Sundays

Another week gone by and another week closer to the end of this whole Korea thing. Earlier this week I received all of my pension information from my boss. I couldn’t make much out of it and the amount that has been paid into it seems to be out of date (at least, I sure hope it is out of ) but it told me how to go about getting my money when I leave.


Things are getting a little sad in Cheongju. My friends all arrived around the same time a couple of months before I did and they are all leaving in about a month. Amanda is staying another year and there are a few other people who came after I did, but most of the people I spend the bulk of my weekends with will be gone soon.

Ah, such is life.

Today is Sunday. It is about 9pm. I have to go into work Monday and Tuesday but then I will be on vacation until Monday. With Intensives, poor sleeping abilities, trying to get my portfolio back in order, I am really looking forward to some time off. The occasion is that it is the Lunar New Year. Koreans use this time to go to the home villages of their parents and grandparents. Just like the Chuseok holiday I couldn’t really get much about the traditions of this holiday out of my students.

Accordingly, apparently my kids are going to eat all of grandma’s Mandu-rice cake-soup and steal all of her money. They might wear some fancy Hanboks, though.

My plan is to head to the big mountain, Seoraksan, in the north-east with Rick and Lauren and try to make it to the top. It is no Everest or K2, but it’s a mile vertical anyway, so who knows if we will get all the way to the Summit, but I am going to give it a go. We will spend a couple of nights there before heading back. In my mind it is going to be awesome. Realistically, everything will probably be closed as it was on Chuseok so it will likely be a giant disaster. Oh well.

It seems that I have a firmly established routine on Sundays. I really do not know why given that it is totally unproductive and ends in me spending too much money, but it has become a solid part of my week:



8am- My alarm goes off. I have not woken up at 8am in months. I set this so that I wake up, realize how lucky I am to not have to be into work until 1pm. I then promptly go back to sleep.

12pm- Usually I am reasonably conscious by now. Now, remember, I am writing about Sundays in Korea. The thing with Sundays in Korea is that Saturdays in Korea routinely spill into Sundays in Korea. So, despite being conscious I rarely move. At the most, I might rotate my pillow if I happened to drool in my drunken sleep.

1pm- Think about getting out of bed. Actually, this is an inaccurate wording. This is more accurate: think about getting out of my floor mat. Usually, this is just a bluff.

1:15pm- Realize I am hungry.

1:16 - 1:30pm- Think about what I want to accomplish during the day. Realize that none of it will happen.

2pm- Finish my meal at Burger King.

2:15 - 3:15pm- Walk around Home Plus like a zombie.

That is basically a long way of saying that I spend too much time at Home Plus. This doesn’t really surprise me so much as it makes me worried. On days when I was really bored at home I would sometimes walk around Target. I would generally buy absolutely nothing. I am worried that I am predestined to become a routine part of the mall-walking circuit.

I never bought anything at Target largely because I was flat broke. Now, I am not flat broke. I have become one of those clichéd people who goes to the store for one thing (usually salsa) and walk out with 80 bucks worth of junk.

Now, every Sunday I do the same song and dance at Home Plus: buy salsa, fake pizza cheese, and tortilla chips. I start off on the first floor which is home goods. I like to look at the cameras and the fancy rice cookers. In the beginning of the year I thought about buying a small toaster oven so I could make food that doesn’t involve my pot or frying pan. Now, I have managed to stop myself from making any purchases that can’t be eaten by me as I do not have a very long time left in Korea.
Things I have bought in the home department:

Steaming rack

Floor sleeping mat

Shoe rods that don’t work

Christmas tree (aprox 6 inches)

2 pairs of jeans that I didn’t bother to try on (take that mom)

A Walther PPK BB-Gun (with a silencer).

Then I go down the escalator ramp to the food section. In order to get a huge number of shopping carts to the food floor the employees send them down the escalators in big groups. They become stationary on the ramp and are received by an employee at the bottom who quickly pulls them out of the way. Now, I have seen a few people almost get wrecked when their individual carts get stuck when the escalator ends and the floor begins. Always, I get stuck between two groups of carts and fear for my life enough to formulate an escape plan if the set of carts in front of me. I do not plan on dying via a shopping cart sandwich.

The food floor in Home Plus is almost always ridiculously crowded with people and their carts.

Usually, I am in a good mood until I get to the food floor. I usually walk around the produce and meat departments to see if anything pops out. I don’t usually buy too much food as I eat at school, but sometimes I like to mix it up. Last Sunday I had tacos.

The problem with Home Plus is the aisles. They are smaller than aisles at home and they are also a lot fuller. I often try to walk up and down the aisles looking for snacks but I usually only make it threw a handful before I start getting flustered.

I do not know if it is because of the narrow aisles or something else, but Korean shoppers have this tendency of just stopping in clusters in the middle of an aisle. If I could make eye contact with them or even get them to look at me without making an idiot of myself I would just scoot by. Often times they stop in groups big enough to make the passage into a dead end. So, I go to the next aisle and hope it has not already been sealed.

Within 10 minutes of trying to simply get to the other side of the store my mission of buying snacks turns into a mission of buying salsa and then getting the heck on out of there. As it is, I usually spend a lot of time swearing at everybody beneath my breath.

After this I go home, clean my apartment, eat and then wonder why I can’t fall asleep after sleeping until almost 2pm.

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Insomnia

If you notice that my entries are more spread out, then that is because my life is pretty much occupied. Intensives are ridiculous. I have heard of some people who have it worse than I do (majorly extended days) but compared to my regular schedule it is pretty horrendous.


I have failed to adequately mention my new school. Each Friday I eat a rushed dinner and am outside waiting for a school bus to pick me up at 6:45pm. I would have mentioned that it has been freezing here (it has) but given that temps at home are reading somewhere around -20f with a wind-chill in the  -50’s with a good 4 feet of snow I will save it.

Anyway, I get on the bus full of kids try to squeeze my legs into the seat. There is a TV on the bus which is good because nobody talks to me. This does not change when I have them in class, either.

So, I walk up a couple of flights of stairs with a bunch of kids (late middle school - early high school) until I come to Albert’s other school. The way you can tell if a school is Albert’s is that they seem to always have his face staring at you somewhere on the walls. In my school there is an enormous charectiature of Albert and Kim Hak Su; I imagine that soon Kim will be painted over. At his middle school, a TV is playing his old TV series. In it he has spiked hair and an orange dress shirt. You can’t hear what he is saying (he is usually overpowered by Korean Spongebob on the TV next to him) but he seems to be shouting it at the camera like a smiling maniac. Sometimes he claps his hands. I asked Albert if he is famous, once. He told me that the channel went bankrupt shortly after his program began to air.

