The Party's Over...

I know, I'm still on the slacking train. I gotta turn it up a notch. I've already lost half of my home country viewers (what's that, like 2 or 3?) and I'm pretty sure no one in Korea gives a crap about me anyway. Well, a terrible tragedy has befallen the peninsula this weekend and, to be quite frank, I'm having a tough time dealing with it. You see, both South Korea and the U.S. lost their respective World Cup matches and are now out of the tournament. World Cup Fever is over.

The positive to this is that I can withdraw from alcohol and catch up on sleep. I'm exaggerating, of course, but the World Cup games did seriously mess with my sleep schedule. Having a couple of 3:30 AM games do not bode well for the frail body of mine. It's gone from soccer fanatic season to summer camp planning season (going on simultaneously with Korea's wet season, apparently). In the U.S., summer camp implies that the kids and I will go out to the woods and stay in a cabin and learn arts and crafts and play ultimate frisbee and four square. I was hoping before I came here that summer camp would resemble something akin to "Salute Your Shorts." I would love to be Counselor "Ug" Lee, getting mixed up in all sorts of Korean kids' shenanigans and misadventures through the wilderness. That, unfortunately, is not what summer camp means in Korea. Here, it means an intensive and special class schedule. I teach three 2 hour classes a day for three days. Then next week I have five days of that and the following week another three days. But then, it's vacation time.

When I first learned of the general situation for the summer camp, it seemed like I had free reign over my portion of the classes. That would have been nice, however we had a meeting today wherein three co-teachers spoke in rapid Korean and I just sat there spacing out for an hour with an iced coffee. In the meeting, they decided that it would be the best option for me to play the guitar for the kids. That's cool with me. I have to come up with an 80 minute lesson built around a single song though. That's gonn be haarrrdd. Hmm, I suppose that's what the internet is for?
So, this weekend I went to Busan. Busan's a fun (but expensive) city full of all sorts of things to see and do...if it's not raining. Remember how I mentioned wet season about three eons ago? Well, it got off to a roaring start this weekend. That's ok. We spent most of our time indoors anyway (either watching two World Cup games or waiting for our food for a god awful long time on Sunday).

For the Korea vs. Uruguay game, we ended up at a bar. This bar was special for three reasons. First was a positive. It was situated on the 14th floor with a bitchin' overview of Haeundae Beach. Second was the least exciting. The place was expensive for food. Spending $14 on a plate that still leaves you hungry is not what I call quality. The third was the one that I will always remember this bar by. It had probably the worst DJ that I've ever encountered. I'm not even going to mention the choice of music. What I will mention is his insistence on hitting the reggaeton horn for everything. In the middle of songs, fine. I can live with that. But during the World Cup game, when everyone is silent and the game volume is up, suddenly in comes the blaring reggaeton horn. Whenever Korea had forward motion of any sort *reggaeton horn*! Just imagine if *reggaeton horn* that guy interrupted *reggaeton horn* everything anyone ever tried *reggaeton horn* to do. "Hey, honey, I'm going to the grocery store, *reggaeton horn* I'll be back in an hour! *Reggaeton horn reggaeton horn reggae-reggae-reggaeton hornnnnnnnnnnnnn*

Anyway, we made it halfway through the U.S. vs. Ghana game before we all konked out. Sunday, we decided on an all-Amurrican brunch. Oh, what a bad choice that was. If only they had gotten our order right, if only they had gotten it to us in under an hour and a half, if only they had been apologetic, if only they had been actually busy, and if only we had been the only ones' whose order they messed up. Well, after all was said and done, we still had enough time to take a taxi across town (geez, Busan is a big town) to the Jagalchi Fish Market (world famous Korea!) for a look-see around. All I can really say is that it's still there from last time I went. It kind of freaks you out when you see just how much they take from the sea on a daily basis. I saw a pretty large octopus escape from its bowl and slither across the pavement for a few feet until the lady caught it and put it back. It took us only a couple more hours until we deteriorated into pathetic vagrants and took the train back home.

My Average Day

I'm about to blow your mind. Two blog posts so close together? Wha...? I've realized that I have never taken the time to explain in detail what my average weekday is like. Get ready for me to make good on telling you.

