Still Catching Up: Out on the Town

Yes, sprinkled in between trips to the serene wilderness, the trip with the rest of my school (don't worry I'll get to it eventually), and my parents vacation here, I managed to get out on the town, while drinking a bit too much and generally acting like an idiot with my friends. Plus there's a couple of my patented "Face, meet Palm" FAILS sprinkled in there too. And if I know my friends and family, there is little they like more than my fuck ups. Enjoy.

The first of my adventures took place in Hongdae. Not like the location matters at all. Hell, I could be ridiculous and FAIL plenty hard in my own living room. Actually, I think the Mound St. crew could attest to that fact. As usual I was out with all girls. Strange how that always works out that way. Was that way in Madison too. As a result I've learned many things. Terrible, horrible, awful things about how the female body works and about sex. From now on, I'm sticking to the stork story for where babies come from, as the details of that explanation don't make me want to cry. Although, I should apologize to the ladies though, as they always have me around ruining all their chances of getting hit on or finding a guy. I get it. Men feel intimidated with a Grade A specimen of all that is man like myself hanging around the girls. Obviously they know they can't measure up and just don't even try. So for being just too damn handsome and charming and awesome and tall, I am sorry ladies.

Perhaps because I'm always killing their game, the ladies decided to invite more people to join us, but refused to invite any women. So later in the evening when they all had somebody to cuddle up with, poor old Eric was sitting alone and not nearly drunk enough in the corner. Not like that particular feeling was new or anything. I happen to know it much too well.

Things got more interesting when we met an acquaintance from the Jeollanam-do trip. See, had it just been me on the trip, I wouldn't have talked to this particular and thus would have missed out on all the juicy gossip. So perhaps being social does have its advantages. But since Amy DID actually talk to this girl and get to know her on the trip, she recognized her right away at the particular bar we were at and struck up conversation. Cue drama. See, this acquaintance has had a pretty interesting last 2 weeks since we saw her. During the trip she was traveling with her steady boyfriend of at least a year. Everything seemed fine. Cept, a few days after the trip he just up and told her he didn't love her anymore and they were finished. Nothing too crazy right? But ohhhh there's more. What does she attribute the collapse to? Our mutual friend Jenna. She claims that Jenna done stole her man away cuz she a ho. OHHHHHHH SNAP! Well, she probably didn't say it exactly like that. But she certainly believed Jenna to be the cause. How exciting. It was like Jerry Springer, but right in front of my eyes. Awesome. If this is what middle and high school were actually like, let me just say that I'm sad I spent all my time actually studying. My mistake. I had major doubts about the accuracy of the girl's claims, given how easily some men (cough cough) take to following at her heels without any action on Jenna's part, but that doesn't make it any less exciting.

A few weeks later, we reconvened, this time in Anna's town of Ilsan. After some dinner we found ourselves at a music bar. Let me just issue a very heart felt thank you on behalf of all the foreign folk here dying for some decent (aka listenable) music after all the auditory horrors we endure (perhaps I may be exaggerating, but at this present moment 3 of the current chart hits feature choruses that consist of 1) "madonna donna madonna donna" repeated multiple times 2) "Wake Up" repeated 15 times per chorus and yes, I did count it out and 3) "beddie battie bettie boddie" or some other similar sounds/noises). You see, these "music bars" have the good shit, so to speak. Their walls are full of records and CDs of every foreign artist of quality ever. Want CCR? Done. The Rolling Stones? Done. Earth, Wind and Fire? Done. As you might expect, most of the clientele in these places are foreign, but their owners are always Korean and always the coolest motherfuckers around. I would posit that there is a direct correlation between having good taste in music and being an awesome person. That's not to say that Koreans don't show up, but you can always tell which songs they chose. Allman Brothers Band, Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, Jason Mraz, Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, BB King. Which of those artists doesn't belong? If you said "Jason Mraz" you aren't an idiot. Personally, I like his stuff, but to be at a music bar with all that incredible selection on the walls and to have someone pick not one, not two, but three Mraz songs? Awful, awful, awful.

