As for my hotly anticipated vacation to Southeast Asia, well its been put on hold. Jamie pulled out due to cost concerns and not having enough vacation for it. Frankly, I can't blame him. The tix to Vietnam, where I was planning on going, were double what I expected, plus you had to add in an additional 80 bucks for the entry visa. That and 7 days isn't really enough for me to get around and see everything like I wanted. So it appears I shall instead save that vacation and use it during the winter break on a Southeast Asia trip, that will hopefully include some of the crew, or use it to come home to America a week early. Both of which sound like good ideas to me.
Now to the recapping. Korea used to have lots of Buddhists. Then the Christians came in and ran most of the Buddhists out of town, which makes me sad since Buddhism and Buddhists > Christianity and Christians. However, Buddhists still have enough of a legacy here that the country celebrates Buddha's birthday as a national holiday. To my delight, it fell on a Friday (May 21st), so I had a 3 day weekend in which to seek enlightenment and cast aside material pleasures, as per Buddha's wishes. So I decided to spend that Friday laying in the grass at Olympic Park. Cuz that's what Buddha would have wanted. Or maybe it was because I had nothing else to do. Can't really remember exactly. Regardless, the decision was a good one, as the grass was just as comfy, green, quiet and non-judgmental as I remembered (don't you just hate judgmental grass?). See for yourself how wonderful it was.
Living in a dirty metal monstrosity such as Seoul, I sometimes forget that Korea even has simple delights such as grass and nature. Quick more nature!!
I wasn't the only one in need of some serious relaxing, though. Jenna also decided to partake in the relaxation. In order to meet up with her I relocated near the entrance, set up shop, and starting practicing berimbau. What I didn't count on was having lots of people stop to watch me play. People stop to listen to street musicians all the time. Hell, that's what you want. I guess I just never thought of myself as a street performer and thus was a bit weirded out by people stopping to observe me. If they stopped by to listen to the music, that's great. But since I live in Korea and experience has skewed my opinion in this particular direction, I tend to believe they stopped to gawk at a white person, regardless of the music. So I ended up feeling more zoo animal on display than street performer with a crowd.
Later in the day, we decided to grab some dinner in the area,as its a major metropolitan area in Seoul, so there is bound to be some decent food somewhere. We just have to find. I wish I could say that we found tons of incredible restaurants along the way, but Seoul is not Madison or any other American city. Blocks and blocks of fried chicken or Korean food, if thats your flavor. It was not ours, to no one's surprise, so we had to continue. After some amount of time we found a small little Italian bistro and subsequently settled down for pasta and wine. Hell, we even lucked into a pretty decent view. Right across the street was a decent sized man-made lake (built as part of the Lotte World amusement park complex) with trees surrounding it. Major win.
Sure, those trees are actually from Olympic Park and not the scenery I was just talking about, but still. Outdoor deck seating with a view of nature? Am I sure I'm still in Korea? I don't even know anymore.
Well, after dinner Jenna got it into her head that we should check out the jazz club, which is always a good idea. Because I'm a huge buzzkill, I said that we probably wouldn't get in considering what we were wearing. See, the jazz club is a classy place and supposedly has a dress code. At the time, I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts while lugging around a big wooden stick, while Ms. Jenna was was a tank-top and shorts. Not exactly business casual. However, Jenna doesn't ever listen to a word I say (or anyone else for that matter), so we decided to give it a shot. Surprisingly, we were let in. They actually were more concerned about the big stick I was carrying (they actually asked what the hell it was), then our attire. Sure they stuck us on the second floor in the corner where we couldn't be seen, but not like we cared.
The next night we caught a wacky new Korean film, The Housemaid. Technically, its a remake of a 1960's classic, but it was new to me, so whatever. The basic premise is that a housemaid for a super rich family gets involved in a love triangle with the husband of the super rich family and craziness ensues. The movie struck me as incredibly Korean (perhaps stereotypically so) for many reasons: 1) The film follows an uber rich family, the same subject matter of 99.9999999999% of all Korean TV dramas, despite that depiction being grossly out of touch and sync with how the vast majority of Koreans actually live. Sure America has plenty of those shows too (cough Gossip Girl cough), but the majority aren't. I mean, Lost? They are on a freaking deserted island. 2) It features suicide and some strange perceptions of it (at least to me the westerner). In the story, one of the characters is wronged (quite terribly) by some other characters and this person, to get revenge, kills themself in front of their adversaries........WHAT????????????????? How exactly is that going to achieve any manner of revenge? Apparently coming from the crazy Western (aka logical) standpoint, this strategy makes no sense to me. If one wants to seek revenge, one must inflict pain, physical or mental or financial, on one's opponent. Also important, in my opinion, is being around to savor your eventual victory. Being dead kinda hinders that. Sure, sometimes suicides can affect the enemies, but thats generally when the suicide brings global or news attention that puts pressure on the opponents. This suicide did not. 3) The employer vs employee dynamic. I kept waiting, after all the shit the housemaid goes through, to just turn to her employers, give them the finger, and say, "Fuck you, I quit!". But she never does. She just takes in the ass (figuratively and literally in a few scenes). I will never understand this idea of taking shit willingly just cuz someone is higher on the supposed food chain than you. I will probably never hold a real job for an extended period of time due to this, but so be it.
The most amusing scene for me, was when the husband of the uber rich family, drunk off his ass on wine and power, wanders into the housemaids room and gets her to fellate him. While he was getting "worked on", he is so impressed with himself that he, with half full wine bottle in hand, turns to an enormous mirror and starts flexing his "guns" for his amusement. When I saw that scene, all I could think of was "Man, I bet Rounds has done that." Cmon, you all know Rounds has done something like that.
And with that pleasant image I shall leave you for now.
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