Kia Tigers

The subway is mad.  It is the worst I have ever seen it in Seoul. 
Once, I experienced the sardine tin that is the Tokyo subway at rush hour but that somehow had more order to it.  I remember being jammed in the middle of the car.  I was unable to move or hold onto anything but the fear of falling was pointless because there was not enough room to fall. 
No, this disaster of sweat and jostling for grip and spots near the door reminds me of the unfortunate nights when a show at Axis or Avalon on Lansdowne Street at the same time the game at Fenway let out. 
Makes sense, I guess, as an old woman shoves me to the side and I am nearly run over by another, I am on my way to my first baseball game in Korea.  Also, I am riding on the Green Line.
When I come out at the Sports Complex stop I am a hot wreck.  I hope my shirt doesnt soak through.  I am trying to show off my new clothing and my new shoes; shoes that cut deep into my ankles and soak my socks in blood by the end of the night.  I spot my friends Kiki and Joe at the top of the stairs.  We pour from the tunnel like ants. 
I am relieved to breathe fresh air*.  I spent the entire last part of the subway entombed in the middle of the train, being bounced around and pushed, all with my hands in my pocket so nobody thought the sweaty foreigner was out for a grope.
We wait for a girl named Jeong A to arrive and we are soon walking into the stadium.  Anyone accustomed to the security and checkpoints and general assumed rules of baseball stadiums in the States is almost at once horrified and delighted.
We walked right in.  Tickets were cheap, a kindness from Joe, but they arent subject to the scrutiny of back home.  Further we have bags of food and booze that is let in with no fuss.  If we had forgotten beer then it was possible to buy a can for less than 3,000W. 
The game is great.
Joe's team, or rather the team of his parent's hometown and thus his own, is the visiting Kia Tigers.  Taking on the number 1 Doosan Bears, the home team.  We sit on the visiting team's side of the field.  This is important. 
The game goes like any other, anywhere on earth.  There are fouls and homers.  If anything, it is a bit tense as one team takes the team after another.  Pitchers are pulled out (in painfully rapid succession that leads to an hour long 7th) and balls are thrown.
What is different is the shear noise.  It transcends so far beyond the noramlcy of the screaming at Stateside games that it transcends into what I always thought was an exaggerated cliche. 
There is a lot more singing, for one.
Every batter steps up to a theme song and a chant.  One guy steps out and Yellow Card's "Ocean Avenue" blares.  These chants turn into songs and then silence when the other team picks up the bat.  Like everywhere else, the desibles soar with loaded bases. 
En lieu of the frank and beer (which would cost a hefty amount at home) we eat bread with cream, cho-bap, sandwiches, and a bowl of ramen. 
In the end the Tigers win and Joe can't speak because he scream / sang the whole damn night.  I can hear nothing because I was simply present.

 

*But this is Seoul, so it isn't very fresh.

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Insadong

Insadong

Mandu Near Tomgi.  Insadong.

It is a place that I have spent the most time in in Seoul but also a place I know the least about. 

It was my R and R destination when I lived in Cheongju.  I don't know how many nights I spent in the Tomgi Hotel that last time around, but I figure they came away from our torrid relationship with no less thn 500,000W of my not-so-hard-earned money. 

The Tomgi was good to me.  I can't imagine I will ever be desperate enough or rich enough to stay there again now that I am a resident of Seoul but it is nice to see it as I come to the surface from the subway.  It is still there: neon letters, trash, derelicts, and business cards for in-call prostitutes.  Empty green bottles, once containing soju, rest against the curb and the trash bins are overflowing; remnants of the soju tents that appear at night and vanish come sun-up.

I smile when I see the building.  A Korean couple (at least in the physical sense) open the tinted door and run in.  40,000W for 4 hours in the day, if I remember. 

Still this is basically the extent of my knowledge of Insadong.  I remember hearing about art galleries, antique dealers, and stalls selling every manner of traditional Korean goods.  I saw this part of Insadong only once, with Dawoon who I met in Greece, when she took me on a walk through the main drag.  I remember drinking coffee and catching up, talking about trees and mountains in the coldest and most rugged part of Greece in the winter.  That day, Korea was an extension of our experience together in a work camp. 

