Going Home Part 1

Its some time in the early afternoon.  The bus pulls out of the Express Bus Terminal in Seoul.  It all feels so familiar even if I have not been to this place in so long.  I am lost for a long time in the cluster-fuck shopping center of the subway station.  I somehow over shoot my intended exit and end up in a satellite branch of the terminal. I am hot, sweating, hungover from too much soju, and late.

It all seems about right. 

This whole bus ride seems strange but also warm.  It is all reversed.  Instead of the weekend trip being Cheongju to Seoul, it is Seoul to Cheongju.  Its strange that I am escaping some place to relax in Cheongju when for so long the opposite was true and necessary.  Almost always this trip ends in me at the Tomgi Motel.  The world is all topsy turvy.  Never do I end up in the Gallery Motel near the express bus terminal in Cheongju, fighting to wake before a noon check-out.  That's where it ends this time.

Still the journey warms me.  A sense of anxiety builds as we pull onto the highway and leave the megatropolis of Seoul behind.  I catch glances of the buildings and mountains that make up that panorama of Seoul as they fade.  They are replaced with the mountains and rivers of Central Korea, a place that, even still, I am more familiar with, more at home with. 

I am nervous to return to Cheongju for a million reasons.  I am scared that my old coworkers, people I have this last year referred to more often as family than friends, will be cold to me.  I am worried at the pit of my heart that they have somehow either forgotten me or forgotten the warmness they accepted me with once.

I did leave.  I did cause a bit of a stink over money.  I did regularly show up to work hungover or half bombed. 

I am scared that the school won't be the same.  This is what worries me the most because I know that, whatever the case, it will be true.  I left.  Another foreigner took over and left.  He had to cut away the weeds and shadows that I left behind and surely his ghost remains.  I am fresh in nobodys mind.  Maybe they mourn for him.  I thought about them all a lot while I was gone living the wasted time that I did. 

Most all of the teachers are gone.  Hanbyul is in New York.  Boram is working at a restaurant in Cheongju.  Eunhyang is in Cheongju still I guess.  She is hard to keep track of but I know she doesn't teach and I don't know if I will see her.  Shaina isn't there anymore.  So Young is teaching.  Ara is in Australia.  As for the Receptionist and the Bus Driver I know nothing. 

Mostly I am nervous that I won't want to leave.  I am horrified that I will see everyone and it will awaken this whole demon of regret.  Regret of leaving Korea.  Regret of leaving that job.  Regret of going to Seoul.  Regret of ever returning at all.  I am scared the fear that I am trying to recreate a time past will be realized fully.  It is a devastating thought that scares me enough to make my heart beat a bit too fast to maintain focus on my book.

Still.  The ride is nice.  I have missed these green fields and paddies that we pass.  Rice paddies form rounded steps up a hill.  The hill leads to a green forest and the forest to a green mountain that ends in a blue sky.  It's the blue sky of the Korean countryside, not the gray one of polluted Seoul. 

We pass greenhouses that stretch forever.  I see the tiny and dirty cattle farms, the majority source of the primo-expensive beef in this place. 

I feel far from Seoul already and, truth be told, I feel more at peace, somehow.  The stress of my job and the stress of the city melts off as I sweat on the bus. People snore.  I am not free of my life as a Seoulite but at the moment it doesn't feel so important.  Gangnam is far away.  Report cards don't matter.  My head teacher doesn't exist in the minds of these people. 

The bus pulls off the highway just past a sign that reads "Cheongju" in English and in Hangul.  I am excited and nervous but also comforted.  There is a sense of relief.  A certain part of me accepts that these next moments are why I came back.  When I left I thought that I would never return to this place; that all of the "I'll visit"s and all of the "I will see you soon"s were happy lies.  As the bus pulls into the famed tunnel of trees leading to the hopping transport hub of Cheongju I feel a bit as though I have beaten some sort of odds. 

We drive around and I am in memory lane.  Amanda C and Andrew lived near here.  I see farms and restaurants around me.  They always traveled so far to Chundae for drinks.  I can still see Andrew's face imposed on the plastic ID cover on my wallet.  His wallet.  I don't really know. 

Soon we pass from rural to urban.  This swatch of Cheongju that looks lake every hub in every Korean city.  Seoul is only a Cheongju on steroids. 

Soon I see the bus station.  A place I've seen a million times before.  A place I walked to once searching out a foot long from Subway.  To my right is a bus stop that lead Larry and I to the bus garage instead of a beautiful fortress- the least drunken of our misadventures.  Larry fucking Boire.  It's been a long time since we were in this place together.  He always hated Cheongju.  Once his motorcycle broke down on our highway and he left it for days. 

Larry is to be married in two weeks and I will miss it because I am here. 

