Sunny Breaks

- because I can’t get the jig out of my toes, o bookmark these people because maybe they have a jiggin’ troupe.

I bought some altec lansing speakers yesterday, plugged them in and immediately started to feel sanity returning at the same rate that the neighbours realised they’re not going to like me. It’s 2 small speakers and one bass thing – I’ve always been sus on those small speaker set ups and thought that unless the things weren’t about to blow apart then they weren’t good. But they bassyness of these ones is sweet.

There was this surreal moment the other day where I was rushing to get out the door and scrambling for the keys in my pocket to lock the door, and sometimes it’s like my frame of vision closes in to make everything tunnelish. I focus on the lock then hear the next-door (right behind me) open and I swing around and for a brief moment see the old lady (ajumoni) peering out from behind the security latch with her midget dog in her arms and its head just below her chin — manic little rat-dog I’ve heard yapping a fair bit. I smiled and quickly turned away to get the lock clicked and ran off.

I also bought an iron, because I love ironing.

Phrasebook section: dating and romance, subsection: classic rejections

- “I’m sorry but I’d rather not.” – “I’m here with my boyfriend/girlfriend.” – “Stop hassling me.” – “Excuse me, I have to go now.” – “I’m not interested.” – “I think, I’ll be very busy in this semester because I’m a freshman of university. As you know, there are so many school events every freshman must attend in their first semester, such as, freshman seminar, OT, things like this…
So maybe I’m gonna rarely have free time in this semester.”

Yes folks, she broke my heart — but that was last week and I’m over it now. Even that time having lunch I knew it wasn’t going to work. I mean, favourite movie: Mrs.Doubtfire??? — and studying economics…? Plus there was the ultimate reality that she just wasn’t any fun. I think a lot of people here don’t know how to have fun.

I knew this guy who lived in candy st Westgarth, and after several failed romantic endevours had found a central thread, that being Motorhead. None of these women had ever heard of Motorhead. So his gate-keeper was uttering the band title, Motorhead. If they didn’t know what he meant it was end game. It didn’t matter if they loved, loathed or were indifferent to the band — but at least something.

The other day on the subway I noticed this young woman in business clothes sitting on the other side of the way. I watched her get a bible out of her bag, flip to the end section and read. I’d like to take creative licence and say it was to Revelations, but I know better than that – and there’s probably some boring stuff at the end because of the new testament. I couldn’t help but grin mischeviously at the situation. She looked up and it became a staring contest — I won easy. Point is, what’s the point reading that thing if you can’t smile back? That collection of whacked-out novellas is fast becoming a red rag to my horns.

And all those christians can sit and spin because I’m wif a crew now. The monk came around today and we went shopping. He calls me Mr.Wocky and I call him Mr.Monk. He gets Rah-spect everywhere he goes – people bowing and doing the hands-together praying-thing. He showed me where this close-by, hidden supermarket was, but apart from that I pretty much know how to shop.
Then we strutted back to da Temple, and man, sure I’ve only been here a month, but I’ve never seen a pad as swish as that before in the whole country. Like, he had a huge AV unit – big tv and a whole bunch of stereo stuff, all these nice plants, a big picture of a lion, leather couches and the place was really really roomy.

This woman made us coffee and at first I thought maybe she was the maid or somfing, but I think maybe she is his wife — so I dunno – I didn’t think zen buddist monks could have wives, but maybe the SK version is different. The coffee was pretty damn good, considering the national standard. And they gave me a big bag of rice.
He’s got this bracelet of big wooden balls as big as eyes. And great taste in hats – mostly greay beanies, which go well with the monk outfit, but also a brown beret, one of those artist ones that looks like the top of an acorn with the twig-bit. I’ll have to ask him if he’s tight with the dalai lama.

Later on we went cruisin’ in the Lexus to E-Mart to catch up wif some of the homies. Some of them work there. Mr.Monk gave ‘em lollies. I bought cheese-singles which is about the only sort of cheese you can get at the supermarket, and it’s that deep-orange american-style colour (why? cheese doesn’t come out of a cow that colour). And I got some more household goods — utensils. I now have everything needed to make pancakes. I’m pancake-capable.
We had 30cent cones and then dinner at da food court. Zen, baby. Zen.

