Ostriches of Korea

Colonic irrigation salesmen peddling wares on the subway , a llama, Heejay's, a suite at the Hamilton, Carlos Vargas, sausage gravy, Russian call girls, Texas Hold-em', Soju Titanic, gullible foreign chicks, hash browns.  All of theses things are reasons why my weekend exceeded yours in terms of awesomeness and the weird.  And yet, none of these things hold a candle to the pure joy of ostrich riding.  Is it their strong resemblance to dinosaurs?  Their foolish eccentricities and clownish gait?  The "woot woot woooooooot" mating call that begs to be a bar crawl catch phrase?  Perhaps all of these things.  What I can tell you is that they are as hilarious as they are intimidating.  I was probably more hesitant to approach a single ostrich than I was walking amongst 15 tigers.  I'm totally impressed with their strength and still have trouble believing that a bird could haul my 240 lb. frame around at a rapid trot...twice.  I have to say that I felt a little bad for the bird that had to give ten or fifteen rides to us giant waygookins, though it was funny to see her try and run from the handler about 3/4 of the way through.  Towards the end she tried giving up and like a bratty kid, sat down in defiance...to which the handler comically slapped her upside the head like a dad that doesn't take any crap.

Cool Thing About Korea #51:  Jeez...freakin ostriches man!  What do you think?

A Phone Call With Dave Mustaine

I was seriously impressed by a young girl in one of my classes today and its definitely worth mentioning.  We finished the lesson with five minutes left in class so I decided to teach the kids about palindromes (you know, words like "kayak" and "racecar" that can be spelled the same forwards and backwards).  I told the kids that if they could think of any other palindromes I'd give them a lollipop.  Well I heard a few lame ones like "mom" and "did" before this usually quiet girl who sits in the corner blew me away with "Was it a cat I saw?"  ARE YOU SERIOUS?!  One lollipop isn't enough for that gem, I gave her five.  Wish I could figure out where she learned that one and why she even remembered it.

Anyway, here's a little video I threw together at work a few weeks ago before I actually had classes to teach and was bored out of my mind.  If you're not a Megadeth fan or don't even know what a megadeath is than you probably won't find this funny and I apologize for being that much more awesome than you in advance.


Cool Thing About Korea #50:  Korean TV.  Whether you're on a bus, in a convenience store, a taxi cab, the subway, or climbing a mountain, you can bet there's a monitor in your field of vision that's flashing clips of cute animals to whiny, unbelieving narration.

Happy Saint Patricks Day!

Yeah it was last week, but most expats in Korea didn't really celebrate the holiday until yesterday.  Every year I attempt to surpass the events of SPD 2007.  It was a three day marathon of irresponsible, life threatening weirdness in the heart of Pittsburg with my brother Jon, a pretty tough record to beat.  Still, the Korean version of the Irish holiday easily qualifies as a candidate for second place.  We got to Seoul just in time to join the tail end of the parade.  The Facebook event stated that 18,000 people were expected to show up, and though that was a hugely exaggerated number, there did turn out to be an impressive crowd of green-attired party animals braving the cold, rainy weather for the sake of music and beer.  Late in the afternoon the sky turned a bizarre color of yellowish-brown unlike anything I've ever seen before.  It was pretty wild looking (see the picture with the horse drawn carriages).  A few of us fanatics half expected the hand of God to reach through the sickly firmament and rain His wrath down upon the vast metropolis.   After the sun went down we did it proper like at an Irish pub called Dublin's where I realized that, though I appreciate all things Irish, I can only stand their traditional music for about six solid hours.  There was a deal for all you can drink Guinness and in case you're wondering, I got my moneys worth.

