Cast Away

If you can’t visit your family because you’re on the other side of the world, then you bring your family to you. And that’s precisely what happened two weeks ago when my mom and dad took the 17 hour, trans-oceanental flight to visit. It was great to show my folks around the place I call home and let them espy my lifestyle here in Korea. Perhaps the greatest thing about having your begetters come visit you, besides the visiting itself, is the complete roll reversal that occurs. All of sudden your parents come over to a foreign country and completely rely on you for everything. It’s like living every thirteen year-olds' dream. They don’t know where to go, how to get around, or where to get food. When we went out to a restaurant they were totally dependent on what I said and what I ordered. When they first arrived they slept on the floor in their sleeping bags and it was I who was perched high above the lowly plebeians, nestled comfortably on my bedstead. Of course things changed: they got their bearings quickly, figured things out, I was sleeping on the floor, and the cosmic forces of the universe were realigned.


The first weekend they arrived we tried to walk around and see as much of this sprawling city as we could. It had been quite some time since I’d been with a group of people who were as inexorable towards taxis as I once was. Since I’ve been in Seoul, I’ve become a bit more metropolitan and occasionally consider taking other forms of transportation from time to time. But once the Horsewood’s reunited I returned to my old ways and used my own two feet to trek across the city. While my folks were here it was a little difficult to be savvy and proficient tour guide by day and maintain my social life with my co-workers by night. A few acetaminophen later, a couple of gallons of water and a few cold showers proved to cure the problem.

I am pulling the "half Dao" on the Rat statue; the Chinese zodiac for my mom and me.

Looking back on the week, I am glad I was able to saunter around the city so much, because little did I know I was about to "severely" damage my left ankle while playing basketball. For about two weeks prior to the 18th Chuck and I had been playing basketball every night at the local park. Things had been going well, we were starting to get back into shape and our game was no longer embarrassing. Then I went up for a rebound and landed awkwardly on my left ankle. It instantly swelled faster an 85 year-old man’s prostate. Some of the onlookers analogized it to a baseball, some said softball, Chuck went so far as to say it was as big as his "ball sack"; either way, it wasn’t pretty.


Luckily there was a hospital very close by and me and three other teachers were in Emergency in no time. I’ll tell you right now, I was given special treatment based entirely on the colour of my skin. I walked into the ER room and was pushed passed hordes of people who looked sick and in some cases much worse than myself. I am all for fairness, but somehow I seemed a little indifferent when my ankle felt like it was going to burst. I was greeted by a young woman who had just finished her medical degree in Maryland, spoke perfect English, understood slang and profanity and she said she would be helping us out. If you ever have to spend some time in the emergency room, heaven forbid, I recommend being there with Chuck. Laughter truly is the best medicine. Before the doctor could even ask what happened and where the pain was, Chuck inquired, “So doc, how long until me and him can start having sex again? I can go two or three days tops without it, so hit me with the news now. Will he be okay or should I start looking for a new partner?”


I was taken away for some x-rays. I was completely satisfied with the treatment I received at the hospital, although I wasn’t given a lead bib to cover my “thunder” while electromagnet waves passed through my flesh. I swear I could hear my testicles asking, ever so quietly, if everything was okay? After this I was back with Chuck and the rest of the gang. The doctor was there asking questions and so too was Chuck.
“Hey doc, can people who are paralysed from the waist down still ejaculate?”
(Apparently some can and some can’t)

Chuck: “So are you really a doctor?”
Doctor: ”Yes, I am just not wearing my lab coat.”
Chuck: “Can you put it on, do a little dance and spin around for me?”


A week after the accident. The ligaments up my leg started to bruise sometime during the week. It was like a surprise party compliments of the human body.

After getting a full back-slab cast, I was released from ER and sent to the front desk to... pay. As a Canadian it was the most bizarre and foreign concept. Although we are covered by our insurance through the school, we still have to pay a small fee that is not covered for each appointment. While I was completely floored having to pay $90 for an x-ray, a cast, an emergency visit and crutches, Chuck, the American among us, told me to make for the door and run, bad foot and all, for they were surely about to charge me thousands of dollars more. He estimated that back home that little visit would have cost about $1500. Two days later I watched the movie “Sicko” and revelled when thinking about the Canadian healthcare system and a great man called Tommy Douglas.


