Tokyo Postcard

Well, I went to Tokyo last week and, really, I need to learn how to be a tourist. I only brought my camera out a few times. It's so hard to take pictures when you're trying to eat evey kind of ethnic food that you can't find in Korea. I think I ate Japanese food twice in Tokyo. I did have American, Indian and Vietnamese food, though. Anyway, it was a great trip and holy crap Japan is clean. You could almost lick the sidewalks without any fear.


This is what you get when you show up to your flight really late: a business class upgrade and more legroom than you know what to do with. Flying business class has ruined me. I refuse to fly coach ever again. What will I do without my hot towel, my reading materials or...


...salmon salads? I wanted to ask them to just fly around a little longer, it's such a short flight between Seoul and Tokyo.


Here's Mina and me in our comlimentary hotel pajamas. Our hotel room was so small, seriously, about the size of a walk-in closet. Good thing my apartment in Seould is tiny; I am used to curling up when I sleep.


Shiloh and I went walking around Tokyo and we found this Japanese gate thing (I never did buy a guideboook, so I will be referring to this as a 'Japanese gate thing' for lack of a better name.)


Here's me at a Japanese shrine thing (Meji-chingu I think?? I told you I need tourism lessons) P.s. Do I only own one shirt? Scroll down to my Busan pictures, I'm always wearing this Guarana Power shirt. I don't know why.


Here's Shiloh and me at the shrine thing again.


And here's the shrine thing alone in case the green shirt was distracting.


The shrine thing comes with a turtle. I bet it's a special Japanese shrine turtle. I'm not looking it up.


You know me, I always have to take cold skyline pictures. This is of the downtown area near City Hall.


We wanted to go to the palace that we saw on a big cartoon map in the hotel. We didn't find the palace per se, but we did find this stunning view. All the other people taking pictures of this were like: isn't there some palace around here or something?


Never did find that palace, but I think you have to swim across this moat. Which is likely full of shrine turtles.


Here are the famous Salarymen of Japan in the midst of a 70-hour work day.


I also LOVE to go in towers (again, see my Busan pictures if you don't believe me) This is Tokyo tower. Again, located on the big cartoon map in the hotel. It's some meters high.


Here's the view from the tower. 32 million people out there. This is a view of Shinjuku and Roppongi. How did I get so smart? There was a little placard that said what everything was.


They twisted my arm to sing a karaoke song. Of course, I sang about 20. This is a duet with Mina. All the bars could seat about 6 people and only served Korean soju.


Here's the bartender of the best bar in town. Don't remember his name, don't remember the bar's name. You should check it out if you're ever in town.


If you spend long enough in a gay bar, someone WILL find a wig. This is the owner of the little bar with the wig. And, my friend Stephen whom I met in Seoul, but who lives in Tokyo.

I hope you're not too overloaded with cultural factoids. No one is ever going to hire me to be a travel writer.

Korea Loves....

1. To Protest virtually anything. Even, let's say... mad cow disease.

2. Task-appropriate apparell. If it's hiking you want, hiking gear you shall wear

3. Hard-boiled eggs

4. Little dangly cellphone charms

5. Soups that include crushed ice

6. Couples wearing matching outfits

7. Boy bands

8. Ankle socks

9. Those old-fashioned jiggly machines at the gym where you put that strap around your waist and, well, jiggle.

10. Canned coffee drinks

11. Supermarket food samples

12. Hating Japan

13. Japanese culture

14. Photos on a sticker

15. Paris Hilton

16. Pineapple anything

17. HUGE eyes

18. For places of business to be ridiculously overstaffed

19. Coupons and frequent customer cards

20. Napkins (just kidding)

What I Did on My Spring Break...

I had a few days off, so a work friend, Mina, and I decided to go to Korea's second largest city, Busan. It's on the south coast of Korea, 3 hours away from Seoul on the bullet train. People call it the San Francisco of Korea. It's beautiful. The downtown area of Seomyeon looks like this from my hostile window:



Also is Seomyeon, they have a branch of the school I work for, Pagoda, in the same building as an Outback Steakhouse. If I lived in Busan, I would never leave this building. Even though it seems to have fallen on its side:



Korean people love neon, and Seomyeon is one of the most heavily neon-ed places I have ever seen:



This is Mina way up in Busan tower.



