Has it really been 3 months since my parents were here??? Wow, I'm slow. Apologies if certain details or events from the trip are forgotten or neglected, but that was a long time ago and my memory is spotty. I'm impressed I can remember anything from that long ago, to be honest.
Way, way back in August (August 7th, to be exact) my parents were scheduled to arrive in at Incheon Airport sometime in the afternoon, giving me plenty of time to sleep in and still get there on time. I mean, who would be late to pick up their own parents from the airport in a country where they don't speak the language? Umm.....me? Yes, that's right, thanks to being especially slow in waking up and eating and pretty much everything I did after that, I was about 15 minutes late in getting to the airport. And this isn't 15 minutes after the plane arrived on the tarmac, as there I would still have been okay, since there is all the time in baggage and immigration. No, I arrived about 10-15 minutes after my parents had passed through customs, so they had been wandering around and sitting for 10 or so minutes wondering where their sad-sack son was. Face. Palm. FAIL of the EPIC variety. Probably should have known I was cruising towards the FAIL when my building's elevator just happened to be broken, that being the first and only time in the 10 months I've lived in the building. But Im pretty lousy at reading the signs and I just went on thinking I'd make it in time. Silly me.
Here's a pic of the much delayed reunion.
After the hugs and tears and more hugs, it was time to get back to the homestead and find the parents some sleeping accommodations. Originally my father, being the incredible tightwad he is, had recommended the just crash at my apartment, despite my explanation that the apartment was simply too small for 3 people to even stand in, let alone sleep in. Thankfully, once he actually saw the apartment, he realized it would be impossible for them to stay at my place. Which meant I then had to find them some place to stay. And my neighborhood does have plenty of "love motels", so off we went. After several rejections due to all the rooms being booked (or so they said), we finally found a room. And the parents ended up only hearing "strange noises" from the room next door only once in 4 or 5 days. That's a pretty good ratio, as far as I'm concerned. As for the "strange noises"? I'm pretty sure it was somebody (well, 2 somebodies) having sexual intercourse. Gross, I know.
With the sleeping situation settled we could finally grab some food. I decided to take them to the most Korean restaurant I could find: Outback Steakhouse. In all seriousness, my dad hadn't been able to draw cash out of the ATMs yet using his new cash card and he wanted to pay for dinner with his credit card, so we needed a restaurant that would take foreign credit cards. And given many Korean ma and pa restaurants don't even have bathrooms, the chances of finding one with the ability to take foreign credit cards would have been difficult. So we settled for Outback and then wandered around the local university campus afterward before heading to bed.
Our first full day together in Korea (Sunday the 8th) didn't feature anything terribly exciting either. The parents really wanted to see the old country town, despite my pleas that there is absolutely nothing to do there or see there. As evidence that there is absolutely nothing worth visiting for, I'd gone back to the old homestead exactly zero times in the year since I had left it. That's how little I cared to go back. Not a terrible town, but just not worth going back. So I showed the family the old apartment (don't miss that POS), the downtown (all 3 minutes walk of it), the gorgeous soccer complex and artificial turf field (that wasn't completed until after I left...grumble, grumble, grumble) and that's about it. Not much else I could show them. Well, there was the Han River too, but meh.
We did luck out and head to town during one of the market days that happen every 5 days, so that was a treat. My parents, having never seen a market like this ever, were understandably curious as to what each seller had laying on their tables. Sadly, I didn't have an answer for alot of the chunks or slabs of whatever, despite having eaten the stuff for the last 2 years or so. "Eric, what's this?" "Ummm, unicorn? Basilisk? I don't know."
Despite all the staring that would naturally accompany 2 white giants and a ginger lady wandering through a very small Korean town, the trip was good, although it was a bit boring. Not much I can do about that though.
