Back in South East Asia at long last!! (Singapore and Malaysia)

Yeah, hard to believe that it had been 1.5 years since the Philippines. Especially since I swore to myself that I would be back as soon as possible. Why all the hubbub? Well, its warm...all the time, its green, its pretty, it has space, the food is great, and the people are exceedingly friendly. Can't really say those things about Korea (most of the time). I'm painting with an incredibly broad brush here for Korea and the Southeast Asian countries, but still. At the very least, one can say that Southeast Asia is very, very different from Korea and Japan. Difference/change/variety be very, very good. Remember that Korea.

Before we get started I do feel like I need to issue a disclaimer about the trip: it wasn't that crazy. If you were hoping to hear stories about my run-ins with prostitutes (Philippines), getting stuck in a monstrous national park after dark/closing time (Taiwan), getting hit on by dudes at a club (Japan), or watching old men try and kiss your female travel companion (Korea....ohhh Korea), well you are out of luck. No crazy people, no epic planning or decision-making fails by yours truly, no nothing. I'm gonna attribute that to avoiding liquor in all forms and avoiding liquor imbibing individuals. Sorry folks. You have been warned.

The trip started early, early, early. A 10am flight from Incheon - arriving 2 hours prior to departure to leave time for immigration - 1.5 hours to get to the airport - 1 hour for shower, breakfast and prep = 5:30am wake up. Uggg. But its a 9hr flight span (with layover) to Singapore, so there was no choice but to be an early riser. But outside of the early start, the was smooooooooooth. No epic flooding in Seoul on the way to the airport, no making it to the terminal just in time for last call. Got there with plenty of time to spare and was through immigration even faster than usual, thanks to a change in immigration policy that doesn't force me to buy a re-entry visa permit everytime I leave the country. 30 bucks and 30min-1hour at the airport office saved. What's not to like?

The flights themselves weren't crazy either. 3 hours for Korea to Hong Kong, then 3 hours for Hong Kong to Singapore. I was a little annoyed at first at being given seats by the emergency exit doors and the extra responsibility that goes along with said seats, but then I realized it was a compliment. When I arrived at the ticket counter, the people working there must have thought, "Wow, this guy is far and away the most physically fit, the strongest, the most able and most virile person on the flight" and thus rightfully saddled me with the responsibility of opening the heavy door during an emergency. So, thanks Cathay Pacific. And the job was certainly mine alone, as the two folks sitting on either side slept for the entirety of the flight. And I mean it. They only stirred when physically poked by the stewardess about their meals and about putting away their tray tables during departure and arrival. This hibernation of sorts would be unusual in any other country. But I live in a country where a heavy majority of students would list "sleeping" as their favorite hobby/interest, so its simply par for the course. They like to sleep here.

I was seated near children for both flights and they never fail to entertain. On the first flight, we had a girl that wouldn't stop crying for 20 minutes or so, yet the heavy sleepers on both sides of me did not stir (had they not roused when poked, I would have thought they were dead). Descent was interesting as the parents chose not to strap the infant into the seat belt, despite the pleas of the flight attendants, and instead held them in their arms. During descent. You know, that time when the plane slows down violently at times, jerks up and down, and generally moves unexpectedly. And you are choosing to hold the child in your arms. Wow. So much wrong with that. You talk about how valuable children are....Act like it.

On the second flight, we had a young infant who was vomiting randomly. The parents claimed that the boy was just fine and that he just started throwing up all of a sudden once he got on the plane. Ohhhh good, some mysterious super bug hits the flight and I'll have to spend the whole trip in quarantine in Singapore.

However, nobody ended up getting sick (that I know of) and we arrived in Singapore with zero complications. Now we got to take the subway to downtown. Gotta buy my subway ticket first. 4 Singapore dollars...okay, I'll just break out my Singapore money. Ohhh, the exchange lady only gave me 100 dollar bills. I'm sure the machine will break hundreds. No? It only breaks 10 dollar bills? Thats just...incredibly logical. Damn. Well, looks like I could really use a frozen yogurt from the yogurt stand. The yogurt costs 4 dollars? Well, here's a hundred for you my good man. Those stink eyes are completely uncalled for though, I'm sure people pay for ice cream and happy meals with hundreds all the time.

After some subway traveling and transferring, I found myself in the Little India district. And it was awesome. Except for that whole not having rooms to sleep in. Guess everybody else thought it was super awesome too. That and I arrived at 10pm on a Saturday. So after finding that all the hostels in the area are fully booked (all 4), I was directed to a hotel that did have rooms. Except they were 60 dollars. The currency exchange is currently 1$ = 1.3 Singapore dollars. So when we do the math, 60 singapore dollars = way too much money for a dumpy hotel room. Not to say it was that bad, as I've stayed in much worse. But for that much money? I could have probably bought a hotel in the Philippines for that price. Moral of the story: Singapore is really expensive. Like America expensive. Booooo.

