Familiar Weather

I've got my writing hat on, let's see where this goes.

So when we last parted, I was strapped for time and had to jet because the fuzz had caught onto my trail, wait, wrong book...

No, so I had to get all the way back to my place, make a call and then come back to where I had started in Seomeon. Well that started ok. Aside from the lack of familiar faces I was walking around with the tunes in my head making my footsteps light. I was buzzing through the little underground shopping mall on my way to the subway stop and thought I was going to make good time. Well, wouldn't you know it if someone didn't move the damn subway! I mean really, I walked exactly the way I came, made it to a dead end and scratched my head with that dumbfounded look that our (Republican readers please skip the next five words) President has made so popular. And you know what? No subway. So I backtracked my path like they taught us to do in the Boy Scouts. I peered through the windows, finding the same 80 stores peddling their suits, nike shoes and sportswear, and ladies lingerie. I pulled out the compass and it confirmed that I was in the middle of the underground shopping wilderness. I climbed the stairs back to the street level hoping to find a landmark to put me in my place. It's funny how one's sense of direction can get so jacked when you're 60 feet underground. The street was of little help, all the signs were still in Korean and the magic marker I had hoped for was nowhere in sight. I descended again, beads of sweat around my ticking watch betraying my good mood. I walked back the same way, and wouldn't you know it, the subway had moved back to where it had been absent only a few minutes before. So, somewhat relieved I happily jumped on the subway going the wrong direction.

One, two, skip a few... So I eventually made it back miraculously only about 20 minutes late. We all met up. It was me, A, the lovely young woman who was my recruiter and got me here along with her boyfriend P, the two other foreign teachers from my school (J & S) and our Korean friends who all had somehow managed to find sake which they had been sipping on since I had left them several hours earlier. We hit a western bar and had a Korean Manhattan. This was a typical Korean moment. When you do find a place that serves cocktails, don't be surprised that the drink that is supposed to be mildly sweet and have a cherry anchored to the bottom is replaced with an olive. Furthermore, don't bother to question where they got the olive when you've been to a dozen markets and have not seen a single olive for sale. Some things are best left as life's little mysteries. But if you do, don't look at the movie posters that act as some sort of status symbols for bars and coffee houses here and wonder why they seem to be sole purveyors of American flop films starring Winona Ryder and Richard Gere as star crossed lovers. Don't look around at the cafe and wonder what exactly they were going for when they drape fake vines through the bars that separate the tables and then match this with cow-print sofas. Don't be taken aback when you nickname said coffee shop The Romantic Cow and whatever happens, never question this country's fascination with Kenny Rogers which you WILL find on a signboard at least once every two subway stops. It's a Korean thing you wouldn't understand I don't imagine I'm going to either. Now, back to my dirty Manhattan.

So, now it's near 1 in the morning and since I decided to hold off on a second drink I'm game for another stop. We hop in a taxi and meet the party up at the Vinyl Underground which thanks to no copyright enforcement can happily use the famous banana as their logo. (What is worse is seeing the plastic surgery advertisements on the side of the bus featuring a rather famous picture of my beloved Audrey Hepburn, but I won't go into that tirade currently). The music, well, the best of Hip-Hop circa 1992. I head House of Pain and even a little MC Hammer. I have a suspicious feeling that they're buying their vinyl from the same place that supplies the movie posters to their cafes. But I don't want to sound overly critical. We actually had a really good time even if the lights on the dance floor were a bit better for sunbathing than dancing. At least you knew what everyone looked like, warts and all. I think my fair complexion blinded a couple people unexpectedly but no one said anything so we continued to dance. Oh, I should mention that the DJ's, well they were foreign. I never heard them speak so we're going to pretend they were Australian just to save American face.

Drizzling night but not too terribly cold. We went to the third place that was pretty much across the street. This is about 3 a.m. or so. I get one more beer and scratch in my little black book Hey Ya! (Outkast) on a couple pages holding it up to the DJ. The atmosphere at this place was a bit more to my liking. You walked down the stairs to a basement environment. The ground was wet from sweat, beer or a mixture there of. People were bringing the rain and humidity in from the streets by the bucket load. And for a brief moment, when we were all out there dancing I felt I might had been back at Nasty's, except there were no black people. That is one constant reminder of where I am. And it's not the absence of blacks, or any particular ethnicity. But you look at this huge city of 4 million, you crawl through the streets, lean to the left as a scooter brushes past you on a sidewalk or U-turns in the crosswalk, you go the market searching for peanut butter when an old woman bumps you in passing without any acknowledgment, or perhaps you look at the university area, look into an elementary playground, into an office, a kitchen, construction sight or corporate meeting, they're all asian. True, every once in a while, you'll catch a sidelong glance at someone like you, probably with the same job, but these are such an ultra minority. This is a city the size of Houston, and I think it's a realistic guess that the non-asian community sits around 1% or below. Not that this should come as much of a surprise, but from western sensibilities you walk the streets of Paris, Rio, London, NYC, San Fran, hell even Tallahassee or Istanbul and you expect some sort of a mixed pallet exiting the subway during rush hour. I'll talk more about this at a later period because I think it deserves much more exploration and this entry was supposed to be about the weather. So I'll just mention in conclusion, that back at that last bar, I went to get a coke because I wasn't really drinking that much, and I let my American sensibilities get the better of me. You usually expect a coke in a bar to cost you no more than a buck or two, always cheaper than a beer or alcohol. Well, I paid 2.50 for my beer earlier and 4.00 for my coke. Maybe this is why most of the Korean men are stumbling most nights.

Well, the weather, it's a bit like Houston. You can wake up, stumble to the bathroom and notice that it's entirely grey and drizzling, fall back to sleep for another hour and wake to clear skies and no trace of precipitation. You can go out in heavy coat on Friday night and the following afternoon find a light sweater making you sweat even though you can't see the sun through the clouds. That it for the evening.

I'm running desperately low on tobacco over here and am not feeling terribly anxious to start smoking the pixie sticks people find so popular over here, so if anyone wants to help out....

And to all those who've been so good to email, thank you. It helps immensely but I apologize for being a bit behind on responding to everyone. But please, keep them coming. I'm going to go climb in bed with Los Hermanos Karamazov.

xoxo,

-c.

Music: Elvis & Mr. Otis Redding