Sexy Cakes and SPAM

Before I get started - just to let you all know, my blog URL is moving to http://foleyinkorea.tumblr.com/. Same great blog, different great URL.
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Hello Fake-Meat Consumers,

Lately, Korean people have been saying something to me that messes with my head. I get it in my home, at work, in the clubs. They say it to me with a look of surprise and disdain, and I never really know how to take it. It always goes something like:
“Damn, you’re more Korean than I am.”

Sure, I occasionally enjoy kimchi and eggs in the morning. And, yeah, once in a while, I groove to some K-pop. And there might be a chance my love of Korean girls borders on the point of creepy obsession. But am I more Korean than a Korean? No way, man. I take it as a compliment, for others to believe that I’ve assimilated this well. But, despite how accustomed I become to living this country, there are certain things about Korea that my mind will always reject as wrong.

For instance, SPAM.


Yes, we’ve all had it at one point or another, when money was tight or when Mom forgot to go grocery shopping. There are only two sane reactions before consuming SPAM. The first is disbelief—the existential question of “Seriously, what the hell is this?” (Spoiler alert: nobody really knows).

The second is classic self-deception. We tell ourselves: “Oh come on, it can’t be that bad…can it?” One bite will tell you, yes, yes it can be that bad and worse. At least, that’s the standard American reaction. And it makes sense. It’s canned, chemical infused, pig shoulder leftovers. No one actually wants SPAM, do they?

Enter South Korea. They dig SPAM here. They dig it hard. They dig it so hard that for national holidays, it is standard practice to give a SPAM Gift Set. What’s in the SPAM Gift Set? SPAM, packaged in a display case in the same way you would see exotic cheeses or high end alcohol.


Really, no joke.

Koreans see it as some sort of delicacy, whereas, when I see it, my knee-jerk reaction is a full body heave. This proves, at least to myself, I am American to the core of my system.
Even with so much time spent in this country, so many culture norms still surprise the hell out of me. Despite the absurd amounts of outside Influence, Korea manages to stay its own monster. Let’s keep the examples coming:

In an attempt to reform my lanky figure into something that more resembles Brad Pitt in Fight Club, I recently joined a gym with my roommate in Itaewon. As Itaewon is the hub of foreigners in Korea, you can bear witness to all walks of life as they pump iron. There’s the hyper-friendly and hyper-enormous African man, the Mohawked-out, tattoo encrusted American guy who complains to anyone willing to listen, and one dude of mysterious origin looks like Stallone’s slightly-disturbed younger brother. Usually though, you don’t notice where people are from, because you’re too busy flexing your guns in front of the mirror. However, there is one slight discrepancy, one thing that Korean guys will do that no one else would ever be caught dead doing: Lifting weights barefoot.

Even as a person who prefers to spend most of his time shoeless (and, of course, pants-less),  I still can’t get behind this one. Aside from creating a breeding ground for staff infections and ringworm, not wearing shoes when you lift is stupidly dangerous. It’s like cooking naked. I mean sure, it’s more comfortable, but the fear of flames charring my goods keeps me clothed in the kitchen.

As a side note, most Korean guys have a lean to skinny build, so it’s very interesting to see a Korean dude straight yoked out of his mind.


Am I right?

And I do get nostalgic for the good ‘ole U.S. of A from time to time. The other day, I caught up with an old friend from high school I hadn’t seen in six years. We decided to check out Vatos, a new Mexican joint less than a year old that got rave reviews (#1 Hottest New Restaurant in Seoul by CNNGo). But, If you recall me saying in one of my older entries, hunting down a good Mexican in Korea is like trying to find a unicorn.

Well, I found it.

How good are we talking? Home-made tortillas, legit carne asada steak, and a stupid-big beer selection. I felt home. It didn’t hurt that the guys who started up Vatos are a group of L.A. Koreans who know Mexican food inside and out. In true L.A./Korean style, they also offer a selection of fusion food, blending Mexican and Korean into a single delicious entity. It might sound strange in theory, but in practice they kill it. Some of the features include grilled kimchi carne asada fries, sam-gyup-sal (pork belly) tacos, and my person favorite, Texas-sized Makgeolita. What is a Makgeolita? Half-Margarita, Half-Korean-wine Makgeoli, coming in flavors of apple, peach, strawberry, orange, and, oh yes, mango.



I consider myself a pretty evenly minded cat (though, I suppose everyone does), but even if you trust me, this next observation might seem harsh. Most of the elements of Korean Culture that irk me are pretty benign, but there is one thing I truly despise. There exists, in this country, a shallowness, an intense focus on that which is material and aesthetic, and it’s really, really bad.

I’m not gonna restate old points in this post (like how half of the chicks out here get plastic surgery) but moving to Seoul has made me a bit colder to the culture here. Gwangju could be shallow at times, but Seoul is on a whole ‘nother level of shallowness. I’m talking kiddy pool shallow.

To be fair, some of it could be dismissed as practical. For instance, Korean women take it as dogma that no man is worth marrying that doesn’t already have his own apartment, own car, and job of “high-esteem.” While this makes sense pragmatically, the hardcore romantic inside of me cries out in agony. What ever happened to the notion of the young married couple struggling together, huddled under a blanket because there’s not enough money for heat this winter, staying warm on love and dreams? Where’s the adventure? Where’s the passion, baby?

That might just be me being crazy and unrealistic. Truly, though, some of the shallowness in this country is just downright nasty. The epicenter of this phenomenon? Night clubs. The other night at the club, one of my boys was dancing with this very pretty girl and offered to buy her a drink. She accepted, and he promptly returned with two Heinekens. Her response, upon seeing the beers, was:
“Beer? I only drink champagne.”

Now, I know this exact exchange has probably gone down in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, and any city where excessive wealth can be found. But it’s the consistency at which you see this happen, especially if you’re a guy like me. At the venues I’ve been frequenting, more and more, girls see me as a dollar sign (instead of the hot piece of meat that I am). And, when they discover that dollar sign is so very small, they lose interest immediately. In Seoul, in the battle between the wallet and the heart, the wallet wins nine times out of ten.

On a sociological level it makes sense. You take a dirt poor country torn by invasion and civil war, and then in fifty years transform them into the one of the world’s strongest economies. What’s going to happen? You’re going to create a culture focused on success, especially success with the Almighty Dollar. Korea is often strangely reminiscent of 1950’s America and the whole “keeping up with the Jones’” mentality.

But, if superficiality is Korea’s vice, its virtue is family. Korea’s foundation in family is a truly remarkable thing. They stay together ‘til the bitter end. This is one of the largest factors in the lack of crime and low percentage of homeless people. But I mostly dig it for the family parties. Speaking of which, I recently got a chance to go down to Suncheon to celebrate my Korean Father’s book publication. Some things worth mentioning:

We had a bokbunja cake. Bokbunja is a Korean raspberry rice wine that Koreans claim is “good for men’s stamina.” After saying it, they usually giggle. Because they’re talking about sex. Usually, when Koreans make such claims, I try the stuff and have no idea what the hell they’re talking about. This was different. I can’t logically explain it, but somehow, with the bokbunja cake, they were right. It was the sexiest baked good I’ve ever had.

Even crazier was the Tiger Soju. I’ll cut right to the chase on this one. Whether it was bullshit or not, I’ll never know, but this was soju made with tiger. Like, the animal. Grrr baby. Purchased in China, it was extremely expensive, highly illegal, and, much to my surprise, tasted like tiger. Again, this is one of those ineffable things. Trying to explain it would somehow make the experience less ferocious, and we wouldn’t want to do that.

The true highlight of the party though, was seeing my Korean family. My Korean Dad was so happy to see me come, he made me this:



It’s an old Chinese proverb. The take-home message is this:

“He who speaks little causes few problems.”

So, while I love all you cats out there reading my blog, I’m going to take that Chinese advice, and say no more for today.

-

Sake it to Me, Baby...Yeah!

Welcome Problem Drinkers,

To Foley in Korea: Hangover Edition. For this entry, I’ve compiled stories that all more or less follow the theme of the sheer excess of Korean booze culture.  My main goal, as always, is to educate you on this lovely country where alcohol poisoning has a national pastime.

In America, many people binge drink, but always, at one point or another, they will be subjected to our Puritanical system of guilt. Now not every country is like that. Sure, there are plenty of countries where people drink to excess, some places where’s it’s even acceptable, but perhaps nowhere is it as shameless and integrated into society as it is in Korea. In fact, if one was cynical enough, one might make the claim Korea is, in fact, built around drinking.

There are the little things, like the fact that night clubs stop running at the same time the buses and subways start running (6:00AM) or that many businessmen are required to drink to excess with their bosses on a nightly basis. Those are the little things. Some stuff, though, is just plain ridiculous.