Anyways, we were enjoying ourselves when someone in the group (cough Amy cough) started dancing and suggested we all join her. Apparently we had a bit to drink, as we agreed this would be a good idea and joined her. Some time later, Amy decided to dance without her shoes because....well, I don't know. Because that's what Jesus would have done? I don't know. Again, we must have had a few because we also agreed this would be a good idea and joined in again. Now this wasn't your usual hardwood or concrete barfloor that stick to and such, as the floor was carpeted and relatively clean. Still, its a bar floor, so certainly not spotless. It did cause some confusion the next day when trying to understand why my feet were so damn dirty. "OOhhhh, right the barefoot dancing....."

When everybody was tired of dancing, they settled down to listen to the music and discuss my failure to get laid...wait, what? Yeah, I'm not so sure how we got on the topic, but all of a sudden I had several people swarming me, telling how I should respect myself more and what I should do to "get it done", so to speak. Hell, I was even getting lectured by a guy that I had just met 2 hours previous. Thanks guy whose name I don't remember, your advice was super helpful. I enjoyed their concern, but at some point I kinda just zoned them out. Probably right around the point where somebody suggested that to get myself out there I make a Craigslist ad. They were serious. And really drunk, by the looks of it.

Soon enough, the group lost interest in me and I was able to focus on more important things, like the 3 Irish girls that had entered the bar. Don't get your hopes up folks, I still failed in the end. But not without trying. Wait, they were actually Scottish. Shows how much I was paying attention when they were talking....or how much I know about European geography (always seem to confuse Ireland and Scotland, dumb I know) Anyways, with Amy already making conversation, being the super social lady she is, I had my easy in. We got to talking about Scotland and Edinburgh because no European really gives two shits about what life is like in America while I am immensely curious about life in Europe. After some time, I noticed that Amy and the rest of the gang were leaving. They said they were tired and wanted to go home, but I find that highly suspicious. Methinks they bailed to force me to talk with and try and pick up one of the girls. What can I say, they are always looking out for me.

After a bit, the ladies said they had to meet a few friends at their post-rec soccer league game celebration and invited me to tag along. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't 40 or so foreigners standing around and drinking outside a convenience store. The crowd was a large collection of players, friends, girlfriends and other there to celebrate the soccer club's rec league championship or something like that. I would appear that the group consisted of every Brit, Scot, and Irish living in the general vicinity was there, as I might have been the only American there. Which made the conversation difficult when it inevitably drifted to "What is your town in England?" or "What do you think of (insert random English town)?". Since England is considerably smaller than the US, it would appear that every Brit has been to every single city in the entire country and thus has a story/adventure to tell about Leeds, Sheffeld, Hull, Blackpool, or whatever. Even the tiny towns with one pub and 2 people living there, they've been there.

In time though, the little old lady running the convenience store we were squatting outside of shooed us off as it was 11pm or so and we were drinking and merrymaking outside near residential areas. The massive whitey fest disbanded and went their separate ways. I obviously followed my new Scottish acquaintances to the next bar, where is was time to work my magic. I'm just kidding, I have no moves. Clearly. Once at the bar, each male had to stake claims for the female of their choosing. Unlike the animal kingdom, where the males would have fought to the death, we humans settle the issue in a civilized way: super awkward conversations. A taste:

Other Guy: "Hey man, which girl you going for?"
Me: "What?"
Other Guy: "Well, it looks like you're going for that girl you've been talking to and I'm just wondering if its okay if I go for her friend over here."
Me: "Ummm...yeah go ahead man. Feel free."

Animals have it so much easier.

