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Published: April 26th 2009
It's been so long since my last post I honestly have no idea about time or dates of any events, but once again, I'll do my best... As always I've stayed pretty busy on the weekends, getting out and seeing as much as I can. One of my roommates from grad school hooked me up with a friend she has in Korea and together we checked out Gyeongbok Palace. Despite the phony tourist bullshit, this place was really cool. It was originally constructed in 1394 and was the main and largest palace of the Joseon Dynasty. I've also made every attempt possible to get outside of Seoul as well. My favorite means of escape? Hiking. Korea has so many beautiful mountains and they are flooded with people on the weekends looking to get their hike on. I love people watching on the mountains almost as much as I love hiking itself, because all the Korean's are always fully done up in all this ridiculous (and completely unnecessary) gear. My first hike was on Gangwhado Island where I conquered Mt. Manisan. Amazing. After the initial ascent, or what I like to refer to as "the stairway of death" it was all
bouldering and jumping and climbing over rocks and shimmying down short but steep drops. It was also breathtakingly beautiful at the top. My only mishap was when I set my pack down at one point and proceeded to watch it continue rolling. In fact, if it wasn't for the ONE random bush that my bag was fortunately enough magnetically attracted too, I would have never seen my belongings again. After the hike we hitchhiked our way to a mud beach and chilled for a while before supper. That night I earned the nickname "soju killa" as the lone survivor of continuous rounds of drinking games with Korea's favorite (but often deadly) beverage.
My next hike was up Geomdangsan and Yongmasan. This was such a great way to spend a Saturday, the weather was beautiful, the trees were starting to blossom, and I wasn't hungover. When we reached the highest point, parched and looking for any sort of refreshing beverage all we could find was rice wine and soju...while I haven't turned them down yet, the top of a mountain didn't strike me as the best place to get my drink on, with the descent looking to be difficult
on it's own. After the hike we continued with tradition and got thoroughly hammered. They even brought out my worst enemy/best friend the karaoke machine for all of us to scream the Beach Boys and Britney Spears at the top of our lungs and, most importantly, make spectacles of ourselves. If after dinner drunk karaoke wasn't as Korean as kimchi, I may have paused and reflected for a moment at the sheer ridiculousness of everyone involved, instead of full-on sprinting towards the stage...That next day we went to the cherry blossom festival in Yeouido Park. It was once again a beautiful spring day, and the cherry blossom trees were rather impressive themselves, however, considering it was a "festival" I was expecting a lot more of them. Thankfully, there were a shit ton of couples fully decked out in their matching "couples shirts" to entertain me.
All is well at school, I'm really starting to get into the swing of things and slowly learning how to communicate with my kids. I don't mean in Korean exactly, but I'm picking up what English words they do know and mixed with the handful of Korean I know, it gets the job
Geomdangsan
The hike up.done. I had some incidents with a few of my classes one week when one of our vocab words was shiver. Every time I would speak this seemingly innocent word the classroom would break out in a shy laughter, and I was clueless as to why. I finally asked a co-teacher what the deal was and she explained that 'shiver' sounds a lot like the Korean word 'shiba' which, much to my surprise, means fucker. I think the people who write the text books do this on purpose..My kindergarten class still continues to entertain me with their antics. Recently they've been on a kick where they love to stand up, grab their crotches, gyrate their hips, and with their cute 5 year old Korean-English accent say repeatedly "That's very hot, that's very hot, hot, hot, hot." It's apparently from some Korean TV show, but it KILLS me every time I see it. Seriously, every time. I've noticed my older students doing it as well, but not as frequent. However, they love to refer to everything as "sexy." But it's never in an appropriate setting. I don't mean inappropriate like, "damn bitch you be lookin sexy," but more so as when
Geomdangsan 2
On the way down. I give them their homework back with a star, they respond, "Ahhh that's sexy" and all I can say is, "No, it's not sexy. It's your homework."