For example, the convenience of getting mega-smashed. Korea prides itself on being a nation of convenience. If your cell phone runs out of juice, you can charge it at any 7-Eleven for less than a dollar, and most department stores and bars. You can use a computer anywhere in the city for about an hour for about the same price as well, complete with comfortable chairs and high speed connections. And, if you’re super hungover, you can just go to the hospital and get an IV.

Yes, sports fans, it’s common practice in Korea to go to the hospital if you’re feeling super hungover. Not alcohol poisoned. Just like the blazing-head-ache-promising-to-never-drink-again-kind-of hangover. That’s all you need to get medical attention.  You don’t even need to lie. You just show up, say, “Doc, I got so sloshed last night and got an important meeting in the A.M.” and for a small fee, he’ll pump a needle and a bag into your arm and your hangover will be a distant memory.

And if going to the hospital is too much of a struggle, there is a multitude of food and drink available to he who has partaken of, or shall partake of, a surplus of spirited beverages. They have medicine that lines your stomach. They have vitamin powered anti-hangover supplements. And of course, they have the oh-so-popular “Hangover Soup.”

What is this powerful potage, you ask? It’s a tasty and thick broth formed from ox bone, soybean paste, and soybean sprouts. As it turns out, these soybean sprouts are absurdly good at detoxifying alcohol. Science has recently proven this fact, but Koreans have known about it for centuries, as the plant is native to Korea. It’s almost as if God was prepping the Korean Peninsula for a society of binge drinking.

All that being said, I have nothing against alcohol. Nor do I have anything against the Buddhist faith. Now that I’ve made myself clear, I may continue. Korea is occasionally plagued with a problem you rarely see in America: drunk monks. No, it’s not common, but it does happen. These are Buddhist Monks (or, perhaps shaved-bald headed men dressed like monks) who get silly on soju and cause problems. There’s one in Gwang-ju with just such a reputation. I experienced his hospitality a month ago when I walked by him on the street and he punched me. Sure, it was just in the arm, but what the hell? The worst thing I did was smile at him. He’s also been known to go into bars and start fights…and has a taste for grabbing girls on the ass.

But I guess it makes sense. I mean, there are so many righteous monks in Korea, there have to be a couple assholes. Still though, it’s a weird feeling, getting grilled by a monk after he hits you for no reason. Maybe it’s because I had such high expectations of him. Or maybe some unconscious part of my spirit remembered how I totally screwed him over in a past life. Who’s to say?

To shift gears slightly (but stay on the subject of alcohol), this goes out to my fellow Americans. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but on television beer commercials in America, you’re actually not allowed to show people drinking beer. Now, before you think of correcting me, try to remember a commercial where people drink beer. Here’s a hint: it doesn’t exist. Commercials can show beer being poured, people holding beer, and those people looking like they’re just about to take a sweet sip of that delectable barley-hops fusion…but they never actually do it. Why not? Because we think it’s a bad influence to children. Boooorrrrrrrrrr-ring.

Korea takes a slightly different approach. Rather than encourage healthy drinking habits, they decide to show children the proper way to binge drink. During every Korean Major League Baseball Game, Cass Beer Corp. sponsors a little healthy competition between fans of the opposing team via the jumbo-tron. What is this event? A homerun contest? A pitch-off? Hell no. It’s a beer chugging contest! You, versus a rival, to see who can crush a cold one faster while thousands cheer. It’s every frat boy’s dream come true. The best part is, alongside the fame and prestige of competing in such a game, the winner is awarded a roaring round of applause and a cool case of Cass Beer. Awesome.

I know all the talk of alcohol is fantastic, but I must digress for a moment. Recently, I was able to move out from my ha-suk-jib (boarding house from hell with no bed) and into a deluxe apartment in the sky. It’s actually only on the third floor, but having a bed, and a kitchen, and two bathrooms for me and my two roommates, well, that feels about as close to heaven as you can get.

And, while my previous neighborhood population was predominantly elderly Korean women with a permanent expression of disdain on their faces, my current neighborhood is located in the hyper-rich embassy area. And when it comes to living near hyper-rich foreigners, you can be sure you see a good amount of really, really fat people daily, usually a rarity in this land.

It’s also located a ten minute walk to Itaewon, or as it’s often referred to as, “The Land of Wide-Eyes.” Itaewon has strange and legendary appealing in Seoul, as it is the breeding ground of all foreigners. They all come to party, eat, and generally mingle. Let’s look at this bizarre location from both the eyes of the optimist and the pessimist.

The Optimist: Awesome food (Greek, Mexican, Brazilian, etc.), real  microbrewed beer and imported liquor, a budding international community, and a place where you can talk about the Celtics and people will actually know what the hell you’re talking about.

The Pessimist: Expensive food (seriously, who wants to spend twenty bucks a person on Mexican food?), real expensive microbrewed beer and imported liquor, foreign douchebags, and a complete and utter lack of Korean culture within the country of Korea.

Itaewon was originally dominated by the American military, but after they caused so many fights that noise disturbances that the government kicked them the hell out, it’s become a lot nicer. Sometimes, it’s a much needed getaway from all that which is Korea, and gives just a little flavor of home. It’s kinda like a Chinatown for white and black and Hispanic and Japanese and…well pretty much, just think of it as the “Non-Koreatown.”

Oh, and speaking of Japan…I went to Japan two weeks ago. Sounds like a big deal, I know, but when you start to realize the distance between Busan, South Korea and Fukuoka, Japan is about 159 miles, it sounds way less impressive. (For point of reference, it’s 190 miles from Boston to New York).

Why did I go? To get my visa, so I could get paid for my new job. You see, you can’t get a visa for a country inside of that same country. For instance, if you live in America, and you want to renew your visa, well my friend, you best get ready for a road trip to Tijuana or Montreal (though I highly recommend Montreal). I know, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but just roll with it.

Now, because I couldn’t get paid until I acquired said visa, this had to be a budget trip. How budget? Like instead of springing for a hotel, I reasoned it’d be cheaper to stay up all night partying…in a city where I knew no one. You ever see the show “24” before? Well, it was kinda like that. From the moment I left my apartment on Saturday until the plane took off from Osaka Airport on Sunday morning, it was exactly twenty-four hours. So, you can imagine, while leaving my apartment, I was thinking:

The following takes place from 10:00AM to 10:00PM on the day of the Dan Foley Osaka Trip. Events occur in real time.

10:00: I leave my house with nothing but my wallet, my passport, a T-shirt and pair of jeans. No bag, no camera. No bag because I don’t want to lug something around all night and I didn’t want the crutch of bringing a computer. No camera because, well, I dropped it a couple weeks before and the lens got all messed up.

13:10: I exchange my money for 5,000 Japanese Yen and board my plane for Osaka, a city known for its octopus balls, wild fashion, and cheap plane tickets. (Shown below, octopus balls)

15:03: I arrive alongside a middle-aged white suburban mom type who doesn’t seem to have a damn clue on how to operate the commuter rail into the city. I share her dilemma. Turns out, their automated machines make about as little sense as possible, and have avoided using Korean or English at all costs. The computer rail ends up costing 1,100 Yen into the city. This means I would have to pay the same amount going out. Quick math will tell you that leaves me with 2,800 Yen for the rest of the ride.

17:22 I find my way to Osaka Sky Building, one of their must-see sites. It looks kind of like the Great Eye of Sauron at night and on its side is a glass elevator to the top that makes me queasy in all the wrong ways.

17:49: I stop in a dumping restaurant for some sustenance and take in the sites and the sounds. Strangest thing I find so far is the vending machines on every corner, selling a wide variety of tea-based drinks. By the end of the trip, I will have spent a cool eight dollars on these alone.

19:23: On the outskirts of Namba, the downtown district, I run into four middle school Japanese girls. They convince me to buy these fried chicken fries that are evidentially all the craze. I talk with them for a little while but slowly slink away, lest I be thought to be a pedophile by onlookers.

19:41: Arrive in Namba. I am immediately struck by the sheer absurdity and gnarliness of Japanese fashion. The chicks: way too much make-up. It’s caked on, in the sense that it looks like their faces have literally have cake on them. But their clothes, holy crap. I’ve never noticed fashion in an entire city before, but the bright colors, strange combinations, wild hair…it was impossible to ignore. Especially on the grandmas (not a joke).

19:52: Eleven minutes later, a notice the dudes. Every one of them looked like a Dragon Ball Z character, complete with radical, dyed, blown out hair, and wacky and bright combinations of jackets and shoes. There  was something undeniably unique and just plain cool about some of these guys…and then there were the ones who took it way too far. These poor souls rocked David Bowie haircuts, space-age shoes, and glitter jeans. It all screamed for a return to the the glorious sexual ambiguous rock of the early 1970’s.

20:20: Upon biting into a sixer of octopus balls, I have the sudden realization that I’m going to be stuck in a city for the next ten hours with very little money, no language skills, and where I know a grand total of zero people.  A minor freak out ensues, but I manage to finish my octopus balls.