At this class I teach a couple of 45 minute classes. They are meant to be conversation classes. The format, until a couple of weeks ago, was to read a quick article about something and then ask the students questions about the article. There are around 30 kids in the bigger of the two classes so I have to make sure there is enough depth to the article without it being too hard. Every week I tell them and Hae Jin, who sits off to the side, yells at them, to answer in full sentences. This never happens.

Recently we switched the format so that we would read the article and then I would ask them questions semi-related to the article. For example, An article about a zoo might warrant something like “What is your favorite animal? Why? Do you like zoos? Why?” etc. Of course, you have to have several alternate sets of questions for the jerks who say they hate everything to get out of answering.

Frankly, we realize reading the actual article is pretty pointless but it eats time. I can sympathize with these kids not wanting to talk, but I become hyper aware of myself standing in front of them when everyone is staring at me silently. Generally, I have to try to explain the vocabulary in simple English and I look and sound like a babbling moron. It is basically a bad 45 minute speech class every week. Also a couple of kids routinely fall asleep.

So, this Friday we are switching to free conversation because even I am bored. It will probably be a nightmare, but oh well.



The past few weeks I have not been feeling too well. I have felt run down. Emotionally, I am happy and chipper an all that but I have been fatigued. My sleeping schedule has been off. Part of this is because I feel no need to go to sleep at a decent hour when I can just wake up at 12:45 and go to school.

So, basically, that is what I have been doing. At night I either write, read, watch TV or work on a website I am making. Some days I am up until 3 or 4am without even thinking about it. Of course, the next day I wake up dead and the thought of waking up with a little extra time does not even cross my mind.

I have also had some moderate insomnia here. It has been pretty consistent but it was nothing that really bothered me too much. I would just lay on my floor mat and stare at the ceiling until 6 or 7am and then fall asleep until I had to go to school.

Not counting insomnia I can’t explain, I basically destroyed my internal clock every weekend. Friday and Saturday are pretty consistently long nights at the bar or the hookah lounge or elsewhere. So, two consecutive nights of going to sleep at 4 or 5am pretty much cancel out any hope of sleeping on Sunday nights.

Anyway, like I said, the past few weeks have been rough as far as maintaining a decent energy level. I couldn’t tell if I was burning myself out by staying up so late and then sleeping so late, whether it was school, or all of this extra stuff I am trying to do and figure out (money / writing / website / Russia / etc).

Anyway, last week I woke up and felt off. I felt crappy enough to call into work and spend the day laying around like a vegetable who is pretty awesome at video games.

When a class of kids came by to visit me / steal my food and I had to hide old beer cans in my freezer you would think that one solution was pretty obvious, anyway.

Since then, my sleep has been way off. With that my ambition went away too. I guess I shouldn’t blame my writing consistency on being too busy, so much as being burnt out. Last Sunday night I laid down to bed and didn’t sleep. It wasn’t an issue of falling asleep at 8 or 9am- I just never fell asleep.

I went to school and managed to function.

I had mentioned my problems sleeping before and Han brought me to the hospital to get some medication to help me sleep. I went home that night with 15 white tablets with no label whatsoever.

Being that I was exhausted I didn’t bother taking one. Also, I don’t like taking pills that I don’t know. Hell, the doctor could be waiting outside waiting for me to eat his roofie.

At 4 am I realized I was screwed. I wasn’t going to suck it up and take a pill and be groggy and hung-over all day. So, I sat there waiting to fall asleep until my alarm went off and told me that Tuesday was going to be an epic sort of horrible day.

I do not recommend teaching 11 classes back to back after close to 72 hours with no sleep.

Eventually I found the name of the pharmaceutical company and figured out that I had been prescribed Ambien. This wasn’t really easy given that pill imprints from asian pharmaceuticals aren’t really categorized on English sites.

So, last night I took one. After watching a pile of close pulsate and my mini Christmas tree thickenning and thinning for a while, I fell asleep. Ambien is awesome.

