Drunkenness.....mostly.

I guess it's a good thing that I've been so occupied with doing things, I've had no time to actually write about these things. Finally, thanks in part to a change in months at school, I have a little more time at my disposal.

Let me start with the basics..... that is my new apartment up there. No, not the whole thing, merely that little brown door on the left on the middle floor. The apartment itself suits me fine, with Cockroach Watch 2007 standing at a manageable 3 after my first month. This doesn't excite me too much, as last years tally stood at zero for 6 months, until getting to the stage where I would greet some of the bigger ones by name upon arrival home at night. I would estimate I annihilated at least 500 in a few months, be it by spray, tissue, foot, or on one particularly cruel night, fire.

In a stroke of genius bathroom design, the pipe from the bottom of my sink stops an inch short of the floor, so the contents of the sink end up a winding river across the tiles. Luckily, most Korean bathrooms are simply shower rooms with a central sloped drain, but I'd never seen a sink pipe like that. I think I managed to soak 2 pairs of socks and scald 10 toes within the first week, if only I remembered to use the traditional bathroom slippers. Also, having a shower room can be annoying when you forget to move the Empire magazine that cost you about ten pounds, damn my toilet reading!

I think those who would be most interested already know this, but for those that don't, I am blessed with a whole spare room with bedding, so if you want to visit it's not a problem.



Here is my little street. This time I'm situated in a more traditional Korean neighbourhood, with a veritable maze of intertwining alleys, and the extreme possibility of being mowed down at any time of the day by a speeding moped, watermelon van, or cardboard collecting Granny. It's a jungle round my place. At first I thought it might be a bit of a ghetto, but it's actually really quiet at night, and the people are all really friendly. The larger general area is fantastic. It's absolutely littered with places to eat and drink, and, of course, sing until the early hours. Also, it's a meagre 8000W (about GBP4.50, still no pound sign...help!!), to Hongdae for mad nights out. Talking of boozing, that's where the first instalment of my adventures begin....



The first weekend, I met up with our long lost friend Northy, with the intention of doing a great many things with our all day session on the maekchu. The majority of these things never happened. After skulling a great many fizzy substandard beers in the sun, we had the bemused pleasure of finding the source of the din that had raped our ears all afternoon, a bizarre girl group miming to classical music at the end of Cheonggyecheon, the stream that cuts through Seoul. You don't see bands like this outside the Wellgate.....





Before we leave the Texas Ice Bar, let us marvel at their beer bottle display along the top of the bar. Very nice. It loses all credibility for the exclusion of Tennents.



The two of us, rather the worse for wear already, travelled back to my ghetto, excitedly clutching a few litres of the new beer, Cass Red 6.9%. Another few hours of that, and we find ourselves in a pub in Hongdae with Byron and Carl from my work, and an assortment of Korean dudes. The group at the adjacent table inform me I look like "Brucewillisactionstar!" to which I reply "YippeeKayayMuthafucka". They don't have a clue what I'm talking about but seem excited to have met a celebrity regardless. On our checklist for my returning night out in Korea, was 1) Go to the SunRadio gig, 2) Eat some kalbi, and 3) Sing like a fool in the Noraebang, all things considered, the template for a fantastic night out. It was upon leaving this pub things went a little wayward....

En route to the gig, it was decided to pop into the 7/11 for one more sneaky pitcher of beer, and it was there we heard the call of some Englishmen. These guys had procured a humongous vat of soju from somewhere, and a plan was quickly hatched to all go up to the playpark with said evil beverage and get acquainted. Soju, soju, soju, how do you do it? Memories cease for both myself and Mr.North at this juncture, apart from knowing we lost each other soon after. Initially I was blamed for not meeting him outside a shop of some sort, but he later conceded that he did in fact wake up in front of this shop hours later, so may not be entirely blameless. Either way, the night was down the shitter.

