We’ve got some catching up to do

And I ain’t kidding. If my math is correct (and it rarely is), I’ve got 7 weekends of adventures to write about. Yikes. What the hell have I been doing for the last 2 months?....I have no idea. No volleyball anymore, so no more excuses. As for the broken PC, well that is a legitimate excuse. I took it to the shop yesterday and from what I gathered (given the explanation was solely in Korean), something is wonky with the motherboard but because my computer is from America they don’t have the particular model of motherboard in stock. What this means is that I have to wait a month to have it functioning again, they say. I might have caught something about it being ready in a week if they can get the part from China, but maybe not. The whole “it will take a month, probably” was very clear. No failure of translation there. While the whole encounter makes one feel pretty good about his Korean skills, the same giddiness cannot be shared for the fate of the pc. I kinda need that thing for anything outside of school. More than the internet and its various goodies, the void formerly filled by music has been the worst. This country can make me crazy enough, but without music of any kind in my apartment, you are just asking for a psychotic break.

I believe our first stop on the journey is the last weekend in April, but I can’t really be sure. Sure feels like a lot more than 7 weekends ago. During that week I had tried to set up something with the group, having not seen many of them for several weeks, but unsurprisingly, nobody responded. I mean, its just me. As desperation started to set in Saturday morning, I pulled out my last hope: straight up whining. Yup, I sunk to sending out a particularly emo and whiny text about how bored I am and how I have nothing to do. And 2 suckers….er…friends responded! First was an Indian dinner with Jenna. Sure the food was nothing special, but never underestimate just how wonderful average Indian food can taste to someone who has been eating Korean food all week. And if you are curious, I rank Korean food as my least favorite ethnic food ever (at least of the ones I’ve eaten). Indian, Mexican, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai all blow it out of the water.

With dinner over, it was over to the capoeira demo at a bar in the foreigner district. Which easily qualifies as the weirdest demo I’ve ever done. The premise for performing in a bar was that a friend of the group was putting together a “Stop the Violence in Africa” fundraiser and was getting different performers to come in and ply their trade. We were followed by house dancers and a group of belly dancers, so it was all over the place. And it was interesting, to put it mildly. Originally I was worried about the floor being sticky or slippery, due to it being a bar floor and the multitudes of substances that get spilled on those things, but that turned out to be fine. Our real obstacles were the low ceiling and the mini stage. The ceiling was a threat for any manner of high flying stuff, as I could nearly reach it from a standing position, but the stage, yikes. Sure it was only a few inches tall at best, but it spread around about half of our performing area, meaning that if you aren’t careful when you are moving about, you can easily trip on/over it. And one guy actually did. Cartwheeled out, landed, stepped back, tripped over the edge of the stage and just about took his head off on a chair and table. Otherwise, the performance went smoothly. Well, for everybody else. I still looked like the awkward uncoordinated bastard I am, most notably during the closing. The had planned that the group was all to break up into little 1vs1 games and then when the music stopped everybody would freeze in some sort of cool floreio pose or something (handstand, headstand, etc). Which is pretty cool when you have even numbers. We had an odd number. Guess who got to ginga by himself? Yup. Question: How does one not look like a doofus when everybody around you is playing games and you are the playing with yourself? Answer: Sorry, you are fucked. Unless you decided to actually start “playing with yourself”, then you’d just be a disgusting ingrate, rather than a doofus.

On Sunday, the second sucker came into town to play some soccer. Course, the field was being occupied by some teams scrimmaging. Jamie and I stuck around for a bit, talked trash about how we could play with these chumps (we really could have), kicked the ball around for a bit, then headed for lunch. Not much besides talk of “drinking a woman’s bathwater” and other equally disturbing topics. Which frankly I can never get enough of.

The following weekend (the first for May, methinks) was Hyemi’s birthday. Birthdays are kind of a big thing, so I actually dressed up for it. Yup, you heard right, I dressed up. Nice shoes and everything. Don’t believe me? Well, I didn’t take any pictures (proving how un-Korean I am), so I guess you’ll just have to trust me. First up, we headed off to dinner in the French Village. Why I continue to call it the French village, I have no idea. I’ve seen the same number of French in the empty Korean countryside (zero) as I have there, but they do have French flags lining the road. Ohhhh, and some of the store’s signs are in French too. Guess that counts for something. Anyway, after some wandering about looking for a suitable restaurant, Hyemi settled on Eric’s New York Steak House. And no, I did not suggest that particular restaurant for the terribly blatant sexual innuendo about Hyemi wanting to eat Eric’s meat, etc, etc. It just so happens that restaurant is damn good. But I guess I can blame you guys. I have been known to enjoy a good innuendo or two in my day. The restaurant, however, being terribly small and Koreans really enjoying Eric’s meat (tehehehehehe), was full up, so we had to wait. To keep us occupied, the karaoke bar next door allowed us to wait in a room and watch some TV. That allowed us to catch up on one of the most popular Korean soap operas playing right now, My Older Sister Cinderella. When I watch the show, I get the sinking feeling that I’m watching the same episode over and over and over. Probably because every episode consists solely of a combination of the following scenes: Character F1 (Female 1) cries alone, F2 (Female 2) cries alone, F1 cries while M1 (Male 1) looks on dramatically, F2 cries while M1 looks on dramatically, F1 cries while M2 looks on dramatically, F2 cries while M2 looks on dramatically, F1 stares emotively (pensively? Dramatically?) off in the distance while alone, F2 stares emotively off in the distance while alone, F1 stares emotively off in the distance while either M1 or M2 look on, and F2 stares emotively off in the distance while either M1 or M2 look on. And then to really spice things up, the girls cry or stare emotively together. Seriously, everytime I flip past the show on tv (and that’s about 3 to 4 times a day…its on a lot), one or both of the girls is crying or about 2 seconds from crying. I just can’t understand what would motivate people to watch such junk.

