Birthday Postmortem

Just so no one thinks everything is so peachy wonderful here all the time, I'll admit that certain times are ridiculously rough. My birthday was a prime example of this. I started off the day in a phenomenal mood because my fraternity brothers Skyped me and I got a video call from my parents as well, so getting to talk to them put an immediate spring in my step.

Bored and sad at work        

I got to school and started off by teasing my students about the date. Normally   I ask them how the weather is, what today's date is, etc. But today I stopped and asked "why is September 12th special?" and they would get all flustered and inevitably baffled until I told them that it was birthday and I received a round of "happy birthdays" from all the students. Then I would ask "what do people do to celebrate their birthdays in Korea?" and without fail every class said "have a party with friends and family" and the reality of that impossibility for me slow sank deeper into my mind as the day progressed. I started getting a little choked up toward the end of the day until one of my co-teachers asked "what's wrong?" I couldn't even get out the entire phrase and ended up saying "It's my birth-" before having to stop cuz I legitimately thought I was going to cry. 

I was just thinking of all the craziness that would be going on back home for my birthday. A nice dinner with my parents and maybe a day out fishing followed by a party at the fraternity house with all my brothers and a trip to a bar with some of the ones I'm closer to. Instead I'm sitting at a desk grading papers. I think my co-teachers felt bad, because they didn't call me into my later classes and let me just chill in the office, but that was even worse because it was like 6am in America so no one was on Facebook and I was just left alone with my depressing thoughts. 

Solidly Western meal

Luckily, I do have good friends here in Korea and they helped cheer me up a lot. After work we went to Masan (my first trip to Masan!) to get some Pizza da Gennero, which is the legit Italian pizza joint here. We got some phenomenal pizza (some kinds I've never even tried before) and beer before heading over to Baskin Robbins and grabbing an ice cream cake from a wall of masterfully sculpted cakes. They put it in cool insulated styrofoam box with dry ice and then we headed to Palyong to try and find some alleged pirate ship playground. After walking all over the damn place, we found it and it was a pretty awesome pirate ship, I won't lie. We sat in the pirate ship, lit some candles and had our own little party up there in our birthday-pirate-ship-fort. I couldn't help but feel like I was in that movie "16 Candles"...which I've never seen except for that birthday cake scene but it reminded me a lot of that. I'm really lucky to have met such thoughtful and cool people.

I don't think my birthday had anything to do with it, but ever since then (it's only been like 5 days, mind you) I've just been agreeing to the most ridiculous things that I would have never done in the states. So Friday, Casey, Caitlin, Naz and I meet up with a few people in Sangnam who were trying to start up a "bike party" in SoKo (Erin has coined this term and I love it, so I will now always refer to Korea as SoKo). Apparently this is a big think they do in California? And it gets up to 4000 people in attendance. Obviously we probably won't get 4000 bikers in SoKo, but Changwon has a bike rental system calle Nubija, so it actually makes it pretty easy to obtain a bike. So this group wanted to bike 15 miles through Korea....which normally I would NEVER do...but..what the hell, right?

Those are some
pretty cool cakes.

So we meet in Sangnam, unfortunately I don't have a Nubija because I don't yet have a Korean phone (I'm learning this is more akin to having a SSID in America than your actual SSID in SoKo. They use it to verify your ID for practically everything). The leader of the event, Coby, thankfully had a bike of his own that he lent me. It was one of those collapsable bicycles that look absolutely ridiculous but ride really well. And I'm about to ride it all the way to Jinhae.

                       Peak of my birthday                       

We set off, alcohol in hand, ringing bells and screaming "Bike Party!" like complete assholes, but it was a lot of fun. Not too far into our trip, we pass a Korean man and do the usual: ring bells, chug, scream "bikeparty!". But then, right after we pass him, we stop at a Nubija rental to renew our bike passes. While I'm waiting for everyone to rescan their bikes, he catches up to us and walks up to me saying "so beautiful!" I think it's safe to assume he was drunk. He begins to reach into his pocket and Casey thinks that he is taking out a camera/phone because Koreans are always asking to take pictures with me. Instead, he takes out his wallet and pulls out a 5,000 Won bill and tries to hand it to me. I think he is trying to tell me to rent a Nubija since I'm the only one without one so I say "Ken-cha-na-yo. No, thank you. I'm fine." because I already have a bike! 

