Brokedown Palace

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gyeongbokgung Palace. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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In Country

Guess what I stared at for 14 hours.

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

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

I am talented like that.

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

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

That hole is my shower.

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

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

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

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

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

My kitchen and TABLE!

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

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

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

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

Ok, that's it.  Actual post to come.

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

My TV and a dead guy.

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In Country

Seoul is overwhelming. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bummer, I think.

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

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

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

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

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Ralph's Diner, Worcester MA

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

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

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

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

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

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A Korean in New York

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



 

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Waiting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Same, Same

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

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

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

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

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

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

I passed.

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

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

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

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Jordi's Village, Spain

What can I say about my time in Spain?  For one thing, I was apparently so excited to get on out of Asia that I arrived a full 4 days before I had planned to.  It was luck that on the last bit of battery I got a hold of my friend and host, Jordi, and informed him that I was at the airport in Barcelona awaiting his arrival to pick me up.  I was tired and was basically out of money and stretched a bit too thin.

His reply was something about “what the fuck” and “are you kidding me” and that he was on his way.  For a little while I was worried about old Jordi popping me one in the face but he did not.  Instead he rushed over, swore at me, gave me a hug and took my things. 

Jordi is an old friend.  I knew him for a time when we were both waiters at a restaurant and were two of a very small group that actually gave a shit and worked.  He was an international student and spent his last week living at my apartment in Brighton before returning to his native Barcelona.  Now I was repaying the favor, or rather he was. 

Add caption

So, for a little less than a week I stayed with Jordi, his wonderful mom, and his incredibly obedient dog at their apartment in a village by the sea, less than an hour to downtown Barcelona.  It was relaxing and for the first time since I left Korea I didn’t have to think about anything other than what I would have for breakfast (usually cheese and sausage) or where I wanted Jordi to take me.

Barcelona

I met his friends on the first night at a dinner party that I couldn’t stay conscious at.  I took great pride in declaring that I was slightly tired because the last time I had slept I was in Thailand.  I ate pickled fish in olive oil.  I met Jordi’s family at a kind of giant dinner party.  For a while I think his family felt bad that I was sitting there unaware of what was happening due to my zero Spanish language skills but I tried my best to make them understand that at this point not understanding was my life. 

I drank wine and I ate.  For two or three days I was left alone as Jordi had to work and I wandered the village, sitting by the Mediterranean watching the waves crash while eating olives and cheese because I am a massive cliché.  I discovered that clothing is not a legal requirement and that beaches in Spain are a magical thing to a guy who had just spent a year in East Asia. 

I took the train to Barcelona.  The rail ran along the beach and I made certain to get a seat at a window overlooking the coast and basically saw a million boobs.  I ate aged ham and wandered around the Placa Catalunya.  I drank coffee in a market and watched as gypsies begged along fountains lined with statues and pigeons.

France

Every night Jordi and I walked along the beach with his dog and then to the market to by cheese or else something for dinner.  I watched TV and read each night in the guestroom in which it was impossible to move because of my luggage.  I did laundry and took a long shower, the first since Cambodia. 

Andorra

We went to the South of France, to an old village in the mountains on the edge of an active military fort.  We saw a woman walking around with a grenade launcher like it was no big thing.  We ate Croque Monsieur sandwiches at a café high in the mountains.  We drove through the small country of Andorra and I basically hyperventilated at every curve along the cliff’s edge.  I saw snow for the first time since winter. 

I met Jordi’s cousin, a local tennis star, and we saw Fast Five in Spanish.  Translation was unescessary as it appeared to be universally terrible. 

At the end of the week, Jordi drove me to the airport.  It was sad to say “goodbye” to him, but it was sadder to know that it was actually all over. 

A few hours later I was in Dublin.  A day later I was watching the doors past customs open at Logan Airport.

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Egypt Air

By the time I arrived in Bangkok, I was all jumbled up in my mind. On the one hand, I was happy to be leaving Pattaya and I was excited to arrive in Barcelona and see my friend Jordi, who I had not seen in a number of years. On the other hand, leaving Thailand meant that the bulk of my traveling, particularly my no-plan-do-whatever-I-want sort of traveling, was pretty much over. It hit me as I ate crappy mandu in the airport that I was leaving Asia. I had been in Asia for over a year, and while I had not been in Thailand for a year, something felt significant about leaving this part of the world. It was bittersweet in that I was excited to see the people who were back home but also it was hard to grasp that it was all coming to an end. How can it really be over, I thought.

