My trip to the...umm border-thingy between North and South Korea, the umm.....DMX or something

So before I get into the meat of what will arguably be a large post, I feel the need to express a bit of the rage I've been feeling with Korea in the last day. When I went to upload the videos of the group bungee jumping onto YouTube last night, I was informed that YouTube Korea no longer allows comments or upload videos. Fucking load of bullshit, I agree. More details in link below:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/162989/google_disables_uploads_comments_on_youtube_korea.html

Obviously, I think the law is a load of absolute shit and a blatant disregard of freedom of speech. The surprise was that I have a soulless and faceless corporation to thank for protecting my freedoms, by shutting down the features to not allow people to give up their anonymity and allowing me to circumvent the rule. So I may never say this again, especially given my dislike for Google, so drink it in big boy: Thank you Google. God, the words hurt me just to write. What made me most angry was the reasons why such a law is necessary. What follows below may be deemed harsh and insensitive, so I apologize now. I know that Korea has a problem with suicide and that people will literally off themselves at the drop of a hat, but that is no excuse for such a law. If the actress in question really killed herself due to internet criticism, then maybe she didn't deserve the life she was given. The world is a harsh and ugly place and if you can't stand the heat, well, you know. Seriously, if insults from some anonymous internet douchebag named tittiesucker09 or ramrod6969 are too much for you, imagine the real world. I would wager that most people have gone through frustrating times, possibly even depression and contemplated suicide (this author included), but they struggled through, because that's what life is...a struggle. I just find it hard to have respect for people like the women mentioned in the article. That is all. On to happier events.

The DMZ trip. Wow, what a great couple of days. Now without further ado.

The trip technically started for me Friday evening, as the bus left from Seoul at 8:30 am on Saturday morning. Do the math in reverse and that roughly breaks down to me waking up at 4:30 am or so. Not happening. So I decided to crash at Jamie's place Friday night, which is on the subway line, and just go from there on Saturday. Nothing too crazy Friday, just heart-wrenching sadness when we found out the screen golf course was closed. Leave it to Korea to have a popular social/evening hangout closed on a Friday night by 10pm, you know, the time when most people would be done with work and dinner and might wanna smack some balls. Whatever. Saturday morning saw Jamie and I getting up bright and early to make it to Seoul in time for the bus. We badly miscalculated, in a good way, and ended up getting to the meeting point 45 minutes early, plenty of time to grab some Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. Being with Jamie means comedy is rarely far behind, and this day was no exception. The ladies working the counter didn't speak much English and they certainly didn't speak much English English. Poor, poor ladies. Jamie apparently confused and befuddled them so much that he got a free donut out of the mix. Breakfast in hand, we boarded the bus and settled in for the 2 hours to the DMZ. Our initial excitement, at least for Amy and I, quickly turned into mild horror as we got a glimpse of the company we would be keeping for the next 2 days. You know what they say, you can take the kid out of Wisconsin, but you can't get them the hell away from fucking coasties. Yep, as luck would have it, several of our tourmates were that lovable stereotype, down to the T. Just a quick example: when our small group packed it in after a campfire and drinking Saturday night, the coasties continued well into the night. We heard word the next day that there was drunken truth or dare that led to streaking, naked pushups, and topless cartwheels, among other things. This just in: College is over, time to grow up!

Only a minor inconvenience though, as we didn't have to spend too much direct time with them. Our trip took us first to Goseokjeong and the Hantangang. Our entire trip took place in Cheorwon country in the Gangwon province, and these two sites just happened to be the furthest south. The weather was still pretty lousy, with overcast skies and the threat of rain looming. The views however, were gorgeous, as I took more videos and pics than were necessary. Goseokjeong is the name of the large rock pillar in the middle of Hantangang River. The tour gave us an hour to poke around and I spent the vast majority just chilling down by the river, as the authentic vehicles from the Korean war and the small museum about the war didn't interest me too much, especially since the text was in Korean only. I even took a video of just the little waterfall down in the river valley, that's how into the scenery I was.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAJlZrBIEoI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6ZiYn4MKyY

Next, our group moved to the 2nd Underground Tunnel. This is one of several tunnels the North Koreans built to sneak into South Korea. This one was surprisingly not found until 1975, many years after the war finished. I didn't get the chance to take any pics inside the tunnel, as we were forbidden to shoot, but that didn't stop Anna and Amy, so you'll have to look through their pics, which I linked to on my facebook page. Nothing too special about the tunnel. It was dark, damp, wet, and not terribly inviting. To make things less pleasant for me, it was constructed by and for 1950s Koreans, meaning I hit my head on the ceiling...alot. Thankfully, this problem had been thought of beforehand, as all visitors were required to wear hard helmets. Good thing, otherwise I would have suffered several serious concussions. In some spots the ceiling was about the same height as my chin, maybe a little lower, meaning it required some serious crouching to navigate. What made me angry was that, upon exiting, I was following behind a middle aged Korean woman...who didn't have to even duck once. Fuck. And the whole walk takes about 30 minutes round trip. My back hurt after it was over. Clearly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jMudgDSfco

