-not buy one. Itaewon is the one place in Seoul that cares about Halloween, and lots of people went all out with the costumes. But, we clearly beat them all. 5 people running around the Itaewon streets and bars wearing identical horse masks. As I waffled on whether to buy one, I said to my buddy that if I did, I'd wear it today, and probably never again. His response was, uh, more like every other day. So the five of us will meet up every couple of months or so to horse around. I think we need a camera crew.

Indecision Clouds my Vision

2009-04-19T21:32:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 11/4/06

First off, I need to point out that huge strides have been made in instant coffee since I last had it, probably in my Boy Scout days. This is fortunate, as it is a necessity here, if one is to drink coffee at home. The combination of lack of space for a coffee machine in my tiny apartment, and prohibitive cost of coffee machines here (they are all like $150, I haven't seen anyplace selling the classic American shitty $10 coffee machines that I have come to depend on) makes instant the only option.

Last night I went out with 3 other teachers to a local bar, a Brit, and Aussie, and a Canadian. We had a pretty enjoyable time, and all three are very cool. Boring info there, I know. We talked about various travel things, as the three of them are all very well traveled, and I'd like to think I do all right myself, for an American at least. All three had been to Thailand and Hong Kong and Singapore and other places like that still seem exotic, even from Seoul. It has long been the common wisdom that Americans don't travel enough, and though this did not come up last night, I am sure the other three all think this. As do I, largely, far too few Americans have passports, but then again, Americans get the shortest vacation time of any industrialized people, and it's hard to see much of Europe or Asia or South America with a week off, and far easier to go to Vegas or Orlando and "see" all three.

What struck me as quite strange though, and perhaps this is an international phenomenon, is that the Canadian has never been to Toronto, the Aussie has never been to Sydney, and the Brit has spent less time in London than I have. So, I don't know, make what you will of that. I am not talking shit, because, as I said, all of these people are very cool and I am glad they are working at my school.

So anyway, everybody was going home at 2 or so, and I wasn't really into going home. I bought a bottle of soju and took to the streets with the pod, kicking it old school. The problem with soju, of course, is that you should never start drinking it after having a couple beers. It just makes you nutty. You would think I'd have learned this by now, but it just seemed like the thing to do.

I walked down a random large street near my house that I had not been down before, rocking the pod and interested to see what was around. I ended up in a random party zone, not far down the road. I had no fucking clue where I was, but it was 2:30 or 3, and this one random street was jammed with cars and cabs, and there were a ton of people on the streets and like 7 million bars around. So, I felt I'd walked the right way, basically. Another weird thing about Korea – on this little party street, there were all sorts of businesses open that you wouldn't expect to be open at 3 a.m, like clothing stores and junk stores. Conversely, there were all sorts of businesses that you would expect to be open, at least they would be in Chicago, like a Dunkin Donuts and a Burger King, that were closed. One bar, called the Stop Here, (I didn't, it looked shady) had its hours printed on the door. 6 p.m. until 11 a.m. Even I am not hard core enough to be out boozing still at, say 10:30 a.m.

I headed to a bar with seats in the windows that overlook the street, so that I could watch all the chaos of a Seoul party district from a prime vantage point. Plus, a fairly large beer was 2.50, and it came with these weird, addictive crunch noodle snack things that I do not know what are called, but they serve them in a lot of Korean bars. The waitress then brought me a tray of peanuts, and said, proudly, "nuts." Nuts indeed.

Anyway, I left the bar, still with the soju in tow, completely trashed, and I started feeling the urge to rock out, which, thankfully, I haven't done in public in some time, probably due to owning a car. Just then, the pod selected Faith No More's "Falling to Pieces," and it was no longer up to me. It was time to rock. So, it was 4 a.m, still lots of people out, I'm absolutely hammered, walking in the general home direction, in a part of the city I had never been to before, surrounded by people that I will never see again. So I wail along with Mike Patton, and even throw in a few random dance moves. I gotta say, it was fun. Fortunately, the road home was deserted of people, as it goes through a large construction project so there's no retail or residential anywhere around. I was able to sing like a madman the whole way back, until I got into my neighborhood, where I immediately stopped. Acting like a jackass in front of scores of drunken strangers or in a deserted area is one thing, but I didn't want to do so within earshot of the neighbors.

Post note, so I was walking to the grocery store today (after waking up at 3 p.m.) and I had the pod again, and maybe the third song it randomly picks out of 3500 odd songs, is of course, "Falling to Pieces." I was tempted to rock out once again, but the moment passed. I think I'm staying home tonight.

Money

2009-04-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 11/13/06

So, I finally got paid this weekend. So briefly, I have money. Which is awesome. Basically, this was the "Ted Kennedy" weekend, where I am, of course, throwing money around all over the place. Big change from last weekend, the "Pat Buchanan" weekend, fiscally, at least. I am sure it's been said before in more eloquent ways, but in my opinion, the best part about having money is the ability to buy random crap, and of course real food.

I kicked off the Ted Kennedy weekend with a bang, of course, going out on Friday until 6 a.m, where I ultimately ended up drinking in a soju tent late at night. Soju tents, for those that don't know, are pretty much random heated tents that are set up all over the place on Korean streets, and I'm not sure if they ever close. Ours was still hopping when we left. At soju tents, they serve random Korean food, soju, and beer. Nothing else, really. And, I probably should have learned this by now, but soju at 5 a.m. after a night out drinking beer is a bad, bad idea. It was fun though, amongst those sitting at my table (in a tent, remember, on cheap, crappy plastic stools) were two up-and coming, drop dead gorgeous Korean pop stars. And for some reason, they actually talked to me, despite not speaking much English, and I was basically thinking, wait, why are you talking to me? Do you have any idea how hot you are? If this were New York or Chicago or LA, no way these girls are talking to me in a makeshift street bar at 5 a.m., and if it were any other city in the U.S., they wouldn't be there to begin with, since there are no girls that hot in, say, Pittsburgh.

My quest to become a Korean cell phone (handa pone) owner has thus far been fruitless. So far, I just can't figure it out. The language barrier is huge in this sort of thing, but I figure, I have sold many a phone to people who speak no English, so how hard can it be the other way around? Well, apparently I need a Korean to go in with me, or to get a social security number here, just to get a damn pre-paid phone, the same type that anybody can buy in the U.S. or Europe at 7-11 or wherever. This has probably been my biggest cultural difficulty so far, this phone thing, which is especially weird to me considering the fact that I know more about the cell phone biz in the US than anybody would ever care to, but here, I am basically retarded.

Random Korean Shit (Seoul Patches? No, that sucks))

2009-04-19T21:07:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 11/23/06

First off, props to Wiley. I never thought I'd start a blog like that. I know I've talked a lot of shit over the years about his refusal to leave Lawrence under any circumstances short of being kidnapped under a ruse promising North Lawrence titty bars, but he's actually traveled a lot this year, and he's coming to hang out in Korea in a few months. Does this mean an end to talking shit? Of course not, I'll just have to come up with something new to make fun of Wiley for. Should take upwards of 5 seconds.

I was on the Seoul subway the other night, on my way to going out in Itaewon, when some Blonde Redhead song came on the pod, you know, the one with the weird, dreamlike background music under the strange yet soothing high pitched voice. Okay, that's all their songs. But anyway, I sat down in one of the seats in the end of the car, which is reserved for elderly, disabled, and pregnant passengers. Keep in mind, the train car had no standing passengers, as it was not very full, but was just full enough that there was nowhere to sit in the normal seats without being squeezed between two Koreans on seats that are not really designed for the American ass.

Two middle-aged Korean guys in suits were sitting across from me, also in the "reserved" seats, and one of them pointed at the sign while staring at me. I shrugged, and gave a glance that tried to say, "I will get up should this seat be needed by somebody in the elderly, disabled, or pregnant condition, but there are no standees on this train right now, plus, it does not look as if you yourself fall under the umbrella of the particular maladies that these seats are designed for, yet you sit in one, so fuck off." It's quite difficult to convey that with a look and a shrug, though I presume it would have been much more difficult to verbalize this, given the language barrier. Had this been the El, the finger would have done the job well, but since this is a culture I do not fully understand, I did not want to resort to these measures.

After a stop passed, the suited man once again gestured toward the sign, so at this point, as a foreigner here, I felt I had no choice but to oblige. Who knows, maybe this seemingly able-bodied businessman had some sort of hidden disability, maybe a colostomy bag tucked in his pant leg or something. And maybe it is taboo to ever sit in a "handicapped" seat on a Korean subway under any circumstance, like an American handicapped parking space, rather than like a handicapped bathroom stall, particularly the ones in a large airplane that are anybody's first choice.

I walked through the train car, and again, there was really nowhere to sit, so I planned to stand for the rest of the trip, which was, of course, not a big deal. I stood near the other side of the train car, where there was another series of handicapped seats, with a pregnant woman sitting on one side and an old (Korean, of course) man sitting on the other. The old man saw me standing, and gestured for me to sit on his handicapped bench, which I did. It was only another minute or so until my stop arrived, and when it did, I walked to the door. The old man looked up at me. I nodded at him, and he nodded as well. I walked off the train, and the Blonde Redhead song ended. All of this happened throughout the one song, and not a single word by any party was spoken throughout.

Speaking of subways, so I've had two pretty scary dreams over the course of the last two nights. Last night, I dreamt I was in some sort of precarious subway situation, where I had for some reason left the train and was on the tracks, and had to make some sort of flying leap across the third rail, which was of course shooting sparks, before the oncoming train hit me. Two nights ago, I dreamt that the school I work for was going to make me and the other teachers start selling Sprint home long distance to the student's parents, and that we would have a quota, and it would be the focus of what we were doing from now on – long distance sales first, teaching second. No question which one scared me more.

Last funny note, and I love this sort of language stuff, cognates I guess. Cell phones, as I mentioned before, are called handa pones here. I bought an international phone card last week, and the guy at the convenience store I bought it from said, "yes, with this, you can pone the U.S."

Final side note, as I type this, right now, I have the pod on shuffle, so of course, randomly, out of 3500 whatever songs, it's playing the same Blonde Redhead song. probably the second time I've heard it, including during my earlier story, in, I don't know, 6 months. Said it before and I'll say it again -god lives in the iPod.

You Must be Ronery

2009-04-19T20:34:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 11/27/06

So I finally made my first trip, not counting the Japan run that the company sent me on. I'm talking solid, old school, show up at the train station and buy a ticket for the next train leaving (turned out to be Daegu), skin of your teeth travel.

I cruised on the KTX train (300 km/hour, I think that's still a cool 200 mph in real life) down to Daegu, and found myself a top quality nearby love motel. The Korean love motel thing, by the way is brilliant. I checked in at like 4:30 p.m. or so, and there was an old couple that clearly owned the place, behind the desk sound asleep, whom I was forced to awaken. The hotel is like 2 minutes from the main train station in town, and cost $30, which just doesn't happen in the U.S., at least outside the hostel-YMCA realm. Plus, it had features that I am not used to in my own crappy studio, such as a piping hot shower that stayed hot for longer than 10 seconds, and a real bed. Scratch that, a circular bed. Yeah, that's right. And it was as awesome as I imagined. I am totally getting one, whenever it comes to pass that I have some sort of place to live. On top of that, the love motel doesn't bother you in the morning, so I was free to sleep until 1 p.m. after a long night out in Daegu without somebody banging on my door at 10 or 11 a.m. demanding that I check out or buy another day.

Speaking of my long night out – it was a wash for most of the time. I couldn't find a proper bar anywhere. Daegu has a really cool pedestrian area downtown with a million stores open late (and all the stores are of the same type on the same block, like, the adidas store is next to the Puma store is next to the Airwalk store, and one block is only cell phone stores, and one is only puppy stores – presumably for pets rather than food) but every bar I went into turned out to be a hof. I like hofs, but they aren't any fun on your own. Basically, a hof is the standard drinking establishment in Korea, with table service, cushy chairs, and an awesome button on your table that you press when you want more beer, or food, or whatever. But, there is no actual bar to sit at, so it's really only fun with other people. It's kind of like sitting at a table drinking by yourself at, say, Red Lobster. Not that I've done that.

As I was on the verge of calling it a night, I happened upon the "Hip Hop Club" or something like that, which, in the traditional Korean bar-naming style, has absolutely nothing to do with hip hop, and they were playing the same shitty K-pop, J-pop, and U.S. pop that every other bar does. Anyway, so this place was actually a proper bar, so I bought a beer and started chatting with the people there. Amongst them were an American dude from upstate New York somewhere, a couple Irish girls, a Korean-American-Korean guy who moved recently from Baltimore (and actually lived like 2 miles from my mom and knows all the same bars I do) and a knockout Korean girl who seemed to be hitting on me. So, of course, I focused on that. Toasts were made, White Russians were downed, and this girl kept talking to me, so times were good. Then, she had to leave. I think I attempted to leave with her, but for some reason this plan didn't work. Later, I was talking to the American dude from upstate, and he seemed insistent on the fact that I somehow busted up somebody's game, or that she was involved with somebody at the bar, and I caused a rift between them. Regardless, I'm actually pretty proud of myself, that in what could well be the only night I ever spend in Daegu, Korea, my drunken shenanigans brought the drama. Anyway, if my actions did result in anybody getting hurt without me realizing, then I hope it was that guy from upstate, he seemed like kind of a douche.

I wasn't only in Daegu to booze, I did go out and do some interesting, cultural, temple in a mountain type of shit too, but I don't feel like writing about it. I will say though, I finally ate bibimbap, at a random Korean restaurant on the mountain (which called itself "good restaurant," who was I to doubt them?) and it was awesome, and if you haven't had it, you should.

I took the express bus home – it's half the price of the bullet train, and was actually pretty comfortable. I haven't done the Greyhound, and I hope I never will, but I am sure the Korean express bus is much better. The seats recline pretty far, and I'm fairly certain that the shadiest person on the bus, by far, was me.

The bus had a stopover on the way, at some random highway service area reserved just for these buses. A Korean guy from a different bus who spoke decent English came up to me to bum a cigarette. We chatted for a bit, and I told him I was new in Korea and teaching and blah blah blah. He said, "You must be ronery." Shockingly, that wasn't a joke set-up, as I've learned to understand the r/l thing much better, since in written Korean, it's the same letter.

I told him I wasn't, and that I have my fellow teachers that I hang out with and that I talk to and see every day, but it did get me noticing things, things I guess I have noticed before.

Like the hof thing. This is the Korean way, you go out with people you know, and have fun with your group at your table, rather than the old, "rugged individualistic" American/western style bar, where you can go on your own, sit at the bar, meet people, make your own fun, and if needed, bring the drama. But, there is Itaewon here in Seoul, which has tons of western-style bars, so I have that avenue for going out alone. Or the restaurant thing. It wasn't fear of unknown food or love of Burger King (which, really I don't care for, yet have had more times in the last 2 months than probably the last 5 years) that kept me away, it's that Korean restaurants are social. Galbi (Korean barbecue that you cook at your table) is basically un-doable solo, all of the meals are designed to be shared. Even bibimbap, which can be eaten alone, comes with like 11 side dishes (banchan), so you feel pretty silly at a table by yourself when they bring out the tray, which is probably 4 feet in diameter. But, there's the grocery store, and McDonald's, and the delivery chicken place down the street, so there's plenty of options for eating alone, which is pretty much what I'm used to doing anyway.

Then I went to work today. I spoke to a whopping 2 other teachers for maybe a combined 45 seconds, and then the two teachers that live in the next building over that I walk home with every day took off without me. So, I lost my usual daily 5 minutes of social time with people that A) speak fluent English, and B) were born before 1995. Which basically means that the, I don't know, 25 minutes a week that I spend talking to contemporaries is in jeopardy. Add to that, I generally go out with some teachers on Friday nights, and due to my lack of cell phone (at least that's what I keep telling myself, since I do have email and a home phone) that's the last I see of my co-worker buddies for the rest of the weekend. Saturday night means going out on my own, and though I have gotten quite good at making my own fun here, and have written a story or two to prove it, it's work too, yeah? I still have to start from square one with random strangers in Itaewon bars every weekend in a sort of reverse-Groundhog Day scenario where it's an endless stream of new people, but I get to tell my same best stories over and over again, charming new audiences every weekend, never to see them again.

Sorry to dump on you there, readers, and I'm guessing I'll probably dump this blog entry as well before long. It's just, it's Monday, it's November, it's rainy, I'm drinking soju, and fucking Craig Ferguson is on. And it's a re-run. That I've seen. This particular "type" of blog, you know, where I talk about thoughts and feelings and stupid crap like that, will not become a pattern. I promise to return to dick and fart jokes as soon as possible.

One last note before I go – how about those Kansas Basketball Jayhawks? I wish I could have seen that shit. Needless to say, it was a KU shirt day at school today, just to explain to 50 kids what a Jayhawk is.

Da Club, Yo

2009-04-19T18:45:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 12/14/06

So, I headed to the club last weekend, with a few co-worker friends. We went to Hongdae, a hip, clubby area in western Seoul, and a place that is quite a departure from my usual comfortable drinking confines of Itaewon. Hongdae seems to have actual hipsters there, a bit of a Park Slope / Wicker Park kind of vibe, with all the good and bad that this entails (good, like, really hot girls, decent music in a lot of bars; bad like paying 5 bucks for a 12 ounce bottle of Cass, the Korean equivalent to PBR, even in non-hip bars with fat waitresses. At least there's no spock rockers. Then again, in Korea there's no need for black hair dye.) So, quite different than Itaewon and it's non-ending streak of Mos Isley Cantinas that somehow work despite making no sense at all.

I am not a club kid, not by any means, as anybody reading this already knows. I'm a bar guy, preferably of the dive variety, though I have deviated to clubs from time to time since my first club adventures at DV8 in Seattle, probably right around exactly 10 years ago. And, throughout my checkered club history, I have never gotten it. Not it as in "the deed," although that is true as well club-wise, but gotten the club thing at all. I don't understand it. Nothing makes sense, it's loud, the music is often horrible, and the light effects are usually worth about 4 extra beers on the drunk scale.

Add to that, I have no chance at these places. None. I know that my game is the subject of ridicule, and deservedly so, but putting me in the club with the idea of meeting girls is like taking a club-footed blind retarded guy, throwing him in a straight jacket, and expecting him to be able to kickbox. As for me, in the regular bar scene, my only hope is to hit the right level of drunkenness (thus requiring a dive's cheap beer and hooch) in a bar with music set at conversational tones so that I can crack a few jokes for a girl at the right level of drunkenness (passed out.) At the club, the only determining factors in getting girls are how you are dressed (which I suppose I could fix) and how well you dance. I have a cool two or three dance moves that make for pretty good jokes – one I call the helicopter backpack, plus I do a mean start the lawnmower, but these do me no good in the club, as it's too fucking loud to tell anybody the joke anyway, and if I can't do that, I just look, well, like a clubfooted blind retarded guy in a straight jacket trying to kickbox. Which I don't think wins over the ladies.

The other thing that clubs seem to come down to is blind luck, and you know that's not going my way. For example, I was sitting on a stool outside the dance floor. Some hot girl game up to me and said hi. At least I think it was hi, it was of course too fucking loud to actually hear. I responded in kind. She then walked to the guy sitting at the next stool, said hi to him as well, and then started randomly and vigorously making out with him. I am convinced that my only crime here was sitting on the less lucky stool.

Anyway, if the club thing happens again, and god knows it will whether I want it to or not, I'll be better prepared. I went out today and finally bought some shoes, to replace the ragged, hole-ravaged shell tops that have served me well for the last two years or so. And, for what I lack in aesthetic style, I think I make up for it a bit in international variety. In fact, as I sit here typing this, I am wearing shoes I bought today in Seoul, jeans I bought in Chicago, a shirt I bought in Paris, an undershirt I bought in Lawrence, a jacket I bought in Munich, and a hat I bought in Venice. Which, admittedly, is a 12,000 mile road that still leads to a look somewhere between Salvation Army and Target.

One other note I want to make before I end this blog about dance clubs and shopping and begin writing the next installment about, you know, hair styles and celebrity gossip – er, I mean, eat a steak and have heterosexual sex with a girl – the design of urban department stores. Department stores in Seoul, much like any in Manhattan or Paris or Chicago between Belmont and Roosevelt, are vertical. Meaning, they are generally several different floors, no fewer than 5. Now, I understand that females dominate the retail space, as each department store generally has at least 5 or six floors devoted to chick shit and one floor, tops, with men's clothing. That's fine. I understand that girls are way more into shopping and what have you, stereotypically speaking, and I for one hate the mall and want to leave as soon as possible. So why is it, at every one of these stores that the one floor that sells men's wear is always on the fifth floor or higher? Why must I ride through several floors of escalators through all the chick shit to get to what I want, when all I want to do is get in and out as fast as fucking possible? I know there's the elevator too, but that's even worse, since by law, every department store elevator everywhere must stop at every floor every time. Would it be so hard to put the guy shit on the ground level, or even in the basement, so that I can get out of the store in under 10 minutes? I mean, with 9 floors of women's shit, the ladies are going to be cruising multiple floors to begin with, so why not just start them out on floor 2? And yes, I do actually have real problems, yet I choose to take time out of my day to complain about riding too many escalators.

Year in Review

2009-04-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 1/1/07

I'm not really one to review calendar years based on random statistics and chart-able quantities (a total lie, really) but 2006 was pretty different from every other year I've had, so I'm going to bore you and talk about that. Don't worry, my Hong Kong blog is coming soon, filled with drunken anecdotes and Stong references, so that should be a crowd pleaser.

Anyway, travel-wise, my 2006 stats are pretty impressive, at least to me, so I'll throw out a few. Over the year, I spent time in 11 countries (USA, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Czech, Italy, Korea, Japan, and China), a personal record. I visited 11 World-Class, top tier cities (Chicago, Washington DC, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Brussels, Munich, Vienna, Prague, Venice, Seoul, and Hong Kong), another record, including 7 world capitols (record). In these places, I went to 40 museums/cultural sights, second only to 1999's ridiculous 53. Stateside, I took one proper long distance roadtrip, and went to 3 different baseball stadiums. I lived in 3 cities, visited 16 cities that I had not been to prior to this year, and took an estimate 20 trips of some type or another in all, accounting for 60 some travel days.

I flew on a record (at least dating back to when the old man had a pilot's license in the early 80s) 17 flights, to a record 13 airports, on a record 6 different airlines (Southwest, Scandinavian, KLM, United, Korean Air, and Cathay Pacific), probably largely because a record 11 of those flights were free. Strangely, the only place that I actually paid to fly to more than once last year was Lawrence/Kansas City.

Most amazingly of all, though I do have some credit card debt (but not a crippling amount) I managed to pay for all this travel by working a record low 120 days in all of 2006. Yep, 245 days off last year. Which is not to say I did no work on all of those days, a lot of the time I was looking for jobs. Then again, there were probably more days that involved waking up at 3, 4, 5 p.m., getting some tacos, watching some TV, going out to the bars, and coming home to play video games until 6, 7, 8 a.m. last year than at any point since college.

So, it seems logical to ask after all these statistics, was 2006 my best year ever? Easy - of course not. It would crack the top 5, I imagine, but it's not number one by a long shot, or even 2 or 3. Why not? One more statistic: Girlfriends in 2006 - 0 (sadly, this only ties a record.)

If you made it this far, thank's for reading. And again, I swear, I'll make it up to you next time. Have a neat 2007. I'll be spending the whole of mine in Seoul, doing a whole lot more work than last year.

Kongers 1 - Stong Kong

2009-04-19T09:07:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 1/3/07

I took a last-minute Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong last week. Like anybody ever booking a flight ever under any circumstances, I chose Cathay, which is based in Hong Kong, because they had the cheapest ticket. Much to my shock, Cathay had pretty good food, movies that I actually wanted to see. (I chose "An Inconvenient Truth on the outbound, and "Little Miss Sunshine" on the return). Plus, free top-shelf booze. So, I liked Hong Kong right away, and I was still 30,000 feet somewhere over the Yellow (or in Korea, West) Sea.

I landed, with really no direction at all due to my total lack of preparation on this trip, short of "Tsim Sha Tsui – apts" and "Lan Kwai Fong/Wan Chai – beer" written in my notebook by my buddy Dave. So, I headed for Tsim Sha Tsui. Upon exiting the subway station there, I see the Peninsula Hotel, The Sheraton and Towers, the Grand Inter Continental. Fuck am I in the wrong place, I thought, maybe Dave had meant Lan Kwai Fong as the hotel area. I came to Hong Kong to spend money (ironically, my separation from my old job had left me abnormally rich since I got paid on my last day rather than January 10. Also, this was the second time in 2006 that I found myself in a foreign land with money paid to me for vacation time after I had ceased working for said company. Maybe 2006 is Number 2 overall.) but I didn't want to throw down Peninsula/top hotel in the world money.

