Żegnaj Koreo

Sand creations on Haeundae Beach.

Sand castles on Haeundae Beach.

The craziest chipmunk I have ever met in my life. He was doing flips and running all over the cage, up on the ceiling, upside down. I think he was trying to impress me. It worked.

Floor space for sleeping on the ship to Busan.

 

 Boats and busses, train rides and taxies. I made it to Busan, South Korea, on board a ship with a nightclub, Karaoke rooms, and a bar full of drunkards tipping over and talking gibberish into the late stretches of the evening. I booked myself a 3^rd class ticket, which gives you floor space in a communal room, and you sleep next to the naked and fragrant feet of your fellow travelers. I’m figuring out that you’ve got to go into these situations and stake your claim quickly. Simply leaving your bag in an area you conceptualize as your own means absolutely nothing. Put your bag on a seat and walk away from it, you’ll come back to find it on the floor and someone else sitting in “your” seat. It’s first come first serve, and “first” means whoever elbows and pushes their way to the front, wins. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been standing in what I thought was a line, giving what I thought was a polite distance between me and the person in front, when someone just steps in between and gets served next. The younger generation doesn’t really behave in this way. There’s a hierarchy system set up here that is structured around your age. The older folks usually get first dibs, but are expected to pay for everything. So next time someone buds in front of me in line I’ll welcome it and then put my lunch on their tab. Ha. I wonder if that would work. I might get a few black eyes testing out my method. Stay tuned for photos…

I went into the common room on the ship, got yelled at for forgetting to take my shoes off, set my bag next to the wall in such a way that I felt it was reserving enough space for my recumbent body, then left to explore the boat. When I came back there was a barefoot old guy squashed up next to my stuff, giving it about two feet of space between him and the wall. I did a little sign language thing asking him for some more room and he scooted his butt over an inch. It appeared as if we would be spooning that evening.

I laid my sleeping bag out, following the lead of an older lady who had spread sheets of newspaper around to claim her space on the floor, and started listening to an episode of This American Life, about psychopaths. You should download it. It was really good. There were some guys in the room having a picnic with kimchi and other stuff out of Tupperware. I could hear them slurping on it through my headphones. Ever since elementary school, when they would have us watch documentaries narrated by academics badly in need of a sip of water, speaking very close to the microphone in breathy ways, I have been extremely irritated by mouth noises. People kissing in movies, forget about it, it’s a total gross out. Whether I was going to lose my spot or not, I no longer cared, I had to get out of there. I went to the bar and ordered a Cass. The girl next to me was drinking one, but the bartender did this sign language thing they do for no, or out of, or not available, where they cross their forearms and make an X. I was like, what? I pointed at the girl’s beer and the bartender said “Casssss-e?” Yes. I guess saying Cass is not close enough. We worked it out, and she gave me a bowl of peanuts.

There was another way-gook sitting in the bar. He went and ordered a beer and then came and sat down. He said he felt awkward not introducing himself, and I said, “Because we’re both white?” He didn’t answer, but laughed. I guess I wasn’t making things less awkward. We talked for a while and I mentioned the guy I was going to be cuddling with on the ship’s floor that evening. He said there were two empty bunks in his room. Woopty Woot! It was my first night off of the floor in almost three weeks. Koreans are old school when it comes to sleeping. Even their “beds” are pretty hardcore. I would not define them as mattresses, but elevated surfaces that match the feeling of sleeping on the floor. I can’t tell if this form of discomfort has strengthened me in character or not. I suppose probably not, if I’m sitting here complaining about it. Let’s redefine “complaining” as “reporting” then I will still have a winning chance.

Last night in the span of a few minutes I saw a McDonalds delivery service and a dog wearing a diaper. This was while we were sitting outside a Family Mart having a drink at their café tables. This is the equivalent of 7-11 setting out patio furniture and hanging out in front of it. Genius. Other little quirky things going on are what appears to be some sort of fashion statement where girls are going out of their way to show the control tops on their panty hose, sticking out from under skirts and daisy dukes.  Also, I notice this less in Korea than in China, but there’s a very casual attitude towards riding on scooters. Entire families will pile on with the babies wedged in between parents, or the person on the back will ride sidesaddle with their legs crossed elegantly. It’s an interesting contradiction, as a lot of extremely benign things seem to be regarded as dangerous, but then they are rather fearless about things that Americans get overly worried about.

I’m getting itchy to make my next move and go to Japan, and really looking forward to getting back to China, where the prevailing rude and lawless attitude allows me to feel a bit more at ease. Koreans are so polite I’m constantly worried about offending someone. I think I’m going to head out next week, but I’ve still got plenty of things to do here. I better get to it. Talk to you soon. Bisous. 

Haeundae Beach.

Yonggungsa Temple

Yonggungsa Temple

I can’t keep eating like this. Limits. I have to set limits. I’ve never been good at setting limits. There are limits to the capacity of my jeans. I better start setting limits. It’s difficult when you don’t have a kitchen and you’re walking around all the time. There are snack shops everywhere in Korea, a small bit here, a little more there, it’s so easy to just eat junk all day and think nothing of it. I went to the grocery store yesterday and bought fruit. Today I made myself a sandwich to take with me, an apple, a banana, a carrot, and the courage to ignore the snack stands.

I walked out to Yonggungsa Temple, right on the edge of a seaside cliff. There were rocks, gold Buddahs, blue, blue waters, parents with babies strapped to their torsos walking over wet, jagged rocks, girls in tight dresses and high heels, showing their panty lines, pausing every twenty steps to make kissy faces for photos in front of monuments and statues, people licking popsicles, popsicles, everywhere popsicles, melon pops, orange, green grape, chocolate, everything, and iced coffee, always iced coffee, sugary iced coffee, in vending machines, in tiny roadside stands and waterfront cafes all along every inch of every street. Every step of the way; popsicles, ice cream, coffee, snacks, chips, chocolate, calling to me, telling me I deserve to have some. I disagree.

I sat down on some rocks with a view to eat my sandwich. I looked over and there was a cat slowly creeping towards me. Her ears were flattened out a little and she was making a weirdly cautious face. I could tell she wanted to share my sandwich. I started to toss her a piece of bread and she smacked it out of my hand before I could let go of it. We worked our way through the sandwich together. This is a good diet plan. Find a cat and share half your lunch with it. Her manners improved slightly, and she began waiting to pounce on the bread until it landed on the rock. When we had finished, I offered her some of my banana. She wasn’t into the banana, but hung around and kept me company while I ate it. Her tail was missing, and I realized that about 50% of the cats I see are missing their tails, leading me to wonder if there is such a thing as cattail soup. Eventually I had to leave her. I took a four-hour walk home, meeting dogs and puppies along that way, that I also had to leave. Saying goodbye can be so hard. If I sap my powers of denial on refusing snack food how will I ever be able to resist buying a puppy?

SeokbulsaTemple