I wake up usually about 7:10, drunk with sleep (Do you wake up tired in the morning? Well, if you do, you should take these PILLS!!!! Go Pfizer!). I have never once felt like I've gotten a good night's sleep on that poor excuse for a bed I have. But the point of this post is not to rant. I immediately go for breakfast--either cereal or waffles, sometimes with fruit, yogurt, and juice. I kill the clone of the previous day's horned centipede from hell who is living in my bathroom and take my shower, etc. I have about 15 minutes to check the usual suspects of websites before I shuffle slowly to work. Lately, I'm usually sweating by the time I get there seven minutes later.

I say some variation of "hello" or "good morning" 800 times to each passing child before I get to my desk. My co-teacher is already there. About 50% of the time, the annoying girl who cleans the classroom is there yelling "annyeong haseyo" at me because I refuse to speak Korean when the kids demand it of me. I'm not a dancing monkey...well, that's not entirely true, but I like to think of myself as something a little greater. My co-teacher dutifully brings me tea in the morning, which I love, but also feel slightly awkward about. At this point, she'll either tell me that the kids are going on a field trip that day so there are no classes or she'll relay some other message that requires me to do work that afternoon.

If there are classes that day, she busts out her notebook and we go over the lesson plan that she created. Keep in mind that she has, on more than one occasion, told me that I am to start planning more and playing a bigger role. In the beginning, I took her word for it and began planning things and preparing for a bigger role. However, when nothing changes and whatever I suggest gets put on the wayside for the plan she already inexplicably made, I give up and go with it. The lesson is never extremely deviant from the textbook, which is fine, but the teacher's guide for that thing is kind of silly. Every lesson has a "greeting" section wherein the teacher greets the kids. The lesson plan goes so far as to write out some fictional conversation that will never happen in a real classroom. As follows:

Teacher: Hello class.
Students: Hello teacher.
Teacher: How are you today?
Students: Not so good.
Teacher: Oh, I'm sorry. Who is absent?
Students: ______ is absent.
Teacher: Where is he/she?
Students: He/she has a fever.
Teacher: Oh no! What day is it today?
Students: Wednesday.
Teacher: Did you get a haircut?
Students: Yes.
Teacher: It looks good. Let's start today's lesson...

Is that really necessary? Like to the point of even leaving a blank for the student's name as though that's what is going to happen. What kind of madhouse classroom carries on exactly like in this book? The scary part is, I bet there's a teacher in Korea somewhere who reads this book word for word. I'll admit that I have come pretty damn close, but only in the listening check because sometimes I don't know what other questions to ask the students.

Usually, I'll have about four classes a day where the following happens. I greet them (not quite like the dialogue above), let my co-teacher talk for a while, then I say some things, ask the students some questions, have them repeat after me and my coveted American accent, let the co-teacher talk, then walk around the classroom while the students do group work. This is the highlight of my day. I'll get asked how old I am, I'll get told I'm so handsome, kids will feel my hairy arms like I'm a freak show, kids ask me to play "rock, paper, scissors" with them, I get to confiscate pencils or other paraphernalia that are being misused to cause harm to others, sometimes I get to participate in the students' groups or games or role plays, sometimes I get to put some Korean to use and really blow some minds, and sometimes I just veg out in the back when I'm super tired.

Games are a huge highlight. I wish there were more of them. The kids love them and they usually make me laugh (the kids, that is, not the games). The songs and chants can be an unintentional hoot, too. Here's a link so that you get an idea of what the songs are like. In this particular one, sung to the tune of "Love Potion #9," the male singer is a little too into it and every class busted out laughing when he did the "Oh, oh he is good!" In another song, they just decided not to have a male part although a male was clearly singing. So it's just a woman's voice coming out of a man instead. Sometimes I wonder if the songs are intentionally retarded.

Class is also the best time to scope out the unintentionally funny t-shirts that kids wear. A few favorites are:

• Black t-shirt that says "majah flavah" with each letter in a different bright neon color. I've seen this shirt on more than three kids at my school. Do they all shop at the same place?
• A green t-shirt that just says "Paper why?" Is that a why made out of paper or are they asking paper why it did something? "Paper, why did you murder my family? Paper, WHYYYYYYY?!"
• A white t-shirt that is covered in random sentences and on the back says "He was fucking angry indeed" right above some slogan about nuclear contamination or something.
• The sweatshirts with the zip up hood. On the chest will be a body, usually Mario's or Batman's, and then when you zip up the hood, Mario's or Batman's face is there. So it's kind of a costume as well as a sweatshirt. The best one I saw was one with Mario's body, but a skull as the head.