To my right, just before we pull in and I set feet on Cheongju terra-firma I see a sign advertising American Burger.  American Burger sells the worst middle school cafeteria style burgers in all of Korea.  I will not be fooled.  I am no naive passer-through.  Not in this place. 

I step out and feel the heat.  I smell diesel and while diesel smells like diesel anywhere, I feel this warmth of remembrance wash over.  I decide to take it all in as much as I can.  The past year of my life has been building up to this. 

I walk out and hang a left.  There is a group of love motels near the station.  I went there often.  Rick and Lauren from Daejeon stayed there whenever they came.  Gallery Motel.  I find it without trouble and am horrified to pay 60,000W for the night. 

It's worth it though.  I head up to a dark hallway a few flights above.  Neon lights give off a blue hue.  As always I feel like some kind of pervert in this place but I am a foreigner and alone.  It is my first love motel in a year and I remember immediately why these places are the best. 

I pop my key into the slot and am greeted by a giant room with a fake mahogany floor, a giant TV, king bed, mood lighting, a huge whirlpool, et al.  I turn on the TV and as I light a cigarette from a crumpled old pack I find in my sack I realize that the last patron never switched from the porn. 

I take a look in the mirror and fix my hair, brush my teeth, and spray a bit of cologne.  This is something that I would have never done before.  Cheongju Tom is, if not entirely dead, dormant inside me.  I had a girl then.  I didn't care how I looked, what people thought of me.  It is entirely fucking obvious in every photo from those days. 

I walk out, hail a cab and somehow manage to recite my old address.  No problems.  It is a rarity. 
We double back and I am in Gavin's old neighborhood.  I remember watching Elf with him and Robyn.  The streets are all the same but everyone is gone.  Melodramatic, I know. 

The new neighborhood is up.  We pass Home Plus and Chunbuk University and are in Gaeshin-dong.  My old home.  We drive down the main drag, turn left near Pizza Maru, another right at the Sundae joint and before I know it I am looking at the window to my old apartment.

If much of the Cheongju that I knew has changed, Han-ga-ram apartment complex is still a huge piece of shit that looks like it belongs in Chernobyl.  I stand for a while and then leave, scared that the old landlord will come out and invite me to another lunch. 

I take the long way to Kim Hak Su, now called Kim's Human English.  Cafe Pasucci took over.  I don't remember what used to be there but it makes me sad.  As I round the last corner I see that my old kimbap joint is gone.  I ate there every day.  I had hoped to have a quick meal there and see the nice woman who always gave me watermelon (as opposed to the lady who hated my guts).  It is the only thing that makes me genuinely sad. 

My heart pounds as I open the door.  I walk up the stairs and take one last deep breath before I walk in to my old school.  It is a place that remained and will remain a significant place in my heart.  I don't know quite what to do. 

I hear a squawk from the boss' office.  Mrs. Kim.  I can see her face contorted.  She always had this adorable bunny rabbit face.  I see it clearly as she bursts out of the dark room.  I smile.  It's like a roller coaster.  From this point on, I have no control and it is like the "good ol' days."

She almost knocks me down.  She hugs me and says something in Korean and squeezes my belly. 
"Ahhh, slim!"  She says. 

I hug her and tell her she looks great.  She doesn't understand me but it never mattered so much.  She shouts and a Koean guy pokes his head from the teacher's office.  A classroom door opens and closes.  It is So Young.  She looks beautiful.  She smiles.

"Tooommmm!"

We hug.  I don't remember much of what we say.  I make it a point to tell them both how much I missed them.

So-Young takes me to a classroom.  I am shaking.  It isn't quite visible but I feel it.  Too much caffeine, I think, but I know it is just a kind of happy shock.  I forget about Seoul, about Shannon, about Gangnam. 
Inside the class I am stared at like some sort of monster.  They look at me with curiosity.  Nobody knew I was coming.  I glance over the faces and for a moment I don't see her in the corner behind the teacher's podium.

"Thoma?"

I would have known her voice anywhere.  I missed her the most, I think.  She was my first class at this school.  She was there for my first teaching day and dealt with my inability to communicate better than most, despite being 8. 

Alice.  I never called her by her English name.  Oo-Rin.  I see her smiling and I rush over and hug her.  She looks the same.  She was so young then but so damned mature.  She comforted Junho when he was upset and calmed him down when he got excited, even though he was just a little younger. 

It is the second happiest moment I have in that school that day. 

The memory of my last day rushes forward.  I shook her hand goodbye and she said:

"Thoma, please, hug."

It almost broke me.  I never thought I would see her again. 

I am visibly shaking.  I can't stop it.  I feel light headed and anxious.  The class goes on even if they all stare at me and Oo-Rin explains me to her friends.  I keep looking at her and smiling.  She basically changed my mind on kids. 