In the afternoon, we all headed up to Jamie's town to partake in a soccer game between Jamie's ex-students (now in high school) and some of Jamie's foreigner friends. I originally thought we (the foreigners) stood a chance until I watched the students warm up. And then I watched our team warm up. That didn't help either. The high school kids were a lot better than I expected. And my teammates were a lot worse than I expected. Out of shape okay, yeah I expected that. But terrible at soccer? What kind of Brits did Jamie round up that can't even play roundball? Embarrassing. And those high school kids? They could move. I'm not a terribly slow guy (being able to cover 2 miles in one stride helps like that), but I lost out to some of the faster kids in a straight footrace for the ball. And it wasn't even that close. We ended up giving a decent game of it, probably because the high school kids got winded too and they probably stopped trying (but lets not mention that...ohhhh wait, too late). Overall, it was a victory, as I actually got to play an organized game for the first time in a year or so.
The next day (Monday the 9th) found us taking the obligatory tour around all the sights in Seoul. We did the Palace, did Insadong and the tea houses, did Jogyesa temple, Cheonggyecheon stream and everything else worth seeing in the Jonggno downtown area. Sorry I'm not more excited but after the umteenth time visiting the sights they just don't get me wet like they used to. Still fun, but not worth writing 10 pages about. The highlight of the day was the Chinese ladies I met while we were walking around the palace. While the family and I were wandering the temple, we drifted around, in and past various different language tour groups. One of these tour groups happened to be Chinese (I guess they could be Taiwanese or from Hong Kong, but I really don't know the differences in Mandarin and Cantonese, so yeah), and while stopped at one of the sleeping quarters of the king or queen, I noticed that 2 young attractive girls were staring and me and whispering and giggling to each other. Here is where the difference between East and West comes in. In the West, if I saw women whispering and giggling while staring at me, I would assume I had peed myself or shit myself or something equally pleasant. In short, it is not something good. However, in the East, it seems that when ladies are seen giggling and whispering while staring at you, that is good. Sometimes very good.
Sure enough, they eventually summoned up the courage to come over and talk to me. Their English wasn't great so at first I thought they were asking me to take a picture of both of them. Wrong. They actually wanted to take a picture with me. Both of them. That's right Korea. The Chinese women would rather take a picture with a gorgeous alabaster giant than with your stuffy and lame "history". Wallin 1. Korea 0.
The day was solid, if too short. I wanted to wander around and see more, but I forget that my parents are old. Old as dirt. Hell, old as really old dirt (love you guys). My dad's knees were bothering him a lot, so we stopped alot, including a stop at the stream so we could toss our feet in the water like everybody else. Don't ever drink the stream water though. Yuck.
Well, here's some other pics from that day. Enjoy. Part 2 coming soon.
In a nut shell, yeah. I really haven't done much these last few months. Since August, when most of the friends left, the parents visited and one of the capoeira groups here held there batizado, I haven't done anything. Obviously, I went to Taiwan in there, but as for stuff in Korea? Almost nonexistent. And frankly thats been perfectly okay. Most of my weekends have consisted of walking up really late on Sat and Sun, putzing around the apt for hours, then heading out to the park to exercise or just lounge around or going to capoeira class and then having dinner with some of the few remaining chums. That's it. Not too bad, no? Exactly. Originally I was worried about what I would do with myself once the gang all went home, but all this extra free/alone time has been wonderful. I guess with all the running around I do during the week, the weekend has become a nice change of pace. And clearly I need very little social contact to fill my quota and keep from going crazy. But what has actually gone down? Well, here's a brief recap of the last few months. And I promise I'll get to the parents trip and the batizado eventually.
Some time ago (don't ask me when as I have no idea), a couple of us from capoeira headed out to try one of the "Brazilian steak places". I put it in quotes, as I've never been to one of these style of restaurants and I can't vouch for how authentic or legit it actually is. The premise is simple: pay a set fee, then eat as much steak as you can before you explode, like this:
The restaurant did still give us some side dishes in between (it is Korea, what do you expect?) which actually worked well as they slow played the hell out of us and we had to wait a while in between refills. I think they realized early on that a group of 8 foreigners means business. We aren't gonna pay 25 bucks, then eat half a piece of steak (like the locals....sigh). So we did what we could with the slow playing and the progressively smaller steaks. All in all a satisfying meal though.