Really just milking some sympathy with this picture.

While it has proved a little difficult being in a cast and only having the use of one leg, there are definitely some advantages about life for the next 4 to 6 weeks.

Pros:

• I only have to wash half the number of socks.
• My right leg will be huge, as my left atrophies. Luckily I just read in Cosmo that asymmetry is all the fashion rage right now (Jean Chretien and I are pretty pleased). Okay, this isn't true, but if I ever need to kick down a door, Chuck Norris style, then I think by the end of this my right leg might be up for it.
• I save tons of water while showering and can feel Al Gore giving me a high-five every morning.
• There’s a new sense of accomplishment when you only have the use of one leg. For example, having a shower, shaving and putting on a new pair of boxers is quite a rewarding and tiresome task. “What did you do this weekend?” ~~ “I went out to a club on Saturday, went to a palace on Sunday and hung out with some friends on Sunday night. How about you?” ~~ “I put on some fresh underwear sometime on Sunday afternoon. Boo ya!”
• There's always a chance that my left leg will someone hyper-heal itself, a la "Rookie of the Year," and for the first time in my life I might be able to kick a soccer ball with my left foot.

Con:

• When going to the bathroom on one leg you sometimes lose your balance. This can lead to a bit of a mess as you jump around on one foot and subsequently fling your "hose" in all directions. Luckily this has only happened while at my house and not in a busy, public restroom with urinals. Splash-back is one thing to deal with, but an out-of-control expeller is quite another.


My kids love to sign my cast. It's touching.

Quixotically,

“E” “N”

Baejek and Beckham

Two weekends ago the face, nay the image, of England came to Korea. And no it wasn’t Margaret Thatcher, although a 24 year-old boy can dream, can’t he? Maybe in heaven Margie, maybe in heaven. In fact, it was Mr. David “Posh Spice” Beckham who came to town to play a little soccer against Seoul FC two weekends ago. It didn’t take much convincing for any of us to fork out a few won (Korean currency) and watch the man who is synonymous for bending the soccer ball. The rest of the L.A. Galaxy was there too, but I am not sure if anyone really noticed. The game was good, although Mr. Beckham really was the main event. People would cheer and yell whenever there was a corner kick and Dave (we’ve got a pretty close relationship, he said Dave, or D-Beck, was okay with him) walked towards the ball and crossed it back into play.


I also witnessed one of the best examples of why I love Asia and perhaps specifically Korea while attending the game. Chuck (a fellow teacher) and I were taking a little break from the action to buy a hotdog (and most likely a beer or three). A little boy, who was no older than 10, went up to the counter in front of us and purchased a hot dog of his own. He seemed very content and excited to eat his food, as all ten-year olds are when it comes to hotdogs. As the boy left we saw the young teenager behind he counter reach into her wallet and pull out the equivalent to a dollar and put it in the cash register. We were curious as to what just happened and inquired. In understandable, but broken English, she explained that the little tot was a dollar short for his frankfurter and she didn’t have the heart to tell him. So, instead of making a scene and telling this little guy that he was short some money, this young woman put a dollar of her own into the till. The remarkable part is, the minimum wage, which she is bound to be making, is $3.50 an hour. So Chuck, being the down-right-decent fellow that he is, balanced the karmic forces of the universe and donated a dollar so that all would be fair. It was the commonality of her gesture that made it remarkable.


The end of February marked the end of the school semester, which meant that many of our students graduated and our teaching schedules were all mixed up. To mark the end of Kelly’s contract and the teaching of two of our favourite classes we decided that we would make a pinata and have a snack party. We spent a few nights at the end of the month, sculpting and perfecting our masterpiece. In the end we were both pretty pleased with our Nemo pinata. The students also had a little going away present for us too. It was a nice day to be a teacher.