Having only lived in Mokdong for about 24 hrs, and losing the capacity to speak or stand up, it was no surprise that it seemed to take me about 3 hours and 60 pounds to get home. Of course, I got home to an empty house, presuming Northy had just gone back to his rural hamlet, Geumchon. Unfortunately for him, his keys were in my house, and after much deductive reasoning, including tracking back subway routes from earlier in the day, he arrived at my door at 7am. Alas, a warm bed at the inn was not to be found by our intrepid explorer, as his host was deaf to the 5 hours of door knocking that would then ensue. At 12 noon, I surfaced to find a sorry figure, bankrupt of all hope, slumped outside in the humidity. I was truly sorry. And all that time, I had thought it strange to be hearing in my dreams, "Waddell you fucking fuck!", over and over and over.......

I joked the next day that I'd better not lose my own keys anytime soon. Those words were soon to haunt me....

The following Friday, I arranged to meet up with the middle school teachers, who have a routine of meeting at the pub once they finish at 11pm, and moving onto Sinchon later on. Here are some random pictures....

(Me and Michael from Ireland, in a pub that was either called The Bar or Norae, I forget)

(Korean bartenders - always up for a wee pose)

(This is the owner of the bar, acting very professionally)

(Myself, Michael, Dave, Todd, James, bar dude. A global mix of Scottish, Irish, American, Canadian, and Australian. Very common in Korea.)

(Stupidly, all wasted at around 9am, a decision was made by a few of us to go farther from home to carry on drinking until noon in the black heart of Itaewon. Itaewon has a terrible reputation as it is, and this pub in particular in regarded as the roughest pub in Seoul. It's called Old Town Seoul, never closes, and is popular with American G.I's. Not one you'd take your mother to really.)

(Outside the pub, an incident of the utmost rarity occurred. Rarer than Halley's comet, a solar eclipse, and an ashtray at Michael Barrymore's house, yes.....your humble narrator was destroyed in an arm wrestling match. Blame the drunkenness, blame the poor surface, or blame the twisted, gnarled guns of the martial arts master Colombian opponent. Love the haircut on the dude to the left. And, in case you have forgotten.......It's because he prefers to chuck fags in the pool!)

(Considering this was at 12 noon, I think we all scrub up fairly well. A trip to Dunkin' Donuts and then bed for days. Or maybe not......)

When I surfaced after a paltry 5 hours sleep, my hangover hadn't even thought about making an appearance. For some strange reason, I decided it would be fun to get on the old beers before my head started pulsating, don the trusty MP3, and go on a solo mission to check out a few bands in Hongdae. After a few beers, however, I appeared at the venue to find it fully closed up. Unsurprising really, as the gig started at 5 and it was now around 10. Instead, I went to some random pubs, spoke to some random Korean folk, and then caught a gig in our usual place, Funky Funky. After returning to my area, I bumped into my neighbour Aaron, who had just purchased some beer from the shop, so we set about drinking these while gnawing on beef jerky. After this feast, I realised I had lost my keys, had to wake up Byron (as Aaron had inexplicably vanished, leaving his door open) and sleep in his spare room, and call out the locksmith to bust my door open the next day.

All in all, not a bad showing so far, but I was happy to calm things down a bit after that weekend. Since then I have hiked Gwanak-san (Ooooh another mountain and temple, some of you will be on the edge of your seats!), spent a week on the sub-tropical volcanic island Jeju-do, and been to the Pentaport festival to see the likes of Muse, Ash, Vassline, and well, ummmmm, some Korean lady covering Tonight Tonight by Smashing Pumpkins. It's all been superb. Next post will have some nice pictures, not just a load of drunken bums. Maybe!

How Many Korean Women Does It Take To Clean An Air Vent?

The answer, apparently, is four. There are often times here when I am left rueing the decision to leave my camera at home, and due to the torrential rain, this was one of those times. In Omokgyo subway station, four elderly women armed with brooms, dusters and dusters attached to brooms, balanced precariously on a wobbly, wheeled piece of scaffolding, each one clamouring to clean the same tiny grate as if tonights kimchi depended upon it. I honestly stopped in my tracks to watch this display, ready to catch any wayward Ajumma's plummeting to their doom. As I walked outside, I was distracted by a load screech followed by the sound of breaking glass. Of course, a bus-driver had misjudged a turn and crunched into a roadside newspaper shack.

The truth was hammered home, I was back in Korea.

