The Gem

The Grand Ole Opry, Itaewon.

For the past few months I have been something of a hermit.  After losing my Gangnam job, my money situation fluctuated between frugal and oh-shit.  Add in various factors like apartment furnishing, a trip to the States for Christmas, a fairly luxurious dinner at the top of Namsan Tower (I realize that these things are all elective expenses), and life in general and the sum of the parts was a not very social Tom.

Finally, after the alignment of the stars (payday with no huge expenses to worry about) I managed to take a trip to the pub with my coworkers.  It has solidified in my mind that if my school isn’t entirely the coolest place on earth, I got lucky again in that I have cool coworkers

We went to Itaewon.  In the past I have been extremely down on Itaewon.  Part of my disdain for that place is legitimate.  Saturday night that place turns into a horrible place.  I have, however, learned to appreciate it for what it is on the surface: an escape from the monolith of Korean society. 

Grand Ole Opry.  Itaewon, Seoul.
Take the Wolfhound.  We go here first.  It is a two floored Irish pub.  I had been here once before, briefly, with my girlfriend.  The place is actually owned by the same owner as a little sports pub in Yaksu that we frequent.  At that time there was a soccer game on TV and the place was teeming with screaming, chain-smoking, drunk Brits.  We turned around and found our western food elsewhere. 

Tonight it is a lot different.  A recent law that bans smoking in bars and restaurants with more than 50 seats saw to the cigarettes.  Further, the upstairs is open and we are led that way and shown to a booth. 

The place is accented with dark wood and plaques.  Off to one side a game of darts is underway.  It is owned by Koreans but it is no different than an Irish pub in Boston.  I can’t speak to its authenticity as an Irish Pub in Ireland but it hit the spot for us.  It serves a mishmash of burgers, sandwiches, pub grub, and Irish dishes like lamb stew.  I avoid all of this and get the chicken fingers.  Fucking great.  They might not actually even be great.  I don’t care.  I am so hungry that I load on the barbeque sauce just for extra sustenance. 

We talk and drink at two different tables before congregating together.  Sometimes going out with coworkers makes me wonder if my kindie teacher went out and got drunk with all the other kindie teachers at Beal School after work.  We pass the point of having really wonderful ideas and wander over to a bar called the Grand Ole Opry; which is the real point of this post.

We take a left outside of Wolfhound.  People are out.  Itaewon is at its prime.  Teachers, soldiers, and Koreans are at all manner of trashed.  Nobody is passed out on the curb yet, so it is still pretty early.  We cross the street and begin walking up a hill; or should I say: The Hill. 

Hooker Hill has served as an enigma since I arrived in Korea.  I had heard about it in seedy stories about wild nights out or in jokes.  I remember reading about some US soldier who damn near burned the whole place down when he knocked over a candle in one of the brothels that line the street.  He did take out one of them.  I had been there once, or rather, been near it with Larry the first time we went to Itaewon.  I caught a glimpse of it in the daytime a couple of weeks ago when I was looking for Golden Grahams cereal and Cheez-Its. 

Here we are though, right at the mouth of the beast.  We walk up the hill a little.  It is night time but I don’t see too many of the shady scenes that I expected.  Just a glass storefront and some drunk foreign guys sauntering down from further up the hill.  There could be great bars further on, at the top of the hill, but I just assume everyone is coming from a brothel.  It’s easier to lump them into stereotypes that way.

This bar we step into is called the Grand Ole Opry.  It is dark.  The sides of the bar are dimly lit in a pale, orange hue.  The lights are dimmed and diffused by the smoke of a dozen cigarettes.  It gives the appearance that candles or torches dance behind the shade.  The floors are dirty and the walls are covered with notes written on US dollar bills, Korean won, and probably a handful of other currencies.  Despite not being a thief, I think of taking some of them to both read the notes closer and then buy some candy later on.
In the center of the giant room, surrounded by groups of people who laugh deeply and loudly, is a small wooden dance floor.  As it is, nobody sets foot onto it.  Not for a while, anyway.

Our group sits at a table on the side.  Even in the light that seems to whisp around me, contained in tobacco smoke, I can see that some of the bills pinned to the wall are ancient.  This place has probably been around for ages (I look up the history, later, and find almost nothing other than the bar owner’s anger over a recently enforced early curfew for U.S. troops; courtesy of a rape and some other pretty serious trouble).

Our beer comes.  I order a Cass.  We talk and I look around.  The clientele of this place throws me off.  I see cowboy hats.  Particularly, I see a ten-gallon hat.  The man wearing it is my age, perhaps a bit younger.  His hat is black and he wears a black button down-shirt that leads down to a flamboyant belt buckle.  He is polished.

I immediately take on this cocky attitude.  This place is so foreign to me.  I realize pretty quickly that I am more at home in a Korean hof than a country-western bar.  I am from New England.  This place in Itaewon is so damn far from my experiences in Shrewsbury, in Worcester, or in Boston.  I sneer.  I don’t do it maliciously.  I have the attitude of almost any New Englander in a place like that.  Maybe it’s because I realize I don’t fit in here.  Maybe it’s because I am taking it too seriously.     

Suddenly everyone is standing.  I am laughing about something and I recognize the words to the Star Spangled Banner.  I am in a state of light-hearted disbelief.  Hats are removed from heads and placed on hearts.  Eyes turn at attention and focus on the Stars and Stripes hanging from a dark wall.  Hanging next to it is the Confederate Flag. 

Immediately after the anthem is “And I’m proud to be an American…” which is perhaps my least favorite song of all time.  I sit down and wonder what will come out of the speakers next.

