The Vacation, Part 2: “When I get old I wanna be a Fish Market Ajumma!”

I know we just talked yesterday and all, but I figured I should finally get around to telling the remainder of the epic that was our vacation around Korea. Plus, I don't have dick else to do. It's 9:30 am now and I don't have any classes until 1:30pm. I guess at some point today they are changing the fluorescent lights in the office, so there's the possibility of a major disaster, but that's probably just wishful thinking. But I digress. To the story at hand. When we last left our heroes they had survived the soju-filled dreams and desires of Seoul, rung in a new year in grand style, and gotten naked with the gym teacher's family (“Wow. Big.” “Thank you?”). Let's rejoin our heroes in the aftermath of the jimjilbang....

After the lovely, yet sometimes “different” times at the jimjilbang, we arose on Saturday January 3 with great hopes. Seoul had been incredible, and now we were heading to Busan. This was the first time in Busan for either of us, so visions of various types of badassery danced in both our heads. What wonders, what delights did this great unknown hold for us? Only time would tell. First things first, though. Reservations must be made for the temple stay for next weekend. As usual, Korea aspires to thwart your valiant heroes. The various English language sites set up by the bloody Korean government make mention of the Yongmunsa Temple, but say that the temple doesn't do temple stays. This I knew to be a lie, since fellow English teacher Carrie had already done a temple stay at the temple in question. After being run into the ground by the contradictions of the websites, we decided to call in the big guns: Jeong Dung Chun, the gym teacher. I explained our predicament and he graciously, as always, offered to help as well as feed us lunch before we hoped the bullet train to Busan. Lunch and reservations were had by all, as well as more combing of Alyse's hair by the rugrats and pulling out of my hair and “low blows” by the same source. I just gotta keep telling myself what doesn't kill me, only makes me stronger. With that behind us, we headed to the train station and from there we began the quest to Busan. Our train trip to Seoul was more eventful than usual, as we happened to run into the students of an infamous fellow foreign teacher. We shared the standing room only area with several students who we heard whispering various English words and what not. In Korea, most kids are so afraid to speak English that they have to pump themselves up for 15 minutes or so before they actually speak, so we knew what was inevitably coming. Finally, one of the brave souls stepped up and asked us where we were from. Eventually, I made mention of the fact that I'm an English teacher and they naturally started asking me if I knew their teacher, you know, cuz I know every foreigner. Turns out I did. They mentioned that their teacher had red hair and that his name was “Br...Brinley”. Ohh, you mean Brynley? Yeah, Yeah. That's right our flame-haired party animal, Brynley. Alyse decided that to break the ice or just for shits and giggles, she would show the kids the picture on her camera of Brnley passed out from New Year's. I wasn't so sure if that was a good idea, but the kids ate it up. “Wow, Brynley teacher drinking?” I had forgotten that binge drinking is incredibly cool to kids. Well, binge drinking is always cool. I heard from Brynley several days later that some of his students had a picture of me on their camera phone and that his popularity had risen even further thanks to the drinking picture. So everything worked out for the best. Hahah. With that out of the way, we were free to move on to Seoul, then onto Busan. God, I love that you can go from corner to corner in this country in 3 hours for 40 bucks. Kickass. Once in Busan, we set out to find ourselves a hotel. We decided on the Haeundae Beach area since it is home to numerous love motels due to the popularity of the beach in the summer. Since you have no idea of what the rooms look like without actually paying for them we were hesitant to pick one. Finally, we settled on the Picasso Hotel (side note, all love motels have English names, like Sicily, Manhattan, New York, usually more exotic locations than Korea) and were pleasantly surprised with what we got for 50,000 won (40 bucks or so). They even gave us a bag with all the hygienic products we would need. I laughed when I saw they had included a condom in the bag, then I remembered that we were in a love motel. To further prove that we were indeed in a love motel, the room came with a coin-operated condom dispenser. Awesome. No dildo machines in the staircases like I had heard some have. Darn. Next up was finding food. Through the highly scientific and foolproof method of enne-meene-minne-mo we selected a seafood restaurant in which to dine. Once inside we were treated to the sweetest little lady waitress. I know I keep saying this, but these ladies just keep raising the bar each time. She tried to talk to us with her limited English and was absolutely in awe of Alyse's hair. It's just so, so blonde. When the meal finally came and the waitress saw that Alyse was struggling with her chopsticks (she wasn't so good when she got there, she improved drastically by the time she left), so she just fed Alyse the food for her. Awwwwwww. Just adorable. With dinner behind us, we moved on to the drinking. What? We're both from Wisconsin. What the hell else would you do after dinner? Don't judge us. This time around we decided to get a little bit more bang for our buck, so we went the convenience store liquor route. Only problem: all the bottles here are pop-off, no twist-offs. Meaning we needed a bottle opener. That we didn't have. Since neither of us are pros at popping tops off on tables or with our teeth, we hit the streets to find a bottle opener. Eventually we found one and the drinking commenced.

