BrandonInJapan 2: This time it's Korea

Apropos of Nothing...

2011-11-28T06:47:00.000-08:00

Yup, some giant fire-breathing peacocks in downtown Seoul. I've got nothing to add.

Procurement

2011-08-30T19:09:00.000-07:00

So after 2ish years, I've finally given in and figured out how to shop in Korea.

This is not to say that I've purchased nothing for the past 2 years, but it's been pretty close. In fact, outside of things I immediately ingested, books and gifts are probably the only physical object I've purchased in Korea since finalizing my home decor with a kimchi pot to use as a table next to the recliner I ordered.

It's pretty easy to not buy stuff. I pretty much hate going shopping so I never go to malls and previously there was just enough barrier to entry to online shopping that I never bothered with it. (granted, even creating a new account on a website is often sufficient to overcome my desire to shop). But recently, some things have changed and I've been compelled to get rid of some money.

Last weekend's trip to Jeju was what kicked it off. I was flying in and meeting up w/ some friends who were already on the island for work. Since they were there with a group, it made sense for me to pick up the rental car and go meet them. Armed with a once-renewed-but-still-unused international driver's license, I tried to line up a rental using this new fangled internet technology.

Aside: (I am still loathe to use the phone in this country. The person at the rental car place can probably communicate well enough in English to rent me a car. Hell, I can probably communicate in Korean well enough to reserve a car. This does not matter. I have some mental block against calling any business here. Tried it with a pizza place once. Must've got the area code wrong or something (they don't print it since everyone else knows what the area code should be). It took a while to explain that I wanted a pizza delivered to me at which point the guy who answered then explained he did not work for a pizza place and would not be making one for me.)

Anyway, my car rental reservation attempt ended up failing. Some message popped up that I'd need to call the place to continue. So I had the Global Help Desk people at work call (since my last rant about them there has been turnover in their office and the new guy is more useful). He also had some difficulty. A few places were all booked up. One had a car, but wouldn't rent to a foreigner. The confused/embarassed reaction from the GHD guy was great. Seems a bit odd that the guy in charge of dealing w/ foreigner issues would be unaware that there are still some institutional barriers for foreigners here. Eventually he did a find a place that had cars and deemed my money acceptable, so that was nice.

But I digress. After the car, I was looking into booking a flight over the Chuseok. The US sites I usually use were doing the annoying 'show a flight' then make it disappear when you actually try to book it. Happens a lot on the US sites with Asian airlines. Really annoying. I decided I'd give a Korean site a try. It's more hassle, but flights are available and cheaper. A victory for me.

Having waded this far into the world of handing out my credit card number to websites I can only partially understand, I decided to try and order some movies. I've got a list of a few Korean movies I've been wanting to see, but have been too lazy to actually seek out a place to purchase them. My previous attempt to order things online (namely, my recliner and a spare mattress for when my family came) had not worked. Figuring out the order form and registration process had been more hassle than just having a coworker place the order and giving them money.

I think the Gmarket site (big online retailer) has become much more foreigner friendly. The english forms now make sense and I was able to navigate the insane active-x browser plugins that all Korean websites are required to have. So I was able to order a couple movies. Even better, I think I paid for them using the points I'd been unknowingly accruing w/ my credit card (my credit card turns beer and chicken I buy into fake money for me to use!).

So now there's all sorts of stuff I can do. Rent cars, buy plane tickets, use a credit card, order stuff. And it only took 2 years!

Though, I should probably wait until I actually have any of these things in hand before I proclaim my new procurement prowess...

Kuala Lumpur: Part 3

2011-06-13T21:06:00.000-07:00

[Editor's note: Typing this stuff up takes a long time. In an effort to avoid month-long (or longer) gaps in content, I've decided to shorten posts.]

And now, on to the thrilling conclusion of Brandon's day of wandering in Kuala Lumpur....

The biggest complaint I have about Kuala Lumpur is that it's ridiculously difficult to navigate on foot. The roads are haphazardly laid out and sidewalks even more so. Things meander and abruptly end and there seems to be no method behind any of it. To get from Chinatown to the Lake Gardens, one has to cross a river and a set of train tracks. Apparently, no one has ever considered doing this on foot before. I'm some sort of pioneer, blazing a new trail through the psychotic urban sprawl.

It's Easy to See Where You Want to Go

By cutting through a market and navigating some heavy traffic on the far side of it, I manage to discover a sidewalk passage across the river. However, to get across the train tracks running alongside the river, I must detour about half a mile to the next station. At the station, there are signs pointing in the direction of the Gardens and you can see some of the famous buildings that dot the region as you cross the bridge over the tracks. However, this is apparently just some sort of decoy, because as soon as you exit the station on the other side, there is a busy highway with no apparent crosswalk or overpass.

Successfully Navigate the City and You May Find Stonehenge

I wander back and forth alongside the highway for a while before finally giving up and imitating the few brave locals who just dart between bursts of cars and wait on the median for a chance to get across. The unexpected difficulty in crossing the half mile between Chinatown and the Lake Gardens means it's after 6pm by the time I arrive. I pass by Stonehenge and head the the world's largest walk-in aviary. There are a lot of birds inside.

This Albino Crow is Just One of the Birds Inside the Aviary

These Birds Were Also There.

Monkeys on top of the Aviary Mock the Birds w/ Their Freedom

....Later....

I head back to the hotel on foot (this time by wandering behind a post office and through a complicated maze of a parking garage) and I am exhausted. The heat, lack of sleep and foolish decision to wear a new pair of shoes on my journey are taking their toll on me. I arrange for a taxi to the airport in the morning and decide that the necessary 5.30AM departure and general exhaustion will likely hinder my nighttime exploration. I figure I'll check out the nearest restaurant/bar district rather than explore some of the more distant options.

The immediate surroundings of the hotel do not boast a lot of interesting restaurants. I find a place and get another noodle dish. It's ok, but nothing special. I stop in a small pub next door for some watery Tiger beer. It's definitely a local hangout and pretty packed at 8pm. The food and beer give me some strength and I decide to explore more.

I chose poorly. This area is the worst. It's just a strip of bland, pretentious, over-priced bars and restaurants. The types of places that make a spot out front for the customer who came in a Lamborghini. You'd be hard pressed to design a place I'd like less if you tried. A block away I walk around a pile of trash and watch a shirtless tenant of a rundown 1st floor apartment hanging his laundry in the dark. I'm disheartened by the juxtaposition. I mean, if you're going to gentrify, don't you at least have to send the poor people further away?

I stop in another pub. It's empty and the air conditioner seems to be losing it's battle against the humid night air. I head back out and am drawn to another filthy little alley. There is a sign indicating a saloon, which gets my hopes up. This alley seems like a great place for bar with bat wing doors. Unfortunately, all I can find is a hair salon. With that fresh disappointment, I call it a night and head back to the hotel for what little sleep I can get.

Kuala Lumpur: Part 2

2011-06-10T20:18:00.000-07:00

I awaken quite suddenly. The bed I'm lying on is unusually fluffy. The covers are half flung back and there seem to be far too many pillows. The room is dim, but the highlights lining the edge of the curtain indicate that it is still bright outside. I'm groggy. The sleep seems doesn't seem to have helped much. On the contrary, it seems to have only reminded by body what it was missing out on. My body does not appreciate the memory.

Snatch Theives are a Problem that Merit Warning in English

I drag my ass out of bed and back out into the heat. I have a general plan to grab some food somewhere in Chinatown on my way to the Lake Gardens.

By Gum, the Monorail put Kuala Lumpur on the Map

For the most part I like Kuala Lumpur. It's not terribly big, has variety and character and isn't filled with people harassing me to buy something. There is a ton of construction going on, but plenty of older buildings that give off a sense of grittiness that I appreciate. Also, there is a monorail. Aside from it's airconditioned goodness, monorails are strongly coupled with that one Simpsons episode in my mind and that amuses me. Ah, Matt Groening, you destroyed America's hopes for mass transit for at least a generation.

Who Can Resist the Allure of the Alley?

As I pass through Chinatown, scouting for food, I'm irresistibly drawn to a dirty alley. What could be down there? Why, anything and everything! I mean, if I were laying out a city, I would definitely put the best parts at the ends of dirty alleys.

As it turns out, there are a couple of old ladies with a food stand at the end of this particular alley. It is clearly destiny that I eat at this food stand. I gesticulate at my stomach with the universal sign for food procurement. One lady gestures back that such needs can indeed be accommodated. I order something that my guidebook referred to as a 'must eat'. The old lady says something about Soba noodles. I'm not sure if this is a variation of the thing I asked for or if she's telling me she doesn't have that specific thing. Since I don't know what the thing I ordered actually is, I don't really care and say that Soba noodles are fine.

As I wait on a half-busted plastic stool a cat wanders past. An old man enters the alley and walks about halfway to the food stall. He stops there, maybe 25 feet from me, sets down his plastic bag and proceeds to urinate on the side of a building.

Unfortunately, the food does not live up to the lofty standards of the alley's ambiance. Maybe I just don't like this particular dish (some sort of noodle soup), but I am disappointed nonetheless. I guess you can't just wander into random alleys and get delicious food for under $2 while animals roam about and old men excrete nearby like you used to be able to. What is the world coming to?

Arriving in Kuala Lumpur

2011-05-19T02:30:00.000-07:00

After half an hour or so, a shuttle appears. It takes me somewhere. I don't see a train, but I do see buses heading to the main train station in KL. The ticket costs as much as the coffee I'd bought earlier. It's dark on the bus. I doze off for 45 minutes. Later, I wake up. It's less dark. Also I am in a city now. It's around 7.30 and I want to find a monorail. I get off the bus.

I cannot find the monorail. It is too early to think. I see a map. There is a monorail on the map. The map does not seem to reflect reality. I am skeptical about putting my fate in the hands of a map I just met, but what choice do I have? I go in the direction it bids.

I wander a few blocks from the station. At first there are signs with arrows and the word monorail on them. They stop. Then come the small shops, cheap looking hotels and various restaurants. Occasionally a pungent, sweet stench of rot wafts by. I eventually find a monorail. It's a really tall rail with a train on it. Hard to miss once you're looking at it. However, I apparently did miss the stop at the train station and instead stumbled upon the 2nd stop on the line.

The car is crowded, but wonderfully air conditioned. I get off near at a stop nearest a market that's recommended for breakfast. The roads are a bit chaotic and not all marked in my guidebook. I'm unconcerned since I don't really care about the market. I just want coffee and food and there are many places that appear capable of providing these things.

I stop at a place with sidewalk tables, plastic chairs and several customers. I order coffee and explain to the chef that I know nothing of his people or their food and will like to be served the finest provisions at his command. The propietor is understanding of my predicament and suggests Rasti with egg. I consent. He obliges. I consult my map as I eat. The coffee enhances my orientation skills and I am able to decipher the path to the market. I go there, however, having already eaten, the market is rendered uninteresting. Just a market.

I want a hotel. I should stay near the train station but I am considering splurging on a nicer place and just arranging transportation there to get me back to the airport. Given the 7:30AM flight and the time it took to get into town, I worry a bit about catching the train/bus in time. Also, it's hot. Also, I'd like to lose my bag. Also, I'd like a pool and a nap. I stop at a couple nice places charging >$150. The 3rd place I stop costs < $100. It also seems nice. I stop looking.

It is dark at 5.30 or so AM in Kuala Lumpur. I know this b/c I just got off a plane at this ungodly hour. I'm a bit dazed and uncertain where to go. I want an express train into town. The guide book says there is one, but my eyes say otherwise. Slowly it dawns on my that I'm at the wrong terminal. I'm in the LCCT (Low Cost Carrier Terminal), whereas the train only runs to the, apparently, upscale normal terminal. I sit down and wait for a shuttle to the other terminal. It's alreay muggy and the sun isn't even up.

The More Famous Petronas Tower as seen from the taller KL Tower

The room won't be ready until noon at the earliest. I leave my bag with the concierge and head back out. I follow a sign towards the Kuala Lumpur Tower. There is a culture center at the KL tower. Greeting people as they enter the culture center is a Predator statue. I was unaware that the Predator species was native to Malaysia, but I can't imagine why else the statue would be there.

The Malaysian Cultural Village

Predator, Guardian of the Cultural Village

There are also some traditional Malaysian dancers dancing about at the tower. Does the US do this? I want line dancers at the Washinton monument. Weak sauce, US.

Malaysian Dancers

With ever ticket to the top of the tower you get an additional attraction amongst a pony ride, F1 simulator, or Animal Zone. My hopes are dashed by the weight limit on the pony ride. I go up the tower. It is a tower. It also has a bizzare pay-phone mini-museum.

Who Doesn't Love Pay Phones?

I head back to the hotel, check into my room and hit the pool. The red-eye flight into town is catching up to me. I pass out.

Towel

2011-05-11T06:57:00.000-07:00

Oh, what's that? Your entire lab didn't receive hand towels from the government as some sort of award? Well, clearly you should move to Korea, where that happens for some reason.

Towels.

Yeah, I've had them over a month and been too lazy to even upload a picture. What brought about the flurry of activity, you ask? Well, sources in Seoul indicate that I may have recently changed my money to ringgits. Maybe I brought a camera. Maybe I recently uploaded some pictures and this towel shot was there. Maybe I'll write about it.

But not tonight.

I Hate Haircuts

2011-04-20T05:55:00.000-07:00

I hate getting haircuts. I always have.

From around the age 14 on, I got around this problem by wearing a hat nearly all the time. It didn't matter how long and gross my hair was. I just put on the hat and it looked just as good as any other day.

One of the biggest sacrifices I made in coming to work here was that the company doesn't allow me to wear a hat at work. (There's also a weird rule that men must wear long pants year round. Hot and annoying in the summer, yes, but not as bothersome as disallowing hats.) So now, instead of getting an annual haircut as I did in college, I'm forced to deal with the rats' nest on top of my head every couple months or so.

Thus far, the haircut experience in Korea has been refreshing. Since the hairdressers usually don't speak English very well, they don't waste their time trying to ask me about what I want done. I can say "cut. short." and they go about their business. It's quick and easy and costs less than $10. Far better than the one time I went to a barber in Boston, who dragged the process out telling me, "even if you don't care what your hair looks like, I do." He then charged $25 or some nonsense. I bought clippers the next day and avoided paying for haircuts for the next 3 years.

Tonight, however, was a reminder of everything I hate. A while back I moved, so the $10 place that was in my basement is now a bit of a walk. The past two times I have gone instead to a place across the street. It costs more like $15, but it's close and the hairdressers all dress in plaid skirt/school girl theme. I'm not sure why that is since most of their clientele appear to be women working the the night shift in the area, but whatever.

As per usual, I sit down say "I don't care. Cut it short." Or at least that's what I thought I said. However, the guy cutting my hair (he was not in a school girl outfit) seemed to hear, "please cut exactly 3mm off each of my hairs one at a time". After about 10 minutes and moving clips around on the back of my head and not seeming to do anything, I re-emphasize the 'short' concept.

Now, the thing that bothers me about this is not a language issue. Expressing the word 'short' is pretty easy. I both said it and demonstrated the appropriate length in universally recognized finger approximation. What bothers me, is that hairdressers would assume that I don't want them to cut much of my hair. As though, I want to maintain the gross blob of crap that currently resides on top of my head. THAT makes no sense to me. Why would I come in there if I didn't want my hair cut? Why is that an option that even occurs to hairdressers?

So, then the guy re-cuts the back of my head, and moves the the side where I can see what's going on and we repeat the process and I again request that he actually cut my hair. At this point, I realize I'm going to be here forever. Using clippers to buzz of the hair, like I would do, takes little time at all. Acting like my hair is a delicate masterpiece that must be carefully exhumed is incredibly tedious. I decide that I will just let the guy do whatever and not say anything since at this point I just want to leave.

He seemed to sense that I was unhappy and asked if I wanted it shorter. I told him I didn't care. I passed on the shampoo and was able to escape only having wasted 45 minutes of my life having little enough hair on top of my head cut that I will need to repeat the process in a week or so.

I think I might see if I can pull off a shaved head and save myself the hassle.

Kit Kat

2010-12-16T05:30:00.000-08:00

I'm sorta curious about what the differentiates the 'International Recipe' from my beloved American Kit Kat, but apparently it requires an air conditioner to best enjoy.

Back in Bali

2010-11-30T02:05:00.000-08:00

Sat 9/25

We check out of the hotel and head back to Labuan Bajo's small airport. I purchase a sweet coffee cup w/ a Komodo dragon eating a goat pictured on it. Apparently the can stand on their hind legs if it will feed them.

We get back to Bali and head back to Kuta to try and find a hotel. This turns out to be more problematic than we'd anticipated. Finally, the 4th or so place we stop in has a room. We also ask at the desk about whitewater rafting companies on the suggestion of another diver. Shortly after dropping our stuff in the room we get a call from a rafting company and schedule a pick up for 1pm.

We kill a bit of time in the lobby waiting for the driver. He arrives and takes us about an hour away from town. Along the way, I get a much better look at Bali and must admit I was probably a bit hasty in condemning the whole island based on Kuta. Actually, even just getting away from the overdeveloped beach area of Kuta makes a big improvement. Hindu temples are scattered about, providing a nice change from the buddhist temples scattered throughout Korea.

We get dropped off at the rafting office and must hike down to the river through a jungle. There is a concrete path, but it's worn and muddy in many places. The dense jungle coverage creates a nice atmosphere for rafting. It begins to rain, which is also nice. The rafting is fun.

We head back to the hotel. Kill some time at the beach. Swim in the pool.

Sunday morning we're up and head to the airport. All our flights depart around 1pm. Unfortunately for me, this flight only takes me to Jakarta where I must wait until 10pm for my red-eye back to Seoul. The Jakarta airport is not a very fun place. Red eye flights are not very fun either.

Landing in Seoul, I have the feeling of getting back home. Which I guess I was.

So that's the Indonesia trip. and it only took me 2 months to post it. efficiency. Maybe I'll try to get some more Korea stuff going, but if not the next destination has been booked: Thailand for the New Year.

Diving in Komodo

2010-11-29T01:57:00.000-08:00

Fri 9/24

Just after midnight I wake up and rush to the bathroom to find that my ass has discovered how to piss. This neat trick combined with an odd pain in my upper abdomen keep me awake until almost 4AM. Clearly I have caught a strain of super-malaria that is overpowering my hallucinogenic anti-malaria meds. I will die soon. This angers me b/c I'd very much been looking forward to diving. I finally pass out.

Alarm goes off at 6. I feel a bit better. I hope the stomach will be appeased with an offering of scrambled eggs and coffee. It grudgingly accepts. I am non optimistic about the day.

We head to the lobby to get a ride to the dive shop and meet a Swiss family that tells us they are also on our dive trip. We all pile into a van and get dropped off at a dock. It turns out the Swiss are sabotuers. We are not diving with them and we have been led to the wrong place by their vile lies. Fortunately, we are able to find the boat we're supposed to be on and they radio to the dive shop.

We get delayed a while before leaving the dock. Apparently the harbor master has decided today would be a good day to inspect this dive boat. Apparently he also decided to do this on his own leisurely schedule. After about an hour, the dive operators are able to postpone the inspection and we're off.

I don't have pictures from the dives and I don't think I can really do them just with words, but all 3 dives were great. The first one was in a current where manta rays swim upstream to feed. As soon as we jumped off the boat we looked down to see 2 mantas hanging out. We descended and watched them and for the next hour we probably went no more than 5 minutes w/o at least 1 manta swimming within view. The divemaster said afterward that it was probably the best manta dive he'd seen.

The 2nd dive was along a rock face between two strong currents. The narrow calm patch afforded by the rock was home to coral and a ridiculous number of bright colored fish. It seemed fake. Like swimming in a screen saver. Also there were some giant sea turtles searching for food amongst the coral.

Dive 3 was in a really strong current. We used hooks to attach ourselves to the rocks on the bottom to avoid being dragged away or burning all our oxygen fighting the stream. Securely attached to the bottom, we just watched schools of larger fish swim by. The spot reminded me of a highway for fish, with tons of them just passing through. Much bigger stuff hung out here- there were at least 3 sharks visible at one time.

When we came up after the third dive, two of the divemasters immediately dove back in. While getting out of our gear we learned that the propeller had fallen off and the divemasters were hoping to find it. They did not find it. So now we were stuck a few hours from harbor without a prop on the main motor. There was a secondary motor, so we weren't quite marooned, but the 'few' hours on the main motor suddenly became more like '8' hours on the back up.

Fortunately, our diving was already done for the day so no one was very upset. Really, hanging out on a boat in the tropics isn't exactly the worst fate. So we puttered along toward the harbor while the captain radioed in and tried to arrange a tow or shuttle. Finally a little while after dark a speed boat arrived to take the divers in ahead of the boat and crew.

At first it was kind of amusing riding in the small speed boat like shipwreck survivors or something. But after a while, sitting in cramped quarters in the dark with cold ocean water continuously splattering your face stops being adventurous and just becomes uncomfortable. Still, it did get us back to Labuan Bajo hours ahead of dive boat.

The dive shop had ordered food for us and after the trip, drying off and getting a hot meal definitely hit the spot.

Komodo

2010-11-28T05:07:00.000-08:00

Thurs 9/23

I spent the night fitfully on a mattress on the deck of our boat. I was awakened at one point when our drifting anchor resulted in a collision with another boat moored nearby and from that point on drifted in and out of awareness of the chatter of 100's of bats returning home. By daybreak, everyone was awake and we were on our way to Komodo.

Welcome to Komodo

We got there early and waited for the rangers as more boats dropped off groups of tourists. Luckily, by opting for the longest trek, our group only picked up a lone British guy. The four of us and our ranger headed out leaving the other groups to shuffle through the park en masse.

Shortly into our trek the ranger spotted a baby komodo dragon hiding in a tree. Even with the guide pointing it out, he was hard to spot.

Baby Dragon

They live in the trees for about the first 4 years of their lives until they're big enough to not be eaten by the other dragons. Apparently the mother dragons dig decoy holes to disguise their nests and will guard the site, but have no qualms with eating their children as soon as they hatch. Sucks to be a baby dragon.

A dragon on the trail

There were only a couple of dragons out on the trail, which seemed a bit disappointing after the hoardes of them on Rinca, but the baby dragon was nice. There were also a few wild pigs and deer to be seen. And a vicious land crab.

The land crab prepares his attack

Back near the ranger's huts and souvenir shop a few more dragons were laying about. The locals clearly are not too worried about them.

Perhaps they don't see the dragon lying next to them

Lazy Dragons

As we head back to the boat a swarm of village kids descend upon us to sell crap. Actually, for crap it's pretty decent. The wooden and shell carved Komodos are pretty sweet. Except I don't really need crap. Even if it is hand made and costs only $5, a price which our guide advises we haggle down from. For whatever reason, I must look like a prime target since the kids pretty much leave the others alone to swarm me. I buy nothing. Nor do I exchange the Singapore bills that some guy offers me.

Back on the boat. We stop to snorkel. Solid coral and fish. Back on the boat for lunch. I don't think I've mentioned, but the food on the boat is ridiculously good. I don't know how the cook manages it in the tiny kitchen, but every meal is delicious and there's always more food than we can eat. In addition to this, there are awesome fresh fruit smoothies in between meals. I fall asleep in the sun after lunch and wake up to see dolphins swimming alongside the boat and tropical islands dotting the horizon. This is not a terrible way to spend an afternoon.

In Labuan Bajo we stop by the scuba shop to be sized for gear. There is some hassle since Z's Padi registration was entered incorrectly (wrong B'day) and he didn't have his card on hand. After sorting that out we head to our hotel. It's nice. Only a year old a pool and beach access. The cows and dogs freely roaming the beach are an interesting touch. The rooms in the hotel are ridiculously big and there seem to be more employees than guests at the place (only like 10 rooms total). However, nothing makes me happier than flush toilets and laundry service. Snorkelling may have washed me off, but my clothes were not so fortunate. Amenities are nice sometimes.

The North Will Rise Again

2010-11-26T05:46:00.000-08:00

So I'm a couple days late with this, but thought after talking to the family on Thanksgiving figured I'd at least mention the attack on South Korea. I was in a meeting out of the office when North Korea started firing artillery shells on Yeonpyeong-do, a small island near the boarder. Just before the end of the meeting someone mentioned that there was breaking news and told what was happening. Preliminary reports were that 4 people had died.

At this point, I had no idea where Yeonpyeong-do was, or what exactly this meant. My coworkers and the others in the meeting were somber, but didn't seem particularly perturbed. I guess you get used to this kind of threat.

In the car, we listened to the radio. I could heard either shots or explosions or something (I'm guessing now it was the South returning fire), but couldn't really follow what was happening. I was told that civilian houses were on fire and that this marked the first attacks on civilians since the armistice. My coworkers weren't saying a lot and I didn't press, but I found this situation a bit disturbing. During my time in Korea, I've not really worried much about the North. I've always had the opinion that the North knows restarting a really fight would be it's last act and the South knows restarting it would do too much damage to justify.

I don't buy that Kim Jong Il is crazy. You don't last that long running a country if you're crazy. Your father who ran the place for almost 50 years doesn't select you as a successor if your crazy. But instability due to another succession? I can see crazy things coming from that.

I got dropped of and went home to read up on what was going on. I looked into the US embassy evacuation plans and all that jazz. Then....well then I stopped thinking about it. Went to the rock gym, had dinner, met a friend for drinks.

Seoul was as bustling as ever. On the streets you couldn't tell anything had happened. And that's pretty much how it's been since. I went to work the next day asked if anything had happened and checked to see CNN's take. And that's pretty much it. Life goes on here.

For a good take on the situation I recommended checking out Ask a Korean!

Rinca Island

2010-11-17T05:56:00.001-08:00

First stop: Rinca Island

The Lonely Planet warns that dragon sightings are not guaranteed, so I was trying to temper my expectations. However, as we pulled up to the dock on Rinca, monkeys running around on the dock, trying to swipe bits of the lunch from the other boat crews reminded me why traveling places is cool.

Dragon and Monkey Greeters

As luck would have it, there was little suspense before our first dragon sighting, as a small female dragon was hanging out not 10m from the dock. A welcoming party apparently drawn to the smell of fish and food that comes with the boats.

We headed to the park hut to pay the park camera fee and get a ranger to lead our trek. Our guide told us there is some dispute between the locals and the government and some private conservation company on the island. I didn't quite follow it all, but apparently the conservation group is just keeping all the money it receives. Not really knowing the difference, we just took his word for it and paid the camera fee but not the conservation fee (or something) and headed out with our guide and a park ranger each carrying long Y-shaped dragon fighting sticks.