The night wears down and we have some laughs.  What comes from the speakers is a steady stream of new and old country, a spatter of folk and blue grass.  At the end of the night, before a group of us make our exit into the Itaewon night, I see the man in the cowboy hat dancing with a girl.  If she is Korean or not I don’t now remember.  It strikes me that they are not grinding or bumping or anything like that.  He is smiling as they waltz along to the music.  I don’t know if it’s a waltz but it was classy and even through the booze and the smoke I could see his smile. 

We are greeted by hookers.   They sit behind glass in the storefronts (actually brothels) across the street from the Opry.  I am beginning to feel a little guilt over my immediate disdain for the Opry, but my first thought is about how much money these places must make from a bunch of whisky-drunk country dudes.
I see a girl, a bit larger than the average Korean girl.  She is sitting on a chair behind glass.  The lighting is red and dim but she seems to be reading something.  She shifts in her seat and I can tell she is barely even wearing shorts.  Behind her is an older lady, fully dressed that I take to be the madam.  Another girl walks out but she barely pays our group more than a vaguely annoyed glance. 

We make our way to the main drag and fight for a taxi and go home.

When I wake up I get to thinking about the Opry.  I feel a bit bad about the stereotype I had for, well, most of the people in there.  I get to thinking about how it might be the most legitimate “old west” saloon I have ever or will ever go to. 

It was smoky.  The bartenders were gruff old women.  There were pictures of one in a whole bunch of different countries.  Whether she picked up a pension for Americana on her travels or just fell into the Opry, I don’t know.  There were cowboy hats and belt-buckles worn with pride instead of irony.  People seemed to drink hard and smoke hard.  Likely, everyone in that place could have handled themselves in a brawl.  And, like every bar in the West according to Deadwood, it was surrounded by prostitutes and the grime of a seedy and dirty road in a seedy and dirty neighborhood.

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Worst Hotel Ever

The Russians and I hopped from the bed of the pick-up and said our goodbyes to Mary (or whatever I named her, I forgot) and her friend. Her friend, a heavily tattooed American gave some recommendations as far as places to stay that were either closer of further from the hotspots, depending on what we were looking for.

I found out shortly thereafter that what people in Pattaya are generally looking for, is sex.

I followed the Russians into a hotel run by Russians. Girls sat on a dirty couch and looked at me. The guy at the desk disappeared for a time and I listened to pumping techno for a while until I decided I wanted to try my luck elsewhere.

This was the situation: My bank card was sitting under my bed (or what was until recently my bed) in Korea. My cash was starting to dwindle. I was searching for a cheap motel that I could put onto a credit card so that I wouldn’t have to worry much about what would be the largest bill in Thailand.

No luck. Cash only. Apparently people don’t want others to know they were in a place like Pattaya. I walked over a mile down the only stretch of road near the coast that was barren of hotels. Occasionally I would pass these weird combo gym-hotels but I didn’t fancy the look of any of them. By the time I found a place I was covered in sweat, my arms hurt from dragging a couple of pieces of luggage, and I was frazzled and close to losing it after trying to avoid the constant rush of scooters.

I finally walked into a wide open room, asked for a room for the next handful of days. I was stuck behind a fat, bearded American biker guy as he waddled up the steps. I found my room, opened the door...

The room was actually quite large. That is all it had going for it. As I turned on the light a lizard scurried across the plaster ceiling. This is not a lie, nor is it even a slight exaggeration. My hotel room had a fucking lizard in it. The funny thing is that didn’t bother me at all. Grain and dirt covered bits of the linoleum floors. A bound menu sat atop a broken table. The menu, it turned out, was to some other hotel that had room service / a kitchen. I turned on the TV for a little background noise as I looked for the remote to the air conditioner. CNN was on and talking about some compound in Pakistan. I turned off the TV and headed out for some food.

I returned with a plastic baggie full of cellophane noodles, chili peppers, tripe, sausage, and vegetables bought from a vendor outside. It was delicious. The whole atmosphere of Pattaya that night was of a wild party. Foreigners shouted from scooters and in bars amidst bright TVs and the prospect of cheap sex, I could hear cheers. I was missing something maybe.

The bathroom was the worst part of the entire room, maybe even the worst part of Thailand in general. It existed on the same level as my bathroom in Korea in that the shower was not separated. The millipedes that sat dead in the middle of the tile should have tipped me off.

I turned on the shower found that the drain was clogged with all manner of black, mucky debris and that as the water level was raised, all of this shit just floated along the bathroom floor. I turned off the shower and tried to do some laundry in the sink and found that this water also drained into the same pipes and soon there was an inch of water on the floor and a bunch of gunk floating around. I did what I could and hung my clothing to dry on the balcony.

I then turned on the TV, popped opened a mini-bar beer and discovered that Osama Bin Laden was dead.

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Food and People in Saigon

An empty Street in the Backpacker
District.  Saigon, Vietnam.

The food in Saigon is cheap and everywhere.  I spent much of my time in Saigon just wandering around with my camera or trying to cross the street and I found that I was never more than a few meters away from food.  Pho stands seem to dot the overcrowded pavement in front of every other door.  Under foggy glass a collection of fresh vegetables and questionably fresh meat sat gathering a collection of flies.  In a minute you could have a bowl of pho for much less than a dollar. 

About these stands was an array of multi-colored plastic chairs and tables that were probably meant for little kids but were perpetually full of people enjoying their meals under the beating sun.

Courtesy of its history as a colony of France, fresh baguettes can be bought anywhere for next to nothing. 