Jan 4th saw us heading to the famous Jalgalchi Fish Market. Immediately we were bombarded with all the sights, sounds, and obviously, smells. Blocks and blocks of small stands all run by little old Korean ladies (ajumma is a Korean word for an older woman, used to be a term of respect and honor, now its just a specific way to call someone old). Alyse was so taken by the whole spectacle that she uttered the title line for this post. She decided that when she gets old she's gonna come back and work at the fish market with the other little old ladies. Interesting career choice. We quickly found our way to one of the street vendors nearby, cuz street food rocks. We settled on a deep fried hot-dog looking thing on a stick, which turned out to be fish of some sort and really delicious. I dropped a bunch of mine and was quite saddened by it. Alyse suggested that I institute the 5 second rule, but seeing the amount of fish gut/blood/stuff run-off on the ground, I decided against it. After more wandering and a stop at a candy stand (yeah, there was someone selling candys...they were delicious in case you were wondering), we stopped at a stand for some breakfast. I quickly noticed that we were sharing the “restaurant” with a middle aged man who clearly appeared to have had way too much soju (even though it was only 11am or so) and seemed to have taken quite an interest in Alyse. Ohhhhhhh boy. Eventually he summoned the liquid courage to start chatting with us and eventually asked me to take a picture of Alyse and him. It started innocently enough (well sort of), as he moved in close and gave her a kiss on the cheek for the first pic. Then, for the second picture he tested his luck even further. As I prepared to take the shot, he tried to move in and plant on directly on Alyse's lips. Alyse, having had quite enough of the old man/soju smell (here those two things are one and the same), shut him down with a two handed shove to the face, then quickly moved back to her seat, far away from Romeo. I'm not sure how I was supposed to respond to this. I probably should have yelled at the old coot or something to defend the goodly lady's honor, but I was laughing too hard to do much of anything. Korea, Korea, you horndog. Having experienced everything (and more) that the fish market had to offer, we moved on to Yongdusan Park and Busan Tower. The park was fun and all, but the highlight was definitely when a Korean man started talking to us in pretty good English. We soon discovered that he had learned most of his English from movies and was not too shy to tell us a joke he had memorized verbatim from a Sly Stallone film. He really liked Sly Stallone movies. The joke was actually pretty good, with a solid moral behind it to boot. “Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy and not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend”. I never knew Sly was so deep. Learn something everyday. From there we headed to Taejongdae Park on the southern most tip of Busan. As you can tell from the overwhelming amount of videos that I took there, I found it incredibly beautiful. Alyse and I had quite a laugh at her travel book's expense, as it had set up the park as something really unimpressive, that you could do if you had time, you know, and you didn't have anything else to do. Seriously, what Taejongdae Park were you visiting? The most interesting aspect of the park was definitely the little old ladies who had literally set up shop right on the rock beach. They had their pots all set for cooking up some delicious grub and the customers sat on the rocks mere feet from the water. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the things that those persistent ajummas can pull off. They are a mighty force. Once back in town, we headed back to the fish market for a delicious meal of sashimi, clams and other fishies. We really didn't have any choice in the matter, as when we passed one particular booth we were strong armed into sitting down and eating. Literally. He grabbed us by the arm and sat us down. They are not shy about pulling in customers here. Second verse, same as the first. We ended dinner and decided to close the evening with, what else, alcohol.

Monday, January 5th saw us rising much earlier than usual in order to catch the sunrise from Haedong Yonggunsa Temple on Busan's eastern coast. When they said in my travel book that the temple was on the water, I was skeptical about how close that really meant. Really fucking close apparently. Here's the temple, here's the ocean. The view was more than worth the jaunt to get there from our hotel. I took plenty of videos of the sun poking his head up, so all of you back in Wisconsin, where you haven't seen the sun since October, November, maybe, could remember what it looks like. You are most welcome. Having seen all that we wished to see in Busan, we headed to “the largest spa in Asia” (supposedly) for some chillaxing. Wow, what a place. I've been to my fair share of spa/jimjilbangs here in Korea but man, this one was leagues beyond anything I had seen. For starters, you paid when you left and you just charged stuff to your wristband/locker key rather than having to carry around cash. Cool, but can get kinda pricey. The actual spa/baths. Wow. Technically 2 floors of baths of every kind. Salt baths, jasmine baths, the standard baths, champagne (seriously?) baths, small swimming pool (they usually have these), some kind of woodchip or something bath (all I can say for that one is its different), and an ex foliating area. Am I forgetting anything? Don't think so. Wait, no, they also had an outdoor patio for the heartier of folk to enjoy a hot jasmine bath in 30 degree temperatures, then “cool” down in a bath at or around the same temp as the air. The “relaxing” area was no less impressive, with several sauna rooms accompanied by an ice room, various massage rooms, hot stone rooms (I guess it was supposed to be relaxing, but I just walked out of it with scalded skin where the stones were laying...probably weren't supposed to be contacting bare skin...hmmm), several specially oxygenated or pressurized rooms for resting, and a spot where you could have fish nibble the dead skin off your feet. Yup, for 3,000 won (less than 3 bucks) and 20 minutes you too can torture small fish with the stink from your feet. I declined on the grounds that it would consist animal cruelty to subject them to my feet. I like animals too much to do that to them. Having relaxed sufficiently, we moved to the ferry terminal to ensure transit to Jeju. Before boarding we managed to sneak in yet another dinner in a shady/sketchy/grungy restaurant as well as pick up booze for our time at sea. This dinner was unique, as it was the only time that Alyse said she felt uncomfortable in our environs, despite spending considerable time in less than classy establishments. I think her discomfort might have had something to do with the table next to us that happened to be filled with loud and presumably drunk Korean men who were eye-fucking the shit out of poor Alyse. But then again I could be mistaken. Once aboard the cozy confines of the Seolbongho ferry, the party was on. We spent the better part of an hour just admiring the setup of the place. Room: bigger and more impressive than expected. The ferry, in a word: pimp. Restaurant? Check. Bar? Check. Dance floor? Check. Noraebang rooms (kareoke rooms, for the uninitiated)? Umm, we are still in Korea, so of course. From there it was back to the room for more drinking and resting up in anticipation of our landing on the “Hawaii of Korea” (haha, I read somewhere that that is what some Koreans affectionately call it...I politely disagree). This is gonna rock.

