Jeonju: I have no future in the world of golf

 After leaving Seoul, I spent the last day and a half in Jeonju which is a town of 650k folks, and therefore much much mellower than my previous stay. After bumming around for the afternoon post-bus ride, looking at an old Hanok (traditional Korean houses) village and wandering around a community built into a hillside where painting the houses colorfully and creatively and rooftop gardens were the norm as snow came down and the sun set, stuffing my face with my new fav, fried glutenous rice balls filled with red bean paste, I had dinner at a place where the ajumma who ran the show came out with my food and showed me how to make a dumpling in a steamed cordate+crenate leaf with pork, garlic, soy paste, and kimchi and proceeded to guide it into my mouth, like I was her child. We all (the ladies working there and I) laughed at the "feeding of the unknowing westerner." It was the second really good meal I'd had and featured zero reconstituted meat products.  You get what you pay for!  After fucking around at a PC bang for a while, I retired to my empty dorm room (this is the low season!) and awoke to strike out in search of the bike rental place I had heard about earlier at the information station. 

required a demonstration

 I walked for 20 minutes to the bike rental trailer which was situated in a parking lot along a scenic river path near an "ecological museum." I opened the door below a sign that said in Korean AND English "Jeonju Bike Rent," to find a man in his late 60s sitting at a desk with an electric space heater at his side and two rows of bikes, one mountain, the other folding. I said I wanted to rent a bike, pointing trying to be obvious and through our interactions found that we didn't have a common language. This didn't stop him from speaking to me in Korean trying to explain to me how to fill out the rental agreement. Finally, after a few minutes of me shrugging my shoulders and his unconcealed frustration I figured out that he wanted to know where I was staying and I showed him the listing in my guidebook that had a phone number. He called the hostel and had a conversation with the lady there and with my passport in his possession and my deposit of $1, he was satisfied to rent me the bike. We brought out a mountain bike, probably something that would cost $200 in the US, like a very high end sporting goods store bike. I rode it around and, satisfied, I rode off down the bike path along the river. 

An unreasonable (or very reasonable) amount of cabbage. 

 The map I got at the info centre the day before showed a velodrome on the edge of town and I had my fingers crossed that I would magically pop by and there would be a race that day full of professional Keirin racers and their adoring fans. I consulted my map as I rode down the river path, past walkers, the remnants of a beer and noodle party the night before on a riser under a bridge, and a lady selling produce on a blue tarp laid down next to the path. I exited the river path and rode down the street that led to the velodrome, what seemed like a few miles away. Riding down the sidewalk of a relatively major street wasn't that interesting, but it felt great to ride a bike instead of walk (everywhere!). I stopped at a 7-11 with the intention of buying some weird Korean novelty beverage and settled on a pine bud flavored can of deliciousness and enjoyed the hell out of it before hopping back on my ride. I gotta say, the bike rode really well, the shock shocking as it should have and everything moving smoothly, though the shifting under load was for the birds.

...on a tarp down by the river

 After a while I checked my map to realize that I still had a long way to go and decided to ask at a bike shop I spotted if it was even worth riding all the way there. I went in and to my surprise they had lots of nice MTBs and road bikes. Dude didn't speak any English so I motioned towards his computer and we had our conversation via Google Translate. He made a call to a friend and regretted to inform me that this was not the time of year for such races and that they were practicing inside these days. 

hell of a party

This was ok because down the street I spotted a giant green netted structure that I knew must have been a driving range, the kind you see in the movies. I hadn't hit a golf ball in at least 10 years and hadn't played since I was 13 when my aunt bought me a summer pass to the public course for my birthday.  I played with my grandpa's ancient clubs that only amplified my inability to square up a shot consistently.  All that aside, I have never not enjoyed bashing the fuck out of some golf balls.  I thanked the bike shop dude and rode down to the green monster where I locked my bike out front and paid the man at the front desk $10 for what I thought would be a bucket of balls and a club rental. I grabbed a 1 wood and headed to the greens. The guy came out and started the timer which counted back from 80. I figured I had a certain number of balls for my money and I started hacking away, missing the first stroke completely and then proceeding to slice just about everything at a 45 degree angle, occasionally hitting a brutal draw in the other direction.

