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Published: December 7th 2009
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bukansan 2
Seoul in the distance, from Mount Bukhansan. I get complimented on my complete and utter dominance of chopsticks a lot over here and I have to give a shout out to Teh Yu Sun and our 2nd grade field trip to her family’s restaurant, The Mandarin. The ultimate maneuvers are creating a sushi roll without your hands and eating fish while removing the bones from your mouth with the chopsticks. Speaking of chopsticks, I broke my one day Asian ding sighting record, with six in one day, including a totally naked old dude who kindly helped me open my jammed locker. That’s not a metaphor. Have you ever beaten a homeless guy mercilessly? Of course, we all have. Do you know where you learn those ‘hurt the already wounded’ ‘kick a man while he’s down’ instincts? Middle school. They wear white makeup on their faces here, which means that I’m not the whitest guy in the country, although I’m still close. You know the fable of the Ants and Grasshopper, and all summer the ants are preparing for winter and the grasshopper’s fucking around? I feel like the grasshopper sometimes. I tried to support 7-11 here, due to a long running love affair I’ve had with them since
bukhansan pic
Behind me, you perhaps can't see it well, is a 13 kilometer long great wall type thing used to protect a mountain top temple. they keep me well in slurpies as a youth, but the androgynous clerk at the one by my house weirds me out. I’ve switched to Family Mart which has better kimbap anyways. I’m a little tired of being judged not on the quality of my character but rather the roundness of mine eyes. The principal at my school is too short to see in the windows when he’s doing rounds. Somebody needs to get into armed robbery in Korea. The Brinks armored truck guys only have mace here. This is in sharp contrast to Colombia where they’re not only armed to the teeth but they stand behind poles and cover each other rather than just walking. The women’s locker room door is always closed in the gym, while the men’s is always open, adding to suspicions that this is to keep the sounds of giggling lingerie pillow fights from floating out into the open. The city removed all the trashcans from the public streets because, you’re not going to believe this, people were throwing trash in them. It makes me want to throw trash on the streets until they put them back in. Instead I put it in my backpack,
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Mount Bukhansan Crew. or pocket or whatever, but I’m not happy about it. So in order to watch the YouTube video of the month and find it humorous, you need to understand some of the references. It starts off saying ajummas have the right of way, now. This is because as I mentioned in a previous blog, ajummas, or old Korean women, cut the crap out of every line they run into. Dok do is an island dispute with Japan, with both countries laying claim to it (it’s Korea’s). The part where they mention Hooker Hill and Homo Hill are what they sound like. A hill with hookers and a hill with homos. They are in Itaewon, which is kind of like Korea’s taint. It’s next to the army base and is where all the disreputable elements in Korea tend to gravitate. The part with the two hands locked together making a gun or Dongchimming, is what I mentioned my first blog, about kids that make that hand gun and then poke each other in the bumhole. Great fun. There’s some of the other stuff I don’t get either, but it’s still hilarious. Thanksgiving was really nice here, first truly traditional Thanksgiving I’ve
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All the street poles here have these sharp ridge things, whose only purpose as far as I can tell is to make it more painful for me to run into. had in years, Matthew and his family were very hospitable to both Adam and me. I’ve got plenty to be thankful for, as I have all of my years on the earth thus far, not the least of which is health and plenty of opportunity for the pursuit of happiness. I had another birthday, another year Tyson didn’t even send me an email, real cool. Anyways, hope all are well. Oh, I bought my ticket to visit India in February, trying to crush the silly wonders of the world before I die. Adam and I’ll be there from the 12th until the 28th.
Music: Dinosaur Jr.’s new album is good, other than that I’m rocking tons of Christmas music, The Antlers and Jay Reatard. Old school: I’ve been crushing Kerosene Hat by Cracker.
Book: Sweet Thursday - John Steinbeck. I’ve never read it b/c I loved Cannery Row so much I felt destined for a let down, but it’s good. Not Cannery Row good but good.
Movie: Shotgun Stories is an excellent film. It’s, slow, depressing , tragic and all other sorts of descriptors that make it sound horrible, but it’s fantastic.
Youtube: Korea, F-Yeah.
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This is Namsan Seoul Tower, the iconic Eiffel tower thing of the city. It had these eerie glowing wire men hanging all over as part of an art exhibit. Hittin’ the corners in those low lows,
~T Biggs
“She was a fool.” ~ One of my student’s self eulogy. Vonnegut would be proud.
“I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.” ~ Terry Pratchett
“Let’s talk about your relationship with your father.” ~Me, with one of the inhabitants of the afore-mentioned Hooker Hill, after she invited herself to sit at our lunch table on Adam’s bday.
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Christine
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Nice scarf!! LOL! Little chilly willy there?? Lots different than the Carribean!!!! India, huh??? WOW! You are a traveler...hope you are well!! Miss you bunches.....Heart, Pook