I sip my coffee to try to hide my shakes, but it only makes it obvious.  I step out for a moment and try to collect myself.  I am worried that I might cry.

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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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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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Pattaya Life

If I am being honest, I did nothing of any significance in Pattaya. This is nothing I feel bad for, as I had sort of planned on using Pattaya as a place to rest and say goodbye to Asia, but it makes for boring blog posts. Basically, every day I did this, or some other variation with remarkable similarity:

10am- Wake up in total darkness courtesy of wooden shutters. Turn on light and remember I am in the shittiest hotel on earth. Listen to maids talking in Thai.

11- Walk outside past the lady who glares at me for not leaving my key with her. Realizing they probably have an extra my money is in the nastiest smelling sock on earth. Camera is behind the fridge covered in boxer shorts.

The walk basically consists of me walking past a few markets, drunks, a million foreigners and Thai on scooters, dillapitated stores and stands selling durian fruit. The heat is strong and the broken assfault magnifies it. There is the occasional palm tree and street side offering shrine with smoking incense and orange Fanta.

When I get to Walking Street, which is parallel and closest to the water things get interesting. Imagine a boardwalk anywhere with restaurants, activities, bars, and men soliciting Jesus or Blink’s Fry Dough. The decorations are loud and tacky and the place is full of trash, and disgarded food. Street food is prevalent.

The difference between Walking Street and, say, the Hampton Beach boardwalk, is that the restaurants are full of prostitutes on break, the activities involve prostitutes and various themes, the bars are basically show rooms for prostitutes, and the solicitors are advertising prostitutes, or at least a bar that has prostitutes.

12pm- Eat lunch at one of the little alcove restaurants. Listen to old American and British men laugh with their Thai “girlfriends.

12:30- Buy a bottle of fresh mandarin juice for maybe 50 cents. They are ice cold and probably one of the best things about Pattaya.

1:30- Rent a chair and umbrella at the beach. Wave away women selling fruit from their head, men selling sunglasses, children selling bracelets, so on and so forth. Go swimming. Catch hepatitis as soon as I go in the water. Apparently there are two beaches in Pattaya and I picked the bad one. Watch as a man from Africa who is sitting next to me has no will power and proceeds to buy EVERYING that is offered to him. At one point he had a few vendors lined up.

4- Walk back to the hotel. Watch the news or advertisements for beer bars and go-go bars. There is a channel dedicated to expats in Pattaya. While most of the expats I have seen in Pattaya creep me out, I am aware that I am in an area that exists basically only for the sex industry and that most of the people I see are NOT actually living here and are a poor representative of the community. The man on the show is interviewing owners of German, Mexican, Indian restaurants. There was some functioning celebrating the royal wedding.

6- Walk back through Walking Street. By now a few girls populate every small bar. Many of these bars are open air. One enormous bar actually spins. There are usually a few ladyboys there. Men are now outside promoting and being obnoxious and aggressive. Walk all the way to the end of the main drag. Be accosted every couple of feet by young guys trying to sell me suits, Zippos, brass knuckles with a taser at the business end, knives, sex, everything. Buy and drink half a dozen orange juices.

7- Eat dinner at a different restaurant than lunch despite that almost every restaurant offers the same fare of Thai / American / British / German / Russian. These same places existed also in Saigon and Cambodia. They are awesome in that they serve a little of everything. Once, I thought “what the hell” and got a burger that ended up being a round piece of meatloaf on soggy bread.

8- Walk along the beach past pimps and girls working solo. The general atmosphere of this place weirds me out. Even if prostitution is legal here these girls sitting under trees make me way more uncomfortable than the ones in the bars. Still, sometimes they call me sexy , even if they look at me funny when I say “why thank you!” and walk on.

10- Walk down Walking Street again and see the last of the few families that made the same mistake as me and thought Pattaya was a “normal” place getting the hell outta dodge. Watch the general fiasco as the giant halls full of small square bars fill up with men and girls and ladyboys. The prostitutes on Main-South in Worcester got nothing on the girls of Pattaya.

11: Walk through the tent markets and eateries around the area near my hotel.

11:30- Get drunk while watching the news.

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Phnom Penh, Cambodia: DJ Camera

DJ Camera, my tuk-tuk driver in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, was beginning to creep me out; not majorly, but I was beginning to dread his jolly, round face, and off-centered dirty baseball cap.


He was everywhere.

I arrived, admittedly thanks to DJ Camera, at the Noura Motel unscathed and found that while the $20 rooms were occupied, the manager was willing to let me stay in a $35 room for $25. DJ Camera had something to do with this and I was grateful, but he lingered about the tiny reception desk for too long.