Anyway, class will usually lead up to lunch. Lunch is always a toss up. I get to butt in front of the kids because I'm a teacher (in name) and get a first hand glimpse of what is about to be slopped onto my tray. There is a formula to each day's meal. The metal tray is set up so that there are three circle inlets on the upper half and two larger bowl cavities on the lower half. First scoop goes into the top left circle. It's usually "dessert" (which ranges from dried minnos to drinking yogurt to fruit). I don't know why dessert is put on my tray first. Next is kimchi. It always goes in the center of the top half. They always give me too much. Third is the final bowl of the top half. This is the meat/seafood/tofu/mystery substance (dog?) that is today's exotic dish. This ranges from little Korean hot dogs to veggie omelet patties to quail eggs to anything else I can't identify. The left bottom bowl gets a healthy serving of rice, and the right bowl gets soup, usually seaweed or tofu or seafood of some sort. Mmm.

I get to say "hello" to every kid I missed saying it to that morning, and even some who sneak a second one while I eat and stare across the room at the shy non-English speaking teacher that I have what may be an unhealthy crush on. The Koreans eat wicked fast, which means I'm the last to leave at the teachers' table. They sometimes have even started seating the first graders around me by the time I finish.

At this point, it's the afternoon. The afternoon means one thing: I'm going to be bored to tears unless I find something to do. I used to have four afternoon classes sprinkled throughout the week, but I haven't really had any of them in probably a month due to various things. Now that I don't even expect them anymore, I predict that I will have two tomorrow.

This afternoon free time is designated "lesson planning time" or "office time" so on the off chance that some industrious kid wants to come in and speak English to me, I'll be here. Since neither of these things really happen, I have to find other things to do. The Koreans have a system called "look busy" when they have nothing to do. I, however, have adopted the "screw it" system instead and read or listen to music or Facebook chat with other bored teachers.


This goes on for the better part of the afternoon, sprinkled with potty or snack breaks. At 4:30 I dart home just to realize that my apartment is a lot crappier looking when the sun is up and I really have nothing to do. Thus my evenings are a combination of

a) going out with teachers for dinner/drinks
b) going out with Koreans for dinner/drinks
c) staying in and watching "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia"
d) going shopping
and lately e) having all night benders because the World Cup is on and the U.S. is advancing to the next round.

This is a massively long post and I am proud of you if you actually read this far. Not that your life is enriched any more by doing so, but hey, I'll bake you a cookie and throw it as hard as I can in your direction and hope it reaches your mouth.

The Shame of Korea

You don't have to tell me. I realize full and well that I may or may not be worse for humanity than Kim Jong-il for not updating my blog in a week. Trust me, I felt the claws of guilt ripping away at me. What can I update you on?Thursday, I watched the second Korea game in a much less crowded venue than the first time. This proved to be good for a few reasons. 1) We could sit comfortably. 2) We could eat restaurant food. 3) It wasn't as awkward when Korea got completely dominated by Argentina in the second half. The chants stopped, the drumming stopped, and they all sat in silence for the last 20 minutes of the game while those half-kraut bastards made a mockery of the Korean peoples' suffering. I can't imagine how it would have been in Duryu Park.

Since I didn't have any class on Friday (yeah, only two days of classes that week), I decided to go to a show. Daegu tends to have live shows on Thursdays. This is due to the revenue flow. Daegu, 3rd largest city: Thursdays. Busan, second largest city: Fridays. Seoul, by far largest city: Saturday night, when it's alright for fighting. Anyway, a couple of others and I went to see King Khan and BBQ. Now, I got nothing against two guys doing their own thing when it comes to music. What I do have an extreme judgment call in is how bands treat their fans and patrons. I knew something was amiss when one of our group and the guitarist got into a fight before the show over the safety record of South America. First strike. Second strike: they started playing and were not really doing it for me. However, I'm not bashing them doing their thing. But, maybe they should put some more thought into what they play. The third and biggest strike (a two parter) that completely overshadows both other strikes by leaps and bounds: first, they trashed either some hotel room or someone's apartment because they got into a fight. Accounts vary. Second, they didn't play their Seoul show because they got into a fight minutes beforehand. I think the kicker of it all is that the King Khan and BBQ Show PR poster is one of three things on my bare walls (besides mold). I might have to draw bad things on it for it to stay up there rightfully.

