I wrote this last weekend...
Right now, I am on a bus to Muju ski resort, and people are on the whole, being bitchy and boring. So, it’s writing time. It’s been a while since I have written anything, and longer still since I have written anything substantial, so I will do my best to make this a long one. I have all weekend, so it shouldn’t be too hard a task.
Since my last fully non-fictional entry, I have gotten roaring drunk with my MMA instructor, seduced a Korean lady, started teaching private lessons, found zen, lost it again, and turned twenty nine. So, I guess there is a bit to talk about.
In between my boats of self-brutalizing alcohol abuse, if you have been following this blog, you will know, I become super disciplined—I read tough books, I exercise every day, I study hard and meditate often. Occasionally, for my efforts, I snap into a state of super-awareness, that you might know as zen.
After a long walk and conversation with myself, about the nature of want. I was propelled into one of these states, when I decided that there were different kinds of wanting—a clinging kind of wanting, and “letting pass” kind of wanting. I wrote 1,400 words about the experience when I was still its throes. It’s available upon request.
What had led me to this realization was a month-long experiment with this new-agey idea called “the law of attraction” as per this cheesy new-agey movie called The Secret. Basically, the movie’s premise is that you can get whatever you want in life by wanting it, and sending out positive vibes about it.
Which leads me to the story of seducing my first Korean lady….but I’m on the bus back to Tongyong now, so I think I should tell about my first snowboarding trip in Korea. We went to a resort called Muju. The hill was icy as a Korean co-teacher, the lines were longer than a poorly executed rendition of “Superstitious” at the nori bang and the longest boards for rent were only 158 centimeters. But I got to go snowboarding for eight hours, and it was totally awesome.
Anyway, I was sitting in this bar with some friends. It was during Ben’s last week in Tongyong, and we were on our way to eat eel when Fiona called and asked if we wanted to meet her and a friend at Gapoom for drinks. I promised that we would after the eel.
When I got there, Fiona was sitting with a co-worker, whom I had flirted with in the past, but not really gotten anywhere with. She had already had a few beers and told me she was going to leave soon. So I thought I would have a couple drinks with my buddies and move on. She kept slapping me on the shoulder when I ignored her for to long. (The observant foreigner will note that this is a common sign of affection among Korean girls.) She kept asking, “Should I have one more beer?” whenever she finished her last one.
After her first “last one” the girl she came with left, and after a couple more, the people I came with said they had finished their drinks and that they wanted to go. I said I was going to have one more drink. A few minutes before they left, Luke was telling me about “rejection therapy”, which is the idea that you just ask for whatever you want from people and get used to rejection, and eventually you no longer fear getting rejected and people will end up doing all kinds of surprising things...
December tenth was a Friday, and people were already full of holiday cheer. I had partied with my entire MMA gym, so I felt that it was too good an opportunity to miss out on, and the new Ben wanted to start training at the gym, so I brought him along. We got designated to our own weigook table at the restaurant, along with Katie and Loyd. Of course, every Korean who could speak a little English came by the table at one point or another. There was a Korean show about Africa on the muted TV. Ben explained what we were looking at, and talked about his time in Africa while volunteering for the Peace Corps, in a narration that was probably far more informative far and doubtless more entertaining than the inaudible Korean.
Now, I am still making an effort to drink less, and I am having success. But the night of December 10th was General Sober Brady’s Waterloo. When we sat down there were four or five bottle of soju and four or five of beer. Being the conscientious companion that I am, I felt obligated to propose a variety of toasts to various people for various things. It’s a good thing that it is customary when drinking with Koreans to allow them to refill your glass for you, because otherwise, I would not have had the few short respites that I was graced with.
Nevertheless, it all went to hell at midnight, when it officially became my birthday—a collapse that was further exasperated by the ensuing trip to the noribang. Ben was dancing with a drunk Korean girl. And the one I was hitting on was playing hard to get, so I lost interest and butchered a Queen song. Near the end of nori bang, I kept trying to put people into headlocks. I tried this on my instructor and ended up on the ground wincing. A few minutes later he was lecturing me outside, but I didn’t really know what the hell he was trying to say. Luckily he inexplicably starting wrestling with someone, and I made my escape from the proverbial frying pan.
The fire was Africa Bar, which my friends and I arrived at sometime around four ‘o clock. We promptly made our way to Beer Gallery for soju cocktails. Shortly after that, I was vomiting into a trashcan.
My birthday was brilliant. There was a good crew of us and we went to Okpo for Indian food. We went to an Irish bar for a while and had Irish car bombs. We eventually made our way to Gohyeun where we met up with some of the locals. We spent a while at a sit-down restaurant and ordered beer towers. Arthur handed out Aderall. Much good conversation was had by all.
Then we went to a bar where they played all of our requests on their bitchin’ sound system. I played DJ for a while and kept things hopping. Then I did something that only happens once a year—I danced out of my own volition and enjoyed it. Eventually, the cursory noribang session ensued, and I took a bus back into town at six-thirty.
As a birthday gift to myself, I became a little bit more Korean and got some cosmetic surgery. I had two birthmarks and a mole removed with a surgical laser. The whole process, from walking into the door, to consulting with the doctor, to having the surgery done took a grand total of thirty five minutes. The cost: eighty thousand won (~$70).
One more thing of note: I started doing private lessons for 40K won/hour twice a week. This significantly more than twice as much as I have ever been paid for anything (although I do about an hour of preparation for each lesson). If I am frugal, I should be able to pay for day to day expenses solely on my tutor wage, which I will need to do if I am to save the amount of money I have in mind for travelling
My time here in Korea is winding down, and while I look forward to travelling and seeing all of my friends and family in Canada, I love my life and all the people here and it’s hard to imagine everything changing so drastically and suddenly in a mere four months.
Since I am starting to save money, I have to be a bit more frugal, but don’t want to waste a day here. So, I’ll put the question to you: if you were in my shoes, what would you do? How would you spend your remaining time here? All serious suggestions, time and money allowing will be perused and I’ll even write about it here..