The restaurants I frequented were largely across the street in the backpacker district.  Roads full of cheap restaurants, guesthouses, laundry, and booking services ran parallel to each other, forming this village of travelers, beggars, and more than a few dirty hippie drifters. 

The smells were intoxicating.  Lime and basil accented the smoke of burning meat.  Alcohol hung in the air as though the place were a giant open-air bar, which it basically was.  This place, the backpacker district was a little place of comfort for travelers without the luxury of a nice hotel or cloth napkins. 

Each restaurant had someone outside asking everyone who passed by if they were hungry, trying to drag in business as though they were fishing.  This is necessary because every restaurant there is almost identical: a long open room like a long garage, filled with tables and plastic chairs and cheap table cloths if there is one at all.  They lack ambiance but they deliver in quality food at low cost and the ability to watch as the night wears down. 

An Alcove Restaurant.
Saigon, Vietnam.

I sat towards the back of the alcove restaurant beneath a fan and still sweating.  Outside people laughed or shouted as twilight deepened.  The waiters and waitresses dropped all manner of dishes, pho and pineapple fried rice to burgers and meatloaf, in front of patrons from who knows why. 

Every now and again as I waited for my bowl of pho and pulled swigs of my warming Tiger beer a merchandise peddler would come in.  They usually had a tray of knock-off sunglasses or fans and they were usually visibly pissed off when you refused to buy anything. 

An American guy flirted with my waitress.  He is some sort of writer he said.  I blame him for my growling stomach. 

People walk in front of the entrance with loads of laundry or with backpacks that weigh more than half that of their owners.  So many dreadlocks. 

It is interesting to see who comes to these places.  For most people I do that thing where I try and figure their story out.  Do they live here?  Are they here for work?  Are they just passing through? 

The thing with Vietnam is that it has this weird mix of people.  The backpacker district is a good example of this.  Nobody here belongs but they don’t look entirely out of place.  Here and there are people in nice clothing wearing nice shoes and cargo shorts, but most people, including myself, have a layer of grime to them.  There are wild eyes in Vietnam and a sense of community. 

Then there is another population. I was eating lunch one day and they came in.  There were four or five of them.  Americans.  They wore Harley cutoff shirts or some cheap Saigon shirt that exposed black tattoos that had faded to a dull green.  They drank beer and talked and ate beneath a fan in the shade away from the sun. 

They were in their 50’s and 60’s I could guess and they were somber.  They laughed now and again but it was never the gut busting laughter that came from younger people who frequented these restaurants. 

As the meal wore on they became quiet.  Maybe they were tired and hot but they spent a long time drinking beer in silence staring out into the street.

Obviously what I am getting at here is that it is my assumption that some of these guys have been to Vietnam before under less than happy circumstances.  I wonder what it is like for the veterans of the war to return to a place that was so violent and horrible for them.  I wonder what brings them back.

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Seoraksan Part 1: In which our hero tavels for a long time and loses his most valued posession

If I have learned anything about internal travel in Korea it is this: the news isn’t usually wrong when it predicts horrendous traffic.
After the eternity that was the duration of winter intensives finally ended, Korea was given a much needed vacation.  This was good news.  The overloaded class schedule and bouncing from school to school on Fridays without breaks had wrecked me.  I was looking forward to catching up on some sleep.
The plan, for myself and a couple of friends (Rick and Lauren) was to get from our respective homes in central Korea to the northeast.  We were making for Seoraksan National Park in Gangwon Province. 
One of the things that I will miss about Korea is that you are never very far from a mountain to hike on.  Even if it is not a very large mountain, there is usually some payoff.  Sure, Watchusett Mountain might offer some nice glimpses of Fitchburg and exotic New Hampshire, but the local hike here has a fortress that predates colonial America by a long ways. 
Seoraksan, it should be stated, is not a “local hike.”  It is almost as far from our cities as you can get.  What complicated this issue further was that we were attempting to get there on arguably the biggest travel weekend of the Korean Year.  Lunar New Year was the occasion of our vacation and it was the reason why everyone with a car in Korea takes to the road to reach their home villages and families that they left behind in on their way to urban modernity.  The result is that highways around major cities become something of a nightmare. 
The only other time of year that can compete with Lunar New Year is Chuseok.  We traveled during Chuseok too, but we had the benefit of a KTX (bullet train) that took us from Daejeon to our final destination for Gyeongju.  The KTX was a benefit we would not be enjoying for our relaxing Seoraksan vacation. 
Relaxing would also not be one of our enjoyments.
We would cross the peninsula via bus.  When I asked my coworkers how I might get from Cheongju or Daejeon to Seoraksan, Han informed me that we would have to switch busses a handful of times.  Further, she said that not only would we have to deal with the nightmare traffic, but we would also have to transfer bus stations at one point. 
This last part was what worried me the most.  Reading Korean is no problem.  Bus stations usually have destinations written in English.  What could be a problem was getting from one station to another in time to catch another bus.  Frankly, I was starting to recall the trip to Dacheon Beach in the summer.  I was wondering which one of us would be barfed on.
Han tried her best to simplify things.  Ara, the new teacher, did as well:
“I think you should just stay home.  Or you can just go to Songmisan (the local national park).”
This was actually a valid idea.  I wanted and still want to go to Songmisan.  I even meant to do so last weekend but I was sidetracked by eating lunch.
The thing is, when it comes to vacations I am stubborn.  I rarely budge from my initial plan and it is difficult for me to accept any compromises.  I don’t mean to say that I do not go with the flow and enjoy the unexpected- I am fine while I am ON vacation.  What I mean is that once I decided that I was going to Seoraksan, there was no way in hell that I wasn’t going to go to Seoraksan.  The complicated bus route and the potential 10 hour bus ride (it was ordinarily 4 or so hours) didn’t have the slightest impact.  In the end I conceded a day and we left on Thursday instead of Wednesday to avoid the bulk of the traffic.
The plan:
1. Head to Daejeon Wednesday and stay in my first of 3 motels. 
2. From Daejeon take 3.5 hour bus to Gangneum in the northeast.
3. Go from the intercity bus terminal to the express bus terminal (it could have been the other way around)
4. Take a bus from Gangneum to Sokcho, a bit to the southwest.  Once here, I was ready to call it a success.
5. Take a city bus to Seorak-dong, and find a motel in the national park. 