He then pulls out a peach bill and holds it up to my face. I'm thinking "What? Is my skin the same color as the bill? Does my face look like the guy on the bill?" Casey is equally as puzzled and everyone else has rode ahead. Next thing I know, the Korean man sloppily kisses his bill and smacks it onto my forehead. I bow slightly and say "kam-sa-ham-ni-da! (thank you!)" and he starts to walk away, so we start peddling away as well. Caey turns to me and says "Did that guy just stick 50 bucks on your forehead?" I pull it off and, sure enough, it's a 50,000 Won note. Only 10 minutes into the night and I already made 50 bucks. Put me in a pretty good mood.

We're about to descend into the tunnel...

We then eventually reach this tunnel...which turns out to be the most magically awesome tunnel ever. It's like a mile long and on a slight downhill slope, so the we just speed down this tunnel-hill and it feels like a rollar coaster. It probably sounds stupid in a blog, but there really is no way to adequately explain how it felt. Probably one of the most fun things I've ever done. The rest of the trip down to the Dream Bay was downhill as well, so it was smooth sailing the whole way. We get to the bay and I spend the 50 on booze and fireworks and we shot Roman candles out into the bay. We then proceeded to drink heavily into the night and were either assholes who scared away all the Koreans, or we were just there until very late. Eventually, we started biking back and it started raining ever so slightly. I obviously couldn't go the night uninjured so, at a downhill portion, I squeezed the brakes on the collapsable bike really hard because I forgot how quickly it stopped. I flew over the handlebars and into the street. Bled quite a bit. The people at GS25 were super nice and helped clean me up, but I was not up for the bars at 330am when we got back like everyone else was. I was out for the night.

Yes, I realize I'm wearing the same thing Saturday
as I did Wednesday...I don't have a lot of fall clothes =P

The next day Casey and I went to Lotte Mart to buy taco fixings for a potluck that night. The potluck ended up being really cool and I met a lot of awesome people. One guy, Sunil, got me to agree to audition for a play he was directing and another group got me to agree to go to a cultural festival the next day. See? Literally just up for anything. It's not like I have a lot to do otherwise, so in that sense SoKo is really liberating. The food was outrageously delicious too. I probably overate.

The next day I met up with Brittany, Suzie, and bunch of other new acquaintances to check out the cultural Airang (I think I spelled that correctly?) It was raining all day, which sucked, but ponchos were free and there was a ton of food to try. SoKo has taught me I am a complete sucker for good curry. I don't think I'd ever had Indian food before coming here, but damn....I don't think I've tried a curry I didn't like. That may have to be a main staple of my diet in Korea. There were also a bunch of musical performances by international pop artists from many different countries. It was cool to see people go wild with such cultural enthusiasm. I feel like my American enthusiasm is so much more lackluster than other people's, but my enthusiasm for things in general is significantly less I think.

A Philippino artist performing at the Airang

Not sure what will come next, but maybe it's better that way! I'll keep you posted!

휴가 - Jinhae and UMF Korea 2012!

On our way to Jinhae!

I'm finally getting somewhat caught up on this blog! I really need to update it more frequently, because I don't even remember what I did the first day of my vacation. Especially because there are no pictures from that day, so let's just assume I did boring stuff like clean and nap and whatnot. I was supposed to meet up with Minyoung for dinner and was planning on probably just being a lazy piece of shit until then (Actually, I was going to work on my TESL certification), but then I get a message from Boram saying she wanted me to come visit her hometown of Jinhae with Kimyn, Irene and her. I was like "Well...that sounds WAY better than what I was originally planning on doing, when do you want to meet up?" and it turns out she wanted me to meet at City 7 in like 20 minutes. Well, shit. I got dressed super quickly and messaged Minyoung that I was heading out to Jinhae but I would still be back at 7 for dinner if that was okay with him. I waited a few minutes for a reply (I only have wifi), but I couldn't wait too long, so I took off without hearing back, determined to be back by 7 pm for dinner.

I got to City 7 and looked around, assuming Boram and crew would be waiting for me on a bench, but I didn't see anyone so I figured that I must have beaten their bus here. Suddenly people in a strangely cube-shaped car start waving at me and I realize, stupidly, that Koreans actually have cars in Korea. They don't have to take the bus everywhere. A little embarrassed, I jumped in Boram's car and we waited for Irene to pull up behind us before caravanning to Jinhae!