This however, was where it all fell apart. Sadly, I can't take much of the credit for this one. My body just betrayed me. After having survived an early onslaught of hard liquor unscathed, I figured my wussy stomach was gonna hold together. Not so, not so. A couple sips into my first beer at the new place and I knew that I was in trouble. Serious stomach queasiness set in and all other concerns were brushed aside. I can now definitely say that there is a primal instinct stronger than the need for sex and that is the need to not vomit everywhere. To hopefully help me out, I headed outside for air. On 3 separate occasions. However, even after the air breaks, judgement day still came. While on the way to the toilet for fear of the serious rumblings going on in my tummy, the proverbial dam broke. But since it was me, I played it cool. Walking to bathroom, turn head, open mouth, vomit, close mouth, turn head back, continue towards bathroom. All without breaking stride. And really you can't feel too bad for the hallway. I certainly wasn't the only one who made a mess there. Once business was concluded properly in the bathroom, I decided to leave, as I was obviously in no shape to continue. Tough luck but what you gonna do? So I headed out to find an ATM before grabbing the cab home. Upon obtaining my cash, something unusual dawned on me: I felt great. Stomach queasiness, fatigue, everything. Gone. I was then again faced with a choice: should I stay or should I go? Hey, that's a Fall Out Boy track isn't it? I'm pretty sure it is. (that ones for you Maria). Well, quite unsurprisingly, I chose to stay. So I rushed back up the steps to the bar, confident that luck and good fortune were on my side for once, only to find....that everybody had left. Crap. I guess I had disappeared for longer than I thought. So I went home, sad and alone.

Our final adventure took place several weekends later, at the final gathering of the crew. We had decided on dinner in Anna's town, then drinks for however long that took us. It was just the small group of us and one mutual female friend of Amy and Anna that I had never met. She seemed nice, but I really didn't make much notice of her. Dinner, nothing out of the ordinary. 1st bar, just drinking and chatting. It wasn't until we got back to that music bar from the previous adventure that things got interesting.

As it was a music bar, they have numerous pencils and sheets of paper available for writing down song requests. Funny that those little pieces of paper would have so much effect on the evening to come. While writing away, I noticed that Amy had suddenly gotten super secretive about her music choices, hiding the paper from view while exchanging hushed discussion with Anna. Obviously, this peaked my interest and I had to know what was on the paper. Hell, they were looking at me, while sharing their hush-hush conversation, so I knew it had to be about me. Course, that was probably part of their plan anyways. To get me interested in whatever they were writing.

I assumed it was some manner of goofy song or whatever. Just goofy kids being goofy. I was very, very wrong. Soon enough, they slid the paper sorta discretely under the table to me. What did it say? "Eric, Person A (for her sake, lets not use her name) told us she likes you. You should go for that." Person A being the mutual female friend who I had never met before that evening. But they told me via note? It's like the middle school I never had. Charming. But this certainly changes things. It's true that I still wasn't attracted to her, but now I had a legitimate opportunity. And given how desperate I'd been of late for anything, it took me all of a nanosecond to decide to go for it.

Since the group knew all too well how piss poor I am at picking up women, they did all they could to help me out, which was equal parts sweet and annoying. When we moved tables, the group conspired to have us sit together, despite not really having exchanged any manner of conversation up to this point. Poor unsuspecting Carrie actually sat down between us and then got yelled at and told to sit on the other side of the table with Amy. It was so incredibly not subtle that I broke out laughing. But it achieved the desired result, in that we sat next to each other and chatted. Mama Bear Powis, in all her meddling glory, actually dragged Anna away at one point because I was talking to Anna too much and thus scaring away the new girl, despite Anna being very much just a friend.

We chatted for a long time and actually managed to have some decent conversation. "you know, you are like the most beautiful person I have ever, ever met in like my entire life? No, no, I'm totally serious and stuff. You could be a part-time model or something." No, not that wonderful drunken conversation. We discussed comics and she told me how she knows Neil Gaiman and how she and her friends hung out with him a bunch of times and how her friend slept with Neil Gaiman for a while. For the record, I didn't believe a word of what she said, but that didn't make it any less interesting.

