I wandered lonely as a cloud

Before you begin reading the blog post proper, here's a question for you: How many squares are there on a chessboard? (Hint: a lot more than 64.) The answer is many paragraphs down.

I have only two hard-and-fast appointments during this week off from school: a bar trivia quiz with friends last (Wednesday) night and a follow-up hearing test/doctor visit tomorrow.

Yesterday afternoon around 2:30, I was sick of being in the apartment and convinced myself to leave for Itaewon, even though I'd agreed with my friend Jane to meet her at Phillies Pub by 8:00 to save a table for the 9:00 game. I wanted to walk, I wanted to see things on this first full (very nice) day of spring, and mostly I just wanted to do something. (I'm thinking of a song my mom used to sing to me long ago: "The bear went over the mountain to see what he could see.") In my pack, I had my hash happi coat, patches for the patch lady in Itaewon to sew on it, and books to trade in at What the Book. And I had lots and lots of time.

So I set out on the seven-mile-or-so walk to Itaewon, along the Yangjae Cheon and along the back streets amidn all the kimbap restaurants and convenience stores. After an hour, I'd walked three miles, I was in Gangnam, my knee was starting to twinge, I could already feel the wind off the river I'd need to walk across, and there was the 421 bus to Itaewon, just sitting there with lots of empty seats...

So I got to Itaewon a lot earlier than my ETA, which was already really early. I dropped off my happi and patches and went over to WTB to swap out a Janet Evanovich, a Robert B. Parker, and a Korean for Dummies book, which proved true to its title by teaching no Korean letters whatsoever, for one Dalai Lama.

No, not this one.

 Then I had a coffee and went back to pick up my happi. (Incidentally, I just Google Image-searched for "happi coat + hash" and found five pictures from this blog. Huh.)  By then, I only had 2 3/4 hours till I was supposed to meet Jane. It was time to wander.

I've written about Itaewon several times before, but I don't know if someone who hasn't been there can really picture it. It's just around the corner from the United States' huge Yongsan Army Base. Itaewon features dozens of people selling socks and hats and toys out of motorized kiosks on the streets, about a million bars and restaurants of every cuisine on Earth, innumerable shops selling oversized hip-hop clothing for American soldiers, a bevy of Korean gentlemen who stand in front of their shops (windows adorned with people like Walter Cronkite and US generals shaking their hands) and ask a thousand men a day, "Custom-made suit, sir?", and, on the sidewalk and in the streets, Nigerians and Russians and Turks and Americans and Pakistanis and Poles and Egyptians and even a whole bunch of Koreans.

I'd never really explored "Food Street" behind the monolithic Hamilton Hotel before, but I went in search of Honest Loving Hut, the vegan place I'd heard so much about. I didn't find it. In the lanes on the other side of the main street, I did find Hyundae Sauna ("Korea's Biggest Queer Shelter"), whose door had the repeated close-up motif of what I can only assume from the drawing style is Homer Simpson's Private Area, as well as the most honestly named bar in Asia, "Are You Ready to Drink?"

I wonder as I wander. I was thinking Deep Thoughts and enjoying the sights of Itaewon's back streets and my solitude in the crowd. The sun was lowering in the west but it was still warm enough to have my windbreaker tied around my waist. There is so short a spring here, and an even shorter fall, and they're both beautiful.

Then I started on the half-mile walk to the other great Waegook (foreigner) neighborhood, Haebongchan, home of Phillies Pub, our trivia site. On the way down the main road from Itaewon, you pass the huge, ornate Noksapyeoung subway station...

This is its skylight. Those little dashes are pigeons. It's a big place.

...walk along the interminable, razor-wire-topped wall of the Yongsan Garrison, turn left at the end of the wall by the big kimchi pots...

...and head straight toward Seoul Tower, whose shifting nighttime colors make it quite the sight, up on Mount Namsan.