Buildings on the island are all on stilts to prevent dragon invasions

In the camp near the ranger hut we were greeted by a much larger committee of dragons. Nine of them just hanging out by the kitchen. The just laze about and certainly don't seem very threatening, but it's easy to imagine how this can lull someone into a false sense of security that quickly ends when you carelessly leave the kitchen and find that a dragon has attached itself to your calf. Which apparently happened just a few weeks ago.

I find it completely fascinating that there isn't consensus about the danger of dragon bites. It's been long assumed that the primary risk is infection that comes from the hordes of bacteria that live in the dragon's mouth. Recently, though, some scientists claimed to discover a venom gland in the dragon. The guide said there were scientists investigated not so long ago and they hope to have the results before too much longer. It just blows my mind that this is still in dispute. I would think you could just cut a dragon open and figure it out pretty easily. I mean, what do biologists even do?

Outside of camp we saw another dragon lumbering about. Not moving too quick, but at least proving they can walk.

I might be poisonous, but science is dumb

We left the camp and headed towards a watering hole where an injured Water Buffalo had been hanging out. The ranger told us a dragon had bitten it a couple of days ago and now it was just a matter of time before the infection weakened it enough for the dragons to feast. He also told us the dragons cam smell prey like 2-5km away or something similarly ridiculous. Whatever it was, the buffalo apparently smelled enough to draw about 10 dragons to hang out around it.

A bored dragon stares at a buffalo

They are incredibly patient animals. If they see opportunity, they'll bite, then retreat while the venom/infection does its thing. Whenever the buffalo finally gets too weak to really pose a threat to them, presumably the dragons will descend and turn the watering hole into a bloodbath. A meal like that will then tide them over for a month or so while they slowly digest the bones to crap out in white, chalky piles.

The dragons get a little frisky, but don't attack

We hung out at the water hole for a long while and were briefly excited when the two dragons closest to the buffalo got up and started hissing a bit. Unfortunately, they decided not to kill for our entertainment. the guide said sadly, "maybe tomorrow they will have their dinner party". So close, but no blood. Still, ~20 dragons on our first stop is a win.

Yes, they can move

The photogenic one

Back on the boat we set sail to anchor near Komodo for the night. While this was ostensibly to get to Komodo early for a morning trek (best time to spot dragons), we moored next to a mangrove grove that houses hundreds of 'flying fox' fruit bats.

Shortly after we arrived, the bats began to wake up and started chattering in the trees. The racket of their squawking picked up intensity until just around dusk the 1st bast emerged from the trees. In short order, hundreds of these giant bats were streaming out over our heads to raid fruit trees on Komodo Island. While they lack the insane number of the bats in Austin, TX, they make up for it with a 3 foot wingspan (wikipedia says they can get up to 6 foot, not sure where I got 3). Flying overhead they look just like Batman logos cruising above you. As the stream of bats died down, we stayed on the roof of the boat watching the stars peak out from the sporadic clouds. Rinca did not disappoint.

Rinca, with a Dr. Seuss tree

Labuan Bajo

2010-11-16T07:21:00.000-08:00

Wed 9/22 (We're only 2 months behind schedule here)

There'd been a note slipped under my door telling me that Benny from Flores Exotic Tours, the company arranging the Komodo trip, would pick us up at the hotel at 6.30am. We wondered to the lobby around then and a man waiting by a van waved to us. I asked if he was Benny, he nodded, smiled and motioned us around to load our bags in the van. I told him we were hoping to grab some breakfast and asked if we'd have enough time before our flights (all arranged through the company). He seemed confused. At this point we realized he was not, in fact, Benny, but just another asshole wanting to drive us somewhere. No doubt, he could also hook us up w/ a massage.

We left checked out and went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. Before long a man who knew our names found us and said he would be taking us to the airport where Benny was waiting with tickets for our 8am flight. Fortunately, since airports here aren't concerned with harassing you to keep up the appearance of safety (that's only at the hotels) loading up at 7am wasn't a problem.

We met Benny and handed over a wad of cash in exchange for our tickets and an envelope w/ his signature as proof of purchase. Benny assured us there would be a driver waiting upon arrival and we headed into the airport.

Unlike in Yogyakarta where there was no gate info, here it was contradictory. Our boarding passes said gate 17, the monitor said 15. We went to 15 first and asked an employee who was nearby eating breakfast. She asked to see my boarding pass and told me to go to gate 17, making it quite apparent that I seemed mentally deficient. There were no people or signs at 17, so we sat nearby keeping an eye on the family that received boarding passes ahead of us and appeared to be heading to Labuan Bajo with enough supplies to last the winter. About 8.15 an announcement was made that our flight was boarding at gate 16. Tricksy.

The Labuan Bajo Airport

Upon landing in Labuan Bajo, we entered the 'arrivals' door (as opposed to the 'departure' door next to it) and found ourselves literally locked in the 2-room airport. Apparently in order to keep people from wandering into the waiting area, they just lock the exit until everyone and all the luggage is unloaded. Behind the gate was a crowd of people offering transport (but no mention of massages here). It was a lot like being in a zoo with a crowd staring and hollering at you from the fence.

View of the port from above Labuan Bajo

When released from the airport we found a man with our names on a sign and followed him to a van. He told us we were heading to the harbor where we'd meet our boat and head to Rinca island for a trek this afternoon then head closer to Komodo island to stay for the night. The next day we'd trek at Komodo, have some time to snorkel and head back to Labuan Bajo. The next day we'd meet our dive crew and head out with them. Food and water were covered on the boat, but we needed to stop to stock up on beer and snacks. We met our 4 member boat crew and set off for Rinca (pronounced Rincha, in case you cared).

Some Islands seen from the Boat

First view of Rinca

A Day in Bali

2010-10-28T08:39:00.000-07:00

Tuesday is a lazy day. Sleep the morning away. Get lunch. Go to the beach. Get thrown around by waves. Watch lady balancing a giant bowl of fruit on her head sell fruit on the beach. Return to hotel. Shower. Nap. Read by pool. Lazy and relaxing like a vacation should be.

People leave you alone in the hotel complex. Guards w/ metal detector wands (presumably just to put on an appearance of security since the bombings- they didn't detect my camera or other people's laptops or anything) keep taxi drivers and assorted rif-raf away. Key-holding rif-raf like myself excluded. The beach is pretty nice too. The surfing is obviously quite good.

Z, the first of my friends, is set to arrive in Bali at 6.30. Around that time I tell the receptionist that a friend will be looking for me before long and ask that they direct him to the pool area. They promptly ignore this message and it's not until I return an hour later to check that I see he's been waiting in the front lobby. Fresh off multiple nearly missed flights and something like 20+ hours of travel time, he's grateful to have a place to leave his bags and shower.

Friend #2, K, is not due to arrive for some time, so Z and I head out for food. We wander past the closed tourist shops and find an open faced building on the corner with a sate trolley out front. In addition to the chicken and beef skewers, we get some rice, a soup of some mysterious meat and 2 large bintangs. We watch a guy enthusiastically pulverize a tomato into a fine pulp and Z asks what he's making. "Chicken" is the reply. I am skeptical.

We're back at the hotel pool when K arrives & manages to find us. While we're exchanging pleasantries about airports and inflight movies and assorted things travelers enjoy discussing, there is a splash behind me in the pool. I turn and see something frantically swimming across the pool. About the time it reaches the other side and impressively scrambles out despite the lip of the pool, I realize it's a big rat chased into the pool by a cat that's watching it from the edge of the pool. Clever rat for swimming, dumb cat for not going to the other side of the pool.

Day 1 of our Indonesian wildlife tour is a success.

Bali is a Hell Hole

2010-10-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

I get to Bali and have little trouble finding the taxi stand and getting to my hotel. It's about 11pm and I figure I'll grab some food and wander around a bit. I don't bother with the Lonely Planet since my hotel is on the edge of the main touristy beach region. I figure it will be easy to find a laid back beach bar and grab some food. I quickly find out otherwise.

Instead of a lively night scene, the area I'm in is just a mix of hotels, resorts, closed-for-the-night tourist shops, and over-priced chain restaurants (sorry Hard Rock, Bali). To make exploring even worse, you can't go 10 feet without being harassed. Every taxi driving past honks. People on mopeds pull over to see if you want a ride. Everyone you pass on the streets cycles through the same set of questions. "Transport?" "Massage?" "Young girl?". In that order b/c obviously the only reason someone would not want to be driven somewhere is b/c they're too busy trying to secure a prostitute and the only reason you'd refuse one is b/c they're too old. I quickly come to hate everyone in Bali and decide I will ask the next taxi driver I manage to approach w/o begin harassed to take me to someplace to find food and people.

I quickly find one (transport is readily available in Bali) and explain that while, of course I would love a massage, and, that, yes, young masseuses truly are the best kind, I really would like some food first. He seems to understand and I ask how far it is and how much it will cost. He asks for 50,000. Seeing as this is what I paid to come from the airport (w/ an exit fee) and that I know I'm not asking to go far, I refuse. Yes, in reality $5 isn't much for a cab, but when it's such an obvious buyers market and the guy was just sitting on the sidewalk begging to drive people around, I don't feel like overpaying some asshole.

I turn and walk away and he chases me down to haggle. I offer 20,000 to take me where there will be food and people. We agree on 30,000. In the cab he starts driving and asks for 50,000 again. I hate him. I tell him we agreed on 30,000. He shows me a video clip of a stripper on his cell phone and says he can take me there. I hate Bali a lot.

After what seems like far too long, we reach an area with people milling about in the streets and loud music blaring. I tell the cabby to stop. Having no smaller bills, I give the cabby 50,000. It angers me that this will likely only further encourage him to be an asshole, but I try about his situation and how he probably doesn't have many opportunities. I feel better imagining that his life sucks and go get a burger from a street vendor.

I stop in a couple of bars and find some drunk Australians. I pass the memorial for the 2002 bombing that killed hundreds of people at a night club and stop in a couple bars with more drunk Australians. After being in Korea and throughout Indonesia, the herds of drunk Australians seem really big. I notice upon standing up, though, that I'm actually taller than most of them. I am reminded of the weird way you start to project what you see around you onto yourself and how it slowly shifts your sense of normalcy. Slowly and subtly, I'm sure my time out of the US is warping my mind. Hopefully not in a terribly bad way.

There is a multileveled bar/dance club that I wander through. The fat old men buying drinks for young looking Indonesian girls saddens me a bit and lessens my anger at the people who harass me on the streets. Other, lone girls ring the outside of the dance areas and are scattered throughout the bar. Stop for a drink or make eye contact and they will come flirt with you. While ordering a beer, I ask one such girl what she does for a job. She smiles and says she's working now. I wish her luck and head out.

The roads are narrow and crammed with cabs. So many people trying to leave and no one getting anywhere. Moped taxis descend like vultures the second you step outside, eager to rush you into the traffic jam. I ponder whether to risk walking when I have only a vague sense of where I am or to fight for to sit in traffic. As I'm debating it starts to rain and I opt for choice C, more beer.

I watch a guy passed out on a bar stool for a while. He begins to tilt, then his body convulses in an effort to regain balance. Each time he comes a little closer to crashing to the floor. It's engrossing. One bartender seems mildly concerned and fetches an older Australian woman to ask about the guy. She doesn't seem to know the drunk, but inform's the bartender that the guy is "fucking wasted" and wanders off.

The bartender then tries to rouse the guy by hitting him in the face. Not slapping him on the cheek, like you'd expect, but more of an open palm to the center of the face. It works to an extent, but instead of leaving, the guy comes close to my spot at the bar. I decide I don't want to be puked on and head out. The rain has stopped, the line for cabs is less crazy. I hop in one and head back to the hotel to sleep.

Temple Part 2

2010-10-26T05:46:00.001-07:00

I got back to the hotel around 2. My flight is not until 8.30. I ask the travel agency if it's possible to check out Prambanan and still make the flight. Turns out that Prambanan is located near the airport and for $25 I can check out temple #2 and get dropped off at the airport.

Unlike Borobudur, Prambanan is a Hindu temple. It's set in a sprawling, peaceful park. I decline the guide who pushes to show me around b/c I really don't care and would rather just wander by myself and look at some pretty piles of stones without feigning interest in the Hindus and Buddhists who built the place.

The Biggest Temple in the Prambanan Complex

There are actual a number of temples spread throughout the Prambanan complex. The most impressive group of temples is located close to the ticket gate. Given how dismissive the travel agents had been about Prambanan compared to Borobudur, I wasn't expecting much, but it was definitely worth the trip.

Just inside the complex, I notice a Muslim girl eyeing me. Since she's wearing a terrorist outfit, I naturally assume she wants to kill me to destroy my freedom. However, what I had thought must be a bomb turned out to be a camera. Fearless ambassador that I am, I nod, willing to take a picture of her and her family at the temple. Except it turns out she actually wants to take a picture of me w/ her family at the temple. I can only hope that the 3 yr-old with them is shown that photo when she's older and told the story of the time the family encountered an actual foreigner.

Further into the park were several other, smaller temples in various states of repair. There are also a couple of guys who want to sell me a collapsible blow dart gun. As useful as this would be for battle dragons, I can't imagine any airline being a big fan of blow darts.

A statue of something

Having seen all I care to, I make my way through the maze of crap peddlers that surround the exit and find my driver. 5 minutes later I'm at the airport.

The airport is incredibly relaxed. I've got plenty of time so I get dinner and read at a small coffee shop for a while. Around 7 I walk through a metal detector, get a boarding pass at the check in counter and head to the single waiting room.

As 8 approaches, I notice that my flight is set for gate 0. In the room are doors marked gate 1-4. I ask and am told they'll announce the gate when it's time. Indonesia is not a great place if you need to have detailed plans in advance. Around 8:15, gate 4 is opened and boarding is called for my 8PM flight. Since you just walk out onto the tarmac and climb into the plane, I understand why the particular door you exit isn't so important.

The plane is full-sized (6 seats per row) and close to capacity. It's also apparently designed for midgets as even sitting straight up as far back as possible my knees are wedged into the seat in front of me. 1 hour to Bali.

Temple Time

2010-10-25T06:01:00.000-07:00

9.20.201

8AM comes early. This was the first night I slept soundly and am groggy and disoriented thanks to it. I pack, grab breakfast and stop by the travel agent to double check my arrangements for Borobudur. I check out of the hotel, leave my bag at the desk and head out with the driver.

Yogyakarta is big and I have pretty much only set foot in the tourist friendly central parts stretching from the train station to the Sultan's palace. Driving into the greater Yogyakarta metropolitan area is an endless repetition of moped shops, small sidewalk restaurants, and (for a strangely long stretch of the road) statuaries. Just in case you need a giant stone Buddha to set apart your petty cab service from the competition.

More than anything though, I'm struck by the sheer number of people. Milling about, sitting around, doing whatever- there are just a crap ton of people everywhere. I ride in silence and stare at people I know nothing about going about their days. Maybe they glance up and see me passing by, maybe they don't. I will most likely never see any of them ever again and they will never know or care about anything I ever do.

I'm happy when the city begins to fall off and we turn on a road lined with rice paddies. The green is a nice antidote to the depressing thoughts of my own insignificance.

The driver pulls into the Borobudur parking lot, points me in the direction of the ticket gate and tells me he'll wait in the car. I am greeted by throngs of vendors peddling assorted crap and pine for the blissful anonymity of passing the car window had provided. I grab a ticket and head into the fenced off temple grounds where vendors are thankfully forbidden to tread.

The temple grounds are nice and green and open with mountains ringing them in the distance. I wander up the main path and catch my first glimpse of Borobudur:

First View of Borobudur

My pictures don't really do the temple justice. It's massive and contrasts wonderfully with the tropical green of the park around it. Built in the 9th century when the Buddhists were apparently doing alright for themselves, it was abandoned around 1400. Then it just sat for 400 years until some locals happened to mention the giant awesome temple to the British ruler of Java in 1814. While I'm sure it's more impressive in it's current restored state, there's something pretty sweet about finding an ancient overgrown temple. In an Indiana Jones sorta way.

The whole thing is carved like this

The other reasons the pictures don't do the temple justice is that you can't really see all the layers that make up the temple from ground level. As you walk up the steps of the temple there are a total of nine levels, each of which has an open walkway lined with relief carvings. So not only did they haul a crap ton of stone from somewhere to build a giant temple out of, they also carved almost every stone to tell various Buddhist stories.

There are also a bunch of Buddha's scattered throughout (apparently statuaries have a long tradition in this area). A lot of them are headless and most of the ones on the top levels have been imprisoned in stupas.

Buddha checks out the view

This Buddha broke free of his Stupa

Borobudur is Big

After wandering all the levels, I stopped by an art gallery located in the park area. There's not too much to it, but it's free. A few paintings and large word carvings are pretty much all there is on the first floor. I head upstairs and am greeted by a midget. On the 2nd floor is an exhibit that's kind of like Ripley's Believe it or Not. Except worse. It's just pictures of people with physical deformities and stuff. The world's tallest and fattest men, a guy who looks like a cat (with whiskers and sharpened teeth).

The exhibit appears to have just been made by printing crap off the internet. And the midget apparently just hangs out as part of the exhibit. B/c when you have a chance to put a poorly made freakshow exhibit that close to an amazing and beautiful landmark, you don't really have a choice, you know?

Heading back to town, the driver stops at Mendut, a smaller temple we'd passed on the way to Borobudur. It looked much cooler when I glimpsed it unexpectedly on the way there, but it pretty much pales in comparison to Borobudur.

Mendut

Truth be told, Mendut also pales in comparison to the awesome, gigantic tree next to it.

I suspect this tree is like the internet, or whatever Avatar's nonsense was about

I went over to the tree to investigate it's alien tentacles and am startled by two loud thumps maybe 5 feet behind me. I turn and see two good sized (~1 foot) lizards lying dazed on the ground. After a little bit they come to and start to fight (?) with one attempting to eat the other's face. Unfortunately some old European people got to close and the lizards fled back into the tree.

Falling out of the tree did not diminish the bloodlust

Random Yogy

2010-10-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

It's afternoon and I'm wandering aimlessly. Sorta lost, sorta don't care. I stop for coffee. The lady in the coffee place- well place, it doesn't seem to really specialize in coffee, or anything for that matter, mostly it's just an open faced building with tables- anyway, the lady says she has coffee when I ask. It's hard to tell what anything is here. I don't know any Indonesian so I can't read signs, but more than that, places don't seem to be dedicated to any singular purpose. Houses and shops blur together with motorcycles parked inside doorways and anywhere else they can fit. Sidewalks are restaurants and places to hang out. People seem to be everywhere, with or without purpose.

The coffee lady is curious about my shoes. Specifically how much they cost. Apparently her husband is unemployed and living in Germany. For 2 years now. Her accent is difficult to understand. Also, the things she's saying don't make a lot of sense. Her jobless husband sends her money with which she has purchased multiple houses. Or something. She asks about people in the US not having any jobs now. The fact that I work in Korea seems to confirm to her that the US economy has collapsed completely.

I head back towards the hotel through a random swath of Yogyakarta. At one point, a small group of children playing with paper airplanes spot me and are thrilled. They stop running about and wave hello. I high five the closest, boldest child. Upon realizing that high fives were an option, the other children rush over for high fives all around. You're welcome, small children.

I time my return to the hotel well and wait out the rain before heading back out in the evening. While the general area I'm wandering in has an abundance of shops, restaurants, hotels and such, there's not much going on once it gets dark. Aside from a few Batik scammers who are desperate to lure you into their indistinguishable galleries, there's not a lot happening around here.

Well, when the Lonely Planet mapped portion of town is boring, what better to do than wander off into the unknown areas off the map? Not far into uncharted Yogyakarta I hear music and follow it to a strange open-fronted Karaoke place with people dancing about and a couple tables set on the sidewalk. Indonesian Ray Liotta is sitting at one of the tables and is glad that I've come by. "Have some of this," Ray offers, pouring me a shot from a plastic pitcher.

"Random booze from a total stranger? Just what I've looking for! Thanks, Ray!" Ray tells me it's whiskey, but the shot tastes like candy. If there's any whiskey in the pitcher, it has evaded my shot. Regardless, I join Ray at the outdoor table and meet Slinky Bill and Rat Face (names have been changed to protect the innocent). Everyone is happy to meet me and mildly terrifying to meet. That said, I'm sitting outside and can see a police station just up the street, so I'm not too worried.

Amongst the revelery there is a lone female who is the only one singing and seems to be in charge of the place. Also, Fat Joe is here. He welcomes me and asks if I like to sing. I'm ok with sitting at the sidewalk table, but there's no way I'm setting foot inside the place. Ray asks if I want a drink and I offer to buy a round for the table. They are pleased. It will be ~$12. They do not bring me change and I do not ask for it.

Rat face, a handsome man with facial tattoos, no front teeth, and bleached yellow hair, teaches me an Indonesian dance. First you raise one hand, then alternate the other slowly with the beat. I imitate his dance and he is pleased. High 5's all around!

Slinky Bill has a brother in England. Due to this we are all brothers (meaning me, him,his brother, I guess,...maybe Rat Face too). I was unaware of this Indonesian marriage by-law, but am pleased that Slinky Bill seems less likely to stab me now. Ray asks if I want a girl. I decline and he apologizes. I say it's fine. Slinky Bill tells me he's not gay. I say Ok. Rat Face raises his hand with the beat.

They help themselves to the beer I ordered, but are diligent in keeping my glass full. I set a timer in my head and plan to head on after this round is done. Having basically exhausted our conversational abilities, the group goes back to chatting amongst themselves. After a bit, Ray announces he's leaving and heads off on a moped. Slinky Bill reiterates that we are all brothers (Ray was included as well). Rat Face continues his dance undisturbed. I swig the last of my warm beer, thank everyone and depart as well.

I head back to the quiet, restaurant lined streets of the Lonely Planet map and wave down a bike taxi to take me to the hotel.

The Sultan's Palace

2010-10-18T06:41:00.001-07:00

I slept poorly again and am groggy at 10AM as I head to breakfast. The omelette is good. The potatoes less so. 'Bacon' is not really bacon and is terrible. Mostly Muslim country, so pork isn't so readily available. It's like the anti-Korea.

The Kraton Courtyard

After breakfast I head to the Kraton. It's a massive complex, but I really have no appreciation for Indonesian Sultans. The whole of my knowledge being what I read yesterday on the train. As sweet as a giant palace complex would be, I'm pretty sure I'd take air conditioning and indoor plumbing any day.

Performers at the Kraton

Apparently the Sultan still lives in the Kraton, though most of it is open to tours. I really have nothing to say about the pictures. People dress up and dance and play music and sit around and smoke. I wander out the back exit where there are fewer people trying to heard me into art shops and find myself in a quiet little neighborhood. I guess people just live right alongside the Sultan's complex. People smile, but don't want money from me here. This area is nice.

A Chicken

After a little bit of wandering I get a bike taxi and have him take me to the nearby Water Palace. Previously adjoined to the Kraton, the Water Palace was the Sultan's pool until an earthquake took it out of commission. It was restored in 2004, but apparently being the Sultan isn't what it used to be and the pools are mostly used as a backdrop for high school kids to take pictures of their girlfriends.

I'm guessing the ticket I bought is solely for the tourists since the place seems to have no guards or actual curators. Want to swim in the Sultan's private pool? Go for it. Even weirder, there doesn't seem to have been any zoning restrictions and now the Water Palace is just a part of a neighborhood that has sprouted up with houses sitting next to remnants of sleeping chambers and tunnels.

The Water Palace

Since I did buy a ticket though, I am led around buy a 'guide'. I suspect he doesn't actually work for the place and just acts official (tearing my ticket and such) so he can later try to push me into some art crap. I'm ok w/ this. He's not annoying and while his explanations aren't particularly enlightening

For example: Apparently the place was built by a Portuguese architect in the 1700's. So the Portuguese (I guess there are a singular entity) were brought in to restore it in 2004. Originally the pools were spring fed but in 2004 the Portuguese pumped in water from a well. Also, before 2004 the pools were brown. We don't know why the Portuguese painted them blue in 2004. All the explanations come across as oddly accusatory towards the Portuguese as if they just came in in 2004 and did what ever they wanted and the reasons have been lost to history. Which, other nonsense aside, I have to agree with them on the 'blue pools are better than brown pools' theory.

A pool and the neighborhood that has grown up around it

After wandering around the Water Palace the 'guide' does in fact take me into a Batik art shop (Surprise! 90% of Yogyakarta's appears to be based around selling Batik). At least the owner isn't particularly pushy and is not making up some BS story about it being the last day the stuff is available. I tip the guide and stop for some fried noodles and head off to wander some more.

A Night on the Town

2010-10-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

This place is dead. Maybe it's just early, but 10pm Saturday and nothing is happening. I stopped in a nice enough 2nd floor balcony bar. There's an older European couple and a couple of presumably local guys. This area is packed with hostels and restaurants, but it's quiet.

I like that there are lizards running around. They don't make me think of unsanitary conditions like a rat or a cockroach would. Instead I think, "neat, a lizard!".

Aha! My first awesome toilet. I'd read in the guide that non-flush toilets were common throughout Indonesia, but prior to this bar I hadn't encountered one. It's like a squatter hole toilet things that you can sometimes still find in Korea, but unlike those, this one doesn't flush. Instead there's a water basin and scooper for manual flushing. There was toilet paper though. No wiping with your left hand here. Even so, I think I will poop in my expensive hotel, thank you.

I move on to another bar. There is a giantess at the bar. Foreigner. Gotta have 6 inches on the guy she's with. Indonesian people are generally pretty small, so I'm a bit frightened. I'm never sure how to acknowledge other foreigners when traveling. There's always an odd moment when you make eye contact and both must nod in recognition of the fact that you too look different than other people around.

National Geographic has a music channel? Ah, and terrible Korean pop music is playing. Back to the hotel it is.

On the way home, I hear music in the street and encounter a quintet who've set up shop along the main road. The have a standing bass, drum set, 2 guitars, and keyboard. They've got a few friends watching and one filming them playing in the street. I stop and watch and they seem happy. After they finish the song they invite me over to talk and play drums. They seem amused and film my awesome drumming (yes, that's now 2 Asian countries that I have toured as a drummer).

As I leave the musicians and head on back to the hotel, I realize that I've been unfair to the Indonesians. Thanks to the Lonely Planet's prices (from 6 years ago) and constant warnings about pickpockets and kidney thief's, I've been predisposed to assume everyone is trying to rip me off or screw me over in some way. In reality, everyone has been ridiculously friendly. Even if they have been overcharging me, the prices are still cheap.

I feel even worse when I see many of the petty cab guys sleep in their bike/cart things. I'd avoided using them before, partly because I usually don't have a real destination and partly because I'd feel like a jackass being biked around town. Now I feel like more of an ass for refusing their service. One of the petty cab guys is still awake and asks me where I'm heading. I tell him my hotel. He drops me off and asks for ~$1. I give him ~$2 and head up to my swank hotel room overlooking the pool and he heads off to wherever.