The middle of September saw a changing of the guard, the end of an era, blah, blah blah and so on. The middle of September was Carrie's farewell, and with her departure it meant that the core of the group had flown from ol' Korea. Amy, Anna, and Carrie all gone. Sure, Jamie, Jenna and Jethro were still here and I didn't see everybody that much over the last few months, but still. If nothing else, their departure really made the reality of my rapidly dwindling time here unavoidable. 4 months and counting. Really hard to believe I've been here for 2 years and that its nearly over. I may end up getting more sentimental as the departure day creeps closer, but right now I'm really excited to be leaving and not much else. At this point, I've come to terms with what Korea is and is not and I'm fine with it (for the most part). After 2 years, I'm, well, bored and am ready to move on. Korea is definitely not the end of the road and I'm excited to moving on to something new.
As for the evening itself, spending all that time with a bunch of writer/artistic types made me miss Amy and the crew that much more. There is only so much time you can spend with those flighty/flaky/spacey types before you just wanna toss yourself off a tall building. At least if Amy was there, I wouldn't have been alone in tossing myself off said building.
And lest you think I've been holed up in a bunker or something for the past 2 months, I've still managed to get out and see the folks that are still here. And I have good news!!! Jethro is still alive. Many of us thought he had vanished or had been kidnapped, but surprisingly he yet exists. So to catch up we've headed out for dinner in some nicer areas of Seoul to enjoy good food, good conversation, and for me to enjoy the lovely scenery (hint: I'm not talking about pretty trees or architecture). Overall, he seems the same. Just chugging along with what Korea throws him. About all you can do. Just trying to make the most of what we've got here.
I've managed to see Jamie a few times as well. Sure, he doesn't stop by to steal my Ritz crackers and eat my other food as often as he used to (can't say I'm terribly saddened about it though), but he's been busy with his online master's program. We did manage to make it out to a big foreigner drink-off a few weeks back. Quite predictably, Jamie convinced everybody that taking shots of soju along with our beers would be a good idea and then who ended up the next morning with zero recollection of what happened the evening before?? Exactly. Ohhhh Jamie.
Now on to the really weird stuff that's happened recently. First, my bus experience. And boy, was it an experience. So it started as just a regular trip to school on an average Monday. I live really close to my school, so I'm only on the bus for about 10 minutes. One would think far, far too brief a ride for any craziness to happen, but obviously that isn't the case. Anyways, on this particular day, I hop on the bus and settle into a bench seat near the back. The bus is sparsely occupied, with one fellow talking on his phone in the seat directly behind me and another guy two rows back and across the aisle from me. Anyways, we had been riding for about 5 minutes or so when I feel something brush up against my back. The contact was too brief to really feel what it was, so I ignored it. The seats are crammed pretty tight together, so I just assumed the guy talking behind me accidently brushed me with his knee or his backpack or something. No harm, no foul. We move on.
But then it happened again. And this time the contact lasted longer, so I could clearly feel it was someones hand that was moving around on my back in a circular motion. Kinda like they were wiping a window or something. Now I knew this contact was way too prolonged to have been accidental, so I finally turn around to see what the hell is going on. And what do I see????
The dude that was formerly sitting a few rows back and across the aisle, now standing directly behind me in the aisle. What was he doing out of his seat and standing right behind me? I have no idea, but the hand on my back was clearly from him. Again, I give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, the contact was creepy and unsettling, but sometimes Korean folks go to strange lengths to get foreigners attention, since they assume we can't understand a word they would say. Maybe he was just trying to get my attention, albeit in a very, very odd manner.
Now that he sees that he's got my attention, he moves towards me and squats down right next to me in the aisle. Still don't know what this bastard is up to? Don't worry, I didn't either. He then reaches out with one hand and lifts up my leg. Again, weird, unappreciated human contact, but again I err on the side of this being just a big social FAIL. I mean, I assume he's just lifting my leg to look underneath my seat for something of his that rolled under there, right? That sounds not completely bat shit insane.