So, I ambled around Tsim Sha Tsui, looking for a web café so that I could finally begin researching the trip that I was already on. More than anything, I just wanted to dump my bag and my coat (it was pretty much 72 degrees and sunny every day I was in Hong Kong, and I was still dressed for the frigid (though not Chicago frigid) Seoul winter. I saw a bookstore called "Traveler's Home," so I figures I couldn't go wrong there. I bought myself a second hand British-edition Lonely Planet (at least, I assume British, because the book would freely use the word "shit" without edits, but would * out the "a" and the "n" in he word "wanker") and strolled down to Delaney's Pub, which I had seen before. I ordered a Guinness and a Kilkeny, the former of which can pretty much only be found in Seoul in bottles or for $15 plus on draught, the latter of which does not exist in Seoul. While drinking, I read up on local accommodations, and discovered that I was in fact in the right place. Only one block from where I sat (and less than two from The Peninsula) loomed the Chunking Mansions and Mirador Mansions, two enormous, crumbling, ghetto-as fuck apartment buildings that make Cabrini-Green, architecturally at least, look like, well, The Peninsula. The Garden Hostel at the Mirador got high marks – clean, social, and rooms with private showers (and there were also dorm bunks for $8 a night American, but come on, I'm twenty fucking eight years old, I can't go that earthy anymore) so after my beer, I was off.

The room was about what I expected – tiny, a few roaches here and there, hot water lasting 30 seconds or so, but also, $25 a night or so in a killer location, so, perfect. The "Mansions" complexes themselves are a whole story in and of themselves, and one that I'm not going to go into now, it's really a whole other blog. I will say this – it's the type of place where you can get a top-notch fake Rolex, which I actually couldn't resist, since it's been a lifelong dream of mine to own a fake Rolex. I honestly don't think I'd get anywhere near the enjoyment in owning a real one than I do in finally obtaining a fake one.

I headed down to the Star Ferry on my first night after dinner to take the famous trip across Hong Kong Harbor to the central city. Cost for the ferry, by the way, in a city where "cheap" beers run five bones – a quarter. As I crossed the harbor and looked at central Hong Kong's stunning skyline, I immediately thought of my buddy Stong, who spent time here in, like, the mid 80's or something, when he was an undergrad. And, of course, his famous statement that the Kansas City skyline is the best in the world, surpassing Chicago and New York. He's been to fucking Hong Kong too! Which might, possibly, have a skyline as nice as the Chi's. I wasn't downtown long, way too tired from the flight, and headed back on the ferry after a beer, stopping by a 7-11 to see if they sold single cans so I could have a cheap one before an early bedtime. What I saw almost caused me to scream in delight. Apparently, the "Stong Kong" era had left a lasting impression on the city. At this 7-11, they sold single cans – of Pabst Blue Ribbon. For under a dollar. Proper pints of Guinness and Kilkeny and cans of PBR. I don't know which made me happier. And, I haven't even talked about the food yet, though I will next time. For now, I had to get to bed early, so I could get up early, because I decided the next day – I was going to Disneyland.

Stay tuned for thrilling, swashbuckling adventures through Lan Kwai Fong, The Peninsula, and of course Disneyland.

Kongers 2 - Disneyland

2009-04-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 1/7/07

Hong Kong Disneyland was small, fake, manufactured, a bit lonely, a long subway ride from central Hong Kong, and worst of all, it didn't have most of the good Disney rides like Splash Mountain or Haunted Mansion. So was it worth the $40 or so I spent getting in? Fuck yes.

Because of the small size, it means I did everything, and I mean everything, in a few hours, even the tea cups, which I used to skip on 5 day trips to Disney parks back when. Plus, I did everything decent twice, and Space Mountain 4 times, and I never waited in line for anything really, except for the one new ride.

More to the point, and this is a bit cheesy, but this was my first Christmas without family. My nuclear family is only 4 people, but we live in four different regions and at no point since May of 1999 have more than 2 of us lived in the same city. And really, there are only two different subjects in the vast array of potential agreeable points – sports, politics, entertainment, and what have you, that all 4 of us agree upon. Those subjects are a love of Chiefs football (though maybe not today) and a love of Disney parks.

Like I said, I know it's cheesy, and that theoretically the notion of Disney parks is the same as the notion of Bud Lite and NASCAR and Wal Mart and should stand foursquare as part of everything that I am against. But you know what? I don't care. Many of you don't know this, but I spent some 18 days in a Disney park on 6 different trips to California and Florida between 1988 and 1994 with the entire family, and an additional 7 days or so with part of the fam on 3 other trips between 1996 and 1999. So, for those of you that flunked first grade (or second, Dylan) that's 9 Disney trips and 25 Disney days between the ages of 10 and 21. So, I don't care about the plastic in this case, or the corporate monotony, or the fact that, much like a Big Mac that tastes the same in Kansas as it does in Chicago as it does in Baltimore as it does in Florida as it does in Paris as it does in Seoul (and believe me, I know), Space Mountain is the exact same ride in Hong Kong as it is in Anaheim. And you know what? They both kick ass.

So, in an all-too-topical sense, I give the Disney Parks a full, free, and absolute pardon for any high crimes and misdemeanors they may have committed in cookie-cutter America. Again, this was my first Christmas away from home, and since watching the Chiefs anywhere here is impossible, going to Disneyland makes sense as a way to "spend time with family for the holidays." I know I don't write much about family or childhood in this or any other space, but I felt this was a fitting story, especially since I've yet to get the fam anything for Christmas and I know they'll read this and I need the points.

Hong Kong Foodie (and Drinky)

2009-04-19T08:51:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 1/11/07

This should be the last of my 143 part series on the Hong Kong trip. After that, I might start blogging (a verb that my 2002 version of MS Word's spell check does not recognize, nor should it, really) on developments that are actually current, seeing as how I do have a new job and apartment and really a whole new life that started a week and a half ago that I have thus far been silent on.

As for this blog – do you want to know how good the food in Hong Kong is? There's a Hardee's there, a fucking Hardee's. I love Hardee's, it's the only fast food place that I actually drove 40 miles specifically to get to (Balto to York, PA), eat at, and then return home. I spent over 40 minutes to drive someplace that required 15 minutes to eat. I spent more on gas getting there than I did on food. And I would do it again. That's how much I love Hardee's. As for the Hardee's in Hong Kong – never made it there. The food in Hong Kong was that awesome.

Don't get me wrong, I did eat at an American-style place, twice in fact. That would be Dan Ryan's Chicago Grill. Like I could resist that. Hell, I'm not on a two-week holiday from back home, I'm in Korea for at least another year, and there's not much in the way of Chicago Dogs in Seoul. Dan Ryan's served far from the perfect dog, but it is probably a safe bet that it was the best one east of Gary.

Beyond that, I also had Hong-Kong style dim sum twice, which I'd never had before and was fucking killer. Plus, I noshed at a Brazilian buffet/meat on a sword joint, and Indian joint, and a Malaysian joint. The Malaysian may have been the best of all, but was so hot I couldn't finish it. Remember, I'm the kid that brought a bottle of Dave's Insanity Sauce with me to Korea, so that's saying something. Really, the only food places I avoided in Hong Kong were the Korean ones, which there were tons of, because I figured they aren't too hard to find around Seoul.

As for the drinky – there was surprisingly little. By little, of course, I still mean no less than 5 beers a day, for fuck's sake, I was still on vacation in a warm location in a foreign country sporting a high budget, so it's not like I was hanging out at church. Basically, when I say I didn't drink much, it means that I really only had one full-on, nothing-makes-sense, rock out, money-pissing night out - Friday night, my third in Hong Kong. I had budgeted around $200 a day for the trip, and on Friday, including lodging, I had only managed to spend about $40, so I had obtained plenty of drinking capital, and I intended to spend it. (Sorry, that's two lame presidential quotes in two blogs. To complete the malaise, I would just like to say that I did not have sex with that woman, so tear down this wall to the 1,000 points of light. Also, I am almost positive that there must be some sort of grammar rule against ending a paragraph with a parenthetical phrase).

So, I went to Lan Kwai Fong, at happy hour time. Beers, as I've said, are expensive as hell in Hong Kong, but most places feature a "happy hour," which is actually several hours long, usually a 3 or 4 hour block falling somewhere in the 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. window, depending on the bar. Everything is pretty much half price at happy hour, which means you can get a beer for as low as $4. I started out in some German bar and ordered a Konig. Apparently, this place takes their pouring much more seriously than any bar in Germany, because the barmaid told me it would take 7 minutes to pour one right. I agreed to this, and ordered a Heineken bottle in the interim. I noticed immediately after knocking back these two beers that I felt a bit buzzed – I was going to get plowed, and quickly, it seemed. I moved on to another bar, ended up hitting a few, including one with a shitty house band playing shitty top 40 songs that I of course got way to into while they were playing. At some point I got Malaysian food, then hit another bar, before getting on the ferry at around midnight to hit the Kowloon bars. I will now go to the "live" report that I wrote on the ferry:

Try not rocking out on the pod listening to Thunderstruck (ACDC). Oh, Thunderstruck doesn't rock? Listen to it, then imagine a song you'd rather hear. None? What I thought. (Yes, much like the Faith No More incident in Gangnam a couple months ago, I was forced to rock out in the streets when "Thunderstruck" came on. Like you wouldn't? Drunk me was right there, the song kicks ass.)

Later on that evening, I went to the Peninsula Hotel's bar, on the 28th floor of one of the finest hotels in the world. Probably one of the world's best views as well, overlooking the harbor and the Hong Kong skyline across it. I had a martini, not about to order a beer in such a high class joint. My memory at this point in the evening is a bit spotty, but judging from what I wrote at the bar, it seems I decided to pretend that I was a travel writer from the Wall Street Journal, possibly to get free drinks, more likely to get faster service. Seems like a fine plan, and I wrote of it, apparently after my initial ruse, "I wonder if this would work if I were a Wall Street Journal travel writer. Although I doubt they have a travel section. Where would they write about, Houston? I don't think the waiter believes my guise."

I remembered reading in the Lonely Planet that the pisser at the Peninsula Bar is worth the trip to the bar itself. Fortunately, at this point in the evening, motivation for seeking out a pisser was not at a premium. I think only by fulfilling every man's dream and pissing off the Hoover Dam could I top this. 28th floor, floor to ceiling window, darkened room to match the dark outside, a waist-high or so marble partition between you and the window, I guess to make sure that no birds or helicopters are checking out your johnson. I gotta say, I've pissed everywhere from the Paris Ritz to a Tijuana alley, and the Peninsula is hands down number one when it comes to number one.

So, that should wrap up my Hong Kong blog, finally. In conclusion, China is a land of contrasts.

Cultural Teachings from America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Korea

2009-04-18T23:43:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 1/21/07

Well, I am happy to say that I'm doing a killer job in bringing grand American cultural institutions to the previously Barbary lives of my Korean hosts. And by American culture, I of course mean the highest form thereof, specifically that of the Louise's/Michigan Street variety. Early on, as noted here, I was able to bring pirate humor into the lives of Korean youth, as a lesson at my old school involved proper pronunciation of the "ar" sound, as in Mars or Favre, which of course I would only allow the students to say in the proper pirate manner.

Since I've come to the new school, things have gotten even better in the knowledge-spreading arena. Two weeks ago, I taught a unit on dinosaurs, which of course meant telling the dinosaur joke to every single class. This week, a textbook upped the ante with a unit on the farm, thus I was able to teach the kids how to properly moo. I even taught some of the smarter kids that they should roll down their windows and moo at the cows they see when their parents are driving in rural areas. I also inadvertently taught one class how to play the beerhunter, though with soda, when trying to explain the difference between "fun" and "funny." Admittedly, it's a bad example, as the beerhunter can be both.

While out at the bar, I was speaking to a Korean businessman. When I left, I gave him "the claw," which most readers of this should be aware of, but if you aren't, ask Daniel. "Is this an American custom?" he asked me. "Yes." I said. He seemed pleased to learn it.

Now, if only I could get the kids on board with Royals baseball and KU hoops, my work will be complete. Unfortunately, both prospects are doubtful unless said teams sign a Korean player.

Culltural learnings of korea for make benefit glorious blog of dr. superbowl (I)

2009-04-18T23:38:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 1/24/07

Yeah, I'm a teacher, but I've definitely learned a lot more than I've taught so far. I've touched on some funny cultural things before, but it's been awhile, and now I've learned a lot more, even funnier cultural things.

Like, for example, that the kids I teach have a pretty sick but pretty hilarious sense of humor. When somebody is absent, another kid will often say something like "Kevin (in case I didn't mention, the kids mostly all have English nicknames, and around 72% or so of the boys call themselves Kevin) no here, he die." Or, "John no here, he do the suicide." Each one always gets a big laugh from the rest of the class. Just to spice up their tales of their classmate's untimely demise, I've taught many of them the words "stab" and "chainsaw," the latter as both a noun and a verb, mainly because they wanted to know. A real vocabulary word in one of the levels I teach was "bar of soap," and when pointing to a picture of soap, I asked the kids what it was called, and one kid said, "that's a delicious bar of soap."

I teach one higher level class, which can of course be even funnier. These are kids that, after reading a long story about a worker and a manager developing friction at the workplace, all of the kids took the side of management and cheered for the employee to be fired. Also, in the same class, in a brief dialogue between 2 female characters in the text, both played by boys as the girl was absent, one boy was gloating that he got to read the part of the more attractive woman, while the other student was stuck reading the part of the uglier one.

Beyond school-land, I have made plenty of other cultural observations. I had prepared a long rant on the futility of chopsticks on my original draft of this (yes, sadly, this horseshit composition, crudely worded though it may be, is not a first draft, I've taken to writing most of these blogs in little notebooks in bars) but have decided against it earlier today. I'm finally getting a bit better with them. I can't catch a fly or anything, but at least my hand doesn't cramp so much anymore. But, as I was eating kimchi with my dinner, it occurred to me that a fork makes no sense for kimchi, it just wouldn't carry right. Being that the Koreans eat kimchi with every single meal (which in itself still doesn't make sense to me. I mean, I genuinely like kimchi now, and I miss it if I don't eat it for a couple days. But every meal? I still like, say, fries more than kimchi, but I sure as hell wouldn't want fries with every meal) the chopstick thing makes more sense now. I still don't see the sense in eating noodles with chopsticks when a fork works a million times better there, but maybe I'll learn to do that too.

On the fork, they do exist here, and Koreans use them for all kinds of things that westerners never do. Like pizza, for example. And I don't mean Chicago dish pizza, I mean Pizza Hut and lower, as most pizza places here are shitty, Pizza Shuttle – level type cheap pizza places. Not that they aren't awesome – 5 bucks for a pizza and a thing of pickles that are almost like normal pickles but are mildly spicy and therefore brilliant. Regardless, the point is, to eat Pizza Shuttle – quality pizza with a fork is almost an insult to the fork, yet this is what's done here. Fries too, with the forks. Not at Mc Donard but at, say, TGI Friday's. I almost expect to see a Seinfeldian knife-and-fork Snicker bar scenario. All of this comes from the notion of not touching your food and cleanliness, I presume.

There's an almost obsessive focus on cleanliness here. People brush their teeth like 7 times a day, it seems. You never touch your food. Though I don't mind it for the sake of comfort, the whole shoes-off indoors thing is totally based in cleanliness. Yet, half the public restrooms here lack soap, those that do have it have a delicious bar rather than liquid, and the bathrooms almost never have warm water or a means to dry your hands. Also, the cleanliness obsession ends outside, as everybody throws their "walking around" trash on the ground because there's no trash cans anywhere. I mean, who wants to walk around with an empty pack of smokes in their pocket and an empty water bottle in their hand? I think a major reason that showpiece American city regions like Chicago's north side and Manhattan are so clean is the fact that there's a trash can every 5 feet.

A lot of the kids are ridiculously smart, when you think about it. Some say that they knew some English words – you know, hello, goodbye, blue, red -- when they were three. I don't think I knew there was a place called Korea when I was 3, and I'm a map geek that knew which freeway went from Chicago to Michigan at that time. Plus, I still don't know "red" or "blue" in Korean, and I'm hit-and-miss on "goodbye."

Cultural Learnings Blah Blah Blah Part 2

2009-04-18T23:33:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 1/30/07

On goodbye, so far as I can tell, Koreans don't say it when talking on their cell phones. Granted, my Korean vocabulary is lower than your average local dog, but of the many times I've witnessed Koreans on their cells, it seems from their diction that they are in mid-thought or mid-sentence when they suddenly hang up. Nothing in their body language or tonality indicated that the conversation is wrapping up, it just ends.

There are no street names here. That one I still can't get my head around. Maybe it's the map nerd in me, but it makes no sense. It's impossible to find anything by address. There is no way to figure out how to get anywhere you haven't been before without at least 2 phone calls, unless it's some sort of major landmark. I'm convinced this system was invented by chicks, because only chick directions work to get anywhere. "Go down the big street, turn left at that one kimbap place with the orange sign, then right at the 7-11. Go to the green place on the left, then call us again." Fucking hell.

I noticed another funny Korean thing while having a couple beers at a nearby bar called the #10 Bar. It's a "punk" – "alt" type of bar, so all of the staff wear "alt" "punk" clothes. But, they are all dressed in the exact same "alt" "punk" gear, so it's institutionalized, mandated free-thinking uniformity, so really, it is so very Korean.

Other random funny things – it is uncouth to blow your nose in public here, even when that public is Korean co-workers that you see every day . Yet, it is completely socially acceptable to hock up the biggest of loogies and spit when walking on the street filled with hundreds of strangers. Half a gram of pot results in jail time, long jail time, yet one can walk down the street at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday openly drinking absinthe and nobody cares. There are no strip clubs and no porn racier than your average Maxim, but brothels on every block.

I've learned to love Korean commercials. On Korean TV, commercials during shows are rare, and then there's a huge block of them. For example, on Fox Korea, at 9 p.m. they generally show some awesome trash like wildest police chase videos or something awesome like that, but since there's almost no commercials during the show, the show ends at like 9:47. Then, since the Simpsons is on at 10, just like god intended, I generally keep Fox on during the 13 minute downtime, and there's like 4 or 5 commercials, run over and over again. Probably my favorite is for a check cashing place called "Rush Cash," but because Koreans always finish their words with a vowel sound, the jingle is an upbeat "rush-y and cash-y!" That, and virtually every Korean commercial features the product converting from bad to good to the tune of a brrrriiiing bell tone, a-la every 80's infomercial.

A girl sitting next to me at the time I wrote the rough draft of this offered and then insisted that I eat some of the food she had ordered. That's another thing that is completely Korean. She wasn't offering leftovers, it was fresh, new food, and not an appetizer, but some sort of beef dish. I've been to a million bars in a million towns in 20 different countries, and this would simply not happen anywhere else. I've also had bar bills picked up by Korean people that I had known for 5 minutes. I don't know where I'm taking this blog, other than into the ground, but I don't think I've ever been anywhere else where people are so shockingly and apparently naturally nice

In Da (Mountain) Club, Yo

2009-04-18T23:07:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 2/23/07

After nearly 5 months in Seoul and just under two months a stone's throw from Korea's most popular national park, I finally made the trip to the mountains. By subway, a cool 3 stops, as my current location dictates. It literally takes longer to walk from my house to the subway than the subway trip to the mountains takes. I know, I know, lame I haven't been yet, but I'm pretty damn lazy. You knew that.

So, equipped with a sturdy backpack jammed with necessary vittals like gorp and lakes of water, a solid pair of hiking boots, and a detailed, English-language map of the mountain, I set off for my hike at 9 a.m. And by this, of course, I mean a haggard backpack filled with books and a pocket Yahtzee game, a ½ liter bottle of water, no food, no map, and setting off at 3 p.m after a long night of drinking. Yeah, that sounds more like it. Also, crappy shoes, because I didn't want to get my adidas too dirty. Tomato potato.

I walked down, or rather up, a rather easy trail complete with stairs, which of course was near heart attack inducing level for me. I was out of water before I'd even finished the first cigarette of the hike. After awhile, as it got dark, I realized I needed to find a spot on the trail where I could declare the hike a victory and head home. I finally reached a large rocky bluff with a great view of the city and decided that this was the point of return.

A group of Korean hikers; each wearing boots, hiking pants, fleece jackets, Goretex, and sporting quality backpacks and walking sticks (basically, like everybody else on the mountain but me) were in front of me, working their way down a trail. The trail was a different one than the simple one I had taken to that point, but who wants to take the same way twice? No adventure in that. I decided this was the trail for me. I noticed a sign written in Korean and English (I could only read the English part of course, but I could sound out the words on the Korean part - big step) saying "Dangerous Trail." Dangerous? Perfect. I'd clearly been dominating the easy, stairs-built-in (I think it may have had a wheelchair ramp too) trail I took to this point, I needed a new challenge.

Most of the Koreans were now down the dangerous "trail," and two insisted they stay on top of the ridge until I descended the "trail." See, the "trail," (that's annoying, I know) was basically a 30 to 50 foot sheer, near vertical rock face, with a few random cracks that one could use for hand holds and foot holds. Which means it required me to, at certain points, hang off the side of a mountain like Stallone in one of his lesser, non-cold war-ending rolls. Maybe not that dramatic, but it seemed that way from my angle. And of course, due to my brilliant choice in footwear, I had all the traction of an 80 year-old Stalingrad whore.

I didn't realize what a bad idea descending this trail was until I was already far enough down that climbing back up was unthinkable. Good thing the Korean climbers were there. They would yell at me in Korean to move in a certain direction, but that only lead me to twist around into some sort of Mission Impossible 2 like formation (stupid reference, I know, but it's on TV here all the time). One guy who had already reached the bottom came back up to where I was, and would grab my foot and move it to the next foothold, and would also generally run around this precipitous rock face as if it were flat. Plus, keep in mind, this dude was at least 50 and maybe 110 pounds.

Finally, I made it down to the bottom of the ridge, and the two guys who had stayed at the top to lend me a hand and yell Korean instructions scaled down after me, in about 3 seconds. Then, all of them pointed at my shoes, and made fun of them in Korean, and rightfully so really. I attempted to explain why I was a dumbass, but this would prove difficult even if I was fluent in the language.

The rest of the trail back to the base was easy. I walked back with them, and they seemed determined to ensure that I was never in the front of the group or in the back, until we reached the base and the tourist village at the entrance to the national park.

There was a large map painted on a large signboard at the entrance to the park, which I attempted to go look at to determine how far I had actually hiked, thinking how I would love nothing more than to buy these people a beer before heading home to order a pizza. One of the 10 climbers, the only one who spoke English beyond "hello," "goodbye," and "my name is," (by the way, I still don't know "my name is" in Korean, which I'm sure really impresses the girls at the bar) invited me to come with them to dinner. Pizza be damned.

We went to a restaurant in the tourist village, and had a nice two hour dinner. We ate tons of food, the centerpiece a seafood stew with baby octopus tentacles (yes, I said tentacles, jackass) and tiny shrimp complete with shells and heads – and it was tasty as hell. Needless to say in such circumstances, countless toasts were given and countless shots of soju were downed. Turns out this group is a mountain climbing club, and they meet to climb a different mountain every week.

When it came time to pay the bill, my hosts refused to allow me to contribute a single won to the bill, despite my many offers to do so. Then, as we split up near the train station, Mr. Ahn, the head of the club, bought a big bag of oranges from a street vendor and insisted I take two with me.

So, to recap, these strangers that I met by random chance saved my ass on the rock face, got me pretty well hammered, bought me dinner, and sent me on my way full, drunk, and with a couple of oranges for the road. How often do you think that happens in, say, Aspen?

Shang-whore

2009-04-18T23:02:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 4/23/07

God I fucking love Itaewon, as I'm sure you know already. My latest reason? Look no further than my last time there. (and by last time there, I mean when I wrote this in a notebook 2 weeks ago, as I've been back to Itaewon since then and now have even better stories for a future blog. Stay with me though, this one is no slouch either.)

I was with my dad, on his last night in Seoul, and he was shopping for souvenirs, so I went to a bar. 3 Alley Pub, for the secondary reason that it's a good bar to go to at 8 p.m. or so, and much more importantly, my primary reason was actually number 2. That's right, in that department, 3 Alley is to Itaewon what Wild Wings is to downtown Lawrence.

3 Alley has a solid beer selection for Korea, and also an older crowd much of the time - the middle aged set. I watched the Superbowl there because of that. I figured if I'm watching the Bears, I'd rather do it amongst a bunch of crusty retired army guys in my dad's demo who cared about the game rather than a bunch of 20-something English teachers (which I realize I am) at some other bar.

Anyway, so I order a Guinness, and the middle-aged dude next to me at the bar strikes up a conversation. He's from LA, he's lived here for years, is in some sort of legitimate non-English teaching business, has a Korean wife, the whole 9. As often happens when talking to westerners (or anyone, really) we start talking travel, exchanging stories of Paris, Rome, Hong Kong, and other places we had both been. He asks me about Shanghai. I've not been to Shanghai, but I say I hope to go, which I do. Keep in mind, I'd been talking to this guy for maybe 7 minutes at this point, if that.