I remember tea shops and hipsters, tourists and the Blue House but not much else.  My real area of expertise then was the stretch of road between the Tomgi, the store next door that sold soju and cigarettes, and the McDonalds down the road.  On these solo trips I made no effort to get to know Seoul- I got drunk and watched Jersey Shore (known locally as Mad Party House) and sat in the in-room jacuzzi.  A love motel at its finest requires no love other than a man and his snack wrap. 

The music shop is still there.  I bought a guitar there.  It was cheap and a higher quality than anything I had owned previously.  I played "Puff the Magic Dragon" with it for the Christmas Pageant in Cheongju.  It is now owned by Han's father.  I remember it fondly.

I walk to Tapgol Park.  As far as historical monuments go it is easy to pass.  Inside, behind glass panneling stands a 10 storied pagoda.  It is a remnant the 15th century Buddhist temple that once occupied the area.  Now, it is perhaps more relevant as the place where the March 1st Movement of 1919 began.  In this area the Proclamation of Independence was read for the first time. 

Old men sit about, cross-legged drinking booze.  A school group is waiting in line for the bathroom.  I cut infront of them, see the 50 foot troth that serves as a urinal and walk right on out.  There are certain moments in which kids who want to say "hi" to you are not welcomed. 

I wander through alleys for a long time.  A few hours pass and I am lost in that I don't specifically know where I am but not worried because the bustle and the smell of fresh fish and burning meat tell me that I am still in Insadong. 

The alleys are dark.  The overhangs of the buildings that form these arteries and the spider webs of cables serve to blot out the sun.  If this wasn't Korea it would be a prime place to get jumped.  It is Korea though and the biggest danger is, as always, the possiblilty of being run down by a lunatic delivery man on a scooter or scaled by steam pouring from a mandu shop. 

I surface again on the edge of a park.  To my left are the walls of the Jongmyo Shrine, a place that has existed in one form or another since 1394.  It is an extremely significant place in Korean history and thus its nationalistic culture.  Ordinarily, a tour guide is required to enter but as luck would have it it is Saturday, and on this day it is not. 

I am about to walk in but to the right I find what might be one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen in this country.

In Cheongju I came across 30 or so ajummas practicing some sort of rythmic drumming routine on the side of a river.  As they marched back and forth pounding giant drums while still dressed in the standard, clashing ajumma uniform they struck me as an army.

Instant Cancer.  Insadong.

In the park next to Jongmyo are hundreds-no thousands- of ajoshis sitting beneath the trees.  I want to say that I see their movements like birds in a bush but the truth is they are hardly moving.  The only thing that really gives any indication that they have not all died at once is the murmor of ambiguous conversation.  Occasionaly there is a loud grunt, sometimes the sound of a throat being violently cleared (one of the main tracks on the Korean Soundtrack album, by the way). 

As I walk through, cautiously snapping a couple of photos, I become aware that there isn't a single woman in this whole bunch.  They are all playing, waiting to play, or hovering over a game of Reversi.  Just about every last one of these unsmiling men is chainsmoking to such an extent that even in the open air the smell of ash and tobacco is overwhelming.  There are no pigeons here.  In any other park of this sort they would be lingering everywhere.  They have either been replaced by this lot or they have all died of avian lung cancer. 

I pay my 1,000W to get into Jongmyo.  It is a serene place in this city but still obviously in a city.  While its grounds are expansive there are groups of school kids running around everywhere.  I have to walk all the way to its forested rear to get any solitude.  I find a colorful shack in the trees and wonder how old it is and if it is haunted; turns out to be a bathroom. 

Jongmyo Shrine.  Insadong.

I see tourists now and again with the English guidebook, available free of charge.  Mine is in my pocket.  I often go to these historic places with no previous knowledge of them whatsoever and then read about them later.  This is a stupid habit as I often pass by something really awesome without knowing that it is anything but a mound in the grass. 