Next, we moved on to the best view of the DMZ possible. Seeing as how nobody is allowed into the 4 km stretch of land for fear of being shot, it is the most protected wildlife preserve in the entire world. I knew this fact coming in, but I had no idea it would be so peaceful and beautiful. Just hills, ponds, streams, prairies and fields for miles. It really would wonderful to stay there for a while just basking in the quiet, until you got so incredibly bored with having absolutely nothing around. It was really hard to reconcile the blood spilled and the violent acts committed there with the sights I saw before me. I don't know what I expected the DMZ to look like, but it was definitely supposed to be a place that just screamed death at every turn. I'm glad it didn't though. Even the troops we saw, positioned along the fence, didn't have the somber mood expected of such a place. Wherever we went they were smiling and waving to us, taking pictures with us, and even exchanging heart signs with us (where you make a heart shape with your hands). Course, Anna does have the innate ability to melt even the coldest of Korean male hearts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTJ7S5_MU7w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SEW8U4DrC8

From here, we moved on to the Labor Building. Just the remains of a building that was used by the North Koreans to commit horrible atrocities against the South and its sympathizers. Nothing too notable about a old husk of a building, but it was interesting to be on the outside looking in on such matters of history. The signs and information was intriguing as they were obviously sensationalized and demonized the North to quite an extent, even though there were certainly buildings and places where the South did similar cruel acts, but there was no mention of such acts. It was a war, shit like that happens all over.

With all the sightseeing for the day behind us, we finally settled into our accommodations. We were stationed at a small town just 5 or 6 km from the DMZ. Our small group of 4 was put up in a villager's home for the night. Quite an experience being housed in a very typical Korean country home. We were by no means slumming it and going without electricity and running water or something, but it is certainly different than the city apartments that we all live in. There was no sink in the bathroom, but otherwise it was modern business as usual. I found it funny that the family had a fancy flat screen TV that cost more than everything else they owned combined, but people everywhere make strange financial decisions. Once our bags were settled, we headed back to the town hall that was our group's dinner/meeting headquarters. We noticed that there were several tandem bicycles to use, so naturally we went for a spin through town. The town was just as quaint and quiet and wonderful as we had originally assumed. It's one of those towns, like the ones in the Southwest or something, where you can't see anything cept nature and empty land (in this case, rice paddies) in all directions, so much so that you can't imagine that there is anything else out there. Just this town and that's it. Now, as you can see from the pic on facebook, the bikes were a little small, so peddling was an adventure, but it was worth it for the ruckus we caused in town. Imagine some tiny town in the middle of nowhere, with kids on bikes and such playing in the middle of street, when 7 tandem bikes of foreigners start rolling through town. Clearly, we caused a fuss, with children running after us down the street and kids on bikes joining the procession. We even had some kids that tried to attack us with play swords and one boy who "shot" at us with his play gun. Should probably keep an eye on that one, as he clearly doesn't understand that we're liberators and I'd assume he also hates freedom.

Dinner followed shortly after the bike trip, which was then followed by a camp fire. The Koreans in this area know how to do fires, as they built a pyramid several feet tall, made of tree branches for kindling and broken down wood boards for the skeleton of the pyramid. Then, in true badass fashion, they doused the wood with not lighter fluid, but straight gasoline. Needless to say, the fire was quite hot and was several feet tall at first. Smores and alcohol followed, as is standard protocol. After everyone was good and liquored up, the tour guides led to a memorial monument for a "bravery game". All it was was the leaders telling a ghost story about all the dead souls that haunt the hill, as it was a very bloody battle during the war, then having us climb the hill one by one, while other tour guides jumped out and tried to scare us. Mehhh, at least we got to wander around and enjoy the gorgeous evening. Back to camp and straight away to bed, while the coasties continued drinking and taking their clothes off. Christ.

Sunday morning saw us heading back up to Baekmagoji hill, where we had the bravery game the night before. This time, we were given a synopsis of the fighting that took place there by a Korean soldier with quite good English. Again, it was hard to reconcile the idea that 20,000 or so troops lost their lives on this hill over the course of 10 days (the hill changed hands 24 times during that span), with the calm and peaceful feeling you couldn't help getting while you stand there. They set up a fun practice mine searching game for us. Too bad the radios they gave us were really bad at picking up the mine. Whatever, just an excuse to wander around a park in the sun and listen to Korean radio.

Now we move on to the real treats of the trip. From the mine searching, we moved to a rice paddie literally a fart away from the DMZ. Rice paddie, then single lane road, then hill and barbed wire of DMZ embankment. Nuts. We then dropped our shoes for some rice planting. Yes, playing in the mud for the win. There weren't enough waders, so most of us hopped in barefoot. Which turned out to be the better choice as the waders got stuck really easily in the mud, while bare feet did not. Not much to rice planting. Take your chunk of rice seedlings, which look like pieces of sod, tear off a few blades with the attached roots, then plunk those into the ground far enough to hold the plant upright and so that the majority of the blades are still sticking above the ground. Since we were already in the paddie and pretty dirty, the tour leaders decided to have us try our hand at catching mudfish. These slimy little buggers just got tossed into the paddie and we preceded to hunt them down and drag them back out. They were a bitch to grab as their skin was slick like an eel and the easily flopped out any time I tried to grab them. Most people (myself included) only managed to successfully hold on to one when they were so tired that they just laid down in your hand, no fighting or anything.