He (unsolicitedly) advises me that it's bad to cruise for whores in parts of a city known for it's hookers, but he made that mistake in Shanghai. So, he picked up this hooker in Shanghai's most notorious red light district (which, by the way, must be fucking awesome, whores aside. I mean, the shady, lawless part of Shanghai? Fuckin' A!) and took her back to his hotel, did the deed, and passed out with the hooker still there in the room. He was awoken at 4 a.m. or so with her "flopping around like a fish out of water," - direct quote there - and didn't know what to do.

This was the least intriguing part of his story, the mushy middle between the set- up and the punchline, so unfortunately I forget the specifics of what he did about this situation. If I were a better or less lazy writer, I would have made something up to fill the gap, but frankly I just want to move the plot along. I guess he took her to the hospital or something, I don't know.

Anyway, the next night, he returned to the bar where he met her originally to speak with the barkeep/pimp, apparently to register a formal complaint. After listening to Middle-Aged LA Guy's story, the bartender/pimp said, "wait, you didn't take her to get heroin before you took her home? What were you thinking, man?"

At this point, my Guinness was done and it was time to meet my dad elsewhere. In parting though, I gotta say, you hear some crazy shit at say, the Replay or the Holiday, but I've never had some middle aged guy I've known for less than 10 minutes tell a story about a Shanghai whore with a brutal case of the heroin DTs. Which, again, is why Itaewon rules.

Base-a-bol

2009-04-18T22:57:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 4/24/07

Man, was this ever sweet. I went to a Korean baseball game recently, and it lived up to my expectations in a big way. Sloppy play, strange and complicated chants, cheap beer, loose smoking policies, and cheerleaders – really this game had it all.

Lets start with the cheerleaders. They were hot. And at a baseball game. An in the stands. More on this later.

The stadium is in the Olympic complex, next to the giant white elephant Olympic Stadium, which is no longer used even for low level Korean league soccer games. The baseball stadium is small, I'd say a capacity of 20,000 at best, and was maybe half full. It's also about the same age as New Comiskey, yet feels as old as Shea. The small crowd was really the only downer. It was the second game of the season, and the first on a weekend day, and it was a beautiful day in the metropolis of 23 million. Seems like such a game would draw more people.

Inside the stadium is hilarious. The concession stands are actually convenience store stands, run by a large local c-store chain. They sell hot dogs, at least, along with canned beer, smokes, squid jerky, and your usual convenience needs. Other food options were Burger King and KFC, at normal prices, plus you can bring any type of food (or drink) you want into the stadium.

The altogether set up of the stands is not drastically different from that of a high school football game (or baseball, but who the fuck ever went to a high school baseball game?) with the home team's fans (LG) sitting on the first base side, and the equally large away-team contingent (Kia) sitting on the third base side. Both teams' cheerleaders and drummers were at the front of their respective sections. Also, much like at a high school football game, at least in my day, you can smoke simply by walking up to the higher seats. Still in the lower bowl of course, the stadium only has one deck, which means that every seat is fucking awesome, and even the smoking "areas" provided a great view of the game.

The corporate aspect of the game was quite different from an MLB game. The stadium has no corporate name, there aren't many ads inside the stadium, no commercials on the Jumbotron, and there are no skyboxes. Yet, the teams themselves are named for corporations. Strangely, the corporate moniker replaces the city name rather than the team nickname. It's not Seoul LG versus Gwangju Kia, it's the LG Twins versus the Kia Tigers. It wasn't until speaking to a Korean friend at the bar later that I even learned where Kia hailed from, as their hometown was never mentioned at the game.

There's Thunderstix. Dear god, are there Thunderstix. The LG fans had red ones, and the Kia fans had yellow. I have no fucking clue where they got them, but my buddy and I were probably the only people there without them.

They sell draft beer in the stands. Guys with keg backpacks walk around the stands selling it. A beer is a cool 3 bucks, and just like everywhere else here, there's no tip. There's no seventh inning stretch, but also no last call for beers, which is a trade-off I can live with.

Not surprisingly, professionalism in the MLB sense was lacking from the whole operation. For example, there is a Jumbotron, and the game was televised nationally thus proving that there were cameras at the game, yet they never showed any replays or live action on the screen. In fact, the Jumbotron was blank for most of the game. At the start of each at-bat, they would show a picture of the player batting, his stats, and his name (all in Korean of course, but I could theoretically figure it out) but they would keep this informative screen up for maybe 3 seconds, so it was impossible to actually learn any player names or anything about them at all. There was also a lack of pro-syle on the field as well, as the game was chock full of hilarious errors and 100 km/hour "fast balls."

Perhaps the strangest phenomenon regarding attending a foreign sporting event is the overall foreign-ness of it. By this, I mean the team songs and team cheers that everyone knew. Like a European soccer match, but somehow weirder and more conformist in the Asian style. I sat on the LG side at the game, and LG got their asses kicked, yet everyone was happy all game. I mean, I know, it's baseball, and a day at the ballpark is a day at the ballpark, but this trumped anything I'd seen, even at Wrigley. The crowd seemed quite excited to be losing. At the midpoint of the 9th, and LG down 9-1, there was a rousing round of team songs and chants, with everyone on the LG side singing along. And it wasn't a dwindling crowd, virtually every person stayed until the bitter end, when LG hit into a no-on, 2-out 3-2 fly-out to settle the game at 9-2. Will I go back? Fuck yeah.

April is the Coolest Month

2009-04-18T22:49:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 5/1/07

I am on fucking fire. These days, I walk into the bar like I own it, and more often then not, I do. This month I've done things that I'll talk about for the rest of my life, and that other people will talk about for the rest of theirs. I may no be truly immortal or bulletproof, but I'm pretty fucking close.

Let me back up. April was supposed to be a sandwich month. My dad was here in March, Wiley is coming in May, and I sent the majority of my paycheck home to pay the old credit card, so I was pretty much broke all month. After Dad's visit, I had a couple new books, a new video game, and some new DVDs. I was 100% prepared to lay low in my apartment.

So what happened? Turned out I ate a lot of peanut butter sandwiches and ramen (sometimes even in the same meal) so I could spend maybe 80% of my remaining money going out. And, through brilliant and creative budgeting, it all worked. I went out in Itaewon and Hongdae multiple times each, along with Gangnam and Hyehwa to boot, all while solidifying my growing "institution" role at Dragon Bar, a fairly boring local place but still head and shoulders the best bar in the hood.

I went to a baseball game. I climbed a mountain (to the top this time). I've written more than I have in forever (self evident, I guess). I've taken up darts. I've played chess for the first time in years. I've read three books, though I am still slowly slogging through Crime and Punishment. I've made a new Korean buddy, and ran into an old one I haven't seen since October. I've studied a little Korean (ass is undongi, which I find sensible) though not enough. And I've hardly touched my new video game in weeks.

So, you're saying to yourself, good for you Todd, so you're writing and drinking and playing chess. What else is new? What about the ladies? Same old Todd, right?

Not exactly. In April's opening weekend, involving a punk rock show in Hongdae and getting Lawrence-in-2002-level silly plastered, I spent the latter part of the night speaking in a Borat accent and hitting on any girl that came within five feet of me. The next weekend was the aforementioned baseball game, where the only girls I talked to were-the-cheerleaders. The third weekend was epic. It may not be my all time top weekend, but it's in the conversation, and undoubtedly in the top five.

As I've said before, this is a family blog, literally, since most of my family reads it. I'll say this – I danced in the club with this girl for much of the night. At some point, my buddy Don said "Dude, that girl is out of your league."

I replied, "Don, what's the first thing I ever told you about me and baseball? I'm a Royals fan. I may not always win, but I play in the major leagues exclusively." And you know what? Sometimes, the Royals beat the Yankees. And sometimes, this night for example, I find myself in a hastily-put-together and contrived love triangle involving myself, a beautiful Korean girl, and some white dude twice my size. And sometimes, like this night, I threaten and intimidate said gorilla to the point he backs off and I win over the girl all at the same time.

Of course, like in all great nights, I couldn't have worked alone, quality wing manning was necessary. To this end, I credit my buddy Don, but beyond this, I proved a scant 6 days later that the world has produced few better wingmen than your humble narrator. I was, in fact, beyond wingman, almost to puppet-master proportions. I met the girl, I introduced her to Don, I got them talking, I left the area to play darts with a girl I wasn't interested in and to provide logistical support, and I went back to the table to further sell the girl on Don later on. And, in an ingenious move, when it seemed Don definitely had the girl, I surreptitiously grabbed Don's phone to call myself, then answered my phone and pretended I was being called away. Rappers say pimpin' ain't easy. Horseshit. Darts ain't easy. Chess ain't easy (though I am 4-0 on my comeback tour.) Pimpin' is fucking simple.

So, things aren't awful with the ladies. I actually made a self-deprecating joke about my anti-abilities there the other night, and it felt forced and dishonest. This is strange, as self-deprecating jokes about my lack of game has been my bread and butter for the last twenty years or so.

Things aren't perfect, of course. Is there a girl I like-like now? Well, I reckon there is. Has anything happened there? Absolutely not. But at the same time, while nothing has happened to indicate she likes me, more importantly, nothing has happened to indicate she doesn't. I used to think she was out of my league. Now, I'm learning to see leagues a little differently. Go Royals!

Dirty Pop

2009-04-18T22:32:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 5/9/07

I can't promise that there won't be any spelling errors in this blog, or at least well fewer than usual, as I am typing this directly into myspace instead of on Word, as my computer is once again ill. Which shows how much I love you people, I'm at a fucking web cafe writing this instead of just waiting until tomorrow. Also, this is the second blog I've written while being 87% happy with my current circumstance, so hopefully it has some bite. Prefaces aside...

I'm a sucker for situational pop songs. I imagine that I'm not the only one like that, but my iPod is absolutely littered with cheesy throwaway pop songs that I would almost certainly not care for, dislike, or despise if not for the specific circumstances surrounding said songs, especially early in their lives, or at least in their relationships with me (ie, their lives, so far as I'm concerned.) I am cognitively aware that, say, Lou Bega's "Mambo # 5" or Eiffle 65's "I'm Blue" aren't particularly luminescent tracks, though both have catchy hooks. Yet, both were completely intertwined with my Euro days, thus will always have a home in the pod, and both will always get me on the floor in the (increasingly) rare times they are played in a club.

I could say the same for certain shitty rock songs, shitty punk songs, shitty rap songs, and shitty country songs that I only like due to the situation I first heard them, but the pop songs are always more embarrassing. It's easier to explain why I like and posses a shitty Ignite song or Motley Crue song or 50 Cent song than, say, explaining why I like and posses a shitty Backstreet Boys song.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that, not surprisingly, a new shitty pop song has come into my life. I had little control over it. And I don't even have an official memory of the first time I heard it, the input time, the time that really mattered.

Recently, I was shooting darts with a buddy at Dragon Bar (the local joint where everybody knows my name - Toodah) and the song came on. The connection was near primal. I knew this song. But from where? And why? It's just a cheesy pop song at Dragon, one of a hundred, so why should I connect to this? What made me listen intently throughout its 3 minute duration? What made me go up to the bar staff to ask its name? Clearly, this song had mattered to me recently. Though I had cognitively (I know, time for a thesaurus. And a diksionariry.) forgotten it, my internal pod had remembered it and given it 4 stars.

I mentioned, though not in name, Spy Bar in my previous blog. It was in the venerable Spy Bar in Itaewon where I was dancing with the previously mentioned gorgeous girl in the previously mentioned top-5 weekend. It occurred to me that it was in Spy Bar that I had first heard this song, while in a key point of the pursuit of her. Due to the overall craziness of Spy Bar that night (read: bourbon) the song totally escaped me at its origin.

Needless to say, I downloaded the song the next afternoon, and listened to it 4 times in a row. What song was it? Does it really matter? You know it's a cheesy throwaway, and it's the significance that matters, not the title, right? Alright, alright, it was Nelly Furtado's new song, "Say it Right." And yeah, I'm not a Nelly Furtado fan, and I've hated all the songs on her new record. But you know what? "Say it Right" has a good hook, and top notch pop production quality, complete with a faraway sound and a chorus proclaiming "You don't mean nothing at all to me." Did I mention I was dancing with an insanely hot girl when I first heard it?

It's on the pod now, likely to stay. I don't care what you think. That song, despite it's apparent suckiness, is a fucking awesome pop song. Just like Mambo # 5.

Endnote - other than the preface, I wrote all of this in my notebook in a bar a week and a half ago, which out here seems to be about 38 minutes long, as well enough time for a whole shitload of stuff to happen. And, as the Spy Bar girl has already become yesterday's news, so has Nelly Furtado. In fact, while hanging out with a new girl last night, what song happened to come on at a key point? yeah, that's right, none other than Mambo Motherfucking Number Five.

Mini Blog

2009-04-18T22:16:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 5/12/07

Kate was right, I want to talk about geography.

How big is Seoul? 10 mil city, 23 mil metro. Big. The city proper has more people than Kansas, Missouri, and Mebraska combined. The metro area has more people than the old Big 8 zone (the 3 mentioned states, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Colorado) or more than Texas, whichever stat impresses you more. The city proper has more people than the Chicago metro area, or the cities proper of New York or Los Angeles. The metro area is the second largest in the world, after Tokyo. My district of the city, Nowon-gu, has 600,000 people, more than the cities proper of Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas combined. Yet, of Seoul's 10 million denizens, maybe 100,000 people (1% of the population) aren't Korean. I'm a foreigner in the most homogeneous country in the world, though I knew that coming in. I have no larger point here, I'm just not sure if I'd mentioned this before.

I'm quasi-seeing a girl here now. I'll have more on this later, but i wouldn't be surprised if this "relationship" doesn't make it out of next week. She's actually here right now (which makes this my first "live" blog since the Itaewon web cafe back in October), passed out in my apartment. Not like that, yo. I met up with her at 9 p.m. tonight, but she was already smashed. She drinks too much. Consider the source there. This is one black kettle. I've hung out with her several times this week, and I know next to nothing about her. Language barrier, sure, but even beyond that. I have much more I want to write here, but it will be another time. If there is a future blog about this (likely) then we all have to agree that this one never happened, and treat it like a fresh story without the spoilers that this blog provides.

Life is strange. I'm going to fucking sleep. Ciao.

Slayed Dragons

2009-04-18T22:09:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 5/2207

It's been a strange week. Things are pretty much finished with the girl I was quasi-seeing, and the venerable Dragon Bar burned down after a gas explosion. Fortunately, in both end results, nobody was hurt.

First, on the girl. It was one hell of a whirlwind romance, perhaps the most random I've ever had. Amazing though, I'm actually taking a pass on taking another pass at a hot girl. She was bad for me, really, empty calories, and every time we hung out was more ridiculous than the last.

Will I see her again? Well, there's only 4 bars worth going to in my hood, and she likes the drink, so the odds are high. Plus, of those 4 bars, one is pretty lame, and one is Dragon, which, as I said, is currently out of commission, which leaves only 2. Of those 2, I really don't care for one, shitty music, no darts, so there's really just Noblock right now, which is where I met her to begin with. Like I said, life is strange.

I can't believe Dragon fucking blew up! I'm so upset. Not only was it head and shoulders the best bar in the hood, I was beginning to like it and appreciate it as a viable local alternative to Itaewon or Hongdae for boozy swashbuckling fun. Noblock is a fun change of pace bar, but certainly not a home base type. It would be like if Louise's burned down. The Replay is a fun alternative, but Louise's is home. Dragon was a place where I knew the whole staff and many regulars, and thus would have no problem visiting at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday by myself, not that I ever did.

When it first occurred to me how crazy my, I don't know, fling, for lack of a better noun, was, where did I go? I had to chat about her craziness right away, and it was too late on a weeknight to call my buddies. So, I went to Dragon, and commiserated with the staff and the regulars about the situation. Just like I would at Louise's in Lawrence, or at Holiday in Chicago, or at L'arambar in Paris, or at JJ's in Florence, or at Mother's in LA, or even at V in Baltimore. Maybe this is why my short-lived lives in Florida or South Seoul were such disasters – I never found a bar to call my own in either place.

So, to recap, in the last week, I lost a girl and a bar. And damn it, I'm really going to miss that bar.

Wiley's here this week (in a few hours actually) so I'm sure there's some good drunken stories coming, but likely not for a couple weeks.

"The Wiley Blog" and other Housekeeping Things

2009-04-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 6/30/07

I know the title's a little weak, but I've long promised the "Wiley Blog" to some people.

It's been a long time. I know that. And really, I get more nervous about this shit each day, as the longer it gets that I don't write anything, the better the next thing I write should be. Well, let me warn you right now. this blog is going to blow. The next one will rock much harder, but this one is more about getting back on the horse than anything. so, skip it. Wait for the next one. Spend your time reading Bill Simmons's running diary of the NHL draft at espn.com. It has tons of good Canadian jokes, and is much more worth your time than this will be. I'd even link to it, but, you know, that would require computer savvy, and more importantly, effort.

Still with me? Don't say I didn't warn you. I suppose the fact that I haven't written in a grip (perhaps for so long that the last time I wrote, people still said "in a grip") requires some sort of state of the union statement. Well, uh, things are okay. Wiley was in town, so I didn't write anything then as we were too busy going to bars and beating mega man 4. Then, ii fell mildly ill, and didn't drink for a couple weeks, and no drinking = no writing. Also, my former computer finished it's long death (it had clearly been on its way out since April, and had been in decline since 2003) so I had no means to write. I bought a kickass new Macbook last week, which means i can now use a computer like a normal person (no more 47 minute waits to turn the machine on, no more youtube crashing my system) as well as returning me to my comfortable womb of credit card debt. Hell, what's the point of having a 30 or 40 million dollar line of credit if you're not going to buy some cool shit?

So, I can't see what else to do here but give a few random anecdotes or musings regarding Wiley's visit to Korea. That, and maybe some chat about girl shit, like always, though I think that will come later.

Wiley's trip was a blast. We ate galbi (Korean bbq) a few times, and I had him eat Korean food as often as possible. He ate like a champ, really, even boldly trying the silkworm larvae. Don't get the wrong idea, the Korean diet doesn't generally consist of bugs, but it was a side dish at one dinner, and Wiley ate one after only 2 beers. We also drank in front of numerous convenience stores, as is the custom here, hit a couple museums and palaces, and went boozing on my block, in Nowon, in Suyu, in Itaewon, in Hongdae, and in Hyehwa. We climbed a mountain, went to a baseball game, and revived our winning karaoke team for the first time since 2002. I also saw to it that A-dub met lots of girls, thought the results of said meetings aren't my stories, so I won't tell them.

Random funny notes: Wiley's attempts to talk to Korean shopkeepers and other service workers with a standard American accent, like it was a Lawrence Kwik Shop. I don't know why, but this was funny. "Yeah, I'll take a pack of Menthols." I'd have to say "ray-son pa-reshy, joo say yo" or something along those lines. Even at Mc D - "can i get a Big Mac meal?" No, you have to say "big-a mac-a set-a." Konglish, which I've become pretty damn fluent in.

Speaking of Konglish, while Wiley and Don and I were climbing a mountain, we saw a gorgeous girl with the funniest shirt ever. The front said "Hamberger friend" and had a picture of a burger on it. on the back, it said "Hamberger friend - I feel happiness when I eat a him."

Wiley and I went to a rock show in Itaewon, a band called Faded that I've written of before, and as per always, they put on a kickass show. In between sets, a fat white girl came up to me and said "Don't I know you from somewhere?" "Probably," I said, " I get around quite a bit." "That's not a good thing to say," she said, and left. Which, really, was fine by me, as I didn't want to talk to her to begin with. Here's the thing - of the white girls here, maybe 73% of them fall below the attractiveness threshold of girls that I would talk to back home, and of the remaining 27% that fall in the "presentable" to "hot" range, 86% or so are unbearable boring. basically, that means that only 3.7% or so of the western girls here have the potential for a 5 minute conversation, of of those girls, 98% know how rare they are and are totally conceited, and thus not worth talking to either. Basically, this means, at any given time, in the city of Seoul (10 million people) there are between 30 and 32 western girls worth talking to.

Speaking of girls, I should talk about the girl I've spoken of in a couple other stories. She's probably worthy of her own blog, but I'll throw in a couple notes in passing before I finish. This is the girl I brought up in the Dragon Bar blog and in a couple others before. I gotta say, no other character in this blog has elicited such a polarized response. Then again, no other character in this blog has been such a character. Basically, I cannot satisfy either camp regarding this girl right now. For those who say, she's crazy, move on, forget her, I can say - you are right, and also, I haven't exactly. as she kind of continues to hang around. For those who say, she's hot, go after her, what else are you doing anyway?, well, you're also right. but I certainly haven't been diligently pursuing her, and often go weeks without seeing her at all. I had a better analogy to use regarding this yesterday, but sadly I've forgotten this.

I told you to skip this blog. The next one will be better, I swear.

Cheap Suit

2009-04-18T21:20:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 7/4/07

Ah, the joys of a new computer that actually works. I'm outside the apartment, the first time I've used this for its standard laptop purposes (you know, like portability). I'm at a table at a convenience store. The tables are filthy, of course, so I needed to put something under the computer. The only book that I own that is large enough is my road atlas, so I figured the part facing the table should be a map page that I will never have any use for pondering. logically, I chose Vermont.

A brief dragon bar story from last weekend - I went with my buddy Don, and we sat down next to two girls, each with pretty limited English skills (though considerably less limited than my Korean). We strike up a conversation with them. Turns out one of them is a kindergarten teacher, and is dressed somewhat accordingly. The other is some form of model, and wearing a short skirt. Naturally, we are both more interested in the "model," though both are cute (but certainly not in the same league as the crazy girl that I occasionally date) so we decided to leave it up to the girls and take cues from them. As we were sitting at the bar, and being that the seating went model-teacher-don-me, it seemed to only make sense to move elsewhere.

We should ask them to move to a table - I say

Good idea - Don retorts.

We should ask them to play darts instead, I say.

Better idea.

We hit the darts area, and try to decide teams. Within seconds of moving from the bar stools, the kindergarten teacher acts flirty toward me, so I team up with her. Before the first round of throwing is finished, she's high fiving me, hugging me, yada yada. By the fourth round of throwing or so, the model is still showing no interest in my buddy, but the kindergarten teacher is all over me like a cheap suit. Holding hands, hanging on me, blah blah blah. At around this time, a co-worker/semi-boss of mine shows up at the bar. At one point, while the k-teacher is throwing (overhand style, darts spinning like a dagger, but hitting more often than one would think) he asks me - is this your girlfriend?

No, I met her like half an hour ago.

After the darts game is over, the girls are preparing to leave. I go up and talk to them, ask them for their phone numbers (and get them both) and then suggest, if they are leaving, maybe we should go to a different bar.

No, the model (and better English speaker) says. We have to go home to see our husbands.

Admittedly, a funny punchline under most circumstances, but considerably funnier in a Confucian conservative culture. Lets just say the status quo conservative scale here regarding male-female interrelationships falls somewhere between Wichita and Saudi Arabia.

And yeah, I admit, 79% of the reason I wrote this was because it was a good excuse to use "all over me like a cheap suit."

Rock Star

2009-04-18T21:10:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 7/14/07

You know, I appreciate the response to the last blog, the "you rock" stuff. to which I can only reply, as I so often do, with a Simpsons line. In the famed New York episode, Bart sees a group of Hasidic Jews, and mistakes them for ZZ Topp. Bart yells "You rock!" to which one of the Hasids says, "Eh, maybe a little."

Here's the thing - I actually sort of rock. And I don't know why. The easy presumption would be race/ethnicity/nationality, but that's not it. For example, at the Spy Bar, sometimes they charge a cover. I never pay it. In fact, I only know of it through stories. For whatever reason, the door guy likes the cut of my jib. Last week, I went there with a (American) buddy of mine and two Korean girls we met at the bar before. Not only did I get in for free, but so did the girl I walked in with. Conversely, my buddy had to pay the cover, both for himself and the girl he walked in with.

That's Itaewon. Local bars are another thing. I've spoken of Dragon Bar many a time in this space, but one funny thing I learned talking to some whiteys in my hood the other day is Dragon's tab policy. In that, the whiteys were saying they liked the new, post fire dragon better because now the dragon allows tabs instead of cash on delivery of each drink. Seemed strange to me, as I'd been running tabs there since January or so.