20:57: I decide to take matters into my own hands. It’s only 9:00PM on a Saturday night. It’s far too early to succumb to fear and accept defeat. It’s time…to meet some people. I have no idea how I’m going to do it, but as God as my witness, I’m going to make moves.

21:23: I come across a white guy dragging a trash can across the street. We strike up a conversation. Turns out he’s a Mormon Missionary/street drummer/foreign language specialist. We walk and talk for a bit, turns out he’s got a decent grip on Korean. He shows me around a bit, to the main bridge in Namba where all the action goes down. Here’s the famous light up boardwalk along the bridge (why the running man is selling no one seems to know):

.21:49: We part ways and I meet some French blokes who were making their rounds across northeast Asia on holiday. We part ways quickly, because they have to go eat baguettes and go to bed.

22:50: After wandering  around for a while my T-shirt starts to gather attention. I am wearing a T-shirt that says “외국인” (way-guk-in) on it, which translates to “foreigner” in Korean. Doesn’t sound that funny to English speakers, but Koreans truly appreciate the irony of the shirt. So much that, every Korean I see has the exact same reaction. They stop in their tracks, start laughing, and then have to ask me about my shirt. One woman went so far as to offers me a tutoring job. Another dude was willing to pay me fifty dollars for my shirt and give me the one he was wearing on the house.

(Yes, I was peacocking hard).

23:47: While walking along the river, I happen across a group of twenty-something’s crushing Asahi by the river. It turns out they were a mix of Korean and Japanese students, with a random guy from Uruguay. None of them really speak English, but luckily, I’ve been taking Korean lessons. And so the drunken river conversations begin.

04:32: (Next morning): We’ve been talking and drinking together for four hours. Turns out, somehow the fusion of sake and octopus balls makes my Korean loads better. Despite my almost beastly amount of energy prior to this moment, something about the sky going from black to navy to blue is making my eyelids heavy. My newfound friends promise to come visit me in Korea, and cook me and my friends a giant feast when they come. I tell them that sounds good, and hop aboard the computer rail again, with just enough money to make it back to the airport.

06:00: Upon arriving in the terminal, I fall dead asleep on the row of seats. There are no dividers, so my long, goofy ass has plenty of room to get cozy.

10:00: I board my plane in a state of mind that is neither awake nor asleep, making me seriously wonder if this Japanese excursion was just some strange alcohol induced dream. And just as quickly as it began, my intense 24 episode ends, visa in hand, mission accomplished.

That, my friends, was my first taste of Japan. Do I want another? Absolutely. But in the future. It was relieving returning to Korea. It solidified a profound truth in my mind. There was something I believed, but always questioned. It became apparent the with each new country that I traveled to. After China, and Thailand, and now Japan, I’m pretty sure I can be certain that Korea is definitely the place in Asia that suites me best.

And the reason for that is the girls. Korean girls are clearly the hottest.

But I miss and love you all. I hope you enjoyed my drunken observations. The next time you’re hungover, I hope you think of me.

-King Lush

Foley Meets Cinderella and a Funnel

Dear Kim-chi Aficionados,

And welcome to another edition of Foley in Korea. On the agenda today is everything from shoe polish to Jesus, Patron to artificial human beings, so there’s no time to spare. Let’s begin with one of my favorite topics:

You know, if there’s one thing Koreans believe in more than family, country, and religion put together, it’s food. Food is part of the Korean national identity and they are fiercely obsessive about it. How much has permeated this society? Let’s take a look:

During the Korean high holidays, there are a multitude of no-nonsense rules about food preparation and consumption. Food is always served in groups of three or five. It cannot be served in groups of four because four is the number of death. For the same reason, no red food is served at dinner. Red=blood, blood=death, therefore red=death. All food with a head must face west, towards the setting sun.

In daily life, Koreans are humorless about their set pairings of food with alcohol. There is always a right or a wrong way to do it. For example, with Korean BBQ, you always order soju, and with fried chicken, you damn well better get beer. Trust me, I’ve tried to do the opposite. I was eating BBQ out with my Korean friends and told them I just wanted beer, no soju, with my BBQ. My Korean friends looked at me like I had just peed all over their shoes. They promptly poured me a shot of soju and slapped me in the face. You think I’m exaggerating? Try this on for size. “치맥” or “Chi-maek” is a word in Korean. “Chi” is from the Korean word “Chi-ken” and “Maek” is from the Korean word “Maek-ju,” their word for beer. Chicken plus beer equals “Chi-maek.” I mean, come on, we don’t even have a word for that in English.

But forget all the other nonsense on food. There is nothing Koreans are more adamant about than their love affair with kim-chi. Kim-chi, for all you ignoramuses out there, is the spicy rotted/fermented cabbage that exists as the staple of the Korean diet. It’s got an acquired, but delicious flavor and comes in over 200 varieties. But the Korean addiction to kim-chi is truly remarkable. It is such an influential food that last year, the price of kim-chi was raised and it made national news. People protested this, and it became a severe source of agony for the lower classes, who were afraid they could no longer afford it. Why not cook without it? Because out here, it’s in freakin’ everything. Kim-chi pervades everything from classic fare like fried rices and stews, to western-style fusion food like pizzas, burgers, and pasta, and beyond, into the outer limits of strange. The other day I had kim-chi chocolate…and, despite the distinctly funky aftertaste, I actually kinda liked it. That’s right, fermented spicy cabbage chocolate gets a thumbs up from Dan Foley.

Now, at first, it would seem absurd that so much emphasis is given to this one food. If you dig a little deeper, though, you will find two nuggets of wisdom that justify the obsession. One, kim-chi is more essential to eating in this country than any one food in America (even bread). It is literally eaten with every meal. The most common breakfast for a Korean is rice and kim-chi. Even if they have noodles for lunch and meat for dinner, you can guarantee yourself there’s some kim-chi floating around beside the main course. It’s a snack throughout the day, and compliments any Korean celebratory feast. There’s something about that bitter-spicy flavor. It is not only a source of subsistence, but a source of comfort and normalcy for the Korean people.

The second piece of knowledge is perhaps more interesting. As it turns out, Korean people are damn healthy, despite the raging alcoholism, chain smoking, dangerously-high sodium intake, and near-savage level of meat consumption. One explanation for this phenomenon is kim-chi. Turns out, if you Google “World’s 5 Healthiest Foods” kim-chi tops the list for a plethora of reasons. It’s super-high in vitamin A, B, C, low in fat, high in fiber, antioxidant-loaded, and is saturated with all them good bacteria, just to name a few. To my dieting people out there, get down on your kim-chi. You won’t regret it. (For the record, the other four healthiest foods are Indian Lentils, Spanish Olive Oil, Japanese Soy, and the very tasty Greek Yogurt.)

But if you’re like me, and you hate healthy things, you should try getting your shoe polished in Korea. No, that’s not some strange euphemism, I really mean it. In Korea, especially Seoul, you can find many kinds of “street shops.” Street shops are tiny buildings no bigger than an outhouse located along the sidewalk on most major streets. You have your street food vendors, you have your street convenience stores, and of course, shoe polish shops. The polishing business must be pretty lucrative, as often, you’ll find more than one on the same street. I decided to sample one of these locations, mostly out of curiosity, the other day on the way to work. When I left, I’m pretty sure I was stoned.

Allow me to explain. Upon entering, I was greeted by a middle aged man and what I was assumed to be his father (side note: the father was a bearded Korean, which let me tell you is rarer than a unicorn out here).  I sat down in the close quarters, the man examined my shoes, and found them worthy of polishing. Then he began. The process was complicated, involving many types of polish, sprays, and a gas stove. Every so often, he would stick the shoes under the flame for some reason. It took all of fifteen minutes.

So why was I fried afterwards? You see, these shoe polish outhouses have a single sliding glass entrance and one tiny window that is usually half shut. The fumes from the shoe polish and spray just straight lurk in the room, compounding, circulating. And I can’t imagine the open flame helps things. Hell, I was feeling a little funky after fifteen minutes in there. I can’t imagine what those two guys felt like, though I’m guessing they knew exactly what they were doing. Because didn’t seem to mind that the TV they were watching was in black and white. And had no sound. And was mostly static.
   

But the huffing habits of polish junkies is small potatoes compared to one of my biggest gripes with this land: Nose-blowing etiquette. Most of Korean dogma for courtesy is fairly reasonable, but when it comes to snot, Koreans are sadistic. It is considered disrespectful to wipe or blow your nose in public, especially at dinner. What makes that so insane is the uber-spiciness of Korean cuisine. Their food is designed to make your nose run like a faucet. But of course, you can’t wipe or blow your nose. So what is the socially acceptable thing to do? Suck it back up through your nose. Yeah. You know that nasty sound someone makes right before they hock a loogie? Imagine that as being socially acceptable, as opposed to, you know, quickly blowing your nose and ending it. Then imagine an old man with a sinus infection sitting near you on a humid five-hour night bus ride to Seoul. Sartre once said “hell is other people.” In this case, I’m pretty sure he was right.