Jinhae is...kind of like the Satellite Beach of Korea. It's really pretty and earthy, but I get the feeling that it might be a little on the slow side. Still, it reminded me of home and i was excited to be back by the ocean. Boram took us to her mom's restaurant where we were treated to a feast for kings. I tried talking a bit to her mother, but she spoke about as much English as I speak Korean so I didn't get too far. I was content just hanging out in the kitchen and watching her clean and cut the eel so effortlessly. She had each eel fully cleaned, disemboweled, decapitated and ready for consumption in three strokes of her knife. It was pretty amazing to watch. I wish she could have taught me, but I'm pretty clumsy in the kitchen and I feel like I would have just gotten in the way more than anything else.

I left the kitchen to help Irene and Kimyn set the table with twenty different side dishes and a few bottles of beer and soju. We hardly had room at the table for our own plates with everything we set on it. I pretty much just ate off the side dish plates. Koreans aren't really germaphobes like Americans are.

Boram cooking us eel!

The eel was finally ready and we sat down to eat the easily five pounds of eel Boram's mother prepared for us. Boram cooked most of it while we watched and took shots of soju, but we could only wait so long to eat. It became a perpetual cycle of us eating and Boram cooking more until we forced her to stop and eat some herself. Koreans are way too hospitable. the eel was the most phenomenal thing I have ever eaten in my life. I'll probably never have a meal that good again ever. Until the next time I go back.

After dinner we went down to the seaside and took a ferry out to some unknown local island Boram wanted us to check out. The ride was so relaxing and the view was gorgeous as well. I'll stick in a bunch of pictures of just the scenery. I usually hate scenic pictures, but some of this is just absolutely gorgeous.

We just don't have anything comparable in Florida...

Korean lighthouses look pretty sweet.

Irene just looks absolutely terrified...

We finally got to the island and it was actually a little sad. There was graffiti everywhere on houses because people were being thrown out by the government because they wanted the island for some reason or another. It felt like a ghost town in some places, especially at this elementary school we found. That despondence was immediately remedied by a giant trampoline we found on the playground! We probably wasted a solid hour bouncing on this trampoline, but it was so much fun I can't describe it without sounding crazy. Most of the time, Irene was just curled in a ball trying not to get stepped on. She's so tiny! We realized that we were going to miss our ferry back soon, so we headed back to the boat and enjoyed the peaceful ride back. Obviously, more scenic pictures to follow.

(If you don't think those pictures are breathe-taking, you're a Communist.)

We say our farewells to Boram's mom and head back to Changwon in Boram's car with just enough time for me to make it back for dinner. Boram lets me use her phone's wifi (which is a cool feature on Korean phones I don't think we have in America...) to text Minyoung and let him know I'm on my way. He messages me that he isn't arriving in Changwon from Daegu until 8:30 since I told him I was in Jinhae for the day. I was a little bummed, so I asked the girls if they wanted to get some drinks with me in Sangnam-dong while I waited for Minyoung to come to dinner. They agreed, we stopped by Irene's house to see Tony the cat, and then headed off to beer republic for some overpriced American beers. Yum. At least they only stock stuff like Stella and Hoegaarden and not anything repugnant like Michelob or Icehouse....

Girls going wild at the noraebang...

We drank for awhile until Minyoung came into town, but then he texted me that he was tired and wanted to stay at Katie's. I was quite a few beers in at this point and didn't want to leave so we just agreed to raincheck our dinner date and I headed further down the rabbithole with Kimyn, Boram, and Irene. We went to a few bars/restaurants and then, as expected, we hit the noraebang! I discovered Irene is a phenomenal singer and makes everything everyone else does sound like garbage, but I was really proud of my ability to sing Jason Mraz fairly well while intoxicated, so Boram (also a huge Mr. A-Z fan) and I dueted the 3 or 4 songs of his that were available and even 100% "I'm Yours". That felt like a pretty fantastic accomplishment especially after my epic drunken failure to sing Tenacious D which Katie so graciously recorded. Obviously, there are never any cameras around when I do something awesome.

Lots of Korean army guys at
the rest stop on the way to Seoul.

Soon Boram had to get back to Jinhae, but that didn't stop Kimyn from dragging Irene and I to at least three more bars/restaurants for "one more drink" and we even managed to get denied at a few "No Foreigner" clubs. I managed to haul myself away around 4am and, per the usual, ended up getting onto the bus to Seoul with only an hour of sleep to go pick Alexis up from the airport. The bus ride there was peaceful, but I didn't sleep much, so I was super worried that I would be exhausted for Ultra that night.