Yogyakarta: Day 1

2010-10-13T11:00:00.000-07:00

Trains get old. Actually, a day on a train isn't terrible, but the prospect of 2 more long days is daunting and unpleasant. The 'plan' I'd devised on the flight in was to get to Yogyakarta Saturday, hit Borobudur and move on Sunday. Hike Bromo on Monday and get to Bali Tuesday to meet up w/ my friends.

Upon getting to Yogyakarta ~5pm on Saturday, I revised this plan. Better to hole up in Yogyakarta and skip Bromo. Bromo might be beautiful, but I'll have to settle for nature in Komodo. Otherwise I'll wind up spending more vacation on trains and buses then anywhere worth being.

Wondering down the main street between the train station and the Kraton (Sultan's Palace), there are an absurd amount of clothes shops, motorcycles, petty cab bikers, and horses.

I like Yogyakarta. It bustles, but doesn't smell. The people aren't overly pushy. Don't look at the petty cab drivers and they mostly leave you alone. As I get close to the Krayton, I find out it is closed and I realize I have no clue what I'm doing. I consult the guide, pick a 'top end' hotel that's semi-close and decide to go. I'll try to find a travel agent there and arrange my flights to and from Bali. A long weekend isn't enough time for too much play-it-by-ear wandering.

It turns out this 'top-end' hotel is not just an 'Indonesia top-end' hotel. The lonely planet's $40 claim is less that 1/3 of the price. I decide I hate the Lonely Planet b/c it just makes me feel like I'm getting ripped off all the time. I'm not poor. I'm not trying to bleed out a month of traveling on a limited budget. If anything, I have the opposite problem of too little time. It's a bit pricey, but it's 2 nights top, has a travel agent in the building and a casting call for hair models on the second floor.

My room is nice. It overlooks a swanky pool w/ fountains and palm trees. I head down to the travel agent and book a flight to Bali for $60. Problem 1 solved. I also arrange for the return trip to Jakarta from Bali. Problem 2 solved. Hire a private car to Borobudur while I'm at it? done. I'm throwing money around and it's solving everything. And as long as I don't look at the Lonely Planet and read about the $5 bus where people will slash your bag to steal your stuff, I don't care. Hiring a car for $30 is a sweet deal.

Now free from concerns about my travel plans, I'm able to enjoy dinner and drinks by the pool. The weather is great, the place is beautiful, but the beer is still crap.

Jakarta, We Hardly Knew Thee

2010-10-12T06:37:00.000-07:00

Jakarta is odd. Judging from the streets immediately around my hotel, the economy is primarily based on selling SIM cards for cellphones. To increase profits, rather than bother with paying for a building, they just set up on the sidewalk. A chair, a cart and some SIM cards, you're good to go.

I make my rounds and stop for dinner. Star fruit juice is awesome. There is a cone of rice, and egg, a weird crispy tortilla and some vegetables. The vegetables are spicy, the rice cone is sweet. The tortilla tastes not so good.

Everyone (but primarily 40ish year-old looking women) want to be my friend. Walking down the street I've been invited to join multiple groups at weird bar/restaurants/chairs and tables on the sidewalk. I decline and choose instead to try a Bingtang at a sidewalk bar. It's "International Quality" but comes in 24 ounce bottles. Tastes like piss. Costs ~$3.

Strange mix of people. There's a guy playing a keyboard and girl singing generally terrible music. There's a guy wearing a boa with a weird girl who is staring at me. Upon looking she says something and beckons me over. I decline. My celebrity is a burden. Another woman sits down next to me and repeatedly clanks her glass till I look up. Brief smile and back to the notebook. The place makes me uncomfortable. Creepy old expats. The women next to me informs me that she is named April and is staying nearby. I am increasingly uncomfortable. No, April, I do not like dancing. I finish my gross beer and call it a night. 8AM train tomorrow.

I'm up at 7 after a fitful night's sleep. Breakfast appears to consist of a salad (or something) that has been sitting out over night. I opt for just toast and coffee. The coffee is good.

7:15 I leave planning to walk the ~1km to the train station. In the daylight I'm less disoriented and figure I can avoid getting lost since the train station is located next to a giant tower that can be seen from just about everywhere.

Tower by the Train Station

Much to my delight, there is a Bajaj sitting out in front of the hotel when I walk out. I say that, yes, I most certainly do want to ride around in his awesome 3-wheel cart thing. I giddily climb in and ask him to take me to the train station. Only then do I remember to ask how much. "3" is the response which means next to nothing to me, but I don't care b/c I just want to be chauffeured in the awesome cart.

Bajaj are awesome

The train station is simple. The ticket girl has the friendly, amused/embarassed-about-English attitude of someone who doesn't hate tourists (*cough* Russian train agents *cough*). Since I'm going to be on a train for ~8 hours, I opt for the luxury train. It's twice as much as the guide says, thus setting me back ~$40. While waiting at the platform incoming Economy trains are so stuffed with people that some have climbed up to ride on the roof. I suppress the latent drifter urge that seeing people riding on tops of trains stirs and continue waiting.

There doesn't appear to be any visual way to distinguish the trains, so around 8 I show a guy my ticket and ask if the the train that is waiting is mine. He says, no, my train my be late like his, which was supposed to arrive at 7.45. He is unconcerned and friendly, asking where I'm from. He is curious as to whether there are seasonal weather changes and tornadoes where I'm from. So, yes, to people on tropical Islands, Missouri is exotic and fascinating.

The train eventually arrives and is fine. Jakarta is big. The outskirts have houses piled up on top of each other directly over a river with colorful clothes hanging everywhere . City planning and zoning are so over-rated. Outside of town the landscape quickly turns to large, wet rice fields and I fall asleep.

View from the Train

When I awake later I order lunch at random. Turns out to be chicken, rice and an egg served on a palm (?) leaf lining a wicker plate. The landscape has become more mountainous with layered rice paddies and frequent clumps of jungle. Villages sporadically appear with houses clumped together leaving only room for motorcycles to weave through most alleyways.

I read up on the history of Indonesia and learn that it's the 4th most populous country on earth. Java alone has 128 million people. The more you know...

Arrival: Jakarta

2010-10-04T07:59:00.000-07:00

A good portion of my flight is spent reading the Lonely Planet and trying to formulate something of a plan. Skimming through the section on Java (the island where Jakarta is located) I decided that Borobudur, a big Buddhist temple, and Bromo, a volcano, are the things I'd most like to see. Conveniently, they are both located to the East of Jakarta, the way I need to head to get to Bali.

My plan is to go directly to the Jakarta train station and figure out the earliest I can get on my way towards Yogyakarta. From there I can arrange a trip to Borobudur. Along the way, I will further investigate the feasibility of getting to Bromo. The Lonely Planet encourages an early morning hike to catch sunrise from the summit. I am not sure that will be possible, but figure I'll see how travelling goes before ruling anything out.

With my itinerary for the next few hours ironed out I watch and hate the movie Date Night. Yes, it is socially unacceptable to take someone else's dinner reservation. That does not make it a joke that can carry a film. Make more 30 Rock and stop being in bad movies, Tina Fey.

The Jakarta customs check is awesome. You pay $25, a guy stamps like a billion things without so much as speaking to you and you're on your way. The declaration card's notice that drug traffickers face the death penalty had led me to believe it might be a more tedious ordeal.

As I walk out of customs and skip the baggage claim, I discover that I am a celebrity in Indonesia. As I step outside everyone starts clamoring for my attention. Fortunately, the licensed taxi companies have clearly marked booths and everyone who just wants my autograph or whatever is kept behind a fence. Instead of feeling overwhelmed and/or harassed, you feel awesome.

I pick a cab company at random. The price seems high because money is ridiculous here. Exchange rate of like 9000 Rupiah to 1 dollar has left me with a fat wad of seemingly fake money. 200,000 for a cab? Why not?

It turns out that the cab people (and everyone else I will meet, for that matter) speak English pretty well. I say I'd like to go to Gambir station and we're off. The cabbie isn't sure if the ticket booths will still be open, but I hope to at least verify the schedule tonight. There's a strip of hotels not far from Gambir that seems like a logical next step.

I like the small streets crowded w/ random shops and food booths. The driver turns, "Mr., Bajaj, mister" pointing out an awesome 3 wheeled motorcycle-cart hybrid thing that we're passing. I want to own one. Also, I'm amused at being called 'Mr.' Don't get that a lot.

Bajaj are ever bit as awesome as you'd hope.

I get dropped off by the train station. Too late for a ticket, but there is definitely an 8AM train for Yogyakarta. A taxi guy approaches and offers to take me somewhere. I ask how much. He says $5. I tell him Ok, knowing this is probably a relative rip-off but not caring b/c it's $5. Also it's dark and I'm in a city I don't know with no real destination. It occurs to me that in my negotiations with the cabbie no destination has been discussed. I say I want to go to a hotel and the guy says something. It sounds like it could be the nearby district with hotels. Arranging transportation in this manner is probably how people get their kidneys stolen.

Jakarta has the most confusing streets ever. I'm pretty sure we're just going in circles, but since I've already agreed to a set price, that doesn't really make sense. According to the Lonely Planet the place I think I'm going is like 1km from the train station. We certainly seem to be taking the long route. Before I get too concerned though, we pull up to a nice enough place w/ a Bob Marley cover band playing out front. $30 for a room. This country is ridiculous.

Departure

2010-10-02T08:05:00.001-07:00

At 10AM Friday, September 17th I awake. I must be on a plane in 5 hours and 45 minutes. I have not packed for my trip. I have not planned for my trip. I know nothing about Indonesia. I do not know where I am staying tonight. I have a guide book, a round trip ticket in and out of Jakarta, and a deadline to meet friends in Bali on Tuesday.

Some months ago I read an article about Komodo dragons that cemented Indonesia as my first choice amongst potential Korea-based travel destinations. In July, when I floated the idea of traveling there during Chuseok (Korean thanksgiving) to a couple of friends, it was met with interest but not commitment.

Early August, I checked into the logistics and found it would be prohibitively expensive to charter a boat to the island by myself (in retrospect, this is probably not true. By just winging it in Labuan Bajo you could probably do everything pretty cheap, but if you want to plan ahead, things are pricier). Still lacking firm commitments from potential travel companions, I began investigating alternative Chuseok destinations.

Mid-August, I sent a final inquiry to my friends figuring if we were going it needed to happen. A wedding in California and general lack of flights from Korea during Chuseok made things look dicey. Finally, late August, it is decided. We are going. Tickets must be bought. Dragon tours must be arranged. The window of opportunity is narrow. The earliest we can all arrive in Indonesia is 9.21 the latest we can all stay is 9.26.

Unfortunately, the late date and fact that everyone in Korea was planning on traveling that week meant flights were expensive and hard to come by. Even more aggravating was the fact that many of the overpriced flights that showed up in searches were phantom tickets that disappeared when you actually tried to purchase them. Suddenly, it wasn't a matter of trying to juggle departure times, flight duration and costs; it was a matter of even getting a ticket. To make matters even worse, the day my friends sent me their flight confirmations, Korean Airlines' website went down and it appeared entirely possible that after championing the trip, I would not be able to make it.

The next day, as soon as Korean Airlines was back online, I bought the first tickets that would guarantee me a seat. Nevermind that it was twice the price of most weekends or that it took me to Jakarta when I needed to meet my friends in Bali (since that's where the Komodo trip arrangements were).

Heading there, this shouldn't be a problem. Since I'm flying today (Friday 9/17), I've got until Tuesday to figure out how to get to Bali. Coming back might be trickier. The arrangements in Komodo will return us to Bali around noon on Saturday the 25th. I have to catch a plane in Jakarta Sunday night. It seems there are many Indonesian airlines that are not on the major flight search engines, so hopefully this won't be a problem.

Truth be told, I kinda like the haphazard nature of this trip. I'll get to see more of Indonesia. It'll be more fun than just booking a Bali resort package, anyway. Worst case I suppose I miss my flight home and just have to waste more time and eat some more money. Not ideal, but not exactly the end of the world. Can't get to worked up about things. It's a vacation- gotta enjoy it.

1 Year Later

2010-09-28T06:22:00.000-07:00

It seems a little hard to believe, but while I was hanging out in the Jakarta airport Sunday the one year anniversary of my moving to Korea slipped by. I do have some pictures and stories about Indonesia that I plan to post, but I figured some sort of 1-year post was in order.

Sadly, I don't feel I have any profound thoughts to offer the clamoring public. I occasionally get asked why I came to Korea and I've never really come up w/ a good answer. That isn't at all to imply I regret coming here, just that I never really had a set plan in which spending time in Korea was a necessary prerequisite. Things just kind of worked out and here I am.

When I first set foot in Korea, in transit from Japan to Russia, my very first impression was seeing a Dunking Donuts in the airport covered in hangul and thinking I was pretty much hitting the reset button on my foreign country experience and effectively destroying any progress I'd made towards figuring out what I'd been doing in Japan. Shortly thereafter, I had my first taste of Korean food and concluded it wasn't just resetting but handicapping myself as well.

In the year since, I feel I've done a fair job of exploring Korea. I still haven't been to Busan or the DMZ, but I've covered a lot of the random stuff scattered between.

I can't speak Korean as well as I'd like (foreign languages are hard), but I can have a rudimentary conversation with someone willing to deal w/ my limited vocab and warped intonations.

I don't have a huge circle of friends, but there are a few people here I'd go out of my way to see again (which is about as well as I've done at any other stop along the way).

Work is still weird, but there are the occasional rewards and I haven't lost the motivation to keep trying.

All in all, I can't complain (though sometimes I still do). And I have to admit that it was comforting to hear the meaningless chatter of Korean upon landing in Seoul. And dozing on the bus, I woke up and recognized the buildings as we drove past. And I was happy to home (or as home as anywhere outside of Nevada has ever been).

Alive in Yogyakarta

2010-09-18T07:34:00.000-07:00

I'm at an internet cafe in Yogyakarta. This city has an amazing rat's nest of small alley-ways crammed w/ hostels and hotels and internet cafes. I'm thoroughly fascinated by small alley-ways. They are all pretty nice and clean around here. Definitely a touristy-zone. Actually, all of Indonesia thus far (we're about 24 hours in) has been very friendly. Pretty decent English all around. People are typically friendly and the vendors aren't usually overly pushy.

I'll have more extensive write ups later, but for now I'm holing up in Yogyakarta until Monday when I fly to Denpasar. It's on to Komodo Wednesday, then back to Denpasar Saturday for a night and back to Seoul via Jakarta next Sunday.

I can't quite wrap my mind around the price of things here. According to the Lonely Planet (which I will stop consulting b/c of this) I'm getting ripped off left and right. Except that everything is still ridiculously cheap. I keep thinking in terms of Korean won (about a factor of 10 higher) so I think 7500 seems a bit steep for a drink, then I remember that's like a dollar. Slightly less. It doesn't really make sense.

Indonesia or Bust

2010-09-16T10:24:00.000-07:00

In less than 24 hours I will be in Indonesia. I have very little idea how this will go. I fly to Jakarta tomoro. On Tuesday, I need to be in Bali to meet a couple of friends so we can fly to Labuanbajo and head to Komodo Island on Wednesday. Saturday, back to Bali. Sunday I need to be in Jakarta to fly back to Korea.

I know next to nothing about Indonesia. I have not even packed yet. Only good things will come of this.

Doubtful that I will have posts for the next week, but come the end of the month, I might be back to my old school travel-blogging ways (+ dragons). So, stay tuned. Or I might get eaten.

Medical Exam

2010-08-22T07:25:00.000-07:00

I get a crap-ton of emails at work. At least 90% of them don't really concern me. Or at least, I assume they don't concern me since they're not written in a language I can readily comprehend.

I've long suspected that this may be one of the reasons that I have very little clue what's going on around me beyond a day-to-day basis. In an attempt to remedy this, I try to go through the emails once a day. The short ones I'll try to figure out, adding to the pile of flash cards next to my monitor. The long ones, I generally ignore.

Translating takes a long time. I'll have to remember to post some of the nonsense that Google Translate spits out, but to really understand, you usually have to work one word at a time. It also doesn't help that there seems to be a special form of Korean for formal written documents. I learned this after being laughed at by my Korean teacher for using what must have been some bizarre business-ish jargon from my flashcards.

Usually, this isn't a real problem. If people want me to know something, they send it in English. But occasionally something slips through the cracks.

Case in point, last Thursday. Coworker A, "Did you go get your medical examination? You were on the list"

Brandon (blank stare), "Uh...no. What medical examination? What list?"

Coworker A, "Didn't you read the email?"

I also learned that I could not go that day since I had eaten too late the night before. I did not learn why that mattered or what the medical exam was for. It was just a "yearly checkup" that "everyone does". Awesome.

First thing the next morning, I head to the company hospital (the company complex is pretty much a town. It has it's own Domino's delivery guys and everything). I found a receptionist who cunningly determined I was a confused foreigner, not a dying foreigner and directed to the temporary station for the yearly check-ups.

I hand my badge to be swiped and am given a Korean form in return to fill out. I stare at the guy who handed it to me and he directs me to the form area where another foreigner and I share the English form key while filling out our Korean forms. The forms seem to match up, so I'm reasonably sure that I'm not requesting a lobotomy or something, but it's hard to say for sure.

My favorite part was the question regarding my exercise habits.

1. How many days a week to you engage in 30 min + of strenuous exercise (such as running, swimming, etc.)?

2. How many days a week to you engage in 30 min + of moderate exercise (such as jogging, normal bike riding, rubbing your knees on the floor, etc.)?

I really have no idea what kind of exercise they were talking about, but I figure I probably don't do it. I hate sitting on the floor, can't imagine rubbing my knees on it being more pleasant.

Formed filled out, I am allowed to proceed to station 1. The stations are not in any sensible order, so it's kinda like some sort of scavenger hunt. Only not a fun scavenger hunt. But one where you get to pee on a stick and wander around with it to find the person who wants a urine soaked stick (answer: no one really wants it. They just look at it and then you're supposed to throw it away).

There was an x-ray room. The doctor didn't really speak english so much as yell single words which you had to interpret as instructions. As I enter the room he points at me and says, "badge" then turns and hugs a machine. Apparently I am to remove the badge and then hug said machine in a similar fashion. I do so. "Mandible! Mandible!" WTF? oh, chin rest thing, gotcha. I will put my mandible there. "Blorshermer!!! Blorshermer!!!" I have no clue what he was trying to say, but presumably my embrace of the machine was not to his liking. I needed to bend my knees a bit or hug it in a more comforting manner. After a bit of awkward groping of the metal frame, he seemed satisfied, took the xray and sent me on to the next fun room.

Most were pretty uneventful. Eye chart, height, weight, ear test thing. The shuffling around and waiting in lines for minor medical tests reminded me a lot of getting physicals when they offered free physicals at the school for anyone wanting to play sports. Fortunately there was no hernia test here.

They did take blood, however. Stole 3 vials from me. I did not pass out. I did note that the needle they stabbed me with was new. I was vaguely reassured by that. Then somewhat disturbed that my only criteria for judging the medical care was that they have higher sanitary conditions than the worst heroine addicts. Then I decided not to care anymore.

The last stop was some sort of general medical discussion. "Do you speak Korean". "We haven't covered detailed medical terminology yet". "Are you on medication?" "No" "Any operations?" "No" "Medical history?" "Does breaking my arm when I was a kid count?" "Did you have operations?" "No, just wore a cast" (the doctor then changes the answer to the operations question to a yes. Tricky).

My favorite question, though, was:

"Do you have Tuberculosis?"

I like that it was just a self-diagnosis thing. I mean, I watched Tombstone and I'm definitely not acting like Doc Holiday and I'm pretty sure he had TB, so I went w/ no. Just seemed like the kinda think that doctors would tell me rather than ask.

I was just a little disappointed that they didn't recommend eating more kimchi to me. It is good for the health, after all.

Talking

2010-08-10T07:31:00.000-07:00

My family recently came and visited me for about a week. Parents, sibling, sibling-in-law, sibling's unborn tumor-spawn. All but the pets. (insert 개고기 comment here).

I'm not going to talk about that. Partly b/c most people reading this who are interested in my family probably already read about it via the sibling's much more frequently updated blog and partly b/c I don't like talking about identifiable people here. I like to maintain a bit of abstraction. I probably haven't been 100% consistent with that, but it's part of the reason my posts have become so rare. The more my stories involve other people, the less inclined I am to share them. I believe my sibling would refer to this as being 'super sneaky' or some other such alliteration to that effect.

But enough rambling about my vaguely defined view on privacy and the internet and social media and all that nonsense. I will instead ramble about my vaguely coherent thoughts on my progress towards learning Korean.

I've been in Korea for almost 1 year now. Upon first arrival, I knew nothing about the language. I took lessons most mornings during my internship and by the end of the summer could 'read' (more or less make the correct noise associated w/ words) and spout off a few key phrase. "I'm from America", "Beer is good", "No I don't have a girlfriend", "I don't know why not", "Stop asking weird questions, every weird Korean person in a bar"...the basics.

Since then, I've taken 3 rounds of classes. 2 hours a day, 3 days a week for 8 weeks per class. Since the 2nd round of classes, I've been pretty good about going over flashcards during my commute and studying a bit. I'm not as dedicated as I could be, but I haven't exactly been slacking.

This has gotten me to the point that I am now capable of having a relatively dumb conversation w/ someone patient enough to decipher my terrible accent (It's weird that I don't really grasp how my accent sounds. Like to me most Koreans sounds like they're just talking fast and slurring things a lot. I recognize I don't sound like that, I sound like I'm saying weird jibberish slowly. It just doesn't have an accent to me. I guess that's what an American accent is like to an American. This probably doesn't a lot of sense, but trying speaking w/ a French accent. Maybe it's bad, but you can probably do it. Try speaking w/ a Korean accent. Now you probably sound like you're making fun of Chinese people at best. The problem lies in there somewhere)

Sometimes it's really frustrating to see how slowly I progress. Day to day I don't feel like I'm making progress. This does not sit well with me. I've been out for 2 years, but I'm still very much in a school mentality. All things should be learned in 4 months. I should excel at learning them and be validated w/ an A. This is how it worked for years. It is how it should be.

However, my family's visited clued me in that while I may not be particularly proficient at speaking Korean, I've become quite good at Konglish. While it may not seem like a huge feat to learn a bastardized version of one's own language, it is at least useful. Requesting a 'lemon' will get you a blank stare. However, getting a 'leh-mone' is doable. All the times of feeling like a retard when ordering an 'egguh mic mah pin' at McDonald's paid off.

Showing off my Konglish skills for the family is only part of it though. I've also applied the skill during a conference call to translate between my coworkers' English and American English. The weirdest part is that both sides of the conversation made perfect sense to me, but neither understood the other. Again, maybe that sounds like nonsense, but I think it really just underscores the difficulty of really mastering a language. The grammar and words only get you so far.

So here in another couple weeks I'll be starting up another round of Korean classes. I will try to remember that the finer points of the language really are secondary to the purpose of communicating. Forget the tests, all I ever really wanted was to be able to make a phone call and have someone deliver fried chicken and beer to my house.

It's been a while...

2010-07-07T09:58:00.000-07:00

...since I went out on a Wednesday night. Good to see the two collared-shirt wearing guys passed out on the side walk. I was afraid they might take it easy what with the hot weather and all.

They're not kidding about Starcraft...

2010-03-12T06:17:00.000-08:00

I happened across this story and figured I might as well throw it out there.

It's not quite on the 'imprisoning you're daughter in a basement dungeon and repeatedly impregnating her' level of mind-blowing, but it's getting close.

God help us all if Blizzard ever actually releases Starcraft II.

Happy Valentine's Day

2010-02-23T06:30:00.001-08:00

Another reminder of why I need to carry my camera with me more often:

The smaller hearts to the left would seem to indicate that this is some sort of Valentine's day window painting, but I'm not sure what exactly they're going for. Whatever it is, it is there.

And in case you're wondering, yes, apparently Valentine's day is a thing over here. However, unlike in the states, apparently the custom is for women to give chocolate to men on Valentine's day (I guess chocolate companies made the rules over here instead of florists). I think there's some sort of day in March where men reciprocate and buy crap for women, but I'm not 100% on that.

Where Am I & What Is That?

2010-02-07T05:37:00.000-08:00

Given the relatively long-term nature of my stay in Seoul, I've been far less concerned with trying to see/do new things all the time. Instead, it's been more of a balancing act- trying to establish a semblance of a normal life here while also making the most of my time here and experiencing different things. Of late, though, I feel that I've veered too far into routines.

In an effort to avoid falling too far into the routines of a normal life, I've decided to add a new, theoretically reoccurring, blog feature I will be calling 'Where Am I & What Is That?'. The basic idea is that I will occasionally (I'm thinking monthly at least) go to some random part of the city or country that I've never been to and ingest some sort of food/drink that I've never tried before.

For today's inaugural effort, I was wondering near Dongdaemun market. I was actually in the area scouting for a project I've come up with (to be revealed later if it works out), when I came upon Dongdaemun. Despite the fact that it's ranked pretty high on the tourist checklist, I'd never actually been there. Mostly b/c it's a giant shopping center and I have pretty much no interest in shopping. I didn't actually go into the market on account of a lot of stuff being closed on a Sunday evening and my aforementioned disdain for shopping. Instead, I wandered into the narrow, twisting streets in the hilly area North of Dongdaemun.

The area had a much older feel than the part of Seoul I live in and had an incredibly dense motorcycle population buzzing around. Unlike many parts of Seoul which are dedicated to a single product (the chair district or the pet district), the shops were pretty varied here. My favorite item being the spam & oil gift sets. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera, but it's pretty much like one of those gourmet meat and cheese gift baskets only with Spam and oil instead. Guess what the family's getting next Christmas?

After a bit the street turned more residential and I veered left up a steep set of stairs to find myself walking alongside an old wall. I follow the wall to the peak and find myself on the top of Naksan. There's a sweet view of the city as the sun goes down and all the lights come on.

Just a little ways down the other side of the mountain, I come across a small restaurant advertising 설렁탕. Having no idea what that is, I decide it'll make for a good place to try something new.

The restaurant is small and has weird stuffed animals in a display case in the back and a chair, guitar and music stand set up in one corner. The owner (I assume), sporting a sweet fu-manchu to go w/ his black flair-legged pants, chef's jacket and stocking cap offers me a seat and says '설렁탕' a couple of times. I ask what it is. He gestures and says something. It sounds like he mentioned bibimbap, so I expect there will be vegetables and rice, probably in soup (탕) form. I nod and ask for some.