But you mustn't get transfixed by the tower, because Haebongchan-daero, the street, is narrow and has neither sidewalks nor shoulders. What it does have, though, is haphazardly parked cars on both sides and a steady stream of traffic, much of which is being driven by drunks or, worse, cabbies. Too fast. At dusk, in this case.

After stopping on the main road for some gourmet basil/tomato pizza and exploring another little neighborhood on the slopes of Namsan, I picked my was along Haebongchan-daero to Phillies, where I arrived at 7:15. Phillies is tiny and if I'd met Jane at 8:00 as planned, we never would have gotten a table.

But despite my incessant prattling here about everything I saw, at its heart this post is about solitude. For many hours, I had nothing in particular to do and nobody to talk to. I wandered and felt alone. I don't know if other people feel as I do, or if it's just me being a loner, but for all my life I've many times where I've sought out solitude in the outdoors. The feeling isn't sadness, but it's not happiness either. It's a kind of satisfied loneliness, if that makes any sense, a sort of solace in separateness.

Hmm... separateness, serenity, satisfaction, solitude. The Sound of Silence. Stephen. And my favorite word in our language, solace.

See Robert Frost's "Acquainted With the Night"

Okay. My fifty minutes are up.

Moving on.

I held down the table at Phillies for quite awhile, quietly growling at anyone who looked as if they might want to steal chairs, till my peeps arrived.

 No, not these.

Finally, we were all there: my hashing friends Jane, Martin from Ireland, Emily, and Kat, Jane's friend Ally from Scotland, and me. There are only two big tables at Phillies and a half-dozen little round ones. The big ones housed us and the Team That Comes Every Week and Never, Ever Loses. (That was my folks, Brian, Nancy, Todd, and me, aka Hogwarts, in St. Augustine.) We wished very much to beat them.

We finished second, by one point. That was good for two free pitchers of beer (plus one from when we played a few weeks ago). But the good part...

After each trivia game proper, Phillies asks a bonus question. The pot starts at 100,000 Won and goes up 5,000 in each week in which nobody gets the answer. They had gone 17 weeks without a winner and the pot was now up to $185,000 ($163). The question was the one I asked at the top of this post: how many squares are there on a chessboard? Ally frantically scribbled "64" and ran toward the MC as I screamed, "Ally, come back! Come back!" (I knew very well they weren't giving out 185,000 Won for "64".)

He came back and the two of us figured it out: one 8x8 square, four 7x7 squares (two horizontally times two vertically), nine 6x6s (three horizontally times three vertically), 16 5x5s, 25 4x4s, 36 3x3s, 49 2x2s, 64 1x1s...

The answer is 204. If you got it right, I'll share my winnings with you when you come to Korea to visit me.

Ally tipped the bartender and bought shots for the quizmasters with the winnings, then split the money with me. I got 70,000 Won, or double what I'd spent on the whole day. I grabbed the subway home and got back at 12:30 a.m., coated in cigarette smoke, beer fumes, and glory.

But really this post is about solitude. That's what I'll remember about Wednesday, March 21, 2012. That, and 204.

"Thank you, fermented cabbage!"

...or, as the famous Korean pop singer Gogi Loaf sang, "I out of sam ain't bad."

We're just now halfway through our two-week spring break. (Actually, if you count the weekends, we'll be precisely halfway through at midnight tomorrow-- Saturday-- night. But I don't know if you count the weekends.)

 

Yeah, I'm as surprised as you are; I've never been a fifteenth-century king before.

I came into break determined to go places and do things. On Monday, Vanessa, our Chinese teacher from China, and I went to see The King's Speech, which is as good as they say. Then we went to Dos Tacos for dinner and Oktoberfest for beer. (A couple of years ago, if you'd told me I'd be in Korea, going to a British movie, a Mexican restaurant, and a German beer hall with a Chinese woman, I'd'a told you that you should book the padded room next to Glen Beck's.) The Korean waitresses in their Bavarian dirndls were very cute, by the way, and the beer-- brewed on the premises-- was wunderbar.