Really, the ultimate "rock star feeling" is Noblock, which I've also mentioned previously. I walk in there now, including tonight at 2:30 a.m., and the bar stops. Several bartenders will yell "Jae Hak!" (obviously, my self-given Korean name). A couple of them will even go with "Jae Hak -ah!" which is a Korean term of endearment. the adding of the "ah" to the end of your name, I mean. It's come to the point where laying low at Noblock is impossible. Every time I go in, the bartenders I know make such a commotion about my entrance that everyone else at the bar wants to talk to me. I'm not sure how else to describe it. If I were to secretly buy a flight home tomorrow and show up at Louise's or the Replay or the Holiday unannounced 2 days from now, I'd be greeted much less excitedly than if I were to show up at Noblock next Friday, as I do pretty much every Friday.

Anyway, I know my last few stories have had a bit of a high horse feel, but trust me, that couldn't be further from the truth. As per usual, I'm not happy (and I don't mean I'm not happy here, I just mean I'm not happy, but you knew that) and I already have something new to post that, in it's better moments, I feel is the best thing I've written in some time. So, check it out. Also, keep in mind, lots of the next entry will suck as well, but stick with it, as there are some good parts, and probably some inside jokes that you (and I mean you) will get more than anyone else.

A Brief, Obnoxious Return to Normalcy

2009-04-18T20:56:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 7/21/07

Normalcy sucks. I've now exceeded my longest so called normalcy period since November of 2005. I hated November of 2005, and really all of 2005 for that matter.

By normalcy, I mean a month or so without, you know, the un-usual, like no trips, or house guests, or unemployment, or medical maladies, or bizarre whirlwind romances. you know what I mean. The good old wake up every afternoon and go to work, and go out every weekend and stay out until 8 a.m. or so. and yes, I realize my "normalcy" here is a bit strange, sort of like normalcy for your average college sophomore, only the college is in a town that makes New Orleans look reasonably sober.

This makes normalcy a bit of a difficult concept, but one that by my estimation I had experienced 17 days of prior to July. October wasn't normal - I was in a new country, and I was broke. Same for early November. December was totally abnormal, as I was searching for jobs all month, moved, and went to Hong Kong to boot. January and February were the "winter intensives," meaning I worked 6 days a week and really never did anything, which isn't normal. March was when the old man visited, and also included trips to Jeju and Busan, so that's abnormal. April had all the makings of normalcy, but instead it rocked out into quite possibly the second best month of my life. May was when Wiley visited, and also involved the lion's share of the strange pseudo-relationship with the crazy girl. Fun, but not normal. In June I was ill, and even stranger, sober, for much of the month, which was neither normal, fun, nor interesting, other than buying a computer.

Maybe part of it is that I've finally become a bit desensitized to the craziness out here. I've had 4 or 5 nights out in the last 2 or 3 weeks that ended well after the sun came up. I've taken to thinking that going home at 4 or 5 is "an early night." as I noted in a story last week, one night I didn't even go out until after 2. still, even a few months ago, I probably would have written stories about each of these nights, but now they seem to sort of blend together. Go out, play darts, chat with strangers, maybe talk to some girls, maybe get their phone numbers with no intention of ever actually calling them (I'm pretty sure they don't take offense. Hey, remember me, I'm the guy you met at 6 a.m.)

A big part of the normalcy now is, of course, the girl thing. Or, lack thereof. I don't know what the hell happened, but it seems, as I wrote a few weeks ago, that I had maybe 5 girls that I had some interest in, some of which would even take my calls. now, I've got 0. Which certainly makes things normal for me, 2005 style normal. It also makes things extraordinarily boring, and I find myself spending an inordinate amount of time playing video games, cruising the Interwebs, and god help me, reading.

At least the end of all this normalcy is in sight, for whatever that's worth. Summer intensives start Thursday, so I'm working 6 days a week for the next month. Then, a short vacation to Thailand, followed by annoying wholesale changes at work, when 3 people are leaving, including Brad, one of my 2 real friends here. September is the Chuseok holiday and likely a trip to Tokyo, and in October, both the old man and Wiley are making another visit. Of course, at around that time, I should probably start trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to do with my life, or at least what to do for Christmas. No easy answer there, because, depending on how things shake out, I could be spending Christmas in basically any country in the world, though I'm fairly positive and hopeful that it won't be Somalia.

Travel Travel

2009-04-18T20:50:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 8/22/07

Football players go to training camp. Soldiers go to boot camp. Chemists go to, I don't know, chemistry grad school, which to me sounds like the worst of the 3. Me, I travel, or at least I try to, and I've just completed my most recent pre-travel, I don't know, camp. Which means, research, getting a flight, tying up every conceivable loose end at work (difficult this time, anticipating what bullshit last-minute work they will thrust upon me and spending hours after work on many occasions to complete said work before it's demanded, thus avoiding the dreaded "you can't leave yet, you have to do this and that" wet blanket. This is why I usually tie end loose ends at work before a trip by quitting my job. Doing the actual work sucks.) But, I've got my work done, I've bought the shit I need to buy (bag, clock, booze) and am now on the precipice (no spellcheck, not my home computer) of the next major trip. I'm now at the promised land - the airport hotel (conveniently connected to one of my favorite places in the world - the airport hotel bar), happy to trade 40 bucks for an extra 2 hours of sleep tonight. Anyway, tomorrow I'm off to Thailand, where i will hang out on the beach, check out amazing cultural sights, and of course guzzle whiskey from the back of a speeding motorcycle taxi. And yeah, I'm fully aware that there's a 43% chance that this will be the last thing i ever write. Anyway, time for one more round at the aforementioned airport hotel bar. If you need to get ahold of me in the next few days, well, chances are, you can't., which I suppose is the point.

It's game time, baby!

More Houskeeping Clutter

2009-04-18T20:13:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 9/8/07

Well, it's now been too long since I've written or posted anything, so it's time to throw out some random mini-stories about Thailand, travel, and things that annoy me. Maybe I'll elaborate on some of this with a longer, proper post at some point, but it's likely that I'm far too lazy to ever do that.

On Thailand, briefly - it kicks ass. No surprise here. The weather is worse than Florida, but what do you want? Also not surprising - I had a beer or two while there. I stayed near Khao San Road, Bangkok's backpacker paradise/ghetto, depending on your perspective and current level of drunkenness. In fact, I will expand on this in a later post: backpackers, Khao San Road, and that sort of thing. I have a lot to say on that. Oh, and Bangkok's new airport. I'll write an extended post on that too, though the only people who will read that will be airport nerds like myself, aka Wiley, who never reads this anyway. I don't care. I'm doing it. Anyway, unlike the Hong Kong trip, I was quite social this time around. In fact, at various Khao San bars, I hung out with and drank with, over various nights, Thais, Canadians, Brits, Irish girls, a Pole, a Dutch woman, a Croat, Italians, a French couple, a girl that goes to Yale, and, on the last night, a Korean. I went to wats (temples), crazy markets, spent at least an hour every day in a taxi (traffic sucks, takes an hour to get downtown, but only costs like $3) and ate maybe 6 times a day because the food was so fucking awesome. Oh, and drank tons of orange juice. A half liter bottle of OJ costs like 40 cents, and it's the best fucking orange juice I've ever had in my life. I miss it already. and of course, I saw weird shit aplenty, not the least of which was a baby elephant walking around with some guy at 11 pm right in the heart of downtown Bangkok, though unfortunately I never did find the ping pong show. That would have ruled.

One quick story from the Khao San bars - I was walking from my hotel to the main Khao San bar area (a 10 minute walk) and it started to rain, and then to pour, so I immediately ducked into the first bar I saw. I sat drinking my large Beer Chang, and a dog came into the bar to get out of the rain and laid down under my table, unnoticed by the staff. He didn't bother me of course, he didn't beg for beer or anything, just slept, so I let him stay. When I ordered another beer a few minutes later, the waiter (waiter seems like the wrong term here, you think cheesy vest and bow tie. I don't mean waiter so much as the guy that gets you your beer. Barmaid would work if it was a female, but i don't know what the term is here for a dude) noticed the dog and yelled at him in Thai (for some reason, I never get over the whole dogs understanding different languages thing. I know it's only sensible, but its disconcerting to think that there are non-dinner dogs walking around Korea that understand more Korean than I do). Anyway, the dog got up and limped toward the exit, holding up one of his back legs and hopping around on three legs. People at the bar were taken, pitying the injured dog, asking the bar-dude to let the dog stay. "No, dog is fake!" he said. "Watch." I looked out the window to the rainy streetscape and watched the dog trotting along naturally, looking, as I soon would be, for his next bar. I have to say, I was impressed, I've never seen a dog fake an injury before.

Next subject - soccer. look, I would personally adopt the metric system and British spelling is soccer would just go away. Don't get me wrong, the game has its merits, and I love the World Cup, but it's a vastly inferior game to football, basketball, baseball, even hockey. Yet, no matter where you travel in the world, it's on TV, and probably at least 80% of the time, it's English Premier League. Do Brits really travel that much more than Americans? Why aren't there more satellite NFL games? I know that everybody outside the states gets soccer and doesn't understand football, but does everyone care about the EPL? You'd think that soccer-crazy Aussies or Italians or Mexicans wouldn't give a shit about seeing English soccer despite liking the game, just like i don't give a damn about the CFL or NFL Europe. Even Itaewon here in Seoul, the foreigner neighborhood makes no sense on this level. North American English teachers easily outnumber European or Australasian English teachers, plus the U.S. is the only western country with a military presence here. It's safe to say that at least 70% of the foreigners at Itaewon bars are American or Canadian. Still, the only option for watching football is the Monday Night game on Tuesday night, which is like the stupidest night of the week to go out. However, if I were, say, a Liverpool or Chelsea fan, I could probably see ever one of their games at one Itaewon bar or another.

Next up - girls. Always a good topic, I guess. Remember when I said I had 5 different girls of varying degrees of interest? Well, that's been passe for a pretty long time. Somehow, I've become a bum again. The girl i was really into doesn't work at my school anymore, and I've kinda lost touch with her. And kinda lost touch is my artful way of saying she doesn't return my calls. The crazy girl, well, that's all kinds of passe. But sometimes i miss her. She was certainly never boring. As for the other three, I don't even remember who they are at this point, I'd have to look at my notes. But there's a bartender girl I like, and that's not going anywhere. there's a new girl at work, but she's basically so ridiculously hot there's little point in making any effort. I mean, I work with her, and if she asks something mundane like if I know where the level 7 B attendance class folder is, I'm like, why are you talking to me, you're too hot. So there's been little happening in the girl tip for awhile, and by little, i mean that there is nobody in the country of Korea or likely the Asian continent that knows more about fantasy football than me. Plus, I've been on a severe budget for awhile due to the new computer, the Thailand trip, and now my impending (and booked!) trip to Tokyo in two weeks. When I get into severe budget mode, the blinders can be pretty absolute.

Last night, I did have a bit of a revelation on the budget issue. No, not the usual revelation that I have some $40,000 worth of credit cards, that's always a bad revelation. But, sometimes I forget, I do in fact live in a very foreign and different country than my own, and I can't just sit around doing nothing for the sake of saving money. Last night, on a night I wasn't feeling my oats (due to a long night out Thursday with co-workers) I ended up in a situation almost reminiscent of my mountain club dinner way back when. After hanging out with don at Noblock, and planning to leave early when Don left at midnight, I ended up sticking around the bar and finding myself in a strange Korean experience. One of my bosses, Hanbok, was at Noblock as well, and he had to work the next morning, so I couldn't possibly go home at midnight if he was still out at the bar, it would just be bad form. Anyway, so I end up meeting a couple of girls, then going with them and Hanbok (and later a buddy of Hanbok's and a Noblock bartender and some dude in a pink shirt and suspenders) to a nearby Chinese restaurant at 3 a.m. to eat dim sum and drink soju. So, like, 80% of the conversation is in Korean, as I'm with 6 Koreans, and we were eating Chinese and Korean food and drinking only soju (no water, no beer, only shots of soju to wash down the soup and kimchi and pork) and finally, I'm glad to be out and not sitting at home watching Lost, as was the original plan. My soju drinking prowess even caused the Noblock bartender to declare that I was Korean, or at least must be part Korean, which is generally the highest complement that can be bestowed upon a whitey such as myself under such circumstances. As for the girls - I got both of their numbers, have some sort of vague plans to meet up with both of them later, and it looked as if though something would happen with one until the literal last minute. Yet, I'm still 97% more interested in the bartender girl and the girl that left my school. I should be shot.

Finally, on the subject of dates and dating. My buddy Don cracks me up with this one. He always talks about his string of bad dates, and how he has a date this weekend and that weekend. Maybe it's just terminology, but I've really never done dates, nor have my friends back home. My last "date," I would say, was in September of 1999, with this girl that was a regular at my Kwik Shop. That, or maybe 2003, as I technically had a date to erEika's wedding. my buddy D, who was long known for getting more ass than the toilet seat in a Tijuana cathouse, has long said that he's never been on a "date." to me, date seems like something that involves going to the drive-in or the malt shop, something that happened a generation ago. Then again, I don't think I've been involved with a girl whose last name i knew since the Clinton administration, so I'm far from an authority on the subject.

Airports!

2009-04-18T14:28:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 9/11/07

Okay, this will be boring for most of you, like I said in the last post, but I don't care. For whatever reason, I like airports, or at least care about them, despite my dislike of flying, waiting in lines, bureaucracy, and of course, driving someone to/picking someone up from the airport. I don't pretend that it makes sense.

Today, I want to talk about my two most recent airports - Seoul-Incheon (ICN) and Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi (BKK). ICN has, in less than a year, already become my lifetime 7th-most visited airport (like it's any surprise i know that kind of thing) and will soon surpass Seattle-Tacoma to be my 6th most visited (the top 5 - KCI, Chicago-Midway, Ohare, Tampa, and Baltimore-Washington are pretty obvious).

On paper, these two airports have a lot in common. Both are a part of the new generation of Asian mega-airports that tend to dominate worldwide airport rankings (yes, I go to airport ranking websites. Sometimes porn gets boring. Leave me alone.). ICN was opened in 2001, BKK in 2006, and in between, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur opened sparkling new airports as well. All are major hubs for one or more national carriers, and all serve primarily international destinations (in the case of Hong Kong, all flights are considered international, as you can't fly to a different part of Hong Kong without a helicopter.) However, between ICN and BKK, ICN is unquestionably the best airport I have ever been to, and BKK sucks balls.

ICN has one weakness - it's really fucking far from most of Seoul, especially my hood. The only practical way to get there is by bus. It's a really nice bus, but can be inconvenient for late night arrivals, plus the bus means you have to contend with unpredictable or awful city traffic. Fortunately, they are building a high-speed train (which is halfway done) to the city center, which will be complete by 2009 thus making ICN perfect. My way around this - the Incheon Airport Guesthouse. I used it for my flight to Bangkok, and will use it again in two weeks when I go to Tokyo. For $37, you get a room that's much nicer than a $37 room should be, with a free 5 minute ride to the airport included. Plus, the building that the guesthouse is in has like 3 bars and 2 web cafes.

As for ICN itself, it's basically what would happen if Jesus built an airport (though, presumably, JC International would be made of wood rather than glass), I got there an hour and 40 minutes before my flight to BKK (yes, an international flight) and had time to check in, change money, sit down at the McD's for breakfast (best McD breakfast in Korea, by the way, with way more breakfast items than your average Seoul McD's has), go through customs and security, and have time for a smoke at the smoking lounge at the gate, all while making it to my plane before final boarding call.

By the way, i know smoking is bad and I'm going to die last week and everything, but what the fuck is wrong with U.S. airports and smoking areas? Is it a cleanliness thing? If so, than why is almost every Asian airport I've ever been to (not Taipei) and most of the European airports I've been to (not Gatwick) cleaner than pretty much every airport in the U.S.? You can't smoke anywhere in California, but LAX is filthy. Would it be so difficult for American airports to glass off some dead space or convert the occasional janitor closet into a smoking area? Hell, don't even convert the janitor closet, I'm certainly not above smoking in one. Plus, don't these people consider the fact that you can't smoke on an airplane, and that lots of flights are really fucking long, and that no cigarette is more desired, rewarding, and necessary than the pre-flight, post-flight, and especially transit variety? Out of the top 10 cigarettes I've ever smoked in my life, probably all of them have been at airports. Post-coitus has nothing on post-flight nicotine-wise.

A return to ICN is even smoother than a departure from it. If I didn't check a bag and I got a decent seat on the plane (I like row 33-35 on a 777, steps from the jetway) I can be through immigration, customs, and on a bus to Seoul within 15 minutes. It's surreally efficient. If I check a bag, I stop for a piss, go through immigration, stop at the smoking lounge, and usually by then my bag is there, so it's maybe 20 minutes from airplane seat to bus seat.

Finally, ICN has everything for somebody like me. A shitty mcd's that serves breakfast, a shitty quick food court if it's not breakfast time, smoking lounges, bars (or for an even better beer option - convenience stores!) duty frees for the basics you need at duty free (cheap smokes, liquor, and large candy bars) and an overall ease of use. If I ever had to kill time and change planes there (which I haven't) there's also a free web cafe and couches for sleeping.

Now, on to BKK. It's under a year old, opened in like October of 2006. It looks amazing, the architectural elements are beyond reproach. But, when arriving, it was awful. First, the lines at customs. I felt like i was back in the States, only worse. It takes longer to get through customs than at O'Hare. I was in line for like an hour. and this wasn't a holiday period, it was a random Thursday afternoon in august, which is Thailand's tourist off-season. There were only 3 booths open for non-Thai passport holders (the majority of the passengers of the flights arriving at the time) and everyone took forever. I got through in like 45 seconds once it was my turn, but the mobs in front of me took a year. Mostly because people are idiots, and don't fill in their arrival cards until they get to the immigration agent, despite the fact that they had anywhere from 4-14 hours to do it on the plane.

Then, for transport to the city. there are buses, but i couldn't find the airport limo buses. From what I understand, it's possible to take a local bus into the city, but first you have to take a shuttle to the airport bus terminal. So, basically, the only option into town is via taxi. Taxis are dirt cheap in Thailand, but the system at the airport is designed to guarantee you get ripped off. You must wait in a taxi line, argue with the cabbie to use his meter (if he doesn't, he's fleecing you) and even then, they find a way to rip you off. For example, I had to pay 165 baht for highway tolls, though later found out they cost 65 baht (like a $3 difference, but it's principle here) and I also assumed from reading the map on the way in (you know me and the maps) that the driver was taking a circuitous route to drive the fare higher, and I found out from later taxi trips that I was right.

I would later find that arrivals is what BKK does well, as the departure system is a total disaster. I got to the airport (again by taxi, though this taxi cost half what the other one did, largely because I knew what I was doing by then) 2 and a half hours before my flight. I waited in line to check in, then went to customs, where I of course waited in a long line again (at 5 in the fucking morning). After that, I walked along the 400 meter concourse to my gate area (i didn't measure, the airport speaks proudly of it's large concourse) and what do I pass? Well, I want a smoke after the extremely slow line through customs, but there's no fucking smoking areas for that whole 400 meters. What is there? High end sushi-fusion restaurants and other pretentious "luxury" style eateries. Just what I want at 6 something in the morning after 2 hours of sleep before i catch a 5 hour flight. Plus, endless duty free stores, for clothes, perfume, electronics, and the usual big 3 I spoke of before, only the prices for smokes or liquor or whatever is no cheaper than on the street.

Look, I don't know what the airports are doing on this tip. I guess there must be a market for major duty free shoppers stuck on long layovers as well as high end diners, otherwise airports wouldn't be in such a hurry to convert to Prada and Gucci slinging malls. I don't pretend to be a marketing expert (well, maybe this one time at this bar to impress a girl, but come on) so the research must show that this is what the people want. But, 98% of the time, when I'm at the airport, I'm there for 2 hours of less, and I'm a guy that makes an effort to get to the airport early due to my love of airport bars. I don't see when the day will come, no matter how long the layover, that I'll be in the market for Fendi sunglasses or a new DVD player when I'm at the airport. Thus far food-wise, in my innumerable flights, I've had exactly one connection (five hour layover at O'Hare, 1999, on the way to Europe) that I've had use for a non-fast food restaurant. By fast food, that doesn't mean McDonald's, it could be a sandwich at an airport bar. Here's what i want in an airport - smoking area(s), bar, newsstand, fast food. and if it's a bar with newspapers, sandwiches, and you can smoke, than really, i don't need anything else.

Anyway, after finding nothing of use to me at BKK, I finally came across a Burger King. Huzzah! but, the trick is, no breakfast! Really, the last thing in the world I want at close to 7 a.m. after 2 hours sleep is a Whopper, so I moved on toward my gate. This is the next failure of BKK. It's only when going to the gate area that you actually go through security, so once you're in the gate area - there's nothing to do! If you go there early and realize you want a sandwich, you have to go back out and wait in line for security again! Unbelievable. I sought out a smoking lounge here, as there's none between customs and security along the whole 400 meters, and I finally found one hidden in the first gate before going to my gate. The design is a catwalk connecting all the gates in the area, with stairs down to each individual flight waiting area, so fortunately I found the smoking area before going to my actual gate, because once I got there, it's nothing but a glassed-in waiting area with metal chairs. Once you get to the actual gate area, there is no way out, and absolutely nothing to do in the waiting area. Not even a random TV tuned to Thai cable. It's a holding pen with metal chairs. Hungry? Thirsty? Want a smoke? Just bored? Too bad hoss, you're in the gate area, you can sit and stare at the person across from you. Fortunately, it took so long to get through the overly large concourse and endless series of needless lines that by the time I actually got to the gate area, my 2 and half hours were up and it was time to fly.

Moral of the story - don't fly to BKK airport for any reason, ever, unless you are in fact going to Bangkok. which you should do, because airport aside, Bangkok kicks ass. On the other hand, if you find a cheap flight from LA to San Francisco by way of ICN involving a 14 hour layover, well, you could do worse.

Neighbors

2009-04-18T14:19:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 9/14/07

Right now, my neighbor situation is quite different than it was in Lawrence or Chicago. It's a building of large studio apartments that they call an officetel, each apartment pretty much the same. The mix in the building seems to be Korean families (which I have virtually no contact with ever) and people like me. And by people like me, I mean 20-something foreigners (i.e. non-Koreans from English-speaking countries) that live alone and work as English teachers. So really, my living situation now is closer to dorm life than anything, only everybody is old enough to drink, everybody does drink, and nobody has a roommate. So, unlike usual, I'm actually friends or co-workers with many of my neighbors, and of the people in my building that I hate (it's just this one dude) I don't hate him because of any usual neighborly stuff. No, I hate him for the same reason I hated any of my peers in college, because of drama over girls at the bar. That, and he's a bit of a chode.

Travelers and Tourists

2009-04-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 9/19/07

I’m going to drop a couple blog entries tonight, just because I’m heading to Tokyo tomorrow and thus all the blogs I have in the hopper will feel dated after that. This topic: travel. Big surprise.

I’m starting to feel different about the “traveler” verses “tourist” divide. I’ve long fallen on the “traveler” side, because it seems to be the more authentic experience that falls more into my ethos. For the un-indoctrinated to this debate, “traveler” means that you travel with a backpack, wear a bandana at all times, you stay in the cheapest hostel available, and your ideal trip would involve a 243 hour trip on a non-air-conditioned bus in August through every country that ends in ”stan”. “Tourist,” on the other hand, means that you tour with a roller-bag, wear a fanny pack at all times, you stay in 4 star hotels that were pre-aranged by your tour company, and your ideal trip involves either a cruise, a week at Disney World, or a 7-day bus tour through Europe, staying in a different city every single night. There is no in between.

Obviously, both of these are exaggerations (usually). And it’s easy to see why the notion of “tourism” gets a bad name. But, I’m getting tired with the inherent self-righteousness that comes along with the “traveler” ethos. Look, people get their travel rocks off in different ways. I think it’s stupid to adhere to the hard core tourist mentality, and to have most of your travel experience spoon fed to you by the tour company. But I also think it’s stupid to subscribe to the hard core “traveler” mentality as well, to just stay in hostels in large rooms with people like you and to cook all your own meals. I can understand why people do it wither way, but neither way makes sense to me. Why bother leaving home if you are just going to stay in soulless Hiltons and Marriots and are just going to eat overpriced, familiar food? At the same time, why bother leaving home if you are just going to hang out with fellow “travelers” and are going to cook cheap, shitty ramen or spaghetti in the hostel kitchen every night?

Look, I’ve done it both ways (though usually closer to the traveler way on my own since I’m never rich) and had fun both ways. Hell, on my Hong Kong trip, I did it both ways at the same time - staying in a dirt cheap rat's nest, but going to Disneyland and spending a million dollars at bars and restaurants. But, in general, I never stay in hostel dorms anymore (exception - this weekend. Tokyo hotels are fucking expensive.) I like hostel bars to meet travelers, but I like local bars more. I don’t like hostel dorms, because I don’t see what sort of cultural lessons can be learned by trying to sleep on a bunk below some fat snoring Australian. I never, ever cook in hostel kitchens, or anywhere else for that matter. I didn’t come 200-7,000 miles to eat my own shitty cooking. If I can’t afford to eat at restaurants, than I can’t afford to go on the trip. Or, I use credit cards. Also, I at least try the local cuisine, and try my best to avoid eating anything that I can easily get back home. Which, in my coming Tokyo trip, just means no McDonald’s and no Korean food.