I got the cable tv on. It was actually way down on the list of priorities, but easy to get sorted, so. The internet guy came and try as we did, we couldn’t convince him to at least install the fucker and give it a try. He was cheery enough (from KTF) but kind of froze when he saw the iBook. There ain’t nothing but PC clones with WinXP here. Which means I have to keep coming to PC Bangs, which means I might as well have taken up cigs again ‘cause they’re so smokey. I install Firefox on every machine I sit down at.

PS. That guy I mentioned – the founder of the school – is 95 years old. I don’t think I ever shook hands with a 95yo, let alone in a work situation.

I moved into the apartment yesterday. It was pretty tough going, a few pieces of unfamiliar furniture and no guidance I could’ve tried to make it feel like a keroaucky beat moment but the whiteness of the flouro and energy-saver light globes was too much to overcome.
I had a nightmare – something to do with the malevolent ghost of a child. For someone who likes to point out possible good omens (3 sulphur-crested cockatoos in the morning) I’m trying to not take it as an ill-omen, and instead a combination of the groaning of the under-floor heating system, the piercing hum of the fridge and a too-hot room.

The monk came over today and through gesticulation and charades I got the low-down on how the heater works. Then my handler from the school came over and we went shopping — she’s a nice person, and it was what I was hoping for because I was starting to feel a bit left high n’ dry, like ‘fully-furnished’ should mean more than a washng machine and a single bed.
We stopped off at a restaurant serving local cuisine and had dinner. This is nothing special, people here do it all the time, but I couldn’t help grinning at there being 30+ bowls/food recepticles on the table. She asked if I liked it, and I said yes, very much, and in this earnest stilted english she basically says – good because you’re paying for it. That made me laugh.

We went to a big department store – like K-Mart, except with food too, called E-mart. I bought some stuff like cutlery and tea-bags (HoofuckenRay for that, only Liptons and way expensive, but it was the first I’d seen anywhere) — after deciding on each item and about to move onto the next, she’d say in this near-by, furtive voice, “and then…?” and I almost cracked up completely because it reminded me of that Chinese Foooo bit from Dude, Where’s My Car?

Also while still at the apartment, after long conversations between her and the monk they sorted out getting internet and cable tv connected – tomorrow fingers crossed. All the net is broadband here, although the wireless situation leaves somethng to be desired. The only places that offer wireless is Starbucks, and even then my compadre Frank who was determined to get it happening, couldn’t. There’s no starbucks in this town. And cable tv is all there is here – I don’t know why — maybe the surrounding hills. Some of them are free-to-air stations and others are stuff in English, like the Super Action channel, and the Armed Forces Network – courtesy of uncle sam. Ironically, this is the only way I will get to see The Simpsons, and supposedly, the AFN channel’s program grid is decided on by vote of the troops.

I’m going to have to change my internal mental definition of the word-trio, ‘zen buddist monk’ because he drives a car (toyota?) and has a mobile phone. Despite the language barrier he says that he want to show me where some of the restaurants are and will take me shopping to e-mart sometimes. Giant-supermarket shopping with a zen monk — now that’s something that couldn’t possibly be done without sunglasses.

[Props to ToeKnee of The Horse’s Mouth for resizing this shot for me since I can’t get me lappy to the net at the moment.]

The mascot for the cops here is that happy little character and in some ways it kind of fits. It’s the protein thing and the protein thing is huge — I’m continually have to readjust perception for it. Not having loads of dairy and meat and whatever it is that the West eats too much of, and instead eating rice, vegetables and a little meat makes everyone here smaller. This is all personal theory, mind.
Truly obese people are rare, the women mostly look more feminine and the men are smaller/sleighter than in the West. All the cops I’ve seen have been smaller than me. Last Friday at lunch on busy streets I had to manoeuvre around one and I felt like giving him the brush just for the heck of it. The brush is where people don’t bother moving right out of the way and kind of push past/through you – to different degrees. Having one’s personal space invaded like that takes some getting used to.

The cops drive these little hyundai hatchbacks same as everyone else on the grid. Sometimes they drive around with the red and blue lights blinking away as standard, like the boy who cried wolf. Sometimes they’ll yell out orders via the PA system attached to the roof, but again it seems kind of pathetic. They don’t have guns.

The local guys with the job of guarding yankee property are given big sticks. Maybe someone used that metaphor of ‘keeping them in line with a big stick’, and they took it literally.