In somewhat sadder news, the fried chicken place around the block from my apartment caught on fire.  Man, I really liked that place.  The lady and her husband who ran it were cool, the food was awesome, and there was just something about its simplicity that I found really appealing.  It wasn't pretty.  The walls were plastic sheets and the benches were made of old paint cans and 2X4s, but it was the humble details of private ownership that I was really nostalgic about.  Just two hard working people with a deep fryer, a great batter recipe, and a couple hundred dead chickens trying to make their way in the world.  I hope things work out for them and the place opens back up... or they get a lot of money from the insurance company and wind up on a beach somewhere.

Oh and if you like cool club music check out some shows by my DJ friend Mike here.  

Cool Thing About Korea #49: Satanic Elevators

Ankle Deep In Dead Dogs

     
     About five weeks left in Korea and it's going fast.  This is the second week that school is in session and I still don't have any classes scheduled.  The entire English staff is new here and only one of them can speak with any level of proficiency.  I think they are so confused with the new school, new government implemented teaching methods, and the construction that actually scheduling me to work is the least of they're worries.  There is a part of me that really wants to get back in the classroom and actually do some teaching but if I'm going to get paid to work on my writing projects, catch up on some novels, and drink coffee then I'm not going to complain.  Well, aside from the usual weekend distractions a few days ago I also managed to go on the longest and most interesting hash thus far.  Allow me to tell you about it with a drastic switch in tenses.  
     For the first twenty minutes the pack runs a confused circle through the dowdy neighborhood, an impoverished area hugging the back walls of the base, the last bit of settlement before the endless farm fields across the highway.  A "true trail" marker keeps bringing us back to the rear gate of the airfield from which we started.  Unlike the front gate a few miles away which is busily celebrated with traffic and bars and storefronts, this entrance is orderly, quiet, and resists attention.  Taking notice of our confusion, a camouflaged guard shouldering an M-16 informs us that he saw a hare leaving a marker close to the bus stop across the street.  Another hasher spots the checkpoint under a car and within an instantt the 40 strong pack is dashing through gardens and off into the moor like countryside.  
     We run through fields and rice patties, woods and shrub covered hills.  An abandoned rusty bulldozer sits on the abandoned scar of an incomplete road that leads to the abandoned construction of several half-finished and degrading houses.  We follow the chalk and toilet-paper markers over crumbling brick, broken glass, rusted siding, nail-strewn 2X4's, and finally past an active farm where a sizable pen of smelly cows scatter at our hollering advance.  As the miles disappear behind us the excitement of the finish line grows and we press harder and faster.  Eventually a turkey-eagle split cuts the pack in half.  Some walk across muddy flat lands, the rest sprint up through a dense forest rifled with prickers and vines.  The shape of a crumbling cement structure materializes through the foliage and upon approaching it we see the word BEER scrawled on a wall above several carefully deposited bottles.  I stop long enough for a few mouthfuls of water but leave the Cass untouched before taking off again across a barren highway.  

     In the adjacent orchard the trail leads down into a stream and we follow, halting when we reach a cement embankment twenty meters tall.  The creek trickles underground into a tunnel barely four feet high. Scrawled above the mouth of the opening are the taunting words ON-IN-YA.  I hesitate for a moment while looking into the dark.  I can see a pin-spot of light barely visible several hundred yards through the blackness.  Without  another second to reconsider I plunge myself into the hole and make my way rapidly down the corridor.  Moments later I am ankle deep in mud and sewage.  There is no avoiding it.  When we were kids my Dad used to yell at us for playing in corrugated run-off pipes and now, in the dark, his exaggerated warnings about flash floods casually come back to me.  I exit the other side safely and climb up onto the damp, grassy bank.  My feet are soaked through and  mud is splattered up to my knees.  There are only four of us who braved the pipe and we take off single file through another stretch of unplanted fields.  