This past weekend Chuck and I decided to visit the small town of Gongju as per Lonely Planet’s recommendation. It didn’t have the greatest writeup ever, but it was a quick trip and easy to organize. We made the best of an okay situation.


This dog had a full leg cast on. But what else would you expect in Gongju?

Our first fun experience occurred when we went to get some information at the information booth (slightly redundant I suppose) and the woman behind the glass asked us to come in and edit their very poorly translated brochures. So if you ever find yourself in Gongju attending the Baejek festival and start reading about the “rich history and cultural breadth of the Baejek people” than you’ll know who wrote it. I think I might have to try and work that into my resume somehow too: International Information Consultant has a nice ring.


Being a small town, we were a little unsure where the nightlife and the popular people might be hanging out. After careful deliberation we decided that the bowling alley must be where all the hip “peeps” would be. We saw a giant bowling pin on the top of a building when we got into town and headed back there later on in the evening. Usually I wouldn’t mention the number of beers I’ve had, but I think it is important to know that we had been drinking steadily all day. We walked into the 6 story building and started asking people where the bowling alley was. A few people told us that there was no longer an alley in the building, but that didn’t satisfy us. So we got our MacGyver on and decided that we could probably find the bowling alley that didn’t exist. We went up a few floors and decided that this was a residential building and it seemed unlikely that there would be a lane on, or above, where people lived, so we headed to the basement. There was no sign of business occurring down there, but we were certain there must be one, so we started to open doors. We opened one door that was slightly ajar, poked our head in, said “hello” and were motioned to enter by the two women in the room. They showed us to the only table in the middle of the room. At the time we thought we were in a restaurant without any reason to think differently. There was no menu, signs on the wall or any pictures so we started to name off any Korean food we could think of. “Dong Kaus?” “Dulsot bibimbap?” Nope. But they did have kimchi jiggae, which is a spicy soup. We sat down and a little girl in her pyjamas came and joined us. She was the cutest child I’ve ever seen, I think the accompanying photo will attest to this. She said “hello” to us in English and then Chuck and I started teaching her how to respond and properly annunciate “How are you?” and “I am fine thank you.” After a while she got an English book out and we started reading her a bedtime story. One of the women was on the (home) computer beside the dining room table and the other was in the kitchen cooking us up a feast. The two of us ate the best jiggae we’ve had and shot the shit for about an hour in there. We said our goodbyes, and paid 10,000 won for our meal, although there was no register.


We woke up the next morning and started asking some questions. It didn’t take long for us to conclude that we actually weren’t in a restaurant. We just opened a door in a residential complex, sat down and started ordering food at a person’s house. If you ever come to Korea you’ll realize if a restaurant doesn’t have bibimbap, than it’s not a restaurant. These kind women just started making us whatever food they had in their house and then quoted us a reasonable rate for their time, effort and grub. And that’s why you should never drink all day long. Then again, maybe that’s why you should drink all day long. It’s a tad debatable I suppose.


This room had a 1000 pint-sized bronze Buddhas. It was like ice cream for your eyes.

Erotically and Exotically,

Yub-ba-say-Dro

P.S. I installed a program some time ago that is able to track who comes to my blog and how they get there. Since early November, 4 people have come across my site by entering “Korean urinal.” Some other interesting searches have been “camera room sex noraebang” and “hillary clinton fundraiser in korean museum.” I should probably try and work that into my resume somehow too.

Beijing jing jing

Probably not the most appropriate photo or best representation of Beijing, but if you were a twenty-four year old and saw a subway station with a name like that you'd of done the same.

To the North American world it’s Chinese New Year, to the other 1.2 billion or so Asians it’s Lunar New Year. Calling it Lunar New Year is the least you could do for countries like East Timor and the 1,084,000 East Timorese who celebrate this festive occasion. Semantics aside, a group of teachers from our school decided that there would be no better place to jubilate than the epicentre of Lunar New Year – Beijing.