Around this point, the girls made the acquaintance of a group of 3 young children who were the kids of some of the local supervisors, I do believe. These three latched onto the girls pretty hard and wouldn't let them out of sight once we got back to our base camp. From tandem biking around town to lunch to badminton, these little buggers were mini shadows. I joined in for badminton match, as the youngest child, a boy, was obviously overwhelmed by all the estrogen around, due to his two older sisters and their 2 new female foreigner companions. The challenge was thrown up for a badminton match between the girls and the boys. Sadly, there was only 3 rackets, meaning I was to give it a go barehanded. Turns out, my hands are indeed big enough to play badminton with. Yikes. As it turned out, my teammate was just a younger me, as he erupted every time we lost a point, whether it be chucking the racket at the net or cracking it on the ground or barking at me in a mix of Korean and English. I returned the favor by barking at him whenever he sent the birdie way left and out of bounds. We barked at each other every time the birdie dropped between us, as it was obviously the other ones fault. Now, some might say that is rather petty and sad to be criticizing a 4 or 5 year old on his badminton skills, but mediocrity cannot be accepted at any age. It's a shame no video was taken during some of our tirades, as the site of a 4 year old stomping around the court with a 22 year old foreigner matching him step for step would surely have made for an amusing clip. Luckily, Amy did get a shot of me mid strike on the birdie, with the little boy looking on with the requisite wonder and amazement at my skills. I dare say its EPIC.

With the blood pumping after the badminton, it was time to take on the bungee jumping. We all loaded into the bus, said our goodbyes (some goodbyes took longer than others, as the kids stood outside Anna's window and waved goodbye for at least 10 minutes...then called her later in the day), and headed off to our date with destiny. We arrived on the premises and after a casual stroll along the river that runs under the bridge, it was time to jump. Jamie and I went in the first wave, so we paid our money then headed up to the top of the structure. We were fitted for our ankle straps and then we waited....and waited...and waited. There was a group of 6 or so Koreans going before us, so we had to wait and watch each one jump, get lowered into the boat in the river below, then reel in the cord and repeat. Finally it was our groups turn and out of the 8 or so of us, I was last. Jamie went before me and made for a humorous jump as it appeared he was trying to run to safety, ala every Looney Tunes character once they run off a cliff. Finally, it was my turn to step up. Before I stepped up to the ledge, I had been feeling just fine. That was probably helped by the fact that I had to take off my glasses and couldn't really see how far down it was, although the jump wasn't really that high, only 150 feet or so. When I got to the ledge and looked down, my mind kinda shut down. I probably should have been scared but I frankly couldn't process what I was seeing. Was that really the river, all those feet below my own feet? Then it was time to jump and again, I couldn't really process anything on the way down. Was the river really coming up to meet me that fast? Isn't it gonna hurt when I hit the water? Is there really a cord attached to my legs? My mind finally snapped back as soon as the bungee jumped into action, tossing me all about. Eventually, the bouncing stopped and I was lowered into the boat below, but not before the cord started untangling and thus spinning me around and around until finally I was placed in the boat. Total adventure: 2 minutes max. But totally worth it. Sadly, there isn't any video of jump, as I entrusted my camera to someone in the group who didn't get the shot. There is a 7 second clip of me right before I jump, then a 5 second clip while I'm bouncing, but none where you see the actual jump. There is a still mid bounce that proves I did it, which is all I need. Enjoy the following videos for everyone else. Supposedly, some girl took video of almost everyone, but she hasn't posted them yet, but if the video does exist I shall link you to it in the future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czN-fbMMK9I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhM5JGVHlbk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmRVqysMgNk

Otherwise, its been a crazy weekend for Korean news. Obviously, North Korea went through with another nuclear test, that everyone knows. What everyone may not know is that the former president, who left office only a year or so ago, committed suicide by jumping off a cliff near his home. He had been under suspicion of taking bribes of upwards of 6 million dollars. Also, a foreign English teacher was confirmed as having contracted swine flu, so the 50 or so teachers that she went to workshops with last week have all been quarantined. The situation is getting a bit out of hand, as many Koreans in Seoul are starting to worry about their foreigner and all foreigners in general being infected. Looks like I picked a really bad time to come down with a sore throat and stuffy nose. One of the guys in quarantine has been writing a blog that is really entertaining and amusing.

http://underquarantine.tumblr.com/

And if you are bored, and wish to acquire some pseudo-news about Korea, then you can hop on over to the blog set up for our entire little group so we can ramble and rant about shit to entertain ourselves and each other. Enjoy.

http://waygookinconsulate.tumblr.com/page/1

Advice concerning contracts

I know its only been, what, 2 days since I last posted, but I'm pretty bored and I had a pretty eventual day yesterday, so I feel like retelling it. Prepare yourselves for a tale of Odyssey-esque proportions, the details of which shall not cease to amaze children the world over for countless generations. Without further ado, I give you...my Tuesday (bum bum bum).....