But if that’s hell, then let’s talk about heaven. That’s right, Easter was just last week. Now, while I don’t teach anymore, most of my friends still do. My friend Gina, who teaches middle-schoolers, recently shared this story with me, and well, my friends, I need to share it with you. Here is Gina, trying to explain Easter to a group of low-level English speakers.

Gina: “Hey guys, do you know what holiday it is on Sunday?”

Kid 1: “ Jesus?”

Me: “Yes! It's about Jesus. What happened to Jesus?”

Kid 1: “He die.“

Me: “Yes, on Friday, then on Sunday he came back to life, so we have a celebration!”

Kid 2: “OH! Halloween Day!”

Awesome.

Yes, I miss the days of teaching. But as it turns out, my new job is pretty solid. I’m working on a crack team to develop this Korean travel website. It’s comprised of five guys (myself included) and we are sent on missions to explore various locations around Seoul, and report back to the world on their awesomeness in an E-zine style format. Our coordinator, Don, is the Keeper of the Keys in Seoul: the dude seems to know everyone and everything worth knowing in this city and our manager, D.Y., is on an Enlightenment level of chillness. The photographer and graphic designer are two Korean-American brothers, Kevin and TK, who got involved with the company as fashion designers. Despite the fact that their primary goal is creating designer bags, they are two of the most heterosexual guys I’ve ever met. The bags are hand-dyed, organic Korean-monk-style with a contemporary design. Very cool stuff. Check it out on their website at iisewear.com. Yeah, that’s right. I do advertising on my blog now.

So far, our team has hit up several locations, but two of note for this blog. One is a famous “게장” (“Ge-jang”) or raw crab restaurant. It was started decades ago by these two old ladies, but they had a massive falling out (probably involving crabs) and now operate two separate restaurants. We went to the original. A favorite of wealthy Japanese businessmen who actually fly into Korea to get massive take out orders of this dish, the ge-jang is truly a wild ride. Instead of cooking it, the crabs are marinated in soy sauce and boiling it periodically, followed by chilling it before it’s served. The entire process takes the better part of the day, but it’s so very worth it. Ge-jang is like nothing you or I have ever had before, like the sweetest meat with a soy sauce tang and the consistency of oysters. I can see why the Japanese fiend for it.

The other place of note requires a bit of back-story. Our company covered Seoul fashion week, for a variety of reasons, none of which really mattered to me except that I had to go to runway shows and write about them while my friends snapped pictures. Now, it was fun and all, I’m always down to experience something different, but with my limited knowledge of fashion, I feel inadequate to review such things. What I did feel adequate to cover, thanks to my my excessive knowledge of partying, was the Fashion Week After-Party at Club Ellui.

This event was surreal, a mix of runway and laser shows and alcohol far too expensive for me to afford. One thing was for sure: everyone was pretty. Even the dudes. Luckily, being a fellow model, I fit right in. And since it was our company that threw the party, we had access to all the VIP areas. This meant one thing: drunken people handing out free top-shelf alcohol. It’s about this point in the night where my memory gets hazy, but according to reliable sources, there were a fair amount Korean celebrities (none of which I knew) and evidently, I got to meet D.J. Lucky Lou (the dude from LMFAO) at about 4:00 AM. Lucky Lou had brought a funnel with him, like this one:

Using said funnel, he proceeded to pour multi-shot drinks of a rancid mixture of Patron and high-end whiskey lighting-fast down the tube and into the mouth of whatever unfortunate soul he chose. As it turned out, that was everyone he made eye contact with. Including me. Hence, the next morning, I had little recollection and my stomach felt like the molten inner-reaches of Mordor.

But, like any after any foolish night of excessive boozing, there is always those sober revelations that come to you while you’re swearing under your breath and tossing back Advil and begging, praying that they stay down. Here’s what I got that morning.

The unsettling thing about these super pretty club people are the questions: how did we get that way and why do we value them for it? I’m not saying physical beauty shouldn’t be valued, hell, most people would argue aesthetics was the basis of all art. But, you have to wonder where beauty and reality align. I am, of course, talking about plastic surgery.

You’re probably saying, “Dan, you’ve told us all this before. In Korea, plastic surgery is an epidemic. Half the girls ages 22-27 have had it. Girls as young as thirteen are getting it. It cheapens society. Blah blah blah.” And yes, I have told you all that, but Seoul has put it in new perspective.  Why? I’ll tell you.

It’s because here, it’s not just a nose job or breast implants or an eye tweak. It’s a complete demolition followed by a total rebuilding. I am not knocking people who get plastic surgery, I understand self-esteem is a quintessential part of being a happy human being, but it’s too much here. Way too much. How much is way too much? Usually, I am a man of words, but in this case, I’m gonna let the pictures do the talking. To my knowledge, this is the most common advertisement in Korea:

 

Yeah. They're known as the Cinderella Girls. I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

The worst part is, Korea is such a homogenous society. Everyone is Korean. Therefore, everyone looks more similar to one another than people in a melting pot like America where we have so many body types and ethnicities. Why is this a problem? Because the standard of beauty in Korea is more fixed. There is an ideal, something distinctly Korean with distinctive Korean traits. It’s not like America where you can argue all day between Jessica Alba and Miranda Kerr (though the answer’s totally Alba). Here, there is a convergence, a pinnacle idea of what it means to be perfectly beautiful. Therefore, the more plastic surgery, the more the girls are going for the exact same kind of beauty beauty. No friends, all Asian people don’t look alike. But with enough surgery, they might.

People, I miss and love you all, but you’ve got to see this. I will close with a now famous picture online, of four very plastic-sugeryed girls, known as the Cheongdamn girls, who prove my point so much it scares me.

 Take a real close look, tell me if you see it too.

-Holy Shit

Freshmen Chicks and Zero G's

Hello Online Roommates,

Yes, it’s that time again. Time to dunk your head into the wonderful and weird apple-bobbing bucket that is Korea. With less than a month under my belt living in the megacity of Seoul, adventures have found their way in my direction at a disturbing rate. Let’s not waste a second strapping ourselves into this wacky ride.

Like many of my fellow students at Sogang University, I’ve been living in a 하숙집 (ha-suk-jib). This is basically a dorm/home-stay/boarding house fusion-thing that fulfills my three greatest necessities: it’s warm, it has food, and best of all, it’s dirt cheap. And with good reason. That’s not to complain, because truly, I’d be happy to live anywhere. To anyone who ever bore witness to the ramshackle beauty that was my Foster Street apartment, it’s clear I don’t need anything fancy or even clean. Still, the ha-suk-jib is a bit of an…adjustment.

For starters, this is my first time living with people who aren’t my parents in the last two years. I share a floor with six Korean college guys of varying degrees of sanity and health. Because of my poor Korean language abilities and inability to remember anyone’s name, I thought I could just duck my head down and avoid contact. But, as you’ll soon see, when you live in such close proximity to people, resistance is futile.

The place is run by an “ajuma,” the Korean word for a middle-aged married woman. She lives on the first floor with her son and husband. Our only real interactions with her are at breakfast and dinner, which she cooks for us every day. Even weekends. It’s kinda like having a mom that doesn’t speak the same language as you and who always seems kinda pissed off when you come home for dinner. Still, she makes a mean chicken stew, and anyone whose favorite expression in Korean is: “Eat a lot!” can’t be all bad.

My fondest memory of this woman was on crisp Sunday morning in the start of March. I was on my way back to the ha-suk-jib, ass-backwards drunk in a taxi after an all night bender in Seoul. There, as I watched the sun peak out over the skyscrapers and cascade the Han River in a gorgeous, hazy light, I was suddenly overcome with a powerful inebriated hunger. Luckily, the ajuma’s timing was uncanny. A hero in her own right, she was grilling up a hearty breakfast just as I stumbled in the door at the break of dawn. Something about kim-chi and eggs on a sloppy Sunday morning is nothing short of wonderful.

But it’s not all lovely drunken memories. There are some things in my ha-suk-jib that I could do without. For instance, the architecture. This place is old, and some of the features of it are dated. For instance, there are two entrances to the ha-suk-jib. The ajuma’s family comes in through the main gate, guarded by a dog that resembles Chewbacca. Our entryway is in a side alleyway which leads to a lime green outdoor staircase. Whoever designed this staircase subscribed to the “there are no second chances in life” philosophy. These concrete stairs are far too narrow and the slightest bit of water gives them the texture of a skating rink covered in butter. Both of those are bad enough, but it’s the price of falling is truly dire.