I am glad I went to Beijing simply to debunk any myths and preconceptions I may have had about China. Beijing might just be the most developed looking city I have ever visited. Everything looks immaculate on the outside and the architecture is modern, eclectic and brilliant. There are McDonald’s and KFCs everywhere and a few Starbucks are rearing their caramel, frappuccino, latte heads. Beijing was a city of cell-phones, iPods, MTV and brand new and brand named cars. Not something I expected from a communist nation. It was hard to know if all of these changes were merely an impressive facade that will hopefully fool the world when everyone is tuned in this summer to watch the Olympics, or whether this nation is merely booming. Although I only spent five days there, I am inclined to feel it is the latter. Watch out for China. It’s going to get big (and I don't mean population) in a hurry!


But don’t trust my weary tourist eye. Here are some recent facts from the BBC: China’s exports in January increased 26.7% to $109.7 billion, the biggest year-on-year rise in six months. Imports rose 27.6% to $90.2 billion, the biggest increase in almost two years.


Inside the Forbidden City. The biggest maroon wall I've ever seen. Aquamarine no, I've seen bigger, but maroon, yes the biggest wall I've seen.

But it must be said that I only saw urban China and not rural China. Urban China is home to the rich and multi-national corporations. Rural China, home to about 700 million people, is not an idyllic and bucolic place like it is in the developed world. It is place where people don’t want to be, and in the last 10 years somewhere between 100 and 150 million fled the countryside and headed towards the city. After being to Beijing I can imagine why so many would make this their destination.


I’ll skip giving you the details chronologically, but Beijing was good to the six of us. First we went to Tiananmen Square. I had this great idea for a perfect photo op, but it proved a bit more difficult to get my hands on three tanks then I imagined. We managed to enter the Forbidden City on New Year’s Day and celebrate with what seemed like 908.5 million other Chinese people. As we were walking around, I noticed a basketball court inside the Chinese imperial palace (the most obvious place for a basketball court) and two Chinese guards shooting some hoops. I could resist giving them the “hey, my basketball brethren can we shoot around?” They understood and accepted the international nod, and in no time we were playing three on three inside the Forbidden City with two out of uniform Chinese Army men. They were really good and really tall (another myth) and from this point on, we shall refer to the one guy as Yao Ming.


Because it was Lunar New Year and we were in the country that invented, and is synonymous with, fireworks, there were explosions for two straight days. It didn’t matter that it was noon and nobody could appreciate the colours, the fact that the boom right beside you might actually cause your colon to have an unexpected movement seemed a good enough reason to ignite fireworks all day. By the second day it almost became a peaceful background noise, even at three in the morning. Of course we couldn’t shy away from the fun ourselves.


Blackcats are fun. So are 12,000 of them.

Being in Beijing it almost goes without saying that we visited the Great Wall of China. This structure lives up to its name. It was incredibly beautiful. I still can’t get over how this wall endlessly snakes over the mountainous, country terrain of China. To me it seemed somewhat useless to build a wall, seeing as how the mountains were a natural defence, but I guess I wasn’t there trying to keep those tenacious Mongol’s out of the country all those years ago. Coming in a close second to the wall was the way we made out exit. All great wonders of the world should have zip lines that let you plummet and soar over a lake as you take in the sights of an international spectacle. For $6 this is exactly what we got to do.




Kelly and I zip-lining off the Great Wall. Now that's an exit!

The weekend after this, five of us decided to go skiing and snowboarding one last time before the weather started to turn. We went to a resort called Yongpyong. Now of course you’ve never heard of it, but this place lost to Vancouver by three votes to host the 2010 Olympics. It’s a pretty serious ski hill and you can understand why I wanted to go. After going skiing twice in your life, you really do start to demand and deserve the best. Like all third time skiers I was completely entitled to Olympic class skiing. An excellent day on the slopes, and when the hills are that high, and excellent day on the lifts.



The best (and most co-ordinating) outfit the rental people at Yongpyong could lend me. Despite feeling like a banana dildo all day, I was easily recognizable by my friends.

That’s all for now,

Amatorially,

Mangina