 I was sanwiched between 2 middle aged guys who skillfully hit straight iron shots, showing mature restraint. I was sure they knew I was a total hack and had no business being there as I attempted murder on every ball that popped out of the green on the rubber tee. I figured as long as I didn't hit them or injure myself, everthing would be ok. Finally I straightened my shit out a bit and got a couple good whacks that sent balls into the net above the 250 yards signs before going back to my loose-cannon ways. My stroke counter kept going up and the balls kept coming when I realized that I had 80 minutes to hit all the balls I could. It turns out I can hit a LOT of balls in 80 minutes, but it also turns out that hitting golf balls as hard as you can is tiring and becomes painful after a short while.  Perhaps I should have taken a cue from the guy next to me who took a break and smoked a 100, taking it easy, aware that he was not 21 anymore and able to go on forever.   

I stopped at 150 strokes, with 60 or so minutes to go with sore hands, and got back on my bike to ride homewards, though town in search of some dumplings at a Korean place called "Veteran" that's housed in a traditional building but with an unfortunate (for no apparent reason other than to ugly-it up) grey metal facade. I waited at a crosswalk for the light to change when a older woman approached me speaking Korean (of course) and when the shoulder shrugging didn't do the trick I said "English?" to which she responded by rummaging through her shoulder bag and came up with a piece of paper that had an illustration of what looked like an RFID chip and some business about 666 and the mark of the beast. Later, when I had a chance, I read the paper which told of a time when the mark of the beast would be imprinted on the foreheads and in the right hands of people and that's how you'd know that shit was getting apocalyptic. There was some testimony of a clerk in the Phillipines who range up a couple German ladies who tried to pay with their palms (as though they did so all the damn time back in the Fatherland). She didn't know what to do and called her manager who came and used a hand-chip reader and they paid thusly. This all occurring in 1999. Another blurb warned of a time in the near future where all financial transactions could only take place through the aforementioned chips. Sooooo, get friendly with Jes's, cuz the man's about to tag you. Also from 1999. Though a bit out of date, I will still head the warning. 

 I stopped at a Catholic Martyr's Mountain and climbed it for a quick view of Jeonju before heading back to the bike rental place. After 4 hours of riding the nice old man only wanted $2 more which I thought was ridiculous and offered him $4 more. I looked at his fleet and they were all where they had been when I left. This dude say around all day for $3? That's goddamned insane, I thought. You can't even buy a bowl of noodles for that. He didn't look poor or anything. Maybe he had a pension or something and he did this just to pass the time or something. I can think of no other explanation. Clearly he and I had operate under different business models, as I try to make as much money as possible from every transaction so that I have to make fewer in the long run. I guess that we inhabit different points in our lives affects things. I'm sure there is at least one other factor in the mix.

 That night at the hostel (I was the only guest in my room thus far) I found a portly young Australian fellow chatting with a Korean lady at a booth in the front room. She asked if I would join them and I did. Ashley and Ben. Ashley was in town because she just signed the papers on a house where she was starting her own hostel after quitting her investment job in Seoul, and Ben who was here because he was Australian. As Ashley was the first interesting person I met who was not Australian or a hostel proprietor, I had lots of questions for her and was curious to hear about her life. Ben, on the other hand wanted nothing but to talk about Australia and to talk over Ashley. He got up to go to bed and Ashley and I had a good conversation about all things Korea and Portland and then Ben returned to re-dominate the convo. Eventually I irritatedly interrupted him as he interrupted Ashley after asking her a question and said, not terribly diplomatically, "Dude, let her answer your question." I wanted to talk more with Ashley and learn more about Korea, but didn't have the energy or the will to shush the guy with whom I'd share a room. Bad vibes are not what I'm after, on this trip anyway. 

Put that in your surprisingly-functional Skull Bong and smoke it.

Seoul III: Photos of stuff

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



"acknowledgements" it says

 

 

 

 



saccharin

 

 

Seoul II.5: PC Bangs n such

In all my travels through Europe, Central America, and India (white privilege!) my computer use has generally been confined to internet cafes which generally feature elders of the pc world, slow, yet functional, occasionally accessorized with strange smells and surly proprietors. In Seoul, however, all internet cafes (PC Bangs) are relatively luxurious, set up for maximum comfort and unfettered gaming. They're staffed and populated with college-aged kids, some open 24 hours. I arrived at this one at 630 AM on Sunday (I still wake up at 5AM!) and the kids were already at it. The computers are high end gaming machines and the chairs are comfortable captain's chairs. Drinks, snack foods, and instant ramen are available for purchase. Behind me, at this PC bang, is a row of love seats, each armed with 2 computers for lovers or buddies.