I realized at some point that the rest of the crew had pulled back and seemed to be simply observing what I was doing, which was weird but it certainly was sweet that they cared so much. Just wish they would be less voyeuristic about it. Take my conversation with Jamie a few days later: "Eric, I was a little worried at first, with you not making any moves. But then I turned to say something to Amy and when I turned back, you had your hand around her ass. Atta boy. I couldn't have been more proud of ya, son." Like I said, very creepy, but sweet.

Eventually the rest of the crew had had enough to drink and tried to ditch us in an attempt to allow some alone time for the girl and I. At least thats what I hope they were doing. The two of us decided to head to a different bar at the same the rest of the group was leaving, so we tried to catch up to them and share the elevator with them. They instead tried desperately to close the door before we got there. Again, I hope they were doing it to help me. Otherwise they are just huge assholes. Hmmmmmm.

The two of us headed to a new bar, where we chatted about various stuff and drank some more. THE END.

What you say? There has to be more to the story? Well, there is, but a public forum blog is not the place for that. Don't worry, there were certainly more fails to end this particular evening, but you'll just have to talk to me in private to get those details. Sorry.

Still Catching Up: The Jeollanam-do Post

Phew. With all the craziness of my parents trip to Korea behind me (don't worry I'll get to that post eventually), I can now settle back into my job at school, doing nothing. Meaning there is plenty of time to get some posting done. This time its the post about my trip to Jeollanam-do. Lets get to it.

About 2 months ago (JESUS, has it really been that long already??? wow), Amy and I decided to finally visit the southeastern coast of Korea, which is supposedly quite beautiful but (there's always a catch) has pretty much nothing in the way of cities, people and general civilization. Normally I like all these things, however in Korea, where I have no car, no civilization means no public transport, making navigation very, very difficult. Then there's all the staring and unwanted attention. Not too many foreign folks get down that way (see above) so we are quite the big deal. To avoid all these hassles and spend as much time as possible seeing the stuff we want (aka nature) and as little time as possible on the stuff we don't want (aka everything else), we joined a bus tour that would be flying all over the area. Plus, we would be able to meet new people on the tour. Well, alright, I wouldn't be, cuz I'm me, but at least Amy would make some new friends.

To get around the area and manage to get back to Seoul at a respectable hour on Sunday, the tour opted to leave late Friday night and drive into Saturday morning. Ohhh, and we were trying to catch the sunrise at a temple on the southern coast (spoiler: we didn't). To make it for sunrise the bus left from Seoul at 10pm, with Amy, our new friend James, and myself on board. A word on our new friend James: he has too much energy. He's one of those people that is always peppy, always cheery, always energetic. Over long periods of exposure, unless you are just as peppy as them or high on uppers or something, these type tend to wear on a person. And he did.

Since I knew we would be arriving at our destination by 5am or something, with minimal rest time after that, I wanted to get some rest on the bus. Too bad that that night was the second game for the US at the World Cup. So much for sleeping. This game just so happened to be the controversial Slovenia game. I could complain for days about all the shit that went on in that match, but for your sake I'll keep it brief. The US was terrible in the first half. They were wonderful in the second half. That disallowed goal was the biggest load of BS I've ever seen. That official was absolutely awful. The end. As you might imagine, I was rather wound up from the drama of the match, so there goes sleeping on the bus.

At some ungodly early hour we arrived at our destination along the southeast coast of Korea. Here we were faced with several options: 1) Remain on the bus and sleep until we head out in a few hours to our next destination 2) Hike up to the top of a nearby mountain, see the sunrise and hang out at the Buddhist Temple 3) Pay a little extra and crash for several hours in a little hostel room. I had paid for the hostel room, since I hate sleeping on buses, but I had to get my shots of the sunrise first.