The day began with my "parents" class, and by parents I mean grandparents, and by grandparents, I mean grandparent, singular. She's a nice enough lady, but an absolute beginner at English, which is a welcome challenge for me. And after several weeks of working with her, her English counting is a million times better than most of my students. Take that Korean education system! Working solely in English does work better. Someday Korea will get that. Not too soon I hope, as I'll be out of a job. Anyways, she began class by offering me a Coke and some prepackaged sandwiches from the convenience store. I refused, as I had just eaten breakfast and really wasn't hungry. Obviously, to be polite, I should have just taken the sandwich and drink without a fuss, but since when have I ever given a damn about being polite or nice. Exactly. Never. Plus, I really don't like to take gifts from students. Class continued as normal until the co-teacher wandered in to check on our progress and then we got back to the sandwich issue. The co-teacher asked why I hadn't taken the food and I told her I wasn't hungry. She then explained that the student's daughter, the mother of my student, runs a convenience store and had "made" them herself. Now I was obviously a little skeptical as to the "making" of a 20 oz Coke and prepackaged sandwiches (unless my understanding of convenience stores is way, way off), but then I realized that my area of Korea is one of the poorer areas around and this gift was probably a major contribution, so I relented and took the gifts. The co-teacher explained the situation to the student, probably explaining that foreigners prefer to steal and covet without asking, rather than simply being given the same objects. Which is probably true. Had that Coke and sandwich been for her, I would have annexed that shit so fast, she wouldn't have even had time to enact tariffs or trade restrictions.

Lunch found me experiencing a first for Korea: the delicacy that is dog meat. All the male teachers went out for lunch at a local restaurant and the menu item of choice was dog soup. The final verdict: it was exactly as advertised. It was stringy, tough, bland and generally not worth the time of day. Some animals are meant for eating, so aren't. No knock against dogs, they just make better pets. Maybe the dogs that I ate weren't beaten with a stick enough to tenderize the meat properly. I'll have to ask for extra beatings next time.

The meat of the afternoon was the volleyball game. Yes, I did say volleyball game. But Eric, you ask, aren't you a teacher? Why aren't you teaching? Hahahahah. You clearly have never "taught" in Korea. Today's diversion was in the form of school vs. school volleyball. I'm told there is a massive Yangpyeong country wide volleyball tourney between the teachers in June, so I'm assuming yesterday was a tune-up game. I had no idea about yesterday's game until that morning when they asked if I had clothes for exercising. Luckily I did, as I have to bring my capoeira stuff to school. I guess the teachers really take this tourney seriously, which is too bad since I don't give a damn about volleyball. But I do give a damn about winning, thus my interest, at least now. Once everyone was dressed, the game could begin. And seeing this is Korea, everyone had to be decked out for the game. Had you been back home in the US, the teachers would have probably thrown on a t-shirt and some gym/basketball shorts and sneakers. Done. But here they were rocking tennis polos and windpants, some of which I guarantee are simply volleyball attire, purchased solely for this purpose. And then there were the matching track suits. Yes, yes and more yes. After we had introductions between our school and the town's elementary school (our foe) and words of inspiration from each school's principal (of course there was gonna be a speech...that's a given), we were ready to play. But wait, we still have to warm up and get in some touches before the match. Yep, this shit is officially serious. Game on. 9 versus 9. No sooner had the game begun then my suspicions were confirmed: nearly everybody is pretty god damn awful at volleyball. The women as expected, ran away screaming whenever a ball came near (I feel like there is a sexual innuendo in there somewhere ...have at it) and were routinely unable to muster up enough strength to even get the ball over the net on the serve. Yikes. The men were mostly not much different, a little more active sure, but they couldn't hit a ball for shit and had little to no coordination. But given how bad the elementary school was, I don't feel as bad about my team. We actually have 2 female teachers who used to play volleyball, meaning that they were still terrible, but they weren't afraid of the ball and they could serve, which is all I can realistically ask for. After I hit the ball once or twice, the school was convinced I was the second coming of _______ (insert famous volleyball player...since I don't really know any). I had told the school that I wasn't very good, which is true because I'm not, just tall and fairly coordinated. That's good enough for god status here though, I guess. The gym teacher, being a man that takes everything much too seriously, soon directed me where to stand when the other team serves. Move back from the net Eric. Keep going. A little more. A little more. A little more. That's good. Meaning I'm now standing at basically dead center on the court, with about a quarter of the court to cover. Remember, we are playing with 9 players. The gym teacher had decided to use the time tested strategy of having the people that suck do nothing and the people that can do stuff, do everything. So everyone besides the vice-principal, gym teacher and myself are to stand as far back as possible, literally on the out-of-bounds line, and are to not interfere with us or hit the ball unless absolutely necessary. We even were prepped enough to set up the routine of having the vice principal bumping or setting to the gym teacher, who sets it for me, who obviously is supposed to spike it home with authority. Ohhh boy. I was content to just play my position at first, but after shit got going, I remembered how much I loving winning against someone/anyone in something/anything. It's been too long since I've played competitive anything. To make matters even more enjoyable for me, they had me playing against the elementary school's foreigner, whom I know pretty well. I feel bad for Deon now, as I stuffed him several times and generally made him look bad. Good thing he's got his contract all squared away, otherwise they may not have wanted to renew. Next time his school needs a foreigner, they'll have to be more discerning in regards to height and volleyball skill. I'm only half joking on this shit. In allusion to the title, I have learned two things in this country regarding being asked to renew at one's school for more years: 1) Be white, young and pretty (at least by their definition). I haven't seen this one myself, but I hear that schools like to have beautiful Aryans to show off to the parents or random officials to prove how good their English education is. 2) Be good (enough) at whatever random competitions/tournaments that your school asks (and by ask, I mean forces) you to compete in. I'm pretty sure that even if my students didn't like me and the school thought I was a lousy teacher, I would have still been asked to renew, just on the back of yesterday's volleyball showing. I can't even imagine the kickbacks if we bring home the hardware come June. I'm glad somebody in this crazy world finally has their priorities straight.

