TO CRUSH MY ENEMIES, SEE THEM DRIVEN BEFORE ME!!!

Summertime Blues in Korea... Again...

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:47:44 GMT

Same shit, different summer.

The weather turns to shit: It's either suffocatingly hot and humid, or pissing down torrential rain, or suffocatingly hot and humid while pissing down torrential rain.

Summer vacation is a misnomer: Hey, kids! Happy summer to YOU! What? You think you can go to the beach, the park or pool with your friends and hang out and be KIDS? HAR HAR! This is KO-RE-AAA, you little bastards! We're gonna stick your asses in EXTRA LONG CLASSES/SCHOOL CAMPS all summer long, with even worse preparation on the part of Korean staff than during the rest of the year! Pay up, mom and dad! Gotta keep up wit' da Parks (Why, certainly! We're sending our kids to English, Math and Science academies all summer! Aren't you?)...

And, for my 3rd straight Korean summer, I'm entertaining notions of G'ingTFO as soon as this contract is up. Turkey or Portugal seem amusing destinations...

Expect little but hate-filled rants until mid-September when I take a 10 day vacation and cool off.

A fun aside: You may or may not be aware of a certain little territorial dispute between Korea and Japan over a handful of tiny, barren, birdshit-covered rocks in the middle of nowhere. But, it might be interesting to compare the tone of Japanese and Korean newspaper editorials on the matter.

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 09:34:41 GMT

Happy 232nd, America!

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 04:35:23 GMT

O, Japan...

Tokyo police said 200-300 death threats appeared on Internet message boards since 25-year-old Tomohiro Kato went on a killing spree on June 8 in the popular Akihabara district, Kyodo News and the Sankei Shimbun said.
....................
Tokyo police earlier this week sent a 16-year-old girl to a family court for posting messages on the Internet threatening to kill people in Tokyo's Shibuya district, where young people flock.

"I'll kill them all and I'll die too," the girl said in one message sent from a cellphone to a bulletin board, as quoted by a police spokesman.

"I adore suspect Kato," she wrote, adding: "You're so cool, Mr Kato."

The girl, whose name was withheld as she is a minor, posted a total of 28 messages two days after the Akihabara killing, according to police.

Umm... I'm strangely aroused by this chick... Is that wrong?

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 06:16:40 GMT

Life has taken a definite turn for the surreal.

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:06:41 GMT

30...

30...

30!!!
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UPDATE: On a much, much sadder note... RIP, Iceman.

People who still know how to rock.

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 05:49:53 GMT

HAIL SATAN!!!

I love the spaciness of this. And the idea of a black hole swallowing up the world has an oddly calming effect on me.

Man attacked bus, tried to rob 7-Eleven, stripped, fought dog and withstood Taser. ...And smashed through a glass door. Naked. Fucking hard-core.

Makes last night's breathalyzer checkpoint shenanigans seem like child's play in comparison.

PS: I'm turning 30 in a few days, so I figure it's time to have a mid-life crisis. Any suggestions?

Stuff

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 09:07:51 GMT

Mad Korean Disease.

A horribly drunken David Hasslehoff ain't got nothing on a horribly drunken ME. I earned my patch. RDFFRD Video and embarrassingly bad pics inside.

A biker party/BBQ hosted by American Steel MC in downtown Seoul yesterday quickly turned into a real biker party when the cops arrived an hour into the festivities to try and shut us down. Big D caused them some brief hesitation by holding a box of PX-bought American beef patties in their faces. "Stand back! We have US beef!"

I no longer earn enough money to finance my lifestyle.

I was just wondering...

Sat, 31 May 2008 17:36:58 GMT

How many of you poor souls back in the states are currently dying from MAD COW DISEEEEEEEEEEEAAASE!!!!!!!????

According to a number of my students and other random morons here, it must be hundreds of thousands of you.

Sheep rebuff beef.