Vanessa and I had barely talked in the year and a half we've been colleagues; she's shy around people she doesn't know well, and I am too, so of course we hadn't gotten to know each other. But on Monday we never ran out of things to talk and laugh about and had a wonderful time. It's nice to have a new friend.

Other than that, though, until today I hadn't done a dang thing but run, do schoolwork and housework, read, and nap. Untanned, rested, and ready, that's me. Until I ran into Chris and Vanessa this evening in Faina's apartment, where we'd all stopped in to tend her cat, I hadn't spoken to anyone in four days.

I've been reading a book called Predictably Irrational, about the ways in which we all defeat our own best interests by our illogical behavior. (Stick with me; this is relevant.) This morning I reached the chapter about how we get frozen by having too many choices. I realized that is exactly what happened to me this week; each day I couldn't decide whether to go to a movie or a bookstore or a palace or on a hike and ended up talking myself out of all of them.

"Aha!" says I. "Today, by Jove, I shan't be deterred by such irresolution!"

So I set off with three goals in mind: to relax at the jjimjilbang (whirlpool/sauna complex) at the Central City mall; investigate getting a smartphone at the Seoul Global Center office near City Hall; check into free Korean classes at the Korean Foundation Cultural Center, also near City Hall. (My nifty new Seoul guidebook told me about options one and three.)

Central City, like the COEX Mall, seems to have been laid out by moles with architectural degrees. It just winds all over the place, with no maps, no information booths, and inadequate signage. I never did find the jjimjilbang.

But I hit the jackpot at the City Hall stop. I really hadn't expected to sign up for a smartphone; I've been doing okay with my five-buck-a-month prepay on my old phone. But a brand-new Android phone came free and it only costs 30 bucks a month for more talk, texts, and 'net than I can possibly use. I wish I had it to play with tonight, but I'll have to wait till Tuesday. At the end of the signup, I meant to tell the sales rep, "Kamsahamnida, Kim ssi!" ("Thank you, Miss Kim!") Sadly, what I actually said was, "Kamsahamnida, Kim chi!" ("Thank you, fermented cabbage!")

Now about those Korean lessons...

(An aside: the chaebol-- family-run corporations-- here are into everything. LG, for example, has spun off electronics, telecom, chemical, toiletries, and fashion divisions. My new contract is with LG Telecom, but the phone is made by Samsung-- quite an ad for LG phones, I guess.)

It's been a windy and chilly, but sunny, day; spirits high, I set off toward the statues of the great national heroes Admiral Yi, who repelled the Japanese invaders with his turtle boats...

and King Sejong, who ordered the creation of hangeul, the brilliantly designed Korean alphabet...

 

...and  was delighted to find a booth that was, for free, lending out King Sejong robes for photo ops. So cool!

I was in a wonderful mood and wandered about taking more photos. Oh, here's one now...

 

...and another...

 

...and used the last of the gift card I got from the PTA on Lunar New Year on a delicious beuloobaeri mawpin and keopi (blueberry muffin and coffee) at the first Starbucks with three floors and an elevator I'd ever been in, and browsed and browsed at the huge Kyobo Bookstore. I would have gone to the Yousuf Karsh photo portrait exhibit...

 (He took some purty good pitchers.)

...at the Sejong Museum, but it opens tomorrow. Ah, well, I'll go back.

Then I took the ten-minute walk to the Cultural Center, which has an art museum and performance space as well as free Korean classes. I'd long ago decided it wasn't all that vital for me to know Korean beyond the alphabet and a few stock phrases, but in the spirit of "what the heck, it's free" I registered for 12 weeks of classes. Heck, if I don't get anything out of it, what the heck, it's free. Did I mention that?

I was feeling good, part of the huge city with its deluxe hotels and giant tv screens around the square, and for a split-second, as I headed west to the Cultural Center, I honestly thought that if I just kept walking I'd reach the Hudson River piers. It was the strangest sensation... maybe it's because of the Chevrolet billboards that have been popping up since GM Daewoo decided that all their Daewoos are now Chevys.

