A Little Bit of Seoul - Part 2

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My night was a sleepless one with my colon being somewhat trigger happy. I had developed my first ever case of food poisoning and it royally sucked. My stomach bloated and I felt malnutritioned, for the best part of the week that was to follow I would completely lose my appetite. My stomach shunned the thought of food entering its establishment. It thought of it as somewhat of a queer gesture, an insult to its own self righteous dignity.

So with all that being said the only cure that Curtis could conjure up was to go to a theme park and ride some rollercoaster’s. The guy wanted me to shit my pants, this was a given, he wanted to see my poopoo expose itself to the unsuspecting Korean public. Coincidentally I saw this all as a rather interesting challenge, to go all day riding white knuckle rides with my sketchy colon on red alert without incident. A challenge that naturally I was more than willing to rise up to.

Lotte world has both inside and outside segments to it's theme park, the indoor part being the biggest indoor theme park in the world. The 7th most visited park in the world with about 8 million visitors each year. The main castle situated in the outside part of the park is a clear knock off of the Disney castle. Though a great deal of effort has been made with this place rammed into the bowels of Seoul’s concrete jungle. I felt marginally too old for the place to be honest, the place was rammed with kiddies, pedo heaven some could say. Luckily for me I think that kids are disgusting bogey eater's so had no intentions of pulling one.

There was however quite a few white knucklers at the park which at first glance made my tummy rumble and my colon quiver. But alas my pants survived to fight another day, my arse had done me proud and Curtis was denied his brown shower that he so desperately wanted.

The proceeding day was another day of random stumblings with no real interior motive. I took the train to Insadong which was where a lot of expats hangout. Why I wanted to head to a place which would be full of whiteys like me I’m not too sure, but I headed there all the same. I noticed a lot of staring whilst on the subway today, not for the 1st time actually, they stare like Chinamen out here some of them, which is something that really winds me up as its just plain rude. You can just see from the corners of your eyes if someone is staring at you, I think they somehow come to the conclusion that because you are white and western you must for some reason be retarded and have shit eyesight because you live on a staple diet of Burger and chips.

When I got off at my stop I went for a Burger King, I like burgers....they taste nice in my mouth. It would have perhaps been nice to have sampled some more local delights but after food poisoning from suspected Korean sources my taste buds were still a little disorientated and my desire for Korean food was now zero. So I thought that it would be for the best to stick to safety food, and as a whole you can’t go too far wrong with good old burger and chips. I did struggle mind, it took me a good 45 minutes to wade through it with my 4 year old girly stomach. I was victorious though, the only mild disappointment was that the Burger King Chips didn't taste like Burger King Chips, they tasted like McDonalds chips. The major disappointment was that I had to rush the digestion procedure and evacuate the premises as The Boo Radleys 'Wake up it’s A Beautiful Morning' came on the radio. What an AWWWWWFULLL awful fuckingly shit song by an AWWWWWFULLL awful fuckingly shit band. They can just fuck right off with Dodgy and Toploader.

After Burger King evacuation I walked the streets of Insadong for a while witnessing many western white chocolate people mooching about like myself a long with a number of western black chocolate brothers congregating in the area also portraying the mooch. As a whole though not really such a cultured neck of the woods for me. So I decided that I would try and find a temple that hadn't been raised to the ground by the Japanese. A hard feat because as it happens most of Korea's cultural heritage at some point has been kicked in the cockhole by the little fella's from across the way. Especially in Seoul, the majority of the temples present today being rebuilt in recent times. One such structure would be Gyeongbokgung Palace which I picked out of my guidebook as a place that I should visit.

Before doing so I feel I must make a public apology to Kyobo Bookstore in Gyeongbokgung where I was to release the mother load. Through my illness I had found myself somewhat backed up for the majority of the day. And upon reaching the convenience of this rather lavish, classy and up market bookstore my self-righteous colon felt that it was time to strike. It really was an atomic ass bomb, for the Koreans in the bogs at the same time as me they probably thought that the North Koreans were invading for the first time since erm.....I don't really know, but that's what they might have thought......maybe. But anyway they weren’t so it doesn't really matter because it was a dirty little Englishman with his putrid anus terrorizing the vicinity. But anyway I won't fluidly go into too much detail, unless of course you feel that I already have. But let it be known on this said day a monstrosity of monstrosities was injected into the outside world. Once again to Kyobo Bookstore in Gyeongbokgung, 실례합니다 (Excuse me).