Sunday the 16th was my first full day in Singapore, so what did I do? I got the hell out. I'm just kidding Singapore, although I did leave the country. The plan was originally to go to the airport, fly to Kuala Lumpur, then fly or bus to the resort island, then quickly commence with vegging on the beach. I had done at least 3 or 4 minutes of planning and thinking about this, so nothing could possibly go wrong. I was prepared.

I woke up relatively early, in order to get moving on my way in good time, and hopped into the awesome shower in my awesome hotel room to find that there was no hot water, which was amazing given that if they just took the water outside and let it sit in the sun for 10 minutes, they would have hot water. Its that warm outside. Here's a pic of my awesome bathroom/shower.



You can't see it from the pic, but there is a light socket in the shower, so you don't have to shower in the dark. It was sans light bulb. Super glad I paid 60 bucks for that room. Ouch.

But because I was in Little India and surrounded by wonderful food, i didn't stay grumpy for very long. While I was a little internally conflicted by eating breakfast at a vegetarian restaurant, it was delicious enough to make me forget momentarily that no creature died to make this meal.



Sadly, I can't tell you the name of the meal, but thats not my job. I just eat it. And I'm good at what I do. Crispy bread with several sauces is a good enough name for me.

With breakfast finished, it was time to head to the airport to catch a flight to Malaysia. So back on the subway we went. By this point with a little bit of traveling under my belt, I was realizing just what I liked so much about Singapore: Variety. Now, my friends back home will scoff and say "Well, duh. People dress differently. They look differently, act differently, speak differently, etc." Not everywhere they don't. Remember, in Korea the name of the game is not variety, its oneness/unity. And that isn't that hard to accomplish when 90% or so of the population has the same racial identity, the same cultural upbringing, the same religion (well, there's 2 in Korea), the same language, etc, etc I could go on. Which leaves Korea feeling (and I know this is harsh but) bland sometimes. Variety is the spice of life, they say. And Singapore has got some spice. With a population that's 65% Chinese descent, 20% Malay descent, and 10ish% Indian, you already have some variety. But then because its a large business hub you get folks for everywhere else. The neat thing was that everybody knows English and understood English, but on the subway and in public, nobody was speaking it, as it was basically their second language. Mandarin, Cantonese, Malay, and all the various Indian languages? It was wonderful. Now I know this will upset some American purists who want Americans to speak only American and no other language, so help them God, but I would love if America became like this in the future, where everybody can speak English but it may not be their first language or even primary language for everyday use.

The only problem? There were almost no white people anywhere. Hahah, just kidding. I don't give a shit about that. The subways were full of "minorities" and I seemed to be the only white guy. Although obviously the "minority" label doesn't make any sense because they are very much in the majority and I'm the minority. Which kept reminding me of a South Park episode I saw a few days before the trip where Cartman is freaking out about all the minorities at the waterpark and Kyle explains to him that if there are more of them than him, then they aren't minorities, Cartman is. Which then lead to this humorous song. Enjoy.



Yeah, I might have been singing that song to myself on the subway. Love you South Park. Super rascist song, but damn its catchy. But could the Singaporeans in turn have been singing that song about me getting the hell out of their "waterpark"?....head explodes. I did see a few people watching it on their cell phones, so maybe.

Anyways, I arrived at the ticket counter at the airport, all set to jet out, only to find that they were all out of tickets. For the entire day. Damnit, my 3-4 minutes of intense planning didn't take into account the possibility of tickets being sold out. So back into town I traveled to catch a bus, which, as it turned out, could be picked up from the station just down the street from where my hotel was. Total time wasted on subway: 1.5 hours. Stupid, stupid, stupid. As it was now lunch time, on my way to the bus terminal I stopped for lunch at a little cafeteria. Little did I know they were selling....dun dun dun....Korean food! Yes, I didn't realize until I got my food that it was Korean food or was supposed to be. Damn you!!!

The food was average but the whole thing amused me, as it was a perfect example of how nutty a hodgepodge of cultures and stuff Singapore is. I was eating a Korean-ish dish, with kimchi, that also featured Japanese miso soup, served to me by a woman at the counter who spoke no English and only Chinese, the customers were all Chinese descent, and across the street was the edge of the cities Muslim district/region. Yeah. Think about it.