Friday, I was not in the best shape, but I planned ahead well as I didn't have any classes. I had Korean class, went home, took a nap, then got up and headed downtown for the U.S.A. vs. Slovenia game. The excitement was actually pretty high for a soccer match, and at one point we were sure we won...until the goal didn't count. So, we tied 2-2 instead.

Sidenote real quick. Since when was it OK for articles to just deviate from the headline story whenever they felt like it (this is not an article so I can deviate how I please, thank you very much)? I was reading the story today about how North Korea showed its World Cup game live in Pyongyang for the first time in 44 years and it backfired because they lost 7-0, and then the writer felt it was ok to write, "Meanwhile in Capetown Boris Johnson blardy blar blar England 2018 World Cup." What? What does England bidding for the 2018 World Cup have to do with North Korea's rare display of openness backfiring? You know what? I'm so upset about it that I'm going to go back to that article and look up the author's name (Pause 5 minutes. Go get a drink or something). Ooohhhhhhhh, they're British. That makes much more sense. That's the equivalent of an American reporter writing the same article and then ending it with, "Meanwhile, America rocks." It happens all the time, right?

Saturday, after a day of barren nothingness, a few of us headed to the Kyungpook University area to get a change of scenery. There is a nice little downtownish area there that has a lot to do. We ended up at this bar where this duo was playing acoustic guitars. I noticed pretty quick that they were both talented, but the lead was straight shredding. He was amazing. After each song, it is customary to shout out, "Free Bird" or "Stairway." Instead, my friend shouted "Malaguena Selarosa," which is probably one of the more obscure requests I've heard being shouted. Immediately the pair perked up and the other one said, "It's our unwritten rule that when someone requests Malaguena Selarosa, we have to play it." And, of course, the guy rips through it flawlessly and much better than Antonio Banderas. It was so impressive that we had to end on that high note.

Sunday was spent mostly Skyping in various states of lucidity. Aaaaannnnddddd, that's my life. Back to work and the work week.

A Restless Tuesday

Here do I sit

bored as a shit

hearing some crappy G'n'R

Why don't I change

to things less strange?

Because Axl Rose is a star.

I pressed the next

and in the text

it said Tom Waits was here to sing.

I can relate

closely of late

when I drink a Singapore sling.

Queen came after

and got laughter

from Good Ol' Fashioned Lover Boys

"But Freddie's dead,"

comes to my head

and I feel sad instead of joy.

Ok, that's enough. As you can tell, I don't have much to do. Yesterday, I came in to the classroom, played guitar for a while and worked on my Korean-English "guide dictionary" or whatever. Basically, I'm going to carry around a little notebook and add the Korean I learn into it so I can consult it when I need to. It's got all the snazzy little tidbits I've picked up in it so far. Highlights include:

무슨말인지물라 (Mooseun malinji mulla) = I don't know what you are talking about

닥쳐 (Dak chyeo) = Shut up!

는을 감으세요 (Neunul gameuseyo) = Close your eyes

예쁘다 (Yeppuda) = Beautiful (woman)

잠잘 시간이야 (Jamjal shiganiya) = It's time for bed (maybe use this directly after saying 예쁘다?)

개새끼 (Kaesaeggi) = Son of a bitch (what you say when the previous "beautiful, it's time for bed" line didn't work and you have an exotic fruit drink on your face)

There you go. Quick (and useful) Korean lesson for you. Now, go out to Annandale and use it whenever you can. I need to make it so I can switch to Hangeul on my laptop keyboard so I can insult people from the comfort of my apartment, too.