But then, crime of the blue collar bank robber kind is almost non-existant. The TV news has to resort to building fires for action. I was looking at what I guess were the Jan. and Feb. posters of most-wanted people outside a cop station today – each had one token female.

The military is slightly different in that they’re everywhere. Initially I thought it was weird (a couple of weeks ago) being in a kiddy-amusement park, with a bunch of kiddies and me looking up and feeling a tad concerned at a convoy of 4 or 5 helicopter gunships rolling across te sky. But I was literally the only one looking. The locals seem oblivious. It happens all the time, but not right over the city, just in the country.
There’s guys in infantry fatigues everywhere. Just singly, off-duty but all the same. The rate is more like 70-80% of them are smaller than me.
And while the cops no.1 passtime is probably dealing with drunks, the military are actually used sometimes — like to mow down their own people, as happened on May 18 of 1980 in Gwangju, which is a city in the south-west. ref.

I don’t know, I’m feeling a bit negatoid today. I was hanging out with giveColinabrain last night and he was saying he dislikes all korean guys. I’ve definitely found it harder to strike up conversations with them, but was waiting longer to draw any conclusions.
This arvo I was cruising back through the local playground, and oldfolks had take over because it’s the first full moon after new year, which is significant. This morning they were drumming on and rocking to scare away the evil spirits.

There was a bunch of oldies sitting around singing along to one guy with a drum. It sounded great and was another of those times where I wish I had a minidisc on me because the audio can be even better than photos occasionally. They latched onto me enthusiasically and brought me in closer to the fire. I could see that some of them were pretty wasted on soju (the local spirits derivative) and this one old woman grabs my hand and claps it to hers along to the song, which was all fairly harmless. Then some old guy, more angry at her than me, grabs at the back of her jacket and pulls her right over onto the paving.

I was trying to help her up, but being careful about it considering there’s no way I could say, ‘hey let’s all just chill a bit hey?’ and she get up and pushes the guy, who had a coffee in his hand which went flying. Then he pulls her over again, and after that I split because it was depressing.

The alcohol is one thing — they drink way too much of it here. But the fucked up dynamic between men and women is another — and I fear that giveColinabrain might be right when he says that the only difference between these old arseholes and the younger guys is several decades of age – and that they’ll all be like that; treating women badly and not understanding eachother.

I didn’t realise how ingrained the whole ‘opening the door for the lady’ mindset was ground into me until noticing how it’s not done ever here. It’s not a western-feminist-friendly ‘we’re all equal so I’ll go through the door first, and we’ll split the bill’ thing either. It’s a ‘fuck you, I’m older, male and therfore superior so I’ll take that seat’ thing.

Even if they are thinking dogs?

I met the school’s founder today – he really is old – maybe 400. His tongue was waving about and doing involuntary things, his eyes had that white-filmy cataract look and his slacks hung loose on spindly legs. But y’know it’s nice that he’s still got something to do instead of being hidden away in an oldfolks home. In this society he can, through translation, ask me if I’m christian, smoke and drink. I lied about the first one but was at least able to be true on the 2nd n 3rd. Be true to your school.
I got to see the apartment where I’ll be living. It’s nice, about the same size (if not a smidge bigger) and quality as Bucky’s, and it’s taken him a while to get where he is. Granted, I’m out in the sticks, but the traffic’s more managable, the air is cleaner, and down there, I’ll be treated like the freak that I am.
I don’t mind the longer-than-normal looks and the out and out stares. In fact, I crave them. I want to live in a place where I can get up in the morning, not have to do anything special to my hair or put on a costume — and just be treated as a freak. Lazy in his achievement of freakishness. That’s not really the situation there – maybe if I went further down, inland.
What’s troubling is when it’s inconsistant, like when I went to the whitey predominated ‘burb, Itaewon, the other day. I felt like shooing the other whiteys away. I saw on other whitey in eeetch-on today. I said hi but should’ve asked where Whitey congregates down there.