Well, things didn't go exactly as planned at the bus terminal either, as I arrived around 12:30pm and the soonest buses left at....3:00pm. Crap again. So I wandered over to the nearby park to relax, lay in the grass, enjoy the weather and of course, to creep on the other people there.



Honestly, I thought the photo came out pretty well with the couple in it. And if I'm not going to take pictures of myself, I should at least take pictures of some humans, right?

Soon enough the time came and I caught my bus. Now, I've ridden on some pretty lousy buses while on vacation and stuff is expensive in Singapore, so I didn't expect my $35 to go very far, but boy was I wrong. Check out this ride:



We even had comfy seats and personal TVs. I've been spoiled.

The ride itself wasn't long and way too slow. We got held up at immigration when crossing from Singapore to Malaysia (fyi Singapore is an island and thus connected to Malaysia via bridge) for over an hour, then our drivers stopped a bunch of times. The view was really good as it was mostly palm tree plantations and forest for the entire way. And the highways were wonderful. Quality wide highways the whole way. I can easily say that the highways were much nicer than America's big highways (but that's not saying much is it?).

We did get to stop at a rest stop and I chowed down on some food that approximated quesadillas in that it featured chicken grilled inside some bread, but in this case they used Indian breads.



We even found another Robot in disguise. This Autobot chose a little bit more wisely than the Mitsubishi delivery truck in Taipei. This guy chose a monster tour bus.



After 6 hours, we arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. And again my .2 seconds of planning in my travel book failed me again. I had assumed I was coming into the primary bus terminal and figured my directions from there, but apparently that terminal was closed. So i ended up on the other side of town and had no idea where i was. Man, am I good at this traveling thing or what? So I wandered aimlessly for a while until i came to some fancy hotels, restaurants and the monorail. Now, I certainly should be able to find where I am on my map. Only I couldn't. So I walked through nicer and nicer areas, but apparently they were so brand new that they weren't listed on the map. Finally I found the Hilton and that f'n had to be listed. And it was. Victory at long last.

So I backtracked to an area that had some hostels and hotels and wandered a bit, cuz I'm dumb and can't just pick a place, until I finally ended up a pretty nice place. At this point I was tired enough to take almost anything. And this room was a bit better than that. Hooray, a nice bed. And it didn't cost me $60 bucks either. Even better.



With the hotel booked it was time to wander around the area to see what everybody was up to. Turns out they were all sitting in the restaurants and bars and watching English Premier League football. Awesome, I'll just sit down to watch.....ohhh, its just Liverpool playing. I don't know, maybe I'll just go watch those two rats wrestling in the alley. Or that plastic bag drifting around the sidewalk. Or maybe I'll watch the paint dry on one of the hostels. Tough choice it was, but in the end I settled on the Liverpool game as the bartenders offered to give me free beer to just sit down and watch the game. And as luck would have it, a real football club was playing immediately after Liverpool's game. So I got to see Man United play as well as Liverpool "play", if you can call it that. I did find out that beers are mighty pricey in Malaysia too. Not really expensive in dollars (roughly $4 American dollars per), but certainly pricey in relation to prices for other items in Malaysia. A quality meal with more than enough food for me: around 10 ringgits. One beer: 12 ringgits. Yeah, ouch. When the beer is more than the entire meal, you have a problem. When the game finished it was off to bed, as I had a busy day ahead of me.


Pics: see Singapore and Malaysia photo album 1

Winding, Winding, Winding down

Yes, my time here in Korea is rapidly dwindling. But I'll save all the sentimental silliness and reflection for my final posts and just focus today's on some basic updates about what's going on.

Yes, we have now drifted in the year 2011, meaning that I have a mere 2 months remaining in the Hermit Kingdom. To be exact, as today is January 9th and I leave on February 19th, I have 40 days remaining. That is if my math is right (and it seldom is). Regardless the preciseness of my calculation, it is very apparent that my time is short. With time now of the essence, I've had to begin the terribly fun task of moving out/packing up/prepping for my exit. So far the fun has consisted of such activities as: buying new suitcases, buying flight tickets, throwing away unwanted stuff, and selling off other stuff. YIPPEEEEEEE!!!!!! Yes, its terribly fun. The ticket stuff went off surprisingly well. Within 30 minutes of having been given the go-ahead to leave early (February 19th instead of February 28th), I had my ticket purchased and paid for. Too bad Delta has been dragging their feet or are simply clueless, as at this present moment, I have yet to have the plane ticket bill show up on my credit card statement. While it would be awesome to get the ticket for free through some silly computer error, the more likely outcome is that the bill is just gonna plop down like a big steaming load at any moment on my credit card statement. Which would normally be fine, as I use the card so little and am never at risk of overcharging. However, when you are trying to book additional plane tickets for one's vacation and are worried about going over one's limit were the plane ticket home to suddenly appear, you have a problem. But more on that later.