I am making this whole treck because I am on a kind of self-imposed deadline.  The One Year Issue of Kamikaze Magazine is set to come out the next morning.  I am going to be spending the rest of the weekend trying to finish it.  The purpose of this trip is to make a few more images.  I don't linger anywhere too long. 

There is something unearthly about the shrine if you can remember that it is not a fancy place that is going to blow you away with sparkle.  It is subdued and natural in a sense because it is old as shit.  Like most ancient places in Korea, the Japanese felt the need to burn it when they came over.  If you want real accurate dates and a detailed history Wikipedia is always close at hand. 

It was built for the sake of ritual memorial services.  After a time of mourning that lasted various amounts of time for various kings and their wives (maybe others, I don't know) tablets representing the souls of the departed were brought to this place.  A ceremony with sacrifices was held and these spirit tablets were entoumbed. 

This place still hosts the Spirit Tablets of the kings of Joseon Dynasty.  I feel linke a bastard when, upon hearing "Spirit Tablets" for the first time, I think of The Legend of Zelda.

The wole thing was a somber and ritualistic affair.  It is something that seems to be taken seriously.

Ceremonies have been greatly simplified but the place is still sacred.  Amongst the paths and colorful pagodas, ponds and twisted trees is a line of stone.  Atop is a sign that asks visitors not to step on the rocks:

This is for the spirit.

I leave and find my way to the main drag of Insadong: Insadong-gil.  It is a stark contrast to the shrine.  It is not peaceful.  It is chaos.  It is every boardwalk and tourist strip put together.  It reminds me of the streets I wandered aimlessly in Barcelona, almost a year to the day earlier, but somehow it seems busier here. 

I realize that photos would be fairly crappy here because I can't see more than a few feet ahead of me.  Off to the side Turks sell ice cream and fuck with little Korean kids, denying them ice cream with clever turns of a giant spoon.  I see loads of tourists.  I know that they are tourists and not expat teachers or military personel because sometimes they say "hi" to me.  It is nice to not be in a place where even in a tiny kimbap joint it is standard practice to ignore other foreigners, despite the fact that almost all of us are here because we don't know what the fuck we are doing with our lives.

Off in the alleys I find restaurants and curiosities.  I pass a cafe with caged birds outside the door.  The next alley is vacant and polluted: a recycling plant devoid of anybody but a bent old woman hauling a load of cardboard that would rival the shingles my father spends endless hours hauling up roofs.  It is an interesting sight but nobody so much as slows down because they don't sell pottery or calligraphy pens. 

The Spirit Path.  Jongmyo Shrine.  Insadong.

In the middle of it all, parting the sea of people like Moses, is a man with an intercom and a cross painted onto cardboard on his back.  I can't understand him but people avoid him more than they avoid the legless men who drag themselves singing into megaphones here.  I get the idea.  He is the local equivalent of the guy with the signs that say "repent" in Boston and every other local in the greater Massachusetts area. 

As I leave this place, back to my current dwelling in rich-ass Gangnam I pass a stage surrounded by people.  An old woman is playing a traditional instrument.  It is set to that universal Korean ballad tempo and everyone seems enthralled.  It sounds beautiful.  I look around and all ages seem smitten with this lady.  I snap a few more photos and listen for a time.  I listen long enough to identify the song, even if it is in Korean.

Elvis.  "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You."

More photos of this and Gangnam here.

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A Vocab Test that Includes the Word "Poop"

I know it is trouble from the start.

I am sitting in the small teacher's office at my hagwon.  The Korean teachers around me are filling out report cards, talking, or are otherwise doing things that make them seem as though they are doing much more than me. 

They are. 

School is much more chaotic this time around, but still, I make more money and do far less than my Korean counterparts. 

Behind me, my fellow foreigner named Alix hacks up a lung.  It is an illness that seems to have taken everyone but me.  All I have is an earache. 

I look at the topics of two of my classes and cringe. 