The reality was not much different from the plan save travel times.  I made it to Daejeon with no problems (like I’ve done many times before).  I stayed at the Sharp Motel near the bus terminal and, as always, it was awesome.  Rick and Lauren treated me to a dinner at TGIF so the day was a total success. 
The next day we woke up bright and early and met at the bus terminal (bright and early for hag won teachers is different from that of normal people: 9am).
The bus, according to the website left at 9:45am.  We then spent a couple of hours waiting around and drinking coffee counting down until 11:30ish when the bus actually left.
One of the benefits of being in Korea alone, is that more often than not nobody wants to sit with you on the bus.  On the rare instance when I am not put in a row with just one seat, the person assigned to sit next to me usually gets up and leaves once the bus starts rolling.  Maybe I should be insulted.  Maybe I should just stop showering at home so I can always sit alone on the bus.
So, for the entire 5 or so hours of the 3.5 hour bus ride, I stared out the window and spoke only to Ricky or Lauren when the guy on the bus TV did something weird.
Rick and I searched for food when the bus made a quick rest stop.  After getting on 3 busses because we failed to remember where our bus was parked we sat down and enjoyed our lunch.
It was called a kebab.  It was a skinny hotdog with spicy sauce wrapped in a soggy tortilla.  How I made it the rest of the way without crapping my pants, I do not know.
After a very long time the plains gave away to outcroppings of the Taebaek mountain range.  We came at last to a city bus terminal where we sat until the bus driver politely informed us to get off as we were at our destination.  It was here that I did the dumbest thing I have ever done.
I rushed out of the bus and stood on the sidewalk for a moment after the bus drove away.  I then realized that I had left a bag containing close to $2,000 worth of camera / lenses on the bus.  I sprinted after it but it was gone.
My joy for vacation was wracked with devastation.  If I wasn’t in shock I probably would have cried.  Not only was that camera important to me, but it was how I made the bulk of my income at home.  For a time I told myself that it was ok, I had to upgrade anyway, but it was all a lie. 
I would be the only moron on top of the mountain looking through the viewfinder and winding the film of a disposable film camera.
In a panic I called Han.  I felt bad for bothering her during the holiday but I saw not other option.  She was my Obi-Wan. 
For an hour things looked bleak.  Things looked real bleak.  She managed to get a hold of the bus company and eventually the driver.  She relayed the message to him that the camera had been left on the back of the bus.  He replied that there was nothing.  He would check the CCTV but he wasn’t hopeful.
“I am sorry Tom,” Han said.  I hung up the phone and felt ill. 
I was drinking coffee with Rick and Lauren in despair when Han called to tell me that they had found my camera, and if I could wait until 6pm, then I could pick it up at the company office upstairs.
Words can’t really describe my relief.  Oh, wait, yes they can: imagine losing your really expensive still camera / cheaper video camera / lens / etc. for an hour and then having them returned.  That is what it felt like.
So, camera bag firmly in hand, we embarked on the second to last bus of the night: Sokcho.  Luck was with us in that too, as we did not have to go to another bus station to get to Sokcho, as I had feared.
The way to Sokcho is interesting.  For one thing, the coastal road forces you to remember the conflict with North Korea.  Vast expanses of the shore are lined with barbed wire.  Here and there, there were manned guard towers casting halogen into the black sea under the moonlight.  According to the guidebook, there were several tank traps along this route to protect against invasion.
So, 10 hours or so after we left Daejeon, we stepped off the bus into the night of Sokcho at the base of Seoraksan.  There, we breathed in clean air for the first time in a long time.

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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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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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A Birthday in Cheonjgu

Burritos courtesy of Han.

Yesterday was my birthday. To be honest I was not expecting too much and wouldn’t have been disappointed if nobody so much as threw a “happy birthday” my way. In recent years I have not been a huge fan of my birthday. I could go without the presents if I could stop getting older

It would not be Korean for my birthday to pass unnoticed.

Actually, I knew that I would at the very least be getting a book from the Young Receptionist because she made me sit down and pick a book from the Korean equivalent of Amazon. I am very excited for this present as I am having problems finding books written in English. I am almost at the end of Road Fever by Tim Cahill and would have jumped straight into the Lord of the Rings trilogy but now I will be reading The Best American Travel Writing. I am not sure what edition it is but before I came I read a recent installment edited by Anthony Bourdain and I enjoyed it a lot. Some of the stories weren’t my cup of tea but all in all it was like reading a really great travel section in a Sunday paper.

As soon as I sat down in my little office Han gave me her present contained in a Tupperware container.

“Tom, I made you burritos,” she told me. I could have died. I am from the Northeast but have been craving American-perverted Mexican food for the past two months. I probably WILL take a two hour bus and subway ride to Itaewon just to go to Taco Bell whenever the place finally opens. To get a burrito on my birthday was like being given a car or a million dollars.

‘But,” Han went on, “I could not find a recipe so I made it up myself.”