We eventually got to sit down to enjoy some steaks and forget about how lame that K-drama is. Nothing else to report there, cept that steaks are delicious. But then, you already knew that. Unless you’re a vegetarian. In which case, I pity you. From there we moved to the jazz club for some jazz music, obviously. The music was good as always, but my favorite oddball foreigner pianist (of which I know only one) wasn’t playing that night. The dude can play, but what I really enjoy is his conversations with the crowd between songs because he speaks solely in rapid English, so everything feels like some sort of inside joke between he and I that the other patrons can’t understand. This time we got a seat right up front. Not really noteworthy in it of itself, but the next time I came they shoved me up on the second floor in the corner. But maybe that was because we came in t-shirts, shorts, sneakers and I was carrying my berimbau. Hell, I didn’t even think they would let us in.

Upon leaving the establishment, Hyemi made it known that she was hungry and needed a snack. Even though we had a large steak dinner a few hours before. And I wasn’t even hungry yet (and I’m always hungry). And she hadn’t been able to finish all of her meal anyways. Confusing, no? She was a hankering for burger, but we were in one of the richest and ritziest neighborhoods in Seoul, so we have a problem, right? I can’t imagine finding a low class burger joint in the middle of Beverly Hills, but Korea is so not America, so we found several in no time. Soon after, I found myself seated at McDonalds, eating a Big Mac in my nicest suit (alright, my only suit), while looking at the Lamborghini and Ferrari dealerships across the street. I figure if you asked high school graduate Eric to make a list of all the things he’ll do in his life, this one would have been dead last, right after finding Jesus and becoming a born again Christian. Ohhh the places we shall go… What was a McDonalds in a multimillion dollar area like, you ask? Did they get their beef from extremely endangered animals? Nah, it was pretty much the same as before, cept all the clientele wore very expensive suits and looked like they made six figures.

From there, we wandered around the area trying to find a jimjilbang for Hyemi to sleep at for the night (since she missed her train), only to discover it was across the street from the jazz club. At least we got to stretch our legs for an hour or so. The ride home didn’t cease to entertain either. After waiting much too long for a cab (why so few cabs for a club/nightlife area? Is everybody so rich they just have their own chauffeur?), I managed to snag a cabbie that made the wait worth it. He started with some idle chit chat, nothing special, perhaps to size me up to see if I was cool. Eventually he must have decided that I was, so he quickly asked if I was okay with some music. He hastily threw in a CD of his and from there, shit got ridiculous pretty quickly. Now, I’ve met a few people here, so I’ve developed expectations and understandings of what music Koreans generally like. For the most part, Koreans really seem to like cheesy and corny pop/ballads. This guy’s music was not that. The CD went in and immediately the cab was booming with techno and trance music set many, many volume levels too high. Not unusual for a person my age to listen to, but the cabbie was my age plus another 20 years or so. And then he started dancing. Yup, flying down the highway at 70mph or so and dancing like it was going out of style. Sure, you dance move repertoire is severely limited when buckled into a car seat, but he was busting a move nonetheless. Looked a lot like the guys from the “Night at the Roxbury” skit dancing, to be honest. Now that I think about it, I’m not even sure his hands were on the steering wheel. Bad-ass. A couple of ridiculous minutes later, he abruptly turned off the music, saying “That was a little loud”, and the spectacle was over. When he asked what I thought of the music, I responded, “I liked it”. What else could I have said?

The next day, after brunch with Hyemi, I headed back to the soccer pitch and was finally able to get on that nice groomed field. And I even got invited to play in some pick up games. And I represented. Didn’t hurt that most of my teammates had about 10-15 years (or more) on me, so I looked pretty damn good in comparison. My favorite part was when the guy I was matched up against tried to muscle me off the ball. It didn’t exactly work as he is about as tall as my elementary school students (came up to my chest), and he was the one who ended up on the ground. Ohhh how I miss soccer. And while we are on the subject of football/soccer/the greatest game around……THE WORLD CUP IS HERE!!!!!!!!! I’m just a little excited. Korea takes the World Cup really seriously and that makes me so happy. I don’t really care that much about how Korea does, but I’m still going out to cheer with a few thousand fans downtown for the Greece game cuz….well, its gonna be nuts. And one doesn’t really need a better reason than that.