“OK, Thomas,” he said in his over-excited manner of speaking, “go to your room, relax, come down. I wait for you and we make plans for tour tomorrow. We do many things.”

I looked at him and my heart sank a little. His sweaty brown face was staring at me and smiling. He was selling me something. Cabbies, whether in a car, on a bike, or pulling a rickshaw, in this part of the world are always trying to sell you something.

I handed him the few dollars that I owed him and told him that maybe I would see him later, and if I was to take a tour I would go through him.

DJ Camera shook his head in the negative and steamrolled my hesitation and told me that he would take me anywhere. I told him “maybe” a few more times

The Noura Motel has a layout and atmosphere that reminds one of an Old West saloon / hotel. Stairs lead to hallways that branch in many directions, looking over a small bar lit by dim, flickering bulbs. Idle workers stood talking by empty tables that spilled out towards the street. The street was teeming with beggars, tuk-tuks, and the fire of the setting sun.

I was shown to my room on the second floor. I walked through a reading room and down a hallway that led to a wide open balcony. Just across the street stands the royal Chan Chhaya pavilion, a part of the Royal Palace; its green lawns dotted with barefoot kids, sleeping tuk-tuk drivers, and a few soccer balls.

If I didn’t want to sit in the wicker chair and watch the setting sun, then I could have seen it from the massive windows in my room.



Sure enough, when I found my way to the main lobby to leave for dinner, DJ Camera was waiting for me. He sat at a small table just outside of the hotel. As soon as I was close he sprung up and asked where I was headed, if I wanted a ride, and began listing the things we could do the next day.

I cut him off. I told him that I appreciated his effort, but I wasn’t sure if I would be taking a tour tomorrow and that I might just wander around and take photos.

He looked hurt for a moment.

“OK, tomorrow when you want leave,” DJ said, “I will wait you outside hotel.”

He then grabbed my hand, shook it whilst ignoring the growing annoyance on my face, and sat down again.

I understood why DJ Camera was so eager to seal the deal: “maybe,” and “I’ll call you,” generally mean “no” and “fuck off” in his line of work. That has certainly been the underlying meaning when used by myself. What I could not understand was why he didn’t give up and look for business else where. And why was he still outside the motel!?

I walked towards the Meekong and sat down to a traditional Khmer meal of Italian grinder, fries, and alcohol.

I thought of my smiling DJ Camera and of a taxi driver in Mexico.

It was a few years back and I was wandering up the wrong road on the wrong hill. Drug cartels were beginning to take hold of the edge of town and apparently I was walking straight that way. A cabbie came running up, grabbed me and asked me as polite as possible as to where the fuck I was going and if I wanted to die?

I replied no, that I needed a cheap place to sleep.

He drove me for a while until we came to a hotel on the edge of a bay full of dirty water and men in tin boats hawking fresh fish.

This man had the same anxious tone as DJ Camera and wanted me to take a tour with him the next day as well but there seemed to be something more sinister about him. The hotel was on the edge of town and I became paranoid that this cabbie knew where I was and that my door was only a sliding plastic curtain. Friends from Mexico and guidebooks warn of local cabbies aiming for extortion, kidnapping, or worse.

I slept with my bed against the door and when he didn’t come to kill me and I never let him take me for a tour I felt guilt. I was ashamed of my paranoia.

Still, DJ Camera just wanted my money.

DJ Camera asked me how my dinner was when I arrived at the hotel. I shot him a look but there was no reaction..

“Tomorrow…” he went on again.

“MAYBE!” I told him and walked away.

“I will wait you tomorrow.”



After a few power-outages I headed downstairs to use the wi-fi and have a bottle of Angkor beer, the local version of the cheap, flavorless, working class beer of the world.

The two person bar staff talked in a corner and the tables outside the hotel were swarmed. Laughter rose frequently and the slamming of beer glasses and the clink of utensils against glass plates. Khmer filled the air. I half expected DJ Camera to —

“Hello!” said DJ Camera, standing up from his chair outside.

I stared at him in disbelief. Behind him tuk-tuk drivers slept in their vehicles. People walked by on their way to the bars or restaurants of the Phnom Penh night; but here was DJ Camera, still sitting outside my hotel.

I returned the greeting, disregarded whatever else he said and continued to drink my unfinished beer and then a second when I felt somebody staring at me.

I looked out the door and DJ Camera was stooping in, looking uncharacteristically meek. I stared at him for a moment and he spoke quietly.

“Thomas,” his memory was impressive, “please, it is a happy night. You are in Cambodia. Do not sit alone. Sit with me outside and drink.”



Shit.

I had him wrong like I probably had the cabbie in Mexico wrong. I pride myself in adaptability and openness in travel but here, I had it all wrong.