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Winter Intensives

The school is a lot different than it was a month ago.  For one thing, we have broken off from our parent company of Kim Hak Su.  I was aware that Albert, my boss, had been itching to do this for a while, but I didn’t expect it to happen so fast.  He had told me over beers that while the man, Kim Hak Su, was very smart and a social brother to him, he was also very selfish.  Truth be told, this hasn’t had a noticeable impact on my day to day life.  We just don’t have a school name at the moment.
Boram has been gone since Christmas.  Since then a foreign teacher at Albert’s other school bailed.  To remedy this, he brought Hae Jin to that school.  She has been replaced with a Korean girl named Ara, who has some pretty amazing English under her belt from Australia. 
The problem with Hae Jin and Boram leaving, other than it being sad to see people I’ve known my whole time in Korea leave,  is that they were the ones who really kept kids under control.  Han and I do not inspire the same level of fear of death as those two.  So, to a certain extent, a few classes have descended into anarchy. 
What makes things worse is that public schools have let out for winter break and again the kids flock to private academies.  They come earlier and they stay for a longer part of the day.  Classes have all changed and with that the general dynamic.  Kids who were subdues and peaceful before are now with their friends and they combined to become a kind of axis of evil. 
Winter Class B would be a pretty decent example.  In the class is one boy and two girls who, on their own, aren’t beyond manageable.  Individually, whenever I told one of them to stop talking they would immediately apologize.  The boy would make a heart with his arms and say “Ok, sorry Thomas, I love you ok very good.” 
Currently, I spend most of the class screaming like a lunatic at all three of them.  A week ago, the boy smacked one of the girls on the head and made her cry.  He spent the entire 45 minute class kneeling in front of the smart board.  He still wouldn’t shut up.
Then, there is the Missing Boy (who went MIA for a few hours a bunch of months ago).  I would be lying if I said that winter intensives have made any difference in his classes as he is all alone but he has definitely stepped up his game.
He is one of my first classes a few days a week.  Everyday, he comes in and we do our little dance.  It ends in two ways:
1.  Trap him in a corner, put him in a headlock or pick him up and carry him to class. 
2.  He sprints into class and tries to barricade the door. 
I win both of these scenarios.  He is a scrawny 8 or 9 year old and I outweigh him by approximately 500 lbs.  One day last week, I joined him in a pre-dance glass of orange juice.  We stood there until he took a big sip, threw his glass and ran for the door.  Ok, I thought, scenario 2.  Generally, my strategy is to get my foot into the door as he closes it and then pull the door handle off of the inside (it is broken).  He then closes the door, realizes that he is trapped inside with nothing to hold onto.  I win.
On this day the door was too far broken and wouldn’t properly close.  I thought nothing of it and reached my left arm in and tickled his side.  He responded by shotgun spitting a mouthful of orange juice into my face and all over my folders. 
The dance was over.  He won. 
The next day, after literally dragging him on the floor and into the classroom, he tried to instigate a repeat of the previous day with a mouthful of green tea.  I’m no fool so I laughed and said “no.”  He then spit his at out into my thermos of water.  I said something to the extent of “seriously” and he grabbed my papers and blitzed around me and hurled them out the window.  Kid is like a sneaky little velociraptor. 
As of today, I have been in Korea for 265 days.  I have 100 days left on my contract and I can only imagine that the time I have left will fly by.  The first thing I did upon receiving a cell phone here was set a countdown for the end of my contract.  It wasn’t so much an issue of me wanting time to go by quickly or the need to know exactly how long I have left so much that I sometimes don’t realize time is going by at all.
When I first landed here, a year might as well have been forever.  There were so many milestones that I needed to get through before I went back home: Halloween, my birthday, New Year’s Eve, Christmas, Thanksgiving.  Now: there is nothing. 
In an hour I will check my phone and see that I am down to double-digits.  I don’t know why it is so significant to me; not really.  I suppose I can remember laying in bed at my first apartment in Cheongju with no internet wondering what kind of mess I had gotten myself into.  I recall laying there wondering how I would feel when I was down to the last 100 days; whether I would be emotionally scarred from a Christmas alone. 
I guess I feel pretty much the same as I did at the half way point; which felt pretty much the same as the 4 month point.  Though I am starting to feel that urgency to start doing as much as I can in Korea; my days are numbered.
In 10 days I have a lot of work to do.  I have been mulling over how to get home for quite some time.  I don’t feel like jumping onto an airplane and being home 20 something hours later.  Somehow that seems so anticlimactic to a year abroad. 
Part of the reason I like travel writing and books about journeys (The Hobbit / LOTR) is that they acknowledge that the way home can be an adventure in itself.  I am getting a decent wad of cash when my contract is completed and I feel it would be a waste (both personally and with the whole photographer thing) to skip out on the rest of the world.  As it is, I have not so much as touched my portfolio in a year or so. 
The plan is this: Ferry from Korea to the eastern shore of Russia.  Rail from there to Moscow.  Moscow - Europe (avoiding Belarus).  Eventually I mean to make my way to Barcelona to see an old friend before I finally get on a plane head back to Boston. 
It’s a plan anyway.  A Russian Visa seems to be require a horrible amount of patience, but the embassy told me that it was possible to get while living abroad.  So, I am going to make a go of it.

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Dragons, Guitars, and Christmas

Well, it’s belated but Merry Christmas! I meant to write a nice, if overly sentimental, entry on Christmas night about the difficulties of being away from home for the first time on Christmas. I had it planned all week but I couldn’t write it because I passed the hell out on my floor after being unable to keep my head up for prolonged amounts of time whilst skyping my family on their Christmas morning. Sometimes I even make myself proud.






A family photo- complete with that kid.



A week before Christmas:

We had the Christmas Pageant that my school had been rehearsing for since before Halloween. Every other day the youngest of the kids would have “Do Ray Me” blasted in the class followed by “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” As time wore on and I became more accepting of the fact that I would be spending Christmas sans family I came to appreciate the almost daily Christmas music. As it was in the beginning though, it really just bummed me out. On the rare day that I am feeling particularly glum, there is nothing that sinks that sword in than hearing my favorite Christmas Songs in the classrooms while I freeze my ass off in the teachers’ room.

Still, Halloween soon passed and then November and Thanksgiving and I came to look forward to popping my head into the classrooms. There were choreographed dances to every song. They were nothing overly complicated but that my coworkers built the sequences from the ground up AND taught the lyrics to the kids impressed me.

This video is pretty long.  The kids did awesome but it drags some. 

By far my favorite was Mariah Carey’s “Santa Clause is Coming to Town.” This song and dance number involved almost a dozen late elementary / early middle school girlss and a poor goofy middle school boy who happened to be in the wrong class at the wrong time. I would glance through the window from time to time and see the girls dancing and smiling and he would generally be looking suicidal while trying to jam himself in the corner.

There were a few plays. Hansel and Gretel with no girls. A story about a tiger who is freed from a net by a smaller animal. The tiger, of course, is guilty of take-backsies and says that he will eat his savior. The tiger agrees to go to various other animals that live in the jungle and asks whether or not it would be fair to eat the little animal. Jungle cow is pretty bitter about being made into car seats so he is all for some carnage. Jungle owl says the tiger is a moron and throws a net over him; or something like that.



Han putting tape on their noses.  This was
not as quiet as you might think.



Once December finally rolled around kids would come in and ask me to help them with their reading or pronunciation. A few groups of students were presenting readings or poems to the audience (all of their parents). Two of my nicer girls were doing a joint reading of Cinderella. I spent a few hours with them over the last few days before the pageant helping them read. My little friend, Clara, chose to read a horribly depressing story about an orphan, an abused dog, and a dying grandfather that seemed to take a good 20 minutes if she read quickly.

All in all though, that was pretty much the extent of my contribution to this whole Christmas Pageant. Not only that, but on Fridays a huge portion of my classes were given over to rehearsing which resulted me in having almost nothing to do with anything. I felt bad for a while. Then something happened and I didn’t feel bad anymore: I opened my big fat, stupid mouth.

I had bought a guitar a while back. At the time it seemed a sexy little acoustic number. It grew into a pretty standard, bordering on crap, mass produced guitar. Still, I had some fun with it. I had mentioned this to Han months ago. I might have even mentioned that I no longer fell into the “suck category,” or the “only knows 3 chords category.” I hope I didn’t give the impression that I was a remotely competent or consistent player. That would be a lie. So, I shouldn’t have been shocked when Han told me I would be playing “Puff the Magic Dragon” with one of her classes.