I got to Incheon airport an hour and a half early so I spent some time exploring the airport and tracing our route out so that we could hurry on our way to the concert. We would be a little late, but that wasn't a hug deal since I didn't even know the opening acts. I discovered a few cool little treasures the airport had to offer as I waited. On the way to the airport subway, there is a random ice rink set up for kids to skate for fun. There was also a Korean choral group preforming/rehearsing (?) in the airport randomly and they were really good! They also had some funny little bits and I was thoroughly entertained for about 30 minutes. Then I went to go wait for Alexis to get off her plane and, luckily, it came in like 40 minutes early!

Ice skating rink in the Incheon Airport

See what I had to carry?!

Of course, she had all her luggage to move to Japan with her so each bag was roughly 70 pounds. It wasn't so bad on the airport subway, but once we hit the Seoul subway and had to transfer a few times, I was cursing those damn bags and every single stair I had to climb or wrong elevator we went up/down in the unrelenting heat. I was sweating like a far man eating a philly cheesesteak. We finally made it to Jamsil and I couldn't find an elevator to the surface so I had to haul both suitcases up two flights of stairs. From there it took us 15 minutes to hunt down a taxi driver who could take us to our hotel, but we finally got there, dropped our bags and took of for the stadium. After a few wrong directions and taxis driving us to the Olympic Park instead of the Olympic Stadium, we made it to the concert ground and learned that we weren't quite out of the woods yet. Korea was extremely unprepared for it's first Ultra and there were so many superflous and arbitrary lines we had to stand in or didn't have to stand in but thought we did. One line was to claim our tickets, but another line was to trade our tickets in for wristbands....? -_-; Not very well thought out. Plus it was hilarious to see all the Korean girls there in clubbing clothes like long dresses and 5 inch heels. They looked damn good though.

We finally got in for the beginning of Steve Aoki's set and managed to squeeze up toward the middle of the huge crowd of Koreans going absolutely crazy for this Japanese DJ. Steve Aoki alone was enough to make up for all the shit we had to go through to get there. He started at 8 and played for an hour and a half. Then when he called out "last song", he played another 30 minutes. He dropped some new track with Knife Party and a few more UMF exclusives. I've never raged so hard in my life. I have also never seen Koreans go so crazy either...for anything...especially electronic music. Then Skrillex came out and then it was just lights out. People were jumping and screaming and dancing. Skrillex has evolved into an absolutely wild live producer/dj since we saw him last year and his remixes of his own songs were jaw-dropping. We got up to the front at one point, but I had just been going so hard for the past three and a half hours that I had to leave and get some water. I was like 100% drenched in sweat and about 40% of it probably wasn't mine.

After the show we grabbed some Pocar Sweat (Japanese Gatorade) and a kebab before trying to grab a cab. The cabs parked outside the arena were asking 30,000-40,000 Won to take us the four blocks to our hotel. We were like "Hell no". After unsuccessfully trying to grab a cab on the main drag (people were running into the street trying to get cabs and they all just kept driving by...idk why) we just decided to hoof it back to the hotel. We grabbed some bulgogi burgers from a Family Mart and I ate mine in the shower while Alexis just fell straight asleep. We were exhausted. The hotel sucked. There were no plugs in the entire hotel room, so we unplugged the mini fridge to charge our phones, but what can you do? It was a last minute hotel for like 50,000 Won four blocks from the venue and the subway. Not bad.

We left early in the morning fully intending to make the noon bus back to Changwon to get there in time for Caitlin's birthday dinner that night, but we failed to consider that goddamn luggage yet again. We had no idea where we were going and at some point it turned into some old silent movie slap-stick comedy where we ride an escalator down a floor, then see a sign for an exit so we drag the luggage up a flight of stairs only to realize that we're back to where the escalator is that we just rode down. Drenched in sweat yet again and thoroughly fucking sick of Seoul and this 150 pounds of luggage, we finally made it the the bus terminal with minutes left to catch the 1:20 bus back to Changwon and we almost missed that one. It pulled away as soon as we got on.

Caitlin's birthday dinner was awesome. We ate at an Outback...in Korea...and I had a cajun shrimp and rice dish that was a succulent taste of home that I probably wouldn't have the luxury of tasting again any time soon. We all got our own dishes, but ended up eating down of each other's dishes Korean style anyway. It becomes habitual. Caitlin had a wild steak with a gorgonzola cheese topping and a wine sauce on top. It was very rich. Everyone's food was super delicious. We went out a bit after that, but Alexis and I were exhausted so we called it a night soon after that. She's here from the 3rd until the 15th so my nextpost will probably chronicle all that insanity.

Until next time, America! 안녕!