Koreans have this thing where they are obsessed with poop.  It is a pretty common thing, I guess, particularly at a young age.  At this school and the last I find that the vast majority of classes at some point have an outbust of "Dung!"  No translation necessary.  I have one little student who, while consistently doing better on her vocab tests (impossible not to as nobody even pretends to try in that class) always draws that ever-so-common-in-Korea seaming pike of shit.  It is like her call sign.  If she ever becomes a mastermind of evil, she will leave a card with a steaming pile of shit.

This is why I am not looking forward to teaching.  Further, I don't know quite how to go about this subject.  I teach a number of "subjects" at school, each a facade for learning English.  It is pretty clever, really.

Why did they dedicate a chapter to the digestive system for elementary schoolers?  Why id diahrea(sp) featured so prominantly in a class called, appropriately enough, We-Wiz? 

In We Wiz, the main character goes on about his family has all of these health problems.  His grandmother then goes on to list a bunch of home remedies.  Eating steamed sweet potatoes before bed helps for diahhrea, by the way.  If you have some pimples on your face then you should wash with lemon juice. 

They handle it all pretty tactfully. 

My big concern is my Junior class.  There are two immature boys and one immature girl.  They are going to have a field day and I won't finish the lesson.

I worry about this because it is becomming increasingly difficult to control most of these kids.  Further, there is one smart girl who looks at me with judgemental eyes when I fail to corral Adam, who seems to exclusively wear sweat pants, and Joshua, who is like a catalyst that only operates when at the worst possible time. 

Last week Adam and Joshua got into it.  I had to keep them apart.  Joshua left class first and was followed by Adam. 

Adam called Joshua to look back and then pinched the shit out of his cheeks until I grabbed his arms.  It was like the lamest grandma-mafia hit ever.

I have been having trouble keeping control and actually finishing the lessons. 

I walk into class and a girl named Lisa smiles and says "Sorry teacher!  I didn't do my homework!"
This is like a joke. She has done her homework precisely one time.  It is kind-of her thing.  Even on review day when we do homework in class she still somehow manages to not finish her homework. 
We listen to the audio for the unit.  A camera has been ingested and it is explaining the roles and details of everything it passes.  I kid you not. 

The kids laugh a bit. 

I try to move on.  I don't want to linger on this whole thing.  The sooner we are filling in the blanks and not listenning to Bob the Rectal Camera tell us about breaking down food and waste the better.
So far so good.

When it comes time for the vocab test I hand out the papers and let them study.  I don't bother to read the list before hand.  This is the simplest part of the job- almost impossible to screw up. 
"Intestines."

"Saliva."

"Mouth."

"Are you serious!?"  Number four catches me off guard.  I didn't imagine it was an actual possibility. 

"Teacher!  Four!"

"Poop." 

There is a brief chuckle amongst kids before it becomes apparent that it isn't quite as hilarious for a non-native speaker.  I burst into laughter and turn red.  I am the least mature person in a room full of 11 year olds. 

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Brokedown Palace

The weather is nuts.  It is Saturday and I am on a tour of Seoul.  It rains briefly and the wind is freezing.  Cloud cover comes and the city is gloomy.

My tour guides are new Korean friends.  Kiki and Joe.  After a couple weeks of feeling useless and bummed about not really having any Korean friends, Han in New York rang her friend Kiki. 

We head into the basement of a huge building for a bite to eat.  Japanese food. 

I eat something.  I don't know the name of it but it is delicious.  It is a kind of bibimbap.  Kiki eats udon noodles in a soy sauce with a bunch of stuff ontop.  It is covered in whispy fish flakes.  The heat of the noodles make the flakes wiggle around.  They look like they are writhing. 

We talk.  I ask about a million questions.  Magazine work has prepared me for meeting new people.  Silences can't ever be awkward if I am constantly jabbering.

Both of them studied in Boston.  We talk a lot about Boston.  They know my university which is something that suprizes me.  In all my time in Korea and other places, nobody has ever heard of Suffolk University. 

Baseball is a universal language.  Both Joe and I went to St Elizabeth's hospital in Brighton.  All three of us like the Pour House.  Joe and I order beers. Well, I don't order anything.  In most situations here I am about as useful as a functioning baby. 