So, I learned “Puff.” Not a difficult song at all, but the difficulty for me lies in playing in front of others. I lose all confidence even in front of drunk friends. There is always some virtuoso making a mental note of my sloppy progressions and erratic tempo. I was pretty determined to do a good job, though, as this would be my only significant contribution to the pageant.

Our rehearsals went well. Most of the song has the same few chords and tempo. There are a couple of parts where it changes and another chord get’s tossed in but the class was ignoring it and I decided not to correct them. I began to have trouble keeping time. I am incapable of hanging onto a pick for more than 10 seconds so if I started with one there would inevitably be a big ol’ twang as it went flying off and everyone would look at me. Still, they are young kids (including the boy who brought in a super-realistic toy pistol) and they seemed to look at me like a rock-star with the tattoo and beard. Talk about a self-esteem boost.

Oh, pause. Forgot to mention I bought a second and genuinely amazing acoustic in Seoul for a fraction of the cost of my original. So, now I am the jerk with multiple guitars who can barely even play them. Again.

Anyway, time went on and it came to the days before the pageant. People began coming in on Saturdays to write cue-cards or rehearse. The boss’ wife and the Receptionist seem to have handmade all of the costumes (simple masks and several fabric Santa cape-things) and they had printed out photos I had taken of every kid in school.



"Santa Clause is Coming to Town" crew.



Somewhere along the line Han picked out the single worst Christmas tree I have ever seen. It had once been a pine tree, but somebody had not only taken off the firs, cut it into 3 sections and sold them individually, but it had also been spray painted black. For a month or so this thing sat in our main room so everyone could see it. Poor Han got ripped on a lot.

I came in on the Friday before the Saturday pageant (I now teach at a second school full of older kids who refuse to talk) to find the entire staff and their friends / brothers / boyfriends putting up Christmas decorations. They told me that I didn’t need to stay but I had none of it. Somewhere, despite committing to ignoring Christmas I was had by the spirit of it all. I might not be seeing any family this year, I thought, but dammit I am going to decorate the hell out of this school. So we did.

They had done most of the work before I had returned, but I clipped photos onto strings of light. In the end the school looked gorgeous. It was really a surprise! Even that damned little dumpster tree looked nice with ornaments and lights and pictures hanging from its shiny black dead branches. I went home feeling accomplished that Christmas had not entirely passed me by.

Back to a Week Before Christmas: Pageant Day and the Departure of Boram

I arrived to find the staff of my school making final additions and alterations to their plays. I sat my guitar in the office and tried to lend a hand but there wasn’t really much going on. I asked Haejin, the newer teacher, if she was excited and she replied with a “no, not really” which is understandable given that she had put in actual work while I sat there playing guitar. I asked the same thing to Boram and she said that she was trying not to cry and I remembered what I had been told a few days before.

Boram, the girl who sat in front of me when I had been picked up from the bus station; Boram, the girl who showed me around town and made me feel better about being away from home; Boram, my friend, was leaving today. Her family owns a restaurant in town. She had always known she was going to take it over. She was going there now to work permanently. I was sad. Boram took me to the hospital once saying to the others that she needed an injection for a cold but bought an anti-hangover drink. She scared the shit out of the kids and was our strongest defense against the worst kids. Despite that I constantly called her Boromir didn’t seem to bother her.

But, the show must go on.

Kids came, dressed in their finest. They separated to 3 waiting rooms running different movies on our projectors. Their parents streamed in, went through the 50433839 balloons, ignored me completely, and sat in the “auditorium.” Soon, Albert was speaking and chaos began.

There wasn’t more than 5 seconds between the different acts and that made things rushed. Kids had costumes to change, candles to light, etc. Further, most kids were in several different acts and they couldn’t always be found where they were supposed to. The parents saw poetry readings, the most adorable little kids doing various adorable things, Albert laughing and smiling. What they likely could hear were their kids getting shrieked at to stop picking their noses or to get in the line, all seasoned amply with obscenity.



Puff the Magic Dragon group.  As you can tell, they are bad-ass.
What you can't see is the booze or blow they are hiding.



I was trying to help. There wasn’t much I could do but maybe hit the back of Doctor Jones head or to wrestle them a little when they were in the movie rooms and I was bored. After a while though, as the “Puff” set was coming up, I started getting nervous. Nerves gave away to sheer panic and sweat and shakes. We went on ninth. I was standing in the corner with sweaty palms trying not to drop my guitar after tuning it for the fifth time. By the time we were on deck, I was standing behind a dozen smiling, laughing, impeccably dressed kids looking like I was about to add a new spin to the Christmas season by shot gun barfing on everyone’s kids. All this, and I was playing one easy song!



Finally, we walked in. Boy, there are a lot of people here. I remember thinking that, then sitting down and trying to set up my camera to record. I was really, really proud of all that we had done. We sounded pretty good when we practiced and a kid didn’t burp or something. There was nothing to worry about.

“Ok, go Tom!” said Han.

 (In regards to the video: sorry.  I was horrified.  If you don't notice, the camera is upside down.)

I remember nothing. I remember hitting the strings once. I remember shaking and feeling like I was going to barf on the kid standing next to me. At some point the kids stopped singing, people clapped; I got up and walked off. I eventually found my 9 year old band mates and they proceeded to tell me that it was horrible. Eventually, I found a quiet place to watch the most poorly shot video ever. Not bad, really. I remain proud.

The last few performances went on, including an AWESOME “Santa Clause is Coming to Town.” Really, it was awesome. I have all of the video second hand, but it was all shot in one take and I lack any software to cut it up. I’m working on it.

Once we had cleaned up a bit, we set out to BBQ. Here, many tears were shed amongst the girls for Boram’s last day. It was sad. The school is a different and more chaotic place without her. We were drunk by 8pm and proceeded on to a fairly raucous noraebang session.



Christmas

I spent Christmas with my Cheongju friends. I woke up hung-over from going out Christmas Eve. I made my own candy (Chunky Godfrey’s) and proceeded upstairs to my friend Amanda’s apartment which would be the setting for our Waygook Christmas.

What can I say?

It was a blast. Christmas has stood out as an important day in Korea since I arrived. I anticipated that I would spend it depressed and black-out drunk. While one of those things happened, I was not depressed.