So, one week down. Tomorrow will  bring my friend Katy's birthday hash. (If you haven't been paying attention for the last four months, that's running and drinking, not a replacement for birthday cake. We're all running in pearls.) Toward the end of next week, my friend and colleague Bob and I are headed for the DMZ. If we wander over the line, I suppose Bill Clinton won't come to get us; we're are not young, pretty, or female. I'm holding out hope for Scarlett Johansson.

Meanwhile, it's been a big day. As a wise expat said long ago, i out of sam ain't bad.

Serendipity and solitude

Our school just started its two-week spring break, and the challenge for me will be to find things to do to fill the time. I mean besides grading, planning, writing, cleaning, and other such exciting gerunds.

I usually only hash one day a week, Saturday mornings with my home kennel, Yongsan Kimchi. But with no appointments for the next 17 days, on Friday night I ventured up to Itaewon for the once-monthly Full Moon Hash. This was my sixth separate hashing group: Yongsan Kimchi, Southside, Osan Bulgogi (down in the city of Songtan, next to the US Air Force base), PMS (on their semiannual coed hash), 38th Parallel, and Full Moon.

Frankly, I should have stayed home, for a couple of reasons. The actual hash was fun, running around the hills and back streets of Itaewon in the dark with a flashlight. Afterward, though, there was no traditional hashing circle-- ceremonies and jokes and risque songs-- just a small number of hashers taking up one corner of a noisy, smoky bar. I left early. And by Sunday, the running on Friday and Saturday would... well, you'll see.

The thing that will amaze those of you who know me too well is that I (wait for it-- you may want to sit down-- ah, you're probably already doing that; you may want to hold on to something) I declined to buy a commemorative t-shirt. Yeah, I said it. I love love love t-shirts and I love, especially after being in Korea for 2 1/2 years without really belonging to anything much, belonging to something. (I also am avid to collect hash patches-- sort of like demerit badges-- for my happi coat.) So of course I had to buy the Full Moon Hash shirt, with its terrific graphic of a rabbit howling at the moon.

...except that the O's in the "Full Moon" lettering were actually a stylized butt (full moon, get it?) and the rest of the lettering was in that faux-Chinese style, which I find vaguely offensive, you see on cheap "Chinee Takee-Outee" restaurant menus. (If it had been faux-Korean I might have reconsidered, but, really, where could I feel comfortable wearing the shirt?) But I moped a little because I missed out on a hash shirt because it didn't suit me to a t.

The next morning, I loaded up the goodies I'd bought from Costco and E-Mart, in my new capacity as "hash chef", and headed via bus and subway and subway to the Noksapyeong area. (It's a little slower going when you're toting bagels, cream cheese, peanut butter, jelly, pretzels, tortilla chips, and cookies.)

This Yongsan Kimchi run was a celebration of both St. Pat's Day  and DODIC'S 55th birthday. DODIC is a military guy who's been a hardcore hasher for 30 years, by my estimation between 1500 and 2000 times. He and two other hares led us up and over Namsan Mountain (where, sliding down a long flat rock covered with pebbles, I earned my Red Badge of Carelessness by cutting my thumb, just enough to bleed a bit.) We ended up across the street from Gyeongbokgung, Korea's grandest palace, for an epic circle.

TKO (I don't think I should say what those letters stand for) and GI Ho, a Real American Zero.

...where I got my reward for my fiscal and sartorial restraint of the night before: three patches: 20th Run (all with Yongsan Kimchi, all within 19 weeks; St. Patrick's Day Hash; and the coveted Blood on Trail. Aaaaand a t-shirt: on the front, a SPEED LIMIT 55 sign, with bullet holes in it, altered to read "NO SPEED LIMIT 55 (AND STILL ALIVE)"; on the back, the logos of all of Korea's hashing groups.

The defining quality of Seoul, to me, is its mix of ancient and very modern.