Other things I did yesterday at work when nobody else was there: read 120 pages in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, picked my nose, visited those websites you go to to pass time and then feel like a waste of life immediately afterwards, ate 자장명 (jajangmyeong) for lunch, contemplated bringing alcohol to work for Tuesday (regretfully I didn't), laid across four chairs for a power nap, watched the largest, freakiest looking, horned centipede thing I've ever seen crawl in and out of a urinal hole, and listened to probably too much music.

Today, I:

• Played guitar
• Told some random kids I don't want to play baseball with them
• Wrote you an arguably retarded poem and an equally retarded blog post
• Visited Facebook (ongoing)
• Read another 120 pages in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (tentative)
• Updated my Korean "guide dictionary" or whatever (tentative)
• Cried from boredom (tentative)
• Pulled a Breakfast Club in the library (tentative)
• Got arrested (tentative)

I don't have any class on Friday either, which is perfect because I'll probably be too hungover to function anyway (the next Korea World Cup game is on, followed by some live music at a bar). We'll see how my Korean class goes that day. Ah, what a life. Peaks and valleys. Peaks and valleys.

World Cup Fever!

As if it were possible, I think I'm getting lazier. I did clean my apartment today though, so at least I have that going for me. Anyway, the reason I mention my increasing laziness is because I had a pretty awesome weekend, yet I my desire to blog about it is next to nil. That's a problem. I am here to please the folks back home, and if I can't even be bothered then what's the point? I will pull through for you tonight.

As all you Americans may or may not know, this weekend marked the beginning of the World Cup. I know in the U.S. we generally don't give a damn about soccer because the corporations tell us not to because there are no convenient breaks for commercials, but the fever is ignited in Korea. Friday was the beginning with the South Africa vs. Mexico game. In America, we may be more inclined to shout out loud for Mexico due to their proximity (which I will touch on Canada's betrayal in this matter later), but since there are more South Africans here than Mexicans (I don't hang out with Army dudes) we went for South Africa. They, of course, tied. But, we had a good time hanging out in bars watching it anyway.

Saturday was the real prize. Korea vs. Greece. 8:30 PM. We all headed down to Duryu Park to watch the game in one of the most crowded events I've ever been to. Here's a video to show you. The bathroom lines were literally hundreds of people long. I took advantage of being a male and the fact that I was in a park with lots of trees.


You may or may not notice all the red glowing things that people are wearing. Those are the devil horns. The Koreans are the "red devils" or some crap. This makes no sense because South Korea really should be blue while North Korea takes the cake as the most red devilish country in existence. Whatever, they are the same people, after all. Here's me in my decked out Korea gear:You probably can't tell, but the bandana is the South Korean flag. The shirt is good for two reasons. First, the word "Fighting!" is used the same way one would use the words, "Come on!" or "Go team!" in America. You can just substitute it for "Fighting!" Well, usually Koreans say "Pighting" but whatever. The gist is the same. Also, do you like how Korea is spelled with a C? Yeah, me too. Almost as much as I love my ridiculous face.

Anyway, Korea won 2-0, and the whole country went absolutely wild. That's good. I'm glad to be in a country that actually gives a crap about the World Cup. It's invigorating. The problem was that the U.S. vs. England game was at 3:30 in the morning. Did I watch it? Of course. I took a nap beforehand, but I won't miss out on the chance to represent Amurrica right. If you don like it, then you can git out.

So, what's with all the Canadians supporting England in this match? Like they have closer ties to England or something? I know they still have the Queen on their currency and follow her every move and wipe her butt for her and whatnot, but seriously, what gives? What has England done for Canada lately? Have they been their number one trading partner, or even gone so far as to save their ass in WW2? No, that was US! I was rather upset at their blatant betrayal and I will be writing a letter to the king of Canada or whatever.

Also, why does England even get a team in the first place? England's not even a country. It's the United Kingdom. That's like if we gave California its own team and let it compete in the World Cup. Stupid. Anyway, we also tied the Brits, so we can call ourselves their equal.