There was food. A lot of food. Good food. Good drinks. Hot toddies, mulled wine (I think). “A Christmas Story” played on repeat for a long time and then “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” There were inappropriate stories, laughs, drinking. We were warm and comfortable while outside it began to snow.

Photo courtesy of Amanda C.  She is one of a few not pictured.

A white Christmas! In Korea! Who would have thought?

At a certain point my memory gets fuzzy. A short time after this, the memory is just gone. The group of us, Americans, an Irish guy, a New Zealander eventually found our way to noraebang where we sang stuff I no longer recall. I won a wallet at some point, or I stole it. Who knows?

At midnight the party ended and I floated in the holiday and whiskey warmth where I proceeded to, in this order: call my mom, realize I was incapable of keeping my head up or speaking with any coherency, barfing, brushing my teeth, passing out on my floor.

It was a great Christmas that I will never forget despite not remembering much of it.



New Years Eve

Copy Christmas / Paste / add Ricky and Lauren from Daejeon



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Updates

So, what’s the story morning-glory? What’s new?


I am behind on all things Korea as far as this here blog is concerned. Generally speaking, most of my friends are also Facebook friends (I wouldn’t dare call somebody a rare friend if Facebook didn’t confirm this fact) and know what’s up with the state of things. There are a number of people with whom (or who, I don’t know) I speak pretty much daily. These people also know more of my activities than is necessary. So, this pretty much for people who aren’t subjected to my Facebook status messages.

What’s gone on since I have been back in Korea and since Kelly has been back at old Plymouth Rock? A bunch.

I returned to find the basic daily happenings of my school had all changed. We no longer give out stickers. This is a good thing in that I don’t have to finish a class with a minute to spare and then have a bunch of kids sacking me at the door and demanding 3 stickers a pop that I had yet to put my official signature on. This also sucked for a while because I had to use this Chinese tally character and mark how many points each kid earned in the class. This was a problem because it required me to know all of my kids’ names. This is something I struggle with still to this day. I am horrible with names anyway, forget throwing in names with sounds I can barely pronounce. So, I know a lot more names than I did a month ago. If I come to a class whose names I am still screwing up I tend to give everyone 4 points and call it even.

I had slow days Mondays and Wednesdays until Han went and annoyed Minnie and Daniels mother by telling her that she thought Daniel maybe copied his homework out of a book instead of doing it on his own. Not a big deal, really. Obviously their Mom flipped her lid and pulled them both out of the school. I was actually pretty sad to hear that Minnie was gone. She was difficult sometimes (often) and she was remarkably clever about sidetracking me and I was stunningly passive about getting back on track, but I thought of her as my student more than anyone else. I taught her every day and put a lot of care into not driving her insane and running her into the ground.

So, I had slow Mondays and Wednesdays before; now I basically do nothing. My class load is evened out by getting slammed on Tuesday’s and Thursdays (plus an extra hour of tutoring) and teaching at a second school on Friday nights.

I dread Tuesdays and Thursdays way more than I should. I have a couple of “bad” classes (in that the kids sort of drive me mad and often make it their goal to make me yell) but after that I deal with the older, generally more subdued, kids. It just tends to drag on. The tutoring is no big deal, really. I tutor the Receptionist and the Driver (formerly known as the Younger Receptionist: apparently she was our bus driver). It is difficult though in that I have zero confidence in my true teaching abilities. Usually I can win kids over by making funny noises with my eye or subdue them with my spray bottle. I can’t very well spray the receptionist and expect to live. And anyway, there are times when I am teaching kids that I just go blank for a moment or forget what I was talking about. The kids never notice because it is unlikely they were paying much attention anyway or it adds a little “natural” conversation into those classes. When I blank out with the adults it is pretty frigging obvious I just had a mental fart.



Dr. Jones and his hat.



There was a little spat with North Korea. I feel like a moron for always being behind in this thing when something other than Dr. Jones wearing a “mother fucker” hat but that’s what happens when you are lazy. I went to the bar with some friends to celebrate my buddy Tim’s birthday and the place was dead and the only TV had the barkeeps hovering around it wondering what the president was going to say about it. It could have also been dead because it was a Tuesday or something. Anyway, after it all happened the course of action depended on who you talked to. A lot of people (a lot of Koreans) said “oh, big deal, they do this all the time.” Then there were a few people who were actually pretty concerned about war. As time has passed it seems to be a little bit of both that has become the reality. North Korea basically got a giant “WTF” from the South. During and after the funerals though the Korean Marines were calling for blood and the general populous seemed to be pretty much through with putting up with violence and “provocations” by the North as a means of extorting aid and calls for diplomatic discussions. So, there have been a bunch of military drills and preventative measures incase of any future attacks. Maybe it is that civilians were in the line of an open attack but it seems that the next time the North does anything of the like again it could get real serious real fast. The new Defense Minister is promising an air strike to counter any further incidents and who knows how the North would react to that. They had evacuation drills in Seoul yesterday complete with fighter jets to add to the “oh shit” feeling.

The holidays are here. Ordinarily I am like a little child at this time of the year but I am not so this year. This will be my first Christmas not with my family and it is a little rough. It is a little rough for all of us here, I imagine, which is nice because I like not suffering alone; but communal misery isn’t a replacement for family during the holidays.

In other holiday news my school is putting on a Christmas show this coming Saturday for all of the parents. The kids are performing such holiday plays as “Hansel and Gretel,” “Cinderella”, and a reading from some story about an abused dog and a dying grandfather. There are also such Christmas songs as “All I Want for Christmas” by Mariah Carey and “Puff the Magic Dragon.” I am actually responsible for that last one, having suggested it as an easy song to learn. I was then promptly punished for mentioning I had a guitar and not mentioning that I play the same O.A.R. songs over and over and will now be playing Puff the Magic Dragon in front of all of the parents.

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Tokyo: The End (featuring Hello Kitty)

Oh dear god.

One of the criteria to judge whether or not a medium is obscene or just in bad taste is a lack of any culturally redeeming quality. Some things, not matter how vile or distasteful or generally sick, have some statement about our societies or culture as a whole. Some things just exist for no other reason than to be base or heinous. The guy from Two Girls One Cup violated obscenity law got hit with almost $100,000 forfeiture and 3 years of probation. Others have gone to jail and others should have gone to jail.

Which brings me to Hello Kitty Land.