The Silence of Nothingness

Pretty fucking deep title, don't you think? I thought so too. I think I'm gonna use that for the title of my next book of poetry. You wanna hear some of my poetry? Do ya?....Sorry, got off track there. Another week is upon is us and I sit down at the PC to shart out the past week of my life for you folks. I'm writing this installment from school, as I really need something to pass the time, seeing as how my students are gone all week. Yup, the little buggers are off at the English Village all week. Unlucky bastards. Now I was hoping that my school would let me just stay home all week so I could jet off to some country for shits and giggles, but clearly that isn't the case. I must have been hallucinating from sleep deprivation or something, if I thought that was gonna happen. Instead I sit here at school and teach the parents after school, provided they show up, which is never guaranteed. But all things considered the week of desk warming should be quite useful, as I'll have the time to hopefully get my vacation days and my future job stuff ironed out.

As for the last week, nothing really happened, so lets just skip to the weekend. Yet again, mother nature intervened to keep me from the basketball courts. That makes 3 weekends out of 4 that have been rainy and generally shitty. The weekend that was nice? The one we spent inside watching the vampire movie. Clearly, if a higher power does exist, then he is an enormous prick. But you already knew that. The shitty weather also rained out any chance of seeing a baseball or soccer game. Thankfully, we were able to find amusement indoors. With my sanity at stake (see later paragraph), I headed to Seoul both Saturday and Sunday, despite the weather. Jamie and I, once in Seoul, decided to head to Insadong to while away the rainy afternoon with drinks and intellectual discussion of such topics as three-ways and three-ways with lesbians. Now I was naturally curious as to the possibility of the latter, seeing the inherent impossibility of such an act, but I guess everyone gets curious. After which, they probably go running back to women, but that's another story. With our intellectual discourses finished, we headed to the Sejong Concert Hall to watch a concert of various classical music pieces (one from Shostakovich, Dvorak, Beethoven, and Arensky, for those who are curious). Now the tickets ran for just under 10 dollars, but we still found ourselves woefully under dressed compared with the Koreans, but that is the standard operating procedure for foreigners here. Remember this is the place that had people rocking suits and high heels at the bloody ski slopes. I could talk about the performance and the pieces, but seeing as how I'm classical music challenged, I should just reserve my comments to saying that the concert was very good overall, especially given the price. Sunday wasn't anything crazy either, as I wandered around one of the nicest areas of Seoul and admired just how nice it was. You wanna know how I knew it was a rich/nice area? They actually had trees....anywhere. As much as I'd like to live in that area if I get a Seoul job, I have nightmares about just how self absorbed and narcissistic those rich kids would be. Shudder. I can't even get poor ass farm kids to do what I tell them, what chance do I have with Samsung's CEO's kids? Answer: no chance.

Now, normally I'm not so insistent on heading to Seoul over the weekend, but this past weekend was a special circumstance. In the hurry and scurry of leaving school Friday for the teacher's dinner, I forgot the power cords for my PC. And since my laptop is, in a word (or two)...not good, I had all of 2 hours (if I'm lucky with the PC's battery) for the weekend. I also had to try and conserve as much as possible for the chat with the parents on Sunday, so that left me with even less. Now, the loss of the Internet can be survived, but my PC's most crucial function is that of stereo. We now come back to the post's title. I have no way to access or listen to music outside of the PC, meaning that my choices are utter silence or Korean music on the TV. I chose silence. Eric, settle down, put down the gun, you can get through this. It's just one weekend. Seriously though, the absence of sound and music is enough to drive me crazy almost instantaneously. With the weather as lousy as it was, I was unable to even open the window to let in the litany of lovely Korean sounds (trains, yelling, honking car horns, explosions) from outside my apartment. The silence was complete. Couple that with loss of the Internet and the subsequent inability to access por.....ahhh, uhhhh....portable etiquette lesssons, yeah that's it. Portable etiquette lessons. With 18 or so hours of free time to now fill up, I got bored pretty quickly. Although the whole thing may have been a blessing in disguise, as it finally convinced me to get off my ass and get a guitar to help occupy my time. And since I still don't know if I will ever get that berimbau, I gotta do something in the meantime involving music. Good thing my neighbors are Korean and thus have very strong tolerance, perhaps even appreciation, for awful music, otherwise the bleating and mewling coming from my room would be a problem.