It was partly these eccentricities and idiosyncrasies which warmed me to Korean people the first time around, and it's these little moments which help me to settle back in. So, how did I get here? Via London and Frankfurt as it happens. I'd never been to Germany before. I learned it has massive forest coverage, ill-tempered air hostesses, and people who do indeed dress badly and listen to European prog-metal, still. But we'll get to him and my incognito photography.

Due to my Korean recruiter believing, possibly, that Scotland was on the outskirts of London (get the no.53 from Old Kent Rd), they booked me a ticket from Heathrow. I told them that's about as much use as a paper chair, and they had no option but to book a last minute flight from Edinburgh to London, in Business Class. It was a shame that I entered the Business Lounge at 7am, as I soon learned that you were entitled to unlimited alcoholic beverages and foods. I wasn't too hungry, and I'm still at least a year shy of having my glass under a whisky optic while GMTV is still on. There is hope. Instead, I prepared a little tomato juice with trimmings, with my plastic stirrer sticking out in order to look a touch debonair alongside my suited counterparts. I'm sure Del-Boy did it too. Everyone in Business Class seems either epilectic or schizophrenic, or both, screaming at mobile phones, laptops, and each other. Perhaps they should have quaffed the whisky that I wasn't drinking.

Business breakfast on the plane was rather nice, but I would've preferred some bacon with my fat. It seems Joe Public is reluctant to spend 240 pounds on a one hour flight, as everyone up front had 3 seats each. I can't think why.

In Heathrow, I had to face the fear I had harboured ever since the check-in at Edinburgh. Due to my esteemed position in Business Class, I was entitled to limitless luggage weight. This turned out to be a good thing, as my two suitcases totalled a worrying 50kgs, breaking the allowed weight of 20kgs! With each excessive Kg apparently an extra 5 pounds, this was not good.

(Why oh why can I not use the pound sign on this computer. Druff you fool you set this up as American!)

Anyway, with a convoluted story at check-in, blaming various fabricated characters of misinformation, and mastering a resigned look as if my life was in tatters, I checked it all in for free, promising to send a Xmas card for their trouble. Good deal.

Lufthansa. It's German. I think I always thought it was Lithuanian or something, just from lazily scanning the word with no interest. Never been on one of theirs before. The hostesses seemed to curse whenever anyone asked for anything, and seemed almost rascist towards the Koreans on the flight. Plus, they showed 2 shit films compared to Asiana's 6 films and 10 channels on constant rotation. To top it all off, a German tourist sat beside me wearing a stereotypically ill-advised shirt with "Golden California" scribbled across its green, blue, pink, brown and orange material. He then proceeded to listen to 80's rock for the majority of the flight, apart from 4 golden minutes of, and I shit you not, the native language version of German "megastar" Nena's, 99 Red Balloons. Technically that's 99 Luft balloons. Check out the keyboardist with around 2:53 remaining. Priceless.

Here is my mate. Rocking to Nena.

Actually, let's have some pretty pictures from up in the sky, in case any reader has never been on an airplane. Just in case anyone from Eyemouth, Newbigging or Geumchon are reading. Use chariots and trams don't they?

(A wing!)




(Germany - My travelling companion could see his house from here. Allegedly.)



(Another wing)

I didn't sleep at all, and by the time we landed, I felt like someone had drugged my frankfurter (as in my dinner, not the guy beside me, although that would've been a good idea), and the whole immigaration process was as tiresome as before.

And with that, I emerged from Incheon airport, dripping immediately with sweat, into the crazy land I was to call home for another year!

NEXT: The First Weekend (Lost Umbrella, Lost Northy, Lost Mind)

All Gifts Welcome

I'm just posting my address here, so I can quickly check it when I need to! It might take a while to memorize.

Zip Code : 158-070

KnC Hyunjae Language school, 1015-17, Gum-wang Building,

Sinjeong-dong, Yangcheon-gu, Seoul,S.Korea.

Of course I jest with the post title, but if you insist on sending me gifts and luxury items, make sure you put my name on it, or who knows where it will end up. I don't want to leave work and see the elderly Korean janitor chomping on my Double Decker. Damn, that sounds a bit rude.