I wouldn’t have ordinarily made an out of the way trip to HKL but the thing with travel and life in general is that we are all living “out of the way” sort of lives. Besides, Kelly is obsessed with Hello Kitty in much the same way that mammals are obsessed with air. I am fairly positive that one of the reasons she never got wise and ditched me while I was in Korea was that a long time ago I told her if we ever found ourselves in Japan we would go to HKL (actually called Sanrio Puroland).

She called my bluff.

It wasn’t terribly simple to get to the park but we managed. We hopped on one metro (our brief lives in Japan revolved around Shinjuku Station) and thanks to some girl with a decent understanding of English we were soon on another metro heading further out into Tokyo.

KH in HK's tub.

We rode that last metro for quite a while; long enough that I was quite positive we had missed the stop and was wondering how Kelly would take the news. We came so close, I would say, there’s some comfort in that.

I tried to tell Khall that I thought we would have to double back towards a stop that sounded remotely like the stop we wanted and she barely paid me any attention. She knew we hadn’t passed the stop we wanted and spent most of the rest of the ride looking like some manic psycho on the way to burn down some buildings.

Eventually, we stepped out of the subway, crossed the station, headed down a crowded street, hung a left and there it was: Sanrio Puroland, better known as Hello Kitty Land.

It didn’t look so horrible, I thought as we walked and Kelly squealed and spoke a mile a minute. From a distance it didn’t look too far off from Disney World. It had all the necessary requirements that allow the potential for a “forget yourself and get lost in your suppressed youth” sort of good time.

The main building seemed to pop out of thin air when you took that left. It looked like a cross between an amphitheatre and a casino. It looked decidedly unconventional, as all amazing theme parks should, and seemed to draw in everyone near by. The shops along the walkway sold food and all things Hello Kitty. All theme parks worth their weight should let out a sort of commercial sprawl that blots out any lame local specialties like paintings or sculptures. Beyond the gates was what I assumed to be the park grounds, where I would spend the day riding roller coasters and bumper cars and eating French fries. I didn’t even mind that the roller coaster would have a cartoon cat on its front.



Oh jeez..



Words cannot accurately describe my emotions when we stepped in and realized that the weird looking building was not only the main building, but also the entire park. Nor can they really accurately describe what it is like to walk into an “amusement” on the opposite side of the world expecting rides and games and carneys. Words also can’t accurately describe the nightmare of realizing your day was going to be spent in a poorly lit McDonald’s play place from hell.

Oh, wait, yes they can: What the f%@*?! would pretty much sum it up.

Hello Kitty Land is not a land, it is a giant building with hallways of magic (read: hell) that circle a huge fake tree scene in the center. Scattered about the floors are such amazing activities as make your own Hello Kitty being (through a series of semi-confusing mini-games) and Hello Kitty’s actual house. Then, of course there are multiple stores on every floor, vendors vending HK paraphernalia, and the worst food court known to man.

It wasn’t all bad, though. There is a ride. One ride. The entire park contained one ride. Given that it was fairly early on a week day, Kelly and I waited for about 3 minutes before we were sat in a log flume boat. All right, I thought. I love log flumes. Splash Mountain once broke down with me on it for a good 15 - 20 minutes and it was 15 - 20 minutes of heaven. Maybe there would even be a drop.

There were four of us in the boat. I was on the left, Kelly was on the right, and two women sat in front of us, the larger of the two also on the left. The result of this was that the boat at times seemed at risk of taking on water port side or straight up capsizing.

Immediately, the ride was in darkness and I heard the chains straining to pull us up a steep incline. I put my camera down and held onto the safety bar. I am no fool when it comes to log flumes, this was the start of something good and I wasn’t about to let my camera get soaked when we splashed down at the bottom. There was a twinge of excitement as we reached the summit and pointed towards exhilaration.

The clasp let us loose and for a second we begin to slide down. Immediately we were seized by some sort of braking mechanism and descended the hill slower than our ascent. Seriously?

As I tried to keep myself from falling forward and into the laps of a couple of strangers I saw what I was in for. Imagine, if you will, that Hello Kitty and all her strange friends invaded and conquered It’s A Small world and you pretty much get the theme of the one ride at the park.

We bumped along the river, always dipping towards the left, and got to see horrible animatronics buzzing around brightly lit pink scenes. The climax of the ride was actually being present as Hello Kitty married her boyfriend. I snapped some pictures as I wondered what on earth I had done to wind up in this particular circle of hell.

Hello Kitty Land

There was one other foreigner in the entire place. He was an older guy from the States who had the excuse of working there. He sold silhouettes. You could buy a pre-made profile of Hello Kitty, or a custom cut profile of yourself and Hello Kitty. If you chose the latter option he even had the decency to throw in the negative side of your profile for no extra cost on top of the $50 or so the thing actually cost us.

That he was a champion up seller or not, the guy was actually pretty cool. He cut out a fairly accurate profile of Kelly in a minute or so and told us his entire life story. He had been working for Disney. He was apparently the creator of most of their well known profiles, beloved by silhouette artisans everywhere before he made the move to Tokyo. Then he single handedly created the profile of Hello Kitty and his fame led him to stand day in and day out in some sort of fluffy pirate shirt on the main thoroughfare. Sarcasm and bitterness aside the guy was actually pretty impressive as far as where he had been and what he had done.



Yoyogi Park



So, that was Hello Kitty Land. It wasn’t the greatest place I have ever been but I guess you can’t complain too much when your girlfriend gives you a free trip to a theme park. In any case, I can appreciate her wanting to go given that it’s an obsession of hers. Hell, whenever somebody opens up Lord of the Rings Land or Star Wars World I will be there.



Shibuya Intersection



We stayed in Japan another couple of days before we made our way back to Seoul. We went to a huge park called Yoyogi Park in Shibuya. We walked around there for a long time before returning through the Shibuya Intersection. I don’t know the cross streets but if you have seen any modern movie based in Tokyo (Lost in Translation) you would know the place. Basically there is a mass of people going in every direction when the crosswalk signs light up to the backdrop of a giant video screen in a building.

In Seoul, we got to see a giant Lantern Festival and eat really expensive steaks at Outback Steak House which I made up for by buying a new guitar.

Kelly came back to Cheongju and got to see what actually happens in my classes. For instance, she got to see me spray kids with water, wrestle them, and pin them into corners and teach them while holding them in head locks. I was sad to see her go, but all in all it was an AWESOME vacation!