Not without a fight.

My luggage was 10 kg beyond the limit for Egyptian Air and the few hundred dollars they were trying to charge me was definitely not going to happen. So, I found a quiet corner of the airport and proceeded to throw away a close to 20 lbs worth of my belongings.

It is amazing what one can part with when faced with a hefty fine.

Basically all of my clothing

Laptop fan tray

Shoes

Ok, it isn’t so much when I put it in list form but remembering that most of the weight I shed was in the form of clothing. I had two rolling pieces of luggage and I left Thailand with one full piece and one totally empty.

The woman at check in laughed and told me that I threw away a few extra pounds and that if I wanted to I could go dig some things out of the trash. I told her that I didn’t care, and further some of the cables and battery packs / chargers I threw away might set off some sort of bomb scare when security found them and I didn’t want to be associated with that particular trash more than I already was.

This flight was the one I was most worried for. I never like flying and this goes beyond the normal phobia. At best I am a nervous wreck and at worst I am all read, sweaty, and having a panic attack while these Final Destination images run through my head. Best case scenario is flying in the day, on a new plane with plenty of room, with the air vent on full blast on my face.

Worst case scenario was basically my flight with Egypt Air. For one, their safety record is about as sucky as it gets before it actually becomes a risky carrier. Upon reading their safety records it seemed they were constantly crashing into sand dunes upon landing and takeoff while they weren’t pulling suicide dives into the ocean off of Massachusetts. The customer reviews were more or less unanimously horrid and my flight path (Bangkok – Cairo – Barcelona) seemed to be the worst. The often cited “run down, old plane that creaks” made me nervous. Further, it was a 9 hour flight in the middle of the night which adds tremendously to my claustrophobia.

Another thing that made me a little more apprehensive had nothing to do with the company but had to do with current events. Osama bin Laden had been killed less than a week before. The news was full of speculation of revenge attacks and the methods they might be carried out. It was just the cherry on top of the shit sundae.

The plane was old, I thought as I sat down, but it wasn’t as cramped as I was expecting. Ok, I can deal with this. I had a window seat in a 3 seat row. Next to me was a woman and her baby which was both a blessing and a curse.

I popped a few Xanax, applied my death grip to the armrests, and waited as the plane made its way to the runway.

I confess to being a giant vagina when it comes to airplanes. I have been in cartel held towns in Mexico, I have seen people crushed in cars and splattered on the street after scaffolding accidents, I have seen a man get out of his car and start shooting at the house in front of me. I was fine through all of these things, but put me on a plane and I almost instantly lose my shit.

The engines charged and soon there was that rumble and we all sank into our seats.

The baby wailed in the dark and soon began to scream. I held on for dear life as the plane groaned and creaked and lifted off. No sand dunes anyway.

The plane began to bank to the right and the baby continued to scream.

A few more minutes, I told myself, and we would level out.

We hit turbulence immediately. It was the sort of stuff that you frequently hit before the plane rises past the weather. It was a little more violent than usual and was a hell of a lot louder to say the least.

For a few moments we bounced and shook and vibrated as we continued on up.

Then we hit some kind of air pocket.

Free-fall while banking to the right and aimed upwards.

It didn’t last more than 1 second but it might have been the single most terrifying event of my life. It wasn’t just me. As my stomach rose in weightlessness I heard other people gasping and screaming. I could see nothing as the plane was pitch black and the windows offered nothing but foggy abyss.

The worst of it was we fell for long enough for me to actually think during it. It felt like that first second of the drop on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. I wondered if we were seriously about to belly-flop in a fiery splash somewhere outside of Bangkok.

All of this happened in no more than a second. The plain caught air again and again we were thrown to and fro in turbulence. Half a minute later and it was over. Soon people were sighing in relief and letting out little chuckles. The pilots probably didn’t even notice it. Meanwhile, I spent the next 9 hours sitting in darkness, popping Xanax, white-knuckled. I felt every minute of that flight.

But, I lived. I landed in Cairo, chain-smoked, and a handful of hours later I was sitting in Europe and Asia and Korea were a long ways away.

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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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