My school's birthday is on Tuesday. Yes, here in Korea, schools have birthdays. When the school has a birthday, the school has a holiday. Since ours is on Tuesday, school is closed on Monday as well. A nice four day weekend...for Koreans. Per my contract, I still have to show up at school and warm a desk for 8 hours. This is by far the stupidest thing I have come across in Korea. Stupider than rice and kimchi for breakfast, stupider than driving scooters on the sidewalk, stupider than my neighbor's convenience store hours. It's stupider than K-pop, which is really damn stupid. If you think Britney or Lady Gaga are stupid or whatever all the kids listen to, just listen to K-pop for a little while and American pop sounds like Beethoven. I'm exaggerating, but if I have to hear another Girl's Generation song I'm going to snap someone's neck.

That's a Class of a Different Color

Seemingly, the highlight of this week is and will be open classes. Let me explain to you about how the open class process works. Open classes didn't use to be so frequent, but President Lee Myung-bak likes his edumacation to be top notch, so he had more put in place so the teachers sweat a little more. This means that I have been a part of seven open classes thus far with at least two more to go by the time the semester ends. That's averaging one every couple of weeks, I think.

Having an "open class" means that parents, teachers, and the administrative staff can come and watch the class and leave feedback for the teacher. The thing that I find so hilarious about open classes is that they are so obviously contrived. They are so different from other classes. Teachers have some say in when their open classes will be, so they choose the best behaved class, their favorite lesson, when it will be, etc. As such, teachers will spend six hours planning the lesson for the open class, then they'll clean the classroom, practice, and even meet with the students beforehand to tell them how to act. The kicker is that everyone watching seems to realize that the classes are extremely contrived, but they just overlook this fact. It's like going to watch a show, honestly. It really is a production. Teachers get all nervous and do strange things they would never do in a normal class just to impress the principal (if he even stops by to watch the class for five minutes). But it seems like none of this even matters. The feedback is usually pretty cursory and I've never seen any bad feedback or anything bad happen in an open class. All it is is a show.

I had one yesterday, and my co-teacher made all these materials and fixed all the little things that were wrong with the classroom that he'd been meaning to fix and generally cleaned up his act. It went pretty well, I suppose. We had probably 10-12 people watching us perform, and the most embarrassing part for me was when I had to speak four Korean phrases to the children and they had to translate to English. Ever since I did this for one of my first open classes, it seems to be a hit. All the teachers want me to speak Korean in class. This is good, as I learn more Korean and get a laugh out of it at the same time.

Speaking of, I had a pretty random experience yesterday. After work, I met a fellow teacher downtown, where we grabbed a bite and some beer and strutted our stuff over to "Who's Bob?," a bar on what has been effectively named "Foreigner Street." We weren't out to get loaded on a Tuesday night, in fact "Who's Bob?" was having a free Korean lesson. My friend had found out about it when he got the bartender's phone number last week. As such, three of us just sat at the bar, had some beer, and learned many helpful Korean phrases for about an hour (you know, the kind they wouldn't teach you in a classroom. I'm talking about bad words and pick up lines if you haven't noticed). Although a little bit unconventional, it was probably the most effective Korean lesson I've had yet. I wrote a good three pages of notes. And she's planning on having a couple more. So, I'll be hitting up "Who's Bob?" again next Tuesday for sammowah. Ok, I gotta go to work, where I will have to view another Native Teacher's open class (which means I don't have to teach today). Whoopie Korean government!

Where Is Namdaemun?

The KTX never ceases to amaze me. Every time I ride it, I think I have the TV programming figured out. I never actually do. I heard the Koreanized version of "Let It Be," and watched interesting things such as:

• A contest wherein the winner shovels a pile of coal into a bobcat the fastest
• More riding lawnmower racing
• 80s American news bloopers?
• A man dressed in a suit that had many pinwheels on it trying to get them all to spin at the same time (it's harder than it looks when some of them are positioned directly behind you or at odd angles)
• As a follow up, a group of people making a pinwheel out of a barrel
• A very scary news report on North Korea. There are a lot of those little bastards! All goose stepping around like they mean business. I don't know about that Kim Jong-il guy.
  

Anyway, the KTX is usually a hoot. So, I pulled into Seoul Station on Friday night and met my friend at an adjacent subway stop. Together, we headed out to Incheon to meet some more folks for a fun night on the town. I was honored to be the first to stay at my friend's pad and sleep on his floor. The reason nobody goes over there is because he lives fairly far away from all the action. Oh well, you take what you are given by EPIK, eh?