January 6th should be wiped off the calendar forever. Add another day to February, they seem to be pretty low, to balance out. Do something. Do anything. Just punish January 6th for its crimes. Seriously, January 6th, what did I ever do to you? This “unpleasant” day started going south from the first second. I should probably explain that the ferry trip takes 11 hours, leaving port in Busan at 7pm and arriving into Jeju-si at 6am. Nice easy ferry ride, and it goes quickly since you just sleep for most of the trip. Or you are supposed to. My suffering actually began about 11pm the night before. With Alyse having crashed at 9:30 or 10pm, I was left with quiet (uggg, finally!) so I could read. Somewhere around 10:30pm I decided to call it a night and settled in myself, unaware the horrors awaiting just around the corner, or more literally, in 30 minutes. At 11pm I promptly woke up and began probably the worst 7 or so hours of my life. Due to either very choppy seas or too much booze or bad food or some lethal combination of the three, I awoke knowing full well that I had mere seconds to reach the privy before I lost my lunch, dinner and everything in between. I succeeded in reaching the toilet just in time to begin a symphony that may have sounded something like whales having sex. Don't really if that's true since I don't spend much time with whales. Fine, alright. So you threw up, big deal. Why all the drama? Well, after 15 minutes or so I was well enough to return to my bed and went back to sleep. 'Cept I was not destined to stay asleep, as I woke again after 15 minutes and began an ungodly cycle that continued for the remainder of my time on the boat: throw up for 15 minutes, sleep (more like try to sleep) for 15 minutes, repeat. Let me once again stress that this began at 11pm and the boat wasn't slotted to reach port until 6am. My body, not content to merely expel substances from just one orifice, began, during the second or third session at the can, to loosen products of a brown persuasion from my hindquarters. But even that wasn't for my body, as at one point, while already sitting on the toilet with a garbage can in my lap, my nose began to run profusely. Fuck me. Well, as one might expect, I quickly became quite exhausted/dehydrated/weak, so I attempted to at least combat one of my conditions, that being dehydration since I couldn't do much about the fatigue and overall weakness. Alack alas, I could not even keep down water. My absolute lowest point did not arrive until around 3am, when I decided (I cling to fatigue/exhaustion as the excuse for my absolute lack of brain function and overall stupidity here) that I really had to fart. For those not in the know, forcing out a fart is never a good idea, but it becomes even less of a good idea when you lost your bowel control hours before. As one would expect, and those readers who are faint of heart are certainly dreading, I ruined a perfectly good pair of boxers. I can only take a small amount of satisfaction in knowing that some janitor's day was ruined by the disaster he stumbled upon within that bathroom and within that unsuspecting garbage can (the final resting place of my beloved undergarments...also a different can than I used for vomit). Eventually, the ferry made it to port and we disembarked. I should mention here that Alyse slept through night without any issue (thank Buddha, Shiva, or whoever for small victories, as I most certainly did not want Alyse to see in in that state) and was shocked to find me ghastly and specter-like when she woke. With much effort I managed to disembark from the boat and make it to the terminal, though it did take several stops and rests. Safely off that vessel from Hades, I rested in the terminal for 30 minutes while I drank water and ate rice cakes provided by one Ms. Pfeil. I greatly appreciated her care and concern for me during my weaker moments. I do not know where I would have been without it. After considerable time, we reached our accommodations for the duration of our Jeju trip and I went to bed. Alyse, being the gracious caregiver, offered to stay at the room while I rested but I refused to have her waste her precious vacation for me. So while she marveled in the spectacle that is Jeju Loveland (a adult-themed art exhibit created by several art students from Hongik University in Seoul), I slept. At around 2, we met up at the room, me having regained consciousness and Alyse having returned from Loveland, and I decided that I was well enough to head out for sightseeing. It was not meant to be, as I began feeling awful and weak when we reached the bus station and had to have a cab take us back to the room. After another hour trying to to compose myself, I finally admitted defeat and decided that I needed to go to the hospital to get checked out. If you are ever sick in Jeju, go to Jeju University Hospital. The doctors are quite satisfactory and they speak quite good English (which was a surprise given the absolute absence of it anywhere else on the island). At 6 pm I checked myself into the hospital and was promptly put on an I.V. Drip. I'm glad that the patients and doctors had more scruples than many in Korea. I was concerned that I would have a considerable gallery wanting to know what a sick whitey looks like. I was not excited about the idea of Koreans poking me to find out if whiteys do indeed have 2 hearts, 5 lungs, and acid blood, like they hear told in the stories. So began my road to recovery. Or so I hoped...

Ohh no, what misadventures and pitfalls have our heroes fallen into this time. How will they ever get themselves out of this mess? Will Eric survive his sickness and return to his mighty self? Will Alyse be able to find her way around Korea with her trusty translator (albeit, a really shitty one)? Will the won ever recover to a decent conversion rate compared to the dollar so that American foreign teachers can make some money? Will the Brewers be any good this season? Stick around for the next thrilling installment to get all these answers (well, maybe not all) and more. This episode brought to you by Cass premium lager. CASSSSSSSS!!!! The sound of vitality!!! Delicious!!!!

Japao: It's like Korea, only bigger, better, crazier, and sans kimchi

Yeah, Yeah, I know that I haven't finished posting about the Korean vacation and here I am blabbering about a trip to Japan, but its fresh in my mind so I'm gonna say to hell with chronological order and just go for it. This trip to Japan was unique compared to all my other vacations in that I had done absolutely no planning whatsoever for the trip. As of last Tuesday, I wasn't going to Japan since I was gonna save up my money for a trip to Thailand (titty baths!!!) in February. As of last Wednesday, I was going to Japan since I was informed that I would be forced to teach classes over spring break during the time everybody is going to Thailand (that makes six weeks of camps...most teachers do 2-3 weeks. Lucky me.). As of Thursday, I wasn't going to Japan since a ticket wasn't purchased because it was assumed that I wasn't interested in going to Japan. As of 5:00pm on Friday, I was going to Japan thanks to the dogged persistence of Amy with the Korean travel agents and my mad ATM money transfer skills. As a bit of perspective, I took the 8:00pm train that very night to Seoul in order to get to the airport in plenty of time for our Saturday departure at 9:10am. Doesn't leave much time for prepping/planning what to see now does it? On the upside, I had no demands of the trip beyond that it be more enjoyable than sitting for 4 days alone in my apartment. Fuck, taking a trip to Omro, WI would be more enjoyable than sitting in my apartment...errr, well, maybe that's a bit of a stretch. But you get my point.