We order coffee.  In the foam of Kiki's drink a heart has been drawn. 

Outside snow swirls with the wind.  When I left it was sunny.  It briefly looks as though the world might end.  In an instant the snow is gone and the sun is out.

Gyeongbokgung Palace. 

I had seen this place once before.  A year earlier, almost to the day I found myself making a panicked dash to the US Embassy in order to replace a lost passport.  I see the crowd control vehicles and security at the walls of the embassy.  Security is tight everywhere in Seoul.  Obama arrives tomorrow for the Seoul Nuclear Safety meeting-thing. 

We watch for a moment as men with black beards march back and forth.  They wear traditional garb and carry spears.  A drum keeps time.  It is the changing of the guard. 

The palace was built in 1394.  Since then it has been burnt, destroyed by war, rebuilt, etc.  Walking along the paths it is possible to forget for a moment that we are in Seoul.  Kids play and there are throngs of people everywhere and the constant click of cameras, but it is other-worldly.  This place is older than the USA. 
We walk along side alleys until we are alone.  In the distance are mountains.  Snow reflects light on the tallest peak.  Joe points out a small hut on a ridge and tells me that he spent time there when he served his mandatory military service. 

Two women, dressed in hanboks walk behind the skeletons of trees. 

After, on our way back to the subway they take me to the largest book store in Korea.  Actually, it seems to sell everything imaginable, including guitars and ukuleles.  They help me buy a usb cable for my camera, something I had been looking for passively since I landed here. 

Before we part ways Kiki buys me a bag of warm, spongy, puffs of dough.  Inside there is some sort of custard and sweet bean. 

"It is my favorite food," she says.  "Eat it on the subway."

I eat the whole bag and then feel like an American fat-ass.

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In Country

Guess what I stared at for 14 hours.

So, I live in Seoul now.  It is a little overwhelming.  I had been looking forward and basically only thinking about comming back to this place for almost a year.  It was almost a year ago that I left my dirty, ratty apartment in Cheongju.  It has been almost a year since Vietnam ("I remember my time in 'nam") and Cambodia, Thailand, and Jordi.

In my time at home I accomplished virtually nothing.  I walked my dog a bunch of times, fell through the ice, ate some burritoes that may or may not have been over a pound, drank a bunch of Brandy with my father in Manville, and ate a bunch of Chillis.  I managed to put on every pound I lost in an impressively short amount of time. 

I am talented like that.

Anyway, here I am.  I am back in Korea.  Cheongju is gone for me, save the best tattoo choice on earth. 

I thought about writing this giant update a while ago.  It never worked out and now I have been here for a week.  So I will play catch-up with a list:

That hole is my shower.

1. I lived in a tiny dorm room with a toilette in it for a few days. 

2. Homesickness and a general totally-bummed-out / what-the-hell-have-I-done feeling hit me pretty hard for a few days.  Largely, I am blaming this on that dormitory. 

3. I also blame a dead computer battery and general inability to communicate with anyone at home for this feeling.  I remedied this by shoving my 3-pronged plug into a 2-pronged adapter and then into the wall without a ground.  So far I am still alive.

4. My school cannot be more different than my school in Cheongju.  Gone are nice family dinners and laughing and... you know, fun.

5. I met Amanda R for Uzbek food in Dongdaemun.  It turned into a boozefest for me.  When I was in Worcester I developed a fondness for a cheap Russian beer that came in 52 oz brown plastic bottles.  I liked it because they cost less than 4 dollars.  I felt infinitely trashy.  Apparently they come in glass bottles at fine dining establishments frequented by Uzbek fabric dealers.

My kitchen and TABLE!

6. As a result I couldn't find my apartment for 2.5 hours.  Memories include getting into an off-duty cab, buying a snackwrap and nothing. 

7. My new apartment is pretty grand.  There is a real neato sliding wood pannel separating the two rooms.  It makes it feel Asian, which is nice, in Asia.  Observe photos below.