This could be a problem, I thought. Even if they were the worst burritos on earth I still would have been appreciative but Koreans tend to put some pretty funky things in their foods. Still I was determined to down at least one even if a tentacle fell out when I bit into it.

There was no octopus inside, and no fish. They were as genuine as burritos got this far from Mexico. They were made with real beef, fresh tomatoes, onions, red and yellow peppers, and about a dozen tiny slices of fresh chili peppers that I didn’t see until it was too late.

It was that sort of food burn where you feel at first a tingle on your lips and think “this is going to be bad” before the pain kicks in and next thing you know your eyes are watering as your face is under the faucet. Still, they were amazing and I ate two of them.

Boram gave me travelers coffee cup with a picture of Seoul stretched around it. The Older Receptionist gave me a shirt but promptly took it back when she thought it was a little too big. I was pretty proud as I have lost 20 lbs since I have been here. My boss’ wife gave me some K-Swiss sandals.

If the day was like any other day I can say that we sure ate a lot more than usual. A few hours after the burritos the Young Receptionist brought us all Red and White burgers from Lotteria. I should point out that Lotteria calls everything a burger and they are not to be trusted as this was made out of shrimp.

Part of me genuinely thought that I would go home after work, maybe have a drink and get to bed like any other night. I have this thing where I think about what food I will eat when I get home if I was still hungry after dinner. Would I make chicken nuggets? Mandu? Donkkaseu (pork cutlet)? No, I wouldn’t make anything. I would go to the Kimbap joint next door and get the donkkaseu meal (cutlet, radish, salad, rice) or omurice (a sort of omelet with fried rice).

Everyone else knew we were going out but they didn’t tell me. Oh, don’t think that it was meant to be a surprise or anything like that- they just didn’t tell me. Nobody tells me nuthin’.

After work we hailed a cab and soon we were at Seduce in Downtown. In the beginning it was just Han, Boram, the Older Receptionist, the Younger Receptionist, and I. Several things happened at Seduce that likely played a hand in how the night turned out and the quality of teaching experienced by the kids the next day.

Boram and one of my birthday cakes.
Cellphone camera.

- We started with beer.

- We ended up doing a few tequila shots each. I learned that it is a horrible idea to be polite in Korea when it comes to alcohol. The Younger Receptionist told me that I could have more tequila if I wanted it. I stated that I would only have a shot if everybody else wanted one. Thus we found ourselves licking salt, downing the thing and sucking lemon for a fourth time.

- Albert’s wife showed up and ordered a cocktail that was mostly Bailey’s.

- Albert showed up in his shiny suit a cake from the exotic Baskin Robbins.

- The restaurant gave us free food, which was very nice. The food consisted of peanuts, cooked beef jerky (from a package- I know my jerky and I knew the brand), and heated mayonnaise. It might have been the trashiest thing that I have ever eaten.

- I had to choose between the cake brought by Albert and the cake brought by my coworkers. I don’t even like cake.

- Albert offered to extend my contract and hire my girlfriend when the school reaches 100 students.

- I was served a flaming shot of 151 which was pretty scary.

We walked out of Seduce at 11pm and I was feeling pretty happy. If I had to celebrate another birthday then I was happy with how it had turned out. I became a bit self-conscious as I was walking around with shopping bags and wearing socks with my new sandals. I thanked everyone as Albert and his wife, citing fatigue, went home.

“Ha! Tom,” Han said, “you think the night is over?”

No, of course the night wasn’t over. This is Korea. We went to another bar with a name that made it sound like an all-male strip club and found our way to a wooden table in the corner by the windows overlooking a fairly quiet night in Downtown.

There was more beer and a lot of conversation. I feel so bad sometimes that I can’t communicate with the two receptionists. They are trying to learn English when it should be me trying harder to learn Korean; I am, after all, a guest here.

Still, we all talked for what seemed like a very long time over a fiery hot chicken dish. One of the more poignant things that I have learned through international traveling is that communication is often not held down by language barriers. It is true, that 90% of the time I have no idea what the heck is going on or what anybody is saying but that didn’t seem important.

The night still did not end when we left. We made a trip to the horrible dance club Frog Rain only to find it closed. I thanked god for my luck and we found ourselves at noraebang.

Noraebang.
Cellphone Camera.

Ordinarily, I am not a fan of the karaoke rooms but tonight I did not care. I threw ego to the gutter which, given my song choices, was a very good thing. By the time we left the place at 4:30am I had willfully sang four songs while my coworkers danced on couches, banged tambourines, or smoked cigarettes in the corner as the colored lights pulsated.

What did I sing?  I’ll tell you.

Buddy Holly - Weezer

Semi-charmed Kind of Life - Third Eye Blind

Girlfriend - Avril Lavigne (…I know)

Bitch - Meredith Brooks

To say the least, students did not learn anything new the next day as we hung onto podiums just to stay vertical. Still, it was an awesome birthday in Cheongju.

Things I ate today:

Noodles with black bean sauce

Lettuce wraps with spicy pork and sauce.

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The Angry Girl

I have been in this place for over three weeks and it is still entirely foreign to me. On days in which I am not fed at school I find myself eating triangles (despite knowing their true name, I will continue to call them triangles mostly because my coworkers get a laugh at it). I have put a decent effort into learning Hangul if only so that I might be able to order a simple meal or two at the place next to my apartment.


Tonight, I walked into that place with my Lonely Planet in hand. The lady behind the counter looked at me and smiled. I looked at the menu on the wall and decided that this was not the day and just pointed to one of four photos of food they had above the kitchen.