Do be sure to check out the slideshow.

blame mumbalo_jack

Tue, 13 May 2008 16:09:28 GMT

Coming from any culture not Japanese, I would instantly peg this as parody.

Coming as it does from Japan, I just don't know...

An aside: To any of you back in the states bitching about gas at $4 per gallon, get your heads out of your asses. I'm paying damn near $7 per gallon here, and Europeans and most everyone else on the globe has been paying that or higher for years, now. The fact of the matter is that Americans aren't the only folks driving like mad anymore. Two billion Chinese and Indians and everyone in between seem to have discovered over the past decade that the worst ride is better than the best walk.

You do the math.

Rundown

Mon, 12 May 2008 06:21:31 GMT

I ended up going all the way down the coast to Pusan last week, and hung out with the guys of the Rotten Dead MC. I was accepted as a prospect member, as well. Cheers, guys.

I was still feeling high and mighty late Monday afternoon, and intended to ride back up the coast like a conquering hero before cutting across inland to Seoul. Somehow, in the afterglow of the previous night's soju binge and firebombs and Monday's savory Texas Bacon cheeseburger lunch, it never occurred to me that it would be past dusk by the time I got to the coastal road, and that I wasn't geared up for a cold night ride.

That led to me deciding to push it as far as I could until I found a decent-looking motel. I didn't find a decent-looking motel. I did, however, find an extremely isolated and rather run-down motel up in the mountains, a little neon oasis in no-man's land, sitting atop a small hill overlooking a vacant parking lot, a la the house beyond the Bates Motel. Unfortunately, aside from the van parked near the place and the several large dogs chained up and barking wildly at me as I wandered around, I found no trace of human occupation. No front desk, nothing. It was right about that time that I heard a snap, the sound of approaching paws clicking on pavement, and an eager bark that I realized one of the dogs was intent on finding me.

A hasty peel-out escape and an hour's worth of riding and shivering down the mountain range got me to the town of Yeongju and checked in at the first motel I saw. A dirt-cheap and dirty, excessively sleazy love motel in the middle of the hooker district of town. Exhausted, hungry, half-frozen and feeling vaguely bothered by the lack of female company in a place like that, I managed to sleep for about five hours.

All in all, it took me another six hours to get back to Seoul the next morning after getting lost in another small town that didn't see fit to properly mark its roads. On the bright side, I was only 15 minutes late for work on Tuesday and no one noticed.

...............

The next weekend involved another ride with RDMC and American Steel MC. Didn't quite go as planned but it was a good day nonetheless. Hopefully, Big D will have the pics and video posted shortly.

Last night, I intended to hang out in Itaewon, but never got that far as I met a girl here in the PC room and we ended up having dinner and going out drinking together... Where my cell phone met an unfortunate death by drowning... Ah well. Such are the hazards. We'll see where this goes.

Peace.

ANOTHER road trip???

Sun, 04 May 2008 02:20:35 GMT

You're god damned right: Another road trip. I'm somewhere along Korea's east coast right now.

pics!

Outside of some rest stop in a valley yesterday while I was on my way to the coast.

Here's another of those instances where my cell-cam just doesn't do the actual view any justice. This was the view from some 2,000 feet in elevation, just before I descended the coastal range.

Chuam beach.

Somewhere further south.

I'm in some coastal town right now, checking the weather and considering lunch.

Life is good.

The Olympic Torch comes to Seoul

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:51:40 GMT

...and by complete coincidence, I happened to be right there.

I was riding along Hannam Road to meet a pal to go riding with, and noticed a wall of red-clad folks waving Chinese flags. Realizing that the torch was coming this way, I decided to stop for some pics.

I had no idea there were so many Chinese here. And, unlike most Korean women, those of the Chinese persuasion are quite friendly and receptive to a smile and 'hello,' and are eager to chat. Unfortunately, Chinese men seem to realize this and swarm around and cockblock mere seconds after you get a conversation going with a couple girls.

This guy was running up and down the sidewalk with this gigantic flag raised over his head. I even got smacked in the face with it on one of his passes.