All the cities in Korea have a huge bell. I don't know why, but here is the one in Busan. Enjoy:



Near Busan tower is the world famous Jagalchi fish market. It's the largest one in Korea. People in Busan are serious about fish. I saw at least 3 creatures there that I had no idea existed, and I'm not so sure I'm happy they do exist.



At the fish market, you can pick out a live fish and the fisherman will whack the head off of it for you. Then you take your jerking dead fish to these ladies upstairs and they prepare it for you however you want. I had this one raw. This was seriously fresh fish. We also had another fish that they fried up for us. I had to pick around all the various sacs and entrails on that one. Sounds gross, but it was delicious, especially with kimchi and soy sauce.



The harbor has boats like this:



And this:



Here's busan tower, the harbor and the fish market.



The next day, we went to Haeundae Beach, which is sort of like Korean Vegas, or Cancun.



Middle school girls love Haeundae beach. Some of them got picked up by guys on skijets and got rides around the cove in their uniforms.



Seriously, Koreans love neon.



Seriously



I had a great time, and to show my love for Busan, I now wear Busan's favorite fashion accessory:

Couch Surfing 2007

I had always heard of people who couch surfed. Usually I thought they were loozers, or boozers, or both. I always wondered how a person can just mooch off friends and stay on their couches without thinking it might be wise to look into employment or a hotel. I never thought I would be a person who couch-surfed. I worried about how I would brush my teeth, or how my hosts would react to my refusal to eat pretty much anything. Well, as I was trying to sleep last night, and failing, I decided to count sheep. When that didn't work, I started to realize that I couldn't sleep because of my bed. It's so hard. It's an asian bed. They really like to sleep on the floor, so if they do sleep on a bed, it usually feels like the floor. Hard as a, well, floor. I'm not knocking it, I'm just saying. So, when I ran out of sheep to count, I started thinking of all the different beds I slept in in 2007-my year of couch surfing. Thanks to all who let me crash at your pad, and to repay you, you can sleep of my floorbed in Seoul any time!

He're my couch surfing 2007 list. All the places I slept in a year (I think):

1. Mom’s and Dad's guestbed on Hawk Lane in Palmdale.
2. Brandon’s house in Toluca Lake.
3. Hedi and Michael Darchuck-Chick's guestbed in Echo Park.
4. Hostel El Firulete on Peron Street in Buenos Aires.
5. The wierd pad I yanked out of the sleeper sofa and put on the floor at Ramiro's apartment on Ave. Charcas in Buenos Aires.
6. When my sister vacated, I switched to the futon at Ramiro's. (this sounds sordid; it is not.)
7. Kevins’s loft thing in San Cristobal, Buenos Aires.
8. Hostel in Iguazu Falls, Argentina
9. Horrible bed in my apartment on Fitz Roy in Buenos Aires.
10. Hotel Faena in Buenos Aires.
11. Mom and Dad's guestbed on Eagle Lane in Palmdale
12. Oxford Inn in Palmdale
13. My sister's house in Lancaster.
14. Eduardo’s bed in Portland while he was in Chicago.
15. Eduardo’s floor in Portland while he was not in Chicago.
16. Random couch in Portland.
17. Mark Spencer Hotel in Portland
18. Oxford Inn, different room, in Palmdale
19. Keisha’s House in Lancaste.
20. Golden Nugget Hotel, Laughlin, Nevada.
21. Amtrak Coast Starlight.
21. My bed in Seoul!

If I missed one, don't remind me. I think this is enough.

For 2008, all I have is

1. My bed in Seoul.
2. The 6 line Subway in Seoul. (long story)

The Big Chill

I think colleges and universities should devote some attention to an amazing new trend in contemporary language. I’m talking about blog talk. I read a dozen or so blogs a day, and I have noticed something amazing that most of them have in common. The best way I can explain this phenomenon is by backing up a tick and saying: I don’t read a dozen blogs a day, I check a dozen blogs a day. I do this because at one time or another I remember having read something interesting, or more usually, funny, there, so I check back to see if the author has updated. More often than not, the answer is no. Whoever got me hooked on this or that blog has hopelessly let me down. No new posts, just that stale old one that I keep seeing every time I go back. Blogs worldwide are really lacking in overall updatedness. So, when a blogger finally updates his/her blog after a seemingly decade-long hiatus, the newest post usually goes something like this:

Hey all my faithful readers, (Or all four of you, haha) I know it’s been a while since my last post, but I had to take a second job because my cat got some sort of gastro-intestinal thing, and as you all know, I love my cat (check posts #’s 4, 19, 27 and 100.) So, yeah, I’ll be back to posting soon, I have some really great stuff I need to get off my chest.