What the fuck?

I smiled, closed my computer and joined a smiling DJ Camera outside.

The table was full of food and pitchers of beer. There were two men at the table with DJ Camera. They smiled at me. A group of extremely beautiful girls laughed at me as I mumbled awkward “hellos“.

The man next to me was another tuk-tuk driver and the man next to DJ Camera was the manager of the lovely Noura Motel, and a close friend of DJ Camera’s.

“We are like family,” said the manager, a squat smiling man with one of the friendliest faces I have ever seen. “We take care of eachother.”

I felt shame.

I looked at the man who I assumed wanted only to take my money.

“Tonight, Thomas,” DJ Camera said, “you are our new friend and we take care of you.”



They did take care of me. There were pitchers of local beer mixed with a beer from Singapore. They pushed a kind of edible rice cloth my way and it tasted like a neutral rice cake on it’s own but it was heaven in the sweet, fishy dipping sauce.

“Traditional Cambodian,” my new friends told me.

There were questions about me, questions about my time in Korea and Vietnam. There were questions about Cambodia, whose answers were to be expected:

“Cambodia is the best!”

The four of us spoke and drank for a time as we descended into the universal language of drunkeness.

“Thomas,” DJ Camera said, eyes glazed over after declaring that he had left school sometime before high school, “you are my friend!”

“Good friends,” I corrected.

“I saw you alone and I take care of you. I take you to my friend’s motel. Tonight you eat and drink with us. We take care of you. Tomorrow I want you to see Cambodia!”

Finally, I agreed.

Jol Moi! We all said as we clinked our glasses and drank.

“Thomas,” said DJ Camera, “Can you understand my English?”

“Nobody can understand your English!” Piped in the other tuk-tuk.

“Thomas, DJ is very drunk. Nobody can understand!” Said the manager of the motel.

DJ began to introduce me to the girls scattered around in the night. The tuk-tuk drivers parked across the street looked over occasionally if they weren’t otherwise occupied by being passed out.

The night wore on for a while until finally the alcohol was gone. I pulled out my wallet but was hissed at by all three of my companions.

“Thomas,” said DJ Camera, “tomorrow I will wait you. Sleep long. I will be here.”

“Maybe you will have no tour tomorrow,” said the manager, “DJ will probably crash into a tree tonight!”

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Wandering Downtown

Cherry Blossoms.

A year minus a day or two I said my extended "so longs" to my girlfriend (at a train station), my sobbing mother (in my predawn livingroom), my less sobby sister (same room), and my dry-eyed father (amid exhaust and noise at the departure drop-off at Logan Airport). In a few days I say goodbyes that are likely to be permanent to all of my Korean friends.

I haven't thought too much about the real end of this Korea thing. Most of the time it seemed to be so far off that giving it too much thought wasn't worth it. Then, before I knew it, I didn't want to think about it because I knew it was right around the corner. Now that I have less than a week left in Cheongju; in this one room apartment with warped floors and no attached plumbing on the sink, I have no other choice.

I now realize that I basically have no departure plan. With preoccupations (the lost passport) and money issues with my school (with a dash of extreme procrastination thrown in) I have failed to book any hotels, looked into any activities or things to do on my trip. Hell, I haven't even booked my final ticket home yet.

The plan:

Leave Seoul on 4/25 and arrive at some point in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.

The next ticket I have booked leaves Bangkok, Thailand a couple of weeks later, give or take.

In the mean time I am spending a few days in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and MAYBE a brief trip in Malaysia.

I then fly to Barcelona, Spain to see my friend Jordi with whom I used to wait tables and be taken apart by customers routinely.

Then, I fly to Logan whenever I get a ticket and complete this around-the-world loop.

The River.

As for what I’ve been up to recently: nothing very productive. The cherry blossoms have come and have basically left. The days have been really nice in Cheongju, a couple I would dare say hot, so I have made time enough to walk along the river even though I usually end up in Home Plus just the same.

The Yellow Dust also came. It blows in from the industrial towns in eastern China as an off colored haze full of mercury and lead. Between that, the radioactive rain from the disasters in Japan, the over-reactive minds of Koreans when it comes to health, the news would have you believing Korea was one toxic heap at the moment. But, it isn’t. I don’t think. I will make a note to see if I have super strength before I leave.

I’ve seen some pretty cool things recently while walking around the river. While meandering around with my camera (soon to be upgraded!) I followed what sounded like drumming. The beats led me to the track near Downtown (or Uptown like I used to call it) where everyone skates or ride all sorts of inane, ass-backwards bikes.

Members of the Ajumma Army.

