Exploring the 'gu

Before I get into today's events, I wanted to say a couple of things.

You know when a spider makes its home in a corner of your moldy Korean bathroom? Your first inclination is to kill it and dispose of the body, right? WRONG. Word of advice: kill it and leave the body there for all other potential real estate buyers to see. You don't want those suckers to reproduce in case they're pregnant or whatever spiders do to reproduce, but who's going to move in after the dead one? When you go looking for a new house, is it enticing to buy one that's right next door to a dead body? "Hey, honey, look! That's a dead dude over there! Little Timmy is going to have so much fun here! Let's go poke it! I know what's for dinner tonight!" The only problem with this is when the guts that suction the dead spider to your ceiling finally fail and the spider carcass falls on your head when you're taking a dumper. That'll ruin your morning real quick.

Ok, second thing. I saw a grown man weeping on the sidewalk today. He was just sitting there cross legged in the middle of the blind person yellow strip (those in Korea know what I'm talking about), snot and tears running down his face. He was wailing. No sucking it up for the passing wae-gook. It was pretty haunting. I hope I don't have nightmares about it tonight.

Last night was so uneventful that I fell asleep at 10. There were some St. Patty's Day parties going on downtown that I swore I would check out, but did I? No. I watched The Mummy Returns and fell asleep early. I needed it though, because I didn't wake up until 12 hours later. I felt so much better today and decided to check out a new part of Daegu that didn't involve Homeplus, downtown, or foreigners in it.

So, I got on the metro and took it to Duryu Park. Yeah, I could have gone there yesterday when all the other EPIK kids were going for some girl's birthday, but I'm a loner. I don't need no dang farners telling me what to do. Besides, I had only seen this girl once before and fondly only know her as "Phil's groupie." That Phil guy, man. He's a chubby, jolly Briton who would probably be an underground loser in any other place, but here in Korea he thrives. He's got ladies surrounding him constantly. I don't know how he does it. He's got the swagger, for sure. He just exudes that reserved confidence. I'm still mad at him though. He grew a killer pedophile mustache at orientation that he promptly shaved off after a few hours. I personally think he'd have twice as many ladies surrounding him if he kept it. Ok, we all know that's not true, but come on! Mustaches are bitchin. Are they not? Maybe I'll start growing one. Don't worry, Nana. I'm mostly joking.

Anyway, Duryu Park is the "Central Park" type place in Daegu. It's pretty nice. My first stop, where I saw the weeping Korean, was Daegu Tower. It's a hike up some damned hill, but you get views of the entire city from there. I was going to go up the tower properly, but it was like $10 and cloudy, so I didn't think it would be worth it. The base of the tower has a pretty commanding view itself, so I just drank that in (with a small Coca-Cola) and called it. Right next to it is Woobang Land, Daegu's amusement park. It looks pretty awesome, complete with roller coasters and those rocking ships that I don't really like. It even has one of those cable car things that suspends you over the park while you're half way scared to death that the cable is going to snap.

So, after looking at Woobang Land from afar, I hit up a couple of temples in the park. There's no information on them anywhere in English, so I don't know if they have any historical significance, but they were pretty neat. Very serene, and the work put into the intricate designs of these places is dizzying. It's gotta take a long time to paint those suckers up. I wonder how often they have to put a fresh coat of paint on the wood.

Anyway, Duryu Park is a generally stress free experience. It's pretty hilly and foresty, so there are a ton of places to go hiking where the only other people you run into are young Koreans practicing some chi mantra on a hilltop or old Koreans gathered around some game board of some sort. There are also various sports fields, an outdoor arena, and the Daegu Arts Center. I went in it to check it out, but it looked pretty dead, so I didn't get to see any art. I'm not even sure any of the galleries were open.

I explored the surrounding area around the park, too. Didn't see much of interest. A water treatment plant, some girl's high school, a ton of Koreans. Manquest saved me more than once today. For those of you unfamiliar with Manquest, it is the innate sense of direction that the vast majority of men possess that allows them to know approximately where they are at all times. In the psychological realm, it is explained that since boys play with blocks as kids, they develop a spatial ability that most girls don't get through playing with dolls. I played with a ton of Legos as a kid and my sense of direction is pretty on point, so I'm buying into this theory. Do they sell stock in psychological theories? This one is going to explode if I have anything to do with it.

To save myself the trouble of writing about it tomorrow, I'm going to explain to you what I'll be doing after I leave the ol' PC bang. I'm going to pass a bunch of scooters on the sidewalk as I walk home, and then I'm going to clean the apartment, cook dinner, probably watch some terrible movie, practice me accordion, and go over lesson plans for tomorrow. Exciting? You betcha.