The other odds and ends work? Relatively without incident. Sure it took me some searching before realizing the best option for a new suitcase was at Costco, but now I'm the proud owner of a new, not broken down suitcase. I'm only asking that it make it home in one piece, so it doesn't have to do much to wow me. But what about the old, trusty suitcase thats seen me through one international move and way too many moves within Korea? I contemplated a viking funeral for a bit (as its earned it), but substantial waterways in which to cast our pyre/suitcase off in are in short supply, and given the horror stories I hear about the cleanliness of the Seoul rivers, I can't be certain that the pyre's flames wouldn't set the whole damn river ablaze. While that would be incredibly cool, I imagine the legal consequences would not be so cool. So I settled for throwing it away. Only the garbage disposal at my apt only allows for garbage placed in special garbage bags. Do I chop up the suitcase in tiny little pieces to fit in the special garbage bags or just find a dump to take it to? The dump, obviously, but now I have to find one of those.

As for the remaining stuff, its either sell, give away, pitch, or send home. Now, I thought I had kept my purchases to a minimum over my time here, specifically for this purpose (that is, so I could move out easily). As per usual, I was very, very wrong. When trying to pack all my stuff into the suitcases, I didn't even come close to getting it all. Crap. As I only have 3 suitcases (and a backpack) in which to transport stuff home, and every extra bag beyond the first 2 costs $150.....I really needed to get rid of some of this stuff. I'll already be paying $150 just to transport the berimbau home in its case and I can't fit anything else in there except, well the berimbau. Which really, really hurts. So I've got to mail the stuff home. Only shipping it that way isn't cheap either. 2 boxes with 10kg of stuff each? About $160 bucks. Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. But damn did they make it home fast. The first one was mailed on a Wednesday afternoon by me (Wednesday early morning back home) and reached my house in Oshkosh on Friday afternoon. How the fuck???? I've never had packages travel that fast just within the continental US. Guess Korea and America's postal services deserve a lot more credit then I normally give them.

But now what to do with the stuff I have no intention of sending home, as its either not important enough or I have a better version of that same thing back home? Sorry, guitar, soccer ball, volleyball and rice cooker I never used. We've had a good run but I gotta let you go. Shouldn't be too hard to find takers for that stuff. As for the cleaning supplies, laundry hamper, clothes drying rack and other items of that ilk, I don't have to do anything!!! Hooray!! My school just told me to leave them in the apt and they'll collect them and move them once I'm gone. Awesome.

Now the money issues. And they are tricky. Mainly it revolves around how exactly the school is going to get the cash to me. The problem: I'll be back in America when several large chunks of cash finally find their way to me. Do I empty the Korean bank account before I leave, close it down and have the school wire the money to my American account? Do I leave the account open, allow the school to deposit money in the account, then try and wire the money home and close the account from America? Either way, I'm relying quite heavily on other people and that always makes me uneasy. Cuz other people fuck up alot. Trust me on this one. Korea taught me that right away. I look to be leaning towards keeping the account open and somehow wiring the money home. I just know that as hard as it is to communicate with the bank folks here in person, on the phone is gonna be that much harder. Hopefully I can just talk to my co-teacher on the phone and work it that way. Hopefully. And its not like this is some small chump change. It will include 2 full paychecks, for February (I get paid on the 25th and I leave on the 19th) and for an additional month as severance, my pension refund, and my housing security deposit refund. All in all that should come out to about 10 million won or around 8,500 dollars. Yeah. It's some cash. Thus the worry.

As for goings on that don't have to do with moving back to America, well there really aren't too many. Korean class has been over for almost 2 months now, so that leaves several nights a week just home in the apt. Nothing exciting happening there. Capoeira has been much the same: cold, cold studio and almost no students. Hell, one class we ran out of oil to run the heater and trained in a 4 degree Celcius room. That's about 40 degrees. Hard to play well when your feet are numb. Ohhh, and we got a new cute female student that joined this week. But we seem to have lost the other cute female student who started a month ago. Like I said, drama filled.