It was here that I saw a dozen or so ajummas marching around in circles, drumming in formation. There were some older guys and college students mixed in, all led by a young guy in some sort of fancy pants. I don’t know what they were doing but I guess they were practicing for some sort of traditional performance. Either that or the guy in fancy pants now has well disciplined army of ajummas.

Last Friday / Saturday and Saturday / Sunday I spent a lot of time at the bars with my friends here. We saw a band that played Oasis covers and they made me prematurely nostalgic for Korea. It is hard to imagine a Friday or Saturday that doesn’t involve the same four bars and my Cheongju friends. Heck, I still expect to see my friends who have left walk in.

On Sunday, after realizing that I was way too hungover to deal with the hell that is Home Plus on a Sunday, I walked a but further down the river than I had before. Where as traditional drumming led me to the Ajumma Army, old-school bob brought me to some festival at a Buddhist temple that I never noticed until that day.

I walked in and tables lined the courtyard. A few were covered with canopies as those sitting under it served simple Korean foods or made crafts. Across the dirt ground was a cluster of covered tables withh a half dozen families eating. Monks walked here and there. I could see shadows of people bowing in the main temple.

A Buddhist temple in Cheongju.

I lingered for a while there until an older guy, having something to do with the party, came over and talked to me for a while, asking if I wanted to eat something or anything else. I bought a bracelet and left as Louis Armstrong came on over the loudspeaker.

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Why students should never know where their teacher lives

I spent last weekend fairly determined to do nothing productive or healthy. One of the consequences of traveling around the country to see the friends I hadn't seen in a while is that I was away from Cheongju and my remaining friends here for a few weeks. I got to miss them.


I went out Friday night. It wasn't anything too ridiculous or out of the norm; it was a normal Friday. Amanda and I went to Pearl Jam.

Pearl Jam is the homeliest of the handful of foreigner bars and it also serves the most decent food. This is something I do not know for sure as I have not indulged in any of the food at Buzz or MJ's, but Pearl Jam burritos trump Road King Burritos. These things become important to a guy.

We played Jenga until my burrito arrived. By the time I had finished my food (maybe 45 seconds after the plate was put before me; I was hungry and I had the shakes) we were joined by Gavin, Robyn, et al.

We drank, talked, and joked our way from Pearl Jam to MJ's.

The only thing I really like about MJ's is decent popcorn, and a 2 hour happy hour with 2,000won gin and tonics.

My opinion of the place rises in warm weather after the roof deck is opened and you can hangout in the fresh air above the city. The weather in Korea is warming up but the roof hasn't been cleaned and it still looks like it has been hit by a series of tornados.

I left in control of my senses at around 2am. Not too late all things considering. I could have gone to bed and woken up to a glorious gray and misty day and done something productive in the morning.

I didn't.

I went back to my apartment and played Xbox with my friends and drank some soju I had in my fridge. I went to sleep at 5am.

Still, not horrible.

What is horrible is being woken up by pounding on the door.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and decided to do nothing. The most serious thing at my door at the early hour of 1pm was a repair man or somebody else on official apartment business. The knocking came again. My apartment was a disaster anyway. I had been trying to get rid of things the past week and with the clothing and general clutter I looked like a hoarder.

Most likely scenario was the ever common Jehovah's Witness; a scenario I didn't really feel like dealing with. The worst case scenario would have been ---

"THOMAS TEACHER!"

Oh shit.

It was Ji-Huan.

Hearing his voice startled me, but there was no reason for me to be bothered. He knocked again and shouted my name, with the addition of "teacher" despite my current state of hiding, hungover, in my own filthy apartment waiting for a 10 year old to go away.

He shouted again.  Everytime the boy says my home, including in school, he says it with this manic crescendo at the end.  Usually I think it is funny.

Eventually I heard Ji-Huan begin to turn my door knob.  It was ever so slowly and subtly but it made a distinct sound. 

"That sneaky ... little... ohdeargod."  At this point I realize two things:

1.  I am butt-ass naked.
2.  I forgot to lock my door.

Several scenarios went through my head and none of them ended without one of us being traumatized or in jail.  I stopped breathing for a few seconds.  I might have prayed.  Anyway, in those few seconds I decided my only plan of action was, if he came in, to spring up with my blanket open and in front of me, wrap him up, and push him right back out the door.  With a bit of luck he would think it was part of a game and even if he didn't I was ok with the idea of Ji-Huan being a little confused for a few minutes.

To ruin the story he turned the handle and walked away. 

On Monday he told me that he came by to my apartment to visit and I told him I had no idea what he was talking about.

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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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Daejeon Rock Festival (aka a lesson in inaccurate advertising)

I spent a while on a crowded and comparatively stuffy (compared to what you might expect in mid-October) bus talking to Amanda R. about our expectations for the Daejeon Rock Festival.  It was about 5pm and the bunch of us were staring out windows or sleeping through the 45 minute trip; waiting for the outlet malls to fade away and the bus to pull into the thick of Daejeon.