8. I didn't actually bring my camera cable so I can only take photos with my iPod until I get paid.

9. I don't get paid for another month.

Ok, that's it.  Actual post to come.

My bed and chair / laundry hamper.  Also, Soju.

My TV and a dead guy.

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In Country

Seoul is overwhelming. 

I fight to stay awake in the back of the cab that is taking me from Incheon International Airport.  I fail at this spectacularly.  The last time I slept was days ago, and that was drunken sleep.  I spent 17 hours in the air watching "The Big Bang Theory" and doing puzzles. 

Every now and again my head falls back.  My eyes want to shut but I force my lids to stay open.  The cabbie might be weirded out as I am sure he looks into his mirror and sees a guy with his eyes rolled into the back of his head.  I look like a tweaker, maybe. 

I am met on the street by a Korean guy, impeccably dressed, named Chris.  We make small talk as he leads the way to my apartment.  I ask his real name and he tells me that it's "only Chris."  I am too damned tired to ask much more. 

I am barely aware of my surroundings when a door opens in front of me and I am shown my "apartment."

"You will be here only 3 or 4 days," says only Chris. 

It is a nightmare.  The room is not much bigger than a bathroom despite actually containing a bathroom.  A tiny bed is jammed into the space between the toilet and the wall.  A glass divider keeps me from rolling into the bathroom.  A long desk occupies another wall.  With my luggage there is no room to walk. 

Bummer, I think.

I am given some keys and then taken to the school. 

I take in very little.  My systems are shutting down.  I try to be polite.  I meet the guy I am replacing and the other native teacher, both Canadians.  I ask the names of some of the Korean teachers but I make almost no effort to remember them.  This day will exist in my memory as only a blurb. 

On my way "home" I buy a roll of kimbap.  As I eat it with my fingers I notice there is no strip of crab in it. 

This might all work out afterall, I think.  I then pass the hell out. 

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Ralph's Diner, Worcester MA

The last time I see Mike, Patty, and the other Mike who went to Harvard is at 2am outside Ralph's Diner in Worcester, MA.  Last call is over and the door man has ushered everybody outside.  People stand around smoking, waiting on cabs or designated (or drunk) drivers to pull up.  We are waiting for my mom to come pick us up.

The past several hours are spent drinking.  We drink at Mike and Patty's and laugh at the fact that we spent much of our time together at Chillis because we are apparently 50 year old working stiffs. 

Mike and I go to Walmart where he paid for a pump and walked out without the pump.  The pump is for an air-mattress that he doesn't need because I am not sleeping over. 

"Thanks for the mattress, Godfrey," he says. 

At the bar Jeff shows up, Rick, Lauren, and her sister.  I buy people drinks and lose track of all my money and time. 
The night is cold but it was all a great send off.
As we stand and wait it all sinks in and I don't want it to end.  I wanted to go to Korea so badly but now that I am on the verge of leaving, I am tremendously sad.
When I wake up in the morning I won't fall asleep again until I am in Seoul. 

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A Korean in New York

It is somewhere near midnight.  I am in SoHo with Han, my coworker from Kim Hak Soo.
I need to stop calling her my coworker; we haven't worked together in over a year.  Now she is just my friend.  A really good friend.  She has done her time and is no longer responsible for my wellbeing and happiness in a country that is strange to me.
 
She goes to school in New York now.  Everytime I see Han in the States it jars my reality.  It is like a kind of ghost of a dream that invades the day.  It is wonderful. 

Last time she was up we got drunk in Ralph's Diner with Mike, Patty, and Larry.  As we laughed, glossey-eyed, at the 3-6-9 game and pounded beers I became aware at how odd it can sometimes be when two totally seperate social groups that span the globe come together in a union you never thought would ever happen. 

If this were at a party that I had thrown, then the two groups would have not mingled at all and I would have gotten drunk alone off the keg in the middle of the room. 