It's been even slower than usual the last few weeks, as I've had half days at school and numerous capoeira cancellations due to the holidays. Plus, a bunch of people went home for the holidays, meaning nobody to hang around with. New Year's Eve? Man was it dull. Sat around, watched tv, watched them ring the big bell at the Buddhist temple in Seoul on TV, then talked to the parents on Skype. Crrrrraaaazzzzyyyyyyy. I did get to celebrate New Year's in Wisconsin as friends called me via Skype. That was wonderful, but it left me rather down for the rest of the weekend, as it once again clearly showed that for all the wonderful people here and wonderful things here, the people and things that I really want to be around....are all back home. I really want to enjoy these last few weeks and not simply phone it in and start counting down the days, minutes, seconds until I leave but mopefests brought on by the New Year's events certainly don't help.

Life at school has been pretty run of the mill too, which isn't helping things. Some of the days of camp have gone well, but spending way too much time in cold rooms or cold gyms really makes it hard for be to be anything but grumpy. We spent 2 of the days playing softball in the gym, which is for the most part unheated, which means cold and grumpy Eric. And we had a day of cooking waffles where the heaters didn't work for the first 1.5 hours, so again, cold and grumpy Eric. Plus, breaking eggs and other tasks that require some hand dexterity are really, really hard to pull off in thick gloves. Then there's all the grumpiness and grumbling about how I'm not actually really teaching much, if any English, just simply serving as a babysitter or day care supervisor. It feels like we spend more time on getting and serving and eating snacks than anything else and we just watch movies every Friday, so perhaps Im not so crazy to think this way. The kids do their part to cheer me up, so its all good. One strange reoccurring theme throughout the camp has been the students (and not just one kid) insistence that I fight the other foreign teacher. I don't know where it came from, nor do I know why it came. All I know is that students recently just started coming up to either Collin (the other foreign teacher) or myself and saying stuff like "Eric, fight Collin. Go fight him." or "Eric, who would win fight? You? Collin?" When asked why I should fight the other teacher, I usually get a shrug and am told to "just fight." I really don't understand it. Was there some schoolyard bet on which teacher could beat up which teacher? Or is it really as I've always feared: that we foreign teachers really are just animals in a petting zoo, trotted out for the spectators enjoyment, to be poked and prodded to make silly, strange noises (aka English)? Can't say, but it certainly doesn't instill much confidence in the seriousness of the job we do.

Because I'm often bored and have too much time, I've allowed my mind to wander onto another possible answer to the foreign teacher fighting confusion. Could the students think that we foreign instructors function and survive like Highlanders? You know, how there can only be one and we are immortal and we become more powerful by killing another Highlander and absorbing their power. That would be interesting. And if you are curious....I'd win. No worries. Collin is a nice guy, but he's not terribly athletic or in shape and he's a big germaphobe. So I, being the incredibly dirty and germ-riddled bum that I am, have a major advantage.

And that's it. Not a huge amount to talk about, but these upcoming last weeks should be plenty busy. My last week of camp is followed by 9 days on vacation in Malaysia/Singapore, then one uneventful week back at school to end January, so look for tales of my adventures in Southeast Asia in 2 weeks. As for February, the first week is only a 2 day work week (Monday and Tuesday) thanks to the lunar New Year/Chinese New Year holiday. I had wanted to travel somewhere new for those 5 days, but it seemed like everybody else had the same idea as all the flights were booked. Cambodia? booked. Taiwan again? booked. I didn't even try anywhere else, as I gave up hope. Will have to do some sort of trip within Korea. Then the last 2 weeks are back at school, but I can't imagine anything much will get done. For my last weekend in Korea, to make up for being unable to travel during Lunar New Year, I'm heading with some of the capoeira group to a workshop in Tokyo. Should be fun. So that's one trip to Southeast Asia, the lunar New Year holiday, and a trip to Tokyo all in my last month. Busy, busy, busy.

Halloween...drama, drama, drama

And man, was there drama. Which makes for all the more entertaining story. Enjoy.

Well, a classmate from my Korean class had offered to host a Halloween party at his house on Halloween (which nicely fell on a Saturday). Since he lived within walking distance of the major foreigner district the plan was to drink and eat at his house for a bit, then walk to the bars and continue the fun. A good plan it was. However, due to my general lethargy and manner of dicking around on that particular Saturday, I was gonna be late and was contemplating not even going. And man, would I have missed out.

The party was set to start at 7pm and by the time I finished my daily errands and traveled to the venue, it would have been about 9pm. I didn't know the folks in my class that well and I was certainly uneasy about showing up to a party that incredibly late. Also, they didn't seem like the party animal type and I was worried that the party would end soon after I arrived. So before leaving I called the host to tell him I wouldn't be able to make, as it was already too late. But he assured me it would be no problem showing up that late and that people had only just started arriving, so no worries. Well, if there wasn't a problem, then I might as well show up, I thought.