   We are coming over a small rise when I notice something unusual about the ground.  Unlike the dark, fertile soil we've been trudging over for the past several miles, this terrain is soft, white, and comes up in clumps that sticks to our cross-trainers.  I look around and can see that this strange substance covers the ground for at least 20 yards in every direction.  I am wondering to myself why it took me so long to notice this very peculiar incongruity when we happen upon the first of the corpses.  Dogs.  At least twenty of them in a late stage of decay, deflated and blending into the ground.  It is a mass grave of canines.  Then it occurs to us that the white tuft stuck to our shoes and ankles is the rotting matter resulting from years of dead animals decomposing on this spot.  I am surprised that I am not overcome with horror.  Instead, my head calmly fills with questions.  Why so many?  Were they used for fighting?  Why weren't they eaten?  Why dumped so carelessly instead of buried?  We press on.
   Eventually the trail brings us to an abandoned playground.  Small fruit trees grow in and around old sliding boards and swings.  There is something sinister about this place, sitting deserted and alone under an overcast sky.  We continue through mud and low grasses until we reach a subway platform where, having neglected to bring my wallet, I guiltily hop the turnstile.
   Before long we're back at the Lion's Den, commemorating the past 8 miles with Red Rock and fraternity humor. Later in the night I'll make my way to Hang Dae, where my inclination towards awesomeness late in the evening will only be exceeded by my infallible tendency to make an ass of myself early in the morning.    
  
Cool Thing About Korea #48:  Jeong Ji-Hoon, better known as Rain, was the lead role in Ninja Assassin, which was probably one of the greatest cut-em-up action movies I've ever seen. 

Back to Work...In Theory.

     The cold spell finally broke here in Korea and while people I know in North America are suffering through perpetual snow storms, I've been running around Topdong in gym shorts.  With the weather being the way it is I've finally been able to get back to Chilbo San for the first time in nearly two months.  Man I love going to that place.  The brisk run past black flooded farm fields waiting to be seeded.  The hasty climb over muddy rocks and roots through the tranquil wooded mountain side.  Perching myself on the summit and gazing out over the metropolis rippled terrain laid out before me.  Many afternoons, before taking on the bustling crowds and ceaseless nightlife of Seoul, I go there simply to clear my thoughts and tire my body.  I stand up on the ridge line facing north with the wind in my hair, pondering the future and the past.  People I've affected for better or worse.  Things I'm proud of and things I regret.  Where I'm going and where I've been.

     

     With so many people leaving or moving over the past few days there were quite a few reasons to push the usual excitement of a Korean weekend to the next level.  Friday was nothing but good times until my shoes were stolen in a luxury norebang but on Saturday I won a thick wad of cash throwing dice at Go Gos.  Maybe there is balance in the universe.  What else can I say about the awesome clubbing scene in Seoul except that I'll miss it?  It's going to be difficult to re-acclimate myself to the phony Irish pubs, yuppie jazz bars, and hick-ridden beer joints that have a 2am last call in Pennsylvania.  I've gotten too accustomed to partying until sunrise amongst a mega-diverse influx of world citizens in a city of endless possibilities.  

     

     Monday of this week was a holiday celebrating Korean independence from Japan.  I wasn't expecting fireworks, hot dogs, or any of the usual conventions I associate with liberation from an oppressive foreign power, but I was still pretty disappointed when I found that Koreans don't do anything at all to commemorate the occasion.  Can't complain about having a day off though.  Called my mother to wish her a happy 38th birthday, did some laundry, pushed some weight around at the gym, and joined a few of the local Topdong girls for raw tuna.  

     

     So after more than two months of contributing absolutely nothing that can be considered productive the students have finally returned to school and I'm ready to work.  I can't tell you how excited I am to end this monotonous routine I've slipped into and actually teach classes again.  I have lesson plans prepared, I've ironed my office attire, hell...I'm even coming to work freshly shaven for a change.  But unfortunately, it doesn't look like I'll be getting into the classroom anytime soon as that part of the building is still in shambles due to the ongoing construction.  I guess, until further notice, it's back to reading e-books, playing flash games, surfing collegehumor.com, and opening my mind to any other distractions that promise to make the day go by faster.  

Cool Thing About Korea #47: Suhyup Bank. Fresh Bank. Fresh Fish.