As a brief aside, I hope this encounter so far and my reaction to said encounter can adequately demonstrate how weird shit can be here at times. Let's recap: a strange man rubbed me on the back for much too long, then lifted up my leg without so much as a single word being exchanged and yet this encounter sets off no alarms in my head. That is how desensitized to insanity I have become over here. I doesn't help that some (though on some days it feels like everybody) people seem to think that since I can't speak Korean (although I can) I'm an idiot and thus should be interacted with as one interacts with a child or a dog or something. I can let myself out to shit all on my own, thank you very much. Hell, I still get instructed on how to use chopsticks. I've been eating with the damn things for 2 years. If I look starved and famished, then yeah advise away, as I obviously haven't figured out how to get the fucking food into my mouth yet. But if you are sitting next to me and watching me eat my lunch with absolutely no difficulty whatsoever, then decide to instruct me on how to use chopsticks properly because I'm not holding them the "right way", then fuck you. Different DOES NOT EQUAL wrong. The day that Korea understands that statement cannot come soon enough. Fuck, that goes for the US too.
Anyways, where were we? Ahhh yeah, the weirdo lifting up my leg. So he lifts up my leg and I think "Ohhh, he's just looking for something under my feet". hahahah. Wrong. The alarms finally start going off in my head when rather than let go of my leg after the initial lift, he begins moving his hand up and down the underside of my leg. Yeah, the bastard was stroking my leg. Not cool. Now at this point I should have, at the very least, started shouting and making a scene. I would have very much liked to clock him in the face, but that would have ended with me being deported and possibly serving time. Lovely, but no thanks. More than anything though, I was frozen in shock, as I couldn't believe what was happening. When he did stop, he finally started saying something, but I shooed him away and that was the end of that. I think he started to say something about "medicine", if I heard correctly, so perhaps he was inquiring as to how I am so tall and what I did/took to become so. Again, people there is a right way to inquire about someone's height and eating habits and there is a wrong way. Then there is this. The ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY WRONG WAY. This public service announcement is brought to by kimchi. Kimchi: its what's for dinner. every fucking night.
The other crazy encounter is absolutely not funny in any shape or form, even if you aren't me (as much as I hated the groping, I can't deny its pretty hilarious for everybody else). So it started like any other Tuesday evening, with Korean class. Afterwards I opted to grab food at the Mexican restaurant nearby as there are only 3 or 4 of those things in the whole of Korea, so you gotta take advantage of them when you get the chance. The Mexican food really has no role to play in the story other than it led to me getting home an hour later than usual and walking smack dab into the craziness that was waiting for me outside the apartment.
Before I delve into the story, I should explain the layout around my apartment. When walking from the subway station, you would be hard pressed to miss my building, as its just off the main street that leads to the station. To reach the doors, one has to walk down a brief alley. On one side of the alley you have my building and on the other side you have another dorm/apartment building, this one for foreign students of the local university. This other dorm building looks out over the alley and the rest area outside of my apartment. I'm sure "rest area" isn't the right word, but I'm not really sure what to call this place. Technically its just a continuation of the garbage can area for folks to smoke, but then why did they build a wooden, gazebo-like roof? All I know is that because this area isn't visible from the main street and has some seating, it gets considerable traffic. From high school kids smoking to couples hugging for hours (don't even get me started) to a bunch of bros just hanging out and stuff, there is always someone there.
With that in mind, we begin the story. I arrive at the station, disembark and start walking home, okay everything's normal. I reach the alley, still everything is as it should be. But as I'm walking down the alley, I notice there is a guy leaning out the 4th or 5th floor of the apartment across the alley from mine and he's shouting something to someone I can't see. And by the looks of it, this person he was yelling at was in the "rest area" outside my apartment. I couldn't see what was happening yet, as several parked cars had completely obstructed the view. As I get closer, I can now hear that the man is yelling stuff like "Hey, hey, hey!! Don't do that! Stop!! Stop!", but still I can't see who he is yelling at.
As I start to get really close, the man notices me in the alley and yells something along the lines of "please help her." Seriously, what is going on, cuz I still can't see who he is yelling at. Finally, I move past the parked cars and see just what the guy in the window was so freaked out about: there is a girl crouched in a corner (that's why I couldn't see her), crying and moaning and overall just really really distraught, trying to slash her wrists with the broken glass from a soju bottle.