Itaewon vs Khoa San Road

2009-04-18T14:09:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 9/20/07

First off, I'm aware of the insanely small audience that could be interested in this. but, I want to talk about Khao San Road vs Itaewon. I know that few people that might actually read this have been to either location, nonetheless both, but it is a fair point to raise. Basically, it's been said by many that they are quite common. I say they aren't.

Itaewon is the foreigner (ie, non-Korean) ghetto in Seoul, and KSR is the foreigner/backpacker center in Bangkok. Both locations have lots of non-Asians in the central area of a major Asian city. Not shockingly, both have a McDonald's and a Subway. Both sell tons of knockoff items. If you want pirate DVDs or fake Oakleys (and you know I do), you could do worse than either of these areas. Also, you aren't going to have much trouble finding a beer in either place.

The primary difference, of course, is that everyone, probably 99.9% of the patrons at any bar on KSR, is on vacation. Whereas, in Itaewon, nobody is. Everybody at the bars on KSR is staying at a hostel/hotel/guesthouse within a ten minute walk of whatever bar they happen to be in. Virtually everyone in Itaewon lives in Seoul, but only a tiny minority actually lives in Itaewon itself. KSR, being a major tourism draw, really makes full use of it's "foreigner area" tag. I met people from, literally, all over the world. Itaewon, on the other hand, is easily 70% Americans and Canadians, the rest of the foreign population is British, Australian, Kiwi, some English speaking country. There's also some Nigerians, but they pretty much only hang out at two bars. Much like the rest of Korea, there are no tourists. In fact, other than people like my dad and Wiley, people that come to Korea to visit people who live here, I've never met a single western tourist here. And I'm people that knows people.

Both areas certainly have their niche market. KSR, as I said, is people from all over the world, mostly backpackers. People have a wide degree of backgrounds, and there's a larger age range of people there. Itaewon, on the other hand, has far less diversity in this matter. If I walk into a bar in Itaewon, my story is already told. I'm an English teacher, just like everyone else there. I could be a soldier, but my haircut gives me away there. Also, virtually everyone is English teacher/soldier age, 22-35.
Which do I like better? Both have their plusses and minuses. KSR has cheaper, better food, but Itaewon has more variety. KSR has cheaper beer, but again, Itaewon has more variety. Itaewon is more unique within its country. In monolithic Korea, there's nothing else remotely like Itaewon, and it's the only place in the country to get reliable Mexican food. KSR has new people coming and going every day. Itaewon is certainly transient as well, but less so. Most westerners are in Bangkok for a few days on their way to or from backpacking around Southeast Asia on 5 cents a day or whatever. Most westerners in Itaewon are contractually spending a year in Seoul. KSR is certainly more "fun," in that it's only people on vacation. Itaewon is more "real," because it's people getting hammered after work. Everyone in Itaewon has a job, not necessarily true in KSR. I suppose Itaewon might slightly win, due to the fact that the bars are open much later, and the fact that everyone there wears a shirt.

People I can do Without

2009-04-18T13:51:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 9/20/07

(with apologies to George Carlin for the title)

I saw a guy in Bangkok, a cliche backpacker walking around with clothes that it looked like he made himself. He looked like an asshole. Worst of all, he was carrying a diggery-do. What the fuck? You can’t buy those in Thailand, and he clearly wasn’t Thai, which means he’s actually carrying a fucking diggery-do around with him on his trip. A loud six foot long wooden instrument that cannot possibly have any practical value other than to let people see that he has a diggery-do. It reminded me how much I hate people. So, here’s who I can do without at the moment:

-Diggery-do guy

-Anybody who is not in fact an Aborigine that owns a diggery-do, or at least anyone that takes it out of their house.

-White guys with dreadlocks

-Asian guys with dreadlocks

-Girls with dreadlocks. Sorry Megan, but this is just a bad look.

-Really, anybody with dreadlocks that isn’t an ethnic Rastafarian Jamaican.

-Any guy over the age of 11 that wears a tank top, wife beater, or sleeveless shirt of any kind.

-soccer. As mentioned before at Myspace.

- Canadian rugby fans. Look, Canada, I thought we had a deal. When away from North America, you guys stick to real sports, and don’t fall into the “international” (i.e. British) sports scene of soccer, rugby, cricket, and other crap like that. I saw a bar full of Canadians watching rugby the other day, and I was horrified. Listen, Canada, you stay away from the bullshit British sports, and we won’t fold the NHL. Deal?

- Creative arty types. This could fall in with the diggery-do guy department. Not all creative arty types, mind you, just most of them. The ones who subsribe to the bullshit “artist” lifestyle. The most creative, artistic people I know deliver pizzas, work construction, drive busses, sling phones, or tend bar. Plus, they are capable of carrying on a long conversation about sports, and can drink copious amounts of cheap beer.

-People that dress like idiots. 99.9% of people in the world fall within a normal enough range of dress that they don’t look like assholes, and are pleasingly instantly forgetable. Well, that .01% of the population has to be “different.” Every now and again, it works, but only for certain people. When David Beckham wore a sarong, it was somehow acceptable. When some 45 year old balding asshole in a tie died shirt does it, it’s stupid. By and large, people should think about looking in a mirror before leaving their house.

-Anybody that wears a bandana that is not a pirate or an old west bank robber. This includes everybody.

-Fully ambulatory people that take an elevator up 1 floor, or down anything fewer than 7.

-Sports scandals and the ensuing coverage. Look, I don’t even live in the U.S. right now and can’t watch football here, and I’m sick to death of the “spygate” Patriots scandal. I don’t believe it effected the games, and I don’t care. Here’s what else I don’t care about - Barry Bonds. And though I’m clearly in the anti-Vick camp given the nastiness of dog fighting, at this point I would certainly enjoy watching one of Vick’s feistier dogs rip ESPN.com’s Gene Wojciechowski’s face off. In fact, I think I would enjoy that at any point.

One Year

2009-04-18T13:33:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 9/28/07

So, it’s been a year, as the title indicates. As of only a few hours ago, I’ve been in Korea for one full year. Which means a few things, I guess. Lots has changed. Lots hasn’t. I spent my first night in Korea in a shady love motel, and thought that I was in some sort of Seoul red light district, due to the fact that my hotel came equipped with an abnormally large number of massage oils, condoms, and two crappy porn channels. I’ve since learned, of course, that this was simply a yogwon, a small family run motel, and that such motels are almost as ubiquitous in Korea as are internet cafes or convenience stores. As for that red-light area, it turns out my motel was actually in one of the highest-rent districts in all of Korea, a 20 minute walk from Apgujong, Seoul’s (and really Korea’s) land of Prada and Gucci stores. Of course, when I first got here, absolutely nothing made sense, ever. Now, I would say, I can generally go at least an hour on most days without being completely bewildered by something.

Am I where I want to be? I signed up for a year, so this seems like a good time to, you know, take stock. There are many positives. I can read Korean script (slowly). I know enough Korean to order at restaurants without an English menu. I can order a beer at a working class dive. I can direct a cab. I can’t have a conversation, by a longshot though. Oh yeah, positive. I can tell the difference between good and bad kimchi. I’m pretty adept with the chopsticks. In a crowning achievement, I once placed a take-out order for a pizza over the phone only in Korean, though it may have only worked due to the fact that the pizza place may have recognized my voice, and I always get the same thing anyway. I’ve paid off my credit card debt. That’s a big one, I guess, and a major reason I came here. I’ve also, including coming here, been on 13 different trips, which is especially impressive considering how little vacation time I’ve had. Yeah, some were day trips, but I’ve been on 8 overnight trips and 7 that involved airplanes (on 4 different airlines). My bigger trips were to Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Tokyo, which isn’t too fucking shabby. I’ve had, by Chicago in 2005 (or, who am I kidding, 2002-2006) standards, astronomical success with the ladies. I had the longest successful pursuit of a girl in one night of drinking in my, or maybe anybody’s life - 12 hours. I had the shortest successful pursuit of a different girl in a different bar in my, or maybe anybody’s life - 10 minutes. I have some good friends here, which I suppose is what matters most. I bought a computer. I wake up at 12:47 p.m. every day, which is certainly a perk. I’ve had, almost undoubtedly, more nights where I was out, not just up, but out, until well after 7 a.m. than I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve been to two Disneylands. I’ve climbed two mountains, one twice. I had, unquestionably, the best spring of my life (by the way, best fall - 99, best summer - 92 or 99 or 02, best winter - 05-06 or 96-97). Despite drastic information and time zone disadvantages, I made my fantasy football league’s playoffs last year and I’m first in my division so far this year. I’ve become respectable at darts. I write, which was one of the top three reasons I came here to begin with. My last year in Chicago, I never wrote a fucking thing. I don’t sell phones. Lots of times, I actually even enjoy my job, there’s some awesome kids. Also, there’s chocolate-covered sunflower seeds. I just discovered that 10 seconds ago at the convenience store patio I’m writing on. And yes, they kick ass.

There are, of course, plenty of negatives too. The most glaring, of course, is what the hell I’m going to do when I’m done with this. This is really a whole other blog, but I still don’t have a clue. Suggestions are welcome. I also don’t exactly have a nest egg, not that I thought I would. Lack of easy every day life (familiar cable system, unencumbered communication with locals, decent record stores, food that isn’t Korean, McDonald’s, or pizza) certainly wears on me. In that same vein, the two biggies for me in the food realm - lack of Taco Bell (or Mexican food in general, other than 2 places an hour subway ride away) and the epic quest necessary in order to acquire an overpriced bottle of ranch dressing. Vast distance from friends and family, particularly right now while my grandma is ailing. That’s definitely a big one too. Paying double US prices for simple commodities like jeans and shoes. The never-ending foreignness. By this, I mean, France was foreign, but one I got a decent haircut and some cool French clothes and knew may way around and understood the subway, French people would approach me by speaking French, and would only realize I was foreign by my dumbstruck look or piss-poor broken accent. Here, there’s nothing cosmetic that can be done. My foreignness is pretty fucking evident the second I walk into a room. That’s definitely an Asia thing, but I think a Korea thing more than anything. Though I can’t speak or read a word of the local language, I feel much less foreign in Japan, Thailand, and Hong Kong than I do here. The only reason I can think to explain that is that Japan, Thailand, and Hong Kong have lots of western tourists and quite a few western immigrants. Korea has zero. Korea has English teachers and soldiers. Oh, and let’s not forget the still massive language barrier.

Still, It’s hard to say my objectives here haven’t been met. I came here to pay off my credit card debts, to write, to travel around Asia, and to have some cool girl adventures. Really, check, check, check, and check on that tip. Had things worked out according to plan, I should actually be on a plane home, literally this very minute. My buddy Don asked me earlier tonight if I wished that I were in fact on that plane presently. I didn’t have an answer. Which, I guess, means no. Maybe it’s because I don’t have everything figured out yet. Maybe it’s because I think the extra 3 months of pay will make a big difference. I can certainly say this - if I were on a plane right now, that would mean that I would have stayed at my original school for a year rather than changing three months in. And, though being forced out of my old school (via conspiracy, really) seemed like a crushing setback at the time, it’s the best thing that could have happened. On my list of positive things, every single one of them applies to the last nine months in Nowon, and I am sure my life would have been exponentially worse had I stayed at my old school.

Sorry about all the introspection here. Next time will either be good old dick and fart jokes or strange shit I saw in Japan.

Lost in Translation, Indeed

2009-04-18T13:13:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 10/7/07

I gotta say, Japan is something else. Definitely a strange and different country, and I already live in a strange and different country. A couple random stories:

After landing in Tokyo and getting to the station where I had to change trains (and rail networks, requiring me to go outside) I saw a really hot girl, wearing a really short skirt, calf-length boots, and one knee pad. Just one. This was in a non-hip neighborhood at like 3 p.m. It was cool.

Once I was outside, I decided to smoke a quick cigarette. Smoking in Japan is basically the opposite of the rest of the world. Restaurants don’t have smoking areas, you can smoke anywhere, even in McDonald's and Starbucks. But, you can’t walk and smoke outside, there are designated smoking areas outside that you have to stand by. While smoking my first non-airport cig in Tokyo, I stood next to a large ashtray that had a “Smoker Team” logo on it. Just then, a minivan pulled up with the same logo, and two guys wearing matching “Smoker Team” caps and polo shirts hopped out and proceeded to change out the water and remove the cigarette butts from this large ashtray with the efficiency of an Indy 500 pit crew. Within 43 seconds or so, they were back in the van, on their way to the next stop.

Strangely, I didn’t eat any sushi on this trip. I know, I know, you can’t go to Tokyo and not eat sushi, right? But, I’ve had sushi in Japan before, so there was no novelty in it, and there’s a sushi place across the street from my apartment in Seoul, so it’s not like it’s hard to get. I did eat Japanese food, including an awesome beef and rice bowl that I am unaware of the name, as the restaurant had no English whatsoever. I also had pub grub, Haitian, French, and Mexican, all of which is much harder to come by in Seoul than sushi.

This could be a separate blog, but the Rupungi (Tokyo’s main club district) bars and clubs were chock full of security personal and touts, which are two concepts I just don’t understand. This is hardly a Japanese phenomenon, but it just doesn’t make sense. If I am in the mood to go to, say, a dance club, or a titty bar, or a bar, and some guy comes up to me in the street and says hey, come to my establishment, and attempts to give the hard sell to get people in, what are the odds that I am going to said establishment? I’d say zero. I don’t want to go to any club or bar that sends people out to the street to harass people. Security is another matter. One dance club that we did go to was chock full of security. If you go into a dance club, and there’s tons of obvious security guards walking around, do you feel more or less secure? I’ve only been to one club in Seoul that goes this route, and its also the only club in Seoul where I’ve ever felt less than secure. I had one beer and left, and I haven’t been back. This just seems like really faulty marketing to me.

I went to a Japanese baseball game, the Yomoyuri Giants (Ichiro’s old team) and that was pretty awesome. Much better skill-wise than the Korean league, and way more people in attendance. Of course, tickets and beers cost the same as in the US, so that was less fun. Easily the most hilarious element of the game is that the seat vendors, including the ones that carry 5 gallons or so of draft beer in a backpack, were all cute 90 pound Japanese girls. And, there were probably 100 of them there, and they all seemed to be really excited and happy to bring me and my buddy beers, despite the fact that the stairs were steep, the backpacks heavy, and we were sitting in the nosebleeds. I still can’t get my head around this. In Japan, there’s no tipping, so I can’t understand why these girls were so eager to haul 50 pounds of beer up to row 37 or wherever the hell we were.

Also confusing - I stopped to get a coffee in some high end coffee joint in Ginza, which may be Tokyo’s highest-end neigborhood. Playing on the sound system in said coffee joint - Gretchen Wilson’s Red Neck Woman. And the clientele seemed to like it. A song about shopping at Wal-Mart (which I don’t think makes Gretchen Wilson a redneck, by the way, I think it makes her a dumb cunt) at a high end coffee shop in the high rent district next to the Fendi store. In Tokyo.

The DMZ is Our Home

2009-04-18T13:00:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 10/24/07

Last weekend, I finally made it to Korea's number one "tourist attraction." The world's most fortified border, and easily one of the strangest places on earth.

The Seoul USO office and the bus to the DMZ was surreal on it's own. Not only was it pretty much all white people, it was pretty much all Americans. Being on a packed, I don't know, 70 person bus where 80% of the passengers were Americans and English was the only language being spoken was definitely strange for me. Plus, while my people, English teachers, were certainly well represented, the bus was chock full of middle aged people from places like Atlanta that were in town for reasons other than teaching English, and were staying for periods considerably shorter than one year. People who don't even know what bibimbap is, based on conversations I over heard. Bibimbap, by the way, is an extremely common and tasty rice dish. It's like being in France and not knowing what a baguette is. I dare say, maybe even actual tourists. I've been here over a year, and it's the first time I've ever seen one. It didn't make me homesick.

The DMZ itself - something else. 6 foot 6 South Korean soldiers at the border, wearing cool Ray Bans at all times, fists clenched. The North soldiers weren't around, at least visibly, at the immediate border, but I'm fairly certain that they were around somewhere, guns trained on my tour group.

The DMZ is 4 kilometers wide, 2 km per side to the actual border proper, ie, the MDL, or Military Demarcation Line. Within the DMZ itself, but a little bit away from the border where the soldiers were, there are two villages, one on the south side, the other on the north side. The southern village has a few houses, actually American-suburban looking houses, where the small, government subsidized population lives. The south side villagers are all farmers, and they make something like 80 grand a year tax free, but when they farm, there are armed soldiers (US and Korean) with them on their fields at all time to defend against a northern invasion. The southern village has a 100 meter tall flagpole donated to them shortly before the 88 Olympics. The other village, predictably, is on the northern half of the DMZ. It is known as "Propaganda Village" in the south, largely because the northern village is uninhabited. There are some buildings that look like apartment blocks, but when viewed with binoculars, it becomes clear that none of these buildings have any windows. This village, not to be outdone by it's southern counterpart, built a 160 meter flag pole, the highest in the world. That's 525 feet. The village is known as Propaganda Village, by the way, because it used to broadcast North Korean propaganda via loudspeaker 16 hours a day or so. The north also use to have a number of signs on the mountain faces saying things like "Follow the way of the Leader" and stuff like that, and the south likewise had a number of lit up signs promoting democracy (The north never lit up their signs, because, you know, power shortages). Sadly, both sides agreed to remove their outward, intrusive propaganda two years ago. I was really looking forward to seeing that.

At the end of the tour, we saw a fairly hilarious Korean-made video. It was in English, and the narrator sounded like a native English speaker, but it was still full of terribly put together and likely mistranslated lines such as "The DMZ is our home." It also made reference to the natural aspects of the DMZ (which is a true statement, a 4 km wide swath across the peninsula, most of which has had no human contact in over 50 years) but went too far, saying that a visitor to the DMZ can see "extinct species." After hearing that, I was really pissed that I didn't see a stegosaurus.

Economy Plus (or My Anouncment)

2009-04-18T12:59:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 12/17/07

United Airlines, my hero of the skies (not sarcastic, I love United) created a new class of service a couple years ago. They call it “Economy-Plus.” Basically, it’s a coach seat in the emergency exit row with twice the legroom of a regular coach seat. Most airlines have extra legroom in the exit row due to logistics, but United further extended that legroom and created a sort of half-coach, half-business row. For a couple hundred dollars extra (or a couple $10 extra, depending on the route) United fliers get a lot more room to stretch out, and can take advantage of the business/first check-in line at the airport. But, no entry to the business/first class lounge at the airport, no free booze on the flight, and the same food that coach eats (assuming food is served) are the drawbacks that make this a half-way endeavor. From a business perspective, I can understand United’s reasoning here. I could also understand why a passenger may wish to indulge in this product.

Yet, I would never fly in Economy Plus. Why? Because it’s mid-range. I don’t believe in mid-range. Usually, you end up paying too much to get out of the low-end with too much of the low-end bullshit involved. So, I fly economy, or business (rarely), but never Economy Plus. I don’t stay at Holiday Inn or Raddison or the like. I stay at the Super 8, or Motel 6 or some lower fleabag, or I stay (rarely) at the Ritz. I drink rotgut store-brand liquor (some of my favorites include Jewel Premium and Commander) or I drink Grey Goose. I never drink Absolut or Johnny Red. I’d use a beer example here as well, but that would imply that Budweiser or Coors or whatever is of higher quality and taste than PBR. It’s not.

This has long been my philosophy. I am not one for half-assing it. I’m of the opinion that, while there are many flavors to life, most can fall into two categories: sustenance and living it up. As I have never been a rich man or a successful man or a smart man or a handsome man or - wait,, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah. Due to budget constraints, I generally opt for the sustenance option, but if I am to occasionally splurge, I do it right. I feel no need to frequently eat at the Applebee’s of the world when I can stick to Taco Bell most of the time (dear god how I wish that were a valid option here) and occasionally hit up, I don’t know, Charlie Trotters.

What does any of this have to do with right now? Well, not half-assing but instead, I don’t know, none-assing and full-assing goes beyond the economic realm as well. It also involves major decisions on my horizon. This, combined with the cold weather and thus lack of convenience store table to booze and write at, has played into why I’ve been shunning this blog the last few weeks. My contract ends, for all practical purposes once vacation time is considered, in 2 days. Thus, I am faced with a pretty big decision on what to do for winter vacation/2008/the rest of my life.
I saw my options as 4-fold. I could renew my contract with my school and go on vacation somewhere in Asia for shits and grins, but not go home for another year. Or, I could go “home” for a couple weeks, back to the land of my roots -Lawflortimorgo. And yeah, I hate those commercials too, but a two-week trip to the States demands stops in Lawrence, Florida, Baltimore, and Chicago. Or, I could take my free plane ticket home that I would get for quitting my job, bum around the aforementioned 4 places for 3 months or so (in the dead of winter) and get a new job in Korea in April or so. Finally, I could leave Korea entirely, so I could settle down in the city of X, drive a brand-spanking new Y, and work for the fine people at the Z corporation.

I’ve made a choice. Options 2 and 3 are off the board, because those are the half-ass options. And because Option 4 is both too much of a stretch and also too much of what I always do - raise up stakes and move somewhere new- I’m looking at option one now. I’m sorry to everybody I wanted to see and everybody I love, but it just seems like it makes the most sense to skip going home. So, I’m going to go to the Philippines ( a place where the Ritz costs 70 bucks a night) so I can sit on the beach and drink 30 cent beers. And, to take a proper vacation for the first time in forever, one that isn’t just 4 or 5 days. I hope you aren’t mad, and that you decide to come visit. I’m always open to visitors. Plus, I should be totally rich, so if you come out here for a visit, I’ll buy you tons of beers.

Last Night a DJ Ruined my Life

2009-04-18T11:03:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 12/22/07

Okay, so I've been in the Philippines for 4 days, and I have lots to write about it. For starters, here in Boracay, there's more tang on sale than I've ever seen in my life. Surprisingly, I don't mean whores, I mean the ghetto astronaut drink. It's everywhere. There are convenience store signboards just announcing: TANG! While I haven't partaken yet, there's only so long one can go without indulging in the homeless man's Kool-Aid.

Anyway, I want to start a running series on, for lack of better term, douchebaggery. I must ask, is there a field more full of douchebags (not counting suburban police and mall security) than DJs? Is there a less educated/less talented person that could have more effect on your life in certain situations? I mean, these are high-school dropouts with czar-like power over a given club. Granted, I am not talking about high end DJs that are good at what they do, and often work at the top clubs in LA, Vegas, Chicago, New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, and Tokyo, nor am I talking about the up-and-comers working in lesser lights anywhere from Seattle to Stuttgart to Seoul. I am talking about the 99% that work in the clubs that you (and when I'm slumming it, me) may actually go to.

Why is it so easy to hate DJs? Well, first off, they all dress the same. Same tilted cap (and almost never one of a sports team, but of some bullshit snowboard magazine or something), same tank top, often an NBA jersey, same overly baggy track pants or jeans. This is true of all DJs, be they black, white, hispanic, or Asian, despite the fact that none of the white, hispanic, or Asian DJS are actually cool enough to pull this off.

Of course, their greatest crime - playing horrible music. Like, only top 40 or shitty mainstream hip-hop. I was at a club last night during happy hour, and they were playing cool, original laid back trance/house type of shit. Music you really won't here anywhere else. I returned to the club later at night, and it was just shitty generic Beyonce and other really boring mainstream shit, music that even as you here it for the first time, it seems familiar. I left immediately. I went to the club next door, which was showing a Rod Stewart DVD. I mean, Rod fucking Stewart. Yet, the people in the club seemed to dig it, though I didn't. Then, they muted the DVD and the DJ started playing - the exact same songs as the club next door. Only the bartender's glacial closing of tabs slowed the exodus to the door.

I'm just saying - DJs - you have an easy job. A really easy job. 5 years ago, the job consisted of changing cds, now its a matter of clicking a mouse. Is it so hard to play something decent that the club next door isn't playing?

By the way, when's the last time that you had a really good time at a club with horrible, unoriginal schlock playing?

Diver Down

2009-04-18T11:01:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 12/24/07

I like Scuba diving. I haven't been in over a decade though. I've thought of going while here in the Philippines, since the diving is world-class and all, but I don't have my certification card here, which presents a problem. I did go snorkeling, and it was cool, and it reminded me of how much fun diving can be. It struck me, why haven't I been diving in so long?