A smokey mirror on the wall adjacent to my station features the truism, "You can get through anything if you stay put in today. A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart. If we want a loving life, we must think loving thoughts. Time says, we go PC ON [the name of the place]" Others include "THIS is the place the everyone puruse his pleasures at his convenience." and "Definition of NOLL is the position of being in charge. In other words, boss. It make space that is colorful and present atmosphere according to customer's life-style harmony." Oh, just one more, "Express interior that have accomplished creation of different syle in fusion style harmony with that is smart and soft." I think they're trying to communicate that this place is this dankest place you can spend your waning youth, or in my case, my waxing middle age. Speaking of which, I have plans for a mustache and fatherhood. JK on the second part. Oh, and you can smoke in the PC Bangs.

 

 

Some unnrelated amusing tids: I went into a notebook boutique like you'd see on Mississippi in Portland that was playing the Hanson smash-hit Mmm-Bop from, jesus, 16 years ago.

 

Tonight at the most frequent place at which I take my meals (so old fashioned!) I sat down and tried to get free wifi on my phone (which you can sometimes do here) and looked around to see all 10 or so tables occupied by solo dudes who were glued to their giant phones, this guy included. I took a photo and got out my book.

I will never own a functioning smart phone because I have no self restraint when it comes to dopamine quick hits as illustrated in the following: Remember how I'd always buy McVittie's Digestives in India as a wheat and sugar fix? Well, here they sell Dr. You's which are pretty much the same thing (they might just be branded with a more Korean-friendly name since Irish surnames are unspellable in Hangul, the Korean alphabet since 1340 or whatever the towel said) and guess who's been snacking his little self silly? Something I sort of always knew, but thought about a little more today allegorically was how, even though I know they're terrible for me (I had just successfully fought off a Dan Sloan Signature sore throat with a very stiff tincture of OR grape root and pokeweed and super spicy raw garlic that I bought form an old lady outside a gigantic market) I had to, just had to eat every single cookie from the pack I bought the day before until there were none left, knowing full well that sugar and white flour do not promote immune health and are not tonic in any way. One time I made a pumkin pie and ate a quarter of it at a reasonable pace over the course of a day and proceeded to eat the remaining 9/12s in one sitting the following day, knowing full well that such a snack was a recipe for gastrointestinal distress. My point, you were wondering, is that my relationship with sugar is analagous to our unrelenting draining of the world's "resources" and there's no fucking way we're gonna save a few cookies for later. We're gonna devour them all right now...because we can. And there's no one to stop us, cuz we're adults. Really. Fortunately, I massacred the pack of digestives outside a Buddhist temple (that had a coffee vending machine inside), so all is well.

Put that in your poorly-worded Skull Bong and smoke it.

 

 

Seoul II: DMZ or not to DMZ

Frosty mornin'

I heard somewhere that the tour of the DMZ was cool, so I booked a ticket on a tour that left at 730am from my hostel. A mid 30s dude named Han picked me up and we drove around in his Hyundai van grabbing the other tourists: 3 Filipinas and 2 German gals. We drove to the DMZ parking lot an hour outside of town where we got out and took a bunch of photos of stuff. There was a mighty rime across the land that beautified the landscape, true winterness! Busloads of Korean and Chinese tourists with a few westerners sprinkled in scurried about taking pics for the folks back home.  My hopes were high that there'd be a bunch of cool, cold war-type biz waiting for me later in the tour.

BTW, I'm typing this in a PCbang which is a room full of super dank computers with gigantic monitors and loads of college aged kids hacking away in some WoW-type MMORPG. A room full-o zombies. For $2 per hour, I can see why. Cheaper than a hookah.

DSIII at the DMZ

Anyway, we got on a tour bus that took us to the 3rd tunnel that the S. Koreans discovered that the N. Koreans were digging to launch a snack attack on Seoul. We were ushered into a theater and give English-translating headsets while a propaganda piece played detailing the uncoolness of the Korean war. The narrator sounded like a Korean with a perfect American accent, carried away with his task, sort of like a narrator on some FOX show about animals revenge-killing people or something.  I thought the South Koreans would be more impartial/tasteful about the whole thing, but as I was about to find out, the S. Korean tourism industry in the DMZ is not about good taste.   

tasteless kitsch



just in case your pants are falling down at the DMZ and you need a new "velt"

a commemorative towel @ the DMZ



DMZ Dinner, the imperialist Yankees are alive and well





It's Brooklyn!  Or, wait, it's the DMZ.