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Tokyo: Meiji Shrine.

Lanterns.

We passed into the cleared swatch of land adjacent to Harajuku as twilight faltered towards complete darkness. Stars are rare where I live in Korea and the smog of Tokyo seems also to make their viewing stars an impossibility.

There was light still as we crossed the footbridge to the Harajuku metro station and entered the clearing and followed the crowd into a narrow path of cleared trees. To our right were a couple hundred white, paper lanterns with black Japanese characters emblazoned on the front.

We walked for a ways and the trees cut off what was left of the twilight and plunged the path into muted darkness. It seemed hard to believe that we were still in Tokyo. The sound of traffic and the rattle of the metro was absent; cut off like the light by the trees. There was a silence about the place that separated it from the realities of modern day Japan.

The place was the Meiji Shrine.

If the trees seemed unnaturally plentiful (in that the place seemed almost totally natural, despite being in the heart of Tokyo) it is because they were arranged that way. Though we knew none of this until we left the shrine (we were, after all, just following a bunch of people for no discernable reason).

For the sake of getting what little history of the Meiji Shrine that I know out there: the shrine was built to honor Emperor Meiji and his empress sometime between 1915 and the mid to late 1920’s. This structure was then promptly decimated in a whole bunch of air raids. The shrine, as it is now, was finished in the late 1950’s.

Lamp.

What is most interesting about the shrine (to me, at least, most people would be impressed by the Buddhist presence and the temples and the sense of walking around a giant anachronism) were the trees. The forest was thick and overwhelming and dominate because it was made to be that way. People from all over Japan donated trees (evergreens) in such reverence to the emperor that the trees effectively serve as a barrier between the noise and pollution of modern Tokyo and the lantern lit paths of the Meiji Shrine.

Still, there was some pollution in the form of two tourists who didn’t actually know where the hell they were.

Kelly and I walked for a while from one building to another until it came that save a few electric lights and the general awareness of other tourists, our surroundings harked back to more traditional times. The darkness was overwhelming at times. As the last of the sun’s light fell, giant wooden structures with tiled roofs that were colorful and ornate in the day became masses of complete black. The only light to be had was an occasional lamp that gave of a dim yellow glow.

It was an effective mood setter.

Hand cleansing.

We passed what looked to be a huge fence-like structure with thousands and thousands of small wooden planks on which people from all over the world inscribed their hopes and dreams. We watched monks walk about their business in the darkness beyond where the general pedestrian was allowed to go.

Before we left we came across a place to cleanse our hands and mouths a small ceremony of respect to the sanctity of the shrine. Of course, we didn’t know this until after we poured water all over our hands and drank the stuff in the dark and looked like general morons. Apparently you cleanse your mouth my rinsing it with the water and spitting it back. If this is the truth we basically made out with the entire population of Tokyo.

On our way out I bought some ornate paper and cheap reproduction prints of some overused Japanese paintings. It seemed like a bargain at the time but given that I have the wrong conversion in my head I probably spent over $50 on some crappy paper.

In more recent news, this is Dr. Jones. Other than snot pouring out of his nose like Niagara Falls on occasion he is pretty much amazing.

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Japan: Harajuku

An alley in Harajuku.

Harajuku was, despite what Gwen Stefani wanted me to believe, not full of Japanese hipsters on steroids. Kelly and I climbed the stairs leading out of Harajuku station hoping to see the gothic lolitas, leather clad, blue anime-haired mentioned, well, everywhere that mentions Harajuku. No. That wasn’t the case and I was a little disappointed to tell the truth. I had brought my camera in hopes of maybe catching a couple of images worthy of FRUiTS magazine or at least prove I went to the original Hot Topic / Spencer Gifts.

“Well, it is Tuesday morning,” Kelly said. “They’re probably, you know, in school.”

I conceded to the fact but it was bitter. Kelly was more excited than I was as she seems to have grown up emblemizing the kind of fashion synonymous with Harajuku. So, I was disappointed for about half a second as we climbed the stairs of a footbridge connecting the station to a complex of shop filled alleys and streets.

  Tuesday morning or not Harajuku was hopping as all of Tokyo perpetually is. We stood for a time in a corner pressed up against the guardrail as cars whizzed below and people passed around us as though we were tiny rocks in a raging torrent. Opposite the alleys and streets seemed to be a wide clearing. Beyond it a couple of wide paths led into what seemed to be a deep forest in the middle of Tokyo.

“Something for later,” one of us said.

Harajuku brought an image of Boston’s Newbury Street on cocaine. There was the main road that went on for a ways but then was lost in the distance by turn and clothing racks. We walked into the street and found that seemingly every dozen feet or so there was an alley that led to another street full of jewelers and clothing outfitters.

In Korea, even in such developed places as Seoul’s Itaewon or Insadong there is the main drag, but the commercial or tourist influence ends there. The back alleys are filled with trinket shops with merchandise on a towel or down trodden and dingy vegetable vendors with goods sprawled out on dirty cardboard or the pavement itself. Harajuku is a maze of retail.

I can’t count how many times Kelly and I have gone to a mall (or Target) out of boredom. Before I left we would go to Target so that I could pick up some essentials but it was really just an excuse to go somewhere other than my house. We never bought anything.



That was pretty much the case in Harajuku; though it didn’t have that vaguely evil feel of going to Target just for fun. We went in a lot of little shops. They sold all sorts of conventional clothing and ridiculous accessories and everything in between.

After enough blind turns down narrow and over cluttered alleys we came again to the main road. People lined the sidewalk on benches doing nothing. They just sat there and waited for something, If this was Korea they would have all been smoking or watching TV on their phones and a few would be drinking. But, obviously, Japan is not Korea. It is never any good to compare two countries because whatever similarities are usually either coincidence or the results of years of invasion.



A shine in Harajuku.



The streets of Japan have Korea beat. That is one thing I will say. Japan’s streets and sidewalks are immaculate. There are no garbage cans anywhere but still you would be very hard-pressed to find so much as a cigarette on the ground. It seems that smoking is pretty limited in Japan as frequently one comes across a sign that seems to prohibit smoking on various sides of the street. Korea doesn’t have any trash cans either but it makes up for that by having garbage thrown literally everywhere. Smoking is dirt cheap and in open season in Korea, thus everyone smokes like a chimney.