A pretty cool ska band.  Thankyou camera phone.

The Facebook flyer advertised an incredible variety of international food and beers.  The music, for a lot of us, was secondary.

"Maybe there will be fried dough," I'd say.

"Or funnel cakes," Amanda said. 
"Or hot dogs and sausages."
"Tacos.  There will definitely be tacos."
"Cheesy stuff"
"Grilled Cheese."
"Burgers."

The list went on, or at least it did in my head.  If you happen to have been on the bus that conversation might have not happened at all like that but you get the gist.  Point is, I was excited about trashy, greasy, non-Korean food.  Like, I was really excited.  When I say that the music was secondary, at various points when I got to thinking about the food I really couldn't care less about what the music was like. 

Then there was the beer.

As the bunch of us (Amanda, Katie, Christina, Tim, and I) wandered around Daejeon looking for a bus terminal some of us got to thinking about beer. 

Blue Moon?  Maybe even Blue Moon with an orange slice.  Sam Adams Winter, I thought.  Maybe they'll have the winter lager!  Maybe there will be cider!  This, I must say, is the prospect for which I was most excited. 
I am a cider kind of guy.  My fondest memories of my old apartment always involved a bunch of hard cider, Thursday night TV, a horror movie, a brisque breeze, and Mike Hadley.  I would be lying if I didn't aknowledge that I was missing all of that at the current point in time.  Summer is over.  The pine outside my window is dying.  Not so subconsciously I was going to eat everything I could, as fast as I could; and then I was going to drink as much cider as I could (also as fast as I could).  I would sit in the crisp air, smell fall and get my fix and maybe stop thinking about what is going on back at home.  Anyway, Proctor Street is gone and Hadley doesn't live in New England anymore and neither do I.

We never found the subway.  Instead we sat in traffic and watched as fireworks cracked above the river.  Beyond the bridge were "300 international food and beer" vendors all set up in a shiny white tent city that reminded me of the Head of the Charles.

Allright!  Maybe I would be getting more than a little taste of New England Fall after all!

Amongst the fireworks was a flapping remote control bird with sparklers attached.  That it was remote control is only an assumption as around the fireworks and amidst the smoke and sulfur flew a line of powergliders, also with sparklers attached.  Above it all few a steady flow of paper lanterns, turned into balloons by the fire at it's base, that followed the wind's current like some haunted orange processional, amongst the buildings and black night. 
That sight alone, looking back on that night and how it turned out, was worth the trip.

Amanda and I beat the others.  We stood for a while at one of the main entrances.  Straight ahead were the booms and concussions of very near fire works.  The grass around us was trampled by the hundreds (probably over a thousand) people in attendance. 

Foreigners.  Everywhere you turned was a foreigner.  All of us drawn in by the prospect of eating something other than kimchi and drinking something of better quality than Cass. 

Then I saw it:  directly to our right as an open stand marked Mexico next to a small image of the Mexican flag.  Heaven was here.  I brought with me 90,000 won.  I was well aware of the potentially disasterous and definitely humiliating results of eating and drinking $90-ish worth of carnival tacos and apple cider but I was pretty much committed.

We met up with everyone and started with a 2,000 won Cass.  Not a bad price when you are used to the trmendously inflated prices of events back home.  Not bad at all.  We then split off to find our own little slices of food and alcohol heaven.

Fault One of the Daejeon Rock Festival: Advertising.

The promise of 300 international food and drink vendors was frankly a lie.  There weren't even 300 tents.  There probably weren't even 300 different meals there total.  Sure, there was an Indian food tent, and a couple kebab tents offering such traditional turkish kebabs as the chicken-drowned-in ketchup-and-russian-dressing-in-a-fajita kebab, and a Spanish food tent that sold stir-fried veggies and tomato sauce but that was really pretty much it.

As for the Mexican food tent; well, I'd rather not talk about it.  Suffice to say there were no tacos and the sold only a tiny little fried thing of dough that was allegedly full of beef.  There was no fried dough, and there were burgers or western hot dogs either for that matter.  The food was a total let down.

The beer was not much different.  The Daejeon Rock Festival Facebook page is currently filled with people complaining about the "international beer selection" amongst other and bigger problems.  Other than the very cheap Cass (if you had the patience to stand in the giant line that sometimes formed) there WERE international beers.  Sure, there was no cider to be had but there were other exotic drinks like Bud Ice.  Bud f*#&@^& Ice.  I shouldn't even tell anybody that Bud Ice is actually available in a lot of bars here but the fact that it cost what you would expect an "imported" beer at a music festival cost probably made a lot of people laugh.
There were other beers:  Hoegarden, San Miguel and such but all of which can be bought at any convenience store by any of our apartments.