Given the hurried nature of our quest, we invariably ran into additional walls that may have been traversed given more time to prep. Our first hurdle came rather early. About 20 minutes into our train ride to Seoul, Amy happened to mention passports for some reason or another, and it then dawned on me, “Ohhh, yeah, you need those things for international travel...”. Idiot. After considerable deliberation, it was decided that I would break from the rest of the group and head back to Yangpyeong to retrieve it. I'm just glad I realized it before we had reached a point of no return. You know, like customs at the airport on Saturday morning. We arrived in Seoul at 8:45pm, where I promptly hopped the 9:00pm train back to Yangpyeong, while my compatriots jumped on the last airport bus at 9:00pm for a night spent at the airport. I arrived back in town at 9:50, grabbed my passport and was on the 10:15 train back to Seoul. Why all the hassle when I could have easily just remembered my passport? Simple: I love trains. No need to Freudian analyze that statement (I guess you could if you wanted to). Once back in Seoul, I traveled via subway to the West side of Seoul and settled in for the night at the Anytime Motel (again...ohhh, right, I haven't actually finished the posting about the Korean vacation so you have no idea that this isn't the first time in this lovely motel). Several hours later, the party was reunited and sitting on the plane awaiting takeoff for Japan. But, as as it becoming the standard for this trip, there were bumps along the way. I had left my hotel so that I would arrive at the airport about 2 hours before my flight was scheduled to depart, just to be safe. Unluckily for me, Korea finally decided that it was gonna get some snow this winter and everything ground to a halt as a result. Now, I didn't see anything particularly frightening in the amount of snow piling up. Sure, visibility was low, but for any Wisconsin driver, especially this winter, you would just brush it off as a near daily dusting. Not here. Here it was a national emergency. Which I guess I can understand, given how terrible some drivers are in perfect conditions. For example, my vice principal put her car in the ditch when there was no snow or ice or anything resembling difficult conditions. I may never know how that happened. So rather than arrive before 7am I arrived somewhere around 7:20-7:30. Immediately it was off to the immigration office to purchase my entry visa so I can get back into Korea upon return. This was a nightmare, as people from every which country trying desperately to get the hell out of Korea. After waiting much too long for a sticker and stamp that took only 30 seconds to acquire once I reached the desk, we were off to customs. At this point it was already 8:40, which was cutting it mighty close. Thankfully, the weather worked to our advantage since when we arrived at the gate only 10 minutes before the scheduled takeoff, they had yet to begin boarding. After several hours of waiting on runways, air travel, and subways, we emerged at our hostel in Asakusa. We were in Tokyo. We were in Japan. Bitchin.

Since we didn't reach our hostel till 4 or so in the afternoon, it didn't leave much time for sightseeing, so we decided to meander at Sensoji Temple right next door to the hostel and then head to Shibuya for some clubbing. Our planning was complicated by the fact that we had forgotten our Tokyo guide book, so we had no idea where anything was. (Shakes head). We really aren't very good at this whole travel thing. While at the temple we enjoyed chocolate covered bananas (I love traditional Japanese food!!!) and the suggestive photographs that ensued. After devouring our “bananas” we moved on to sushi dinner, which brings us to my first conflict with Japan. Obviously sushi is always expensive and never filling even if you subsist entirely on air and water (I'm looking at you Maria), but for fatties like myself, nothing in this country was big enough to fill me up. I routinely ordered 2 meals at every restaurant in order to keep from wasting away. Didn't do wonders for the pocketbook, but what choice do I have? Having consumed an entire Japanese family's worth of food, we moved on to Shibuya for some drinking and clubbing. We had one particular club in mind, since they had a price to get in the door but that entitled you to unlimited drinks. Sadly, this price was 3,500 yen, roughly 35 bucks, for guys and 1,500 yen, 15 bucks, for women. Damn it, women get all the breaks. Why god? Why did you have to curse me with this white skin and male gender (though the latter still under debate, depending on who you talk to)? What have those things ever done for me? Getting the club however, was the great issue of our times. As expected, navigation was difficult, as nobody ever gives good directions, if you are fortunate enough to find someone who knew English. No worries, as Tokyo is a true international city and one has only to wait for a few minutes before stumbling upon a foreigner. Our savior came in the form of an Iranian who has been living and working in Japan for 18 years, since age 22. We chatted about Iran and the Middle East while munching on gyros on our way to the club. Sometimes life is really wonderful like that. Once at the club, we realized that nearly all the patrons were foreigners and that is so not our style. We hate being able to talk to the people we dance with. Eghhhh, communication. As if. We eventually found a club more to our liking and settled in amongst the Japanese. We observed an unusual thing within this club. Back in Korea, the girls merely have to be in existence and be white and they will have plenty of Korean men sputtering out any and all of the English they know. In Japan things were quite different. There were girls and there were boys, but they never mixed. Sure there were a few couples that danced together, but on the whole, the fellows showed up with their male friends and danced by themselves, while the girls did the same. We were there for at least 4 hours and I did not once see a male approach a female and begin dancing with her. This unsettled Max and myself as we started to wonder if the men knew something we didn't know. Were all the women carriers of the dreaded herp and clap? Were they all succubi, sent from hell to enslave the male sex? Did they all smell kinda funny? Were they even women at all? Were they biters? What could it be? The likely answer is that all the men were in fact, more masculine looking women. My evidence of this is simple: the line for the guys bathroom was out the door while the girls bathroom had no line. What kind of evidence is this you ask? I shall tell. The line wasn't for the toilet, it was for the mirrors and the sinks. These “men”, if you can call them that, were lining up to adjust their hair and wax their eyebrows and such (didn't see the latter but I can only assume it happened). As a special incentive to draw in women, since the draw of finding and dancing with a man are out of the equation, the club offered free hair styling for any women. The girls naturally loved the club, what with free hair care and the ability to dance without the fear of some ugly guy saddling his piece up on them. I was confused.