Tteokbokki. I’ve had it a few times before but everything tastes a little better when you order it on your own. This was after all the firs meal that I had ordered what wasn’t a pizza or Mc. Donalds. Sure, I was still pointing at a picture but at least it wasn’t a recognizable picture.

Actually, it is more of a snack or a side than a meal but it hit the spot while I ate it sitting on my floor. Tteokbokki is a dish of pressed rice cakes, veggies and sometimes fish cakes in a spicy red sauce. It is not so far removed from a pasta dish at home and the rice cakes have the texture of gnocchi so it didn’t seem so foreign.

While three weeks has not been nearly enough time for me to learn the true names of the students at my school, it has certainly given me time to see their personalities. The prospect of standing and teaching a bunch of kids was daunting to me before I came. A lot of people at home have been given the impression that I hate kids. I do not hate kids; they intimidate me. I do not know why this is, but I never knew how to interact with a kid of any age. This, if nothing else, is being remedied.

I like all of the kids here. They are all hilarious beyond even that Kids Say the Darndest Things: Foreigner Edition level.

There is Clara who continues to come into the office and sit down next to me and give me candy or gum. Once she offered me a hunk of her dried fish. I would have politely accepted it but I had already politely accepted dried squid from the director’s wife and had just thrown it out the window when nobody was looking.

There is another boy who is just a bit younger. I do not even know this boy’s English name, but every day he comes into the office and plays with the magnetic darts or wants to play “Rock, Scissors, Paper.” We could be in the middle of class and I will just barely make eye contact and he will be shaking his hands ready to throw down rock. He always throws rock. He is hyper as hell but he is one of my favorites.

There is a group of three older girls that always ask me questions that they forget to translate into English and then laugh as I stare at them. Usually, they ask if I am married or if I have a girlfriend. Today, they asked why my hair looked so funny.

Then there is another girl in the same class as R.S.P Boy who hates me beyond anything else in this world. When I first had Angry Girl in my class I thought she was terribly shy. She would rarely answer any questions, seemed miserable playing any games, would not sing and simply never looked me in the eyes.

Being extremely shy as a kid is something I can relate to. Heck, I am still shy. I never pushed her to sing, and I never said anything to her about speaking up. I tried to be nice to her.

Over the past three weeks most of the students have warmed up to me. As they filter in through our sliding doors they always walk by my door and say “hello,” as I sit there and wave. Angry Girl will turn her head and walk by despite my waving.

Turns out, this girl is not shy: she might be evil.

It started with the Weather Game. The Weather Game is an incredibly lame game played on a board made of paper, with a big die made of paper. It is a simplified game that is something like Pictionary without any of the fun stuff. In turn, each player rolls the die and then moves their piece (usually an eraser) to the photo that matches the weather condition on the die. Needless to say R.P.C Boy loves this game. We played one round and he kept playing. Having nothing else planned we all kept playing. At one point everybody’s attention was turned elsewhere and Angry Girl smashed the paper die and threw it to the floor in one motion. She then acted as though the die never existed.

A few days ago I was standing in front of the Smart Board as the class came in. Each kid said “hello” to me. When Angry Girl came in she simply looked at me and said:

“No Hello!”

No smile whatsoever.

Her mannerisms give her away too. When a kid has a question or wants something repeated they will usually say something in unrecognizable English or in Korean. Angry Girl will just point at me and tap the desk with her fingers twice. Also, I kind of figured out she hated me when she flung a small glass of water at me when nobody was looking. Nothing vague about that one.

In an effort to make friends with her, I handed her a piece of gum a few days ago. She took the stick and demanded more, to which I obliged because I did not want her to stab me in the neck with a pair of scissors or something. She walked off with 5 sticks.

Honestly, I do not care if this girl hates me. I do not hate her and actually think that she is funny and at times I can’t help but crack up when she does something outlandish. On Friday we were demonstrating the concept of giving. The other kids “gave” me their pencils or books.

“Teacher, here is my pencil / book / bag / etc.“

When it came time for Angry Girl to give me something she looked around her desk until she found a piece of garbage.

“Here is some trash,” she said looking terribly pleased with herself. Point is, it was hilarious.

The reason I tell you all this is because I got my revenge. She walked into my office to find me chewing my last piece of gum. Without saying so much as “hi,” she walked over, held out her hands and said:

“Gum.”

I looked at her and she was not even smiling. To this I (a 25 year old man to a 10 year old girl) responded by spitting my gum out into my hand, holding it up and saying “here you go.”

“Ugggh! Teacher, you dirty!!”

Am I proud of myself? Yes. Yes I am.

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Busses and Quizzes

The general layout of things.

The new apartment is fantastic. It has a more separated and natural layout. The kitchen is a bit more spacious and the bathroom is awesome. The walls and floor are laid with green tile meant to look like marble and it is much bigger than the last one which makes showering a bit easier given that the shower is just a hose pinned to the wall. The main living space has a much bigger fridge and even includes an actual freezer. What’s more is that inside the freezer is a big heavy bag with the picture of a cow and nothing else. The floors are made to look wooden, though they are still made of a sort of soft plastic or rubber. I even have a couple of closets!

My lovely bathroom.  Ignore the
Urkel style.

There are two problems however. The first is that when I close the sliding, foggy glass door between my room and the kitchen and then try and turn on the kitchen light in the dark it looks absurdly creepy and each time I think I see the girl from The Ring. Also, the bathroom sink’s pipes aren’t actually attached so that whenever I run the sink the water just pours out in the general direction of the drain. Oh, another issue is that I have no idea how to heat the floors, but this won’t be an issue until fall as it is starting to get pretty muggy.