Saturday, we got some chamchi kimbap and headed into Itaewon wherein I proceeded to get propositioned by two old nasty prostitutes. Itaewon is the prominent place in Seoul for the military to hang out, as there is a base right there. Wherever there is a strong military presence, there are always hookers. A hill in Itaewon is nicknamed "Hooker Hill" for such obvious reasons. Now I certainly didn't invite this attention, it just happens when white Americans go to Itaewon. Anyway, I bought a couple of English books because I've been trying to read On The Road for the past four or five months and still haven't completed it. Curse you Kerouac! I blame Kerouac solely for getting me out of reading. I wanted to change that (maybe I'll give Kerouac another chance some day), so I bought Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. Both I am particularly excited about, but since I've read Vonnegut before, I opted to start Stieg's book first. 100 pages into it, I'm into it.

Anyway, we stuck around Itaewon for a while to make a fashionable appearance at an acquaintance's birthday party before heading to Hongdae (where else would we go?) to catch a show. Moools (yes, the third O is intentional), the Japanese equivalent of Pavement, was playing that night and I desperately wanted to see live music. With two opening acts, live music is what I got. It was actually a good show. The lead singer and guitarist is a pretty amusing frontman.
Sunday after spending a night in the now world famous jimjilbang, we headed to Anguk, the central tourist district of Seoul. With nothing particular in mind, we just strolled the main drag (Insadong Street) and encountered some interesting things. First, an arcade with a bitchin' drum game that is the most Japanese thing I've ever seen. Second was a detail of bodyguards eyeing us suspiciously as we passed by. I was intrigued, so we sat down to see if hopefully David Bowie was going to pop out of the nearest sunglasses store. What happened instead was we were approached by two young boys who wanted to practice their English. This turned out to be one of the highlights of the day, as the one I talked to was 8 years old and had amazing English. Like, better than my sixth graders. His mom even took pictures of us on her polaroid. Yes, they still have polaroids in Korea, and they're actually kind of popular. I told you, the 80s are IN.So, one of my fifth grade lessons is titled "Where is Namdaemun?" It's designed to teach them simple directions. The dialogue goes something like this:

Foreigner Man: "Excuse me, where is Namdaemun?"
Nami: "Pardon?"
Foreigner Man: "Namdaemun, please."
Nami: "Oh, Namdaemun? Go straight and turn right at the bank. You can't miss it."
Foreigner Man: "Go straight and turn right at the bank?"
Nami: "That's right."
Foreigner Man: "Thank you!"
(After the wiley foreigner goes straight and turns right at the bank)
Foreigner Man: "Look! There's Namdaemun! Oh, wonderful!"

Ok, actually I think I just quoted that dialogue perfectly from memory. That comes with teaching the same lesson six times and repeating these sentences ad nauseam. And yes, the man was actually called "Foreigner Man" in the dialogue. Well, actually he was "waegook namja" but you get the point. Also, doesn't the dialogue sound so natural? Well, it sounded so natural to me that I wanted to see Namdaemun for myself. It's "Korea National Treasure #1" so I knew it would be awesome. Well, I tell you what. That dumb girl in the dialogue was wrong. I went straight and turned right at the bank and I got lost. Seoul is big! I hate Nami.

So here's what Namdaemun looks like normally.
Here's what Namdaemun looked like when I went to see it.
Turns out, some guy burned it down two years ago because he was pissed off for not getting paid in full for land he sold to some Korean developers. Sounds like he misplaced his hateful vengeance. Well, he's in prison now and we all get to wait until Korea rebuilds it some time soon, or maybe not, because they haven't done much with it since then.

I was so upset that I went straight to the station and went home. I'm just pulling your leg. I knew about the arson already. In truth, we went to the adjacent market to go shopping! I, as usual, did not buy any of the cool t-shirts I saw and then regretted it before going home. Here I sit waiting for tomorrow to come. Whoopie!

Stand Up And Shouuuut!