Well, let me introduce you to the second group in my series on douchebaggery - divers. They're awful. I'd forgotten how annoying they are. At the beach I am at right now, divers are the primary clientèle. Divers, like hikers (another group that can annoy me) get up needlessly early in the morning and then finish what they are doing at like 2 p.m. Why? Why go diving at 8 a.m. when you will finish with 4 hours of daylight left? Why not start at noon for sleeping purposes? This is vacation, right? Well, at 2 p.m. when the divers are done for the day, they drink. To the point of drunken embarrassment (and consider the source here) by 4 or 5 p.m. Every single one of them also wears a stupid "Turd River Dive Shop" or some such T-shirt, in case people couldn't tell they were divers, in case the fact that they only talk about diving and can't stand upright by sunset doesn't advertise this point enough.

When I started diving in the early 90s, I thought it might be an interesting way to meet girls. Oh, no. Not even close. Your average female diver makes your average Western female English teacher in Korea look like, I don't know, who's hot today to complete this analogy, um, a Barker's Beauty? The worst part while diving, you become excited to see a manatee, only to discover that it's just a female diver.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to you all. It's 1:20 in the afternoon on Christmas Day in the Philippines, so I need to buy a bottle of rum before the divers get back to keep my sanity.

Boats and Touts

2009-04-18T10:56:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 1/7/08

Sorry I've been quiet, but I have quite a lot of shit to post soon, it's just a matter of sorting it out. I just got back from the Philippines last week, and the trip totally kicked ass, one of my best trips in years and an absolute lock to win this year's roadtrip bracket. Anyway, the first thing I'm writing is also the longest, so I'll post the first part now-

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To send a Todd toward an untimely demise on a dusty Philippine “highway.” But I’ll come back to that.

I had a pretty hilarious adventure, traveling from the world class beaches and tourist haven of Boracay to the earthier, trashier diving resort of Puerta Gallera, Little Laguna beach specifically. Getting from Manila to Boracay required a $120, 35 minute flight on a rock star killer, which turned out to be the easy, safe way to get around. My trip from Boracay to Little Laguna (2/3 of the way back to Manila) required 7 different modes of transport, 2 days, and a cool $22.

I left Boracay two days shy of Christmas Day, first taking a tricycle (basically a motorcycle rickshaw) to the boat dock on the other side of the island, then a 10 minute boat ride in a small, crowded outrigger boat to Caticlan. Caticlan has the small airstrip I originally landed on, and it’s also the place to catch a bus to the larger airport in Kalibo or a fast boat to Manila. As I got off the outrigger in Caticaln, it would be the last time I would see a non-Filipino person for the next 2 days. I bought my ticket to Roxas on the island of Mindoro and had an hour to kill, which I did in a ramshackle lunch counter that, not surprisingly, served beer.

From there, I took a large ferry boat, with probably 1,000 people on it for the 4 hour trip to Roxas. A strange prayer video came on the screen in the room I was in. Most everybody in the room signed the cross. Pretty hard-core Catholic country, the Philippines. The other evidence of this was the insane number of kids that I saw everywhere I went. My favorite part of Philippine Catholicism? Unlike every other Asian country I’ve been to, there are no missionaries. It’s possible to walk through the center of town with out somebody wanting to talk to me about the bible and the churchy. Much like being in Utah, everybody assumed that I was a believer already and left me alone. Okay, the Utah thing I ripped off from Bill Bryson, who I was reading at the time I was on this boat.

After landing in Roxas, I was soon confronted by a tout. I have to say, I was shocked. I mean, I expected touts everywhere in Boracay and Manila, but Roxas? I was literally the only foreigner on this boat of 1,000 people, yet there’s still a shady guy at the docks whose bothered to learn enough English and develop a good enough western accent to fuck over travelers. It’s really the equivalent of learning Portuguese and hanging out at the Lawrence Greyhound bus stop, in the hopes that a Brazilian happens to get off the Hound in Lawrence that day. I told the tout I was going into town. He said that the hotels in town were closed, and that a tricycle ride at night would cost an extortionate 100 pesos. I found a tricycle driver. He drove me into town for 50 pesos, to the nicest hotel in town. TV, AC, in the center of Roxas for $12 a night. Not too shabby. I hate touts.

The Finest Hotel in Town

2009-04-18T10:55:00.001-07:00

originally posted on 1/12/08

Roxas was dark. No street lights, and really no lights coming from any business in particular, other than my hotel, which was, again, the finest hotel in town. I ate a pretty decent Filipino/Chinese beef dish at my hotel restaurant, which I could only assume was the finest restaurant in town. I was the only customer. Beer cost under 50 cents a bottle. There was a carport-looking space outside the restaurant window, which had become a makeshift arcade. Kids were playing the 5 or 6 video games there. The games all appeared to be from 1995 or before, and the text on the game was in Chinese. The Philippines uses regular Roman letters in their written language, so the Chinese text on the screen undoubtedly meant as little to the kids playing the games as it did to me. One of the games looked a bit like Shinobi, but worse.

I considered lingering in the restaurant to get plowed for pennies, but being that I was the only customer, this seemed both a dull and rude option. I decided to go out. I walked out of the front door of the hotel. There was a security guard outside the hotel whom I had seen before, brandishing a small shotgun. “Where you go?” This seems to be a common question in my experience throughout Southeast Asia, but being that he was clearly not a tout or a taxi driver, plus he had the shotgun, I trusted him.

“Is there a bar near here?”

“Yes, go that way, past the church. There is a videoke bar there.” I’d heard of the Philippine love of karaoke, and being that Boracay is more “international resort” than it is truly Filipino, I had yet to experience it. Plus, he said bar. I was on my way. I hadn’t actually been out, like all out, for most of the trip, so I was excited for any kind of night out.

I had a bit of a rough landing a few days before to start my trip. My first night in Boracay, I wasn’t out particularly late as I was tired from my flights and wasn’t on much sleep. I had woken up at 6 a.m., and was out far later my last night in Korea at the airport hotel bar then I’d intended to be because I’d met an old drunken Irishman who kept buying me beers and telling good stories. My first morning in Boracay, I woke up mosquito-bitten to hell, and I hit the beach for a lazy beach day. I got sunburnt in a predictably dramatic fashion. At happy hour, while I was knocking back cheap gin and tonics, I jumped from the bar floor to the beach, about a 1 meter jump, with no shoes on. I landed on my left foot, right on a huge, jagged coral rock that was buried a quarter inch under the sand, and sliced the middle of the bottom of my foot. Look before you leap, I guess. I could barely walk the next couple of days. Regardless, I went on a snorkeling trip the next day, all while the bottom of my foot was starting to turn purple, and somehow got a cold or some sort of sickness. The next two nights, I slept like 11 hours a night, but still couldn’t manage to stay awake past 10:30 or so, despite the abundance of clubs, bars, and partiers. For a little while, I thought I must have malaria or something and would probably die within the week.

I didn’t, of course. The sunburn subsided, I got some bug repellent, I wore proper shoes rather than flip flops for a day and my foot got better, and my sickness, as it almost always does, went away after 2 days. So last night, in Boracay, I was wallowing in my wold-be death bed, the next night, in Roxas, I felt like a million bucks. Or at least a million pesos. The videoke bar didn’t seem to be a bar, it looked more like a restaurant from the outside windows, so I moved on, assuming I must be at the wrong place. I walked down the dark road, seeing some Christmas lights in the distance.

Comically Rich

2009-04-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 1/22/08

I think it's now officially my goal to finish writing about my Philippines trip before I start my next vacation. Writing here is slow going in the winter, when I can't go out to my precious convenience store table to do it. Anyway --

As I walked toward the Christmas lights, I passed a small store with a table out front and some people sitting around it. “Hey, where you go?” One of them shouted at me.

“Is there a bar this way?”

“No man, sit, drink with us.” Sounded like a plan to me. I sat down at the table with the large Filipino dudes, who were eating chicken and drinking beer and rum. The shopkeeper, a woman, brought me a beer. Crispin spoke the most English, and seemed to be the leader of the group.

I sat at the table with these guys, drinking beers and rum, telling stories about Korea and the U.S., while listening to theirs. The only light came from inside the store, a bare bulb. When I (or anybody else) had to piss, it was just a matter of standing up and turning away from the table and pissing in the road. There weren’t any cars coming. 3 or 4 vehicles passed in the time I was there, one old beater car and a couple motorcycles. All of them stopped at the store to shoot the shit. Everyone knew Crispin and the other guys.

We contined knocking down San Miguels. I was invited to their Christmas party, if I were still in town. The next day was Christmas Eve. I considered it, these guys were cool. I imagined that we could probably have crazed rum-fueled adventures the next day, riding motorcycles and shooting guns.

The store closed. I bought a pack of smokes on the way out. My total for the smokes and god knows how many beers - under 4 bucks. I suddenly felt almost embarrassingly/comically rich. I had told the guys about my continuing epic quest to the Taco Bell in Manila. They said they had been there and liked it, but Taco Bell was an extravagance, something they eat once every couple of years. They asked me how much I made in Korea, I lied and cut my wages in half, though they still thought it to be a large sum. It’s not.

We walked to the videoke bar. By this point, it was only me, Crispin, and one other guy who’s name I’ve forgotten. Videoke operates differently from either American-style karaoke or Korean/Japanese style noraebong. Like the American style, there is one machine in the bar, and one has an audience of strangers. However, there’s no showmanship whatsoever. The microphone has a really long cord, and you sit at your table rather than going up on any kind of stage. The microphone is set to such a level that it doesn’t pick up voice unless the voice is loud. Thankfully, none of the awful Korean reverb is involved. I had to try it, and ripped off a little Manilow - Mandy. It just wasn’t the same without going up stage and putting on a show. I cracked jokes between verses, but I think the language barrier prevented them from landing. That, and they were probably awful.

After the other guys did a couple songs, and a couple beers, and striking out with the surprisingly hot waitress, we left, and I made my way back to the finest hotel in town. I had to get up reasonably early the next day as I really wasn’t sure how solid my transit options to Puerta Gallera would be. I hoped it wouldn’t come to hitch hiking. I really didn’t want to follow the first rule of the road.

Van Trip

2009-04-18T10:52:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 1/26/08

I woke up on Christmas Eve with absolutely no idea what time it was. My room in the finest hotel in town lacked windows, so it was pitch black. I fumbled around for my watch. My watch is a fake rolex that I bought in Hong Kong last year, and for being fake has held up surprisingly well. It doesn’t keep the best time, but I set it off my phone each day in Korea. In the Philippines, my phone didn’t work, so my watch never really had the right time, it was just within half an hour or so of being right. That’s pretty much all I needed there. According to my watch, it was 9-ish. Perfect.

I went downstairs to the finest restaurant in town, and was excited to see French toast on the menu. I haven’t had French toast in a million years. It doesn’t exist in Korea. The restaurant had no syrup, but the French toast was brilliant. Good thing, because it would be some time before my next meal.

I had debated staying in Roxas the night before, to go to Crispin’s Christmas party. Well, if I did that, I’d have to stay in Roxas another two nights and leave on the 26th. Leaving on Christmas Day would just be uncouth. Seeing Roxas, by daylight for the first time, was enough to convince me to move on. If I had a month in the Phils, I would have absolutely stayed, but with 10 days and 5 of them burned, I wanted to be back on the beach. Lonely Planet had indicated the city of Calipan was where I needed to go next in order to reach Puerto Gallera.

I asked the hotel desk clerk where to go to catch a bus to Calipan. She told me that there was a van going there, and that I could catch it in front of the hotel. She actually made it sound too hard. I walked out of the hotel’s front door, and a man approached me. “Calipan? Puerto Gallera?”

“Yeah.”

“This van right here.” The van was parked next to the video games that the kids had been playing last night. I asked the man if I had to wait for the van to fill up, as he opened the front door for me to get in. Filipino public transit, in general, does not operate on a schedule, but leaves whenever it is full. The man opened the back door of the van, showing that it was already full. Kick ass. I hopped in the front seat of the van (the most air conditioned seat, at that) and the van left immediately.

As we left Roxas, I saw a sign indicating Calipan was 110 kilometers away. I assumed we would be there in no time, an hour, tops. Then again, my only experience in extended road travel in the kilometer-using world was in Europe, home of the Autobahn and Italian Autostrada on which I’ve cruised along at 180 km/hour. Hell, even Seoul taxi drivers take city streets at 120 km/hr or so on late night trips. Well, this road was no Autobahn, and really not even close to the quality of a Seoul city street. It was the major highway of the Philippines, the Strong Republic Nautical Highway (Goes from Manila to Davao - yeah, like it’s any surprise I know that) and thus easily the best highway on this particular island (Mindoro) by virtue of the fact that it was paved. Anyway, the trip was over 3 hours.

The ride was not boring. We passed through lots of small towns and plenty of countryside. I saw a ton of water buffalo - on farms, on the side of the road, and occasionally pulling a cart of people on the highway. The van would drop people off anywhere on the route they asked, there were no scheduled stops before Calipan. The van would also stop for anybody along the way that wanted to get on as well. The back got pretty crowded from time to time. I was happy to be sitting shotgun.

Jeepney (ie, the last part of the Phillipines story)

2009-04-18T10:48:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 2/8/08

We reached Calipan. I knew that I would have to take a jeepney to Puerto Gallera from there. Jeepneys are based on vintage U.S. army Jeeps, and are essentially a jeep with a long wheelbase, somewhere between a jeep and a bus. Almost all of them are completely tricked out on the inside and the outside, as if designed by a Mexican gangster. The are airbrushed, colorful, and considered a if not the symbol of the Philippines. Jeepneys carry as many people as they can, often with people hanging off the back, and they are not air conditioned. Jeepneys, like the van I was in, run specific routes but have no specific stops, but will let people on and off wherever there is demand to do so.

We reached the Calipan jeepney transfer point, and the van driver told me it was my stop. A number of jeepneys were parked there. One looked pretty full, and it was going to Puerto Gallera, so I chose it. I gave my backpack to a man to tie it to the roof, and then I decided to buy a bottle of water. It was hot, and I was thirsty after my 3 hour trip. There was a snack stand next to my jeepney, so I bought a water there.

Upon receiving my water, I noticed my jeepney had started to roll forward. With my bag on it’s roof. I ran after the jeepney as it slowly gained speed and jumped onto the back bumper, which had a ladder leading to the roof. I held on to the ladder and roof rack and asked a guy who was also hanging on the back of the jeepney if there was a way to climb inside. He said no, the jeepney was too full. And so I hung on to the luggage rack on the roof, standing on the back bumper of the jeepney. We passed a sign, Puerto Gallara - 44 km. This should be interesting.

When I was a kid, my family used to go to Michigan for a week each summer. You could almost consider it “summering.” See, my great grandfather was crazy rich. A millionaire back in the times when that actually meant something. He owned a large estate in Michigan, and though he died decades before I was born, my mom’s family had use of the Michigan property for a week each summer. Every summer until 1990, we went there for a week. It was awesome. The absolute highlight for us kids was the golf cart that we used to tool around the property in. My cousin Adam and I considered ourselves “surfing kings,” due to our amazing prowess at hanging off the back of the golf cart while it was in motion. My cousin Jeff could get the golf cart onto two wheels, and still fail to rattle Adam’s and my brilliant surfing concentration.

I bring this up, of course, because of my innate talent to survive on the back of this jeepney. The word is overused these days (particularly in Omaha) but I did feel there was a certain bit of irony in the fact that skills I had obtained in perhaps the most glaringly patrician aspect of my life later helped my thrive in perhaps the most third world experience of my life.

Back to my original point. And by original, I mean the start of this story a few blogs ago. While on this ride, I saw, possibly for the first time, a chicken crossing the road. I couldn’t help but laugh. The guy hanging next to me looked at me inquisitively. For the first time, strangely. I mean, we passed a lot of water buffalo, and I don’t know what kind of sound water buffalo make, so I mooed at them. The guy hanging next to me thought nothing of my mooing at water buffalo. But, he seemed perplexed by my laughing at the chicken crossing the road. I began to explain it to him, and got a bit too caught up in the joke, and briefly forgot where I was. That is to say, I lost my concentration. So, I almost fell off of the jeepney, which would have been pretty bad from my perspective. Anyway, I got my bearings back and gripped onto the luggage rack with a newfound vigor for the remainder of the time I was hanging there.

And so I hung off the back of the jeepney, for some 42 kilometers. At one point, we reached a mountain pass and the road was no longer paved. At this point, one of the Filipinos hanging with my climbed to the roof of the jeepney, and motioned for me to go up there as well. So, we twisted along a dirt mountain path, passing jungles of palm trees and a surprisingly huge waterfall. I would have taken a picture, but I was already doing my best to impersonate Styles from Teen Wolf, though while seated. We sat on the roof until we reached another paved road, where apparently we had to go back to hanging off the back. However, this didn’t last long, as we soon reached Puerto Gallera.

The last portion of my trip would be a short one. A motorcycle rickshaw ride until we ran out of road, and then a 1 mile or so walk on the beach, to find a hotel. I was pretty sure I would be staying for longer than one night this time. After all, the next day was Christmas, and to leave town on Christmas day would have been uncouth.

The Poker, the Scraper, the Gouger

2009-04-18T10:36:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 3/5/08

After a solid imperial decade-long break, I have returned to the dentist. Actually, I went to the dentist three months ago or so, because my teeth were rotting out and the pain finally became too much to stand. I basically had three states of being - asleep, plastered, or in agonizing pain. Since I’m a teacher, not a pyramid scam participant or a camaraman or a fireworks salesman or a delivery driver (or any other of my many illustrious occupations), a perpetual state of drunkenness at work simply wouldn’t do, thus the agonizing pain portion lasted far too long, upwards of six hours a day. So I went to the dentist, and he discovered two massive cavities (my first!) on the right side of my mouth. One (by far the more painful of the two) was in a wisdom tooth, which was pretty much on the verge of splitting in half. Right away he shot me up with novocain and popped that puppy out. Strange stuff, novocain, and my first experience with that as well. Here I have a tooth so sensitive that it can’t handle lukewarm coffee, and I’m awake and perfectly aware how much my tooth should be hurting, yet it doesn’t as he twists and prods at it with hooks and claws and whatever else. I just had to pay him 9 bucks (gotta love universal health care) and promise not to eat, drink, or smoke for two hours.

I asked about the other tooth, which I knew had severe problems as well, as it was so jagged on the side that I could almost cut my tongue with it. It’s not a wisdom tooth, so yanking it wasn’t an option. He told me I needed a root canal (fuck!) and that we should get started right away, but while treatment is dirt cheap, a wisdom tooth requires a crown that costs $300. That’s for the cheapest crown, and I may want to splurge for at least the second-cheapest crown. I’ve got class, after all. The other tooth, jagged condition that it may be in, didn’t particularly hurt, and paying for a crown at that time would have severely damaged my Philippines budget. Needless to say, when faced with the choice between almost preventative (remember, little to no pain in that tooth) dental care or money to splurge on beach-side rum, you know which way that’s going.

This week, the lack of pain was gone. That is to say, last Friday at work, my tooth caused such a massive level of pain that I honestly thought I was going to throw up. The waves of pain radiating off of this tooth on the right side of my mouth pulsed from my left ear to my shoulder. Sometimes I couldn’t hold my head up. It was unreal. The weekend came and the dentist was closed, but I did manage to keep myself pretty liquored up, so I never ran into anything like Friday afternoon again, but I knew the time had come to return to the dentist. For my root canal. Fuck.

After failing to get an appointment Monday, I went Tuesday. The place is called, hilariously/ironically London Dentist. Fortunately, the dentist speaks pretty much flawless English, much better than other doctors I’ve had here, like my urologist. Er, I mean, chiropractor. At least the chiropractor provides happy endings.

The root canal takes a few sessions to do, but each are amazingly short. In the first, on Tuesday, I started with more novocain, and then he put a sheet over my head with a mouth hole, and got to prodding, scraping, and drilling. Holy hell is it odd to have somebody drilling while conscious. I would have much rather been gassed, but I had to be at work in an hour. So pretty much, I was paralyzed in fear throughout the ordeal, but couldn’t feel a thing. It was all over in 10 minutes, and then I went to work on more drugs than I’ve been on at work since my Kwik Shop days.

The dentist told me that the drugs last 24 hours, so I figured I shouldn’t drink at all on Tuesday night. Strangely, I think I became a bit addicted to the novocain. As it was wearing off late Tuesday night, I couldn’t concentrate on anything for more than a minute or two, I kept touching my face, I ate like 20 mini Dove bars (with the left side teeth) and smoked like 400 cigarettes, yet still had a feeling like something was missing physically, like I was on a transcontinental flight or something. I suppose as long as I can avoid the novocain pushers on every street corner in this town, I’ll be fine there.

I returned to the dentist today. This time, no drugs were needed, he said, and we started right away. There was still really no pain, but basically ten minutes of pure terror. I’m on the chair, and he’s poking and scraping and gouging, and I never know exactly what will happen next, and then I hear what sounds like a welding torch flaming up, followed by a “be very still, this will be hot.” Fortunately, he was just melting something to stick in my teeth rather than actually using a flame thrower on me, but the not knowing and terror is almost worse than anything else. I’d almost prefer the dentist starting the session by punching me in the face. Even if it doesn’t knock me out, at least it would give me something to think about.

Anyway, I go back tomorrow. Hopefully, for the last time, at least for another 10 years.

Bracket Bust (and Daejeon Trip)

2009-04-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 3/16/08

I’ve been writing some form of my bracket takes, via mass email then blog, for a long time now. Every year since 2003, in fact. Prior to that, I lived in Lawrence, so I basically talked to or saw everyone I talked hoops with every single day anyway, so there wasn’t much need for the inter-tubes. This year, it looks like the trend will end. I got nothin. I’ve been away too long, and I can’t even pretend to know what’s
going on in college hoops anymore. I’ll still submit a bracket, of course, but I don’t even know which teams in the Midwest region I should be scared of this year. I’ve seen a total of one game on TV since 2006 - KU-Southern Illinois online last year. I think CBS is running the first 3 rounds online again, so I’ll watch any KU games I can, dependent of course on insane time difference matters and work schedules.

Anyway, since I can’t talk hoops brackets, it’s still March, which is still bracket season. So, I’ll chat about one of my personal brackets - the road trip bracket. Proof, for those of you that needed more, that I’m completely nuts.

I started the road trip bracket in the spring of 1999, while bored in a media sales class. I’d made a list of all my road trips (and plane, boat, and train trips) going back as long as I could remember, which turned out to be the summer of 1984. It turned out that, as of March 1998, I’d been on exactly 64 road trips. The coincidence was not lost on me. I immediately regionalized the trips (pretty obvious there, south, east, west, midwest) and seeded them based on their distance from the point of origin (which was almost always Lawrence) and then faced them off, head to head. Which trip was better, my 1990 trip to San Diego, or my 1996 visit to Washington and Oregon while determining colleges? Finally, there was a reason to decide, as only one could advance to the next round. Anyway, the bracket turned out to be pretty fun, plus it killed like 3 days worth of media sales classes that I may have otherwise been forced to pay attention to. Come March of 2000, I had a couple massive west coast road trips a Euro adventure under my belt, so I couldn’t resist doing another one. Plus, I had a media ethics class that desperately needed some distractions. I’ve done one every year since. Also, for the sake of keeping things fresh, every road trip since the previous March automatically makes the field of 64.

My most recent and most random trip, and the one where I filled out most of the field for this years bracket, was to Daejeon, a city of 1.5 million people in central South (definitely not south central) Korea. I chose Daejeon because a) my whipped, pansy, vaginistic (new word here, meaning one who holds the properties and characteristics of a vagina, no existing word in the English language seemed to fit) buddy Don pussied out of a long-planned trip to Busan, b)Daejeon is pretty close and really easy to get to via bullet train, and c) Daejeon was the host city of Expo ’93, and there was certain to be some awesome white elephant buildings.

I love white elephants, and nobody does them quite like Korea. For example, when Korea co-hosted the World Cup in 2002, they built 10 brand new stadiums for the event. 10, despite the fact that they were only hosting half the games. The U.S., for example, built zero new stadiums for our World Cup, and only hosted games in 8 cities across an enormous continental land mass. Korea is the size of Indiana. 10 brand new stadiums, most holding over 40,000 people. Now, those that are still in use are only used for K-league soccer, which nobody in Korea cares about. So, 4,000 fans in a venue for 60,000. On top of that, Seoul already had an Olympic stadium that was only 14 years old, which you’d think could have been renovated for the World Cup. Instead, it sits on the south side of the river on prime real estate, taking up space, and even more useless than it was since there’s a newer, more state of the art useless stadium across town.

Anyway, Daejeon Expo park kicked ass. It was like an abandoned EPCOT Center. The place is littered with various science pavilions, some that are for some reason still open, most mothballed. It was clearly the focus of the nation in 1993, but now it’s like a scientific county fair, still standing despite the facts that the carnies moved on to the next town a long time ago.