A big plus is that this place is directly across the street from my school, so my commute takes about 40 seconds.

After much trial and error I figured out what was wrong with the computer, or rather what was wrong with me. The converter was unnecessary and was preventing enough wattage from getting to the computer; now all it takes is my cheapo adaptor plug. I should have brought more adaptors because as it is only one thing can be plugged in at a time.

Days at school pass by quickly. I get by on a lunch and dinner of rice, a platter of side dishes, a few slabs of spam and occasionally a cold chicken nugget. One thing I must say is that their ketchup is refreshing. For one thing they put it on the last things you would expect anybody to put ketchup on. Spam and sausage, for example, are always eaten with ketchup. Also, it has a much bolder flavor than our own being fortified with a heavier dose of garlic.

The view from my window.

On my first Saturday I walked out my door armed with a list of phrases written in Hangul that would get me to a bus station and then to Cheonan where I would be met by Larry. After, I would be taking part in a pub quiz in an expat bar called Adonis.

There could have been many reasons why I couldn’t get a cab to stop for me. It could have been because I was a foreigner and would be more bother than I was worth, it could have been because I was holding a piece of paper and they knew they would have to decipher from it what I wanted, it also could have been because I was holding my Lonely Planet guide to Korea and nothing good ever came from picking up somebody holding one of those. Whatever the issue, it took me 30 minutes to get into a cab.

I handed the cabbie my paper and assumed it would be a quick and quiet ride. Instead, he began asking me questions to which I just stared at him in utter fear. I said “bus terminal” and he said something impossible for me to understand. After this we both fell back on the idea that if you kept repeating the same statement over and over and louder and louder that it would break a language barrier. It doesn’t.

He drove aimlessly as I called Han and Boram, neither of whom answered. On a small road I called Albert as a last resort. I handed the phone to the driver and they had a long conversation with much laughter that could only be at my expense. After hanging up, the driver looked at me, smiled and said: “Tough driver!”

How I survived the ride is beyond me. He drove at speeds that exceeded even those of the other lunatics that occupy Korean roads. He would sometimes take the trouble to roll through red lights, but would generally just swerve around cars that actually stopped. At one point he took a left in front of 3 lanes of oncoming traffic and then cut in front of a city bus as he settled onto the new street. All the while he kept repeating the words “tough driver” with pride.

Interesting fact about Korea. Almost everybody has a suped up navigational system, and almost all of these are equipped so that they can and do watch television on them. It is horrifying.

So, finally we arrived at the bus station. No sooner had I gotten out of the car when I got a call from Albert. Albert, worried about my general incompetence, had just arrived at the bus station to ensure that I was put onto the appropriate bus. My self -esteem to say the least was on a downward slope.

The bus station was like any bus station in any country in the world. Albert got my ticket and escorted me to the line of people waiting beside the bus to Cheonan. There we waited for a time and Albert would not leave my side, only asked the driver if I might be let on early because I may be capable of somehow screwing that up.

Ten minutes passed and I was soon sitting in my seat watching Albert smoke his tiny cigarettes. A second later he was back on the bus and asking a 10 year old kid to make sure that I got off the bus when it arrived at Cheonan. Albert then patted me on the shoulder and gave me a coke. My self-esteem was somewhere south of Hell.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The bus ride was great. I am a fan of slow speed transport and have always looked at bus rides as a great way to see a place if you are on your way to another place. I have taken busses across Mexico, to Canada, and from Athens to the edge of Albania and I often find myself too mesmerized to sleep despite utter exhaustion. This ride was no exception.

The land between Cheongju and Cheonan is rural. There were sparse villages and sloped tile roofs. Rice patties dominated the way, but every now and again there were the burial mounds from times forgotten or never recalled in Western memory.

Downtown Cheonan is massive. The bus station quickly becomes a four-story shopping center with a food court and cinema on top. I wandered for a time while I waited for Larry. Upon walking into the food court I remembered that I was starving and that if I was going to have anything to drink at all I needed food, or else I would be barfing after one beer.

There were so many options that I am ashamed that I fell on the American comfort food that is McDonalds. Please, please do not judge me too harshly: I was starving!

I sat alone, the only non-Asian in the place eating a Mc. Chicken and fries. I was fully aware that if there were a decent photographer present I would wind up in some article critical of fast food imperialism and our unwillingness to adapt to another culture.

After, I sat on a bench outside of the complex and watched people cross the street. This was something to behold. Koreans obey crosswalks and pedestrian signals as though they would be thrown away for life with no parole if they jaywalked. They will wait at the corner regardless of the fact that there are no cars coming.

When they do cross, though, now that is really something! By the time the cars stopped and the cross walk opened up there had to be over a hundred people going to opposite sides. It looked like two enormous waves crashing and breaking into one another.

Eventually, Larry and a friend found me and we were waiting for a taxi while he spoke to an American guy and his sister. A short cab ride took us to the suburbs of Cheonan: the domain of Larry Boire.

The drinking began instantly and I was thankful that I at least had a stomach full of Mc. Chicken. While Larry set off to make final arrangements for the pub quiz, I was left in the company of the first native English speakers I had met since home.

We sat around on the floor and played drinking games with orange juice and soju. We played a game I used to play a long time ago in an East Boston apartment off of Maverick Square and they all reminded me of old college friends who are lost now to life in time. They told me how bizarre it was to speak in proper sentences with adjectives after trying to speak simply to Koreans. Before we left we played poker with a big pile of cigarettes in the center of the floor and I felt like I was in prison.

The pub quiz at Adonis was something else. I came to Korea so that I might experience another culture for a year and that I might come away from it a little richer emotionally and monetarily. It is important though to take a breather every now and again. It is perfectly acceptable to go and get drunk with 60 other English teachers every now and again.