Sunday began fairly late, obviously. In a nod to Sunday post drinking days of yore, the group headed to....Denny's. I was stoked for the Lumberjack Slam. All that food, that delicious breakfast food I've been missing for months. So imagine the broken heart I suffered when we discovered that Denny's in Japan are fairly classy. No Super Slam, No Super-duper Slam, No Lumberjack Slam, just the slam of my head hitting the table over and over in frustration. The food was still delicious, but I had to order 2 dishes again and it cost me closer to 13 dollars. They at least still had the adorable old lady waitresses, they just were Japanese, naturally. To recover from my heartbreak, we decided to visit the Imperial Palace to see what we could see. Turns out, not that much. The structure was really cool and all, but you can't actually go in, so you have to settle for shots from around the perimeter. Still a really cool and relaxed place in the middle of the hustle and bustle of central Tokyo. After the palace we chillaxed at Hibuya Park just down the street. Having achieved serenity, we moved to the electronic chaos that is the Akihabara. We first decided to wander through their 11 story electronic goodness shop. The sheer quantity of stuff made the electronics markets here in Korea look downright sad. I was really excited to walk out with some sweet stuff, until I saw the price tags. 3,000 yen (about 30 dollars) for a CD? No thank you, even though they had a music section just for video game music and naturally most of the section was stuff by Square Enix. And I had found out that Korea doesn't let any porn or stuff like that in, so so much for all the tentacle porn and hentai I was gonna buy. Which left me with a lot of cash left to spend. Regardless, I passed on principle. After the all that madness we needed some release, so appropriately we found our way to one of the 5 story porn/adult goods stores. I had never realized how spoiled we were in the States until I came to Korea and realized that places like that are nearly nonexistent. Damn conservative culture. Anyways, we slowly made our way up reveling in the multitude of “things”. It was a bit much for my virgin mind, but thankfully, the more “experienced” members of the party were able to answer my questions (“Ohhhh, so that's where that goes...interesting). We were only able to get to floor 5 as the amount of hentai (why does this stuff exist? If you can pay money to watch a real women do almost anything, why would you then choose to pay for a video of a cartoon character doing the same thing?), and costumes (women dressing up like Naruto or the chicks from Neon Genesis Evangelion just weirds me out), and the pictures of customers in their purchases (women got 30% percent off if they let the employees take a picture of them in their outfits....creepy in itself, but some of the women naturally shouldn't have their pictures taken in anything less than a moo-moo and a paper bag. Any more visible body outline than that and people could go blind. Seriously, Japan what the hell? Since when did you have fatties?) was just too much. I must in this case defer and pay heed to the masters of filth, Rounds, Busha and Jason. You are the masters and I have no doubt you would have easily ascended to the sixth level then bemoaned the establishment as being pedestrian. Someday, I may be able to ascend to your level. After leaving the filth, we headed to the only thing that could possibly be better than sex: video games. Ohhh, the arcades. 5 stories of electronic wonderment. I badly desired to try my hand at their DDR machine but I decided against it, in order to preserve what little dignity I have (hahah, laugh if you want, I don't care) and also to preserve the dignity of my motherland. By failing on this stage I would have disgraced America and more specifically my fellow practitioners of DDR from back home. I'm sorry John. Someday, someday. I instead settled for the Guilty Gear machine outside of any peering eyes, thanks to the Street Fighter 4 machines that occupied everyone's attentions (yeah it looked sweet). After several rounds of success then crippling annihilation at the hands of Slayer, Faust and I moved on. Before we headed home for the night we suffered another near disaster, as Amy realized she had forgotten her camera. Thankfully it was right where she had left it at the arcade. New camera or keep on playing Street Fighter 4? Lucky for Amy, these Japanese men had their priorities straight. Later that evening we tried fugu for dinner. Expensive, kinda tasteless, but really cool. As expected.