Though it took a bit of searching, I did indeed finally find the classmate's house. Because I arrived so late, everybody else was feeling really loose thanks to the heavy alcohol consumption. Not sure it could have been any other way. The gang consisted of Koreans, Americans, Australians, Japanese, and Russians. Clearly no non-drinkers in that bunch. Anyways, we drank, ate, and generally fooled around for a bit before deciding to head to the bars. Because we were amongst the Russians and Russians never fuck around when it comes to drinking (its amazing that Americans and Russians could have been enemies for so long, as we have so much in common), they decided not to let the last quarter bottle of vodka lay sad and alone back at the apartment. So they decided to bring him along! Thank you Korea and your lack of open container in public laws. Drink away in public to your heart's content. The host even decided to add to the vodka by pouring in all the remaining OJ to make a Smirnoff bottle full of Screwdriver mix drink. And somebody had the foresight to bring plastic Dixie cups, so we didn't even need to drink from the bottle. Awesome. So off we headed to the bar scene, taking several drink stops along the way to sip our mix drinks.

This is the point where stuff really got interesting, as one of the ladies started getting cozy with me, of all people. No, really. It happened. Cross my heart and hope to die. It's the truth...fine, don't believe me. As I was saying, at this point, there was indeed an interesting development. While I had been walking and talking with another of the classmates, this particular female came up between the both of us, latched on to both of us and expressed a desire to have us help her get to the bars. Why she need our help getting to the bars, I can't say. Perhaps she was having difficulty walking from the alcohol? Or perhaps she had that second been stricken down with a debilitating paralysis from the waist down? We shall never know for sure.

After a bit of walking together, the other fella I was talking to just disappeared, leaving myself and the said female by our lonesomes. As I was actually talking to a female and this is the closest I can hope to get to having a female show interest in me, I decided to go for it. As an aside, I myself can take no credit for this particular "manning up", so to speak, or its consequences. It was all the booze and its liquid courage. Had I been in this situation sober....I probably wouldn't have soiled myself then run away. Thanks beer!

Where was I? Ohhh, yes, the female. Well at this point I had had enough to drink so as not to be a spineless coward, so I went for it. Sure I only put my arm around her, but I'm starting out small. Baby steps, baby steps. And would you believe it? I didn't get slapped or screamed at or hurt in response. MINOR VICTORY!!! She even expressed her pleasure in having me hold her thusly. While repeatedly telling me to "help me get to the bars" or "take me to the bars", she tossed out the best line of the night. For the background info, this female is not an English native speaker. Her English is very, very good, so we talked almost entirely in English, but she is not immune to mistakes in speech. We continue our story....So as we were walking and she was talking about going to the bars, she suddenly spits out "Eric, take me." Yup. Now, every native speaker knows there is a large difference in meaning between "take me to the bar/store/bathroom" and "take me". Did this girl know that particular difference in meaning? I have no idea. Could she have possibly meant it in both ways? Perhaps. I errored towards her simply not knowing the meaning and chuckled heartily to myself.

Now our little group had arrived in the foreigner district. The only question was where to go to drink. Here ensued a terribly entertaining argument over which direction X bar was located in. Both arguing parties were a little under the influence of alcohol and thus absolutely convinced that the bar was in the opposite direction of what the other guy was saying. In the end, we went with the Australian's directions as he's Australian and thus has a 6th or 7th sense about where bars are. It's genetic. But our Aussie friend was not content to just lead us to the bar, no he insisted on chasing down a girl dressed as Hawkgirl and stealing away (maybe he asked politely for it, I don't know) her mace/weapon thing. Somehow she didn't yell at him or hit him or mace him or anything. Lucky us. Here's Hawkgirl if you didn't know (and most probably don't).



But he wasn't finished. As we neared the bar, he spotted a SUV driving slowly through the alley we were in. This SUV unfortunately had the driver side window rolled down. So our Aussie friend decided to hop in. I kid you not. He was hanging with his ass in the air, his feet off the ground, his stomach balancing on the window and his face probably in the driver's lap. I remember seeing the driver's face and how calm and not freaked out he was and thinking to myself "Must not be the first time dude's gotten road head."