On my way to the subway station and Insadong, Seoul's artsy pedestrian mall, I came upon a little Buddhist gift shop and wandered in. In my first serendipitous event of the weekend, I found a rack of wooden-bead prayer bracelets identical to mine. Last week, I was talking to our new hasher Sin after the run and she greatly admired my bracelet and said she'd love to have one if she could get one etched with her Chinese sign, the Rat. (We disagreed on which of us had us worse in the Zodiacal field, her as a Crab in the Western system and a Rat, or me as a Snake and a Scorpion.)

The ladies in the shop spoke no English and I certainly didn't know the Korean for "Rat", so I was about to give up when it occurred to me to employ my mad Pictionary/Eat Poop You Cat skillz and draw this magnificent picture in my notebook:

...and thus got Sin her bracelet. I also found an English bookstore next door and bought a wonderful guidebook to Seoul's attractions, which I'm going to employ on this vacation.

Insadong had a great number of people, both Korean and waegookin, wearing green in honor of St. Patrick.

 Ah... not so much green in this picture. Faith and begorrah. The banner is for St. Pat, at least.

I bumped into GI Ho, Kiwi Weewee, Willing to Pay, and Bootylicious from the hash, and then came my second serendipity: I was wearing my "Ithaca is Gorges" hoodie and a young woman stopped, asked "Are you from Ithaca?" and exclaimed, "I'm from Rochester!" Small world-- Rochester is 90 miles from Ithaca-- but it would get smaller and more serendipitous the next day.

On Sunday afternoon, I went for my "long" training run, supposedly for 90 minutes; my half-marathon is just three weeks away. But I did fine for a measly 20 minutes, down the Yangjae Cheon toward Gwacheon City, and just... ran... out... of... oomph. I told you that hashing on Friday night (leading into hashing on Saturday) was a mistake! I just didn't have anything left on Sunday. I'm worried about the half coming up.

Anyway, I turned around and walked oomphlessly back home along the stream. As I got to the ramp to my street, a Korean guy was walking down it and smiling in a quizzical way at me. I knew I must know him from someplace... a waiter at the Vietnamese cafe? The guy from the sandwich shop?... so I smiled back and said hello.

The guy said, "You are Stephen?" I had to admit that I was, and flailed about mentally to figure out who he was. It was Pil-kon (English name, Ara), a very genial guy who always came to our Daegu Writers' Group meetings! I hadn't seen him in nearly two years, and that in a city nearly at the other end of Korea. It turns out that he was visiting his sister, who lives in my neighborhood, for the week.

Now... what are the odds that in a metropolitan area of 23 million people, Ara-- my only Korean acquaintance from Daegu with whom I didn't work-- would be coming down the ramp at the same moment I reached it? And at that, I was only there then because my run had failed so spectacularly. I wonder how many times we miss by this much running into somebody from our past... or our future.

---

I'd meant for this post to include my thoughts about our spring break and about being alone, but it's gone on for so long even I don't want to read any more. So I'll leave the heading, because I like it, but split the "solitude" part off to stand... um... alone.

A sunlightful weekend

One of my students, in his effort to write vivid English, accidentally created the word sunlightful.It's a beautiful word, no less so for its absence from any and all dictionaries. I like it. A lot. I'm using it from now on.

And it has indeed been a sunlightful weekend, with crisp fall weather and an abundance of sunshine. I've used my time.


I started the weekend as grumpy as Lewis Black in Hell. But, like the guy in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who got turned into a newt, "I got better."

It started when I got a glorious Butterfinger Pancakes brunch date canceled out from under me on Saturday morning. My friends, if Heaven has a Denny's, it's Butterfinger Pancakes in Gangnam.  :: sigh ::

I moped about the apartment awhile, spectral pancakes dancing syruptitiously about my head, and finally decided I needed to go somewhere. My somewheres tend to be the same few places: Gangnam, the COEX Mall and Itaewon for books, E-Mart and Costco for everything else. This time I was hoping for a little exercise and something different; I've been dying for a good hike but haven't wanted to interfere with my marathon training (or, for that matter, turn an ankle or fall off a mountain or anything before the big race.) (Afterward would be fine.)