Lining the walls along the ceiling are 5 gallon jars filled with various vegetables soaking in liquid. Many appear to have ginseng and those are all connected with and elaborate tubing. Some other people come in and the owner points out the jugs and explains to them. I don't follow, but I'm guessing it's tea. There are also gum-ball machine looking jars that appear to have Makali in them. Apparently this guy makes most the drinks himself.

The food comes out and it's not as soupy as I expected. It appears to be just rice on top of bean sprouts. The owner dumps some spices and pepper on top and instructs me to stir it. After a bit, he gestures that it's stirred enough to eat. There's also a watery soup w/ some onions and some kimchi. The rice concoction isn't bad and after gesturing approval, the owner brings me a shot of makali and some tea. The makali is really good and goes well with the food. The tea's a strong and bitter, but pretty good as well.

I finish up and get up to pay and the guy tells me it's only 1,000 won (< $1). This makes no sense to me and I kind of stare at him. He and the other people in the restaurant are amused and assure me that it really is only 1,000 won. I have no idea how that's possible. Rice and bean sprouts might be cheap, but that price doesn't even make sense. I assume this guy must be some sort of rich retired guy who opened the restaurant for his own amusement. I don't know how else you'd get away with charging that.

I wonder on down the hill past a bunch of coffee shops towards Hyehwa station. Near the station are a bunch of theaters (play style not movie) and many more coffee shops and restaurants. Strikes me as a fairly new college-y type area.

So, verdict is: 설렁탕 is ok. That restaurant is awesome. And the Naksan/Hyehwa area is definitely worth a visit.

Next time I'll have to bring a camera.

Bon Fire

2010-02-02T07:11:00.001-08:00

The other night, about a block from my apartment I came across an impromptu bon fire that some guys decided to have on the sidewalk in downtown Seoul. The more distant fire seemed to be composed of nothing but business cards for massage parlors that carpet all sidewalks in the area. However, they didn't seem to have an anti-massage agenda. As far as I could tell they just had a pro-trash, coffee and fire agenda.

They were not keen on being photographed, however. The guy on the left came over to gesticulate that he would prefer not to have this lovely event documented. Using my quick thinking, I deleted the first blurry photo to appear friendly and tried asking what they were doing. I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure he said, "We're just burning shit b/c that's how we roll."

So, now I know that you can apparently just light stuff on fire in the street here. And they should know that when you decide to just burn stuff in public, it's really not worth trying to censor everyone who walks by.

So much for that idea...

2010-01-30T02:45:00.000-08:00

Yeah, ignore that thing I said about regular updates. However, it's not quite as bitter cold as it's been and I'm getting the itch to wander around a bit more (I'm not certain that I've been anywhere in Seoul outside of Gangnam in 2010). Anyway, until I get some more interesting events, here's a sweet store sign near my building.

Needless to say, I don't think this slogan would fly in the US. Although, I think there are Smoothie King's stateside. Anyone know the slogan there?

But my favorite part are the flavors: Strawberry, Banana, Orange and Electrolyte. Yum, Electrolyte. It sounds so delicious, I think I'll go buy one right now.

Still Alive

2010-01-18T07:42:00.000-08:00

Behold! After more than a month hiatus, my triumphant blogging return. It's really easy to let this thing slip. Work picked up in December, I flew back to the states for the holidays, and I've just been really worthless since I've been back. But that changes today.

I've always felt like New Year's resolutions are a terrible idea. Not the idea so much as the timing. I mean, hungover and in Nevada is no way to begin any effort towards self-improvement. So we're going to go w/ the January 18th resolution and make an effort to write more. Consider it a gift from me to you. Or just a way for me to justify talking to myself.

I need to get to sleep, but on tomoro's docket is paying bills and taxes. Given that I started the process of paying bills (read: asking the horrible GHD people how to do so) more than a week ago and have still not been able to accomplish this seemingly simple task ("You just use online banking" Oh, really? Well, you can't do that at work b/c the insane company security policy hates me and won't allow insane IE plugins and certificates and crap that the insane internet banking crap requires. Just do it at home you say? Well, that was today's plan, but of course the awesome internet banking setup wouldn't make the transfer because it was after banking hours. Which you would think mildly defeats the purpose of online banking in the first place. So tomoro I go to the bank and just see if the teller will pay my bills for me.

I'm pretty sure the taxes will be a joy.

Touch

2009-12-01T08:00:00.000-08:00

There area I live in is notorious for its high concentration of business bars and other shady underground nightlife. This isn't to say it's seedy or anything, it's actually a very expensive and nice part of town.

A consequence of this is that at intersections all surfaces are completely covered with business cards for various massage parlors and such. I'd be really curious to know the quantities that these cards are ordered in b/c they're literally everywhere.

Anyway, this one is by far my favorite:

I don't know what it says above the phone number, but I think the picture really tells all you need to know.

New Apartment

2009-11-22T06:25:00.000-08:00

I've been in my new apartment for just over a week now. Of course, this being Korea, nothing works smoothly. As I'd mentioned previously, no one was too keen on informing where I would be moving or how any of it would go down. In addition to the general pleasure that everyone seems to take in depriving me of useful information, there were some personnel changes made at the GHD and I was assigned a new foreign babysitter.

So last Thursday, I go in person over to the GHD to figure out exactly how the moving process will take place the next day. Unfortunately, my GHD person isn't there. "Maybe you forgot that she is not here on Tuesdays and Thursdays?" Yeah, maybe. And maybe you're just baiting me and trying to get me to get angry and flip out.

I'm finally able to contact my GHD person and learn that I just need to have my stuff packed and proved the security code for the movers. Friday I can meet her and she'll provide me info about where I actually need to go to be reunited with my earthly possessions and begin extended habitation.

Friday, I hand over my old keys and receive and address and information about the commuter buses. Everything seems set. I leave that evening to go to dinner with coworkers relatively confident that I actually do have a home. As I pretty much expected, dinner included a bottle of whiskey and I wound up getting dropped off at my new place at about 1AM.

I get on the elevator and it refuses to move. After some confusion I remember that I never learned the words for 'odd' and 'even' and possibly that is the problem here. Enter elevator on opposite side. Bingo! Brandon + whiskey: 1. Korean language: 0

I find my apartment number. There's a banner beside it and posters on the door. I assume this must be b/c it was recently vacated. Seems strange that they advertised it so heavily since I've been scheduled to move here for quite some time. Oh well. I try the key code I was given. Nothing happens. I try it with various combinations of '*' and '#'. I succeed in making it beep angrily at me. Brandon + whiskey: 1. Korean Door: 1.

With no one to consult, I assume that my inability to open the door is probably a function of the whiskey and resolve to stay in the Mojo Hotel I saw next door and try again Saturday morning. The Mojo Hotel doesn't live up the glory of the Mul Hotel. The room is bigger and costs less, but without surround sound or air temperature control in the bathroom, what's the point?

I awaken earlish Saturday and walk out into the garish red light of the 7th floor hallway at the Mojo Hotel. I feel like crap and want to go back to sleep. I go to the apartment and find a security guard at the information desk. He speaks a little English and I explain that I'm couldn't get into my room and ask if he can show me how I need to enter the key code. He asks what room. I tell him. He tells me I can't live there b/c that's the model room. I remember the banners and am angry. I thank him and call the GHD.

I explain the situation to the GHD person.

"Oh, your apartment is #___. Didn't the apartment people in the show you to your actual room when you got there yesterday?"

The most frustrating thing about being here is that there's really nothing to direct anger at. Yelling at this girl or even asking why the hell she would tell me the model apartment will not really accomplish anything. There will be no satisfaction. Instead I just angrily say I will try it out and call back if it doesn't work and hang up.

Turns out the key code did work once I had the right door. And all my stuff was there. Behold:

The kitchen

My bed is in the low loft. I have since learned where trash goes.

My desk is a board stuck in a bookshelf. Perfectly functional, just struck me as odd that desks are sold like that.

The one thing that did make me happy was that my apartment is much higher than the model room I was told. So instead of looking out to see a building, I get this view. All in all, I really like the apartment. As soon as i can figure out where to buy a recliner, I'll be set.

Fun with GHD

2009-11-18T02:04:00.000-08:00

The GHD are the foreigner babysitters that the company provides. I believe they're subcontracted by my company. I only 'believe' this b/c no one really likes to clearly explain who's in charge of anything. This way they can all deny responsibility for anything until you finally manage to corner everyone who could possibly be responsible and force one of them to accede to doing their job. Anyway, since I'm scheduled to move on Friday, I contacted the GHD to ask how this was going to occur.

The impression I got from the housing manager/personal shopper when he brought me dishes was that he would be coming to the temp apartment this Friday while I was at work and moving everything. I would just go to the new apartment Friday evening and start living there. You might think that someone would verify that this was the case and, you know, tell me that I should be packed Thursday, explain how to get keys to the shopper-dude and how to get keys to my new apartment. Or at least tell me which apartment I'm moving to (I have vague information that it's in the building that I liked previously. Thus, my current plan is to get off work Friday, go to a busy area of Seoul, hope I can find an apartment building I visited once, three months ago, and hope that someone there is expecting a random American to show up and demand a place to live).

Well, I get a response confirming that yes, Friday, shopper-dude will be moving my stuff to my new apartment and I should go there after work. No word on how shopper-dude will be getting into my apartment or where the new one is, but at least I know I need to be pack and clean Thursday. This seems like reasonable progress, and I assume that with a few more emails over the next few days, I might actually have half a clue what's happening.

Then, at about 6:30 (TU) I get a phone call. Since I was in Korean class and didn't recognize the number I just hang it up to make it stop ringing. They call back.

Me: "Hello"

Jim or whatever: "Hello, this is Jim from the GHD. We need you to confirm the color of your dinner table."

Me: "Uh... (dumbfounded silence. My brain tries to run through all the possible slight context shifts or mispronunciations that could turn this sentence into one that makes sense. This is what I do 90% of the time I have to deal w/ the GHD or HR or really just about anyone.) ...what?"

Jim: "The housing manager called me and said we needed to confirm your dinner table. Your usually GHD person already went home, but he said it couldn't wait till tomorrow. What color is the table?"

Me: "Uh...Brown. Wait, why do they need to know that?"

Jim: "I'm not sure. They said they were moving things into your apartment and needed to know about the table."

Me: "Uh... (inner monologue:

normal Brandon: 'That can't be right. I'm not supposed to move till Friday.'

Koreanized Brandon: 'Crap, that totally could be right. They're probably in my temp apartment right now'

normal Brandon: 'What? That makes no sense.'

Koreanized Brandon: 'Exactly.'

fin.) ...I was told that would happen Friday. I haven't packed and don't even know where I would need to go if that's the case."

Jim: "Hmm...I'll call him back and let you know."

About 10 minutes later, Jim calls back.

Jim: "No worries, they're not moving your stuff until Friday. The decorator just needed to know the color of the table."

Me: "Ok, thanks."

So, maybe I don't know where I'll be sleeping 3 nights from now, but there's a reasonably good chance that my coffee pot will match my dining room table.

Dodged a Bullet

2009-11-17T06:41:00.000-08:00

The apartment I'm staying in has electronic locks. This seems like a good idea. You can carry one of the electronic keys or just use the keypad to unlock the door. It plays a happy little song for you and automatically relocks. How fantastic. The one serious design flaw is that there is no manual backup. Battery runs out, tough crap. (Actually, you can manually unlock it from the inside, so you don't have to worry about burning to death b/c you failed to replace the battery, but there isn't from the outside.)

The mover/shopper/apartment cleaner guy had me enter a new security code the first day and warned me that if the lock battery dies, they have to break the door and I'll have to pay for it. Fair enough. The batteries only have to be changed once or twice a year and I'm only going to be here for 3 weeks. Shouldn't be a problem. If the thing starts screeching, I'll know what to do.

Well, a few days back, I came home, and was greeted by a new song when I entered the code. I paused, thinking 'That's strange, why would anyone want to program the lock to have multiple songs? And why would it have decided to just up and changed today?' Since I didn't really understand why it played a song in the first place (or why the washing machine or any other number of appliances play songs), I didn't worry too much about it. I mean, it was just a different song, not some annoying or alarming sound that would obviously warn you to change the batteries or risk the permanent sealing of your apartment while your away.

As you may have guessed, lock battery alarm design is another area where Korea and I have some slightly different opinions. So this morning I woke up to find my lock would no longer play any song or unlock for me. Fortunately, I had some spare batteries. Even more fortunately, I was on the inside when it died.

Fun with the House Manager

2009-11-04T03:50:00.000-08:00

One perk that I was unaware of when coming here was that the housing costs that were being covered by the company also included furniture and appliances and such. While this is pretty much awesome, it has led to some awkward situations.

Originally, the plan was to wait till I moved to my full-time apartment before the stuff would be purchased. Well, actually I don't know what the original plan was. In fact, I only found out that furnishings would be supplied when I got a phone call from the GHD (people subcontracted by the company to babysit foreigners) telling me that I could have a couch or a desk, but not both b/c they wouldn't both fit in my apartment. Incidentally, this was the first confirmation that I received that an apartment had been secured for me. Such is how information is transferred.

Well, anyway, after a bit of confusion, I selected the couch and was pleased that I had fewer things to worry about and pay for. This was all well and good, until I moved into my temporary apartment. The big plus of this in my mind was that I'd be able to cook. It's not like I'm a culinary expert, but I miss real breakfast food (I'm sure I've complained about what passes for breakfast here [if not: western breakfast in the cafeteria had pasta and brownies one day]). So I was excited to be able to eat copious amounts of bacon and eggs again.

Except that I had no cooking stuff. Just a microwave and fridge. I was hesitant to buy things b/c I knew some things would be provided upon moving (the exact items were kept a secret to heighten the anticipation). I finally decided that I didn't care and bought a couple plates, an electric burner and enough utensils to cook and eat eggs.

Before buying anything else, though, I decided to ask what would be provided in the new place so as to avoid duplicity. In what is one of the most annoying aspects of being here, rather than getting an actual answer about what would be provided, I was told that the housing manager would meet me after work to provide me things. While a simple list would have sufficed, I wasn't going to complain about getting more crap that I can use immediately.

So yesterday evening, the housing manager shows up with boxes of kitchen crap. And here's why this is weird:

1. I'm not sure who the housing manager is or what exactly his job entails. I first met him as the guy that was cleaning the apartment prior to my arrival. He gave me the keys and warned me not to use the kitchen sink until it had been worked out between the apartment and company who was paying to have it fixed*. So I assumed he was in charge of the apartment complex. Except that now, it's apparent that his job also includes shopping for me and he will be in charge of moving my crap to the real apartment when the time comes. Also, I asked him about where to dispose of recycling and he had to ask a security guard, so he clearly isn't affiliated w/ this particular apartment complex.

*1b. The sink still isn't fixed. Apparently since I'm only here for a month the company doesn't want to pay or something. Which makes sense- except for the very idea that the person moving into an apartment is responsible for paying to fix broken things. Really, WTF? Also, in another day or two, I'm just going to go ahead and wash the dishes, leak be damned. I mean, I made a cheeseburger and I don't think washing the greasy pan in the bathtub is a reasonable option. And, yes, sibling, that does mean I have gross, dirty dishes stacked in my kitchen. So there's still a chance that I can make that TV show.

2. As if having this guy doing simple shopping wasn't strange enough, he insists upon unpacking everything. I try to help and he tells me no. So I stand there in the kitchen while he pulls plates out of the box and puts them in my cabinets. It was bizarre. I mean what's the proper etiquette for when a stranger has bought you stuff like sponges and dishtowels and is unpacking them all for you? I went with uncomfortable watching.

Not that this is the first time I've been relegated to awkward observance. Maybe the service industry is just way better here (and I'm not even talking about the massage parlors). When I picked up my stuff at the post office, they insisted on hauling the boxes around and not letting me help. The bellhop at the hotel did the same when I asked for a cart. I mean, I guess I appreciate their efforts, but they don't tip here and I'm just left standing around. Maybe I just need to work on my sense of entitlement.

Anyway, here are my new dishes. So if I start cooking Korean food and make a bajillion side dishes, I'll totally be set. Or if I need a weird mini-fork anytime soon, also covered.

Again, can't complain about free things, but yeah, probably won't be making much use of some of these. Probably wouldn't have picked that bedspread either...

The (Temporary) New Digs

2009-11-03T05:21:00.000-08:00

It's kind of amazing how much of a mess I've managed to make in only about a week in my temporary apartment. Since I'm only going to be here a few more weeks, I've left most of my stuff in boxes. However, as I start needing things (like winter clothes b/c it just decided to start freezing yesterday), I begin digging things out and scattering them around.

Not having things like a dresser or laundry basket tends to make things look rather untidy. Also, piling up trash in a corner b/c you haven't bother asking how the trash system works here makes things less tidy. Anyway, here are some pictures of the place for those of you who like to live vicariously.

It's a kitchen. It doesn't come with a stove. Or a burner. Apparently the place I'm moving will come with a burner, so I don't get one for now. I bought a little electric one to use while I'm here. I made pasta Sunday night. First meal I made in Korea after spending more than 3 months here. Last night: hashbrowns (I bought a peeler and knife solely for this purpose) and eggs. It was amazing. And tonight I got bacon from the bigger grocery store. I'm totally pumped. Now if I can only find a foreman grill...

My little dining room/microwave room. The internet hook-up is in the bedroom, so I don't really have much reason to be in here. Unless I want to eat and stare at the wall. Or microwave things.

My bedroom.

All in all, not a bad setup. The only real issue I have is that the bedroom isn't dark enough due to the gigantic window that runs the length of the attached laundry/porch/room/thing. If I get the motivation to swap the bed and table though, well, good things will happen. Darker sleeping and a table to put the computer on. Nice.

Gay Sports Pork Party!

2009-10-26T22:28:00.001-07:00

I get lots of email I can't read. Usually running it through google's translator will give the basic idea of the email, if not the finer details. Sometimes not so much:

2. 명랑운동회 삼겹살 파티

Goodbye, Hotel

2009-10-26T08:43:00.000-07:00

I'm checking out of the hotel and moving to a temporary apartment somewhere in Suwon. I don't really know where it is or anything about it. I've been informed that the bed I would have received upon moving to my permanent apartment will be provided. I have been informed that I will need to have things like dishes. I take this to mean that major appliances will be provided, though there is a fair bit of gray between a bed and dishes.

All in all, I'm glad to be leaving the hotel. I doubt I'll really unpack or settle in the temp apartment, but I'm kinda tired of the hotel (even with the Karoake room on the first floor). Maid service just makes me kind of uncomfortable. I really don't need a new towel everyday and I'll never understand the point of making the bed. And the randomness that seems to dictate whether they will leave me a washcloth is a bit odd. Mostly, though, I think I just like to be left alone when I'm going home. I don't want someone at the desk to greet me every time I walk in or out.

I understand that they're just being polite, but I always feel awkward and like I need to explain to them where I'm going or something. I would guess that for the most part, the hotel employees are kind of amused by the t-shirt wearing American who's been holed up in the hotel for going on a month. I even got a laugh out of one when I got on the elevator with a couple of guys in business suits after a quick trip to the convenience store for Pringles and an MGD (doing you proud, America).

Anyway, not sure what the internet situation will be like in the new place, so I might disappear for a little while. Figured I'd drop this note to dispel any fears that too much birthday soju was to blame for my absence (though, I will credit it for the worst hang over I've had since a bad decision involving some boxed wine many years ago).

Ulleungdo

2009-10-20T08:29:00.000-07:00

PumpkinHead and Squidy Welcome you the Mysterious Island Ulleungdo!

Despite the fact that leaving the island is a dicey proposition, Ulleungdo may be my favorite of all the places I've been to in Korea. It's hard to get to, harder to leave and lacking in cuisine, but it's definitely got it's fair share of scenery. And squid.

The weather was nice. There was lots of hiking. I skipped out on a couple days of work. I didn't have to pay for anything (thanks prof K and university). Getting stuck an extra day just resulted in more sightseeing w/o missing any more work, which would have undoubtedly resulted in an unpleasant encounter w/ HR.

There are only like 10,000 people on the whole island and apparently 90% of what they do is directly involved with squid. It's really pretty ridiculous. Everywhere you go, squid are hanging around drying. Along the harbor? sure. In front of shops? why not? The gas station? yeah, throw some squid over there. On your porch? yeah, God forbid we not be able to see squid carcasses from any vantage.

Not enough squid? Don't worry, it keeps going.

I usually like squid. Sashimi, bulgogi, all good. But dried squid is where I draw the line. It smells like a dead sea creature and has the consistency of a dog toy. Other than that, though, I can totally see why this island is dedicated to the desiccation of squid. Or cuttlefish, I'm not 100% on the difference and don't feel like typing things into google.

Still not convinced that it's worth a 1.5 hours on train, 3 on a bus and 3 more on a ferry to get to there? Well, there's also an inexplicable monorail, quite a few lighthouses, incredibly blue water, and (as the tourist brochure points out) lots of stone. You can also take another 3 hour ferry to see Dokdo. And if you're really lucky, you might get to ride some awesome farm equipment (I'll post the video once I get a hold of it).

Ullruengdo, Day 3

2009-10-17T04:24:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to be headed home right now. Instead I am still in Ullruengdo using the only functional computer in the resort's business center. Tomoro, I will wake up, have breakfast of cabbage salad, rice and possibly hot dogs. During this time I will learn whether or not the ocean gods have been satisfied and will let us depart.

Today, Posideon was angry and no ferry made the journey from Pohang to come and pick us up. This was not a big deal for me b/c I live in a hotel and really have nothing going on. Just another day to hang out with the crap ton of drying squid scattered around here. Any more delays, however, and I will be missing work. Given that I've only been working there 3 weeks and took off Thur & Fri to come here, missing more days is probably not the best idea. Then again, surely my boss will understand that I am trapped on an island in the East Sea.

Aside from the fact that it might not be possible to leave Ullruengodo, it might be the best place I've been in Korea. I'll explain and post pictures sometime later, but thought I'd begin documenting my plight should I forever remain here.

2009-10-09T10:57:00.001-07:00

2:5o- I get in the elevator at the hotel and push the 12th floor button.

2:51- The elevator stops on the 3rd floor. I noticed while approaching the hotel that lights on the third floor, which is where the restaurant and bar are located, were off. A man gets on the elevator. He's wearing a jogging suit and holding a towel and a pair of slacks.

2:52- The man smiles embarrassedly and bows politely. He looks to select a floor, but it turns out we're both heading towards 12. I pretend that this is totally normal.

2:53- Elevator stops on the 12th floor. The man, graciously gestures for me to exit first. I reach my room at the end of the hall. The man is two rooms back. He calls to me, in a friendly tone, asking if I'd a lot to drink. I tell him, yes, I'd had much to drink. I go in my room.

This is where I currently live.

Group Meeting

2009-10-09T06:14:00.000-07:00

So shortly after arriving, my research team got transferred to another group (group being just above team in an escalating hierarchy that I know very little about. Since I don't really know much about the company structure, this didn't really mean much to me beyond the fact that I have to go up a few more floors in the building to get to my cubicle.

Since our team is new to the group, though, we were expected to give introductions at the latest group meetings. As per usual, I received no advanced warning, instead just being told to come to the group meeting as everyone else heading to it.

Our team was a bit late, so I got separated from the other team members taking the few remaining chairs. Without anyone to translate for me

group head: blablablabla

somebody else: blabblablabalb

group head: blablblabl

team member1: (standing up) My name is...blablblablab

me: (crap, they're going to want me to talk)

team member2: (standing up) My name is...blablablbalbl

everyone: (laugh)

team member2: balbalbalblal.

me: (crap, it's more than just 'hi, my name is', they'll want me to talk more)

team member3: blbablabllababjl

team member3: Brandon, introduce yourself.

me: anyeonghaseo (smiling)

everyone: (laugh)

me: (glad they're amused by my attempt at Korean, b/c I've no idea what they expect me to say) English: My name is Brandon. I work here now. I don't know what you expect me to say because I don't understand your language. (sit down)

team member1: Brandon blablblablabl

me: (apparently I did not sufficiently describe myself)

team member4: I'm blbablablbl

group leader: blablblablblabl single?

team member 1: (gestures at some team members, me included)

me: (stare confused)

group leader: You're single?

me: Oh, yes (kind of amused that this is brought up in the course of a group meeting at work)

...blablablabl...

group leader: blablablabla Brandon blablablab

me: (I look around curiously)

someone: blabla Brandon balbla

me: (I look around some more)

someone: We hope you learn Korean

everyone: (laugh)

me: I hope so too (confused laugh)

...blablablabl...

otherpeople: blbalbalblabl

group leader: blablablalb Brandon blalblbalbal Some Name blablablab

everyone: (laugh)

girl in cubicle next to mine: (blush and look embarrassed)

me: (seriously? I don't think I even want to know)

Donkey Punch

2009-10-07T19:11:00.000-07:00

I just came across the phrase " The Donkey Punch" in a power point at work and it's pretty much made my day.

Is this just some random mistranslation? Or a joke? Or maybe I'm in for a whole lot of surprises about what goes on around here.

Fun with HR

2009-10-06T05:48:00.000-07:00

One of the joys of working in Korea (or, quite possibly, anywhere you don't speak the native language) is learning when to really try to understand what's happening and when to just let it all slide and hope is works out. After my summer, I've concluded that in matters concerning HR, it's almost always best to proceed with less than perfect information and assume that if a real problem (that I can actually do something about) is occurring someone will find a way to let me know.

For instance, when HR gave me an address to ship my belongings to, I figured it's just easier to send them there and hope for the best rather than try to find out where I was actually mailing things. However, upon arriving in Korea, I began to worry about the distinct possibility that I would never see my possessions again.

So, I broke down and asked HR where I had sent all my stuff and how I would be notified when it arrived. I learn that I have apparently mailed my belongings to an empty apartment. Not one that I will be living in, mind you, just an apartment. I'm unable to convey my concern that mailing packages addressed to me to random empty apartments may not be the best way for me to received said packages. I decide I will have to bring a 3rd party into the fray in order to express this concern.

Back at my office, HR has recognized my concern and sent me a message inquiring if I had given the delivery company HR's phone number. I had not. HR asks how will we know when the packages arrive. Exactly.

HR suggests I find out who the delivery company is. I say I will call the USPS and ask who they hand packages off to upon arrival in Korea. That night USPS informs me the Korean Postal Service will deal w/ the stuff once it's in Korea.

The next day, I inform HR that what the USPS told me. HR stares at me blankly. I stare back, trying to remember how to say post office in Korean. I try to explain again, confused, since HR seems to understand what I mean when I say I sent the package via US postal service, but does not seem to understand Korean postal service. I wonder what the translation of their postal service is if these two entities do not equate or if the USPS is just wrong and there are many potential postal services or something.