So I set off to find the temple. Our directions were to follow the road up the hill to the temple, which sounds easy enough. It's a mountain for gods sake, you can't really miss it. However, finding the proper path up to the the temple was a bit more tricky and after several misfires, I finally managed to arrive at the temple. Freaking awesome sunrise here I come.





Damn you fog! Damn you to hell! Yes, the fog managed to muck up yet another lovely photo-op. No sunrise for me, try again next time. But you gotta make the most of whats available. I was still in a really cool temple on the side of a mountain (see video below) and the teeny tiny town below us was close enough to avoid the fog for the most part.



The best part of the temple? In order to reach the highest shrine, they had cut out (dug out?) of the mountain, leaving a really sweet tunnel. Just like the Batcave. At least in mind it was. At least in my mind.



After some futile cursing and praying for the fog to lift, I gave up on that endeavor and instead headed around the backside of the mountain to find the trail to the mountain's peak.



Man, fuck you fog. Obviously I wasn't gonna be able to see shit, but I did get some exercise out of the whole hike and I got to nap/relax on the absolute top of the mountain with some of the other tour folks. And I can't/don't get to do that every day, so minor win for me.

From there I headed back down the mountain to explore the bustling city nestled at the base of the hill. I visited some world class museums. I chatted global politics at the local Starbucks. I saw a beautiful rendition of "Oklahoma" at the local theater.





Okay, so maybe I didn't do any of those things in this particular "town", if you can call it that. But I did get stared at by the 7 or 8 residents, so that counts for something. Once down at the bottom, I found the hostel/room thingy the rest of the group was sleeping in and went to sleep for several hours. Or at least tried to. It's really hard to actually sleep on the hard floor. Don't know how the Koreans can do it.

With my nap finished, it was time to move on to Yeosu, a city on the coast, for a harbor tour. Yeosu is hosting the 2012 World Expo and they are wholly unqualified to host such an event. How do I know? Besides the fact that a town of 300,000 will be hosting an estimated 8 million guests and that its in the middle of nowhere and not easily reached from Seoul/Incheon International Airport/civilization? Probably the fact that the former mayor (from 2006 to early 2010) was on the run for 58 days after an arrest warrant was issued on the charges of taking bribes from contractors for construction rights and what not. Yup, politics K-style. Anyways, the city was pretty nice though.



Once in Yeosu, it was off to the harbor for a boat tour around the city and various surrounding uninhabited islands. Sounds cool. In theory. Well, for the most part it was. The weather was great. The view was lovely. The boat ride had water and green nature, which is plenty enough for me.



The catch? We were sharing this particular cruise with quite a few of the local elderly. I guess we didn't get the memo that this cruise was going to be a booze cruise. But drunken, way too friendly and super creepy old men is pretty standard fare here. The folks needed to be entertained while they drank. Obviously walking up on deck and actually looking at the lovely view was out of the question. Fuck that boring shit. Instead they got a musician who of course plays the music that people of that age seem to like....TROT. I shall not provide a link to such trash on my site because well, its awful. You have the internet, so you maybe search at your own risk. The best way to describe it is that you have one individual singer whose vocal delivery can be referred to as "warbling" (cuz they really wander all over the place with their singing), over a simplistic and very cheesy electronic piano beat that would probably be passed over for a porno soundtrack. To say that it sounds like farm animals giving birth is an insult to the the beauty of birth.

We really couldn't avoid the music, despite being up on deck, as they had it cranked up so bad. Many of tour members seriously considered throwing themselves overboard (myself included). In time the music shifted and we could definitely discern that this was all coming from a stereo, that someone was actually playing this stuff. That and I could have sworn I heard a saxophone, drum and harmonica. Now I was intrigued. Sure enough, at the center of the storm was this amazing performer.