I poked around online and found a listing for Umyeonsan ("Sleeping Cow Mountain"), just one subway stop from our nearest station, Yangjae. So I went there.

This city is full of surprises... just a few minutes' walk from the Nambu Bus Terminal, I started up a steep dirt trail on Umyeonsan. Trails separate, rejoin, and wind around all over the mountain, with few signs, even in Korean. I had a vague idea of heading to Daesongsa, the mountain's Buddhist temple, but no idea how to get there. So I just headed up and up, the noise of the massive city all around receding and the sound of magpies and breeze growing stronger, winding around amidst the pine trees.

After a half hour or so, I came upon a signpost that said "Daesongsa" in hangeul. (Being able to read the writing, even though I don't usually know what the words mean, has proven time and again to be invaluable.)

Daesongsa is the smallest temple I've been to, a single building for worship, surrounded by a fountain, a one-story office suite, and a gift shop: a tiny outbuilding, with bracelets, incense, books, and tapes, that operates, unstaffed, on the honor system.

Click on the above photo twice-- not a double-click-- for a detailed closeup.

 (This is not me.)

 (Nor is this Tug.)

For a Saturday, there were remarkably few people around, on the mountain or on the temple grounds, which added to the serenity I get hiking in the woods and at Buddhist sites. After strolling around for a bit, I looked upward at the lovely Umyeonsan woods with their endless (steep) trails, thought about the badly-needed peace I might find there, thought about the (steep) trails... and headed down the paved road to the city below.

And that was my next surprise... like some cartoon of a shipwrecked man on a supposedly deserted shore who one day discovers a Club Med on the other side of the island, after a short downhill walk I found myself on the grounds of the Seoul Arts Center, with its opera and symphony halls, art museum, and plaza with coffee shops, restaurants, and dancing fountains. It was like stepping forward a thousand years in five minutes. This, for example...

...is a pedestrian bridge just down the block from the Arts Center; it's just a tad more modern than the temple grounds so close by.

---

Today is one week to the marathon (my five-plus-hour moment of truth), and the Seoul Flyers held their monthly social get-together on the Yongsan Army base, the US military's premier outpost in Korea. I'd never been on an army base before; Yongsan is huge, determinedly American, and mostly rundown (some of the buildings were erected by the Imperial Japanese occupiers 90 years ago.)

Our host Jim led ten or so of us on a "history hash", running around the steep roads and stairs of the base and stopping while he explained its buildings and its history. Our army has put every last building, even the stockade (the tiny prison building the Japanese put up, still with iron bars on the windows) to use and some of the soldiers live in little quonset huts.

The rest of the afternoon brought me:

-veggie dogs (my contribution)
-Frisbee
-Boca Burgers (my first in two-plus years!)
-the race kit for Chuncheon-- booklet, timing chip, race bib (I'm Joseph Burchmeier now, as I could only enter the race by buying the number of a Flyer who had to withdraw), and a Chuncheon fleece jacket, which sadly is lavender in color but is otherwise lovely
-beer
-my official Seoul Flyers running shirt
-deviled eggs
-apple crumble
-cherry pie
-nice people
-new friends
-an invitation from my brand-new good friend Shawn to join the Southside Hashers running group, which conducts running-and-beer sessions on my side of the river every weekend.

If you know anything about me, you know that very few things in life are worth more to me than new friends... fortunately, free shirts and pie are among those few things.

(Mostly joking here. Mostly.)

So... one week to Chuncheon, confident and a tad nervous... and it's been a very sunlightful weekend indeed.

(Did I mention the pie?)

I can't believe it's not Buddha

After our monstrous rain on the first day of autumn, the weather miraculously stayed beautiful for the rest of our Chuseok vacation week. It was sunny and crisp, just the kind of gorgeousness we've learned to relish but not expect. Fall truly is beautiful here (although the leaves don't get spectacular), and all the more so because it's all too brief.