I want someone to do a study about how many blog posts in the world are apology posts for not having posted. I’m going to ballpark it around 60%. But does it matter? No, I still check the same blogs day in and day out.

In case you’re wondering, no, this is not serving as my apology post for not having posted because I really have no good excuses. I have nothing but free time and I live in the world’s most internet-connected nation. (I would put up a Wikipedia reference here to back that fact up, but the article would probably just reference back to my blog. Or a porn site. Or both.)

So, no, this is not my apology for not posting. Don’t think you’re going to get out of here apology free, though. I do have to apologize for something. This one comes from the bottom, the passionate depths, that is, of my heart. I must apologize that this post is indeed about -- Tadah! The Weather. Yup, it’s at least my third post about the weather. No, I’m not a retiree. I’m not obsessed with the weather, I just happen to have had an interesting life weather-wise over the past twelve months.

I’m happy to say that for the first time since March 2007, I AM WARM! That’s a year. My year of winter.

I left my apartment this morning bracing, as usual, for the howling wind, the swirling snow and the tricky ice patches. There were none. I was greeted by glorious sunshine and I actually just stood there in it or about ten minutes. I had forgotten what vitamin D feels like. Spring has sprung in Korea and I am, without a doubt, the most appreciative person in the country for it. If not the world.

I found these two pictures in my I-photo library. They seem so similar that it made me realize that even though I have endured two separate winters this year in two different hemispheres, they were really just the same winter. The fist picture is from my bedroom window here in Seoul when it snowed last week. Notice the ramshackle corrugated steel roofs covered with snow. The second picture is from my bedroom window in Buenos Aires when it snowed in July. Notice the ramshackle corrugated steel roofs covered with snow. No matter how far you travel, you’re still on the same planet.

I’m going to go find my flip-flops. And trim my toe hair.

What's on?

I have a television in my apartment. Like most people, I like to have the TV on, even if I'm not watching it, to have a little background activity while I'm bruishing my teeth or doing the dishes. I can't actually sit down and watch my TV because I have only five channels and they are all in Korean. But, every once in awhile, something about Korean programming catches my eye. This is usually because what is happening on the screen is so inexplicable or bizarre, but sometimes because it is just hilarious. A few times I have found myself captivated by Korean television even though I have no idea what is going on. It's more entertainint to me, almost, to sit and try to guess what is going on, than to actually KNOW what is going on. Following, I have a few selections from Korean broadcast TV so you can see what I'm talking about.




This guy was on at about 8 in the evening on a Friday night. He was at a table with four other men and they all had charts. The charts (I think) were discussing some sort of waterway, or canal, or river thing. At times the discussion got quite heated, with people in the audience (yes, there was a live studio audience for this) cheering for this or that guy. Finally, this guy whipped out what amounted to be the mother of all charts. You could hear a gasp and then a palpable hush come over the croud. This guy won whatever they were talking about. On TV. On a Friday night. With his chart.





This gal was on a reality show of some sort. It looked like she was at an amusement park and that she was on a team. On this show, the teams were sent on missions throughout the amusement park. At one point, this gal goes on a very tall rollercoaster. That's not the mission, though. You see, all the missions in the amusement park were math-related. So, while this gal was hurtling towards the ground on a rollercoaster, she had to solve a complex triganometry problem that was written very large on the roof of a building below. This picture demonstrates two of my favorite things about Korea. 1) the ability to make everything educational and 2) when in doubt, put your hand in front of your face.




Korean television is replete with televised concerts. While this photo does not really say much, I'll sum it up. This was a performance by what I will call the trifecta of Korean musical entertainment. All on one stage singing Michael Jackson's Don't Stop Till You Get Enough was: 1) ancient lady with massive, teased hair in an evening gown singing sort of Korean wobbly opera style while being followed at all times by a troupe of eager dancers who got their moves by watching early 90's Paula Abdul videos. 2) the youthful, female-looking rapping boyband. and 3) the well-meaning rock band that got it's moves by watching Van Halen videos from 1983. All in all it was spectacular and I think the old lady blew the other people out of the water.




I just don't know what else to say but twin brothers, glasses and tiny bubbles.

Yum! (...?)