No idea why he felt the need to dress up like a clown and wear the fake detective glasses with mustache but whatever. In spite of the poor music choice, the guy could play. He definitely had some talent on the sax and harmonica all while having to keep beat with that monstrous drum on his back. Sadly, his talents were wasted on the particular music.

Back in the harbor, still moving in a daze from the "music" and sensory overload while on the boat, we boarded our bus again and headed off to the Suncheon Bay Ecological Park. Yes, surprisingly in this case they are actually conserving the nature instead of rolling right over it. Kudos. Anyways, this particular bay features quite a bit of boardwalk that snakes through the marshes allowing the guests up close and personal exposure to the locals, like this guy:



And this guy:



Those fellas really were everywhere. You couldn't find a patch of marsh without 10 or so of each of those buggers. So we wandered through, taking pictures of the scenery and generally enjoying the fact that there wasn't a million cars around, or a million people or a million of anything. Very nice.



We wanted to catch the sunset at the Ecological Park, but as you might have guessed, the fog impeded us. So we headed early to our lodging for the evening. We were fortunate enough to stay in a recreation of an old timey village, which is great expect for the sleeping on the floor thing. Although, their mattresses suck too, so you are just universally fucked for sleep.



After dinner, some of us decided to head off reservation and wander into town for alcohol (or I should say more alcohol, as most of the travelers drank with their dinner too). We quickly found a convenience store and a space to plop our asses down and commenced with the merriment. While drinking we got to hear some crazy stories. Like the one girl who got charged by a silverback while studying in Africa, among other animal stories. Or the guy who saw a monkey masturbate using a frog in a zoo, then toss the traumatized frog away when he finished. Or the couple who used to work at Disneyland. Those were some stories. Watching Baloo and King Louie of the Jungle Book fight it out back stage after a performance. Or how an old Giraffe got struck by lightning in the safari while visitors were going through. And the stench that followed. Or how they had to cut him up with a chainsaw to move the body. All super good stories. I ended up giving a capoeira demo that was too bad given how fatigued and alcohol-adled I was. Didn't even fall on my face once. At the early hour of 3am, we finally called it a night and headed to bed.

After sleeping in and missing the trip to some famous tea fields in the area (ehhh, no big deal), it was time to move to a smaller tea plantation for tea picking and tea making. At this point in the trip I was very grumpy and not all together cooperative (see shitty sleeping conditions rants 1-1,000,0000,000,000), so I wasn't super enthused about making tea. First, we had to pick our tea and were ranked on who picked the most and best tea leaves. I wandered away from my partner during the picking and instead just relaxed in the fields with the plantation's famous tea-leaf eating dog.



We walked. We ate. We shat. We had our bellies scratched. From there, we went inside for tea drinking and eventually tea leaf cooking. Again, I just wanted to wander around outside with the dog and the cats (they had those too). Lucky bastards just got to sleep and relax on the deck while I had to sit inside listening to a speech about how their tea was so awesome cuz they sprinkle them with gold dust. I don't know if the dust makes the tea better, but it sure makes it more expensive. 1,200 dollars for a package of tea? No thanks. We cooked the leaves, we flipped the leaves, we pressed and rolled the moisture out of the leaves. Personally, I just like drinking the stuff. Could care less about the prep. But it was educational.



For here we were super time crunched, so we rushed to a local bamboo forest, took some pics and left. Seriously. We were in and out in 25 minutes. No foreplay either. Cuz that's how we roll?



Our last stop, just as rushed as the bamboo forest, was a road lined with sequoias. Nothing miraculous in itself, but the trees were all planted by the Park Chung Hee regime, a military dictatorship that ruled Korea quite brutally for several years in the 70s, I believe, but also helped industrialize and build up the country. So its more famous as a historical spot than anything. But it still was pretty. Too bad I only got one pic before my battery on the camera died.



That's it. Trip over. I'll toss a few of the videos down below, but if you are really inclined to see them all then just head over to youtube and type in "talldudeinasmallwld" and search for what you like.