Monday saw us heading to Ueno to take in the park and its museums. As you can see from the pictures or the videos up on YouTube, the park was a nice mix of Western park and Asian traditional gardens/shrines. The highlight was clearly the one man band named Hiro (at least that was the name he had on his sign), who managed to play ukulele, flute, drum and bells at the same time, and sound damn good doing so. I posted a video of him so you can listen to the auditory orgasm that is his music. He was handsomely rewarded for his troubles by yours truly, since I had a bit of cash left over (no go on the porn, remember?). We wanted to check out some museums, notably the Tokyo National Museum and the Tokyo Modern Art Museum, but sadly, they are always closed on Monday's. Having failed in our great quest for knowledge, we moved on to Harujuku for some shopping. Well, shopping for the girls. For me, it was more of a “Why would anyone buy this?” and “Do people actually wear this shit?”. Needless to say, I found Japanese fashion very “postmodern”. I use the word postmodern here because I hate postmodernism and think that is drivel. So basically I'm using “postmodern” as a synonym for awful, stupid, etc. In case you needed me to spell it out for you. Although I did walk out of Harajuku with a T-shirt of a Bear, wearing Wolverine style claws, slashing Ronald McDonald across the face. I can only imagine what Stephen Colbert would say about this particular shirt. Either way, I like it. It's no emo carebear, but it will do. We decided to bring our Japanese adventures to a close with a trip to the skyscrapers in Shinjuku, where all the major players in Tokyo are situated. Our timing for reaching the subway was perfect as it allowed to take part in one of the most beautiful of human spectacles....rush hour in Tokyo. It was like a mosh pit, except everyone was much smaller than me and most were much weaker than me...I loved it. The train rolls up and we can see that the windows are fogged up because people's faces are so close to the glass, then the door opens and people literally fall out. The new sardines make their way in, then it falls on the subway pushers (attendants whose entire job is to make sure the doors close at all costs) to make sure everyone fits. Only problem is that the pushers were pushing 50 or so and Japanese...obviously. So not that strong. We got separated from the girls as we decided that there was no room for us on that particular train and we would wait, meaning that we would get on first next time and be subject to pushing from all directions. We made our way in and after considerable jostling, found ourselves a cozy spot. Max and I got quite close and personal, which was awkward at first, until I explained that it was only a roll of 50 yen coins in my pocket. The beauty of these close quarters was that I literally couldn't fall down. I tried, but there wasn't even enough space for me to move anywhere. It didn't feel that cramped to me, maybe because I had the air above 6 ft all to myself, whereas everyone else had their head up my ass, literally. Things got a little strange when the Japanese guy next to me started rubbing/playing/running his fingers over my hand. Course this wasn't the first time I've received attention from the Japanese men. I neglected to mention earlier, but while at the club in Shibuya, I received considerable attention from one very drunk Japanese male. When he arrived at the table, keep in mind all the girls were still sitting with us, he immediately began talking to me and only to me. He drunkenly wandered away at times only to come back and chat me up again. Lucky me. See, I originally laughed at Collin when he got asked to go out for a coffee by a man and accepted, not realizing what “getting a coffee” actually is. Now I realize that our respective sex appeals are just so incredible and so intense that they transcend gender and sexual persuasion boundaries. Clearly we are doing something right. Shinjuku offered some pretty sweet views of Tokyo as a closing crescendo to our time in Tokyo. Having seen what we wanted to see, we headed out from our hostel at 11am the next day, and arrived home, at least I did, at 10:30 pm.

Videos

Just thought I would let everyone know that I've become fed up with the ineptitude of the Facebook video system and have now started a YouTube account and will be posting all the videos there instead. Which is especially helpful for the readers that don't have facebook (if there are any). Just search for my screen name which is basically the same as the name of this blog (figured I'd make easy for you guys). The literal screen name is talldudeinasmallwld. Ran out of letters so had to chop a vowel. Check it out if you must.

"The Vacation" Part 1: Eating, Drinking, Getting Naked, Reveling (though not necessarily in that order)

Wow, it's been a while since we've talked. What been happening with me? Ehh, stuff. You know, the usual. Seriously though, the vacation has ended and now comes the dreaded task of retelling the whole story. I'm sure I'm gonna get carpal tunnel from all this. But that's how much I care about you, the reader (all 2 of you), that I'm willing to sacrifice my own precious health to tell my epic story. I've decided to break up the vacation into at least 3 parts for the sake of my hands and your eyeballs. Here goes nothing: Alyse arrived. There was drinking/partying in Seoul. Busan was pretty cool. Saw some fish. Jeju was a bitch to get around. Tangerines everywhere. Alyse went home. The end. Fuck, that was exhausting. For real this time. Let's do it.

The vacation/adventures officially started way, way back on December 29th. Alyse's plane arrived at Incheon Airport at 9:10pm, so I spent most of the day cleaning the apartment in anticipation of her arrival. I made such a big deal about being anal about cleanliness over the summer when we hung out that I didn't want her to arrive at the homestead and see that I had been shirking my duties. I would have never heard the end of it. The journey to the airport itself is pretty simple. Just one 50 minute train ride to Cheongnangni station, then a 1 and a half hour bus ride from the station to the airport. I'd like to say that I was relaxed for the whole journey, but that would be lying. And I never do that...very much. It was a strange mix of anxiety/excitement/fear. I didn't have to change my shorts or anything, but still. I've never really had one of those Hollywood movie airport cliche greetings, so I was unsure of the proper decorum. I assumed that the screaming teenage girl mode was probably not the best decision, so I refrained. The fear really started setting in as I set up camp outside the proper terminal. Having just learned the details of how Amy's boyfriend was refused entrance to Korea because he didn't have a visa, and how my dad had to get a visa when he visited Korea for work, I was understandly worried. I had done the research and knew that Americans are allowed 30 days in Korea without a visa, but still, it's Korea. Shit happens. As the minutes began to tick away, I quickly became more and more concerned that I would be contacted by some security folks (it wouldn't be hard for them to spot me, as I was the only foreigner) and told that my friend was not being allowed entrance to Korea, upon which time I would have probably lost it and stolen one of their Segway looking things used for transporting baggage carts and run roughshod over Incheon Airport. Well, maybe not. Finally, after an hour or so of waiting, which probably isn't too bad considering customs, Alyse arrived. Finding each other in the mass of people was, well, really easy. She obviously spotted me instanteously due to MY MASSIVE SIZE (sorry, thought capitalizing it would add more dramatic emphasis...not sure if it worked) and the fact that nobody else cracked the 6 ft mark. I was able to find her easily due to the "anything but black" hair, blonde to be exact. Much more to come on the celebrity status inherent with blonde hair in Korea. With pleasantries dispensed with, we headed off to our hotel. After we checked in, we headed off for food and drinks. Food for me, since I hadn't eaten since noon, and drink for Alyse. Bless her heart, she came her with a goal in mind to drink whenever possible and I do have to say she succeeded. Since she is only 19 (sorry, 22, I forgot) and survived a rather tough semester, her last few months have been rather "dry" and she decided to remedy that with the "elixir of the gods" (I'm pretty sure that's from my dad...). We walked the 10 seconds from our hotel to the nearest bar (so they like to drink here, don't judge) and settled down for some refreshments. Alyse experienced the "Taste of Vitality" firsthand (the ridiculous slogan for Cass, a Korean beer) while I settled on the fruit plate (shut up Amy!). With both of our appetites quenched, we headed back to the hotel to rest up for tomorrow.