But, we are getting drunk in SoHo now.  Outside New York revelers scatter this way and that.  It is February but the weather is freakishly beautiful, even at night.  Little Tokyo is abuzz.  We are in a Mexican joint.  Through the window I see Kanji script, English, and Hangeul.  We might as well be in Itaewon. 
We talk about students and the other teachers and the rumors of that fledgling school. 
My mojito is destructive.  After that and another beer I am speaking in mumbled slurs.  It is liquid courage that is necessary maybe because I am staying at Han's apartment with what sounds like the United Nations of alcoholics. 

We talk about money.  I am drunk enough to start going on about some nonsense about not caring if and when I die broke and alone so long as I can see the world.  Han agrees with me.  Over the past year and change Han became a really great friend.  It is funny that one of the people that I can relate to the most is a 22 year old Korean girl. 

"I wonder if it is all a huge mistake," I tell her.  My head sinks a little.  It is still drunken conversation over rum and tequilla, but I am talking about something that genuinely worries.
Many of my conversations with Larry from Cheonan entail him telling me not to go back to Korea.  I spent god knows how many nights and days dreaming about going back to Korea and almost always caught myself using my Cheongju friends' faces as stand-ins for the friends I will make in Seoul. 

I have this fear that I will land in Seoul and then get hit in the gut with that "what the fuck have I done?" feeling. 



 

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Waiting

It is just past midnight on a Sunday.  Tomorrow I will pick up my E2 Visa from the Korean Consulate in Newton, MA.  My recruiter, a man who calls himself Steven, has told me that any day now he will send me the itinerary for my flight from Boston to Incheon.  It seems real now.

It has been a long and unproductive road to this point.  It seems as though it was so recently that I touched down at Logan International Airport in Boston after over a year away from home.  It seems such a short time ago but it has now been nearly 9 months. 

I have done next to nothing noteworthy over the past 9 months.

The weather was turning from pleasant to oppressive when I landed.  I had a girlfriend and my family was so happy to see me.  I saw my friends and I told my stories.

Kelly lives in China now.  My family is probably fed up with the horrible mood swings and general crankiness that accompanies an utterly idle and comfortable life. 

I have this memory of sitting in MJ's, an expat bar in my old city of Cheongju.  I don't really remember who was there but Gavin, the only Kiwi in my main circle of friends, was talking about the difficulties of doing stand-up comedy in Korea.

"It won't translate," he said.  "Nobody will know that the hell an ajumma is."

The problem with comming home after a year of living and teaching in Korea with other people from a bunch of other countries living and teaching in Korea is that you almost forget how to relate to anybody else.  You tell your stories and find youself laughing your ass off by yourself, wondering where your Waygook friends are. 

"I felt like I didn't belong," said my friend Tim the day after I got home.  He had been home for a number of months.  "Sometimes, I still don't."

It is hard to come home after something like that.  Well, it isn't.  When I saw my mother, father, and sister after so long it was hard not to cry.  My dog lost his shit and I spent the next several weeks catching up with friends, family, TV, burritos and alcohol.  I told my stories and they told theirs. 

So many of my friends obtained jobs with decent pay and decent respect.  A few were married, bought houses, and / or had children.  I can barely take care of myself. 

Close friends aside I felt myself falling by the wayside of secondary friends and vice-versa.  It wasn't a bad thing; it was a natural thing.  A short common history was partially eaten by the intense experience that is international friendship abroad.  I couldn't relate to a year of adulthood and they couldn't relate to my year of reckless abandon. 

I knew I wanted to go back to Korea almost as soon as I got back.
I put it out of my mind and occupied my time with distractions.  Within a week or so of landing I was on the road with Brandon, one of my best friends and a guy I missed profoundly, down to Florida to see the one and only Hadley. 

I went to the worst part of Brooklyn and deap sea fishing.

Larry from Cheonan is successful now.  I saw him with Mike and Patty in Brooklyn.  At the train station it was hard to recognize him: clean-shaven and dressed to the nines from work.  It all seemed so different.  Last time I saw him we stunk of booze and I was sleeping on his floor because he had already given away his couch. 