That’s right, you get impaled.

And to this sadistic architect’s credit, he made the second floor walkway equally as lethal. Just as slippery, but with an added challenge – an ultra low railing on the second floor that even a midget would deem unsafe. For your average person it’s probably fine, but for your gangly, tall, accident-prone white boys, it’s a different story.

Aside from the life-threatening areas, there are a couple other issues with my living arrangements that I still don’t fully understand. Like, for instance, my room has the router that supplies the entire floor with internet. And sometimes that shit goes out at weird hours, which always results in a knock on my door by one of my floor mates. What did he need the internet for at five in the morning? Let’s hope we never know.

That, and my bedroom doesn’t have a bed. That’s right, boys and girls, I am living in a bedless bedroom. And this is pretty standard by ha-suk-jib standards. What’s that? Do Korean university students ever sleep? Of course they do! They sleep on the floor. Wooden floors. That’s how we roll in the ha-suk-jib. The funny thing is, they say it’s good for your back, but I find that hard to believe when I wake up feeling like a scoliosis patient.

But while sleeping on backbreaking surfaces is great to do by yourself, it’s way better with a friend! I learned this in my second day in the ha-suk-jib. One of my Korean floor mates, an English Major, struck up a conversation with me earlier that day. He showed me around the Sogang campus and seemed like an overall good dude. But it was a bit weird when he knocked on my door at three that morning. Especially when the first words out of his mouth were: “Can I sleep with you?”

My response was: “Huh?”

Then him: “My friend, he is very loud.”

Me: “What?”

Him: “He sleeps loudly.”

Me: “Does he have a girl over?”

Him: “What?”

Me: “Your friend?”

Him: “Huh?”

Me: “Yeah, never mind dude. You can come sleep with me.”

So he brought in his blanket and pillow and passed out next to me. Turned out, his buddy was sleeping over his room and had a real nasty snore. I didn’t blame him for coming in. It really wasn’t that weird at the time. In retrospect, the only weird thing about it was that he chose to sleep in my room, over, you know, the other five dudes he has lived with for years. Just saying.

But it’s not all ha-suk-jib fun and games. I’m a student again, attending Sogang University to learn the wonderful language of this country. What no one told me going in was that Korean is one of the world’s five hardest languages to learn, alongside Arabic, Hebrew, Vietnamese, and the deadly language of the Russians. What makes Korean oh-so-difficult is how precise your pronunciation and writing must be as compared to English. Here’s an example: Let’s say we’re chilling at a restaurant In an English-speaking country.  If I said to the waiter “I want Hambuger,” there’s a pretty good chance he thought I was going for “Hamburger.” It’s not the same way here. At a restaurant here, if I’m speaking Korean and I made the same mistake, there’s a good chance I will not only get the wrong food, but the waiter might assault me for insulting his mother. That’s why I’m happy for these classes.

At Sogang, they break down the classes by level. Level 1 is the lowest, 7 is the highest. I had myself pegged at a 3, with hopes of tricking them to putting me in a level 4 class. The put my ass in level 2. While at first my ego would not allow me to accept such things, ultimately, it was for the best. They move blisteringly fast, and my classmates are right on par with me.  

And speaking of my classmates, they’re killer. We’re like the United Nations of low-level Korean ability. We’ve got Russians and Taiwanese and Swiss and Americans and French and for some reason, a slew of Japanese girls without a single Japanese guy. Not that I’m complaining. The best part about it, though, is that English is not the common denominator. In fact, when I speak in English, the majority of my class doesn’t know what the hell I’m saying. So when we do class lunches and class drinking nights, our only shared language is Korean. Sure it’s sometimes a pain in the ass, but the practice is killer.

Outside of Sogang, I’ve had a chance to venture into the depths of Seoul. Lurking within this megacity are all sorts of cultural gems, amazing eateries, hopping clubs, and fabulous art shows. But seriously, forget all that grown-up nonsense and do what I did. Put on your Batman shirt, strap on a pair of light up sneakers, and treat yourself to Lotteworld, the second-happiest-place-on-Earth.

Lotteworld is an amusement park located dead smack in the middle of the city, at one the juncture of three subway lines. Now you’re probably thinking, “Dan, how the heck could they fit an amusement park in the middle of a megacity? That’s impossible! You’re lying to us.” I understand your concern, but I promise you, such a place exists. The trick is, it’s buffered off from the rest of the city by a lake that surrounds the entire park. This gives Magic Island, as it’s called, a certain mystique. The joy you feel as you blast around in roller coasters with a wall of skyscrapers off in the distance in unequaled in this mortal world.

The lovely Alice showed me this magnificent place the day after I had survived a gnarly bout with food poisoning. Now I know, subjecting your body to zero G’s and gouging yourself on greasy food is not the traditional way to recover from such an illness, but I mean come on. It’s freakin’ Lotteworld. It was totally worth it.

From the Gyro Drop, which puts you twenty-five stories up before dropping your ass to the ground in three seconds flat, to the Comet Express, an underground mind-melting roller coaster reminiscent of Space Mountain, the fun could not be stopped. There was one thing though, which made the trip truly awesome. We went on a spring day during the school week. Why does that matter? No lines because all the kids were in school. Oh yeah, baby. The longest coaster wait couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes, and most rides we got on right away.

And yes, it’s a complete Disney World rip-off, complete with a gargantuan castle, unnervingly cheerful music, and a loveable cast of mascots that…aren’t so much loveable as deranged and creepy. Seriously, I don’t trust that damn raccoon.

The Seoul night life is prolific and, much like New York City, depending on where you go, you get vastly different scenes of people. My first weekend I ventured out to two locations, Hongdae and Apgujeong.

Hongdae is an area surrounded on all sides by universities. A fifteen minute walk will get you to at least four major universities, with others a stone’s throw away. This translates into Hongdae being a cesspool of college shenanigans, where fresh faced boys and girls get a crash-course in drunken scuzziness. My first night out in Hongdae also happened to be the first Friday night of the semester. And, because in Korea, the drinking age is eighteen, I bore witness to things that, in America, are reserved for the hallways of freshmen dorms.

By 11:56PM, we were already seeing instances of freshmen girls who clearly couldn’t hold their soju. I’d spare you the details, but what would be the fun in that? One girl in particular was worth noting. We found her passed out in a pile of puke in the middle of a four lane street while her three girlfriends tried to slap her awake. She finally did get up, thank God, but oh, if only she was the only one.

Then there was the club. Upon arrival, I was thoroughly convinced I had stumbled upon some jacked up high school dance. The girls all looked sixteen and the guys looked even younger and all of it scared the hell out of me. Or maybe I’m just getting old. 

Apgujeong was the opposite end of the spectrum. A chill, upscale area with some genuinely interesting bars. The true highlight for me, though, was the street food. In a lone tented off booth, in the midst of a dark and barren alleyway, lay the crown jewel of drunk munchies: a Korean dude who made Mexican chicken tacos and hot dogs. I don’t know how much of it comes from my abstinence of Mexican food in Korea, but these chicken tacos brought tears to my eyes. It was just a proper taco, flawlessly made, with all the right flavors in all the right places. And as for the hot dog? He made that beast with bacon, coleslaw, mustard, and barbeque sauce on it. Very groovy. My real applause goes out to the Korean liquor laws, though, which allowed us to pound back beers while we consumed this street side feast.

But, fair readers, I must give a shout out to you. This blog is dedicated to you, my friends, for you have done me a great service. A truly righteous gift has recently been given to me, and I have all of you to thank for it. Allow me to explain:

My buddy recently offered me a job in Seoul. This was not something I was expecting, rather, it was a complete surprise. I had only planned to attend Sogang and then land a teaching job somewhere. This, however, is far more awesome. My buddy’s company is launching a travel website, dedicated to showing the world that which is cool and cultured in Korea. This will cover everything: upscale dining, underground music, hotspot beaches, cutting-edge fashion, ancient temples, and modern night clubs. And they need someone to experience these things and write about it for the website.

That someone is me. And I have all of you to thank for it.

To quote Stephen King: “I write for only two reasons: to please myself and to please others.” The fact that so many of you have followed me on my adventures is the reason I keep writing this blog. Hell, it’s part of the reason I keep having these zany adventures in the first place. And because of the success of the blog, I was given this job. So again, I thank you.

Does this mean I’m going to stop writing this blog? Of course not. But it does mean I will have a whole ‘nother website for you all to check out. It’s going to be E-zine style with kick ass photography, professional layouts, and of course, more adventures written by yours truly. The website won’t be launching for at least another couple of months, but when it does, I invite you all to follow me there too.

Is it any surprise I miss and love you crazy cats as much as I do? Of course not. You’re awesome. You all kick ass. Thank you all for all that you do. Until next time, I’m going to keep on adventuring. See you soon.

-Thankful Dude

Round Two...