We walked for a time down that main road and came eventually to some monstrosity of a toy store specializing in Peanuts toys and various Hello Kitty trinkets. We spent a long time in that store with Kelly buying basically everything and myself staring at a train set.

After we walked further on and left the novelty of the shopping district of Harajuku behind. As the day wore on the streets became more and more crowded; something particularly evident in the mass street crossings that look at times like 2 opposing forces clashing in battle.

One of the things I really appreciate about places like Japan and Korea is that while they are at the forefront of technology and seemingly modernity, they are both undeniably ancient. It is not difficult to wander around places like Tokyo and be overwhelmed by the sheer number of people oozing pure style next to you at all times and the constant presence of concrete and glass. It is only in places like these where it is just as possible to turn a busy corner and find some worshipped relic of a time long before the dawn of the U.S.

That was the case in Harajuku. We walked on for a while until we took a random left, walked up an alley and were greeted by a couple of small red pagodas that served as an entrance to a giant pagoda. The place was quiet and removed from the sights of the busy street we had been on (if not the noise). There was a wide open lot with stone paths that led to the large pagoda and off to the sides. Scattered about were large and full trees and basins of burning incense.

Working with bamboo.

Except for the noise of the street the place was quiet save the sound of a few men in blue erecting an arbor made of bamboo. Off to the left side was a cluster of engraved stones and statues with bright yellow flowers or the roaches of burnt out incense. Beyond them lay what I imagine to be a grave yard of sorts with dozens of tall wooden planks painted with jet black Japanese characters. This was my favorite place of them all.

 



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Japan: Part I

Shinjuku, Tokyo.

The next day we woke up refreshed. Scratch that. Kelly woke up refreshed. I didn’t wake up because I didn’t sleep. I simply ceased to stare at the ceiling. Planes have a way of reducing me mind to the rationality of child who swore that he heard something scuffling beneath his bed. Planes aren’t my thing.


That I ate a bunch of Dots and a Heath Bar right before bed probably played a significant role in it all, too.
Anyway, I did not die in the plane; nor did I lose my mind.

While the flight wasn’t entirely pleasant, and I wasn’t entirely relaxed, the 2 hours passed without any major issues. We boarded in Incheon amongst what seemed to be an entire battalion of American military guys with their camo bags. We found our seat in the middle row of seats. It wasn’t the ideal place and I felt on edge most of the way and more than a bit jumpy but that is what tends to happen when my rationality-barrier has been depleted by stuffiness and not enough sleep.

So, I kept my mind occupied the best that I could. After I released my armrest from the takeoff death grip I tried to focus on the TV. I watched a bit of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I don’t remember anything else because if I just sit back and watch things then my mind starts going to dark places. So, I spent about an hour and a half obsessively flipping through the music channels and heard California Girls by Katy Perry for what I think might have been the first time. I spent the last hour playing Hogs of War on my laptop and for that segment of time all was right with the world.

Narita International Airport, Japan

I get this odd sense of accomplished pride whenever I make it through immigration and set foot for the first time in a strange country. It seems like it wasn’t so long ago (and it really wasn’t) that I was awaiting the arrival of my first virgin passport. It was so empty, and it was so bland. Occasionally, while I have nothing to do, I will pull it out of my drawer in Korea and thumb through it. Obviously, every stamp is a memory and an adventure and all that clichéd but true stuff; but there is also a certain pride that goes along with it. I have a lot more of the world to see before I finally walk into my house in Shrewsbury but I have already seen places, met people, and had all these experiences that I never thought would actually happen a handful of years ago.

I changed 500,000 Won in Seoul and we began to blow through it immediately upon setting foot in Tokyo. Travel in Tokyo seems inordinately expensive when you currently live in a place that will take you across country for little more than 10,000 Won. Kelly, who had paid for and booked a hotel in the Shinjuku neighborhood of Tokyo, managed to get us aboard the airport limo that would drop us off in front of the Hotel Sunroute Shinjuku (or something like that). It cost us either 3,000 Yen each or for the two of us, I don’t really remember anymore, but either way 3,000 Yen has nothing in common with 3,000 Won. With Won, I tend to simplify and assume every 1000 is equal to about $1. The double conversions going on in my mind confused the hell out of me and I frankly have no idea how much anything actually cost. I think I spent $30 on paper in a gift shop.

Kelly and I have stayed in some phenomenally horrible hotels in the time that we have been together. There was the place in Hampton, NH that was maybe the size of a small dorm room with a crap bed and 1970’s faux wood paneling. There was the place in Lancaster, PA with the pool that “might be a bit short on chlorine” and was, in fact, totally green which made no difference to me because I jumped in anyway. So on and so forth.

The hotel in Shinjuku had a lobby. A lobby! It had a bunch of benches and sofas that sat around a fountain that glowed in the dim light. There were velvet ropes, luggage, elevators and a line of people in UNIFORMS behind a deep-dark wood counter. I never thought I would stay in anyplace with a genuine, matter of fact, lobby! The place also had a fancy restaurant / bar / café.

We didn’t do too much that first day except throw our bags on the floor and walk around.
Something I knew about Tokyo but failed to appreciate the truth of the fact is that Tokyo is huge. While Seoul is number two in the world as far as population, Tokyo comes in at number one by a pretty hefty margin.

The size is evident as soon as you set foot out the door. We walked around until the sun went down and noise and neon filled the night. Street crossings were like black and white exoduses and it took some work for Kelly and I not to get separated.

We stopped off at a dark little noodle house that was no bigger than my room with a couple of counters to sit at. The counter looked directly into the kitchen which was dark save for the flames of gas burners and the shadows of piles of fresh noodles that sat in a bowl next to a boiling pot. Metal containers held herbs, eggs and other ingredients.

We walked in pointing to photos on the wall and had already screwed up. Machines have already taken the jobs of waiters in Tokyo. The cook led us back into the night and pointed to a vending machine that sat beneath a sole light.

Kelly in Tokyo.

The machine had a few rows of photographs of various noodle dishes and the assorted sides they came with. So, with the guy standing there we inserted our money, hit a couple of buttons, took a seat at the counter at the kitchen and handed him our sheets of paper with our selections typed out.

A soba noodle dish with a savory pancake to boot for myself and an udon noodle dish with a bowl of what looked like vomit, but tasted amazing, for Kelly.

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