It all came back, though.  A couple months later we all went deep-sea fishing.  I brought peanut-butter and jelly, Mike brought grinders.  Larry from Cheonan brought a package of Oreos and a water bottle full of soju.  This was at 7am. 

I tried to put the feeling of wanting to go back to Korea aside.  It was inconvenient.  My family wanted to know my plan, Kelly wanted to know my plan, I wanted to know my plan.  My plan was to blow through my money as fast as possible.  I immediately went out and bought a new laptop and a giant TV despite the fact that the only TV show that I watch is AFV.

After a few months I decided that I really wanted to go back, but I was wary.  Larry spent a long time telling me that it was probably a mistake.  I knew he might be right.  He told me that he had friends who tried for the "repeat" and it ruined it all for him.  I told him to "shut up" but I knew he was right. 

I sat on the idea of going back to Korea for a while because I was scared that what I actually wanted was to go back in time.  I spent so many hours at Buzz in Cheongju talking to Tim and Andrew, Amanda, Amanda, Katie, Gavin, Robyn, Kim and everyone about how we would pay all the money in the world to go back to University. 

It seemed as though my ideal memories of an idyllic University had been replaced by idyllic Korea.  I knew this was fantasy.

Cheongju was gone.  it was over for me.  The vast majority of the people that made that place special were long gone.  I tried to fight the urge to go back to Korea because I knew my tendency to dwell on the "good ol' days" but it all won out.

I took a job in Gangnam, one of the richest areas of Korea. 

The school covers the same age-range of my old school and, while slightly bigger with 2 foreign teachers, does not have a massive / impersonal number of students. 

So, tomorrow I will find out when I leave for Korea.  I have done this before but still I feel anxiety and nerves saturating my core.  My temper is short and I wake up with the jitters. 

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Same, Same

The area looks the same.  I am in Newton, MA.  On the horizon I can see the fuzzy Prudential Center and the rest of the Boston landscape shrouded in an unnatural winter fog. 

I park in the same spot as before.  The last time I was here I managed to fuck up the walking directions to the Korean Consulate General of New England.  Now that I know exactly where the building stands, I feel like a moron.

Directions
Park on Washington Street (literally park anywhere on Washington Street).
Walk towards all of the buildings.
Find the ONE ENORMOUS BUILDING.
Walk in.
Simple as that.

Last year (a little over a year ago, actually closer to two) I walked past the building and looked like a moron: it was cold and I had a handful of papers and was dressed to the T.

This year I have a handful of papers and am sporting a horribly shaved face (read: half a beard) but I walk right into the building.  On the second floor, amongst the doors labled "Fenway Pharmaceutical" and other such things, I find blocky Korean characters.  I walk in and tell the lady behind the glass that I am here to apply for an E2 Visa. 

Last time I had to sit down for an hour and fill out the paperwork.  Looking back on it, I am suprized that I made it into Korea at all; I had no idea as to what address to put down and my Visa sponsor ended up being a combination of my actual employer and my recruiter.  I sat through an interview that I wasn't prepared for but its goal seemed only to determine my pedophile status.

I passed.

I walk in, hand my application and $45 under the glass.  Off to the side I hear Korean spewing from the television.  Korean News.  Over the past 8 months I have missed the crescendo and stoccato of spoken Korean: the frenetic pace with which they say absolutely everything.  Even now the sounds from the TV are over my head.  Still, all the "-sseyo's" and "-mnida's" make me smile.  In an ideal world I would understand more.  The anchor says the number "four".  I understand this and it is a victory.

I effing own "four".
Fact is, last time I was here they were talking about the recently sunk Cheonan.  Months later the sinking would be officially attributed to North Korea.  This blame would lead to one of two incidents in which the North's verbal vomit led to my school warning me to get ready to bail: a modified zombie contigency plan.  The second time, Tim's birthday, was a bit more than verbal.
Nothing of the sort this time.  Kim Jong Il is dead.

The woman tells me to pick up my visa on Monday.  I look at her and ask her if that is it; I am aiming to impress and am wearing a shawl.  A shawl, for Christ' sake. 
Yes.
I wish I knew I could have mailed it.

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