Yeah, exactly. At this point I didn't really know what to do. Obviously I'm not going to leave her on her own. I certainly didn't feel comfortable reaching in and taking the object away from her, as her terribly unsettled mood and the broken chunk of glass she was wielding could lead to putting myself and her in further harm. I really had no idea how she would react to any sort of aggressive sudden movement like that and in doing so, might actually make the situation much worse. But then we are still left with a very upset woman with a implement she means to (and already has done) harm (to) herself with. Thankfully, when I arrived she stopped cutting herself (although she continued holding the glass) and was just moaning and crying and yelling. As for the loss of blood already, again luck was on our side, as she hadn't cut very deep as only a few drops of blood had spilled on the sidewalk so far.
Still, I wanted to find something to cover the wound with until some authorities or somebody could arrive. Not long after another Korean girl wandered down the alley and I got her to call the police and tell them what was going on. While this girl called the police and watched the other woman, I ran to the bathroom (there is a public facility attached to my apt on the ground floor) to find something for the wound. Of course, being it is a Korean bathroom it had no toilet paper, no paper towel, no towel, no anything I could possibly use. But that was the biggest problem.
When I returned from the bathroom, I found the girl who had called the police, but not the women who had tried to harm herself. While I was gone, the distraught woman had just gotten up and started walking away towards the subway station (though sans bottle shards and down another alleyway). Obviously we couldn't just let her wander off on her own in that state of mind, so I took off down the alley after her, giving her space, but close enough to be able to stop her if she did anything to harm herself further. The girl on the phone followed further behind me, still in discussion with the authorities, it would appear.
At this point, the guy from the apartment window finally arrived on the scene, having come down from his apartment. While we followed the woman, he explained more of what had happened. He said he had been in his apartment when he heard an argument outside the window. He came to the window only to see a man and woman, presumably a couple arguing in the alleyway. Well, this argument got heated and eventually the man began hitting and beating on the woman, until the man observing it all started yelling and making noise from his window, which scared off the other fellow and he ran away. The woman in question responded to all this by breaking a soju bottle she had with her and then trying to cut her wrists with it. And that's where I came in. Obviously, I didn't see any of this, so I can't verify it, but it makes sense given what I had observed. Fucked up, is what it is.
Well, the two of us continued following the woman until she finally decided to sit down near the subway station. I made sure the other guy was watching her, while i ran to the convenience store for bandages or wraps or something to cover her wound with. By the time I got back, 3 police officers had arrived and were talking with the woman, so i just gave them what I had bought for her wound (I think it was tissues...not great for a wound, I know but the pharmacies were already closed and the 7-Eleven was fresh out of sterilized, anti-stick gauze and bandages). I headed home after that, confident that the police would get her the proper care she needed (physical and mental), but given the reputation of Korean police and the knowledge of what a man's world it is here in Korea, maybe I should have stayed with them until I was sure she was being properly cared for. Hindsight is 20/20 though. I do hope that wherever that woman is, and whoever she is, that she got the treatment she needed and is doing fine now. Suicide is such a huge problem here, and I really hope she didn't just become another suicide statistic as soon as the authorities left her alone. But I guess there is no way to know for sure.
Well, they are gonna be coming a bit slower than expected. Korean class ended last Thursday, which now opens up a lot more time for everything, meaning I can finally get down to writing some posts. Right? Until my computer craps out 3 days later. Yup, I'm having computer troubles again. Surprising, I know. This actually sets a record, as the computer only lasted 5 months this time. Usually I'm good for a year. What really irks me is that it appears to be the exact damn thing as last time, meaning whatever Asus supposedly did to fix it didn't really fix it all that well. The PC turns on but nothing displays on the screen.
With no PC at home, I'll be forced to pound out these posts at work, which is very doable but certainly will be much, much slower. As if I was posting them quickly nowadays.
The big question becomes what will I do with all the free time now? No PC means no music, no movies, no television (I refuse to watch Korean stuff anymore), no internet, no contact with friends through skype, and no video games. My apartment's TV is garbage and it won't allow me to play PS2 on it and my Korean class is done for at least the next 2 weeks (and I'm probably not going back for next semester due to time constraints). Ohhh, and the movie theaters are playing junk flicks right now. Looks like I'm gonna have to get really creative with stuff to do.
Wish me luck folks and I hope to be able to post again soon.
