I got a Haircut!!! (And Maria already hates it)

Just finished up my last fun weekend for a couple weeks, as I begin my ridiculous English Composition Saturday class next week, and it was a good one. Let me begin by saying how pleased I am with the foreign teachers in this town. They are such a diverse and hilarious group. First, we have Stuart from Scotland. Man, what a disgusting and thus entertaining human being. It's like I'm back hanging out with Jason and his dirty mind, cept now Jason speaks in a Scottish accent, which makes him almost better than the original (not quite though...nobody does it quite like Big Sexy). I hadn't realized how much I missed incredibly un-PC humor. God, he and I must have talked about the ins and outs (....) of bidets for almost 15 minutes the other night. You simply cannot get that kind of stuff from Koreans, regardless of their English ability, as they are pretty boring and tame with their humor. Stuart was also the one who informed that Yangpyeong's major industry beyond tourism is cheap love-motels. I had wondered why there were so many hotels in such a small town. Now I know: they are the getaway locations for Seoul business men and their mistresses/secretaries. I assume the put all the hotels along the Hangang so the couple could admire the river while they talked about business matters. That is what happens at the motels isn't it? They could talk back at the office, couldn't they? Seems like quite a trip just for business. The other two foreigners of note are Jethro and Bert. Both are a treat for their interesting life stories. Jethro was born in the South, went to the Yale for their graduate music school, got his music doctorate from Michigan St, is a classically trained bassoonist, has traveled all across Europe performing and has taught music at various levels. Bert has traveled numerous times across Asia, most notably Thailand, and has many things to tell. Tonight at dinner we candidly discussed the sticky details (nice) of the Bangkok prostitution business. I learned about the really cheap massages, the titty baths (suffice it to say....I want one), and about everything else about hookers in Thailand. He also informed me that many of these cheap love motels here in Korea have dildo vending machines in the stairwells. Interesting. The English company is too my liking. Anyways, yesterday Jethro and I, for lue of anything better to do, hoped the train to Seoul to see what we could see. Our first stop took us to Seoul's largest bookstore, Kyobo, where we picked up some materials for learning Korean. I, being the language learner who likes boring, chose the book of 500 basic verbs and their conjugations. Awesome, now I know the verb for to bloom or blossom. Good thing too, for as much as I love to talk about flowers and plants. After that we headed to Itaewon. Now I know I said that I had little interest in returning to a place with so many whiteys, but that was before I found out that they have Mexican, Indian, Italian, and Thai restaurants and they don't suck. Now I don't miss American food in the least but I do miss the variety of ethnic restaurants available (well I guess not Italian....sorry Rounds, Italy's just not that good). We ventured to Itaewon this time however, on a mission to get a haircut. We suceeded in getting haircuts, though mine was not what I was hoping for. However, my dislike with the cut was easily fixed as she simply left the hair too long in front and it looked a little like a shitty Korean haircut, so I cut off a little more by myself. Which was pointless, as Maria already hates it even though she has yet to see it and probably doesn't even know I've gotten a haircut yet. I assume that as soon as my haircut was finished, she probably woke from her sleep (it would have been the wee morning hours back in Madison), yelled something about how fucking hideous Wallin's haircut looks, then went back to bed. I'm sorry Maria, but not all of us can look as good as you or be as fucking perfect at everything as you are. I have to deal with what I'm given, flaws and all. I hope you can understand and appreciate my situation, given that you've clearly never had any personal experience with "flaws", you know, being perfect and all. With the haircuts out of the way, we were free to move onwards to Dondaemun Market, THE place to find whatever you are looking for for really cheap. Everything here is sold wholesale and it is dirt cheap. Shoes, clothes, books, and bedding were just a few of the specified markets we found. To give you an idea of the prices here, we found a stand selling dress pants, cordoroy, jeans, etc. for 10,000 won, which with the exchange rate now, is less than $10 dollars, maybe closer to 8 dollars now. They even had shoes and clothes in my size here. Huzzah! What really got me going was when we headed to the underground sports market. And by sports they mean soccer jersey stores. Ohhh happy day. Store after store of soccer jerseys from Serie A, La Liga, the Primer League, you name it. I think Jethro actually asked if I was okay when we wandered through there as I must have been getting a little choked up or something.

Today was fun of a different type as the soccer club had a friendly match, which means I could actually play. We left the house at 7 am and headed to Okcheon, some small town about 10 minutes from downtown as they have a nice grass/turf field to play on. And while I loved playing, the results were a bit less than expected. Apparantly, the standard procedure for friendlies is to have a completely different squad for each half, like hockey, so no one gets really worn out. In the first game, I got stuck with all the older and suckier players (only one of the other players actually played at all in the previous tourney), so absolutely nothing good happened. They insist on sticking me at forward, so I could only watch as we got steamrolled 4-0 at half, lost our goalie to injury, and just sucked all around. I got complimented at half for being the best player, to which I thought, "Of fucking course, I'm not a terrible soccer player". The second game went much better, as I played the whole game (we had lost so many of the old fogies aka everyone else to injury that they had no one else to sub for me, which I was completely okay with). I managed to score and assist 2 of our 3 goals. Sadly, our defense sucked again and we gave up 5. All this scoring happened in the first half, mind you. I did impress/interest the crowd, as I had a couple of of the big wigs (more on this in a bit) yelling "ishipsam, ishipsam, ishipsam" to get my attention (its Korean for 23, my number). Once they got my attention, they began explaining to me how to better position myself through furious hand gestures. The big wig issue is something that annoys the hell out of me with Korean soccer club games. In between the 2 and 3 games of the day (there were about 8 teams there, all playing two games), we had a break so they could have the county administrator for soccer and the various city administrators give speeches and just go through some completely bullshit pomp and circumstance. I'm sorry, I'm just not a fan of bowing and shaking the other teams hands before the game, bowing and presenting yourself to the big wigs, shaking hands after the game, and bowing to the opposing team's fans after the game. My view on how soccer should be played is probably best illustrated by the fact that my favorite player is Wayne Rooney, who has a reputation for stomping on opponents genitals with his cleats after what he deemed was a dirty challenge. There is no place for civility in soccer, especially not here, as these guys pull jerseys and hack at ankles and take horrible challenges with the best of 'em. I've never been on the receiving end of one of these awful challenges while my Korean teammates get hacked 3 or 4 times a game (we honestly had six or seven players get injured like this just today). I'm assuming that it's because I'm a foreigner, just some animal that's liable to go off on these little bastards if they wrong me. If that is the case then I'm honored. Thank you ever so much Korea. Ohh, and Korea....I will eat your babies if you fuck with me. Just saying.