Chapter 3: Caveat Vendor

WE rejoin Our Hero -- gag rule on any "rejoinder" rejoinders... dang! -- as he further contemplates his new life. For one thing, the internets are still owning me, instead of the other way 'round. That should all change next week, though, when I get my green card thingy. Then the tubes shall open, and their vast, interconnected series shall bow to my whim.

But that day is still ahead of us, and its bounty of easily uploaded pictures. For now, you'll just have to content yourselves with a few random pictures taken during my wanderings.

Por ejemplo:

This guy is a fine specimen of the scooter/motorcycle epidemic here. More on that later.



And here, we see an ad for Soju, which literally translates to "the Devil's Tears." It's bottled up and sold to Koreans by the hangover.
When I get off work around 11pm, I come home to a street full of completely trashed 50-something businessmen, many of them unable to contain their... enthusiasm. I learned the term "Street Pizza" on my second day here. All thanks to good ol' Soj.



Here we have an artist's rendering of the complexity of the current political situation, and its ramifications vis-a-vis the President's tenure.





In a country where elevators talk, subway cars have AC, and cellphones have free streaming television, a scene like this is cause for some heavy thinking. Yes, those are tiny, green post-its.




I think this car was trying to sneak up on me.



Shoes. Shoes. Ohmygod! Shoes.




Q: "Can corndogs be made more delicious?" A: "And how!"




INTREPID MAN NEEDED. SALARY: GIANT MOP.





That's all for now, folks. Join us next time, when Our Hero:

a) Conquers the TechnoMart, and plunders its cellphone-rich mines.

b) Learns how to say "chicken feet," so as to never, ever, make that mistake again.

c) Maybe even tries to cook something.

- K

Chapter 2: An American Idiot in Seoul.

Well, me buckos, it finally sank in that I'm not in Kansas anymore. What pushed me over the rainbow?

It wasn't the subway. The underground metro here is amazing: take the Moscow metro, but replace the beautiful, historic architecture with efficient, sleek gadgetry, throw in some mini-malls, a shopping center or two, and garnish with an exceedingly confusing system of exits and understreet crossings, and you've got a network of tunnels that a person could get lost in for hours. Believe me: I, uh... have a friend who did that. A few times. And had to buy lunch underground because he lost all sense of direction, time, and smell in the deep places of the Earth.

It wasn't the kimchee. Stuff smells like death incarnate, but the taste isn't exactly bad. What is disgusting are the rice cake patties. I bought ten for two bucks, and barely made it through one of the suckers. It's like eating silly putty.

It wasn't the job. I'm already getting used to the fact that contracts are more like guidelines over here than legally binding documents -- this having been made abundantly clear when, within 6 hours of getting here, I found out that my hours, location, and housing had all been changed without my knowledge. Also, this Friday's a holiday, and instead of getting the day off, I'm working a double shift: noon to 11pm. While I'm not thrilled about the management ethics over here, I'm willing to put up with a little crap for the experience.

What did it was the laundry. Here's what I'm working with: (click for large view)



And here's my "Instructions for Silly American Who Thought He Could Handle Korean Laundry" --




Notice anything missing from the picture? Go ahead, look again.

If you answered "A START button!" you are correct. We would also have accepted "Abort Mission," "Add Hot Sauce," or "Nuke the North."

Besides the ludicrous amount of time it took me to figure out how to start the dang thing, other obstacles included my purchase of fabric softener instead of detergent and assuming 'Standard' meant regular cycle, not 90 minutes of crazed tumbling. Cleanest undershirts EVER.

That's all for now, folks. Tune in next time, when our Hero tames the mystical creature that is the Korean Cellphone.

Chapter 1: Wandering Seoul

In a philosophical sense, I guess we're all Lost for most, if not all of our lives. We spend our time looking for familiar guideposts, hoping to run into a companion along the way. And when that doesn't happen, we look to a higher spiritual power to shepherd us in the right direction.

In a more earthly sense, I spent about 6 hours out of my first 36 in Seoul completely and utterly lost. I forgot the names of my apartment building, street, and subway stop. I forgot the neighborhood of my school, the district I live in, and how to ask for directions in Korean. In short, you shouldn't ask someone to come into work 6 hours after landing from a 13 hour flight, when they've crossed 8 timezones and the international dateline. Especially when that person is a foolhardy idiot like me.

But it can't all be blamed on sleep and idiocy; Korean streets have names, but nobody knows them. They give directions using buildings and landmarks -- basically, if you already know where you're going, you can get there. This doesn't bode well as a window into Korean thinking.

Also, they have subway stations that boggle the mind. To cross busy streets, you often have to go into one of these sprawling mazes, replete with vendors selling everything from rice cakes and hot dogs to cellphones and suits. The station at KangNam -- we'll get there eventually -- has a bona fide underground shopping center and arcade. In short, these are not exactly pedestrian underpasses.

Now, with 13 different entrances/exits from Kyode station -- the one nearest me, under which I must go to get to work every day -- it's a mathematical probability that I would end up lost. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. And even though a fellow teacher from work took me to work the first day, I managed to get lost coming home and going back the next day. Somewhere along my travels, I became a modern Theseus, taking pictures of where I'd been so as not to get too lost in the labyrinthine city, which is like the underground stations but with 10 more people and larger buildings. Some fruits of this exploit: (click for larger photo)

This is a Lotte Castle. There are approximately 1,235,654,680,112 of them. Using it as a landmark was like looking for keys by remembering they were "next to something that wasn't a duck. I think."














Here's a prime example of useless street signage. I had no idea what street I lived on, but neither did anybody else. In retrospect, I should have turned left. Guess which way I went?
















Because when you think Irish Pub, you think Japanese beer.














I have yet to try Korean Domino's, and this picture might explain why. For fun, try and identify 5 ingredients on that pizza.












A slightly creepy, but pretty cool garden sculpture thing. I went into a subway station 3 times, and came out 3 times, and each time I came across these two. The fourth time, I walked down, made a circuit, and tried to come out the same way I came in. I popped out two streets away. Cube 3, anyone?













Eventually, I gave up looking for my workplace and decided to come home. Fortunately, I'd learned my subway stop by then, and what Korea lacks above ground it makes up for underneath. After 4+ hours of exploring, I made it home in 20 minutes. Then, 20 minutes later, a co-worker came a-knockin', and he took me to school.

That's all for now. Join us next time, when our Hero attempts such Heroic tasks as sleeping and doing laundry!

On the Plane

It’s -52 degrees Celsius outside, dark, and there’s a discontinuity in the space-time continuum. Duran Duran’s goin’ crazy psychedelic even through closed eyelids, but all I hear is China’s best love songs on continuous loop. I’ve been awake for 21 hours, and in the last 7 I’ve consumed coffee, red wine, orange juice, and three bourbons and coke. I’m pretty sure I’ve found Limbo.

Thoughts of cheap Korean barbeque, my own apartment, and starting a new job have succumbed to fuzzy-brain syndrome; trying to imagine my soon to be realized future seems as feasible as pondering where your lap goes when you stand up. This is not going to be a very fruitful posting, but the alternative is just sitting here, thinking the fuzzy thoughts to myself.

It may be time to break out the SNES emulator, and Link to the Past. Hmm.