Finally, we had arrived at the bar. After some momentary confusion where everybody got separated from each other in all the hubbub (the bar was packed for a Halloween costume contest), the group found its way to the bar and settled in. The lady and I continued chatting, drinking and watching the costume contest. A good time was had by all (despite several of the costumes certainly having a PG-13 or R rating attached to them). The group at this point decided we should move to a new bar to meet up with some other mutual friends. Okay, head on out. But since the bar was full and group members had disappeared, gathering everyone and departing as a group was considerably complicated. So the majority of us waited. This is where the villain of our story materialized. Well, villain is harsh. More like the asshole of the story. Every story's got one, so it was bound to happen. Enter the 38 year old Japanese businessman from our class. Up till now he had been super cool whenever we went out for drinks. However, I had no idea he was in love with this particular lady. I probably should have assumed as much, since there were 2 other males in class that were crushing on this girl. But those guys weren't at the party, so I figured I was in the clear. Also, if you are curious, our class had 9 males including me. So 3 out of 9 was pretty damn good for this girl, no? Once the group had departed the bar and was waiting in the street for the stragglers, this particular Japanese guy began talking exclusively to the girl....in Japanese, as the girl also spoke Japanese. This seemed super sketch when you realize that nobody else in the group spoke Japanese and everybody can communicate with each other in Korean or English. Yeah, sketch. Ohhh, also, when we had been walking to that first bar, he had come up behind me when I had my hand around the girl and grabbed my arm, twisted it to remove it from the female's waist and then scolded me saying shit like "no man. That's too much." or "not cool man, not cool." Awesome.

Now after the arm pulling, I wagered that the guy was in one of two camps: 1) He's trying to cock block cuz he wants her for himself (ding, ding, ding we have a winner) or 2) He's just trying to look out for a classmate and make sure she isn't taken advantage of due to how much she had to drink (albeit going about it in a super douchy way). Because I was in a good mood, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he was number 2. Silly me, giving people the benefit of the doubt. To further prove how stupid I am, he offered to help the girl find the bathroom before the group moved to bar 2. Odd, but whatever, I'm not threatened by a 38 year old, super short, ugly asshole. He's gonna need a lot of booze to con most ladies. Which I guess was his thinking exactly, as after 20 minutes of waiting and finally going searching for the two of them, I found them drinking at the bar downstairs from the one we were just at. Mother fucker.

Now, at this point I'm getting really annoyed with his bullshit and would have loved to yell at him or just pop the asshole, but the girl clocked him harder than I could have ever done (figuratively speaking, of course). As soon as arrived, the girl immediately returned all her attention to me and latched back on as well. Yeah, that's right....fuck you buddy. burned.

Finally the group could move to the next bar. Nothing terribly dramatic on the way to the next bar except the asshole tried ouch more to extract my arm, by force, from the lady's waist. When that failed to disengage us, he just fucked off. He just up and disappeared. We couldn't find him. We called him like 8 times and he never answered, then later called back like 5 times but nobody heard their phones. So we were rid of him. Good riddance.

At this bar, the lady and I continued getting cozy until we ended up kissing a little. Well, it was more than a little but I thought we were subtle about it. Wrong. All the other classmates saw it, as they told me in detail the next week at class. Ooops. The weirdest thing was that one of the other females in class, who had promised to help introduce me to some ladies, brought over some of her mutual friends (not from the Korean class) and was trying to throw us together. I love the effort on her part, but I just happened to already have a lady on my arm. I'm no pro (hahah, obviously) in male/female relations, but I'm pretty sure its poor form to just up and drop one girl for another mid-evening.

With the evening wearing on, it was time to send the lady home cuz she had had enough to drink. Hey, its not like I was taking advantage of her. Don't look at me like that. Sure, she was gone, but so was everybody. The problem was that she was one of those people that doesn't know when to stop and keeps thinking they are okay to drink until they vomit or pass out. She had been sneaking some drinks when we weren't looking, despite our trying to cut her off. So it was time for her to go home. Hell, it was 3am, so it was basically time for everybody to go home. Well, the plan was to send her home with the couple in our class. The couple would see to her getting home first, then they would go home themselves. Seems like a fine plan. I offered to walk her to the cab, then I'd go my separate way.

But then the asshole showed up again. He arrived back on the scene just in time to pitch a bitch-fit about me walking the girl to the cab, so everyone agreed that I should just allow him to walk her to the cab and save everybody this ridiculous incident. I relented because, again, I didn't think this guy was that big of a prick. Again, I was wrong. 10 minutes or so after the first group of folks departed, the rest of the gang decided to call it a night and we all broke rank and headed home. But what should I see at the bottom of the hill? The asshole and the girl, still standing on the curb. Well, now I've clearly had my fill of this ass, so I quickly walked up to them and none to politely asked why she hadn't been sent home. He gave me some BS about how she's fine to drink more and that they are gonna go back to the bar and that I don't have to worry as he'll watch over her or something. I obviously wasn't going to let that happen and told him that we needed to send her home IMMEDIATELY. We then turned to get her say on the matter. And again, as only a female could, she cold-cocked him. Figuratively, obviously. Her answer: "I'll do whatever Eric is doing." GAME. SET. MATCH. What you got to say now, dickwad? That's what I thought. And who said woman have bad taste in men (not to say I'm any catch, but I certainly have to be better than this guy).