Still, the thing was free and it was something to do.  You get what you pay for and in this instance, crappy food and drink aside, we were getting more than we paid for.  This festival was one of the few places I have been, other than the bars at Itaewon, that had such a high ratio of westerners to natives.  It wasn't really necessary to speak Korean.  It is nice to know what is going sometimes.  That is a rare feeling.

The bands went on.  Rick and Lauren turned up for a while and we walked around looking for food.  Now, before I came to Korea I worked as a photographer for a magazine.  The first event I shot for them was a beerfest in southern Massachusetts.  I had two tickets and invited Ricky along.  I showed up first.  According to the organizers we would be given 5 tickets (everyone who paid the $20 admission and media) for free beer samples and 5 tickets for free food samples.  By the time I got there and finished shooting I realized too late that the free food had run out.  By the time Rick got there the only thing we could redeem our tickets for was a horrible, lukewarm hot dog.  The place was basically on its way to chaos.  There were many awesome beers and ciders there but I had mainly dragged Rick at the promise of awesome BBQ food at the expense of the magazine.

Beer stalls eventually started taking food tickets as well as drink tickets.  It was hot as hell and there was no free water.  People were baking, hungry, and soon enough the vendors were just giving people free drinks.  It was one of those situations where I made my way to my car to get the crap out of there before a couple hundred drunks put Douglas, MA on the map for the worlds biggest DUI case.

Daejeon Rock Festival was pretty much the same thing.  Granted Rick and Lauren live in Daejeon and didn't come as far as most people there and they came on their own free will, but still.  Rick tried to get a hot dog and wound up with some fried seafood jammed onto some chopsticks.

I tried boiled Bundigie (silkworm larvae) and discovered that they are pretty much what you would imagine.  They have this sickly-sweet sort of smell that fills your lungs like it is as thick as steam.  They taste a little bit like sweat and as with most weird foods it's that you are conciously aware that you just paid money to buy and eat bugs that really grosses you out.  That pop when you bite into them and the spray of hot briney bug insides sort of contributes to grossness factor too.

So, the festival was fun.  They never actually said there would be tacos.  It was a nice night.  I was there with my friends from home and from here in this strange little life we had.  Our plan was to stay until the finale at 4am and then hop a bus back to Cheongju at 6am.

Fault Two of the Daejeon Rock Festival: We don't need no stinkin' permit!

This was the first time anything like this has been done in central Korea.  It was the idea of a westerner and it was endorsed by the city council as a good way to get more people to make their way to our neck of the woods.  As it is, there isn't a heck of a lot of tourist business done anywhere but Seoul or Busan.

It seems the what ended up happening is the fault almost entirely on the entertainment company that set up the festival in the first place.  Nobody really knew what to expect as far as crowd turn out but the festival was given the greenlight to go on til 4am according to the entertainment company who also dealt with the logistics.  This, again, isn't really fact.  I am paraphrasing the people on the Daejeon Rock Festival's page who have come to the defense of it's creator.   

Crowd turnout was pretty amazing.  People came from all around Korea.  Basically everyone I have met in Korea was there.  Cheongju was probably a pretty empty place that night. 
It is because of this impressive crowd that it was such a disaster when the cops shut down the entire festival at 12am.

The streets near the festaval grounds suddenly took on the feel of a muted Cloverfield.  Dozens of foreigners left the same way as us and we wandered down the road for a while trying to hail cabs at 12:30am.  The occasional cab that passed as we sat or stood in the road with arms flailing sped right by.  It was probably the same mindset as in Titanic lifeboats that wanted to avoid being swarmed by the desperate, but in this case it was the thought of 10 drunk foreigners turned out to the streets that led to the "screw this crap" attitude of the cabs. 

Our group split off, crossed a bridge and walked through the longest park ever.  At the end we tried for a long time with no success for a taxi.  We eventually put up our thumbs and hailed a random minivan that told us he could only take two people.  Obviously, it seemed like a good idea that the girls all go with him.  Christina and Katie hopped in followed by Amanda who sprinted across the roads and just got in the passengers door.  They were off and eventually those that remained piled into a cab and headed downtown.

The girls survived.  That's probably important.  The night became a blur of people.  Yellow Taxi (or Cab, I don't know) basically had the entire festival inside and was packed.  Some of us ended up at Garten Bier until 3am, at which point we summoned the troops and cabbed it all the way back to Cheongju. 

Dissapointments aside, Daejeon Rock Festival was actually pretty fun.  At the least it will make a good story.  Also, I didn't shit my pants from eating 45 tacos so I have that going for me.

 

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