After a while, HR says, "You must mean the Korean National Postal Service". I stare blankly.

...and we're back

2009-09-30T06:55:00.000-07:00

I don't think it's really sunk in that I've moved to Korea, but here I am. Some people seemed surprised that I was returning. Apparently my blog posts over the summer gave the impression that I had a rather unpleasant experience in Korea. That would be incorrect. Really, aside from the living situation, I had a good time. Good enough to come back anyway.

I got in Saturday evening and have been more or less dealing w/ jet lag since so I'm not very settled. Also, I don't have a place to live yet. Apparently apartments in Seoul (or at least Gangnam) sell out as soon as they're available. So for now I'm living in a hotel in Suwon. It's not as shady as the love hotel I stayed in before leaving, but it's a lot roomier and does have a jacuzzi tub, so I can't really complain.

I think I mentioned the horrible homogeneity of Korean cities before, but lacked proper photo documentation. Well, here's the view from my hotel of some commercial buildings in Yeongtong. You've now seen half of the buildings in Korea. I'll have to put up a photo of an apartment complex to complete the picture.

Anyway, not much of interest in this post. Just throwing something up to try and get in the habit of it.

Continuation

2009-09-14T14:30:00.000-07:00

So despite sparse posts and a lack of pictures, the blog's been picked up for round 3. Starting next week (assuming the visa paperwork happens) I'll be back in Korea. Unfettered internet and camera access as well as an improved location (Seoul instead of Suwon) should lead to higher quality ranting.

Pearl Jam in Korea

2009-08-23T00:42:00.000-07:00

Last night a coworker invited me to a concert in Hongdae. There were 3 bands, largely consisting of friends of the coworker. We got there early while the bands were doing sound checks and stuff so I got to have tall-boys from the 7-11 (the bar wasn't open yet) with various musicians before the show.

During the show, a riduculous number of people had nice SLR cameras. Apparently, half the point of going to a concert here is to photograph the band.

My favorite part of the show was the Pearl Jam cover band that played the second set. The singer did a pretty impressive Eddie Veddar impression, made even better when he would end a song and start speaking Korean to the crowd. Just a weird juxtaposition. I was especially amused by the fact that the lyrics at the beginning of 'Black' were much more understandable coming from the Korean cover band than the actual CD. But what really placed this show above a real Pearl Jam concert was when they took a break halfway through and the guitarest and basist sang an acoustic cover of 'Dancing Queen'. It was awesome. I wish Pearl Jam would take a break and have the guitarist sing acoustic Abba songs.

The 3rd group, who's vocalist wore a sleeveless turtleneck and sunglasses (a nice combo) also did various covers. Winger's '17' was my personal favorite. After the show, pretty much everyone who was there migrated to a pork place next door and then on to drinks in the area. A solid finale.

A few follow up notes about the love hotel.
1. It was cheaper to keep the room tonight. Apparently Sunday is not as busy a night.
2. It's definitely a love hotel. Despite all the efforts towards discretion, you can still hear things in the hallway pretty clearly. There are freaking surround sound stereos in the rooms, is putting on a little music to mask the noise while I'm waiting for the elevator too much to ask?
3. It's not just a jacuzzi, there's air temp sensors to turn the bathtub into a sauna. It's freaking sweet.

Previously I'd been told that the distinction between motel and hotel in Korea is that hotels tend to be the place you'd stay w/ the family and motels are the place you stay w/ a mistress. Usually, the distinction is clearly indicated by the gaudy neon lights. I'd also been told that the love motels are way nicer than normal hotels. Having previously stayed in hotels that generally consist of sleeping mats on the floor, I'd have to agree. Given the typical prices I'd seen on the internet for hotels in Seoul, this place isn't horribly expensive (just a little more than I care to pay to sleep somewhere). So, if you come to Korea, stay in places that have fringe covering the parking lot.

Now I'm going to go take a bath and use the "Body Sponge: Hotel Amenity Goods for Shower" since they're not big on normal washclothes here.

Apartment Hunt

2009-08-21T20:47:00.000-07:00

Today I finally ended my two month stay at the wonderful company dormitory. I figured it was worth spending a little bit more money I don't really have to enjoy my last (or is it?) weekend in Korea. Since I had an 11am appointment to tour some apartments in Gangnam, I got up early to check out and haul my gigantic bag to the subway for an hour long ride.

Not wanting to haul my bags around all day, I figured I'd find a motel before the meeting and drop them off. Unfortunately, the Orbitz website lied to me about the existance of a reasonably priced Best Western, leaving me lugging my heavy bags around an apparently hotel-less area near Gangnam with only 30 minutes until my appointment. I flagged down a cab and am eventually able to explain that I want to go to a hotel and I don't really care which one. I figure between his cabby-experience and his GPS this will be a simple enough request.

After what seems to be some aimless driving around, the cabby points at a place called Mul Hotel and asks if that works. Not really caring what the place is, I say sure. Black fringe so you can't see in the parking lot? check. Little wooden signs for blocking your license plate once your in the lot? check. Dark reception area w/ a tiny window so the hotel clerk can't really look at you? check. Condoms in the bathroom kit? Yup. It's a high end love hotel.

It's a bit pricey, but whatever. The room has a jacuzzi and a "Digital Control for Skin Care" box. So that's nice. And they let me check in at 10.30. All in all, a win. I drop my bags and head to meet the realtor people.

The apartment tour was arranged by the company. I received a call from someone asking if I spoke Korean and instructing me to meet my translator, Mr. Han, at Gagnam station 11am Saturday.

The first apartment is alright. A pretty basic studio place on the 18th floor. Nice view, good location. Seems a little dirty. Which I find odd. When I look in the sink to see if there's a disposal they guess that I'm judging the dirtiness and inform me that this is just a sample room and that the one I'd actually get is 1 floor above and would be professionally cleaned before I moved in. This doesn't really bother me, it just seems like you'd keep the demo room looking nice. Guess that's not how they roll in Korea.

They ask if I want to see other places. I say yes. Mr. Han, Realtor-lady and I head to the parking garage where Mr. Han's car is. Except he doesn't remember where it is. So after stops on the 2nd and 3rd level and several phone calls (it seems like he's asking where the car is? maybe it's not his, the whole thing's weird) we finally find his car on the 4th level. And proceed to drive like 2 blocks to the next place.

At the second place, we meet the additional realtor-lady for that buidling and head to the 15th floor. Here, they can't get the door open. Apparently this apartment is currently occupied and the occupant changed the door combination. The first realtor-lady apologizes and says that this apartment wouldn't be available in time anyway. So I don't know why we went there, but whatever.

The third place has a couple currently living in it. I get to take off my shoes and awkwardly look around. The place is nice though. That ends our tour of apartments. So now I'm back at the love hotel. It has a computer with free internet, making the love hotel a far better choice than expensive hotels in America.

Fun Fact

2009-08-01T01:05:00.000-07:00

If you buy a fan in Korea it will have a shut-off timer on it. Apparently there is a widespread belief that you will die if you leave a fan on while you sleep. So, there you go. Kimchi may make you immune to SARS and pig flu, but it renders you susceptible to consistent breezes.

Tuesday is the Korean Friday

2009-07-29T01:05:00.000-07:00

As fate would have it, I've spent the 3 Tuesdays prior to yesterday in Seoul. Twice visiting a design institute to discuss an internship related collaboration and once to attend a Cannytrophic East board meeting. In accordance with proper Korean business practice all these trips have resulted in extended deliberations over drinks and me feeling like crap warmed over on Wednesday morning.

The first trip to the design institute involved most of my research group and the head of the lab or division or whatever is above the research group in the company hierarchy. Two hours of powerpoints and discussions in Korean and many wishes for a swift death to release me from the tremendous boredom of powerpoints an discussions in Korean later, we all (researcher + students + prof + myself) head to a nearby Korean restaurant.

By this point, I'm starving and anything that doesn't involve powerpoint sounds like a thrilling plan. I am quickly reminded, though, that Korean restaranteers are all sadists. Instead of being fed, I'm forced to ingest dead sea creatures coated with painful spices... and forced to sit on a hard floor. No matter what you might think, sitting on the floor is not quaint or pleasant in any cultural-experience kind of way. Now this would be unpleasant enough for anyone unaccustomed to sitting on the floor while a multi-course meal drags on, but given my apparent hip deformity that prevents me from sitting Indian style (PC be damned, it's Indian style) it's even worse for me. So I get to spend the 2 hour meal flopping around on the floor trying to find a position that allows me to be close enough to the stupid short table to put food in my mouth with out dropping the slimy crap from the chopsticks on myself and then spit the damned fish bones back out without kicking people and looking like a complete jackass. Let's just say it didn't work out too well. If it weren't for soju, I don't think I'd have made it.

After the meal, things begin to look up as a couple of my colleagues suggest we head to nearby Apgujeong and hit the bars. I am informed that Apgujeong is like heaven. Heaven apparently resembles a high-end shopping/restaurant district and is primarily populated by heavily made-up Korean women in short skirts. Such hopes are dashed, however when the division head suggests we head back to near his house and play billiards instead.

In and of itself, the billiards is actually fairly enjoyable. Instead of normal pool (pocketball), the Koreans mostly play a game w/ 2 red balls and 2 white balls on a table w/ no pockets. One white ball belongs to each player/team and you get a point for hitting both red balls with your white ball in one shot. If your ball hits the other white ball, though, you lose a point. The balls are heavy than regular pool and you have to rely on spins and such a lot more. Pretty interesting.

Or at least it's pretty interesting for a while. Unfortunately, the game I was playing became an epic battle of futility. It took nearly 2 hours to complete (my team ended up winning and I even had a run of points to help put it away). By this point, I was starving from not being able to eat, sober b/c Korean pool halls don't have drinks (really odd, IMO), tired b/c I always am and thoroughly disillusioned with the whole trip to Seoul. Add in a 30 minute bus ride back to Suwon and I'm in a pretty bad mood.

Before I catch a cab to dorm, one of my colleagues asks if I'm hungry and suggests we stop at a chicken and hof. Sure, he's married with two kids and it's 11:30pm on a Tuesday, that doesn't mean he's not up for beer and chicken (or even bother calling his wife, as far as I could tell. +1 Korea). Just like that, the whole night is redeemed.

Last week's trip into Seoul started out much like the first with an unintelligible presentation the design students' first draft of ideas. However, without the formalities or managers (the group leader was traveling and the division head didn't come along), we were able to skip directly to fried chicken and beer after the presentation. Without the group leader, the other guys in the group seem at little more at ease.

J is the youngest and newest group member, which puts him distinctly at the bottom of the pecking order. At restaurants, he's implicitly in charge of calling waiters, passing things out and any other menial tasks (as a foreigner and/or intern, I appear to be exempt from this). Anyway, at the Japanese restaurant, J notices a couple of cute girls at a table nearby and begins not so subtly scooting his chair closer to mine so he can stare at them. So we're sitting shoulder to shoulder and there's like a 3 foot gap between him and the next person and I can't help but laugh. Which earns me a "What you laughing at, man?" and some joke about him 'dancing with my lap' or whatever his mangled interpretation of a lapdance was. He's about 30 minutes from being passed out face-down on the table.

I manage to keep myself together longer than J, despite copious amounts of soju prompted by one of my colleague's friends who met us at the Japanese place. Since we were meeting for the first time, we had to drink a lot. Since the friend, J and I are single, we had to drink a lot. As you might guess, it really doesn't take much for them to justify another round of soju. By the end of round 2, J is done, the friend is in pretty rough shape and I'm holding my own (but not as well as I thought).

My colleague who saved me on the previous trip invites me for round 3 at another place he knows of that's good for catching live rock music. The others being either completely wasted or intent on not getting completely wasted decline to join us. We go to a pretty awesome little music bar. We've pretty much got the place to ourselves and the guitarist at the place basically place a private set. By the time we leave, the 3 rounds of drinking and constant lack of sleep catch up with me and I'm out for the entire cab ride back to Suwon.

That's it. This post is long enough and since it's a blog I don't have to wrap things up nicely.

Miscommunication

2009-07-28T00:53:00.000-07:00

During the two weeks I was in Boston after returning from Japan, I realized that I might prefer not understanding people. I was sitting on the subway, minding my own business, when suddenly my thoughts are hijacked by the idiot ramblings of two khaki-wearing jackasses proselytizing their solutions to the economic crisis. "Oh, really? It's that simple? All we have to do is hand over control to some tool who took a semester of business school? Hell, why didn't we do that earlier."

I was painfully reminded of this fact the other weekend when I went exploring bars in Suwon. One thing I don't like about Korea is that it's completely unacceptable to go out by yourself. "Yes, chicken and hof proprietor, I did come by myself. Yes I am going to eat all the fried chicken and drink beer alone. And I'm going to enjoy it. Fine. Hide me away in the corner booth so the other customers don't have to witness the shame of my lonesome dining."

Many of the bars, even those that purport to be Western style, don't actually have a bar. But you can't tell from the outside. It provides the fun of walking in and deciding whether it's more awkward to just turn away from the hostess and walk out again or to drink alone in a booth. The upshot of this, is that it leads foreigners to aggragate at the few bars that cater to our sad and lonely existences. This in turn leads to a high chance of being forced to listen to a flat-brimmed hat wearing jackass from the midwest proselytizing about American politics. "Really? Obama repealed the Declaration of Independence*?"

*not an exageration. Mostly I just nodded through his rambling but I couldn't keep a straight face at this one and had to mention that I'd missed the news that we were back under the Queen's rule.

So, I thought I prefered not understanding people and if this meant that sometimes I order a plate of cold chopped cow head for dinner, so be it. This opinion was altered the other night after an experience on the subway back from Seoul, however.

It's like 9pm or so and I'm standing near one end of a subway car and this old, presumably drunk Korean guy just starts rambling. Loudly and to no one in particular. At first it seems like he's talking to the guy next to him, but that guy, after initially looking at the old dude, begins intensly sutdying the floor to avoid further interaction. The drunk is not deterred. An old woman sits across the way from him and he directs his ranting at her. She lasts almost two stops before getting up and walking to the other end of the car. All other passengers are trying there best to pretend the guy doesn't exist. He continues conversing with everyone.

I am utterly fascinated and totally wish I knew what he was saying. After another stop or so another old and presumably drunk guy shows up and sits where the old lady had been. They are instant best friends. Drunk 2 screams things back at #1, who applauds and gives him a thumbs up. It's totally bizarre.

After about 15 minutes, it is no longer amusing. I hate them. I don't know what they're saying, though it seems to be vaguely offending everyone else. Mostly they're just too damn loud. I consider yelling at them to shut up. I kind of regret doing it. Given the age-respect issues of the Koreans that undoubtably is why the only reason no one else has told them off, I can only imagine the shock and horror that would ensue if a dirty foreigner were to tell some old guys to shut the hell up.

Anyway, lesson is people are annoying everywhere and I really wish my mp3 player wasn't broken so I didn't have to listen to them anymore.

Oh, also I've actually been doing some stuff lately. This might translate to more posts (just in case your life has been unfulfilled lately). Hard to know.

Zombie

2009-07-10T08:04:00.000-07:00

I have been waking up at 7am for 4 weeks now. I'm not sure why it is that my body has accepted this, whereas in the past it would always just refuse to grant me consciousness regardless of how many noise-making devices I set for that explicit purpose. What I am sure of is that it is killing me. Physically, I am getting weaker. Mentally, I am losing the ability to think. Emotionally, I am dead. The only way I can regain any semblance of myself is through chemical stimulation. Coffee will grant me 20 to 60 minutes of lucidity (depending on whether I go buy decent black coffee or just drink the sugary 4 oz. of crap that is provided for free in my office). Beer will also grant my temporary asylum from my purgatory, but it also makes me really tired. I guess I'll just keep going like this. I'm kind of curious if there's some point at which my body will adapt or if I'll just lose all will to live. It could really go either way.

Dorm life has improved. Props to the HR people who fixed things. No more signing in or security looking for us after 11. They even threw in a fridge.

I've decided that I'm a fan of the Korean style bathroom. Rather than bothering w/ a separate shower, they just hook a shower head to the sink (perhaps this is actually the Russian train style bathroom) and put a drain in the floor. At first I wasn't entirely sold. Mostly b/c after you shower the bathroom floor and everything else remains wet for quite a while. If your a fan of the indoor slipper (which are provided in the room) this isn't much of an issue. I'm not a fan of the slipper. What convinced me of the brilliance of the setup was when I was taking a shower in my tired-zombie state and realized that by angling the shower head properly, I could avoid unnecessary effort by sitting on the toilet. Back when I was in Austin, I used to keep a cooler in my shower to sit on (and b/c I didn't have anywhere else to put it). Sitting in the shower is a good idea. I won't accept arguements. Korea bathroom: 1. Standing shower stalls: 0.

Other odds and ends:

Korea has a lot of churches. They all seem to have neon crosses on top. Not sure why this is. I don't recall seeing any churches in Japan. I'm curious as to why Christianity would sell in Korea but not Japan. Anybody? Also, why the neon? Oh, and there are Jehovah's witnesses too.

Sweet potatoes do not belong on pizza. Corn can be used to garnish anything (really, it works alright).

I need to sleep.

Pros and Cons

2009-06-29T01:49:00.000-07:00

Now that I've spent a couple weeks in Korea, I feel secure in judging all aspects of Korean culture that I've encountered. In fact, I'll take it a step further and just go ahead and judge all aspects of Korean culture whether I encountered it, generalized it from the actions of an isolated individual or just completely made it up. With this in mind, I present a brief list of positive and negative aspects of living in Korea.

+ The Korean Coffee Education Society. The other day while I stood in line for my copy americano (there is no 'f' sound in Korean. This receives neutral ranking in my book) I noticed a certificate proclaiming the girl making my coffee to be a level 2 barista as certified by the Korean Coffee Education Society. I can only assume that this certificate is akin to a B.A. in Liberal Arts in the states and commend Korea for going ahead and calling a spade a spade.

- Maids. Oh sure, it sounds like nice idea to have someone come and clean your room everyday. Except when your room is a small dorm room and you don't really have anything in there anyway and all they apparently do is make the bed. Not that I really object to the bed being made. Whatever. The problem is that they also insist on opening the window and letting hordes of mosquitoes in the room. I have no idea why they open the window, it's god awful hot and humid outside. And the screens, which they generally do leave closed have a bunch of holes lining them (not old and falling apart, the holes are cut into the metal frame), thus defeating the purpose of a screen.

+ Chicken and Hof. I'm not really sure why chicken and hof (seems to classify drinking places that offer a small selection of food as opposed to straight up bars or restaurants) is better than wing places back in the states, but it is. Chicken and Hof will ensure I don't lose weight in Korea.

- Long pants. I suppose as far as dress codes go, just requiring long pants isn't the worst thing in worl. But, as mentioned above, it's freaking hot and humid here. And while there is air conditioning inside, it seems to struggle with overcoming the heat produced by the 5 to 1 ratio of large electronics to people in my office. Oh, and I only brought 2 pairs of pants. 1 being dressy and reserved for such necessary occasions, the other being a pair of jeans that apparently have begun to disintegrate. Both knees are totally gone and holes are forming in low stress along my thigh and other low stress locations. The jeans are falling apart enough that I feel retarded wearing them (more b/c I'm afraid people will think I'm trying to be stylish than b/c I care that you can see my boxers, but whatever), otherwise this would've been a perfect opportunity to try and break my personal record of 1 month in 1 unwashed pair of pants set back in May.

+ Traditional Markets. Undoubtedly much to the relief of my family, I have purchased new pants since being here. Two pair for under $30 thanks to haggling at the market. I thought I entirely loathed shopping. Turns out, I just hate malls and department stores. If you set your clothes on a table in the street right next to a guy selling mutilated pig parts, I'm all about it.

- No drinks at meals. I'm working on making my peace with spicy food. I don't know that I'll ever enjoy it, but I have a feeling I'll tolerate it by the time I'm out of here. That said, I don't think I'll ever understand the 'not having anything to drink while you eat spicy food' idea. This mostly applies to the cafeteria, since I think all the restaurants have provided water, but it's still strange. On the way out of the cafeteria is a pile of cups and water faucets. It's weird.

+ Healthy food. Actually, I don't really buy it all, but it seems like the whole country has collectively decided that everything they eat is healthy. Kimchi makes you immune to Sars and the Swine flue (though they still were checking all temperatures exiting the plane and quarantining people w/ symptoms). Chicken Ginseng soup has been studied by Korean ancestors to raise the dead or something. And this isn't an isolated, quirky thing. Many times, by many people, random crap is recommended under the guise of health. Last night I was offered some bark shavings b/c it was 'good for health'. Awesome.

- Urinals. For some reason urinals don't like me here. They just keep flushing. Like 3 or 4 times while I'm standing there. This doesn't seem to happen to other people. It is the greatest mystery.

Itaewon

2009-06-24T07:13:00.000-07:00

As previously chronicled, after a long first week I was in need of a solid weekend to salvage my second impression of Korea. As luck would have it, Cannytrophic coworker Zoz was also in Seoul, allowing us to continue our search for the ideal location for Cannytrophic's pending Asia branch.

The global intern posse had a scheduled trip into Seoul to explore the modern parts. Despite Friday night's liberation celebration, I was on the bus at 8:40, feeling only slightly worse for the wear. Our first stop was the Coex mall, an underground tribute to consumerism and Korea's 17th century victory* over the mole people who originally inhabited the peninsula. Not particularly exciting, but I did eat at a Pizza Hut and the pizza did have sweet potato around the outside and can now definitively state that sweet potato does not belong on pizza.

After that we went somewhere with upscale shopping, then to some other market. But again, nice places with many shops that I recognized, not the cool places with questionable goods and socks with Korean celebrities on them.

Lastly, the intern posse headed to Itaewon to check out Seoul's gaijin (there is a Korean word for this, but I forgot it and kinda like gaijin anyway) outpost. The intern posse headed back for Suwon and I remained in Itaewon to meet up w/ Zoz and his expat associates.

Thunder, a former MITer now in his 4th year in Korea, was our guide through Itaewon which ranges from quite nice to quite seedy in a pretty small area. Also, while I certainly don't want to denigrate the entire expat community, I can understand why Korean's have a negative few of the 'dirty foreigners'. Let's just say, if I wind up 50 and hitting on young girls in Itaewon, I won't be impressed. Still, I'd take Itaewon over Roppongi in a heartbeat. Highlights included an interesting bar filled with swings and sand to dinner overlooking a tranny cafe. To which I note, from a distance they are frighteningly convincing, closer up, just kind of frightening.

But the real scene stealer from the night in Itaewon was Champ. Late in the night, we stopped at one of the small food stands that line the streets. Basically it's a grill with tables and bench seats on 3 sides of it. The rain had stopped and it seemed a nice, cheap place to wrap up the night. Our group of 5 was split with 3 on the front bench and myself and 'Sarah' sitting on a smaller side bench. All is going fine when up staggers Champ and plops down next to me.

Champ orders a beer, announces that he is Korean and then rambles in Korean. We stare at him. Our puzzled stares and English replies do not dissuade Champ. He reiterates that he is Korean, apparently expecting this to give us the ability to understand him. This repeats several times, often with Champ reaching over me to shake/try to kiss 'Sarah''s hand. Sarah is not a fan. But, Champ is not dissuaded. No, he is Korean and he is a champ.

Thunder points out that we were rude not to introduce ourselves to Champ. We do so, which Champ understands well enough to show us an ID w/ his name on it. It is at this point that I inform Champ that his English name will henceforth be Champ. I write it on a scrap of paper and he puts it in his wallet with his ID. He then lapses back into rambling Korean and creeping out Sarah.

I decide that since Champ has no problem with carrying on a one way conversation, I will return the favor and begin discussing the new Transformers movie with Champ. There is a brief moment of recognition as Champ seems to have heard of Transformers or at least recognize my high quality sound effects. Champ also recognizes if I let obscenities slip and gets unduly excited. Like, crap, what have I unleashed, excited.

The amusement of this situation begins to wear thin as Champ begins gesture at me and himself in what I can only assume is concern as to whether I regularly check for testicular cancer. He also gets more aggressive in his quest to kiss Sarah's hand. He jokingly(?) hits me in the shoulder, which sobers me up pretty quickly. Not b/c it was particularly threatening (he immediately apologized), but the whole scenario seemed to be trending in the wrong direction.

We decided it was time to go. As we start to get up, Champ hops up and saunters down the street. We sit back down to finish our food/drinks, thinking he was gone. Nope, Champ just had to piss. In the middle of the street. Because he's Champ. Fortunately, when he returned, the lady running the food stand and her son ran him off (though I think Thunder might have offered/been coerced into paying for Champ's beers as part of the bargain).

All in all, it made for an entertaining evening augmented even more by a new appreciation of being free.

*This may not be entirely historically accurate, but I can't imagine why there would be so many underground shopping areas if they were not taken from the mole people.

An Unpleasant Week

2009-06-23T06:55:00.000-07:00

Let's say you're a company looking to recruit more international employees. Let's also say you've got a batch who've made it through the interview proccess and have agreed to spend the summer as an intern to get a feel for the place and vice/versa. What would be the best way to welcome such a group?

I don't know, but what isn't the best way is to imprison them in a dorm, quarantine their electronic devices and hand out poorly translated rules that are contradictory and/or nonsensical. But what do I know?

I'll admit this seems like a bit of a harsh judment (largely in light of my enjoyable weekend which should be described soon enough), but had I written this around 6PM last Friday, I'd have probably been much more critical.

The biggest problem was that our security badges were not available/active until Wednesday night. Since the dorms are located w/in the secured complex, this meant we couldn't enter without an HR escort, effectively imprisoning us inside the complex. So, fine, we have to stay put. Oh, but wait, external electronics are a security threat, so no personal computers. So no skype, or any phones (we did get cell phones by the end of the week). And on top of the security at the gate checking us, there's additional security at the dorm. Where we have to sign in when we enter. Presumably this additional security is to ensure that we do not 'disturb public moral' and that we're not 'drunken'. Never mind that we were taken out for drinks our first night and warned during orientation that it is common Korean business practice to frequently go out drinking with coworkers and that sometimes this might last past midnight if karaoke gets involved. Also no food in the dorm (there's no kitchen). I haven't been this locked down since I was locked away at the academy in high school. Also there was the rule about being in the dorm by 11pm and that we had to stay until 11pm. Some mistranslated nonsense. Which we signed. In addition to the Korean version that had 4 additional bullet points that they decided we didn't need to know about.

Combine this with the jetlag from only arriving the night before and a week of going 8am-6pm of orientation and just the general adjustment period of being in Asia again and I was sick of being accomodating by Friday and just wanted to be free to go wherever and do whatever (turns out whatever involved tequila).