The police presence was quite huge. I've never seen so many Korean police actually doing something.

Political statements.

Coca-cola: Probably not a regular part of an Olympic athlete's diet.

Armored buses full of riot police. You can usually see these same buses parked all around the US Army post at Yongsan garrison.

Police running along the street. Torch on the way.

You can barely see the torch in there. You could barely see it at all in person given the light and the utterly massive security presence. It struck me as kind of sad that it was necessary, but according to reports, things went pretty smoothly in Seoul. Only three arrests.

Ah well. The Chinese especially were excited, and good for them. China's road has been a very rough one over the past few centuries, and especially in the 20th century. Today, the situation is just starting to turn around for the first time in half a millenium. Things there are far from ideal in any category, but better is better, and we should all be glad that 1/6 of humanity is past periodic mass starvation and mass political violence, and finally getting beyond the level of bare subsistence for the masses.

All in all, they were all pretty eager to talk once they realized I wasn't there to do anything stupid with the torch. Nice bunch of kids. "Jongoa man-se!" ("China live forever!" is how it was translated to me) and all that. I wish China nothing but the best and hope the 2008 Olympics prove to be a great coming out party, such as it is. Cheers.

A few pics

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 05:17:29 GMT

Yeah...

Umm... I guess there wasn't much there that was awe-inspiring-photo-worthy.

Here's that little hole of a town we stopped in. Believe it or not, this is the main drag...

I'm not complaining. It had a certain charm.

It was nice to find that Daecheon Beach seems to be cleaned up after last year's oil spill.

Aaaand why not one of me?

On the road

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 02:10:29 GMT

I'm about 2/3 of the way to a beach on Korea's west coast right now. We had to stop in some wild west-like little town for my compadre to take a nap.

This place is nice and isolated from the hustle and bustle of bigger Korean cities, and by the way I'm attracting attention wandering around, foreigners are virtually never seen here.

Time to go surveying for poontang.

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:12:23 GMT

I wonder if city buses cause more traffic congestion than they solve.

Herro!

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:17:02 GMT

I'll be spending this afternoon in Japan in order to renew my tourist visa, so I can continue to work illegally in Korea for another week.

Then I'm going to Japan again on the 8th to get my working visa.

I'm starting to feel like I have a real job, where I wear a suit and travel and look important. Except I travel economy, rather than the First Class I richly deserve.

Also, it's not really business travel in Asia unless there are large numbers of prostitutes involved. Paid for by the company credit card. I don't have a company card. DAMN IT ALL!

We might dub this era

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 07:59:14 GMT

The Age of Unwarranted Anxiety.

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 07:18:22 GMT

Does anyone know of a good custom metalworker/fabricator?

Past 3 weeks. Scoring, quitting my job, getting a new job, getting lost in Japan

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 07:36:23 GMT

Feb 15th: Finish up the week of work between the winter and spring breaks, was given my list of co-teachers and preliminary schedule for the start of the new school year. Weekend arrives, time to party.

Wee hours of Feb 17th: Went to a noe rae bang with Korean friend, and we got a couple of rent-a-girls. Not hookers, per se, just chicks that are on call for these places to act like your girlfriend while you'rer singing terribly. What fun is belting out some Pantera tunes if you don't have someone to grope, right?

Mine was a nice, thickset gal who didn't speak a word of English, but seemed to take a liking to me, regardless. Insisted on leaving and that we go drinking with her. At 7am on a Sunday morning. In Korea, that's no problem. Suffice it to say that after some 10 hours of consistent effort, I scored.

Sunday night, riding high.

Feb 18th: My co-teacher calls me from work and informs me that Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education is transfering me to a different school. No reason was given, but I later deduced that I pissed off the vice principal at the start of the fall term when I put up a fight over the after-school classes. Whatever. I look up the new place, and it's outside the western outskirts of town. Not good. I ride out there to check it out, and it's a fucking shit hole. Very bad. I inform my co-teacher that if I have to move out there, I'm quitting.