I met my landlord – a zen buddist monk – fuckin’ A! I knew it’d be hard for anyone to match Higgins as a landowner, but matched, matchless, match-everythingness .. and the inadequacy of words to describe zen. He had those kind of face wrinkles that indicate a life of lots of smiling and laughing. Doesn’t speak a word of english, but that’s cool — it’d only get in the way. The temple is right over the street, so maybe I’ll go hang out and meditate some, and do other zen shiznit like wear a shoe on my head and threaten to push deciples off the bridge into the river because they wanted to know how deep the river of zen is.
Peace out.

Linguistics is blowing my head out. It’d probably be good for every whitey/western kid be made to learn a non-romanised alphabet. I had a go at figuring some hangul out today but it’s disheartening to swap a word back and then realise it’s still gobbledegook like ‘chungul’ or something like that. From the back of the phrasebook I transed entrance to ipku, checked it and was pleased to see that the phonetic is indeed ipku, now I’ve just got to remember what ipku means, and then about a million other words.
And then the phrase book lets me down because it says annyong haseo is hello and how are you — but real people only say haseo. It sucks when you already had a perfectly fine one-sylable salutation like hi, and then have to switch to a potentially 6-sylable hard to say thing. And they all say it, you walk in to shops and the checkout chick will say haseo at least. What happened to the apathetic non-verbal, no eye-contact, exchange of goods for money I was so used to?

Yay. Thanks internet, because of you I now know how to tie a tie and I did it all without asking anyone. Or at least this time. For the interview I had to arx Mr.Kim at the place where I’m staying. More on that when I actually leave. The whole dressing straight bit sucks arse. I’d like to get a tailor-made 1930s gangter style pinstripe suit so then I’d at least feel cool. I don’t like tucking my shirt in.

A few weeks back now at the camp, the second-head teacher, matt, got food poisoning at was puking all night. All the kids in my class loved him because he could just cruise in, crack a few jokes and split while I was the guy enforcing the spelling tests. Regardless, I got the kids to make a get well card and write a sentence etc. On it they mostly put ‘matt, fighting!’ and similar. There’s also other things like KTF, the 2nd largest telephony services provider, stands for Korea Team Fighting.
The point being that there’s this odd slip in translation where fighting means Go For It!

And since I end up using crappy MS internet explorer these days, I’ve grown weary of seeing how crappy the old design was rendering in it. Most web pages produced in this country are crappy looking and cluttered up with text and javascript rubbish, but the reason why al those N.american web-design elitists use minimal boring white-spaced set-ups is because it’s fookin’ impossible to create a well-layered design that works in all browsers.

Pretty much all of the temporary whitey teachers from the camp have cleared out now. Frank from SF split the other day and Rectangle went to do some WOOFing today, although she’ll be back and will also be in eeetch-on for a couple of months. They guy who I roomed with at the camp, who we’ll call Bucky (until he protsets that I not call him Bucky) has been here 3 years and has been a veritable font of knowledge practical and abstract about the country and working here. I had dinner with him last night again and it was good to catch up.

Also it was just good to hang out with someone because I was feeling downbeat about having lunch with YYS. She’s like being with a badly sealed case of uranium. Together, you feel invincible and dangerous and a couple of hours can feel like months but eventually you got to part and immediately you start feeling sick, need to sleep, and huge welts break out all over your skin … well maybe not that but the rest.
She’s freakishly pretty so I couldn’t help but stare the whole time — I think she pretended not to notice – and virtuous but not particularly fun — and I’m impatient and desperately trying to find a way to impress her or make her laugh and wondering of there’s anything she’s really passionate about. I’m totally 0wnz0red which is uncomfortable.

As far as this whole writing stuff online thing goes, one of my main inspirations over the last 14 months or so has been Zellar of Open All Night. He’s just moved virtual working locations to Yo Ivanhoe!. I hope they’re paying him there, or paying him more, or whatever.

I signed that contract for that job today. It was supposed to be in the presence of the founder of the school, but he had to go home for a nap. It was founded in 1945 so the old boy’s probably getting on, and be honest, who doesn’t like a nap after lunch?
Obviously I’m not going to get into any specifics about it all. I tried googling the joint and there’s almost nothing. The city is just under an hour onna bus from seoul – south by south-east and is pronounced eeetch-on. I think I’ll just alias it as the Nunnery because, damn it, I knew this would happen … I was sitting in the admin waiting area falling asleep in the stuffy warm air and gazing into this lead-light window, and it took a couple of minutes because it was all so abstract, but I could eventually see a Cross in there. After that crucifixes started popping up all over the place. I’ll probably have to teach sentences like: Find the verb in – “On Saturday Jesus went to the beach”.