Hello Lovers of the Blog,

I'm back. Oh, baby I'm back.

Is it good? Yeah, it's good. The last three weeks have been a blur of soju drinks, emotional reunions, jet lag, and plenty of kimchi for all. But, my friends, before I dive back into my zany adventures, I must first share with you a revelation I had today.

Coming back to Korea after my time in the States, people always ask the same question: "How does it feel?" The feeling is ineffable, and I've struggled for a response to this question until this very day. My answer came from the teachings of everybody's favorite physicist, Stephen Hawking.

Hawking was one of the pioneers of the "multiverse" theory. It's a bit tough to wrap your head around at first, but the gist of it is this: we exist in universe that is one of an infinite number of universes. Why infinite universes? Because he believes that there is a universe for every possible thing that could ever happen. So, in one universe, you, dear reader, are a billionaire oil tycoon who lives on the moon. In another, you're an ice-cold gunslinger who totes a pair of revolvers named "Justice" and "Peacemaker." And in another one of these universes, you simply don't exist. Heavy.

Why am I telling you this (aside from the fact it's just undeniably awesome)? Coming back to Korea feels like stepping between these universes. I'm the same person, but I take on a different identity, with different strengths and weaknesses. For example, as we all know, in America, women throw themselves at me like they're a baseball and I'm Jason Varitek circa 2004. But out in Korea...well I guess it's pretty much the same here. But everything else isn't. The food, the culture, my friends, the crumpled up money in my wallet, even my role in society, are all so profoundly different than in America, it feels I've traveled through a wormhole into another universe. Still, though, I wish it was the gunslinger universe...    

But enough of my absurd existential rants, let's get down with some freaky Korean culture. My Korean artist friend Don Kyu, who we all refer to as "선생님" (seon-sang-neem which means "teacher") took us on an excursion to Bossam, home of the famous green tea fields. As Korea follows the same seasonal progression as America, you're probably wondering how the hell they grow tea at this time of year. Well, they don't. But that doesn't stop them from having the most kick-ass sauna this side of China.

As I've mentioned before, Korean saunas are a bit intense for a first timer. Everyone's naked, for starters, and spends the whole time in such a state. Of course, the genders are separated, much to the delight of women and dismay of men. Still, the YMCA this ain't. You're not quickly changing in the corner of the locker room because you're afraid someone might see that you've gained a couple pounds over the holidays. You're straight chillin with a bunch of other naked people for a while. There's a level of comfort you have to develop with your own body, especially when shriveled seventy-year-old Korean men spend their whole time there gawking at your family jewels (not that they're that impressive, they're just a different color). An old Korean proverb says: "When we see each other naked, we become closer." Makes sense, and there is something powerfully true about this saying. Historically, however, things get a little...intense.

Korean society, before its rapid westernization following the war, was slightly different than today. People were a bit more comfortable with each other than what our uptight Puritanical virtues would deem proper. How comfortable are we talking? I'm glad you asked.

With families often living in the same rooms and social nudity amongst same-gendered people was the norm, certain things flew that would certainly not fly in the States. Because Korea is of the Confucianist Tradition, the older man (whether it be brother, uncle, grandpa, friend) was entitled to a certain respect from the younger man. It's still in effect today. When out drinking or at family parties, the younger guys always get their balls busted by the older guys. But now, "getting your balls busted" isn't taken so literally.

Oh yeah, we're going into a dark place. Prepare your innocent western minds.

It was a common Korean joke, amongst an adolescent boy and an older male, to grab him by his member, give it a bit of a tug, and say, "You're really growing these days." Now, I should assure you, this is not gay nor is there anything sexual about it. It's just kind of a friendly hazing. Albeit, it was weird to hear that for the first time. Koreans, it seems, are just more comfortable with their bodies than we are. Of course, this doesn't happen so much anymore. One of the biggest reasons is because of the YMCA. As it turned out, after the war, immigrant Korean men in America would occasionally do this to boys in the locker room at the YMCA. This obviously led to jail time, where the misunderstood Korean man would plead desperately that it was just some terrible cultural misunderstanding.

Or maybe he was just a pervert. Who knows?

The Bossam Sauna, as it is right along the ocean, features a very interesting hot spring. There are actually several hot springs within the sauna, naturally fed by the ocean waters and superheated for your enjoyment. Alone, it would be enough. But this is Bossam, baby: Green Tea Country. So yes, to answer your next question, they do have a superheated, natural ocean water, green tea hot spring. You become a human tea bag, literally swimming in a pool of green tea. Aside from bringing your body to a transcendent level of relaxation, it's fantastic for your skin, there's an amazing ocean view from the spring, and if you dunk your head under water, your lips taste like green tea for long after you surface. I wouldn't recommend drinking it, but still, pretty cool.

Before we move on, a few pictures of Bossam. Keep in mind, this is during the ugly season.

Another thing of note I've found since I've been back is that Korean guys are getting hotter. No, Dad, this isn't me trying to tell you something. I mean it in the global sense. More and more often, foreigner chicks dig Korean dudes. The opposite (Korean babes with foreigner guys) has always been true and, for my sake, always been awesome. But, with the rise of K-pop, Korean economic influence, Korean fashion, etc., Korean guys are killing it these days, and on any given street, you're more likely to see a Korean dude with a white girl. In the same day, I met two people for the first time. One a Korean guy who said he couldn't stand Korean girls and only dated whities, and a French girl who said she was gunning for the father of her child to be a Korean dude. What a world we live in! 

And with my move to Seoul, I feel lucky to experience even more of it. As I said, it's like stepping into an alternate universe. My first three weeks in Gwang-ju were beautiful and strange: a mixture of many emotions, insights, and plethora of confusion. Some of it was much funnier that others. Perhaps my time in the States changed my perception a tad. Not in an ethical way, more of an unintentionally racist kind of way. For instance, in my first week back, I found myself in my old neighborhood going up and shaking hands with some of my old neighbors. These were people I used to run into and chat with about once a week. The problem was, after being in Greenfield surrounded by white people all the time, I must have reverted to the whole "all Asians-look-alike" mentality, because a number of the people I was shaking hands with had clearly never met me before. In my defense, I was drunk off my ass my first couple weeks in Gwang-ju.

Coming back also reminded me of those strange little things you forget about a place until you get there. Like the downtown area, where clothing stores pump out offensive and sexually disturbing DMX lyrics into the streets while oblivious little children bounce around to the beat. Sometimes it's a beautiful thing the English education programs in this country aren't all that great.
 
Like everything else in life, the best reason to come back was the people. Seeing my Korean brother, my kumdo gym, my church, my Korean class, and my foreigner friends was a wild trip. In one such meeting, a foreigner friend referred to me as one of the "Godfathers of Gwang-ju." You can be assured this went straight to my head. But in that moment, I became aware of the alternate universes. I had forgotten I established a life here. It hit me again when I was studying Korean with my Egyptian friend Doaa at her apartment on a Sunday. Her nine-year-old daughter (fluent in Arabic and Korean, and not too shabby in English), was explaining Korean grammar to her mother in Arabic, who would it turn explain it to me in English, all the while while Don Kyu the Korean artist fell asleep watching TV and my friends Gina (American) and Krista (Canadian) made candy apples. Gwang-ju seems to have created for me a motley crew of a family, so far away from home. I dig the alternate universe. Hell, just the other day, my Korean brother, Alex, and I just visited my Kumdo Master in the hospital, after the successful birth of his baby boy. As we say in Korean "진짜 가족." 

All this and more made leaving for Seoul a few days ago a bittersweet retrospection. But with a new city, comes new adventure, and this gangly white boy is all sorts of excited for this adventure.

Of course, no Foley in Korea Blog would be complete without the mention of food. So here it is: I ate jellyfish. It was surprisingly benign. No electrical shock. No violent vomiting. Just good eatin'. If I had to describe the taste, I would akin it to something of yellow fish sushi that had fused with spaghetti. I know that probably doesn't make sense if you haven't eaten it, but I promise you, if you did, you'd be nodding your head and thanking God for such a fusion. It was truly tasty - served in a wasabi sauce with vegetables.

I will leave you with this, a video of Seoul. The montage is super cheesy and over the top sentimental, and probably not worth watching in its entirety, but it is undeniably beautiful and gives you an idea on the sheer bigness of the city. This is where I will be for at least the next three months, and perhaps, onward in the job market.

There are many stories to be told, my friends, and I hope you will come along with me for round two of my Korean Odyssey. As always, I miss and love each and every one of you beautiful people. Take care, and rock on.