But enough ranting. I actually feel kind of bad for the HR guy in charge of us. He's clearly stressed about the whole situation and is working to get things resolved (most of which has been done). The dinner Monday night was highly entertaining, complete with drunk/angry guy busting into our private room and throwing a fit. I'm not sure if our dinner hosts or the restaurant staff was more embarrassed, but the profuse apologies all around were as amusing as the guy.

And the most important corrections (the 11pm curfew and 'no staying out overnight' rule) were resolved in time for the weekend. Actually, we were questioned when we rolled in at 4am Friday night/Saturday morning. I gathered that the security guy was concerned that we missed the 11pm curfew, but his lack of English and my utter lack of concern resolved the matter quickly enough. He later approached while I was making the last entry and asked something about if I had had a lot to drink. I said yes and he seemed satisfied.

It still seems that the security guards like to stare at me, but they just bow politely when I look back, so I guess everything's ok.

Either way, I'm optimistic that the work I'll be doing will be interesting and if my first weekend is any indication, Korea should be an entertaining time.

Famous Black Hat

2009-06-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

It's 4:44 in the morning. The middle of June. I'm writing you now, just to see if you're reading.

Suwon is hot, I don't like where I'm living. There's security down the street all through the evening.

I hear that you're living, your little life, deep in America. You're living for nothing now, I hope you're keeping some kind of record. Yes, and they came by with a whiff of free air. They said that I signed it away. That night that I agreed to come here.

Why did I ever come here?

Oh the last time I saw you, it was so much better. Those middling KC Royals were beating the Reds. We'd been in the parking lot since 5:15 and you went home with out saying my name.

And I was subjected, on the flight, to Paul Blart, the Mall Cop. And when it was over, I wanted to gouge out my eyes. Well, I see you there with a beer in your hand. One more cheers, not for me. Well, I see security's awake. He says I must stop.

And what can I tell you, my readers, my followers, what can I possibly say? I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you, I wish you'd stood in my way.

If you ever come by here... for Suwon or for me, well your enemy is sleeping ...but his spirit is free, yeah. and thanks, for the comments you left behind. I read them all, seriously, though I didn't reply.

And they came by with a whiff of free air. They said that I signed it away. That night that I agreed to come here.

Sincerely,
B Taylor

Return to Seoul

2009-06-14T03:41:00.001-07:00

A month and a half after my first visit, I'm back in Seoul. Flight was uneventful, if rather long and boring. I unfortunately slept through Paul Blart: Mall Cop or whatever that crappy-looking movie is called.

I'm in a hotel in the Gangnam area. It's a bit more lively around here than where I stayed for the weekend in May.

I was able to make it through the inspection process to weed out dirty foreigners infected with pig flus at the airport and got a solid dose of Seoul traffic on the bus ride in from the airport. It was about 6 when I got checked in and showered. I was starving and went wandering around. Many choices in the area.

Got some Korean bbq. The menu was not english, so I ordered a chunk of pork to eat. The server asked me how many I wanted. Having a limited supply of wons I stuck with 1 order, but was then suspicious as too how much food I would get. A couple times in Japan I had a problem with unwittingly going to a nicer place where you're supposed to order different courses and getting not enough to eat b/c I only order one thing. This was not the case here. In fact, I was barely able to eat all of one order of pork and maybe half the sides. They must have just assumed that as an American, my stomach is a black hole which no amount of food can satiate.

As soon as a bit of food was in my stomach, I was about ready to pass out at the table. I'm back at the rocking business center in my hotel trying to stay awake for a little while long. Seems like 8pm is a bit early for sleep. Actually it sounds kinda like a good idea, I'm just not sure if I'll sleep through the night if I crash now.

Got to be up and around at 7 or so to catch the bus to head off and begin my indoctrination. Not sure how much blogging I'll get done as the complex is discouraging personal computers (and wouldn't let you access the internet with them anyway) for security reasons. So we'll see. Either way, as of now I'm here and alive. So that's a decent start to things.

Temporary Asylum

2009-05-26T13:33:00.000-07:00

I've touched down in NY. Should be in Boston in a few hours. A couple weeks rest, then off to Korea via Missouri.

Munich

2009-05-21T16:06:00.000-07:00

So, I made it to Munich. A friend of mine from Texas is here for the year, so I've got a place to stay. They mostly speak English life is pretty easy.

My trip has become something of a WWII tour: I've been to Hiroshima, seen Russian celebrations of May 9th, went to a concentration camp and Nuremberg. I guess I just need to stop at Pearl Harbor on the way home or something.

In Nuremberg, I learned that I apparently emit some sort of insane-person pheromone. Three different crazy people felt the need to speak with me (and just me, not my friend or his girlfriend) while we were there.

The first just rambled at me in German. He seemed happy, and I thought if I just nodded and agreed, he'd go on his way. He did not. He continued talking. I informed him I didn't speak German. He was not deterred. It was awkward.

The next guy approached me in the train station and asked if I was American. I confirmed. We were just sitting w/ some time to kill. He busts out a tattered piece of paper and shows me how the German railroad is planning to sell 25% of it's holdings to the Chinese. He explains that this is particularly insane b/c the Chinese require 3000 alphabetic characters to read the newspaper. I guess he just knew that, as an American, I'd totally care.

The third guy also came up to chat before we got on the train. He rambled something about and African restaurant across the road (or something). I have no idea.

I'm not sure why insane Germans like me, but I guess I appear to be a sympathetic figure.

Anyway, I head to Austria tomoro and back home next Tuesday. Probably won't update much. But, come June 14th I'll likely be in Korea for 2 months, so the blog of Brandon + Asian cultures should return.

The Worst 84 hours

2009-05-15T09:29:00.000-07:00

10.5.2009
10AM - The scratch I felt in my throat yesterday was not, as I'd hoped, the after-effects of too much celebratory vodka and lack of water, I am sick. Not terrible, but my throat is sore.

1PM - I'm at the station waiting for the train. Maybe a little tired, but hopeful that 3 days of forced resting will cure my illness. The idea of it getting worse is unpleasant. At least I now know a Russian-speaking American in Moscow- assuming I survive that long.

1.28PM - I board the train and get to my kupe. I'm dumbfounded by what I see. It had somehow never occurred to me that babies could be on the train. There are 2 in the 6x6 kupe I will live in for 84 hours. It is a twisted joke.

9PM - Baby 2, the 3 year old, decides to welcome me the first night by screaming for hours on end. I am angry at first, but then feel pity as I realize the baby must have some sort of parasite that is painfully eating it alive. There is no other explanation for this amount of screaming. I was precious hours of mp3 player life trying to pretend the baby below my bunk is not dying.

11.5.2009
7AM- Babies wake earlier, so do I. The Asian man who was across from me is gone. I assume he couldn't take the babies any longer and just jumped train during the night. I think it might be a wise move. Also, baby 2 has survived the night and appears healthy. I hate her.

11AM - I feel worse. The throat is in pain.

3PM - The damned keyboard toy plays the most annoying song ever for the 15th of 2345 time I will be on the train. I have begun to fantasize about killing the babies. Like, in vivid detail.

4PM - I'm trying to imagine what would happen if I punched the 1-something year old as hard as I could in the stomach. Would this kill it? I mean bodies are resilient. I want to know.

7PM - I eat some of my ramen noodles. To do so I sit downstairs next to the hell-spawns. They're mothers' are nice enough, but there's almost no room to sit at the table since the whole kupe is strewn w/ crap for babies.

12.5.2009

10AM - I drift in and out of sleep. The illness makes me more tired, but the babies- either screaming or playing with loud toys counteract this. Also, the bunk is not comfortable. A little too short. A little too hard. Since I pretty much stay in my bunk 24 hours a day, it's getting very old.

2PM - My throat is feeling much better. My left eye, however, has been watering more than normal.

4PM - My eye looks like hell. I don't think it's just lack of good sleep. It's puffy and blood shot. Tears well up continuously. I'm a bit concerned about this.

6PM - I've been keeping my eye shut. This leads to tears entering my sinuses and leaking out my nose. It's irritating and I'm dripping lots of fluid.

9PM - I'm feeling bad enough and worried enough that my eye, which seems to be worsening, is going to be a real problem that I don't really care about the two babies.

13.5.2009

6AM - I wake up and cannot open my eyes. I pry open my right eye and go to the bathroom mirror. There is crap lining my eyelids and sealing my left eye shut. It looks like snot. It's gross. I wash it off using tea at the suggestion of one of the mothers.

8AM - My eye is feeling somewhat better. I'm optimistic. My nose is running more now, which I hope is a sign that my body's clearing some crap out. My nose is raw from wiping leaked tears with coarse toilet paper.

1PM - I blow my nose and everything explodes. Something in my sinus gives way and I'm spurting blood from my bunk. I shove toilet paper in my nose and head to the bathroom. The mothers seem concerned.

2PM - One mother has given me cotton balls and the blood has finlly stopped. I still have too much snot and breathing requires the delicate balance of blowing enough snot out of the way without reactivating the blood flow.

5PM - I'm now envisioning torturing the babies. The earlier vision of giving them plastic bags to put over their heads no longer satisfies me. They need to feel pain. I would like to justify each of their cries with pain. It seems like a good sign for my health, that baby-hatred has re-entered my mind.

7PM - I stagger into the restaurant car, looking like hell and starving. I've even very little the past few days. They have a menu. I can't read it. It doesn't matter, they don't have anything I point at on it. I hate Russian restaurant service. I look up in my dictionary 'anything'. I get some soup.

9PM - I use the last of my mp3 player battery trying to drown out the last baby fit. I think I will get a vasectomy.

14.5.2005

3AM - The mothers are up and packing. I'm wary that it's a trick. Perhaps my illness killed me and I'm in hell.

4.18AM - We arrive at the Moscow station. I don't know where I am, I don't care- it's the best place I've ever been. Walking off the train is a wonderful sensation. I'm still sickish, but not bad. My eye is feeling/looking better, my throat's good, I'm just snotty. I can handle this. I hate babies.

Moscow: the reprieve

2009-05-13T18:24:00.000-07:00

I got into Moscow at 4-something this morning. I'm currently in a smoky internet cafe waiting for the metro to open. The last 84 hours or so are amongst the worst I've ever experienced. I will not elaborate currently, but they involved:

Blood
Multiple babies
Weird mucas crap sealing my eye shut
fantasies of infanticide
and being on a train for 3+ days straight

Images from leg 1

2009-05-09T23:34:00.000-07:00

I get back on the train and head to Moscow in a few hours. I'm not going to try and really tell about the train ride thus far. I'll probably have time (like 4 days) to write about it soon enough. Here are some lovely pictures, though, just to give you a taste.

View from the train as we get closer to Irkutsk.

Me and my train room/cell mates. Anton, Nina and Dennis. Anton spoke enough English to make everything much simpler. He and Dennis are in the army. Good people.

Toilet. The other one has a hose attached to the sink, so you can kinda shower.

The dining room part of our cabin.

My bed.

Don't worry, I'm well aware how awesome I look.

Vlad II

2009-05-08T23:32:00.000-07:00

Vlad 2

So there’s a Versace store a few blocks from my hotel in Vladivostok. This may go along way towards explaining my experiences thus far. Apparently, I’m in the ritzy part of town, which is why restaurants have been unimpressive and overpriced. I guess the coat-check at the Italian place should’ve clued me in, but Madonna videos and a mulleted bartender tricked me.

There’s really no absolute way to tell what part of town you’re in. Here, the nice area has crumbing sidewalks and port-a-potties. When I went to Zurich last year, I thought I was in the nice part of town until I walked past a brothel. Unless you know the whole city, it’s hard to judge an area.

So if I consider the fact that I’m a sloppy looking foreigner (who probably smells a bit) waltzing into high-end restaurants, I can understand the cold reception. If only I knew enough Russian to ask where the working-class part of town was. Then I could go hang out w/ my own kind and not accidently insult all the people who want to shop at Versace and eat in nice restaurants w/o having a dirty traveler spoil their illusions. If only there were a country w/o all these status symbols and class distinctions.

Vladivostok Day 1

2009-05-07T23:30:00.000-07:00

Thus far, Russia is not winning me over. My hopes had been building during the cab ride into Vladivostok from the airport. The place seemed a run down. A little past it's prime. Houses on the outskirts were patched together and the roads had potholes. All in all, it seemed crappy enough to have some character. It seemed like a town I would like.

I got dropped off in front of the train station by a parking lot full of grocery vendors. While the cab had been more expensive than I'd hoped, I figured it was worth it to not have to try and figure out the buses I'd have needed to catch to get the 60km in to town. Oh, and by cab, I really mean some dude w/ a car who offered to drive me and I then haggled down from $100 to the still more than I'd hoped for ~$60.

On to the train station. There is nothing in english. There are few symbols or pictures. I copy down the request for a ticket to Irkutsk as shown in my Trans-Siberian Handbook and approach the window. The lady reads it and tells me to go to the ground floor. Ok, there are many doors on the ground floor. I get lucky and the first one I enter has a map showing the route from Vladivostok to Moscow. I assume this is the place. Around the map are listings of different train numbers and from what I can tell their destinations and such. If the schedule of these trains is also somehow encrypted in the table, it is beyond my ability to decipher. Seeing no other signs of information, I take my note and wait in a line. I try to ask the guy next to me if this is the correct window by pointing at my note's request for a ticket and the window. He stares at me.

I get to the window and hand the lady my note. She asks for my passport, and then writes down a departure time and an arrival on May 8th. I say this is fine. She emphatically points at the time and repeats something a couple times. I nod as though I understand. I think she was pointing out that this time was in Vladivostok time, not Moscow time. I hope so anyway.

The ticket sets me back around $250. This sucks. My guide said that a ticket all the way to Moscow for the class I got ranges from $75-$350. When I'd checked online, I'd seen a quote for ~$130 for the leg from Vladivostok to Irkutsk. The guide also indicated that bying tickets at the counter was the cheaper method, though it did warn about fluxuations. Maybe if I had asked about other days, I could've gotten a better deal. Maybe if they posted schedules and prices at the train station I would know. But I couldn't ask and they didn't tell, so I just handed over the cash.

This experience makes me more appreciative of technologies and the automated ticket machines in Japan and Korea. Trains are pretty easy to figure out. Even if you don't know the language, you look up a place on a map, get times and prices and it's pretty clear. Doing this on a computer is easy. You through a person in the mix and suddenly you have to be able to talk.

I then began my hotel search. The closest cheap hotel looked like a craphole and told me they didn't have any rooms, I think. The next cheap one didn't appear to exist (there was a demolished building near where I the map indicated. As I approached the last of the cheaper hotels in the area it started to rain. It turns out the cheap rooms the guide mentioned don't exist, only the more expensive ones w/ the ocean view. I decided that it was worth paying $40 more than I'd hoped to keep my only pair of pants from getting any wetter. So, while I'd been hoping that ~$500 would last me until I got to Moscow, I ended up burning through ~$400 in my first 3 hours in Russia. So much for this being the cheap part of my trip.

The rain lets up and I go looking for food. The first random thing I purchase from a street vendor is delicious and the beer is reasonably priced so Russia gets a couple points there. I wander and nothing looks particularly appealing, though I might've been walking past restaurants unknowingly.

In addition to Vladivostok have a kind of crappy/skank town appeal, the people here remind of some bizzare late 80's/early 90's parallel universe. Guys are rocking mullets and demin jackets, girls wear too much makeup and pants that are too tight. This theme is further supported when I end up in a pretty boring Italian place that's playing old Madonna music videos on the TV.

I kill some more time and take a shower. Around 8 or so I decide to go get a drink. I head off in a new direction from the hotel towards the train station. I see a place with many christmas lights and blinking neons. It's gaudiness reminds me of a pachinko parlor and I assume it's one of the casinos I'd read about. Nope, it's a grocery store.

There was a place that specifically said 'Pub' in English, so I head towards it. Next door at the pizza place, though, there's a live band playing. I go in and catch the last 2 songs (The finale being Bon Jovi's 'It's My Life' which is pretty entertaining w/ a Russian accent). I'd ordered some appetizers with my beer. When the waitress brought the appetizer she said 'enjoy your meal' in the most hateful tone ever. I think she meant to be nice. I'm not sure if it's that she was speaking English or that I was raised only hearing Russian accents from villains or what, but it was really weird.

This made me realize one of the issues thus far with Russia. It seems like business exchanges are very rigid or something. When I'd bought some water at the grocery store the lady had asked me a question as I paid. I shrugged and shook my head saying I didn't understand. Instead of a nod or understanding smile, she turns away and basically ignores me. The waitresses do a similar thing. When my beer was about half gone one appeared and poured the rest of the bottle in, but they seem to avoid interaction and even eye contact. The first lady at the train station who told me to go to the ground floor had also managed convey general contempt in the one sentence she said to me. I guess it'd possible that they all really do hate me, but I think I just don't understand how they operate here.

After this I wander down by the waterfront. There are a lot of people there. There are a lot of beer vendors as well. I get a beer and walk along the boardwalk. A pair of police officers tell me that I can’t have beer here. This seems strange since it’s for sale everywhere and I’ve seen other people drinking it, however, I’m not going to try and argue w/ Russian police. In fact, I’m mildly terrified of the encounter. I have to say, though, these police were far more laid back than any I’ve ever encountered in America. They didn’t ask my name or to see my passport. After I threw the bottle away, one asked if I was alone and if I spoke any Russian. Yes and No. These seemed to strike him as the wrong answers. It seemed like he wanted to say more, but couldn’t find the words. He just shook his head and waved me on.

Needless to say, this put a damper on my exploration ambitions. I walked a little further down the boardwalk then headed back to the hotel. I don’t really know how dangerous Vladivostok is, but it didn’t strike me as particularly bad place to be. Granted it was 11.30 (I thought it was 9.30) but it was an open area w/ lots of people about. When I talk to Russians they seem to be of the opinion that being alone and unable to speak Russian is akin to a death sentence. Maybe I’m just lucky, but I haven’t encountered anything that seemed too sketchy.

Seoul Part 2

2009-05-06T23:14:00.000-07:00

The hostel I’m staying in has eggs, toast and coffee for breakfast. It’s all self service with a small kitchen area. When I get up, there are a group of Japanese tourists at the table. They kindly point out where everything is for me. They seem to assume that as an American I have never set foot in a kitchen and can’t identify instant coffee or tea. The toaster is on a light setting and when it doesn’t brown the bread in one session (? Is there a word for this?) I put it back in for a second go round. One of the older Japanese women sees this and takes it as evidence that I’m completely retarded and takes it upon herself to help me. She stops the toaster, pulls the bread out and hands me butter. I’m somewhat baffled, but decide it’s not worth attempting to argue. I decide that eggs are out of the question and pick up a waffle (with honey and some cream, awesome) from a vendor on my way out.

I’m staying right by the Geyoung-yeoung palace complex, so I head over to check it out. I arrive just as they’re switching between night and day guard shifts. The palace isn’t inhabited, so the whole process is just for show. They have announcers describing everything in Korean, English and Japanese. It’s a very choreographed and colorful affair. It’s a pretty striking contrast to buses full of cops with riot gear that they use nowadays. I think they should have kept the hats.

The day is rainy. I get an umbrella, but don’t wander far. I go to a museum. I go to lunch. I order some stir fried octopus and am asked if I like hot food. I do not, so I order the mild dish. It is not mild. It is horrible. I am starving, but eating the food is painful. You don’t actually taste anything b/c your lips are burning. And your tongue. And throat. I eat about half the plate at which point the hunger pains are less than the mouth-burning pains. I leave and stop in a nearby dunkin donuts where I am confident I can find palatable food. I get a chick donut. Dunkin Donuts is much classier in Seoul than Boston.

Later, back at the hostel. I’m on my computer when a Japanese lady (it’s a holiday in Japan, so there are Japanese tourists everywhere) staying at the hostel comes in. With the hostel manager acting as translator, she tells me there is a parade starting soon and invites me to join her. Sounds like a plan. I head towards the center of town w/ Yuko.

Apparently it’s the first day of the High Seoul Festival. There’s a parade and an elaborate stage area. The parade route, however, is not blocked off. There are just masses of people wandering around the street. Some are in costumes. Many have posters and flags. There are also armies of police everywhere.

Finally, the parade starts. But since the routes not blocked off, they just have people in the front that kind of push they’re way through the crowd. Protestors scream and wave posters at the parade participants. I wonder if the cops will recognize that I am not involved if/when a riot breaks out.

After the parade arrives at the stage area, performers come out and sing and dance. At any break in the music, protestors (making up at least half the crowd) chant and yell. Yuko clearly doesn’t like the protestors and police presence. She indicates that she’s ready to go and, since the novelty of Koreans in pink costumes singing and dancing has worn off, I’m fine with this. We go to a nearby restaurant and have bland soup. This time w/ beef and rice. Korean food is seriously disappointing.

Yuko heads back to the hostel and I decide to see what Seoul has to offer on a Saturday night. Having no knowledge or guide about Seoul, I’d been planning on going to the cool little theater district that I’d discovered earlier. It’s getting late though and rather than deal with making sure I don’t miss the subway, I decide to stay close by.

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot going on in this neighborhood. The places that have ‘Hof’ signs (I think Hof just means alcohol, but I’m not 100%) are just restaurants without bars and I don’t really want to sit alone at a table. I end up just going into a nondescript place a block from the hostel. It’s on the 2nd floor and in the stairwell I run into a pair of Korean kids who tell me they go to the University of Michigan. They also ask if I work there. They’re kinda drunk.

I’m sitting alone at a table when the 2 from the stairwell come into the restaurant place and sit down w/ 2 other Korean guys. They invite me to join them. Turns out they all met at the University of Michigan, but are back to serve their 2 years in the military. They seem genuinely excited to have a foreigner to speak English with (all four are fluent) and I’m glad to have company.

They’re curious about what I think of Korea and how it stacks up against Japan. They’re adamant that I should ignore stereotypes of Koreans (I explain that in Missouri there aren’t Korean stereotypes b/c we don’t recognize such fine distinctions amongst Asians) and insist that Koreans are very friendly. After a while they say they’re moving to another place nearby and invite me along. We lose the two from the stairwell, Alex and Tony, at this point (Actually Tony’s been out of commission pretty much the whole time. Though when I asked his name, he perked up long enough to say “Tony, like Tony Montana or Tony the Tiger”. )

So, this leaves Sunny, Young and I to head to the next place. It’s another little restaurant down an alley. We order some food and small bottle some sweet liquor. We take shots and eat the first decent Korean food (excepting the waffles) I’ve had. I learn a bit about why all the police are around. By 2AM or so, the restaurant is packed. Apparently, it stays open all night and people just eat and drink till dawn. Around 3 we decide to call it a night and I head back to the hostel.

The next day I do a lot of wandering, trying to see more of Seoul. It seems much more spread out than Tokyo. I found a sweet Korean market and if it weren’t for my limited luggage capacity I definitely would’ve been buying some socks w/ Korean celebrities on them. Come June, they will be mine.

Russia: Day 1

2009-05-04T18:49:00.000-07:00

Well, it's not as cheap as I'd hoped and accomplishing simple tasks here is much more complicated than anywhere else I've ever been, but I've survived the night. I've also only just now discovered time here is 2 hours ahead of what I thought it was. Something crazy going on with the sun here.

Seoul Arrival

2009-05-02T02:52:00.000-07:00

I'm up at out of the capsule hotel by 6.30am. I get to the airport around 7 and am the first passenger at the international terminal. I guess the earliest flight isn't till after 10 (mine's at 10:40) and 3 hours is way more time than you need. A restaurant upstairs is just opening and I get the 'American Morning'. Aside from the salad it includes, it is a reasonable approximation of real breakfast food.

The flight out of Fukuoka is short and I arrive in Busban where I'll be connecting to Seoul. I'm amazed that despite being a foreigner and not speaking the native language, airport security is far less of a hassle than for domestic flights in America. I'm also surprised to see a Dunkin Donuts. I'm even more surprised to find out that I kind of missed seeing Dunkin Donuts.

If the airport is any indication, Koreans generally seem to be better with English than the Japanese. Which is good, b/c I want to speak to them in my broken Japanese, which is hardly useful in Japan. It was actually kind of weird to have stewardess switch to English to greet me on the plane rather. It's also annoying to be illiterate again. I didn't understand a lot of signs in Japan, but I could at least try to sound them out and figure out what they said. Here is all just scribbling again.

On the flight to Seoul I got a seat in the emergency exit row. The seat seems very small, but at least I mostly have leg room. It's only 'mostly' b/c a stewardess is sitting directly in front of me for take off/landing. She turns awkwardly to the side b/c there's not enough room for both our legs. The stewardesses also all wear awesome cloth things tied around their necks that stick out like 6 inches. I'm hoping this is a sign that Japan's sweet uniform obsession will carry over to Korea.

I take the subway in from the airport to pretty much the middle of Seoul. Since I really did no research in where to go in Seoul, I'm just following a pamphlet from the airport that says this is a tourist area w/ many hotels and such around. There are cops everywhere. Like ridiculous numbers of cops. Like an army wearing body armor and equipped with riot gear. Clearly someone has tipped off Korea about my arrival. Fortunately, after three months in Japan, I seem just like a Japanese tourist and able to slip by undetected.

I later learn that something involving the former president has led to the armies of cops in the area. Apparently he was arrested on corruption charges or something and his house is nearby. The picture above is at one of the subway entrances near the hostel I'm staying at. There are groups of police like this at every subway station and on many corners. I think half of Seoul's population must be police.

I check into a hostel, wander a bit, take a nap then go eat. I go to a place with chickens rotating on a spit that claims to be a traditional Korean something or other restaurant. There's a line out the door, so I figure it's probably good. I figured wrong. Sitting on the floor sucks. There's really no upside to this. It's not quaint. It's not interesting. It's just uncomfortable and annoying. Maybe if that's what you do your whole life it works fine, but I'm not a fan. Also they have flat chopsticks here which prove to be a pain. I'd gotten decent with the chopsticks in Japan, but these aren't working. Part of that is b/c I'm trying to pick chicken off the bone that's floating in a soup using chopsticks. When I do manage to pull a piece out, I almost invariably have to spit out some bone or cartilidge chunk or something. And to top it all off, it's the blandest soup ever. And I usually like bland things. Also, Kimchi does nothing for me. I'll eat it, but it holds no appeal.

While Korea's food is thus far not winning me over, they at least try to make up for it with the beer. I wandered into a fairly nice bar and beer is less than 3000 won per pint. Compared to Japan, this is fantastatic. And you don't tip, so compared to Boston, this is fantastic. I hang out at the bar talking w/ a guy who'd apparently just finished singing a set. He's friendly enough and offers further evidence that English is better spoken here.