It’s not like I have a huge problem wif christians or anyfing. I wish I could be one, they’re just so damn pious … how do they not desire? But I can’t. It’s like asking me to go back to pretending santa claus is alive or the earth is flat. Or pretending to not see the cross in the window. The woman who said I was handsome in the interview, has got this whole Vulcan thing going on – like how can you say that about someone then not show even the slightest glimmer of interest? It turns out she is the ‘assistant teacher’ anyway – which also is crazy because I guess she’d be the same age as me, but has this way of carrying herself in a ten years more mature fashion. Because the classes are 45 students big, there’s a second teacher. Confuscious was about as wise as yer average accountant.

Once upon a time there was a battery operated man. He had several batteries in him, which would drain to their own schedules.
He could recharge easy enough through any normal power outlet, although, he was from a different place and so needed an adaptor plug to connect. He always left it at home because it felt nauseating to carry it ‘round.
Once all his batteries ran out at once. After completing the loop-ride 18 times he was found by someone who was able to read and carry out the instructions hanging around his neck in a little clear plastic envelope.
“Please kindly return this battery operated man to _____ ____ --_ in case of power failure.”

Then one day he met this surly but dainty gal. She was standing behind the counter of an icecream outlet imitation, patting icecream down into flat moon-ocean beds like some cosmic cosmic.
In a rural accent she squawked hello and how are you without meaning it, looking him in the eye or smiling. The battery couldn’t understand her at all. And unlike all the others, she refused to learn a language that wasn’t hers.

Yet they were drawn together. She to his indescribably beastly looks and pocket money, and he to her pouty bottom lip and FUCK OFF attitude. She may well have been half his age but that didn’t matter because it wasn’t like that at all.

Together they’d do stuff like walk right over the tops of stationary cars in the traffic-jammed rain-sodden fish-funk streets.
On the subway, they laughed at a young woman who was crying and obviously suffering from acute toothache because she was holding a cold-pac to her jaw.
At the gigantro LotteMart supremarket they grabbed a hammer from one section and used it to pound a hole through the side-bottom glass of a large tank. Spilling out cam plenty of water, and ten whopping rock lobsters with main-shells as big as your both hands fisted together. The lobsters went berzerk snapping at shoppers.

They ran away and ate pilfered icecream.

ice, ice chicken

You know you’re firmly wedged in the twilight zone when you show up for a job interview and the first thing the interviewers say is ‘you are very handsome’ — especially when you’re me. That was by the time we actually sat down for the interview, which was after the grand tour of the school. The compliment was followed by this long silence as I waited for questions – which eventually came. But I had this terrible good feeling that it was more or less a formality. Through it, as I bullshitted a little, in the back of my mind I was thinking – the details of this particular job are great but that I was also really going to be working – there will be real work to do.

I met the principal briefly – a fifty-something man with a shrewd look about him. The two women who interviewed me had to translate for him. The school has a sister-school – some christian girls school in brizzy. Did I mention this job is at a girls school? I don’t know if this is a good thing or not yet. The principal asked me if I knew any principals hehe – yeah right. I said the one from my high school when I was there — I didn’t bother mentioning that we didn’t part on such shit-hot terms after he decided to press charges on me.

(what’s the html &…; code for the greek thingy pi?)
There’s this Melbourne poet called pi O, and he’s got this one:

and that’s the situation with the job. From my understanding all I got to do is sign the contract. I hate talking about things here before they’re cement. Like, the date got postponed. I talked to YYS on the tellingbone and she didn’t even know it was Vals day. Stay tuned – the whole thing could be going nowhere fast.

When you’re whitey (and boyeee) you get the ‘you handsome boyee’ line a lot. All the kids said that to me. There’s a whole bunch of things that the man from mars in my head is trying to grok about this nation, and idolising the West is one of them. I’d like to know how it started, and why. Whatever the case, there’d be no call for me here if it weren’t so. I keep riding and riding the subway loop – the seats are along the walls facing eachother and I sit there scanning, staring and grope and strain as far as I can for a handle on this whole thing – these people. So far nothing.

I writ this post once already last night but then I pressed the wrong button and it disappeared.