And for a small taste of what we here in Korea have to deal with, my link of the week. This week's is an "article" from a "real newspaper" The Korea Times. This is our source of supposedly legitimate English language news about Korea. Don't even get me started on the joke editorials written by foreigners that sneak past the editors. Seriously, you think an editorial written by someone with the email address of dokdoisours@gmail.com is real? C'mon.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/05/123_45051.html

The Master Mistah

Like clockwork, here I am, Monday evening, to dispense the events (or lack thereof) of my past week. Not too much of note this week, more of a placeholder between events. Which is fine, as I'm content to play the waiting game for now. Next week all the students will be gone for the entire week to the English village and I will simply be teaching the parents for 2 hours a day, so I'm looking forward to stress less teaching for a week. Jethro and I are possibly attending an orchestra concert or two this week, so I'm trying to be as patient as possible in waiting for that to possibly come to fruition. I'm waiting for God to throw us a god damn bone as the weather forecast looks like rain again (that makes 3 Saturdays out of 4) for this weekend. I'm, you guessed it, waiting for another chance to watch FC Seoul and for a chance to hit the basketball court, but that is all dependent on the weather. It's been way too long since I played a organized and competitive sport of some sort and I'm starting to forget how wonderful it is to utterly and completely kick someone's ass in something/anything. I'm even waiting when it comes to job searching. My paperwork is all submitted to the recruiter, now I'm just waiting for my references to send in the letters of reference and then for SMOE to contact me about an interview. As for the planning for next year (September plans, registering for university courses)? Obviously, it is waiting for confirmation of a job.

Enough waiting, lets get to the actual events and adventures of the weekend. Friday looked to be interesting, as the school was heading to Lotte World and so was I. 'Cept I wasn't. I got up and readied myself for school at the same time as usual, as I had been given no notification about the bus leaving early, so naturally assumed that the bus would be leaving sometime after I normally arrive. No problem. So was I surprised when I arrived at school and it was empty, save 4 teachers. "Ohhh Eric, the students left at 8:20, 40 minutes ago." The strange thing was that the previous declaration wasn't an oops, we forgot to tell you about the bus, you missed it, sorry, but rather that I was supposed to be staying at school. I love when the school eliminates that nasty freedom to choose and all the headaches involved by just deciding everything for me. They're really thoughtful like that. The day was pretty decent regardless, as I just sat around, read, wandered around the school admiring the pretty scenery, then went home early. Not a bad day, when you look at it.

School day over, it was on to the rendezvous in Uijeongbu. Since Uijeongbu is obviously not Seoul, the trip was a bit round about. 50 minute train ride to Seoul with Carrie and Amy, then on the subway for the 1 hour ride north to Uijeongbu. Once in Uijeongbu, we quickly met with the rest of the party and commenced to drinking. Uijeongbu itself isn't much to write home about. It's quite big, around half a million, but it looks exactly the same as Seoul and has exactly the same stuff as every other big city, so mehh. We country folk were jealous as Jamie, who lives in Uijeongbu, is part of GEPIK, like us, but he managed to land in a real city as opposed to a "village" or "shantytown",etc. Our big party managed to draw attention to itself, as the waitress at the first bar threatened to withhold our booze if we didn't quiet down. Even more ridiculous than being asked to take the volume down a notch in a BAR, was that we were in a German themed bar. These people really have no idea the manner of revelry and energy present in bars in countries where people really know how to drink. The Koreans were like mice, uttering nary a word and I assume were there simply to drink in the spectacle of foreigners. Course, they were probably expecting some real fireworks, as Uijeongbu is an army base, and where there's a base, there are GIs making a bloody mess and ruining the good name of foreigners everywhere. God bless the troops. The troops served to entertain us at the next bar, as several off-duty GIs, donning the dandy douche wear of visors and polos, maybe with popped collars to top it off (seriously, there must be a higher power, as I always have the good fortune to find stupid and drunk SOBs wherever I go), saddled over to our table and started chatting us up. What followed was a entertaining mix of nonsensical conversation, random bro hugging and love between the two GI buddies and attempted grinding up on the girls of our party on the floor. Following protocol, I sat in the corner at our table, drinking myself full on the stupidity of it all and judging them. Man, I love judging people.