-Seoul Dan

Bonus Blog: Foley and Brown in Thailand

Hello Ladyboy Aficionados,

Call it an epilogue. Call it a sequel. Call it a booze-fueled, crazy-monkey odyssey. Either way, I needed to do something foolish after my tenure in Korea - and a month long excursion to Thailand seemed just what the doctor ordered. Accompanied by my partner in crime, the one-and-only Adam Brown, we sought out adventure in Southeast Asia armed with only backpacks and nowhere near enough underwear and adventure is what we got. Our journey was episodic in the sense each place brought with it a certain objective and feeling, and thus, I've divided this blog up into chapters, detailing each place and the stories that are PG-13 enough to tell. So, I give you: Foley and Brown in Thailand.

 I made this nifty map in paint - so you can see our journey from start to finish in a geographical sense. Just start at 1, and then go to 2, and, well, you get it.

1. Bangkok Beginnings

For those of you without a television, or those of you who live in a cave with your hands over your ears singing all day, you may have heard that Bangkok is flooded. We experienced very little of this directly (save for the flash monsoon rains that hit for about an hour while we were there), but taking the train into the city, you could see the destruction. Farms had become swimming pools, houses had been pummeled, though the downtown area was unscathed. The Thai government made sure of this - they put everything they had to save the downtown area. Why? Because Thailand is a land of tourism - and that's where the money is, baby. How much of the mindset of these people is devoted towards taking away your sweet, sweet green? Read on, dear friend, and judge for yourself.

The first thing in Bangkok you notice (after the thick ninety-two degree climate and the pollution that blankets the city) is the Tuk-Tuk drivers. This is the Bangkok Taxi of sorts, a carriage for two (or three skinny people) strapped on to the back of a motor scooter. The pilots of these vessels are a friendly folk with questionable ethics. There is no meter on these taxis, you decide the price beforehand. These negotiations always devolve into a haggling match, where you pretend to walk away in the end and then get a kind of reasonable price. The thing to beware is the Tuk Tuk driver offering you a good price to begin with - because along the way, you're going to make a stop. Where? At a suit store, because he made a deal with his buddy, the suit store salesman, to supplement is pay check a bit. And he's not going anywhere til you've dropped thirty five bucks American on a pair of silk pants.

But the people on the whole seem very genuine, especially the food vendors. Street food is king in Bangkok. It was also two of our favorite things: spicy and cheap. Entire markets dealt delicious street food, ranging from meat on a stick to Thai Iced Tea to fruit pancakes to Pad Thai to cockroaches. Yup. And of course, with my adventurous (stupid) mindset, I had to try one.

Crunchy, lots of seasoning, but hey, where's the taste?

But no first night in Bangkok would be complete without a night spent slugging tallboys while perusing the Red Light District. You know, sex tourism is one of those things you hear is popular in Bangkok, but the sheer breadth of it (and the shamelessness with which it is promoted) is jaw-dropping. Adam and I were offered more ping-pong shows (if you don't know, don't ask) than we could count. And while we didn't actually take part in any of it, we were approached by a hooker at the end of the night who was trying to go home with both of us. We offered her twenty Bath (the equivalent of about sixty-eight cents) and a half eaten bag of wantons. When she accepted, we got the hell out of there.

Because Bangkok was so flooded, we decided to take off the next night and go North. That afternoon though, we caught a movie at the local theater. While the theater itself was near immaculate (especially compared to how dirty most of the city was), the true thing of note was the tribute to King Rama IX before every movie. Thai people love their King. Unlike the Royal Family of Britain, the Thai people revere their king with an almost god-like respect, and not without good reason. The King, while now having no official political power, is (alongside the head Buddhist monk) an adviser to all political parties and leaders in the country. He stands as a symbol of peace in the nation, and so, before movies, everyone stands in honor of the king.

2 Chiang Mai: "Oh My Buddha"

After a cool fourteen hours aboard a bus that had an ambiguous definition of the word "bathroom," Mr. Brown and I arrived in Chiang Mai - known as the "lively northern capital." Boasting a population of two hundred thousand, it's the second largest city in Thailand. Surrounded by jungles, the objective was clear in Chiang Mai: trekking. You go to Chiang Mai to get down with your monkey self.


We embarked on a three day excursion into the lush jungles north of the city. Accompanying us was our fearless guide JJ - a small Thai man who lived by the philosophy "no money, no honey" and used the phrase "Oh my Buddha!" to express surprise. The Dutch also gave a good showing, as we were joined by three Netherlands Natives who we became tight with over those three days.

The jungles were teeming with life. It was natural to see a water snake slithering away or find a spider as big as your hand chilling out between trees. I spent about half my roll of film taking pictures a spider the size of my hand, which infuriated Adam to no end.

But seriously, the jungle was varied and awesome. Observe:

After covering over six miles (10km) in the jungle, we arrived at a village of rice-growers who lived in huts. There, we joined them for dinner, a chicken a vegetable dish, and then starting crushing cheap Thai liquor while a village boy played a bizarre rendition of "When I'm a Billionaire" on his guitar. It got dark around six thirty, which meant that by seven, you could barely your hands in front of you, but that didn't stop us from drinking late into the night, as the villagers went to sleep. I'd wager it was around nine o'clock when the village boy (I'm guessing he was about seventeen) came out and tried to get us to play his guitar. When we declined (none of us knew how) he nodded his head, looked both ways, and then asked, very nonchalantly:

"Hey, you wanna smoke opium?"

He went on to tell us how he downed thirty opium pipes a night. I was baffled that he still had all his teeth.

Still later that night, after I stopped one of our drunken Dutch friends from lighting the picnic table on fire, nature called. I stumbled through the darkness with my feeble flashlight to the hole in the ground designated "toilet." I squatted, toilet paper clenched tight, and tried to enjoy the gentle peace of the night. My feet had been walking all day and were ripe with blisters, so I wasn't surprised when they started to tingle. But then they started to itch. Then they felt like they were on fire. I screamed, jumping up and ditching the TP. I beamed my flashlight on my foot. In the dim light, I could make out an unholy nest of fire ants engulfing my foot, clearly pissed I had woken them up. I ran away, slapping my foot furiously. I lost the toilet paper (which Adam was thrilled with) and no longer felt like using the bathroom. But while I may have lost the battle, I won the war when I drowned those biting bastards the next morning.

The next night we stayed at the waterfall which gets the award for best morning shower ever. Two kittens from the village slept in the bed with me which made me extremely nervous because they were so small I thought if I rolled over in the middle of the night I would kill them. But luckily, no kitten pancakes.

The last day: riding elephants and bamboo rafts. Riding elephants is one of those things that sounds fun til you do it. You sit on a bench atop the back of the great beast while the pilot sits atop the head, armed with a tool that is half wooden hammer and half metal hook. Yes, the hook is for if they get crazy, and yes, that should give you an indication of how unrelaxing riding these gray behemoths is. The problem was, two small elephants (small in the way a Volkswagen is small) had a little rivalry and decided to get in a fight around the three larger elephants we were riding. It was tough enough for the elephants to trek up these steep, muddy hills, but with the little ones farting around beneath, some of the bigger ones started getting pissed, screaming at them, and rocking around to the point we thought we were all going to die.

Oddly enough, the bamboo raft ride proved even more dangerous. It's a standing raft built for four to five people and it moves at a good clip down the river. Below the raft is shallow, rocky water, but it's really not something to worry about...unless your boat is full of douchey Spanish guys whose collective goal in life is to capsize this pleasant vessel. The result? Adam's feet got torn to shreds on the rocks below and I was on crutches for the next 24 hours with a twisted ankle (though the Thai nurses did think I was cute).

Still, this didn't stop Adam from exploring Chiang Mai the next day while I took a Thai massage course (though strangely they left out the section on "happy endings.") We also met a fantastic Thai radio host near a Buddhist Temple who shared with us his wisdom on life (though again, no happy endings).

3 Phuket's Lovely Ladyboys

We flew down to Phuket (yes, all places in Thailand have funny names) and had the please of staying there for just a single night. Phuket is known for its...colorful nightlife. What's there to say? Well, the first thing I noticed when we left our hotel was this gorgeous girl in a phone booth. Long, flowing hair, amazing body, smooth skin...and totally a dude. And then I saw another. And another.

Welcome to Ladyboy Land.

Why does Thailand embrace sex-changes and cross dressing as much as it does? I'll never know. But the seafood place we ate at featured exclusively ladyboy servers and the club we met at afterwards turned out to be a hodgepodge of ladyboys, Thai prostitutes, and filthy old European Men. Scuzzy does not begin to describe this place. Ladyboys were way too friendly (especially with Adam and me). I constantly felt the need to yell out "I need an adult!"

The night culminated as all good ones do, with a catfight (brawl) between two hookers. It was wild. Haymakers and dropkicks, furious scratching. At first it was entertaining but it got brutal real quick. When Hooker A got Hooker B's hair in a vice grip, I decided enough was enough and tried to pull them apart. But my goal proved difficult to achieve. It took three of us to drag her back, and she still got away and smashed the other girl over the head again. I was baffled by the situation until Adam informed me they were not women, but rather men. Just really convincing ladyboys.