A lady singer starts playing. There's a group of ~10 near the singer. Mostly business suits, a few women. One guy is awesome. He performs captivating dance routines for everyones enjoyment. He then forces one of the other men to join him, holding his hands and hopping around while the lady sings 'So Happy Together'. It's pretty much justified the plane ticket to Korea.

Back to the hostel. There's a small dog in a dress hanging out on a chair in the common room. No one appears to own it. nice.

Farewell Tour

2009-05-01T17:20:00.000-07:00

Some Part of Osaka

On my way to Fukuoka I stopped in Osaka to check out the aquarium and the Tai Sakuma memorial plaza. Unfortunately, the plaza was undergoing reservations. But the aquarium was cool, in an 'it's an aquarium' sort of way. They have whale sharks in really big tank. Apparently the amount of acrylic glass used to build the tanks is equivalent to 1.5 times the entire world's annual production of the material.

Renovations at the Tai Sakuma Memorial Plaza

In Fukuoka, I decided I should experience a capsule hotel. The lobby was really nice and the place had a sauna on the eleventh floor which included a rooftop sauna. I'm definitely a fan of the Japanese hotel setup. 24-hr onsens are a brilliant idea. The place was also under 3500 yen for the night. The downside, I guess, being that your room is a small tube.

I dropped off my bag in my assigned locker on the second floor and headed out to get some food. The nightlife in Fukuoka is set alongside a canal not far from the train station. I'd walked passed when I stopped off on my way to Yakushima and seen all the street vendors and carts lined up along the river. Michael, from the restaurant in Tokyo, had recommended going to this area and written down a couple of things I should eat.

The area is lively with vendors trying to lure people into one of the many food places. I'm not really sure what they're called. They're basically bars built around a small counter behind which the cook makes ramen, or sushi or the little grilled meat on a stick things. They all sell beer and shochu and the place has a laid back kind of festival feel. The food was good, the weather was nice. The food places all have a half-dilapidated makeshift feel to them. I'm a big fan. Fukuoka rates well in my mind.

Figuring I'll need to get up early to make sure I make my flight in the morning, I decide to head back to the hotel fairly early. Along the way, I pass a pachinko parlor and figure it'll be my last chance to check it out. As is obvious from walking past other ones, the place is deafeningly loud. All the machines are blaring noise the whole time. I investigate a machine near the door and have no idea how it works. I wander through and aisle where people sit entrances by the little video screens and dropping metal balls. Some people have stacks of baskets filled with the balls next to them.

The long line at the counter up front dissuades me from pursuing panchinko any further (despite Nicholas Cage's assurance of its entertainment). I guess I've never really seen the appeal of slot machines either, but I don't remember casinos I've been in being quite as loud as this place (could be misremembering). Oh well, I probably don't need to waste anymore money anyway.

Back at the hotel, I change into my awesome hotel outfit (if I button the top shirt button, it nearly chokes me) and head to the sauna. After a brief visit to the rooftop hot tub, I head to my assigned tube. The tube hallway has an awesome scifi movie feel to it.

Creepy Capsule Hallway

There's really not that much to say about the tube. It's big enough tha I can sit up. There's a tv attached to the ceiling and a control panel for the alarm/tv/radio/lights. That's about it. It's a tube.

That's pretty much it.

Season 2

2009-04-30T14:19:00.000-07:00

So I leave Japan today. Boarding a flight to Seoul for a couple days before going to Vladivostok to catch a train to Moscow. Not sure how much time I'll have for updates. Not that I've been posting much lately anyway.

The (Next) Adventure Begins

2009-04-30T12:31:00.000-07:00

Having fully mastered all aspects of Japanese culture, I've decided to move on to new environments where I can feel completely and totally out of place. So on Friday I will be leaving Japan and flying to Seoul, South Korea. This is just a stopping point on my way to Vladivostok to board a trans-siberian train to Moscow. From there things get fuzzier, but I'm hopeful to get to St. Petersburg and will eventually be stopping in Germany and Austria. The itinerary is largely dependent upon how much money and time all of this takes. I intend to be back in the states by the end of May.

My first stop takes me back to Fukuoka to catch a flight to Seoul. I could have flown out of Tokyo, but taking the train and flying from Fukuoka costs about the same and allows me to stop off in Osaka (to visit the Tai Sakuma memorial plaza) and see a bit more of Fukuoka.

I mailed the bulk of my possesions back to the US on Wednesday. Unfortunately, I overestimated the capacity of my backpack. (Note- this is a school-type backpack, not a hiking pack. And I have a laptop. B/c that's how I roll) I managed to cram my remaining crap into, but 5 minute of walking w/ it on is enough to start killing my neck. This might be okay if I can count on leaving my bag in a locker everywhere I go, but that doesn't seem like something I should count on.

Before boarding the Shinkansen, I decide I need to lose some of the bulk. I figure I can get by with 1 less change of clothes or so. I mean, really, 2 pairs of pants seems kind of excessive now that I think about it. I find a post office without too much trouble, but I decide I'd rather keep the cargo hiking pants that are in my pack and send off the jeans I'm wearing.

So I need to find somewhere to change. There's a subway station nearby. Subway stations have bathrooms. The bathroom is closed for cleaning. A dilemna: I am really tired and don't want to continue wandering around in search of a bathroom (I didn't sleep the night before as I cleaned and made last minute comments in my code for work). The solution: I decide I'll just change in the subway station. I mean, if homeless people can sleep in them, surely no one will blink at a gaijin changing clothes.

So I haven't even left Tokyo yet and I'm already stripping in public. This bodes well for my adventure.

A Fitting End

2009-04-29T14:02:00.000-07:00

So my last night in Tokyo did a good job of reminding me of the things I will miss about Japan.

Since I've returned from Yakushima, I've pretty much been living at the office attempting to get something worthwhile out of my work. Well, that didn't work out so well. Even after presenting yesterday I've continued trying to clean up my code so I could leave something semi-useful behind to justify my time here. While this hasn't made for a very entertaining final week in Japan, it's pretty much what I'd expected.

For dinner, I decided to go back to the little place near where I live that I first had taco sashimi. Bunkyo-ku generally seems to be pretty off the beaten path for tourists and this place is especially so. I was hoping to try eel, which is the one thing I've been meaning to do but haven't gotten around to. Of course, the is no English menu and between looking it up online and getting to the restaurant, I'd managed to forget the correct pronunciation.

I ask the waitress if they have 'Ugani'. This is not the correct word. She is confused. I attempt to explain. A game of charades ensues. "It's like a fish". "No, not salmon". Good times. Finally, the guy at the next table over guesses I mean Unagi. "Hai, hai, that's what I want". They do not have it. She points out something on the menu and says something. I agree that that will be fine. She asks if Sashimi is ok, I say it is. I have no idea what I will be eating. Apparently some type of fish.

While I'm eating, a spot clears at the small bar overlooking the kitchen. The guy who solved the eel mystery indicates that I should move to the bar. I assume this is b/c the place is crowded and I'm currently taking up a whole table. I don't argue.

Being at the bar puts me in close quarters with others and begins everyone's favorite game of "Will the gaijin eat random crap we offer him?" Yes, yes I will. It's a fun game. Random people sitting around me offer some sort of food or drink. I say thank you and ask what it is. They say something I don't understand, but I nod gravely and attempt to repeat the word. I think eat/drink whatever thing is offered while they intently watch my expression. Usually it's good. An OK sign and 'Oishi'. All are pleased.

I explain why I'm in Japan. I mention that I visited Yakushima. This seems to impress people. The eel guy, Michael (when I askd him to repeat his actual name, he insisted that I call him Michael) was from Kyushu and had friends in Kagoshima. Michael and I are officially BFF's by this point. He even gives me a keychain of the Masked Rider, who he informs me is Japan's number one hero. So that's awesome.

After a little bit the waitress, who appears to run the place along w/ her husband the cook, starts trying to tell me something about a camera. The guy next to me says I should follow her. I'm a bit confused, but figure I'll just go with it. They tell me to take my beer. This seems strange. They give me a handful of the peas they have as bar snacks. This seems stranger. The lady leads me behind the bar and through the kitchen. I follow her through another small dining area and am asked to remove me shoes. I'm still not really sure what the point of this is.

Turns out, she's a photographer and has a small studio of her pictures that she wanted to show me. Some of the pictures are pretty cool. Lots of cherry blossoms. Apparently she was hired to do some photos for ads for one of the subway lines. After this, the husband cook brings a log book and asks me to sign it. Awesome.

I return to the bar and eat the peas. Upon learning that I will be heading to Hakata to catch my flight, Michael scribbles some notes of places I should go while there. He also insists on taking this photo, which he then emailed to me.

I think this is my favorite picture from my time in Japan. It pretty well captures how I will remember my Japan experience, right down to the guy in the windbreaker awkwardly touching me.

Day 3 on the road

2009-04-19T01:01:00.000-07:00

I'm in Yakushima. Today I went scuba diving. I can now confirm that there are fish in the ocean near Japan.

Also included in the guided scuba trip is a stop at a hot spring afterwords. We stopped at Yudomari, which is outdoors and right by the ocean. I must admit, the onsen concept has grown on me. I also like that it's included in the scuba trip package. It's like if outdoor guides in America were to include nude hot tubbing as part of the package. I'm sure that would work out well.

The Suspense

2009-04-16T16:48:00.000-07:00

So I've been pretty busy lately. As the end of my stay approaches I've been trying to actually accomplish something at work (to little avail). Also I've had to write a couple other things and I apparently have a very limited tolerance for writing of any kind.

To further heighten suspense regarding what I've been up to, I'll leave you with this few tidbits:
I discovered Beef Sushi.
Takashi came to Tokyo.
Pablo the cat has ceased protesting the loss of his bedroom.

Now I'm off to Kyoto, Yakushima and other points unknown. I'll have a lot of time on trains so maybe I'll get something written to be posted upon return. Hopefully, though, I'll stay busy on my trip and you'll all just be left to wonder what became of me.

Explanation Pending

2009-04-08T06:07:00.000-07:00

So Sunday proved to be a pretty interesting day. I'll post more of an explanation later, but for now, here's a picture from a Shinto Shrine I visited:

Hanami

2009-04-05T06:41:00.000-07:00

It's Saturday evening. It's drizzling a bit as Leo and follow the Japanese women down a small street near Asakusa. I have a few reservations, but that voice in the back of my mind has been quieted by a beautiful day spent eating and drinking under the cherry trees. And besides, I'm in Japan. Different culture, different standards.

And the day had been just about perfect. The rain had held off till dusk, allowing for a full day of hanami (flower viewing) in Sumida Park. The park runs along the river, lining it with cherry trees on both sides. The place was already crawling with people when Leo and I arrived at a little past 11.

*(I forgot my camera. This is not Sumida Park. Sakura look the same everywhere though.)

Towards the middle of the park were rows of vendors selling a variety of Japanese carnival-type foods and wares. Small children were forced to perform choreographed dance routines on a stage not far away. Ferries, packed with sakura viewers, cruised up and down the river. Kimonos were a regular site and even a few rickshaws could be seen crossing the park.

Last weekend, walking past the groups of people all clustered around their makeshift tables, had been a stark reminder that I was a foreigner with few connections in Japan. This week, however, Leo's language-exchange partner, Chia, had invited us to join her and her friends at the park. That tenuous connection made all the difference and instead of merely observing everyone picnicking, we had spots on a tarp.

We were a bit late getting to the park and, given the crowds waiting for the ferry where we'd agreed to meet Chia, we were afraid we might not find her. Fortunately, despite the crowds and higher than usual gaijin concentration, Chia didn't seem to have to much trouble finding us. She led us to the spot her friend had staked out earlier that morning and been guarding ever since.

We laid out mats and assembled a low table from a collection of boxes Chia and her friend had brought. Periodically, as more people showed up, more mats and boxes would be produced and the table would be extended to accommodate them. The group next to ours took what they termed a more 'American approach' by bringing a table, camp chairs and even actual glass wine glasses. While I generally liked the makeshift box table approach, after several hours of sitting on the ground, I was quite happy when we annexed a bench that our neighbor group abandoned.

People came and went freely, often arriving with new batches of food and drink which would be divied up around the table. Not everyone spoke English, but no one seemed to object to the two foreigners hanging out. There was even a point when I'd been talking to a new arrival for a little while before they asked me who I was. I was kind of surprised to realize that I'd become comfortable enough to temporarily forget that I didn't actually know anyone outside of Leo.

So, that was how I spent the afternoon. And now I'm walking into a garish building with a few too many neon signs and hourly rate ads in the window. The lobby is large, spotlessly clean and sparingly furnished. The replica greek statues, marble tiling and cheesy chandelier create an odd aesthetic that clashes horribly with the neon lights that run along the ceiling.

One of the women talks to the bellhop-looking attendant behind the counter. Leo glances at me. I shrug. The place is odd, but by this point curiosity has taken over.

In the elevator. Up to the sixth floor. The hallway is narrow. The rooms are packed closely together. I arrive at room 66.

The room is small. There's a TV in one corner, a phone near the door and a room service menu on the table. When the light is dimmed, a black light comes on that reveals an alien landscape with crumbling roman-esque pillars scattered throughout it painted in fluorescent paint. Nice.

In addition to the menus, there are two thick binders. One's mostly in English with a bit of Korean and Chinese thrown in as well. The binder's kind of useless though since it's alphabetized according to Japanese song title. Fortunately, the electronic touchpad that controls the system has an English mode. Even more fortunately, I've had opportunities to practice my karaoke skills and have learned a decent selection of songs that I'm both capable of singing and that Japanese people will also recognize. Leo struggles a little bit at first since there isn't much in the way of French music in the system, but after a song or two seems to be enjoying himself. The Japanese women are quite good singers (though I have no understanding of the songs they stick to).

Anyway, the real highlight of the Karaoke parlor is that I now have a new career ambition: I want to direct the videos that they play behind the lyrics in the Japanese karaoke places. Newer songs that have real music videos will show them, but older ones have awesome videos made to play along with them. I'm really curious if each song has a specific video, b/c there are a lot of songs. I suspect the songs have some sort of 'mood' tag that selects a corresponding video from a group that matches that 'mood'.

For the most part they're big on soft focus and cheesy melodrama that would seem over the top for a soap opera. My personal favorite was a video of a girl who sucked at basketball. At first it seemed like her boyfriend just liked to humiliate her by showing her up with his defensive prowess, but after a while he stopped playing defense and she still would throw the ball off the pole holding the basket when attempting to shoot. The boyfriend would then stare disdainfully until she went and retrieved the errant ball.

I thought I had the whole plot figured out, and was certain that the close up of her determined expression after falling over signalled the beginning of her redemption. They'd even thrown some water on her face to imply sweating (this occurred in a few videos, except it never looked anything like sweat, just like someone had splashed some water on the person. it was really weird. I mean is realistic sweat that hard to fake? Or real sweat that hard to cause?) But instead, the video switched it up and just cut to a girl jumping out of a wrapped present in the middle of the street. Blew my mind. Then back to the girl who sucked at basketball, then some unrelated wind surfing shots. The the girl gains the ability to dunk and knocks her boyfriend over the in process. Amazing.

There was another great one about a puppeteer girl who worked at a book store and was using her puppeteering as a means of seducing a customer. I could probably watch these videos all day.

Otherwise, karaoke parlors are weird. I can totally understand karaoke in a bar. You can hang out with your friends, talk, make an ass of yourself singing a song or two, whatever. But going into small private room with only your friends just to sing with each other? I don't know. But the videos are sweet.

Acclimation

2009-03-29T09:23:00.002-07:00

For those of you trying to track my day to day movements through this blog, I've got a few older posts half written that I hope to put up some time this week. Unfortunately, even these mindless, rambling descriptions of my life take a while to type. I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about blogging, but it definitely can be a time waster.

A few observations as I approach the two month mark:

*I've become accustomed to being the tallest person around. When I occasionally encounter someone taller, it weirds me out. There's kind of a moment of vague surprise followed by the self-conscious realization of the cause. It's really strange. Similarly, when I cross paths with other gaijin in Bunkyo (which is fairly uncommon), there's often a brief moment of eye contact before we go back to pretending that we totally fit in here. I'm wondering if my first few days after leaving Japan will seem really weird.

*I have an annoying tendancy to adapt my speaking patterns to people around me. Like after a trip back to Missouri, I'll often notice that I've picked up some new phrase that I will from then on utter with disturbing regularity. Mostly, the language barrier makes this a moot point here. However, the other day I was eating with a couple of the guys from work and noticed that I was often dropping 'a's and 'the's and generally bastardizing the English language with my responses. While I'm sure limiting my vocabulary helps some of the less fluent English speakers, I don't think there's any advantage to my modified grammar. Except to probably make me unintentionally sound condescending.

*I have started using a drawn out 'ehhh' type sound to express confusion/surprise. It's kinda hard to type, but I'm generally amused by the Japanese conversational versions of 'ums' and 'uhs'. When trying to read things, I would sometimes 'ehhehhh' to myself (b/c I'm easily amused). Then I noticed that I started doing it unintentionally. I probably sound like a moron to everyone else, but I'm still amused by it and hope I maintain this speech pattern.

*When I first arrived I was completely immune to the temperature b/c it was so much nicer here than Boston. There were a couple times early on that I'd wear just a Tshirt and everyone else had winter coats on. But then Tokyo had a warmer stretch, I adjusted and am now forced to wear a jacket even if it's not freezing outside.

Sakura

2009-03-29T09:23:00.001-07:00

It's cherry blossom time in Tokyo.

The cherry trees began to bloom late last week and should last through this weekend, but probably not too much longer. There's a street lined w/ cherry trees between where I'm staying and my office (pictured above). I took this picture on Monday. You can see a few tarps people have set out to picnic under trees. Over the weekend, the whole place was packed with people and tarps. Vendors setup shop along the streets and people just hang out all day.

Sunday was nice so I wandered around a lot. I ended up in Ueno park near dusk and it was insanely crowded. Apparently, during sakura season, the entire city of Tokyo just hangs out under the cherry trees on the weekends. Hopefully it will be nice this weekend.

Discovery

2009-03-28T09:24:00.000-07:00

Overall, I've been pleasantly surprised by Japanese food. I could do without seaweed, but mostly stuff has been palatable and some of it surprisingly good. The biggest drawback is that there is a serious lack of cheese around here. You can get it at the grocery store, but it's really expensive.

Anyway, Friday it occurs to me that I am in Tokyo and given that Mcdonald's is on every corner and there are multiple Denny's around, there is probably a Pizza Hut hiding out somewhere in the city. The internet informs me I am right. It even turns out that there is one not terribly far from Ebisu, where I have to go pick up a new scuba card.

So, that evening I stop by the Padi place and get my scuba card and head off in search of Pizza Hut. Unfortunately, I'm not smart and didn't bring the directions I had made. I pretty much remember where it was and figure I don't have anything better to do than wander around anyway. Two hours later, I'm starving and convinced that the Pizza Hut was a lie. I decide to give up and just eat somewhere around Ebisu. But after having my heart set on a delicious American cheese and grease combination, the trendy Ebisu places I'm walking past do not appeal. I settle for KFC, figuring it will at least satisfy the urge for American grease.

It does not. In fact I can safely say KFC is probably the nastiest thing I will eat in Japan. I have yet to try nato, a rotting pile of soy beans, I'm betting it's better than the KFC. I mean, I'm not saying KFC in America is particularly great, but something here was not right. The skin wasn't the same. I didn't even get a biscuit. It was bad.

But I did notice some interesting things about fastfood in Japan. For one, while real estate seems to be at a premium and most restaurants and bars are pretty small here, fastfood places are at least as big as they are in the states. Probably bigger. Many, like this KFC, have multiple levels of seating. The KFC was also pretty busy. The weird thing is that it's not a bunch of business men trying to get a quick meal after work or something. There's like a 4 to 1 girl to guy ratio at the KFC. At like 8pm on a Friday night. A lot of the girls seemed to be dressed up and meeting friends. I just can't quite imagine a group of college-aged girls planning to gather at a KFC before hitting the town on a Friday night back home. And I wonder if guys gather at the Wendy's across the street or something.

So, after my nasty meal, I decided to head to Shibuya. I'd read up about a small row of bars similar to Golden Gai that were tucked away near the train station and wanted to check it out. Many of the places were full (each bar only holds like 5 people tops), but I found a place on the second floor that was empty. The bartender didn't speak much English, but I got some shochu and fish soup (most bars provide some sort of snacks).

Actually, I think these places were smaller than the bars in Golden Gai, b/c they didn't even have bathrooms in them. You had to go outside to the common bathroom at the end of the alley. I did so and then stopped in at another place with a gaudy door that said 'Piano Bar' in tiny writing.

As it's name suggested, the bar itself was a piano. The walls are covered in a red velvet and there are gold plates and crests on the walls and chandeliers covering the ceiling. In addition to the 3 seats stuck in front of the piano, there was also a small room upstairs that was full when I got there. When I got there I was the only person downstairs, but I was shortly joined by a couple in there 40's. There both spoke a fair bit of English and were friendly enough. The guy turned out to be a basketball fan. He also drew some kanji for 'branden' that he said meant something like 'crazy dancing king'. When I told him my name was spelled 'brandon', he changed the last kanji so that now it apparently means 'crazy dancing drunk'. I will have to get verification about this.

I left Piano Bar and was thinking about getting some food, when I passed GasPanic. Lonely Planet had mentioned this place (although I think it was one in Roppongi) as a gaijin bar. It definitely didn't feel like part of Japan.

First off, there was a bouncer out front and I was actually carded, which was odd. Inside it was like some crappy bar in America. Unlike most Japanese bars, this place was crawling with staff members, none whom were Japanese. Very few of the patrons were either. It was also dark and loud. I was half-regretting coming in, when a fight breaks out on the other side of the room.

Like 4 staff people get into the middle of it. A female staffer runs upstairs to get the bouncer guy. I catch eyes with the bartender who shrugs and laughs. He is unconcerned that other staff members are in the middle of a minor brawl. It's quite a spectacle. Finally, one of the fighters is escorted upstairs and out of the bar. The other guy is restrained by the bouncer who kinda reminds me of Bald Bull from Punch Out. Eventually Bald Bull drags the other guy away as well. The bar goes back to how it was. There's another guy passed out at a table. No one cares. Awesome. I leave.

Back in Japan, I stop in a convenience store to grab something to eat. Here I meet a group of 4 college-agish Japanese guys. They are drunk and excitable and we become fast friends. They don't speak the best of English, but inform me that they are going to a club and that I should join them. They assure me they have connections and that I won't have to pay a cover charge. I figure I will finally discover where younger Japanese people go on weekends and agree to tag along. This seems to amuse them.

The leader of this group, or at least the one who spoke the best English introduced himself as Gas Face. Another one is wearing a skull cap and calls himself Match. I think they say they're in a band, I'm not entirely sure. I don't catch the other names. The whole situation is bizarre. Now, in America, or probably most places on earth, I don't know that I'd feel comfortable following four twentyish year-old strangers off to some random club. However, Shibuya's full of people and these guys seem friendly enough. Also, I probably weigh as much as any two of them combined.

So, good to they're word, Gas Face and Co. lead me to some off-the-beaten path club and get me in without a cover charge. From the outside, the place doesn't look like much. Once inside, however, you go down some stairs and it opens up into a huge dance floor. The place is packed. So I finally have my answer of where younger Japanese people are hiding out: underground dance parties.

Unfortunately, other than being able to navigate the crowd more easily, the Japanese danceclub is as unpleasant as an American one. I lose track of Gas Face and crew almost instantly, have one beer and decide to call it quits. It's a long walk to Bunkyo.

Work Impasse

2009-03-26T08:25:00.000-07:00

So I've hit a bit of a snag at work and haven't gotten much done the past couple days. I'm probably just over thinking the problem and trying to come up with an optimal solution when my time would be better spent just hacking some crap together. This seems to be a problem I have.

My response to work frustration is usually to go wandering around looking for somewhere appealing to eat. I still find Tokyo endlessly entertaining to just wander around in. You don't have to go far off the main streets to get lost in maze like residential areas. With the narrow, winding roads these places feel very removed from the giant apartment complexes, even though they're really not.

Tonight's wandering led me over near Tokyo University. I had the hamburger and omelet combo plate (a fantastic menu find). Unlike at some nicer restaurants, the places near the university don't skimp on the food. For like $10 I had more than I could eat.

A few other fun wandering stories:

-On my way back from the Mexican restaurant the other night I was in a convenience store when it was invaded by a herd of formally attired Japanese youths on a beer run. I walked outside into a mob of them that had apparently just exited the karaoke place across the street. This karaoke place is not a bar with karaoke, mind you, it's a multi-story building dedicated just to karaoke. And there are many of these places in the particular area I was in. I don't really understand the appeal.

Anyway, I ask one of the beer drinking guys in the street what's going on and he explains that they all just graduated from a nearby university. Hence, formal attire and drunken karaoke debauchary. I guess the karaoke places were closing b/c there were mobs of graduates all over the place. But my favorite part was when I came upon the group presumably waiting for cabs near one of the main rows. One guy in a suit is bent over a railing puking into the street. He then proceeds to fall over as his friends look on without concern. They were probably unconcerned b/c another of the group had beat him to the punch and was already lying on the sidewalk unconscious.

It's not that there's really anything that strange about drunk college kids, but at the time the scene seemed very surreal. I think it was the formal attire combined with the fact that everyone treated the situation as completely normal.

-I discovered a new super toilet feature. I dont't think I've previously mentioned, but bathrooms have a tendancy to be a little insane here. In a lot of the cramped little bars and restaurants they have short doors and are about the size of an airplane lavatory. On the other hand, if they place is nicer, it will have a super toilet. The ones at work have heating, deodorizing and adjustable water pressure bidets, as seem below. This is relatively simple compared to some toilet controls I have seen.

But anyway, the new feature I discovered was a toilet that automatically raised the lid when I entered the bathroom. It took me a minute to figure out, but I was able to decipher the pictures to also raise the seat using the wall-mounted control. This place was also kind enough to label in english the flushing button. A good idea, as not being able to figure out how to flush a toilet makes you feel really dumb and no one wins in that case.

Mexican in Japan

2009-03-25T09:21:00.001-07:00

A while back, during one of my wanderings, I noticed a Mexican restaurant. I noted it within my mind.

Tonight I returned, curious to see what the Japanese version of Mexican food was. Apparently, at some point during my stay in Texas I became a bit of a Mexican food snob. As such, I generally dislike the Mexican food available in Boston. Or, it could just be that Boston Mexican food sucks because they haven't figured out that that burritos and quesadillas shouldn't have the same shape.