After what felt like it should have been a final showdown I made tracks to Gyeongbokgung Palace. Originally constructed in 1394 but severely raped by the Japanese in the 20th century it is gradually being reconstructed to a mighty fine state, although still only 40% repaired. It was around 32oC today and as I was walking around the palace I was definitely feeling it. But a worthwhile trip was had.

The following morning after the final ass showdown my belly had deflated and now felt bruised on the insides from the bloat. Not a great feeling but at least it was a sign that I was on the mend. Today would be a day where I was yet again thrown into a brand new scenario. Today I would be ....... an English teacher! Curtis claimed that his school was a man down for the day so needed someone to teach small people English, I due fully accepted. I don’t know much about kids but legend has it that I used to be one, some claim that I still am one, so how hard could it be?

I was very much thrown into this one though, introduction to fellow staff was short and sweet, Curtis disappeared, I had a textbook thrown in front of me and was told to head to Frog class, "Right...err....ok"
I found myself in a small hallway with several doors, I eyed them up, Cow class, Monkey class, Elephant class, Frog class, Giraffe class, FROG CLASS!! That’s me! There was a small child like creature stood next to the door, I decided to test some English on it.
"Is this frog class?" (It obviously was)
It looked at me, blinked a little and then ran off laughing. The new white blob had spoken to him and it was naturally the funniest thing ever. And with that there was nothing else left to do but enter frog class. In doing so I found four small tiny people sat down on tiny peoples chairs looking at me, blinking every now and then like South Park characters, faces absent of expression.

"Hi, I'm Daniel, I'm from England, and today I will be your teacher."
Nothing.
"Do any of you know where England is?"
Nothing.
Curtis did loosely tell me that as a whole Koreans are only really concerned about Korea and Koreans, so I decided to drop the subject of mighty Blighty. So instead I asked them their names, they perked up a little here. Paul, John, Emma and Owen. Interesting to see that they all had their western names, Owen however seemed a little reluctant to give out his name. For the majority of the lesson he seemed to want to escape by burying his face in his hands upon the table. Well that wasn't on as that just inspired me to bully him with questions.

Working though a chapter in the text book it was clear that they all had a pretty good grasp of English already. This allowed things to flow fairly easily once I got into the swing of things. I taught five classes in five straight hours teaching children in the age bracket of around 10-15ish. Generally once having worked through a chapter of the textbook I would reveal to them my....... deck of UNO cards. One class of 14 year old lads seemed hesitant about learning anything to start with so I gave them a glimpse of my ...... deck of UNO cards, which in turn seemed to prize off some sort of work incentive for them. All in all it was a pretty good experience, little people turning out to be not as annoying as they look, Korean ones anyway.

After work me Curtis and his mate went for some Korean food and beers. I still had the stomach of a 4 year old girl and was full after just a few bites. But what most concerned me was the fact that my stomach was rejecting beer, although to be fair Korean beer is pretty god damn awful. But still a beers a beer, the sooner my palette re-educates itself the better.

On Saturday Curtis and I wasted a perfectly good morning’s kip by waking up at 5:30am and heading to a U.S army base with the intention of heading to the DMZ zone and scoping out some North Koreans. Access however was denied as apparently one of the US soldiers had contracted swine flu, but they waited for us to get all the way down to the base before telling us this though despite knowing the day before and having our phone number should a problem arise. So without naming any names this was the USO tour company which completely wasted our time.

Our alternative decision was to walk around a nearby war museum in the early hours before heading to the stink fest that was Transformers 2 with its shit gags and posers. I wasn’t impressed in the slightest. I stumbled out of the movie and into the rain feeling like a rape victim.　The weather being so abysmal that we decided to call it a day. On a plus note however my appetite was beginning to return with the destruction of two Dunkin Donuts within a matter of minutes.

This pretty much draws together my time spent in Seoul, a lively and bustling city that grows by the second. My thanks to Curtis and his Mrs for their kind hospitality and the Seoulites for an infectiously bloated experience.

The following day would see me make tracks south to Busan, to blog or not to blog I do not know, currently however I’m done with my ramblings.

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Photos

Korean War Memorial Museum
Me blowing my load

Gyeongbokgung
Phallus

Korean War Memorial Museum
Curtis blowing his load