Anyway, so that’s my Daejeon trip. It was also highlighted by the fact that I went to a club with a $10 cover and then free beer but terrible music, so it was a bit of a conundrum to stick it out there for the 11 or so beers I had. All in all, that lands Daejeon as a 16 seed in the East, with absolutely no chance for advancement to the next round. As for basketball, I pick Kansas to go all the way, beating UNC and UCLA in the Final 4. Revenge is sweet. Rock Chalk.

Singapore

2009-04-17T23:22:00.000-07:00

originally posted 3/26/08

Various random notes on my recent (though not that recent, I started this a while ago) Singapore trip...

Singapore Air is fucking awesome. My new favorite airline, with a bullet. Arrested Development, the Office, Ali G, Corner Gas, Scrubs, other cool shit like that, all on demand. Plus, Mario 1. My flight to Singapore was 6 hours long, I was on less than 4 hours sleep, and I lucked out with a row to myself, yet I didn’t nap at all, because there was simply too much TV to watch. I’d honestly consider flying Singapore Air to some random city for no good reason and returning the same day, just because the entertainment is that good.

I checked into my hostel (yeah, sucks to stay in hostel when you’re damn near 30, but hotels in Singapore are really expensive, and there’s no dirt-cheap hotels in the center of town like in Hong Kong) and tried to nap, but it was too fucking hot, as the hostel only runs the AC at night. Hippies. I woke up at around the time of the hostel’s neighborhood (Little India) walking tour, but it wasn’t being run do to lack of interest. The woman at the desk did tell me that I could go into the common room to find Rachel, and that this Rachel wanted to go to the restaurant that the walking tour had planned. The Rachel turned out to be quite cute. The notion of me, on no sleep and completely sober, walking up to this attractive girl I didn’t know and asking her to dinner was beyond preposterous. The woman at the desk may have well suggested that I charm a snake or somehow transform into a seal, as these would be more likely scenarios.

I ended up eating alone at an Indian restaurant. This was something quite different for me. By Indian restaurant, I mean straight up Indian restaurant. Up until this point, my experience with Indian restaurants had been India Palace in Lawrence, and high-end Indian restaurants in New York, Chicago, and London. This was definitely my first time in an Indian restaurant where I was the only person there who was not Indian. I ordered a chicken tandori (seemed accessible enough) and was served a strange looking plate where I recognized a total of two of the 9 or so things on it - 1) chicken, and 2) rice. I am sure I ate it completely wrong, utensil-wise, but after asking the waiter for tips on how i should go about eating this assortment, it turned out to be awesome.

I moved on to the ultimate in Singapore tourist douchebaggery - going to the Raffles Hotel for a Singapore Sling. In my Asian travels, I’ve discovered that I rather like heading to the most expensive hotel in town and having a drink that costs more than my shabby nightly accommodation. I’ve done it in Hong Kong, Manila, Jeju and now Singapore. I thought about doing it in Daejeon a couple weeks ago, but the $35 a night Rodeo Motel where I stayed may well have been the finest hotel in town, so that wouldn’t be too exciting. Anyway, in Singapore, it turned out not to be very fun, since every out of towner seems to go to the Raffles for a Sling, so the place was chock full of riff-raff like me. A bar full of Marla Singer-type (though, sadly, not Helena Bonham Carter-type) fakers made me feel like the fraud that I was.

The next day, I hit Singapore pretty hard. I was all over town, and found, amongst other things, extreme rarities in Asia, including an Orange Julius stand and a Borders. I live in a country where most bookstores English sections range from Grisham to Clancy. A three-floor all-English Borders was almost beyond my comprehension, I think I almost fainted. Don’t worry, I wasn’t just looking for American shit, I also ate some killer Chinese food and went to the surprisingly awesome Singapore Art Museum. But oh, the Borders...

At night, I went to Singapore’s famed Night Safari on a trip from the Hostel, with some fellow hostelers. After people got split up, as people in a large group tend to do, I ended up with a tall Aussie dude, an old chick, and Rachel, The Rachel from the previous night. I was immediately interested in talking to her, and of course went into tank mode as only I can. We started by seeing the animal show, and others were speculating what might be in the show. I quipped that maybe it would be a tiger fighting a monkey with a knife. That one, well, didn’t land. Later, we passed the leopard enclosure, and I noticed that the non-scientific name of the animal was simply “leopard.” Here, my winning joke was, “why isn’t it, say, a northern reticulated leopard or a Sri Lankan leopard rather than just plain leopard?” There may have been a polite guffaw to this one, from the old chick. And that, right there kids, is why somebody as devastatingly handsome as myself has such a large degree of knowledge in the field of internet porn.

Later on, after I’d given up any attempt at humor (which pretty much means any attempt at conversation), Rachel asked the three of us if we had ever been to a specific temple on the outskirts of Bangkok. That’s the other funny thing about Singapore. It’s amazingly accessible, you can fly there from anywhere, the public transit is easy, the food and the weather are always agreeable, it’s clean, and everyone speaks English. It seems like the perfect place to start an Asian trip, soft-landing wise. Yet, nobody starts out in Singapore. Every single western person I talked to had already been to several other Asian countries. Rachel automatically assumed that the tall Aussie, the old chick, and I had already been to Bangkok, and it turned out that all three of us had. I’d venture to guess that 89% or so of all westerners that come to Asia for the first time land in Tokyo, Seoul, Bangkok, or Beijing. Maybe more.

I had one other mildly interesting Singapore adventure, but I’ve gone on long enough today. I know I need to work on shortening these here blogs.

Korean Wedding

2009-04-17T23:11:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 3/30/08

At pretty much every wedding, the hall is filled with people with varying degrees of interest in the proceedings. For the bride, her parents, and sometimes the groom, it’s the most important day of their lives. For others, like close friends, enemies, rivals, and relatives of the couple, it still stands as a pretty substantial day. Of course, every wedding also includes a select few that aren’t remotely involved or interested, and may go so far as to crack jokes non-stop throughout the ceremony , treating it as a live-action Mystery Science Theater experience. I was proud to be firmly in the latter camp on Saturday afternoon.

What the hell was I doing at a wedding in Korea, you may be asking yourself? A female Korean co-worker of mine that I’m not all that close with was getting married, so several of the other teachers were going. More importantly, I was there to see what a Korean wedding is all about, for the benefit of you, the reader. I expected to see ridiculous Korean hilarity, and I was not disappointed.

First off, this (pic omitted) isn't the wedding I was attending. This is some random wedding party, 15 minutes before Ji Eun's (the co-worker) was to start. Korean weddings don't occur at churches or outdoors or anywhere mildly unique. From what I understand, they all take place in wedding halls, almost a Vegas-style wedding factory, though less classy. There aren't any bridesmaids or groomsmen, and the bride and groom rent the dress and tux straight from the hall.

Anyway, on to the proceedings. Our group took a picture with the bride before the wedding. Clearly no superstition here about the bride being out and about before the ceremony. That, and she’s burning valuable dress rental time, so why not do the pictures while the previous wedding party is still present in the hall?

We entered the hall to take out seats. The hall had a large, though poor video projection screen of the alter, and a small orchestra sat in the front off to the side, though I don’t think they actually played anything, all the music seemed to be piped in. Shortly befere the groom entered, two hot chicks dressed like stewardesses stood opposite one another halfway down the aisle. The were both carrying swords. By the way, if I get married, there will absolutely be weapon-brandishing stewardesses involved.

The stewardesses raised their swords in the air, and the lights dimmed as extremely cheesy light effects darted around the walls, and the brief introduction of a techno song played. Ladies and gentlemen, YOUR 1996 New York Islanders! Never mind, it’s just the groom. The stewardesses formed the swords into a bridge, and the groom walked under it, alone, and stood at the alter alone, with the priest or whatever the hell he was standing behind the sizable alter. Then the bride did the same thing. They stood together, and then, I shit you not, a smoke machine under the alter started up for a few seconds, but I didn't get the picture in time.

After what felt like hours due to the poor PA system, the fact that everything was in Korean, and the fact that the hall was probably about 147 degrees and I was in a suit, the bride and groom moved over to an area to the side with cake and champagne. They poured the champagne and huzzah! Another smoke machine! They also cut the cake, but did not feed it too each other. In fact, I never saw that cake again, it wasn't at the reception. After taking two champagne glasses, they returned to the alter and did a "love shot," drinking through locked arms. Then, they bowed to the "priest" and to the crowd, and it was over! No kiss, which is unusual, even in a Korean wedding.

More loud piped in music was played, and the bride and groom walked up the aisle as the stewardesses shot confetti at them out of trumpets. That is not a sentence I ever imagined writing. There were some pictures to deal with before moving on to the reception. Sadly, I was in the best one, thus couldn't take it. In the picture with the co-workers was when the photographer finally had the couple kiss. This was almost indescribable. The level of passion was somewhere between kissing an aunt and kissing a dog. Next,the bride threw the bouquet, but to a pre-arranged recipient standing alone about a foot behind her.

We adjourned to the "reception." I'd heard Korean wedding receptions were bad, though I was still surprised at how bad it really was. The reception was a buffet upstairs from the ceremony hall, and quite crowded since other wedding parties were there too.
The room had all the charm of a Korean department store's food court. There was no toast, no dancing, no music, no bridal table, no entertainment of any form. Just buffet food that people ate as fast as possible at tables with the people they came to the wedding with, no mingling of any kind. The bride and groom walked around the tables, now dressed formal but no longer in their rented wedding attire. By 4 p.m., two thirds of the guests had left. The ceremony had begun at 3 p.m. My group were late stragglers, we stayed until the bitter end, 5 p.m. I threw down two beers, but really didn't even feel like drinking them. None of my other co-workers had any. No reason to really, since there were no bridesmaids to hit on, no dancing, no reason to even be there, really.

None of these aspects, by the way, are remotely unique to Ji-eun. She didn't go out to host a shit wedding, she went out to host a wedding that, from what I hear, is exactly the same as every other wedding here. Still, it was unquestionably the lamest wedding I've ever been to. My buddy Jon is having one here in Korea in a few months, and I expect better. I certainly don't want to get home from a wedding at 5:30 in the afternoon, sober as a clergyman. If I'm putting on the suit, I at least expect to be entertained until it's late enough to go to the bar.

Sparkle Sparkle

2009-04-17T23:09:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 5/8/08

For those of you who don’t know (likely most anybody reading this), the tourism marketing slogan for Korea has been “Korea: Sparkling,” for the last year or so. Presumably, like so many local Asian T-shirts, the actual meaning of this slogan has been lost on its makers, and left as a source of endless ridicule and comedy amongst the English-as-a-first-language crowd. Sparkling, of course, has two potential meanings: shiny and glittery in some way, or amazingly clean. Korea is many things, but shiny or clean are not amongst them. This is a country that doesn’t think to put trash cans anywhere, with the logical end result of litter everywhere. And shiny? Josef Stalin would consider 99.99% of the buildings here a bit too drab for his tastes. “Korea: Sparkling” makes about as much sense as “New York City: Humble” or “Nebraska: Interesting.” I was amazed that they somehow found an even worse slogan than their previous one, “Dynamic Korea,” which of course was hilarious due to the fact that this is probably the second most homogenous country in the world, outpaced only by North Korea.

As you can see, I’ve been a bit down on the Dynamic Sparkle lately. Sometimes, listening to my idiot students parroting their idiot parents’ views on American beef (a HUGE hot button issue here right now, causing mass protests) that they heard from the idiot Korean media just gets old. Under these circumstances, I headed off to my weekend vacation in Gwangju, a small town of a million people in the southwest part of the peninsula.

I took in a baseball game (Kia verses Lotte!) when I arrived, and have a separate blog coming on that. I got myself a killer love motel in the heart of downtown Gwangju, with countless bars and restaurants within 10 minutes walking time, plus a computer and high speed internet in the room for $30 a night. I went to Wolchlsan national park the next day for one of my rare and poorly thought out mountain climbing adventures, though again, I’ll have a separate blog there too.

The next day, my final in Gwangju, I headed to the May 18 cemetery. On May 18, 1980, South Korea was still a military dictatorship. In Gwangju, there was a massive student uprising protesting an escalation in martial law. The students and citizens of Gwangju actually succeeded in taking control of the city - for a few days - until the army rolled in with tanks and planes and killed a whole bunch of mostly unarmed people. It’s an amazingly moving story and one I plan to research more, and the cemetery is, as expected, heartbreaking. Each grave has a picture of the person buried within next to it.

The cemetery is quite far from central Gwangju. I had a bus home to catch at 5:10 p.m., and at four I started meandering around the parking lot, looking for a taxi. There were none. I eventually went to the small store to ask the man there where to find a taxi. He pointed to a phone number on his desk. I called the taxi company and asked for a taxi, though that’s as far as I could go Korean conversation, I handed my phone to the shopkeeper, and he spoke to the taxi company. He told me (in Korean, he didn’t speak a word of English either) that they would call back. When they called back, I tried to speak with the taxi company, but I’m still pretty worthless on the phone when it comes to speaking Korean unless I’m ordering food. I handed my phone to the shopkeeper again, he chatted with them, and then told me that a taxi will arrive in 15 minutes. Twenty minutes passed. It was now 4:30. My phone rang again. Again, I gave my phone to the shopkeeper (I’d been hanging out at a picnic table next to the store) and he told me it would be another 7 minutes. I showed the shopkeeper my bus ticket to illustrate the gravity of my situation, and he pishawed my concern, saying that the taxi driver will drive fast.

At 4:38 or so, the taxi arrived. The shopkeeper came out of his store and told the taxi driver about my bus. I got in the taxi, and the driver argued with the shopkeeper for a minute, again in Korean that I didn’t understand, but clearly the taxi driver was saying that getting to the bus station on time was impossible. Finally, the shopkeeper just said “go! go!” (in Korean, of course). We were off. The taxi driver immediately pulled off onto a one-lane (and I mean one lane) farm road, cruising at 70 miles per hour on a road intended for 20 mph traffic. I knew then, whether we made it or not, I’d be tipping this guy. Tipping, by the way, is basically unheard of and even refused here, even amongst cabbies and bartenders.

I thought we were in good shape, until we left the farm road and hit city traffic. Fortunately, this driver’s moves had moves. He would turn on his hazards and drive in the shoulder, he changed lanes 4 or 5 times in a single block to get around busses, and, for a finale, made a daring but perfectly executed left turn on a red light through oncoming traffic. Ordinarily, I would fear for my life in such a situation, but this was 20 minutes into the ride, and by this time I had total faith in his driving ability. We got to the bus station at 5:04. I even had time for a smoke before the four hour (in theory) bus ride. As the bus left Gwangju Terminal, my faith in the Dynamic Sparkle had been renewed, in no small part because of two total strangers that didn’t speak a word of English between them, who went out of their way to help a random foreign idiot that speaks far too little Korean.

(Small Market) Korean Baseball

2009-04-17T22:57:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 5/16/08

My first Korea baseball game, was the LG (Seoul) Twins vs, the Kia (Gwangju) Tigers. My buddy Don was cheering for LG full force, but I ultimately ended up rooting for Kia for a couple reasons. As a Royals/Cubs fan, I’m saddled with plenty of baseball ineptitude, and Don tried to sell me on LG because the are the “Cubs of the K-League,” ie, they never win it all. Kia, on the other hand, was the powerhouse of Korean baseball, and also murdered LG in that game. Given that I have enough baseball heartbreak in real life, I decided that my superficial alliance with a Korean team may as well lie with a winner. Add to the fact that LG Twins gear looked exactly like Minnesota Twins gear, thus I could never buy a hat or shirt of theirs, and the fact that Kia’s cheerleaders (yes, that’s right, Korean baseball has cheerleaders) were far hotter than LG’s, I threw my lot in with Kia.

Fast forward a year, and of course, my casual fanship of Kia completely ruined the club. They ended up in last place in last year’s standings, and are now in last place by a mile only six weeks into the season. It seems all a team needs to be awful is my fanship and Jose Lima. Anyway, when I went to Gwangju, I had to attend a home game of my adopted shitty team. Little did I know, I was also to experience Korean small market baseball.

Though Gwangju would be the 9th or 10th largest city in the US with its 1 million plus people, it has basically no suburbs, thus no surrounding market. Also, Given that the greater Seoul metro area has 23 million of South Korea’s 48 million people, pretty much everywhere that’s not Seoul metro is small-market . I’d been to a few games at Seoul’s Jamsil (that’s pronounced jahm-shil) stadium, and laughed at the normal priced Burger Kings and convenience stores. Gwangju’s stadium, however, was the size of a spring training facility. There were no Burger Kings or stores, there were like three tiny concession stands in the whole park.

Nor were there any assigned seats. Open Seating means it's kosher to sit on the stairs of the better sections. The whole stadium, other than the expensive seats behind home plate (11 bucks. Fuck that!) was completely open, first come-first serve. Attending the game alone actually gave me a tremendous advantage in that regard, as it was easy to find a single great seat 10 minutes before the game started.

The game had its hilarious points, as Korean basball games tend to have. At one point, a Kia player slid into home, when he obviously should have stopped at 3rd, yet he was called safe, despite being out by a mile. Kia also twice opted to bunt in a nobody on - two out situation. Luckily, both bunts were fouls, but had they been fair, they would have been easy outs and cost Kia the game.

Speaking of cost Kia the game, we (and I use that term loosely) were up 4-0 in the top of the 8th. Kia’s pitcher, Yoon Sak Min, had pitched a beaut, but was clearly out of gas. I though we were lucky to get out of the 7th unscathed, but YSM threw some of his best shit on the last out. Clearly, he was struggling though, and it was time to go to the bullpen. Kia didn’t go to the bullpen. YSM came out to start the 8th, and threw nothing but balls and hits. He loaded the bases, then allowed two runs, with runners at the corners and a 4-2 lead with only 1 out. Throughout this entire time, the male “yell leader” kept inventing new Yoo Sak Min chants, and the crowd kept going along with it. I knew YSM was done, and I’m convinced that if this were an MLB game, the fans wouldn’t blindly following the yell leader, but rather screaming for the bullpen. If this were the MLB, Yoon Sak Min would have surely given up the winning run. This being the K -League, Lotte completely choked away their chance and hit into a double play.

This game also included two other hilarious situations. In one, during the 6th inning stretch or so, (no 7th only inning stretch, of course, but breaks in other innings, and the players literally come on the field and stretch). The other: Lima Time! That’s right, Jose Lima has landed in the Korean League, and on my beloved Kia Tigers no less. And he’s not starting. Still, he seems like a cool cat. He came out of the dugout several times, during warmups and during the game, and seemed to acknowledge every foreigner there chanting “Lima Time!” He also came out and tossed baseballs to fans several times.

Walking Uphill

2009-04-17T22:56:00.001-07:00

originally posted on 5/19/08

I’m not really one for hiking on mountains (or, as I call it, walking uphill), but I had to hit up Wolchlsan, in the southern portion of the peninsula. Mainly, because there’s a kickass suspention bridge two thirds of the way up.

Did I go on to the top? Of course not, it was pouring down rain at this point. Fortunately, I remembered my package of banana chips with a ziplock-type seal on it. I threw away all the chips, and put my camera, phone, and ipod into the bag. About $700 worth of quick thinking there, as I discovered there was standing water in my up-until-now waterproof backpack. My Lonely Planet was warped beyond recognition, but my cam, pod, and phone (aka, my whole life, pretty much) were safe. I headed back to my awesome love hotel and hopped in the coolest looking shower I’ve ever seen.

Beach

2009-04-17T22:45:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 5/26/08

On my second consecutive 3 day weekend, I headed to the beach. Korea’s east coast (on the East Sea, or as you may know it, the Sea of Japan) is supposed have some of the most beautiful beaches in the 4 distinct-season enjoying world. At least according to Korea, which also calls its Jeju island (on the same latitude as Oklahoma) “The Hawaii of Korea.” Both claims, of course, are false.

The trip got off to a rocky start. The internets had told me I could catch a bus at 2:20 from a bus station a few miles from my house, but only after buying the ticket did I discover the bus left at 4:20 (dude), so I had 2 hours to kill in the dullest neighborhood in Seoul. The bus was supposed to take 4 hours, but ended up taking 6 due to shitty traffic. I got to Sokcho (the coastal town that would be my home for what turned out to be 36 hours) at 10 p.m.

Due to the late hour of my arrival and the holiday weekend, hotels were charging way more than normal. One, that looked decent, wanted just under one million dollars per night. I checked out a number of love hotels, my bread and butter in Korean travel, as they invariably charge $30 a night. After all, my awesome love hotel in the heart of downtown Gwangju on last week’s holiday weekend was, as always, $30. Annoyingly, every love hotel I went to wanted at least $70 a night, just ridiculous highway robbery. I honestly thought about catching bus back to Seoul, at this time, there wouldn’t be any traffic. Still, I’d come all this way, and I’d always wanted to come to Sokcho, so I did the only thing that made sense. I went back to the expensive hotel. If I was going to get ripped off, I was going to do it in style. When I returned, the price for a night was now $20 more expensive than before. I haggled a bit, and got 2 nights for just over one million dollars complete with a balcony and ocean view. Easily the most I’ve spent on a two-night stay in Korea, and almost certainly anywhere. I had some money in my US account from Christmas and my birthday as well, and I figured this would be the only hotel in town to take US plastic.

The next day, I headed off to Seorksan, one of Korea’s largest national parks. Seoraksan is a mountain range only a couple miles inland from the coast, so the views were pretty stunning. In no mood to repeat last week’s walking uphill challenges, I took the cable car most of the way up one of the peaks. My buddy Don is anti-cable car, saying there’s no challenge in it. Of course, this is a reason I’m pro cable-car. Plus, had I walked to the cable car’s altitudal (a perfectly cromulent word) terminus, it would have been hours of walking uphill with zero views, just trees. The cable car, on the other hand, offers brilliant views and dropped me just below the tree line, right in time for the actual fun part of mountain climbing - the climbing part. The part where I could actually use my hands to negotiate bare rock, with a clear 270 degree view around me the whole time. Plus, instead of running on fumes during the best part of the hike, I was fully rested.

When I got to the top of the mountain, there was one other dude up there - a whitey. We did the head-nod thing, and then I went to the other part of the peak, to sit alone and enjoy the silence. Of course, this lasted about 5 minutes, when a group of loud Koreans invariably arrived, punctuated by this girl’s phone loudly blaring Korean pop for at least a minute before she got around to answering it.

I went out to the beach. It’s what I went to Sokcho to do, which was good, because there’s nothing else to do at night anyway (downtown Sokcho was beyond dead). I met three Korean girls within 10 seconds of getting to the beach. None spoke particularly good English, and you know about my Korean, yet it was reasonably fun. One of them (the hot one) seemed to dig me. I bought us all some soju. There were toasts, and the hot one kept sort of hugging up on me, and things were going swimmingly. Then, all of the sudden, she said that I had to go. She and her friends were leaving as well (though not with me) but she was insistent that I go home as well. Kicked off of a public beach. Korean girls don’t make a lick of sense, even beyond the language barrier. I got her number (she lives in the Seoul burbs, almost 2 hours by subway from me) and, about 57 times, she made me promise to call her. I won’t, of course, because she lives too fucking far away, but she was hot.

Throughout this weekend, I was reading “The Catcher in the Rye,” for the forth time or so. I hadn’t planned to, but because my original bus fiasco took so long, I ended up finishing the other book I was reading, Catcher was my backup, as it is small and easy to pack (and carry around, for that matter). Anyway, Sokcho beach has all these benches on it, and I sat in one to read before my bus home. Unfortunately, I sat a little too far to the right, as before I knew it, this cheesedick whitey and his girlfriend sat on my bench. The fuck? Find your own bench, buddy. And given that he was actually wearing one of those Izod/Lacoste alligator polo shirts (the kind I used to wear when they were cool, and I was 7) it was clear that the phonies were indeed coming in through the window.

I can truly say, not sarcastically, that the highlight of the trip was the bus ride home. I was glad I didn’t take the midnight bus that I considered on the first night though. The bus ride home really was sweeping, along two lane roads through pristine mountains. Easily the most beautiful countryside I’ve seen in years. Northern California beautiful. Now, I’m honestly considering coming back to Sokcho, lame as it may be, in October just for the sake of seeing that road when the leaves change.

Olympics: Good

2009-04-17T22:44:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 8/10/08

I love the Beijing Olympics so far, despite the fact that they kept me from visiting Beijing. I love seeing the events live, which I haven’t in forever. The Korean announcers kick ass. Every local announcer is biased, but the Korean announcers cheer and celebrate openly on air like a high school broadcasting team. It’s awesome. Imagine Bob Costas cheering out loud at a US win - that’s pretty much Korean Olympic coverage. Best of all, since I don’t speak fluent Korean, I can’t understand what the announcers are saying when they are giving the tragic back-story of each athlete. That definitely rules. Plus, I watched something like an hour and a half worth of live Olympic coverage this afternoon (fencing, women’s weightlifting, judo, some sort of unidentifiable indoor soccer-lacrosse hybrid, and other events) with exactly zero commercials.