Yesterday I found a new bunch of friends who tend to not get smashed everynight, which suits me fine. Went bowling, cracked a hundred.

My love-life has pretty well sucked for over two years so it’s a good thing that I’m going out on a date tomorrow evening. Before I came here I had this notion that I wanted to be a born-again romantic; fall in ga-ga love, actively pursue a young woman rather than be caught by one, go on dates, hold hands and go ice-skating. Everything would be sweet and nothing would hurt — and it’s never going to be like that. But fuckit I’m going to try, Billy.
YYS, (those really are her initials and it’s great because it rocks one third harder than my YS) seen top middle here speaks softly, has insanely good posture, sits in ways I never could, will give up her socks to stoopid kids in 17degsC, puts ^/del> in emails (what the heck is ^- ??) and has a heart lighter than anything I’ve ever come near. I’ve come a way but I still feel way dark cynical and captain kirk next to her. Plus I slouch like nobodies bizness.

Tradition here has it that the guy does nothing on Vals day, while the girl gets the guy chocolate. A month later the guy reciprocates by getting the girl lollies (candy) but if you find yourself an unreciprocated lover in such exchanges, then the month after that you’re supposed to go to a bar and eat black eggs. True story.

Every now and then there’s a arm wrestle between the identities yak sox and the other guy. The other guy has always won, but in this place people can’t pronounce his name. He might disapear completely. They stare at the seven letters, then ask what is it? how do you say it? He says, they attempt to repeat it and come out with something completely different. Or he’s asked to spell it and the conversation has promptly died. In one situation at a beverage-dispensing establishment he was labelled ‘too hard to pronounce’ for the whole night. Even people who he’s grown close to find subtle yet effective ways to carry out communication, spoken or written, without mentioning his name. Eg. Writing an email in the form of a phonecall, and ending it, “Well, seeya!”
There are no natural words in the language starting with ‘L’, only modern, introduced words such as ‘lesbian’ .. the ‘s’ pronounced as a mixture of ‘x’ and ‘sh’. And here, lesbians are considered filfy.
I almost was going to tell someone about how my dear sister is teaching at a secondary school in Melbourne, one that’s considered progressive, and how the school admin made all the students march in a recent gay pride rally — but it’s all just so confusing.

Also, there’s no three-consonant combinations like ‘chl’. yak sox may take over the body completely yet. There’s even a subway station called Yaksu, which is close.

It’s chinese lunar new year hols here, so not much has happened on the job front. I can’t get a fone without a 12-month visa. In another situation where I can’t get fotos from the laptop to the internet. It’s a conspiracy I tells ya — windows xp will recognise my camera no probs, but that stoopid program, ms paint, lacks the ability to resize photos.

Saw a few touristy things yesterday, the highlight being a troupe of traditional musicians; drums cymbals and crazy little horns. Plus they had these ribbon-twirly things on their heads which looked neat.
Moved out of the nicey comfort of my friend’s apartment into a guesthouse. There was three of us living in this (what I’d consider very small space) for four days and I’m really surprised at how sane it was — a testament to the good natures of the other two guys… both of who read this . so as if I’m going to say anything else ..heheh.
And while the proprietors of the guesthouse seem nice – it’s full of these backpacker types with that hungry souless look in their eyes. ay curumba.
I’ve been hanging around with whiteys and one very helpful local the last couple of days, which is heaps better because there’s someone to talk to.

As for learning the language, I’m focussing on the kind of phrases I know I’ll need the most like:
“what’s that smell?”
“It looks nice, but do you have it in a vermillion?”
“Oh jesus… I am so, so so sorry.” and
“Hey! if you shove me once more there’s gonna be trouble.”

I spent a lot of yesterday and today riding around on the subway in seoul. It’s pretty well organised and can act as a skeleton when navigating the body of the city. I never stood on the platform long enough to think, ‘I’m waiting for a train’ because they’re so regular. I mostly rode the green line, line 2 – a large loop that takes about an hour to do. It’s a flat 1000won to get through the turnstiles; equating to one US dollar. — so all that’s excellent — a compact city that actually sees the logic to a really functional mass transit system.
It feels constructed well because I could stand up wthout holding anything and not get thrown around – wich helps keeps te punters calm – especially when the carriages are packed. I haven’t really seen that yet. I’m told it was a ghost town today — it’s the Lunar new year, and the tradition is to scramble back to where the folks are. Half the country goes to some other part of the country – literally – 27million people travelling – either on roads or by train, bus etc.