So, as I was again in a good mood thanks to the massive ego boost, I offered to have all 3 of us share a cab and take the girl home, so nobody could try any funny business. I was again feeling generous, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he was just looking out for her and didn't want me taking advantage of her. I know, I know. It was stupid of me to think that way, but I did. Blame it on the booze. Not ready to relent, the fucker again started talking to her in Japanese just so I couldn't understand what they were talking about. He didn't get the answer he was looking for and finally relented to the cab ride home. Upon getting into the cab, the lady chose to sit with me in the back, thus forcing the jerk to sit in the front. Again, he must have been dying on the inside. Down to his last gasp, he continued conversing in Japanese but clearly didn't get the answer he wanted and finally gave up and jumped out of the cab after about a block. Hmmm, guess he didn't really care about the girl getting home safe. Maybe I was wrong about this guy the whole time. Maybe.

Well, as we were alone in the cab (excluding the cabbie obviously, but I'm sure he's seen much worse in the back of his car), so we continued with a little making out. A little. In between she kept making sure I was coming to Korean class on Monday. I told her I would, regardless of how awkward it might be. Hell, I'm the king of awkward. I have reputation to uphold. No way I could run away from that. So we dropped her off, then the cabbie and I had a long conversation about what just happened. We also talked about the Brewers and the Cubs. Don't ask how it got there, as I don't know. But generally I'd like to think I made his boring evening just a little bit more interesting.

End of the story, right? Wrong. We've still got all the drama when everybody had to go back to class. Well, Monday rolled around and I was ready for some hella awkward interactions with my classmates, namely the girl and the asshole. But as it turned out....the asshole wasn't there. He quit the class! He gave another classmate some excuse about a lot of work stuff suddenly popping up and how he was super busy and whatever, but quitting with only 2 weeks left certainly looks pretty fishy. I win, I guess. The girl, she was cool and professional about the whole thing. Phew, crisis averted.

Now that night's dinner together after class? Super enlightening. I learned that everybody else had seen the girl and I making out, that I was now the big dog in class for managing to snag the girl, that the asshole had pissed everybody off (it wasn't just me who was not pleased with him), and the kicker: the girl has a boyfriend. ooooooooooppppppppppppppppppppppppppps. I'm that other guy. Usually, at least in the movies, the other guy is much more attractive, muscle-y, and more attractive (did I already say attractive?) than me, but I guess she was really desperate. Or she's from one of the billion countries in the world that idolize white skin, thus making even the most average whitey (like me), suddenly super attractive. And I'm tall and I guess people like that. Not sure why.

Not to worry though, as the folks gave me the green light to continue pursuing her, cuz she supposedly really doesn't like her boyfriend but is just waiting for somebody better to come along. Ummm, okay. Fair enough. And try I did, but I was shot down. Sigh. She probably didn't feel it would be wise to break up with her bf since I would be leaving Korea in 4 months. How did she know that, you ask? ha, well I kinda told her.....

I know, I know I'm stupid but that's what I did. On that first day of class back, she and I had hardly interacted until, when practicing some various grammar points in Korean, she asked me "When are you leaving Korea?" Now, I may be many things, and unobservant is certainly one of them, but I wasn't so dense as to not see that this question was more than a simple grammar practice question. She could have asked that question to any other student for practice, but she did not. She asked me. I even got another female in the class to vouch for the loaded-ness of that question and women can see things that are invisible to men. Well, I sensed this was a serious question and my answer was....not so good. I stuttered and stammered for a bit, then finally spit out "I'm leaving in 4 months". DOH!!! Stupid Eric. You should have said "I don't know yet" or "I'm staying in Korea for a long time". But I didn't. Why did I fail so bad? Well, I wasn't drunk, that's why. I told you I'm hopeless without liquid courage.

So finally ends our story. Interesting, was it not? The big thing to take away from this story, the moral, so to speak is obviously "Lie to Women." Clearly, as you say, only bad things can come from telling women the truth. Never tell them they look fat in those clothes or that they are wrong or anything. Just lie.

About the only way this story could have been any crazier is if the girl in question was actually my Korean class teacher.................................I'm just kidding. Of course it was another classmate. That would have been pretty crazy if it was true, though?

So what did you guys do for Halloween? Heh.