After the bar, the party headed back to Jamie's apartment where we were supposed to get some sleep. Not without drama first. Firstly, Jamie, being the lazy sack of British garbage that he is, had been neglecting the burned out light bulb in the bathroom for 3 months, count 'em, 3 months, so everyone else had to urinate in the dark. Given the amount of alcohol consumed, there were lots of toilet visits. Plus, some of the group swore that the floor was wet. Ewwwwwww. Then there was the issue of the smell. Now, having never been in Jamie's place before, I can't for certain say where the smell was new or if had always been there, but it was bad enough for people to be hanging out of the window. I naturally accepted the blame for the smell, given my track record, in an attempt to save us a long and drawn out blame session about whose fault it is. Given my ripe shoes and constantly rotting colon, chances were good that part of the smell was me. Now to complete the trifecta of grossness is Jamie's chest hair. Now the man has a propensity for unzipping his shirt and exposing his hairy chest. I naturally complained about the awful sight to maybe make him stop. What did I get instead? A face full of Jamie's chest. I'm still coughing up hairballs.

The horrors of the night before past us, the guys went about enjoying their Saturday, sans females. The ladies all headed home early the next morning to rest up at their respective homes, leaving the men free to discuss all the secret things that men talk about when not in the presence of women. And if you ladies out there are curious as to the secrets of the world of men, then listen well. When the ladies are away, men talk about......drum roll....sex. What? What did you really expect? Lots of talk about graphic sex, with a pinch of conversation about body fluids. Now the ladies in our group are a fine bunch, but I had forgotten how graphic and downright fun conversations can be when the womenfolk aren't around. These estrogen lacking environs are were Jamie truly shines. He is indeed the Master Mistah, as the title proposes. Now originally I had no fucking clue what a "Mistah" was, probably some British drivel or what not. But after talking with him about it, it appears to have similar connotations to the term "Pimp", given with love and respect to smooth mother fuckers. There are many treasures and delights in this world, but one of the highest has to be listening to a drunk or sober (doesn't really make a difference) British man from the self-described "hole" of the UK talk about how he wants to drink some girls bath water and how he wants to kiss her...and stuff. Yes, he wants to drink the girl's bath water....I'm pretty sure I soiled myself from laughter the first time I heard that one. The Mistah took it up a notch this weekend, as he, still convinced that his chest hair was the aphrodisiac of aphrodisiacs, attempted to seduce the convenience store clerk...sort of. He was so convinced that he could get the store clerk to touch his chest hair if he lowered his shirt line down to Italian level (you know, way past the nipples), that he bet Chris and I 1000 won each (only 1 dollar). When we entered the store, he began strutting and preening to impress the clerk, who happened to be female. When he saw that wasn't working, he started telling the clerk to "Touch it". I had to leave the premises as I simply couldn't keep from laughing. The best part: after all of this absurdity, Jamie walked out with the woman's business card, as she told Chris in Korean that her daughter is in college and wants to find an English speaking partner. Hahahah.

Eventually, we had to leave the tropical paradise that is Uijeongbu and Chris and I headed to Seoul to catch a movie. Not just any movie, but the new movie from the director of "Oldboy", which will be presented to the world at large in several weeks at the Cannes Film Festival. I feel so cool having hoped on the bandwagon way before those tools at Cannes. To add to my excitement over the movie was that it's a vampire movie. 2 hours of graphic blood letting, death, and graphic sex scenes? Yes please. We were disappointed to find that the movie wasn't being screened with English subtitles (fucking Korea Times lied to us!!), but is it really hard to understand a guy who becomes a vampire and then wants to kill people and have sex with people, sometimes both? Plus, I enjoy the chance to see where my Korean is at. The final verdict: movie good, my Korean still pretty bad. I understood enough to never be confused with what the hell was going on, but beyond that I didn't catch a lot. Damnit. The movie wasn't as good as Oldboy, but everybody back in the States should still check out 박쥐 or "Thirst" when it comes to the States. It also features the lead actor from "The Host" as the priest who becomes a vampire and begins a trail of blood throughout the city. Also, if you are really into finger or foot fetishes, you'd be well satisfied by this flick. I guess a side effect of being a member of the undead is a lust for sucking on fingers and toes as well as blood. Who knew?

"Pee all that you can Pee"

Happy Children's Day everyone! That's right, thanks to Korea's need to have even more chances to shower children with presents (as Christmas and their birthdays weren't enough), I and all of Korea has off tomorrow. I'm not 100 percent on this one, but I'm assuming that the holiday was just made up as an excuse to shower kids with useless shit. Not that I'm complaining. I'll take any national holiday I can get. The dissapointing fact was that it falls on a Tuesday. Saturday was a major holiday, known as Buddha's birthday. I was a little pissed that I forgot to get him something, but he said it was cool since he's not into that whole worldly possession thing. I lucked out there. Anyways, many foreign teachers were lucky enough to have their schools cancel school for Monday as well, giving them a nice 4 day weekend to go to Jeju, Busan, or some nearby country. Can you take a guess as to whether or not Eric was one of those lucky few (and by few, I mean most of the teachers actually)? Good guess, he wasn't. Days off are always nice, I just would have preferred to get back to Busan or something. Ohh well.