December 30th saw us journeying back towards the homestead in the metropolis of Yangpyeong. While waiting at Cheongnangni for the train back home, Alyse had her first encounter with Korean street food and Korean people. As for the food, being deep fried and delicious, she naturally loved it. As for the Korean people, well, they loved her. It was amazing to see how much people wanted to talk to and would talk to Alyse, as opposed to myself. I know I'm tall and all, but geez, it's not like I'm fucking Frankenstein's monster or something. I always thought I looked kinda pathetic, but I guess I come off as imposing or intimidating here. As we were ordering our hoddeoks (thick pancakes with brown sugar in the middle), the old lady running the stand got all "motherly" and expressed concern over Alyse's cold hands, since she had no gloves, her red cheeks (I think she came over and pressed her hands to Alyse's cheeks), and commented on her hair. Cute. The adorable encounters continued on the train as we met this little girl about 4 or 5 years old that really wanted to talk to us. We introduced ourselves, talked about where we were from and what not, then talked about her stinky brother (he pretty much ruined the toilet in our car with his business...admirable). The cutest thing was that she would run away for a bit, then come right back and continue talking about 5 minutes or so. She was also enamoured of Alyse's blonde locks. I'm telling you, if you have low self esteem and happen to be white (that last part's a big one, sorry Maria, they don't want "your" kind, white on the inside don't count to them), you should come to Korea. It'll do wonders for you. After arriving in town, I gave Alyse the grand tour of town. 20 minutes later, with the tour finished, we headed out to dinner with the gym teacher and the kids. The little ones took an immediate liking to Alyse and began playing with her hair almost immediately. Yuna, the 3 year old girl, spent a considerable amount of time trying to braid her hair and what not. Trying to impress their new friend and sensing that she loves to see Wallin in pain as much as everyone else does, they began the assault. Alyse took a wonderful picture at the restaurant where Yuna crawled up on my shoulder and began pulling the hair out of my scalp. On a side note, all the pictures and videos are posted on Facebook, so if you don't have access to it, let me know and I'll find a way to get you the pics. Sorry, but I just assumed that everyone who actually reads this is under the age of 25. With Yuna dead set on making a sweater out of my hair, Jaehan, having discovered the mighty weapon between his legs and the weaknesses that come with it, decided to play the game "Hit Eric in the junk until he passes out". Thankfully, from years of cock punches and soccer mishaps and the fact that he is only 7, I survived with minimal damage. Probably sterile, but that is an issue for another day. All in all, lots of fun, especially for Alyse, as she became attached to the family, especially the wife, even though she speaks no English.

December 31st: The date. The mission: Go to Seoul and have a damn good time for New Years. Our quest began with a momentary setback that could potentially have been deadly. Upon arriving at our hotel in the heart of Seoul (I mean dead center, right at City Hall, sweeet location), we were informed that we didn't have a room. I paid extra on-line to reserve a spot at this hotel and given the very definition of what a reservation is, you know so shit like this doesn't happen, I was peeved. But that's Korea sometimes, so you move on. Thankfully, the manager walked us down the street and checked us into another hotel at the same price. What a relief. I really didn't wanna go banging on doors to find a place to crash in Seoul for New Year's Eve. Yikes. With the sleeping arrangements set, we set off to explore Seoul. Headed to Insa-dong to pick up gifts for Alyse's family and delicious tea, Namdaemun/Myeong-dong to see commerce at its finest, from the posh stores of Myeong-dong to the crowded traditional markets of Namdaemun, then on to Jogyesa Buddhist Temple for shits and giggles. With some sights under our belts, we doubled back to the hotel to get dressed up for dinner and a night out in Hongdae. Took me 5 minutes (t-shirt off, dress shirt on), but obviously my fellow traveler required a little bit more prep time. In my defense, there is no amount of time and effort that could make something respectable out of the mess I call me. Not to mention that I'm gonna look like a shmuck in comparison to her no matter what I do (yes, I realize that I'm quite lucky). Pretty faces on, we headed to Seoul Tower. Hold up! Disaster looms yet again. The shirt that Alyse bought back in the States specifically for New Years....has been forgotten back in Yangpyeong. Thankfully, the Tower is right next to the numerous shops in Myeong-dong and we quickly find a suitable replacement. Have no fear, Alyse did get to wear the illusive shirt before she left and it was a damn fine shirt, this I do confer. Not wanting to hike the 30 minutes up to the Tower, especially since Alyse was in heels, we took the cable car to the top. A wise decision as the view is insane and the enjoyment of listening to Koreans, males and females alike, squealing in terror at every shake and tremor of the cable car is nearly unparalleled. I know, I know, I'm a bad person. Once at the top, we survived yet another hurdle. Upon arriving at the elevator, we realized that a ticket must be purchased in order to gain access. I quickly ran back outside to buy our ticket, as you pay for the dinner and observation deck ticket at the ticket booth on the ground floor, rather than in the restaurant. I hoped in line and waited several minutes only to find out that I was in the wrong line for restaurant passes. Once in the proper line, I purchased my tickets and hurried back to Alyse at the elevator. As we were being herded into the elevator, I realized that I had only been charged 14,000 won (the price of 2 observation passes) rather than the 76,000 I should have paid (for dinner) and that we were in the wrong elevator. So back to the ticket booth I went. This time the dude selling dinner tickets was closed so I hopped back into the other line. When I reached the front, the dinner ticket guy had opened back up and I was told I was in the wrong line again. God motherfucking damnit. Finally, I got in the right line and got the right tickets and we headed up to the restaurant. 'Course, we were now 15 minutes late and I was worried that we would lose our reservation, and with the waiting list time at 1 hour, my worry was justified. Thankfully, we were seated immediately and man was it worth it. The view was amazing. You could see all of Seoul and it goes on forever. Man, was it gorgeous with all the lights glittering in the moonlight. The dinner was delicious and our waiter was very amusing. Apparently he's a Canadian of Korean descent who has been living and working in Korea for the last 3 years working on his Korean. Wrap your mind around that one. With dinner knocked out, we headed down to Cheonggyecheon stream in downtown Seoul (my favorite spot in town). It was especially purdy what with tons of lights and extra decorations set up around the premise. An unexpected decoration was the hundreds of riot cops setting up all around the stream. I guess it's a Korean New Year's tradition to try and tear down/break into major buildings and institutions, so the riot cops were setting up in droves at the doors of all the major companies buildings by 9pm. For each their own, I guess. Sightseeing done, we got to drinking. Finally. We arrived in Hongdae and tried to connect up with my foreigner friends, but they all wussed out/couldn't find a place to stay, so alone were we. Here comes Midnight. 3...2....1.....Happy New Year!!! Streamers? Celebrations? Rowdiness? Not in our bar. The denizens gave a pretty damn weak "hurrah" at midnight, and then continued doing their own thing. This doesn't look good. New Year's might be kinda lame. Shit. We quickly headed out of that bar to find some more happening surroundings, and praise Jesus, we stumbled into some other foreign teachers that I knew. Not like it was hard to spot them, as Brinley and Brianna are probably the only gingers in all of Korea. Bright red hair, and as Brinley was quite drunk, a very noticable voice. Kinda hard to miss. We latched ourselves onto their sizeable party of foreigners, as Brinley drinks a wee bit more than me, so I trusted his drunk judgment of happening clubs. After considerable wandering and backtracking and going in circles (remember, really drunk), we found our way to Oi Club. Awesome place. The place had a distinctive feel. You have to take off your shoes when you come in, your table is a tree stump on the floor and the whole club looks like a freaking cave. Plus, they have hookahs. With a happening crew in hand, we commenced to more drinking and considerable merriment. The rest of the party were pretty damn cool cats, so we spent several hours chatting, drinking and even dancing (yeah I know, I was shocked too....but I'm not that big of a loser to refuse to dance when asked by a female). Finally, at the ripe early hour of 4:30 am, we headed back to our hotel...to find that we were locked out. Fuck. Since most hotels in Korea are run by little old ladies or little old men, we are at the mercy of the owner. Apparently, he went home at 2am and padlocked the door of the motel. That leaves only one option: Jimjilbang. Wandered back to the taxis and had them deliver us to the nearest jimjilbang and promptly crashed. Well, me at least. Alyse, having never experienced the homo-erotic wonderland that is the jimjilbang, explored the baths and showers until 5:30 am. A fitting end to a fabulous New Years.