Anyway, I went to the restaurant. They had no English menu, but since Mexian food is foreign, it's all in Katakana so I could read the menu and feel totally smart for distinguishing taco from enchilada.

The biggest issue I have with Japanese restaurants is that going in I have no idea how much it will cost. You can't really tell the price by looking at the place b/c shady basement restaurants can be as fancy as any other place. And even if they have a menu w/ prices outside, it doesn't really indicate how much food you will get. Earlier, Leo and I went to a contemporary Japanese place and after ordering entrees were disappointed to learn that to get your fill, you apparently had to order the one of the full course meals rather than the individual menu items. But this isn't always the case. Not speaking Japanese makes this hard to discover until it's too late.

This was the problem w/ the Mexican place. When I was shown my seat, the lady apologized about the lack of English menus and rambled something about nachos. I tried to agree, assuming this would result in tortilla chips. It did not. Apparently it was meaningless small talk. So, strike 1 for not provided free tortillas. Totally lame.

I order the beef enchiladas. Unfortunately, this apparently translates to 1/2 of an enchilada, as I was brought a plate w/ a single, tiny enchilada cut in half w/ 2 tortilla chips and a bit of refried beans in the middle. However, it was delicious. I don't know if it was b/c I've been so removed from Mexican food or what, but it was about the best 1/2 enchilada I've ever had.

Still hungry, I specifically order some tortilla chips, a chicken taco (the other option was pork) and a tecate. This all begins to get a bit pricey, but I figure, how often will I eat Mexican in Japan anyway?

Again, the chips come is annoyingly short supply (apparently the Japanese don't know that I should be allowed to completely gorge on tortilla chips), but they are quite tasty. The taco, however, turns out to be a small tortilla w/a bunch of chicken and some onions piled on it. You cannot pick it up as a taco. I'm not really sure how you're supposed to eat it. I forgo the chopsticks and just eat it like pieces of chicked w/ a fork.

Anyway, the meal, while a bit expensive, was delicious. Again, maybe I've just been deprived, but I'd say it was on par w/ the most Mexican food in Austin. I suppose Tokyo should have good food, so maybe that's not a big surprise, but it totatlly blows Boston out of the water.

Other Oddities

2009-03-22T01:27:00.000-07:00

The interest sparked by my coffee vending machine only reinforces my suspicion that these would totally work in America. And yes, the coffee comes in small aluminum cans and it is pretty hot. Like if you pick up the can right out of the machine and just wrap your hand around it, it's not a pleasant sensation. However, if you were to immediately open it and say, pour it all over your arm, I doubt you'd wind up hideously deformed. Who ever would have guessed that there was an intermediary temperature between cold and scalding hot?

As for why Tommy Lee Jones? I have no clue. Generally I find advertisements here seem to be much more entertaining. Lots of anthropomorphic characters. I think I've become more or less accustomed to them, but here are a couple pictures I took the first week or so I was here.

In addition to the friendly water drop guy, there are usually at least two employees who's job it is to bow towards you and wave batons to direct you to walk around the hole in the ground that is completely surrounded by cones and flashing lights.

I have no clue about this but I see it on my walk to work every day.

As far as ad campaigns go, I think Subway seriously needs to consider going with the "The Natural Ideal style of eating vegetable." slogan in the states.

The Russian Embassy

2009-03-19T20:19:00.000-07:00

It's just a little after noon here and I've already had a pretty productive day. Considering I've gotten in the habit of rarely being conscious at this time of day, I'm pretty pleased with myself.

The reason for my early start was that I had to apply for a Russian visa and the embassy is only open from 9.30 to 12.30 M-F, but not on Russian national holidays. If you look into getting a Russian visa it seems like quite a daunting tasks. The requirements vary by consulate and a lot of it seems to hinge on paying some middleman to provide various paperwork. Also, the US citizen application requires a lot more information than the application for other nationalities. They want to know where you went to school and who you've worked for. Also, it's best not to be a drug addict.

I was up at about 8.30 making sure I had all the forms I could possibly need. Tourist invitation form: check. US citizen application: check. Regular form for the embassy in Japan (just in case): check. Extra passport photos (conveniently there are passport photo booths near many convenience stores in Tokyo): check. Blank backups of everything (in case I filled something out incorrectly): check.

I get off at the subway station closest to the embassy around 10am. It's raining and I immediately get lost and wander off in the wrong direction. Half an hour later, I finally get to the iron gate in the wall with a plaque that proclaims it to be the Russian embassy. The gate is closed. I curse myself for not looking up the Russian national holidays.

But then I notice that an inner door is open and discover that, while closed, the gate is not locked. I let myself and follow the arrow through a narrow, winding entryway towards the visa office.

On the door to the visa office is a sign proclaiming that "we will be using a new visa application starting this Wednesday". No date is given and it's impossible to tell how long the sign has been there. This seems like a bad sign.

There's no one waiting in the office and just a single man sitting behind a bank teller-esque window. I approach and state that I'd like to apply for a visa. He slides open the exchange tray thing. While I wouldn't call the man friendly, he speaks fluent English and is probably more helpful than most American government employees I've had to deal with.

During the 5 or 10 minutes he looks over my application a Russian woman joins him at another teller window and a few people come in to pick up forms and such. The man seems satisfied with my application, asks when I need the visa by and hands back the unnecessary Japanese form and a ticket. He tells me to take the ticket to window 3. I'm a bit confused and ask if I return later with this ticket. He says "No, take it to window 3 now" and points to the woman sitting 2 chairs away from him in his small room.

So I take the ticket move over two windows and give it to the woman. She requests 4100 yen and gives me a receipt instructing me to return in two weeks. When I emerge from the visa office, I'm pleased to find that it's stopped raining.

Since it's now pleasant outside and I'm nearby, I decide to head over to the Reiyukai Shakaden Temple. Leo and I discovered this strange/cool temple the day we went to the Tokyo tower. It's visible from the Tokyo Tower and stands out b/c unlike most temples, it has modern architecture and looks kind of like a space ship. This picture doesn't really do it justice since you can't see the top half.

Anyway, the day we went by it was closed for the evening, but I got to go inside today. The inside is at least as impressive as the outside with lots of marble and a giant main room with some people meditating on benches.

Coffee & Cream

2009-03-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

Oddly enough, I've actually been working a lot lately. I guess as I approached the halfway point of my stay, I felt that I needed to at least have something to show for my time here. So for the last week or two I've been putting in long hours. Since my body refuses to wake up early, this has led to me leaving the office at ~3am or so.

One of the reasons I like Tokyo is that things are still open and people are around at 3am. Maybe New York is similar, but Boston's definitely not. There are multiple 24hr restaurants and a 24hr grocery store along my route home. So if you're wanting a Jersey Milk Cream Sand in the middle of the night, no problem (It's pretty much whip cream between a couple pancakes, I just liked the name).

Another thing that I'm going to miss is the coffee vending machine. I think I mentioned them before, but they're great. I'm completely addicted. It's about $1 for an 8ounce can. I don't understand why these don't exist in America (and the crappy ones at travel stops that drop a cup and fill it up don't count, the little cans are way better). Surely I'm not the only person that would rather purchase coffee from a machine than set foot in a coffee shop. And with the brilliant ad campaign of a bored-looking Tommy Lee Jones pasted next to a coffee can, who could resist?

Strangest Thing Yet

2009-03-11T00:20:00.000-07:00

So I had a bit of time to kill and just wandered into a video rental place near where I work. Mostly it wasn't very interesting, but then I came across the top rentals section. What was the Monthly Ranking Best #6, you ask?

Why, none other than Johnny Mnemonic.

Probably there's a simple explanation (like the box was in the wrong place), but I much prefer to think that crappy Keanu Reeves movies from the mid-90's are just really popular here.

Kamakura

2009-03-04T05:52:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, I left Tokyo for the first time since arriving in Japan. I only went to Kamakura, which is about an hour away by train, but it's a step in the right direction. Tokyo is pretty sweet and I haven't quite seen all that it has to offer, but I need to pick up the pace on my greater-Japan explorations.

Kamakura, as seen above, was the capital of Japan from 1185 to 1333. Shogunates and Minamoto Yoritomo and other historical things took place in the area. As a result there are a lot of shrines and temples and such.

Knowing that I would be wandering out of the safe and civilized Tokyo and into the heart of one of Japan's heathenistic religious centers, I decided I would need protection. Fortunately for me, Nozomi, who had spent a year at the Media Lab, invited me to tag along with her and a couple Toshiba colleagues who could safeguard against my being ritualistically slaughtered to appease the blood-thirsty Buddha.

My posse (Jimmy, Nobu-san and Nozomi) and I in front of the gate to Tsurugaoka Hachiman-Gu.

I met the Toshiba crew at the train station in Fujisawa since they all live more on the outskirts of Tokyo. Nobu-san was already there when I arrived and, though we had never met, was quickly able to identify me. I knew immediately that his keen eye for out of place foreigners would come in handy on our mission. Jimmy showed up shortly thereafter. Jimmy is originally from China. He picked up a master's degree and has worked at Toshiba for a couple years since. I didn't think to ask about it, but in retrospect it seems kind of strange that Jimmy would chose to call himself 'Jimmy' rather than a common Japanese name upon coming to Japan. After another 10 minutes or so, Nozomi arrived and we were off...to another train.

The most famous of the Kamakura temples is the Daibutsu. It's a giant Buddha that you can walk inside. It also has a pair of giant shoes that are apparently made by local children.

After the Diabutsu, we wandered over to Hase-dera, another temple. Hase-dera has a lot of outdoor statues and is laid out going up a hill. The picture up top, overlooking Kamakura was taken there. There's also a cool cave/tunnel thing with a bunch of statues inside. You could buy candles to light in front of your favorite diety statue or place smaller diety figures in an army around them. Fun!

After lunch, we went to Tsurugaoka Hachiman-Gu, the main Shinto shrine in Kamakura. The shrine itself seemed a lot like most the shrines scattered throughout Tokyo, but its location on a hill led to by a path that runs through the middle of town gave it a better appearance. Since I'd likely already incurred God's wrath by purchasing a sovenir at the Daibutsu, I figured I might as well push my luck and purchased a fortune scroll at the shrine. I got one of the good-but-not-great luck scrolls. It was in typo-ridden English and predicted that my marital situation would be resolved this year. So I've got that going for me.

While we were at the shrine some people were getting married. Or at least having their wedding pictures taken. I would have felt bad about photographing them, but as you can see, a lot of people were staring and taking pictures. I guess that's what you have to deal w/ if you want your wedding at a famous shrine.

Lastly, I sampled a chunk of fish at a local vendor's shop.

It was gross.

Subway Posters

2009-03-03T05:26:00.000-08:00

I am a big fan of the instructional posters in the Tokyo subways.

I'm not sure if it's b/c the women seem so upset or b/c the guy seems so pleased about their anguish, but this one makes me laugh every time I see it.

Another variation on the "talking on your cellphone makes people cry" theme. I'm guessing the subway must have been really unbearable with people on their phones to justify as many signs as they dedicate to this cause.

Apparently I should hide my trash under furniture at home.

I like this one b/c I can't figure out what the couple is supposed to be doing. I mean obviously they're not letting the crippled old man sit in the courtesy seat, but is the guy eating a Reese's peanut butter cup? And the girl's giving him a heart, which should be done at home? Also, the injured guy doesn't seem as upset as the people in the other posters. In fact, he's kinda creepy.

Onsen

2009-02-28T15:17:00.000-08:00

(Note this actually took place the weekend of the 14th. I'm lazy and didn't write about it until now, however I'm going to avoid retroactive posts since they probably go unnoticed)

By now I'm sure you're all wondering the same thing: How can you spend this long in Japan without taking a public bath with a bunch of Japanese men? Well, you can put your worries aside and I can check off another cultural experience.

I went to Odaiba, the man-made island in the Tokyo bay, this weekend and checked out an onsen there.

This is the view of Tokyo from Odaiba. They have a statue of liberty. I don't know why. What I do know is that the Oedo-Onsen Monogatari has an attached dog resort. You know, b/c dogs need to go to spas too.

Anyway, the sign says they prohibit heavily intoxicated people, people with tattoos and yakuza members. The drunks I can understand, but is there some threat that tattoos pose that I'm unaware of? Should I not swim around tattooed people or just not bathe with them? I also wonder how they know who yakuza members are. My understanding was that the yakuza were similar to the mob. I wouldn't have guessed they make their allegiances known. Apparently I am wrong.

Anyway, I go into the onsen, leave my shoes in a locker and get in the entry line. When you get to the front, you pay the entry fee and are given a key on a bracelet with a corresponding bar code. Any additional expenses you rack up in the onsen are just added via the barcode and you pay upon exiting.

Next stop is getting a yukata. This allows you to blend in seamlessly with all the other onsen attendees. They totally can't tell if your from Japan or not. For bonus points you can wrap it with the right side coming over the left and feel even more like an idiot in your Japanese bathrobe when you notice your the only one wearing it that way.

Anyway, once you put on the yukata in changing room number 1, you enter the onsen proper. This, as it turns out, is a giant room which feels vaguely reminiscent of a children's carnival at a church or elementary school. There are little games such darts and 'pick a floating thing out of the kiddie pool' complete with requisite crappy prizes. There are souvenir shops and food stands and a Dip 'n Dots vendor. Performers dressed in exaggerated costumes from the Edo period juggle and sing and crap. There's a guy with a beer trolley which explains how anyone could handle spending more than 5 minutes in the main onsen area.

I hadn't eaten when I came, so I ordered some udon w/ tempura. I also have some hirezake. I did not take this picture (didn't have my camera on me at the time), but this is pretty much what hirezake looks like:

It's sake with pufferfish fins floating in it. Oh, and it's served hot. Somehow the vapors coming off it seem are far worse than the drink itself and kinda burn your whole throat. Also you eat the fins. I had to see this done before I would try it. Nothing about this experience was particularly pleasant.

Fortunately, the rest of the onsen is much more pleasant than the main hall. There's an outdoor footbath area where both men and women can go. There's a winding path of ~6inches hot spring fed water with little rocks attached to the bottom. The little rocks hurt at first, but you kind of get used to it.

The footbath is free, but there are also additional amenities that you can pay for. I decided to try a sand bath. You go into a smallish builing and lay down on a blanket in some sand. You are then basically mummified and buried up to your neck with hot sand. You lay there and sweat for about 15 minutes. It's okay, I guess. Much better, however, are the Dr. Fish:

It's a small pool filled with small fish. You sit on the edge and stick your feet in the water. This will prompt the fish to swarm around your feet and eat the dead skin off of them. It tickles a lot and is kind of creepy to watch, but my feet were very smooth feeling afterward. So, if you care about things like that, or just like the idea of paying to have animals eat part of your skin, then I highly recommend the Dr. Fish.

Aside from the coed footbath area, there are seperate bath areas for men and women. You go through locker room 2, leave your yukata and enter a large room with various hot-spring filled pools. There's also an attached outdoor area with a couple more pools and a sauna. In the locker room they also provide you with razors, toothbrushes and asorted hair products. The main bath area also has small stalls with shampoo and soap where you sit on a stool and shower by pouring buckets of water on yourself. The weirdest thing is that it doesn't seem that weird when you there.

Bar My Place

2009-02-26T07:07:00.000-08:00

So, at one point I thought I would make daily entries and use this to chronicle my entire time in Japan. I see now that this was an unrealistic expectation. I am clearly too lazy to write daily. And besides, you can only be amused by the random crap you see walking to work before it just becomes part of your routine.

Fortunately, tonight I was lucky enough to be reminded once again that Tokyo is a very strange place.

The area I'm staying and working, Bunkyo-ku, is a pretty dull place. It's apparently a very nice residential area with the some of the highest land prices in all of Japan. As I've chronicles previously, nightlife in Tokyo seems to be a strange beast. In Bunkyo for example, it seems to be non-existent.

Well, tonight as I was walking home, I hear a lot of noise coming from what appears to be another small restaurant. I stop to check the sign and see that the place is called Bar My Place. Seeing as the name is in English and it's called Bar My Place, I figure there's no reason not to drop in.

I'm immediately disappointed to see that I appear to be walking in on a dinner party. Like everywhere, it's a small room with one large table (currently seating 6 or so nicely-dressed people) and a couple smaller tables. Since I've already walked in, I figure I'll at least have a beer and jot some notes for the blog. The bartender is very friendly and tells me that I'm welcome to go upstairs where it's a bit more lively. I drop off my coat and bag and follow him up the narrow stairway near the entrance.

I find myself in what looks like a band practice room that someone set up in a small apartment. There's an inflatable deer head above the door, a projector showing some movie, a few couches and a band set-up behind the movie screen. I'm greeted by Jeff, another American. He introduces me to his wife, brother-in-law and a couple other Japanese people hanging out in the apartment above the bar.

I'd finished about half a beer when they decided it was time to play some music. The screen is raised. The brother-in-law sits at the drums, other Japanese guy grabs a guitar, the two women start messing w/ the keyboard. Jeff shoves some Bongo drums in front of me and grabs a microphone. I've now joined the most surreal band of all time.

The two Japanese guys are very good musicians and, since they don't speak English, Jeff assures me they think anything you 'sing' in English sounds good. I'm a bit weirded out, but figure it's better to just go with the flow and hit the bongos.

After a bit the bartender comes up to check on us. He asks how I'm doing and indicates that everybody up here is crazy. He then sits down and picks up a bass. Another song ensues. This time the microphone is shoved in front of me near the end and I'm forced to make up random lyrics.

Not long after this, everyone has to leave to catch the last train. I'm left to finish my beer and chat w/ Kento, the bartender, a bit. Turns out he used to be high up in some company and more or less retired to run the bar. It's mostly run as a restaurant where he cooks some daily special each evening. He gave me his card and cell phone number so I can call him if I ever want a specific meal prepared.

Kento also wondered why I had stopped by. I explained that it was just b/c I walked by and heard noise. For some reason this seems to be a common theme everywhere I go. Everyone is friendly and welcoming, but no one understands why I'm there. I don't know if the Japanese just never go to new places or if I'm just wandering into very non-touristy places or what. Maybe it's just that I'm weird and drawn to the unwelcoming places that have a small sign in a dark alley. I don't know.

Golden Gai

2009-02-21T07:41:00.000-08:00

In my ongoing quest to thoroughly embrace the Japanese culture, I chose to sacrifice my weekend and the better part of Monday in order to examine Tokyo nightlife.

So Tokyo is large, cabs are really expensive and the subway shuts down at ~midnight. This, coupled with the fact that night entertainment options vary greatly by ward, means that if you plan to go out at night, it seems you have to be willing to commit the whole night to it. I assume this is part of the reason for the capsule hotels which I fully intend to try out sometime.

Anyway, Golden Gai is a little bar district next to Shinjuku, the insane neon district. The lonely planet guide recommends checking it out even if you don't plan to drink and mentions that it's not the most tourist friendly place. Friday night as I'm leaving work around 10, I decide that I'll sacrifice the night and check it out.

I'm running a bit late and manage to catch one of the last trains to the Shinjuku area. I don't have a map, so I'm not entirely sure where I'm going. When I get to the neon lights of Shinjuku, I know I've gone to far and back track a couple blocks off the main drag. As I'm wander, I spot Bon's, a place noted in the Lonely Planet guide. I stop in.

Bon's has a 500yen cover charge. It also has about 6 people in it sitting around tables. I sit at the bar and am not impressed. 1 drink down, I'm out of Bon's and wondering if I will seriously regret commiting the night to being here.

Fortunately, Bon's is just on the edge of Golden Gai and gives no real indication of what I'm getting into. Golden Gai is unlike anywhere I've ever been. It is literally jam-packed with bars. Every floor, every building. They are all tiny so they're packed in like crazy. The streets between them are too small for cars. For like 5 or 6 blocks, this is all there is.

The strangest thing, though, is that there's almost no one there. It's a Friday night, a little after 12 and the only people I see wandering amongst the hundreds of bars are a couple making out in an alley and an occasional staggering drunk. It's like some horror movie or something.

I literally just wander around soaking everything in. I really don't know what to say about it. I'll have to go back and get pictures.

Anyway, after I wander through it all, I decide I'll take a chance on one of the random bars. The small stairwells always intrigue me, so I decided to wander up one. I reach the top and don't see any open places to sit. It's a small place and a guy sitting at the bar asks me something in Japanese. I have no idea what he's saying, but he doesn't seem very welcoming and I don't see anywhere to go. I retreat back down the stairs.

I wander more. I notice some of the doors say 'members only'. The Lonely Planet guide had mentioned that the area wasn't particularly welcoming. On the far end from Bon's, there is a lively Karaoke bar that offers no cover and 500yen drinks. It is packed and spilling out the door. Mostly it seems to be packed w/ drunk European guys. I decide I'd rather take my chances with another random place. I appear to be developing a resentment towards non-Japanese people I see in Tokyo. I don't know why or what this means.

I find another place. It's on the first floor. I can see there are a few people inside, but there are seats available. English writing out front. All looks good.

Turns out I chose well this time. I meet Aaron, and English guy and his Japanese girlfriend, Chewy, or something. There's also a Japanese guy who turns out to be a baseball fan and recognized the Pirates hat b/c Masumi Kuwata pitched for them a couple years back. Everyone is friendly and I am fed Japanese bar snacks. These consist of some sort of fish eggs, a weird thing wrapped in a leaf, and some pre-packaged fried snacks with flavors like pepperoni and shrimp & mayonaise. There is also an Obama mask in the bar.

I stay there until 3Am or so, then decide I should check out more of Golden Gai. Aaron recommends a place not far away that conveniently has a sign saying 'I love English people and you'.

The bartender speaks English well and lived in Colorado for a while. We discuss how I think they're 10 years younger than they are and how they can't believe I'm not 35. This is another common theme.

Around 4.30 or so, I get hungry and wander over to Shinjuku to find some food. Even at this time I am harassed by people trying to lure me into clubs. I learn that if you tell them you want food they leave you alone much quicker than if you tell them you're just not interested in going to a strip club. A useful tidbit.

I find a small noodle shop where you order by selecting something and paying at a vending machine and giving the cook the ticket it produces. I have no idea what things are, but don't really care. I wind up w/ some sort of ramen w/ meat and eggs in it. It's not bad, but at 5am, I don't really care.

Soon, the subway is running again and I'm able to get home and crash. I still have yet to find anywhere with many young Japanese people, but I now know that Golden Gai is worth returning to.

Taco es muy delicioso

2009-02-19T06:19:00.000-08:00

Tonight I went to a little restaurant not far from where I'm living. Unlike most restaurants in the area, this one is open late. Also it does not have any pictures of the food or anything written in English.

So, I'm seated at a small counter with my knees touching the bottom of the counter. Directly in front of me is the kitchen area so I can watch the cook. There's some octopus tentacle behind the glass right in front of me. I decide this is a good place to try it, so I point and request 'taco'.

Fortunately, the waitress speaks English. I ask her how the octopus is prepared and she tells me it's sashimi. This is somewhat disconcerting, but I figure I should go ahead with it. I also order some udon noodle something or other.

This is what about what they bring out to me:

Surprisingly, raw octopus tastes pretty good. The udon stuff is good too (except the ginger on it; I really don't like ginger).

The Japanese people at the counter seem amused by my ordering tako. They all ask if it's good. They also point out an error in my chopstick holding technique. One lady insists that I have some of her sashimi fish. It's also not bad. I think I'm developing a taste for raw flesh.

Groceries

2009-02-18T04:58:00.000-08:00

I must be making an awesome impression upon the local grocery store employees regarding the eating habits of Americans. It's less than a block away, so I stop in every couple days or so. And I don't really vary my purchases very much.

Today's groceries: Bacon, bread, popcorn and beer.

I go through a bag of popcorn every day or two. I also get a lot of pasta and fruit. That's pretty much it.

Advertising

2009-02-16T07:30:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama enticing me to eat a hot dog.

Why, if it weren't for everything else around me, I'd swear I was in America.

Akihabara: the Redux

2009-02-13T08:25:00.000-08:00

So my laptop sucks. This is slightly more problematic than usual b/c the other computers available to me are Japanese. This doesn't render them completely useless, but the keyboard is weird and likes to occasionally make me type jibberish and most of the writing is in Japanese. I can get by in Word by looking at the icons, but reading error messages when I'm programming is more problematic.

Given this situation, I decided it would be worthwhile to at least upgrade the memory in my laptop. This gave me a convenient excuse to skip out on work this afternoon and head back to Akihabara.

I'm working on getting a better feeling for Tokyo's layout, so I decided to walk. Everything was going fine until I was almost in Akihabara. Having seen the first of the electronics stores, I gave in to the temptation of deviating from the known route and following more interesting streets (damn alleys and there irresistable allure).

I found myself in a place that was very like Akihabara, except instead of electronics there were many clothing and golf shops. I was also deceived by an overhead rail track that I 'recognized' from my last trip to Akiba, so I kept walking. Just as I was getting quite concerned about my location, I stumble upon the Ueno subway station.

So my detour to Ueno wasted 45 minutes or so, but at least I knew where I was and how to get back to where I wanted to be. I finally get to Akihabara and quickly come across my first destination: Nyankoro

Nyankoro is a cat cafe. You pay money to hang out in a room filled with cats. As an added bonus you can help yourself to drinks from the fountain machines.

It is at least as weird as it sounds. There were 3 people already there when I arrived (a couple and a guy in a suit) and another group of 3 showed up while I was there. There are little mats and tables on the floor and you just hang out with 10 or so cats in a small room.

I didn't stay for the whole half hour I paid for, but it was worth seeing with my own eyes. I'm still not sure what I think of this.

Next, I went wandering around the many electronics stores. The bigger ones didn't have the RAM I needed (probably b/c it's old and crappy), but I found a smaller place where I could get a Gig for 2990yen. I also picked up some speakers for my mp3 player and a mouse for cheap.

By this point it was 6.30 or so and I was pretty hungry. Having already investigated the cat cafe, I figured I ought to try out a maid cafe as well. As you might guess, this is a cafe where the women dress up in maid costumes. There are quit a few of them in Akihabara and even more women in the streets dressed like maids handing out flyers for them.

I guess maid cafes are kind of like a weird Japanese take on Hooters. The staff is all female and they wear costumes and are flirty. I was sat at a bar and ordered Carbonara and a beer. There was already another guy at the bar when I got there (needless to say the only customers were guys). When he left, the bartender-maid came over to talk to me. She tried to converse with my, but did not speak English. So mostly she would just giggle a lot. I don't know, maybe that appeals to some people, but for my part, trying to eat while a Japanese woman dressed like a maid giggles at you is really just unnerving.

On the plus side, beer was only 500yen and the food wasn't too expensive either. Even w/ the 300yen charge for walking in the door, it was no more than a normal meal w/ a beer.