 Then, after leaving our electronic devices in lockers, we grabbed hard hats off shelves and headed down a 350M 11 degree descent, passing lots of folks who were on their way up. At the bottom, it became apparent why we had hard hats. A long and low tunner extended into the distance. I hoped there would be something cool at the end, especially since hunching over and trying not to hit my dome on the dank rock roof for a couple hundred meters was proving fairly uncomfortable. I guess all that starvation saved the N. Koreans lots of work in not removing many tons of rock that the taller, better fed S. Koreans would have had to remove to avoid noggin smashing (were they to invade the North via tunnels, which they'd never do cuz that's a silly way to invade a country.  That, and they have American backing in all things military. At the end of the tunnel there was a rusty metal hatch and some red string lights. Talk about anti-climactic! I was kinda pissed that no one on the way up warned me that this part of the tour was a waste of time. Of course on the way back up I warned no one, since it was totally possible this was gonna be the time of their life.

bathroom at unused train station in DMZ

I always find it amusing that the N. and S. Koreans dream of reunification under the pretenses that the North stops being a fascist dictatorship and the South stops being a capitalist American stooge.  How can North Korea come to terms with there being a Popeye's Chicken at the DMZ???  I have a hard time with that and I'm not even a fascist dicta... Anyway, both will never happen without considerable outside influence/force.  Think of all the t-shirts that could have gone unprinted if the South just let things be. 

In the information center there was an area that had a bunch of guns on display and a model of the Panmunjon. A tour guide was giving her spiel to a small group of Americans and one of them, a 70ish year old man remarked that the buildings looked the same as when he had been there during the war.  I kept thinking about the Utah Phillips interview with Amy Goodman  that I've listened to 30 or so times in which he talks about his time in Korea and his memory of his time there being, mainly, of children crying. That, and why he couldn't swim in the Imjin river. Listen to it. It's great, especially for us grandfatherless folk.

Then we had an opportunity to check out the gift shop which was full of totally tasteless kitschy garbage commemorating the DMZ and assorted snack foods, some with amusing names. Then we were dragged to a train station that was built just in case N. Korea quits its bullshit and everyone plays nice. But for now, it's a train station that you can take a train to... and then go right back from whence ye came. It's staffed with MPs who don't carry guns.

 Finally we got back on the bus and went back to the main parking lot where we got into Han's van, paid him $44 and drove back to Seoul.  He offered to take us to a ginseng factory or a duty free cosmetics store. The group decided on the Ginseng factory and upon our return to the part of Seoul where lay the ginseng factory, I departed from the group and went off in search of some kimchi soup.

 Then I walked around for a while and got lost, wandering through outdoor markets n stuff where I snapped some photos of more dead animals before finding a metro station that I took to Ehwa Womans University where I heard they had a good (and free) art and pottery museum. From the metro I walked downhill towards the campus and was greeted by a stream of young women as I walked past cosmetic store after boutique after cosmetic store. Makes sense, I guess, but the contrast between how real Korean young women look and how the idealized brown-haired western-featured-through-plastic-surgery Korean models look was unnerving. It was strange to see an invading foreign look portrayed as the ideal. In the US, I'm used to seeing the dominant domestic culture dictate the beauty standards. I wonder if it matters if the idealized beauty being ethnically unobtainable in Korea is any different in practice than it being unobtainable in the US for white American women due solely to the idealized beauty being unreasonable (rather than impossible). I'm sure pretty much anyone more articulate than I would have had something interesting to say on the matter.

get your hair did

ink painting is the new black

Finally I made it to  the Womans (not Womens) university museum that was ok, with the exception of an amazing collection of contemporary works that included this doozy.  Mind blowd. 

Interesting nuggets:
There are almost ZERO garbage cans anywhere I've been.  I think it's because trash collection is super expensive.  Or something.
In some areas there are tons of bikes, but almost no one riding them.
There are Coca Cola vending machines, but no Cokes in them, just fruit sodas and coffee drinks.  I haven't seen any diet soda yet.

Put that in your never-again-to-be-unified Skull Bong and smoke it.

Louis CK has something to say about this

gasmasks in the subway