Monday night: Go out and get very, very, very drunk due to bartender Dwayne giving my boy and I free liquor all night.

Feb 19th: I sat at the computer all day trying to update my resume, but was so hungover I only managed to write a few sentences over the course of 6 hours. Sleep.

Feb 20th: Wake up early (10am-ish) and get the resume together. Apply to five jobs by 1pm. Have two interviews scheduled by 4pm.

Feb 21st: Cancel that day's interview, because it's for a job in a part of town I don't want to move to.

Feb 22nd: Interview for a job near Gangnam, upscale Manhattan-esque district in Seoul. At the last minute I'm thinking the long hair and beard might be a liability. I meet the school's director, who, as it turns out, has long hair and a goatee just like mine. He nodded and "hmphed" approvingly after looking me over. He also turns out to be the treasurer for Harley Owner's Group, Korea. Score. Got the job after 5 minutes.

Weekend: ...is a blur...

Most of the next week is a blur, too. I woke up Thursday morning intending to go to the immigration office to get my visa renewed, as it expired that day. I was horrified to learn that I couldn't do that unless I had a ticket out of the country. It was too late in the day to go to Korean Air's main office and get a refundable ticket to take with me to Immigration, so I had to book the first flight to Japan I could find, pack a bag, and high-speed my ass to the airport for an overnight to Fukuoka.

Late evening, Feb 28th: I get in a taxi outside the terminal, and say "hotel," figuring it would be an internationally understood word. Wrong. The cabbie's a cranky old fart who doesn't speak a word of English, and gets increasingly irritated at my inability to understand more than a couple basic words of Japanese. Traveling less than 8 kilometers cost me over $20, and in some dark, sparsely developed part of town, I saw a neon sign that said "MOETL" and told him to stop. The place turned out to be some sort of Japanese love motel with no human at the desk, just some sort of credit-card machine and a bunch of written instructions. In Japanese...

It took me almost 2 hours to walk back to the airport, where I found a frinedly young cabbie who spoke English, took me to a real hotel, and was even kind enough to go to the desk with me and translate and make sure I got a nice room. Man, the Japs sure are nice when they're nice. Hard to believe they were on a raping/killing rampage across Asia within living memory. But I digress.

I really dig Japan. Will be going again in a couple weeks. Anyhow...

Feb 29th: Back in Seoul, have to move out of the apartment next day. Should be packing. Go out drinking instead.

March 1st: Move to new crib. Nice new crib. Nicely located.

Sunday: Don't remember too vivdly, but I know it involved drinking.

Monday - Friday: Started the new job. So far, so good.

Saturday morning: Receive a text message from someone (I'm assuming a woman I gave up on trying to nail, and whose number I must have deleted) saying

"I've to go for help friend at foreigner bar in Sinchon tonight. Come n play."

I got the name and location of the place, and replied "I might show up. Wear something sexy for me. ;) "

I really, really hope it's a woman...

The past two weeks...

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:53:51 GMT

I'm about 5 different kinds of exhausted right now.

Suffice it to say I just got back from Japan this evening, and I'm moving to a different part of the city tomorrow.

Someday, I might even make a full entry about it all.

But now, I'm off to drink.

Another good read.

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:52:16 GMT

Staying Alive
Why North Korea Will Not Change

Summary: Despite international calls for reform, the North Korean government is doing its best to maintain the domestic status quo -- and with good reason, at least from its perspective. Still, change is coming in very slow motion thanks to international aid and illegal exchanges with the outside world, which are eroding Pyongyang's legitimacy.

ANDREI LANKOV is an Associate Professor at Kookmin University, in Seoul.

Heh...again

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:38:38 GMT

Heh

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:16:30 GMT

This is largely why I never, ever sign petitions for anything.

Caption, please.

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 06:12:03 GMT

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:03:58 GMT

Stuff white people like.

Whew... So glad I'm a hick.