Korea: The Low Down

December 2006

If ever you need a taste of America whilst in Asia, Seoul's the place to go. There are tons of Americans, Armed Forces TV. (with all the best cartoons) and all kinds of restaurants: Bennigan's, TGI Friday's, Appleby's. If ever you get lost, the Starbuck's can be used as way points. True blue, um black, coffee everywhere. Huzzah!

It has a touch of Tijuana as well. The night street markets are everywhere if you can't find what you need at 'Skin Food' or 'Tommy Whitacker' (the inspiration of T. Hilfiger). If money is needed, just stop by Wooribank (pronounced 'Worry Bank'). Additionally, you can keep up on what Communist China is doing to make the world a better place.

As we walked the streets, we came across a cartoon of man being disemboweled! Apparently the Chinese aren't entirely capitalist yet. They track down Korean gangsters and make them 'share' organs with the peasants in China who are more deserving. And people say Communism doesn't work...

Everyone i was with went drinking, so i headed back to the hotel. A nice man outside asked if i wanted a 'Korean lady'. "Why?”, i thought to myself’ “Room service would clean the room and there were plenty of nice places for breakfast, never mind that there wasn't a kitchen in the room and...Wait a second!'

Soon after, we had an earthquake (though i never felt it). It must have been a dousy though, because this other guy on the sidewalk was thrown all over the street! He could barely stay upright! He was just about thrown into traffic when his wife grabbed him by the coat. I don't think i've EVER seen someone so drunk.Huzzah for alcohol!

Perhaps the strangest thing was 'breakfast' on Monday. We carted out of by six and bused to a little job on the way to the airport. The Koreans and Japanese herded us to little table. She must have been a Japanese auctioneer, cause she didn't stop talking like a machine gun for 15 minutes as the staff started feeding us kim-chee. I stared bleary eyed at the 'fermented' cabbage sitting in front of me at 7AM while listened to a barrage of Japanese. I deduced that this was some sort cult that was trying to break our wills by pungent food, audio pollution and sleep deprivation. Eventually, I agreed to join, if only to take a nap.

Here's the other strange bit; (though i love kim-chee) it's not exactly smooth on the stomach. I speak with some certainty that once you've had some your back side can be classified as a biological weapon. Why did they hate everyone on the plane so much? Roses, it not smell like when we finally got off to Narita.

However, i did find some cool kids there. Besides walking the streets of Seoul, we did karaoke at a little club. There's nothing like a bunch of drunk Brits singing 'Eye of Tiger' and 'Bohemian Rhapsody' like The Backstreet Boys to make me thank God once again that i was born in the U.S. The singing didn't stop there, my friend Jill and i did 'Baby it's Cold Outside' on the bus ride home amongst other Christmas favorites. We were the belles of ball with all, save the wee Britons who were already get hangovers.

It's a little weird, ironic even, that Seoul put me in the holiday spirit. The buildings were decked out in proper Christmas fashion, it was really cool. There was even a 'European Christmas Town' with beautiful lights, trees and reindeers even. I really did enjoy my stay there, but i was really glad to get back to the relative normalcy of Chichibu.


PS: We found a 'pay toilet'. The curious thing was, it had a 10 minute limit then the door swings open. Which leads to the question, what happens if you've loaded up on kim-chee and can't make it back to the hotel? A scatological quandary i hope i never have to face.