A lot of strange random shit has happened to me recently, not as if it doesn't happen to me everyday, regardless of where I am...I'll start this segment with the random old drunk dude (who doesn't live in my building) pissing in the stairwell at 11 AM...While I love to get my booze on as much as the next person, and have been known to consume one too many before 9AM from time to time, I have never been in this shape, and surprisingly enough..am proud of it. He also seemed annoyed that I needed to get by him mid-stream. I seem to do battle with the subway every weekend, and so far I am without a victory. My first loss was one night in Sinchon where, surprisingly enough, I wasn't really that drunk but for the life of me could not find my bus stop. It choked me because I was only a 30 minute bus ride from home, but I was forced to take the subway, and wouldn't be
home for an hour and a half...or so I thought...I apparently caught the last subway of the evening, but for whatever reason..it doesn't go all the way to the end, but rather, stops at some random ass station in butt fuck nowhere. I had no idea where I was and didn't have enough cash on me to take a taxi, so I was left with the sole choice of crashing in the subway. Big mistake. It was so FREAKING cold...luckily I wasn't alone in the subway, but the passed out drunk guy ripping kimchi farts all night wasn't exactly a conversationalist, but he could have at least let me spoon with him for warmth...
My second epic fail involving the subway happened after a birthday celebration for a friend in Hongdae. This night was a shit show, easily my drunkest night in Korea. My only memory of my failed attempt to get home was me back in Sinchon, STILL unable to locate this mysterious missing bus stop..and attempting to take the mother fucking subway again...I remember transferring from line 6 to line 3 around 6AM, which more or less meant that I was only three or four stops
away from home when I finally passed out....I woke up SIX HOURS LATER, still riding the subway back and forth wearing some random girls hat and cuddling with a giant stuffed dog. I have no idea. Just when I thought my luck couldn't get any worse, when I came home this morning at 7AM I noticed that my door was wide open...and walked in on two stray cats humping in my living room. There were muddy paw prints and trash everywhere, and my apartment still smells like wet cat and sex. Nothing was missing, so I am assuming I just forgot to shut it and lock it before I left, and the cats saw an opportunity to escape the rain and bump uglies. Understandably, they seemed pissed when I interrupted their carnal love making, but I wouldn't have been able to sleep with the howling, and my place is not a love motel. By the way, for those of you who may not know what a love motel is, it's exactly what it sounds like, an affordable cheesy attempt at a romantic escape for young lovers or complete strangers to get their skank on without being bothered by their parents or when you simply have to do the dirty now, and can't wait until you get home.
I've been on a mission recently to eat the most random and "exotic" foods available to me these past few weeks. For example one night we feasted on sparrow and chicken anus. The sparrow was whole, and cooked over an open flame on a stick. While it looked rather horrific, it tasted just like turkey. The chicken anus, or dahk-ddong-jib (which literally means 'ass of a chicken') was actually excellent, but I think it was largely due to the amazing sauce which it was cooked in. However, much to my disappointment, I found out a few days later that it wasn't actually the asshole I was eating as previously thought, but rather the part of the intestine right before the sphincter. I don't know why I was bummed when I found out it wasn't literally the asshole...in fact I should be relieved...but there is that small part of me that longs to know what chicken asshole really tastes like...A few days later I went out with some coworkers for dalk bal, or chicken feet. Despite the fact that this is one of the spiciest things I have ever eaten, these fiery little feet were excellent. Seriously, worth the pain and great with beer. One thing I accidentally stumbled upon one day that wasn't so excellent was bean flavored ice cream. I don't think I need to go into great detail about this other then not only was it black bean flavored, but there were little bits of black bean in it as well. File this under the "what were they thinking?" category. One food that I have developed quite a taste for this past week is bibimbap. There is actually nothing strange or exotic about it, it's just a variety of vegetables, an egg, rice, and some red pepper sauce and you mix it all together, but it's so good, and quite the hangover cure as well.
Until next time..
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AJ
non-member comment
Very Good Sir
I can see how you would be disappointed that you didn't actually eat your first non-human asshole...