So, you don’t follow me? You want more awesomeness to Beijing 2008? How about this - a US basketball team that should goddamn win the gold (and our first likable team that I bothered to cheer for an follow since 1996). I also love the Olympics being in Beijing (this year, at least.) It’s been since the Olympics were in this fair city (Seoul) that we’ve had such a fitting “Evil Empire” Olympic rival as China. Over the last 20 years, the Olympics have been sorely missing the USSR and the East German “women’s” team. After watching women’s weightlifting today, it’s good to see China bringing it back.

For the record, regarding team sports, I’m pro-USA basketball, but I’m cheering for Korea in baseball. The US team is only AA players or lower, and I’ve not heard of a single one. On the other hand, 2 of Korea’s starting pitchers come from my beloved Kia Tigers. In soccer, as always, I’m pro-Italy (who Korea starts against) though I hope Korea does well for the party in the streets factor. Plus, it would be nice to see Koreans take to the streets for purposes other than protesting beef or because of a couple of uninhabitable rocks in the middle of nowhere.

Leavin Town

2009-04-17T22:43:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 8/21/08

I’m off again. Back on the road. I know it seems it’s all I ever do, but I’m still pretty excited about this trip. First, I’m going back to the BKK, then jetting off to Malaysia for 5 days as well. Flights to Bangkok were amazingly cheap last minute (don’t get me wrong, any air ticket out of Korea is a huge rip-off, but one must pay a huge premium to leave this Indiana-sized country. Then again, a drink at an airport bar is a huge rip-off as well, but I pay it, as boarding a flight sober is about almost as unpalatable as spending a week’s vacation at home) and I found an actual cheap flight from BKK to Malaysia. I had more written about this, but it was lame and dull so I cut it. Anyway, it’s my 8th and maybe final (for a while) international Asian trip, and also my most ambitious with two countries involved. This will either be a warm-up for a potential mega Southeast Asian run this winter, or a grand finale of sorts. Either way, I plan to do it up, and thus finally have something to write about.

7 or 8 Near Deaths in Southest Asia (1 of 2)

2009-04-17T22:41:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 9/11/08

I’m a little late in putting this up - been spending far too much time on searching the internets for election-related stories, and of course fantasy football. Since this is a “sports” blog, i really should write about my fantasy draft, though sadly I was unable to attend as I was somewhere in Southeast Asia when it occurred. Of course, this resulted in me scoring my best opening game in years, and all my players did well except for the free agents that I had a roll in acquiring.

I’ve tried to write this blog a couple times already, but I kept getting interrupted by random buddies showing up at the convenience store table where I wrote and wanting to booze. Today, I’m ready to go, as I’ve found a new fortress of solitude in which to hammer this thing out - at a different convenience store table, of course. Anyway, I’ll try to throw down all my trip stories in one blog, so that I can write on more topical things - like the election and fantasy football - next week. I’ll put the stories on the top, but if you are not inclined to read them, you can scroll down to the disjointed pictures in the latter half. But you shouldn’t.

I flew to Bangkok on a Saturday night, and got loosened up for the trip by a terrifying dive that my 767 took somewhere south of Taiwan. Even the stewardesses seemed a bit rattled. Not good times. I had just ordered a gin and tonic, and it had just been delivered when the plane dropped - as did the G and T, in one gulp - and I was sober at the time. I did as well as I could for the remainder of the flight to not be. Fortunately, on the flight a couple days later on an Air Asia flight to Malaysia - on a ghetto, old, clearly second-hand 737 (the signs inside the plane were in Spanish for fuck’s sake), there were no such incidents.

After going boozing my first night, I did what I came to do in Bangkok - ate tons of Thai food, bought some cheap clothes and a Malaysia Lonely Planet, and hung out on Khoa San. In doing this, I somehow lost my camera. Apparently, cameras are the new sunglasses for me. I bought my fourth camera since arriving in Asia, fifth if you count the at-the-time high end cell phone that I brought here with me from the states and lost in the spring of 2007. Worst of all, when losing or breaking all five cameras, I was as sober as a Republican when the cameras were on. I haven’t been losing my cameras because I’m a miserable drunk - that I could accept - I’ve been losing them because I’m an idiot. True story - the day after I lost my last camera (earlier this summer), I somehow lost a pack of smokes that I bought at a store that’s next to my building. Only I could lose something when a) I didn’t stop anywhere to lose it, and b) I was walking 30 feet, tops. And no, I didn’t leave them at the store, I checked.

Anyway, after buying my new camera in Georgetown, the main city on Penang Island in Malaysia, I decided I had no reason to stick around in town, and hopped on a non-air conditioned bus to the beach. Despite no AC, the bus was fairly awesome, since it cost like 60 cents to ride to the other side of the island and you could smoke on it. I didn’t, but just knowing I could was cool enough for me. I settled into my hotel, and after a couple nights of hostels and clubs and drinking an aptly-named “bucket” and shady Bangkok taxi drivers and airports and haggling for cameras and horrific in-flight dives and un-air conditioned busses, I finally felt like I was on vacation. My hotel was nowhere near 5 star, but it was perfect. AC, cable, fridge, and right on the beach. In that, I mean that to leave my room and it’s sweet deck, I had to walk through the sand to get to the road. I ate dinner at a beach bar, went to sleep at like 11 p.m. and woke up at 10. Vacation.

I spent my first day on the beach pretty much doing nothing, the farthest I went from my hotel was wherever I cruised out to on a jet ski. The next day, I rented a scooter, which I then proceeded to crash. Twice. It turns out that simply driving one in Grand Theft Auto doesn’t make me particularly qualified to drive one in real life. In my defense, the roads were really twisty, plus people drive on the wrong side of the road there, so it wasn’t like tooling across Iowa. After my first crash (a very minor one about 30 seconds after I got the scooter, that required me to pay some guy $7 for cracking his rear light) I practiced a bit, then headed to the national park to hike through the jungle. Unlike a Korean national park, there weren’t a million people everywhere. I was out hiking 3 hours and saw a total of 4 people. I found a secluded beach, and saw a freaking monitor lizard along with the ubiquitous monkeys.

Malaysia seemed to be quite advanced country - much cleaner than Korea (but so is LA) and much better organized infrastructure-wise than, say, Thailand. Still, there’s lots of fun stuff that you could never get away with back home other than smoking on busses. When I returned my twice-crashed scooter to the internet cafe guy that rented them (the second time I knocked both mirrors off and shattered one, but had it fixed up at a nearby bike shop for 8 or 9 bucks) the guy didn’t even look at the scooter. He just said, “Oh good, you’re back in one piece,” and gave me my deposit back no questions asked. Later that day, after drinking a bunch of Thai whiskey on my deck, I decided it would be a good idea to go jet skiing again. There was no deposit, no paperwork, nothing, I just haggled with the guy then paid him. Jet skiing is fun, but jet skiing while drunk is unbelievable. For some reason, I started loudly singing Doors songs and had a couple unspoken races with this Saudi couple (the dude driving of course, and the woman in full burka. On a jet ski.). Being that there were two Saudis, likely sober, and only one of me, I won the races pretty easily.

On my last day in Malaysia, I hired a taxi to go sightseeing around Penang before moving on to the airport. It was very cool, but I won’t bore you with most of it, I’ll mention the snake temple. It had a snake farm, which turned out to be pretty boring, just a bunch of smaller snakes in 10 gallon aquariums, like the reptile house at any zoo. I saw a large cage in the center with 2 enormous snakes in it, but the snakes didn’t move at all. There was a mouse in there, running all over the snakes’ heads, and I kept waiting for them to eat the mouse, but they didn’t move at all. I mean, even for snakes, they were totally still. I assumed that they must be rubber fakes, so I touched the tail of one of them, and it moved it’s tail. Okay, fair enough, they are real. Then, I noticed the sign on the cage indicating what they were. King cobras. Oops.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Malaysian food. It doesn’t get much press, and I’d never eaten Malaysian food other than once in Hong Kong. I loved it in HK, but it was also my main HK going-out night out when I had it, and I probably would have enjoyed microwaved tree bark at the time. It turned out my drunken Hong Kong taste buds were right - Malaysian food is the best. I cannot understand why there isn’t a Malaysian restaurant on every corner. It’s Asia, so it’s all rice and noodle based, and it’s something of a mix of Thai, Indian, Chinese, and Arabic. Had there been a Taco Bell on Penang, I doubt I would have gone. On the other hand, I love me some Thai food, but had there been a Bell in Bangkok, I totally would have gone. In fact, there was a Mexican place down the street from my Bangkok hostel, and I did go, and it wasn’t even the Bell.

Anyway, so much for this one-blog idea. I’ll post part 2 in a couple days, with more pictures

Jae Hak's Summer Vacation part 2 - Bangkok

2009-04-17T22:39:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 9/16/08

I returned to Bangkok. When I left Bangkok a few days before for Malaysia, I was road weary, sans camera, and a little hungover. Upon landing and having a shocking 3rd easy run through what I had thought was a horrible airport, I was ready to rock. I returned to the same hostel (I knew I wasn’t going to need a comfortable or even private place to stay after 5 days of being rejuvenated on the beach, just somewhere to pass out) and immediately made friends with some random people. After having a couple beers with them at the hostel, I headed off to nearby Patpong. Bangkok has a curfew, all the bars are theoretically supposed to close at midnight or 1, and when I stayed on Khoa San last year, that was very much the case with most every bar. Soi Patpong seemed to survive in a bubble where no such laws applied. Even convenience stores in Bangkok stop selling beer at midnight, but on Patpong, make-shift stands with ice buckets sell beer on the street at 7-11 prices until, well, fortunately I never had to find out, they were always around when I needed them.

Patpong is most famous for two things - its night market, and ping pong shows, which creates an insane and surreal mix of sex tourists (easy enough to spot, as they all tend to be the cliche you would expect - middle-age to old German guys with mustaches) and families. At little road side food stalls, at one table will be a family of Australians or something, mom, dad, 2 little kids, on vacation and going shopping. At the next table will be a 57 year old German guy with a Thai whore too young to be his daughter. Plus, the street has tons of bars and clubs filled elbow-to-tit with late night Khoa San backpacker refugees and drunken English teachers such as myself. It’s awesome.

While sitting at a bar that proved to be my Patpong home, an outdoor bar adjacent to a large open-air club (but with breathing room and cheaper beer) I watched the whores hanging out just outside the bar. Apparently, like vampires, they cannot enter the bar area, despite the bar’s open-air nature, unless they are invited in. I noticed one, who was a total knockout, get invited to one or two tables, then quickly jettisoned to orbit around the bar once more. I began to wonder why, as a couple random 57 year old Germans with mustaches were sitting next to much uglier and whorier whores. When I went to the pisser, I walked to her orbit and asked her why she kept getting expelled. “I don’t know.” she said, in Barry White’s voice. Ah. Good thing I’m not in the market for “her” services. I can usually spot a ladyboy/drag queen at 50 paces, but “she” had me tricked. At least after 97 beers.
A bartender at my home bar took me to a ping-pong show after another beer. I’d always wanted to see one, but nothing could prepare me for how awful it actually was. The bartender told me it was the best one on Patpong. I wouldn’t want to see the worst. Ugly, overweight (Asian!?) girls who seemed really bored and begged me for money every three seconds like it was a Greyhound bus terminal. I left after 5 minutes, and I only spent that long to drink my 750 ml beer that I paid 9 bucks for (an outrageous price for a beer in Thailand under any circumstances).

I went to a lame normal club, and entered junior high. The girls in the club (all of them western tourists) were on the dance floor, and all of the dudes at the club (again, all western tourists) were sitting at tables. I went to the pisser, which had a bathroom attendant, whom I laughed at when he asked for a tip. I fucking hate bathroom attendants. I am much more likely to give money to a panhandler than a bathroom attendant. Get a job, or do something respectable, like panhandling. I went back to the junior high gym. Nothing had changed. I sat down at my table. A girl beckoned me onto the dance floor. She was not cute. If I had to choose between going home with her or the ladyboy I ran into before, at gunpoint, would be a tough call. Fortunately, I had no such dilemma. I could go to one of the cheap roadside beer vendors, and go home alone, which seemed the thing to do at the time.

I drank my beer at the hostel with a bunch of people that dwindled to me and this Aussie-Brit dude. I considered going to sleep, it was after 3 and I was trashed, having begun drinking at 8 p.m. or so, but he suggested splitting a bucket. Buckets being coke, red bull, and a pint of rum, served in, well, a bucket. I considered balking. “I’ll buy” he said. Shit son, you remind me of my high school drinkin’ coach. Now, let’s drink. And so I worked on my half of the bucket for the next couple hours, as we hit on every questionable to ugly backpacker girl that happened to walk in or out of the hostel.

Overall, a great trip. I’d been on a falling plane, para-sailed, crashed a scooter twice, drunkenly jet skied, hiked through the jungle and encountered wildlife, touched a king cobra, and had a run-in with a ladyboy. Easily top 5. It certainly makes me want to go back to Thailand and hit up Indonesia this winter.

노래방 파이팅!

2009-04-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

originally posted on 9/30/08

Every now and again, a normal night out at the bar turns epic. You know this. The change can be shocking. Last Friday, I was at my usual haunt with the usual crowd, ordering my usual drinks from the usual bartenders, and chatting up the same questionable girl that I see at the usual bar every single time I go there. She is, to some extent, a human B.A.C. machine, commencing conversation with her (as I do every damn Friday) pretty much means I am no longer capable of driving, if driving were an option here. Then somebody, likely me but maybe one of my friends, mentions the noraebang. The night just got interesting.

I’ve spoken of the noraebang before, and if you are familiar with the concept, feel free to skip this paragraph. Noraebang (노래방) directly translated means “singing room.” It is Korean karaoke. However, unlike karaoke bars in the U.S., there is not one bar with a stage, but a series of private rooms that hold anywhere from 2 to 20 people. Unlike the rugged individualist West where one could walk into a karaoke bar alone and make a drunken ass of oneself in front of a large group of strangers, the collectivist East runs rooms like these, where one goes with a group of friends to make a drunken ass of oneself in front of only one’s friends. Noraebangs sell beer, but it is outrageously overpriced, so nobody (at least no westerner) goes to a noraebang before getting railroaded, and everybody smuggles booze in and the guys that work there never try to prevent this, despite the fact that the customer obviously has 6 litres of beer under their T-shirt.

Anyway, only three people, all dudes, were in to the noraebang idea, so clearly it wouldn’t due for us to get our own room to serenade each other. I suggested we that we crash one, thus making our noraebang adventure much more interesting and cheaper, ie, free. We headed off to a nearby noraebang (they’re on pretty much every corner in this country) and attempted to walk through to the hallway to the rooms. Unfortunately, as we walked the wrong way at first, the guy that worked there was on to us instantly. He asked us in broken English which room we were in. We ignored him, and started walking down the correct hallway (taking our shoes off before entering the hallway, of course, we aren’t jackals) to the rooms. He followed us, still asking where we were going. Our plan seemed doomed to fail.

My buddy Martin, in an absolutely brilliant move, whipped out his phone and started pretending to talk to a nonexistent friend that we planned to meet. The noraebang guy kept asking us where we where going, but Martin, in an Oscar-worthy twist, held his finger in one ear while yelling repeatedly into the phone “I can’t hear you. What room number?” Two random Koreans, on cue, walked out of a room just in front of us, and Martin said, “Okay, I can see you now,” and hung up the phone.

As the strangers walked out of the room, we walked in to a large group that seemed as excited to see us as we were to see them. The group accepted us instantly, and Martin and Ryan offered to go buy some booze, which the group of Koreans were also happy to hear. Probably happier than they were to hear our renditions of American rock songs, as none of us have much aptitude for K-pop. After a half hour or so, most of the Koreans still in the room were asleep, so we took our leave. Still, I’d like to think that while making our night with silly random drunken party-crashing, we also made the nights of the crashees.

Economy Minus

2009-04-17T22:20:00.000-07:00

originally posted 10/8/08

So, I’ve had a couple good adventures the last couple of weeks. The Saturday before last, I:

* woke up to a text from a buddy telling me a girl that I thought was a lost cause dug me
* stumbled upon and attended a K1 kickboxing event
* somehow lost my camera at that same event, or in a taxi, while sober - that's #4
* got news from the same buddy that he’d miss the evening’s bar plans, as would the girl
* went to a party at an all-you-can-eat-and-booze-for-3-hours joint, ending sobriety
* stole additional booze from the restaurant, drank it on the street with buddies in transit
* met co-workers at a bar across town, including a girl I’ve liked forever
* finally got her number shortly before she left for home
* drunkenly went with Don to a local bar - the venerable No Block
* met two girls at the bar, but Don was passed out and couldn’t wingman.
* left No Block with the hot girl I’d been talking too the last couple hours
* made out with said hot girl in front of her (and her parents’) apartment
* got home at around 7 a.m.

Then, last weekend, I went to Busan with Don, and as Busan trips generally entail, the weekend involved boozing, gambling, clubbing, fireworks, sushi, and Mexican food. Busan doesn’t disappoint. We even had a couple forays on to Texas Street - the seediest street in all of Korea, populated by dockworkers, Russian mafioso, and whores (complete with a giant banner over the street proclaiming “Welcome US Navy”). Korea is a country pretty much totally devoid of guns, but the word on the street is you can get anything you want on Texas Street within 20 minutes if you know who to ask. We were there, of course, for beer, a rare brand unavailable in most of Korea.

The funny thing about these two events weekends was that after them, Don was in hock to me for about 700 dollars. Really. Although, not exactly, which is my really reason for writing tonight. See, Don owed me (he paid me back) 700,000 won. One year ago, one dollar was worth 900 won, so at that time, 700,000 won was about $777. As recently as March 1, it was 940 won to the dollar, and on July 28 it was about even, $1 = 1,000 won, so that 700k truly was 700 bucks. Today, it’s a ridiculous (and decade or so low) 1393 won to the dollar, so that 700k is worth $500! So, ever “dollar” (1,000 won) that I have has dropped to under 72 cents in a couple days over two months. And that’s the dollar, the whipping boy of the currency market.

So, for those of you who may be considering visiting, come out! You’ll be ridiculously rich. There’s never been a better time to visit Korea. For people like, uh, me, who are looking to leave the country in a couple months (for the U.S. job market! Everything’s okay there, right?) it’s a bit less awesome. Better enjoy these ridiculous drunken adventures and the relative life of luxury that I’ve grown accustomed to now, since I presume life will be considerably worse when I’m crashing on people’s couches and begging one of my bosses from one of my many illustrious $7.50 an hour gigs for my old job back. Or I should stay put and ride it out. Or, everyone’s favorite Plan B: Mexico.

Lost Weekends

2009-04-17T22:11:00.000-07:00

originally posted 11/20/08

It got cold in Korea. Like yesterday. I’m already pretty sick of it. My favorite watering hole, a plastic table outside a convenience store, is now essentially worthless. C’est la vie, I won’t be here too much longer anyway. My flight out is scheduled to happen, well, it’s not scheduled yet, I could be leaving here anytime between last Thursday and February, I’ve been told pretty much anywhere in that range. The main thing, I guess, is I’ll be on an outbound flight soon, to Baltimore. Or Chicago. Maybe KCI. Could be Florida. Vegas isn’t off the table. Then, there’s always New York, LA, San Francisco, Istanbul, Bali, Jakarta, Hong Kong, Guadalajara, or Boracay. I suppose the point is, I have absolutely no idea when I’m leaving, where I’m going, and what I’m doing when I get there. I’m okay with this. Sure, I can’t sleep at night, but that’s where our good friend alcohol comes in.

And oh, our friend has been friendly lately. Over the last 4 weekends, I’ve been good for one low-key night (no black-outs, spending under $30, home before 5) and one borderline catastrophe each time. The catastrophes have taken place all over town - Hyehwa, then Itaewon, then Hongdae, and at my home bar of No Block.

Hyehwa was a humdinger at a bar that features $3 whiskey shots in a town where they usually cost 7. My group ran up a $240 tab, though it was a large group. A noraebang was later involved. When I got home, I took a look at my loft, where my bed is. No way I was gonna climb the stairs/ladder up there, too plastered. I looked at my couch. It had my backpack and coat on it. No time to clean up all that mess, too plastered. Nope, in the classiest move possible, I grabbed my couch pillow and the blanket that covers my chair and hit the floor.

Itaewon was a halloween disaster. In a brilliant mobilization, I managed to recruit a large group of my neighborhood buddies and co-workers, even the guy that works at my local convenience store, and managed to get them to congregate at one bar. Amazing. After weeks of planning, I could only get 5 people to go out for my birthday, but on Halloween, I wrangled like 20 people out. Highlights of this night include my “incessant hitting on” of the co-worker chick I dig. Not my words, but those of a witness. Apparently, I also had some sort of drunken “why don’t you like me?” speech directed at her. I believe this was shortly after I had a long argument with the bouncer at Spy Bar about why I shouldn’t have to pay a cover, and how I wasn’t like these other people. Neither conversation resulted in the end that I was hoping for. Fortunately, I don’t remember any of these things, therefore, they never happened and did not count. If they did, I’d certainly be embarrassed. I do remember leaving the taxi at my house and going to a convenience store, where I made the guy working there make my some instant ramen, as my motor skills had regressed beyond the point of doing such things at the time. Then, I woke up on my goddamn floor.

Hongdae was far less eventful. I discovered my new favorite bar, a van on the street that sold drinks to go, Khoa San Road style. Plus, the drinks were cheap, refills were half price for one, and the guy had a heavy pour and served all kinds of fun ridiculous drinks like mojitos, mint juleps, and Singapore slings. Sadly, I was dragging in Hongdae, as I’d been walking all day and was tired, and I got fairly plowed by 11 yet stayed out until after 5. Highlights included texting the co-worker girl at 2:30, which I remembered doing; and possibly texting a former co-worker that I was all about for all of 2007, but haven’t contacted at all this year. You see, I have an old phone, and it doesn’t have the memory to save outgoing texts, only incoming. Thus, I’m completely unaware of anybody that I may drunkenly text unless they respond, which I’ve determined may not be a bad thing. After all, if I send an embarrassing text at 4 a.m., if the recipient responds, it’s cool. If they don’t, I’d rather not know that I ever sent it. Anyway, the reason I think I may have sent 2007 girl a text is that she called me clear out of the blue the other day, and she mentioned me sending her a text a little while ago, and this seems like the only time I would have done it. Whatever, she called, so if I did it, it worked.

Last week, a large group of us went out to No Block. I left my apartment to buy a pack of smokes, ran into a couple people on the street, and ended up being out for the night. As like the other weeks, a lot of drinks were served. I’d had 3 Long Islands at No Block when we left to check out another bar, and the bar charged me for 2. I actually argued with them that I owed them more, because I can’t try to pull one over at my home bar, but they insisted we were square. Rain, everybody’s bartender hero, even gave my buddy and I free to-go cups of this new drink he had just concocted. That covered the grueling 2 minute walk to the other bar. Nothing much happened all night, but I did succeed in losing my keys and becoming temporarily homeless, which was awesome. For a while I thought that, like Nelson Muntz’s father, I had gone out for cigarettes and would now never return home. Fortunately, I managed to get in the next day.

That was Friday night. I haven’t really had much beer since then. It’s hard to sleep with all the future unknowns hanging over my head, but I’ve found completely ignoring them and playing Ninja Gaiden (NES version) gets me through the day.

Plan

2009-04-17T22:08:00.000-07:00

originally posted 12/15/08

Alright, so I'm coming "home". I said I'd say it here first, and I am. With my usual sense of gusto and timing, I was hoping to pull off some sort of surprise, but I fear the cat is destined for freedom from its bag-like imprisonment.

Why the quotes on "home?" Well, I don't exactly have one, since everybody is everywhere. In a lot of ways, I guess I'm leaving home, since here I have a place where my bed and TV are. Anyway, I didn't post tonight to wax philosophic, but rather to reveal my plan, so here goes:

On the night of December 19th, I will finish work and have a party, certain to be the social event of the season. The party will certainly continue well into the 20th.

On Saturday the 20th, I will fly to San Francisco (on Singapore Air! Yay!) at 5 p.m., throw back a bunch of Singapore Slings, and hopefully catch some sleep as it is an overnight flight. I will then land in San Francisco at 11 a.m... on Saturday the 20th. the fuck? My flight actually involves time travel. This is fortunate, as my buddy Wiley will pick me up at the airport, and we will immediately haul ass to Reno. I'm hoping said time travel will allow me to win big in the sports book. After a night of booze, blackjack, strippers, Taco Bell, and general debauchery in Reno, Wiley and I will drive to Lawrence, and we expect to arrive on the 23rd, or the 22nd if we make really good time. After 1 (or possibly 2) nights in Larry, I fly to Baltimore on Christmas Eve, just in time to get my Christmas shopping done.