My team consisted of Larry’s friend CJ (actually Larry was friends with everybody) and a Canadian named Miranda. We somehow came up with the name Husky Hamsters. We also lost horribly, but I guess that is not really the point now is it?

We drank and drank and all became friends or at least something like it. Miranda was finishing up a job and would be on to at least another year in Korea. CJ was looking for another teaching job. I stepped outside with everyone else for a cigarette.

I remember talking to a guy who looked exactly like Kevin Bacon and the Pixies started playing. Out came the guy from the taxi stand that Larry was talking to. He had been in a motorcycle accident since we had last seen him and had gotten the worst of it. His shorts were stained with blood as well as his shirt. His limbs were covered in road rash and gashes. It was pretty obvious that he needed stitches, though I found out later he would be going to his doctor in the morning to avoid an expensive visit to the emergency room. It was a shock to see.

Still, the night wore on. The quiz ended but the beer kept coming. Miranda left and Larry and I sat in a booth watching people dance or generally have a good time while we finished our beers.

We headed back to his apartment, drank a bit more and called it a night. Larry apologized for a pounding head and what was apparently an early night for this crowd. It was 4am by the time my head hit his hard couch.

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On Dogs and Alcohol

The next day I got lost.

It was bound to happen as it always does. When I moved to Beacon Hill I managed to get all turned around in the brownstones for two hours before I found my way back to Somerset St. I was going to meet Larry from Cheonan at Starbucks in Cheongju and there we would have a reunion neither of us thought would ever happen. Larry found Starbucks with no trouble. I never had a chance.

 

Starbucks, it turns out, was in Uptown while I thought it was in Downtown. This mistake didn’t make much of a difference because I couldn’t find Downtown to begin with. I walked for an hour or more until the people all disappeared and the trendy shops were replaced with dirtier streets and shambled stores.

Being lost in your own country is embarrassing, but being lost in Korea on your third day can be panic inducing. I managed to get so jumbled about that before I knew it I couldn’t even find my way back to where I had come from. I walked and walked until I was pouring sweat in the humidity and more or less wanted to cry.

Eventually I came to the main gates of Chunbuk University. Remembering that Downtown was situated off of the University, I walked a half mile in either direction but never found Downtown. Finally, I plopped myself down against the gates and told Larry that I would not be moving any further or else I might be wandering my way into a North Korean Gulag. If he wanted to hang out then he was going to have to try and find me.

Larry found me in all of 5 minutes. He was a sight to see after not seeing him since my old place at 24 Proctor , and what’s more he was decked out in leather and riding an old black motorcycle. It was good to see him; after all, he was the one who convinced me to pack up and head to Korea.

Together we walked to Uptown as it was the only place we knew the general direction of. It was a long way and it was humid as hell. I would have taken my jacket off if I hadn’t been sweating like a tweeker. We wandered the markets that we came across; almost hidden in alleys. They reminded me of the markets I found while wandering about Mexico: dreary and far off the tourist path but vital arteries of culture. The first was tiny and soon spit us back onto the main road, but the second was something to see.

It was one main throughway on a dingy street. It was dark and a little bit dank but there were so many people! Vendors sold everything: Bugs, crops, sand shrimp that jumped from their baskets, the ugliest fish I had ever seen and bags and bags of this and that. We continued on down the main path until we came at last to a live market.

If people were speaking around us I no longer remember. There were the squawks of chickens and the calls of roosters. One vendor had pens and pens of farm birds, while another had a collection of ducks sitting in tiny wire cages. Another sold rabbits and everybody sold eggs. If only I had my camera. If that was all that was at the market I would have left happy and satisfied. As it was we came into the last stretch and Larry broke our silence.

“Yep, there’s the dog.”

I had heard rumors of this, but I didn’t really believe them, but there was the proof right there. First, it was just cuts of formless meat beneath clouded glass, but finally we came to a few stalls that had de-furred or skinned dogs hanging like sausages in a butcher shop.

It is hard to look down on a culture that you do not understand, and I don’t, but there is something sacred about dogs. Whatever I have ever heard about the historic relationship between man and canine was that it was generally a mutually beneficial sort of thing; but here, there was nothing beneficial going on for Fido who now dangled dead from a chain.

I asked and Larry told me that they got many of the dogs from China as it was illegal in Korea and had been since Seoul hosted the Olympics, but it apparently was not enforced. Still, even he was surprised to see so many openly hanging or laying about.

It was a sad sight to be seen by somebody who misses his dog.

Still, life goes on and I am just a visitor to this place in the end. We wandered for a long time. We passed through Uptown, and through the street with the animal-people and microphones and sound systems and I was once again finding myself dizzy as we walked through the thousands. It seems that always we are walking against the crowd here.

We ate a good lunch in a food court. I had spicy pork, rice, kimchi and soup until Larry informed me that it was essentially squid broth and the once odd flavor and funny little chunks became disgusting. We walked back to the general direction of my place.

I would like to say I went and got my camera and took a bunch of photos, or that Larry and I went and had a cultural outing. I would like to say all of these things but we didn’t do any of them. Like most of my Suffolk friends, the original bond between Larry and I had a high proof. We went to one dark and smoky local bar, then to another where we watched Korean soap operas and ate a potato sampler and drank Cass beer and soju. We ended up at a joint called Vons that had the most wonderful chicken, though I have no idea where it is anymore, where we had one last pitcher. Actually, I had one glass and could not drink any more and poor Larry drank the rest of it.

That was the end of the night.

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