Jan 1st: Got up at noon. Wandered around town for a few hours. Back to the hotel by 8pm. Asleep by 10pm. That was all. Literally. New Year's and trying to sleep at a jimjilbang will do that do you.

As Jan 2 was our last day in Seoul and that we were especially well rested, we headed off to Seoul Tower again to hike around the trails and park at its base. Quite popular and quite scenic, as Namsan Park is Seoul's Central Park, an oasis of the natural in a sea of metal and the artificial. We couldn't linger long, as we had another date with the gym teacher and the family back home. We were treated to another dinner, then the whole group (mom, dad, kids, foreigners, and grandma) headed off to the local jimjilbang for rest and relaxation. This one was more of a sauna/bathhouse than sleeping area, as the saunas and bathhouses took up the vast majority of the complex. This being my first time naked in the jimjilbang with the gym teacher, I was prepared for anything. Well, almost anything. No sooner had we hit the locker room and dropped our pjs, then the gym teacher turned around looked down at my penis and exclaimed "Wow, its big!" ................................... Ummmmm, okay. Thank you? What are you supposed to say to that? Things got even more fun when we hit the shower, especially with a 7 year old in tow. While we were brushing our teeth, Jaehan decided that he was gonna spit his toothpaste on his dad and aimed it perfectly so that when he fired he got it in of all places....his dad's asshole. Disgusting, but so fucking hilarious. Well, maybe just disgusting to you, but absolutely hilarious to me. There is something about a grown man cleaning toothpaste out of his asshole that makes my stomach hurt due to laughter. Eventually we headed back to the common area and connected back up with the girls, where I found out that the gym teacher's wife had scrubbed Alyse's back when they were in the showers. Awwwwwwwwwwwww, cute. Now that we were clean and fresh, it was time to hit the saunas to get hot and sweaty and stinky again. Clearly. After several cycles of baking ourselves, then freezing our selves in the outdoor area, we sat down for some snacks, a quick rest, then another shower before heading home. Seriously, we need jimjilbangs back in the States. I'm hoping that Alyse decides to start one, but she's pretty busy, so that may not happen.

Ugggg. Well, that's all for part 1. That was only 5 days. We are only getting started. Busan and Jeju still await us. And one horrible night of sickness still awaits me. Ohh boy, I can hardly wait.

Just an update...sorry

Hey all. Just thought I'd throw out a quick update of how everything is going on vacation. Got back from several days in Seoul yesterday and Korea has been up to ridiculous and sometimes adorable self, as per usual. We will be heading to Busan today as soon as we get our shit together and start moving. Should be in Busan and Jeju until next Saturday, so I don't expect to be able to keep in great touch with everyone while we're there. Sorry for that and for the fact that this isn't really up to my usual standards of excellence in journalism, but I don't have too much time. Suffice it to say that when I finally do get time to post about the vacation, it will be ungodly long. Pictures, pictures and more pictures are coming soon, as Alyse has taken pictures of all most everything and I've been pretty lazy thus far and will probably just steal her pics that I like. Until next time.