Our joke day of school was at least interesting. The day was greatly shortened, perhaps to manke the day that less meaningful and to make me that much more frustrated at having to come to school. If you are gonna start school 30 minutes earlier, cut five minutes off each class, and cut one entire class just to be done by 12:30, why even bother having school in the first place??? Seriously, in both of my English classes we spent the entire hour announcing the scores from the midterms then adjusting seats to reflect the scores (the teacher has the top students sitting next to the lowest students). That's it. Thankfully the day was amusing enough to make me not care so much about the day. Now I'm sure you're thinking right now, "Eric, what's the title mean? Your titles are always so funny and insightful and relevant to what you are talking about. God, I wish I could write titles that were half as good as yours. Plus you are so damn handsome." Thank you, thank you, you are too kind. But to answer your question, the title appeared in gym class. As I walked in, I noticed one of the boy's was wearing a pink t-shirt that read "Pee all that you can Pee". Needless to say, I laughed a fair bit. Perhaps I even laughed out loud or even was rolling on the floor laughing. Maybe. The best part was when the high level kids got the joke and then translated it for all the kids. The boy seemed to be even more proud of it once he found out what it means. Now the shirt got me thinking, have I really been living up to that motto? I'd like to think I have. I've been to my fair share of places and I've pissed in nearly all of them. I done my business all over the world from standard, recognized restrooms to the less common (take that Madison ROTC building! what you gonna do now? I'm not even in the country!) to the downright filthy (like Round's....OMG, did he just say what I think he said....uggg, that is so rancid...what the fuck, man?)

The day continued to amuse me when I met the brand new student in 3rd grade. Seemed like a nice girl. Decent amount of English, which is always a plus. So imagine my surprise when, before class started, I was talking to her and she told me I was handsome (whatever, I'm used to it by now) and followed that one up with a real humdinger. Boy was I surprised when she suddenly spit out something like "Can we have dinner together?". Jaw, meet the floor. Even more shocking to me was that she was confused why I would say no. Naturally, I asked her if she was going to be paying for our meal, but she said that her parents don't give her any allowance. Dealbreaker. I felt all the more emasculated (don't worry, it happens alot), as this 15 or so year old had no problems asking someone out in a foreign language, whereas I can't even summon up the minerals to ask out a girl in my own language.

School ended and all the teachers gathered behind the school for an old fashioned picnic. They even broke out the grill. Sadly, they are not worthy of the title of Grillmaster, that is to say they don't stand around someone else cooking the food and talk about how they could do it so much better, but then they fuck it up once they are actually cooking the food for themselves (sound familiar Collin?). Sitting there, listening to the teachers talk about my white skin or admire/play with my arm hair, I longed for a brat and some real beer. Alas I had to settle for imperfect beef and some crazy ginseng liquor. I kid you not, they had a bottle with massive ginseng root in it and it was an alcohol. I didn't touch the ginseng stuff, as the ginseng drinks I've had are akin in taste to umbilical cord fluid, I presume. As for the arm hair thing, the Social Studies teacher seriously asked me if I get mosquitos stuck in my arm hair and if when I squish them they get caught in my hair. Well, what he actually said included the Korean for mosquito, which I somehow know, and lots and lots of furious arm gestures and noises. Good thing I'm a champ at pantomime.

The weekend wasn't much to write home about, yet I'm writing home about it anyways. Yet again, the weather literally rained on our parade, dumping on us for most of the day. So much for the FC Seoul game and pick up basketball at one of the universitys. Now I know I'm rusty, but I could handle an 0-30 shooting night if I could walk away with near 300 blocks, which I naturally would, given I'm playing against little people. Maybe just to challenge myself I would only try to block using my elbows, just take away the rest of my forearm. Though I am sad I didn't get to see any Asian ballas. That would have been hilarious. Maybe even funnier than white, wannabe ballas. With the soccer game out of the question, we headed to the theater to catch the opening showing of the new Wolverine movie. I didn't actually get to see it, as the theater fucked up with our tickets, so Jethro and I wandered the mall for the 2 hours. After doing some serious shopping and walking away with a to die for dress that really shows off my cleavage and some gorgeous fuck me pumps, we were on our way. Yeah, right. Anyways, on the way out the group met this cute little Korean kid about 4 or 5, who spoke really good English, as he had lived in the Philippines. He burned us pretty good when he asked one of the group members why they don't know Korean. When she responded that Korean is hard, the boy just skoffed at her. Ouch. He also said he didn't understand why people in the Philippines and foreigners here don't speak Korean. He apparantly found the fact that Filippinos speak English instead of Korean to be very frustrating. I'll make sure to suggest it to them when I visit in August. The benefits of speaking Korean are countless for people living outside of Korea. There's....ummmm...and then there's that one where....no wait, that doesn't count....ummm....hold on, I'll think of one...

Lastly, I had another interview of sorts with another recruiter and this one went better. No screwups by me, but the lady was genuinely concerned about whether I could start the SMOE job on time. The SMOE contracts generally start August 26th and my GEPIK contract doesn't end till August 28th. Ohhh my god, two whole days. Cuz I'm so far away and it would take me forever to get there, like all of 50 minutes. But as one comes to expect from dealing with Koreans, that which seems to be meaningless/uncomplicated/simple is never such. Now I'm genuinely concerned whether I will be able to come home between contracts. I'm also genuinely concerned whether I will be able to get a job at all. Gaaaaaaaa. Korea.