Before I get too carried away with the complexities of life today, I wanted to send a lil' shout out to ma gurl Alissa. It's her birthday. I've known Alissa since her rowdy college days when she would try to pick up boys from Facebook and yell a lot. Now that she's happily in a relationship again, I think she's stopped doing one of those things. When I think of Alissa, I think of her strong personality, her love of photography, and her nursing career. And usually I imagine her wearing her Doc Martens (the black and white ones). Anyway, it's her birthday today. If you see her, tell her I said, "Shut up." And then when she either laughs or starts pouting say, "And happy birthday." But not before saying, "shut up." That is essential to the joke, see? I can't count on you for anything, can I?

I really don't have much else to say, but I'm going to try anyway.

And fifteen minutes later I still hadn't typed anything. Ok, so I'm going to Seoul this weekend. Should be a good time, I think. I'm kind of aimless when it comes to reasons why I'm going, but I told some folks I would, so I am. The Seoul Metropolitan Area is a funny place. I don't consider it real Korea. The people who live there are stuck in a bubble that reminds them via loudspeaker, "Seoul is the best place in Korea. You never need to leave," maybe once every three minutes or so. As such a place allows, they can survive without even knowing how to read Hangeul. This is a little bit appalling to me. Despite this and the fact that they almost never leave the Seoul area (some of them never do), they're still good folks and I enjoy their company. It may be just the areas that I've visited in Seoul, but there sure are a lot of foreign people and a lot of English speaking.

I'm not sure if I'm genuinely upset about this or just slightly green with envy. I suppose if I arrived and lived in Seoul and never lived in Daegu, I'd probably feel that all there was to Korea was in the Seoul area, too. After all, everything you'd ever need is there. All the Western comforts, many of the cultural heritage sites, etc. Plus, depending on where you live, the infrastructure can make it very difficult to leave Seoul. Living in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world means it can literally take hours to get somewhere else in town. That would definitely be a turn off to traveling outside of Seoul if you had to take a two hour bus ride to even get to the train station to then travel somewhere else. So, it's kind of a paradox, but I do still think that there are many lazy foreigners living in Seoul who buy into that whole "trendy" scene. They dabble somewhere exotic, but certainly don't live the Korean experience. I'm not saying I'm worldly by any means, but I don't think one who lives in Seoul for a year after college can call themselves worldly, either. But there are those who do. I'm just saying. It's like going to Paris for a week and saying you've seen France.

On the other, more positive hand, Seoul is a good, fun city with a lot to do. Hence why I'm taking my third trip there in as many months. I'll let you know how it goes. Ciao!

Don't Yell At Me

Yeah, I know. I'm getting lazier as the days go by. It's one of those complacency things, I guess. It's all just life now, you know? No more of that "hey I saw a guy peeing on the sidewalk today and it was so weird." Now when I see that it's just "meh, I'm kinda hungry." With that excuse being made, I feel like I have less to write about lately. I go to work, come home, play guitar, eat dinner, surf the net/watch tv on the computer, sleep, repeat. Is that amusing to you? Am I some kind of clown to you? How do I amuse you?

Yesterday was Election Day in Korea, so we all had the day off (probably only because they use schools as polling places and they can't do that when there are foreigners around getting in the way all the time. Them damn farners are bringin' this country down!

As such, I slept in and went to see Robin Hood at the local theater. Review? Well, it's certainly different from any of the other Robin Hood movies that have been made. I'd say it's probably closest to a watered down Braveheart sequel. Since when did Robin Hood lead the English army against the French? It was entertaining, but come on. At times, it seemed like they forgot that he was an archer and it felt strange when he arched after not using a bow and arrow for 3/4 of the movie. But of course he had to use one to kill the bad guy. Don't worry, that's not a spoiler. In the first half hour of watching it you'll be able to figure out what happens...well, except for the parts that don't make any sense. And at that point, you're kind of looking for them anyway. Ok, that's enough. Since when did my blog become a movie review site? Sorry about that. Revised review: Robin Hood was an entertaining movie.

After the movie was really the highlight of my week. I went to Duryu Park to meet up with all the dirty farners. We took over a corner of the park and just sat on mats talking, eating, drinking, playing guitar, frisbeeing, soccer balling, etc. We only ended up staying for about 7 hours until it was dark and we realized we had to go to school in the morning.

As such, I was kind of useless today in class. And there's an oily smudge on my computer glass covery thing where my forehead was resting. Hey, tomorrow's Friday!