4. You Down With Koh Phi Phi?

Koh Phi Phi (pronounced like "pee pee") was our first stop of island living. The Andaman Coast is considered by many to be the most beautiful part of Thailand. For reference, the (stupid) Leonardo DiCaprio movie "The Beach" was filmed right next to Koh Phi Phi.

Koh Phi Phi was infested with expats for the better and worse. Restaurants were knockouts - boats literally brought fresh fish to the restaurant chefs who would grill them outside right in front of you. One bar featured a Thai boxing ring that you could settle your drunken disputes in (unfortunately, Adam and I did not have any). And to ensure the island's clean air, it was devoid of any motorized vehicles. This was great, except at four in the morning when you're slammed and you don't know where your bungalow is.

Ours was located at the top of this stone staircase that rivaled Machu Picchu, but featured a lovely view of the island. Seen here.

One great stories comes from this bungalow.

I went home early (4:00am) and Adam stayed out for another hour. When he got home, the door closing woke me up. I shot up in bed.

"Dude - were you knocking on the roof?" I yelled, confused and disoriented.

"What?" asked a tired Adam Brown.

"I heard knocking man."

"You were dreaming, dude," he said. "Go to bed."

I looked around. "Maybe you're right..."

But he wasn't right. An hour later, as the sun peaked over the hills and cast its rays over the island, a family of monkeys landed on our porch and started throwing shit around. There was a mama monkey and four babies. By the time I got over the initial shock and reached for my camera though, they were gone...

However, in a place known as Monkey Beach "only accessible to boats" (Adam and I swam), we encountered several more monkeys, who had a strange love of Coca Cola and public sex acts.

Koh Phi Phi was awesome for its nightlife (it's hard to get sick of firedancers) and is quite possibly the most romantic place I've ever been. Thank God I was there with Adam (wink).

5. Kooooooooooohhh TAAAOOOOOOOO!

Koh Tao was stop number five. To pronounce it, as demonstrated to us by our friend Nini the Thai Pharmacist, you have to sound like a character from Street Fighter charging up and releasing a fireball. (Also, as a side note, her pharmacy name was "Nopporn Pharmacy." I really think they try to have the dirtiest English names in this country.)

To put it nicely, the journey to Koh Tao was unpleasant. Taking a three hour bus across the peninsula would have been fine, if Adam and I weren't stuck with the only seats that didn't recline below the air conditioner that had leaked so much water that the ceiling had rotted away and by the end of the trip we felt like we had a grasp on Chinese water torture

That was followed by the "night boat" - a refreshingly long seven hour boat ride with beds. I'm not one to complain, even with grimy pillows and low ceilings, but when you cram a hundred people sleeping in a room together, you're bound to get one or two jackasses. I found the biggest one, a chunky blonde backpacker (and his friends), in beds right next to mine. This yellow-haired dude decided, because sleep is for losers, he would loudly tell mind-numbingly unfunny stories about a murderer aboard the night boat. Half an hour into it, I was about to make his story true and strangle him with my dirty underwear.

But Koh Tao, once we got there, was all about the diving. Our driver teachers all possessed the Jacque Cousteau accent, putting us at ease, and our diving instructor in the field was a Dutch man with a blonde dread ponytail who went by the name "Merlin."

Over the course of four days we became scuba certified. After the first day and a half of movies and readings and classrooms so boring I thought they shot me with a horse tranquilizer, it was time to get in the water. Scuba diving is both frustrating and awesome. There is a lot of preparation and annoyance, lots of rules and regulations, but when you finally get down there, it's just really cool. The only point of worry is the whole "don't go to the surface too fast or your lungs will explode like hand grenades soaked in lighter fluid" precautions they drill into you. They drill these in enough that, on separate dives, Adam and I were convinced we had decompression sickness, though as luck would have it, we didn't.

But again, totally worth it. Alongside a Frenchman and a Mexican, we made six dives, the deepest being 60 feet (18m). It sounds obvious, but tropical fish are really, really colorful. And you always hear about big schools of fish, but when you see what looks like a thousand barracuda darting around in this fluid, ocean harmony, it is nothing short of jaw-dropping. Frenchy was supposed to upload a video of this excursion, but it turns out he was full of lies.
The last day we were a bit suba-ed out, so we rented motor scooters and tore up the island. We snuck down to a private beach with water so clear you didn`t even need a mask to see the fish. There we met these cool Thai-Chinese-American girls, which was impressive because we could count the number of Americans we met on one hand. The sheer number of Aussies and Eurotrash in Thailand was truly remarkable.

Here is a view from the overlook to the private beach below.

As crazy as everything else was, nothing could prepare us for the ball-busting insanity of Koh Phangan.

6. Koh Panagan: Redefining Sloppiness


Before I continue, I would like to say that, while the Thia people are extremely pleasant and kind, their language sounds like a cat being dangled above a trash compactor. Just saying.

Koh Panagan is famous for the Full Moon Beach Party (happens every full moon) where tens of thousands gather for the biggest beach party in the world. And oh yes, there is craziness, and drugs, and partying, and more drugs. But the drugs are dangerous for more than just the typical "it might mess you up" mentality. The Lonely Planet, under "Dangers and Annoyances" says this:

"Drug dealers are typically shot. No questions asked."

That`s right, welcome to flavor country. Getting caught with drugs is often a mandatory three years in jail, and while the idea of a Thai jail may sound pleasant, I`m guessing its not.

The objective here was partying - and the first night was the pre-party to the Full Moon. The drink of choice for these parties is the "bucket." The bucket is a bucket consisting of:

1. About a pint of alcohol
2. An energy drink (often Red Bull)
3. Some fruit juice to take the edge off
4. Ice

Now, I would not call myself a tank nor a lightweight. But when I ordered a Vodka Redbull bucket - I assumed I could handle at least one. Three-fourths of the way into it though, I was feeling like something had been slipped to me. I was paranoid, my chest was tight, my heart was racing, I wanted to dance way too much and keep everyone together or I was afraid something terrible would happen.

When I started compulsively falling asleep next to my friends, I figured it was time to go home. It took me to the last day to discover what had happened (other than the off-chance I had developed narcolepsy). Red Bulls in Thailand are four times strong than in America. My Vodka Redbull contained two of said energy drink, which is the equivalent of drinking eight Redbulls alongside eight shots of vodka in a short period of time. Keep in mind, I don`t even drink coffee. So no wonder my body started to crash around two in the morning...

But the next night was the real deal - the Full Moon Party. We were joined by our Dutch Trekking Buddies and the Thai-Chinese-American Beach Girls - and thank God we had them because the beach was madness. Among the tens of thousands gathered were creepers in predator mode, drugged out people sprinting on the beach for some reason, a legion of thieves and pickpockets, and of course, a bunch of dudes who felt like the beach was their toilet (I was among the latter). But there were also water slides (my ass still hurts) and flaming jump ropes for the truly brave, good music, and good times to be had by all.

The following night had a party off the beaten path that required a twenty minute boat ride to a deserted beach that held a club a five minute walk in. The party itself was alright (too many dudes) but the real story lies in the trip home. There were four of us, Adam, myself, and two of the Dutch guys. We just wanted a boat ride home. It was five in the morning and we were tired and, a bit cranky. Though, not nearly as cranky as the forty year old Dutch man we met, a shirtless tattooed fellow with an Indian Jones hat who also wanted nothing more than to go home. So much so that he was just at a bungalow at the beach we were on, chucking ketchup bottles at the house and screaming for them to let him in. We told him to come with us, more than anything to get him the hell away from those people. The problem was, the sole boat was beached, as in, not in the water. That and the boat driver was drunk off his ass. This didn`t sit well with the old Dutch dude, who put it this way:


"I`m from Amsterdam and I`m crazy!...Well, I`m not really from Amsterdam, but I`m still crazy! I`ll kill him. I'll kill him right NOW!"

Then we had to talk him down from killing the boat driver. Then the six of us had to literally push the boat back into the water as the waves beat down on us. Then we had to let the drunken captain navigate his wooden crapcan of a boat over choppy water in pitch black waters. If I had to come up with a word to describe that night, it would have been: "safe."

The rest of the days were filled with motor scooter rides in the bitter cold rain, a night of karaoke where Adam and I did a sloppy rendition of Sir Mix-a-Lot`s "Baby Got Back," and learned the lesson that if girls scream when you walk by and beg you to come drink with them, what they really want is your sweet American coin (and they're probably dudes).

7. Back to the Bangkok Beginning

Here is where I will stop - there are more stories not included in here - and a great excuse to meet us in person. Both of us have been away from the East Coast for more than enough time.

That's right people, I'm home. Come play with me.

Ladies and gentlemen, don't be afraid - I know how to handle me a scoot-scoot.

See you all soon...