I spent most of today by myself and it was a lonesome traveller thing. Heavy adjustment due to the language barrier, being in the extreme minority. I saw a few whiteys, tried to make eye contact and was kind of sad when I didn’t get it – aren’t they as wanting to say hi as much as me? Apperently not, except for a black american guy named Jude who tried to recruit me into his church – I don’t know which one.

I know the mobile phone is a known invention in most parts of the world, but they’re practically grafted to the hands of the people here. A couple of times the last seat to be filled would be the one next to me, because I’m a whitey and it seems no one wants to sit next to the whitey.

Am having a first go of the ubiquitous public compter rooms in Seoul, called PC Bang. Good computer, a bit smokey, but cheap.
Was feeling a bit downbeat yesterday after saying goodbye to the whole camplife scene. Seeing the kids off (a couple of them cried), and then my wonderful assistant (who also cried – about the kids, not me) and then eventually all us whiteys heading our different directions. Although, not quite – am staying with a new uber-helpful friend and veteran of SK life for a day or so, along with another new friend — which really good because I knew the transition from being around hundreds of people constantly back to solo would be difficult.
The place we stayed last night was really nice — right looking over a big park called the children’s park – a big window with a view of heaps of trees and some birds – even in the dead of winter – looked nice.

Went a long taxi ride from one area of the city to another last night and got the first glimmer of understanding about how big the place is.

This two weeks is almost up. Probably a good thing, I’m coming apart. Various biological valves that’ve been dormant for a long time are opening up, and I’m losing gradually to sleep deprivation and the sheer weight of numbers — there’s 12 of them and one of of me. Multiply that 12 by 40 and the amount of noise, light, smell etc. can be enough to erase a human adult mind entirely. What is normal for them is abominable chaos for us.

But there are also moments when the caffiene is just kicking, or a little more serotonin dumps in (is that the way it werks, or is it the other way around?) and I can cope with it. There are a couple of moments perma-etched in memory, like where we were waiting outside the museum and the girls found an almost dead ladybug on the ground. They crowded around, prodded it a bit and spoke native. I said, “Ladybug” and one of them kind of looks up and mirrors my pronunciation in this wicked ocker accent, “LayeedeeBuhg” with the hint of a question mark to ensure she’d said it properly. You could say a new word to an adult and they’d factor in the defaultish N.american accent, that I can’t tell if it’s TV-caused, or natural linguistics because they do stuff like really hit n’ roll the RRRs here. But kids, don’t always do that so I hear how I sound, and it’s shocken.
When calling out letters in the alphabet for things like playing hangman, I have to do the pirate “Arrgh” to get them to understand that I’m saying R.

The camp food is challenging – I get these trays with nothing that I recognise on them. Thankfully there’s cereal (net even corn flakes, but krusty sugar-coated flakes) in the morning. I don’t think I’d be here writing this if I’d been served tenticles for breakky. There only so much AM ‘brother of squid’ a lad can take before flicking to certifiable.
There is no cheese here. There is no potato here. The other night one of the tray sections was filled with a thing consisting of: chopped apple, can-corn kernels, and the afore-mentioned krusty flakes … in mayonaise. I’m fairly sure that’s not a traditional dish – and that I’m not being a cultural insensitive clod for dissing it. The troubling thing was that the Pedros sitting near me went and got an extra bowl of it. Si senor.

Mostly it’s chaos. I can’t read anything. The only thing I’ve seen of substance was an english-translated newspaper; the main run article being about how bums were bivouacking at the main train station too much. They really said bivouac. I keep nearly getting run over. Some of the 10yo boys in the dead-hed class next door look like demons. The few words I’ve learnt to say still sound like a bunch of mumbling.
But the structure of the two weeks has been geared to extreme distraction. I give spelling tests, play UNO, eat tentacles, flop out for ten minutes nap, drink filter coffee, flirt, then get back on the disco-bus for the ten minute shuttle back to Love Hotel. Now it’s done, it’s back to reality and I’ve got to a) arrange somewhere to bivvy-up for a month b)buy a fone c) get a job, and figure out how to mumble some more.