On Thursday, I discovered the correct bus number to go from our neighborhood to the COEX Mall. (The city government has a website that allegedly tells you how to get from anywhere to anywhere by bus, but it works about as frequently as Kim Jong Il hosts a pie-eating contest.) My destination was Bandi and Luni's Bookstore, my purpose to get the third book in Steig Larsson's oddly compelling The Girl Who... mystery series.

I still had the excellent Seoul map we used on our school photo scavenger hunt and I was amazed to see that Bongeunsa, a Buddhist temple, was right across the street from the COEX Mall/Seoul World Trade Center, which I had visited often. It had been so long since my happy trips to Donghwasa, on the outskirts of Daegu, that I just had to visit Bongeunsa.


The first amazing thing about Bongeunsa is simply that there is a serene, bucolic temple compound right in the middle of one of the most upscale shopping areas in this huge, materialism-mad city. Down the street, you find Jaguar and Porsche dealers, ritzy department stores, the city's poshest hotels, and off in the distance, the huge Olympic Stadium. It's hard to imagine a less likely place for renouncing material goods.

The second amazing thing is that, as I entered the temple, the middle-aged Korean woman at the information desk noticed my "Ithaca is Gorges" t-shirt and asked if I was from Ithaca. I was startled, but (suave devil that I am) recovered and cleverly said, "Yes, I am." She said, "My son is at Cornell!" It's a small weird, after all.

She also told me about the temple's outreach program, in which foreign visitors take part in a tea ceremony, talk with a monk, and meditate. It sounds interesting and it only takes two hours... unfortunately, they hold it every Wednesday and I was there on Thursday; my next Wednesday off isn't until after Christmas. As usual, my timing was peccable.

Although Bongeunsa can't match Donghwasa's grandeur (as the latter is set among the birdsong and little waterfalls of the mountains), the Seoul temple grounds have their own charms. There's a tremendous sense of serenity on the property, with only the traffic noise outside the walls disturbing the crunch of gravel underfoot and the aura of peace that comes from so many hundreds of years of meditation.

I've written in passing before of my affinity for the philosophy of Buddhism: detachment, a peaceful mind, acceptance, living in the moment, and (above all) compassion. I fail at these goals often, but at least I know what I would like to be.

The trappings of the actual religion (the inevitable golden statues and incense, the bowing to a man who instructed his disciples not to worship him, the often-grotesque art, the extremely unlikely cosmology) repel me as much as the philosophy appeals to me. I think that ritual-- of any kind-- just turns me off.

 

...Tug likes this painting, though.

So I guess I'll never be a capital-B Buddhist, but the Dalai Lama and, especially, the wonderful Thich Nhat Hanh speak to me in a way that probably no other spiritual leaders do. And I love that Buddhism instructs us to renounce our egos and accept our place in the universe, rather than to place ourselves at its center.

Hey, look at me! Look at me! I'm renouncing my ego!

After my visit, I crossed the street to the dazzling neon-LED-jewelry-fashion-go-go-go underground world that is the COEX Mall and got my Larsson book (as well as a book called Buddha or Bust). I went placidly among the noise and haste and remembered what peace there may be in silence.

Seoul survivors

Our school has the week off for Chuseok, Korea's big holiday, on which Seoul empties out as everyone visits their families in their ancestral homes. In the days leading up to the day itself, Costco and E-Mart make it impossible to check out-- Costco's lines on Saturday morning stretched literally three-quarters of the way back through the store, and every cart was overflowing, especially with gift packs of delicacies like this:

I don't know why Spam is the epitome of fine dining in Korea. I hesitate to speculate.

(Speaking of Spam, imagine my delight in learning that Monty Python's Spamalot will shortly be playing here on stage, and my disappointment upon realizing that, of course, it will be entirely in Korean. Python's chaotic enough already.) But, as I always look on the bright side of life...

I've been busy. Last Thursday, Vanessa, our Chinese Chinese teacher, came over to translate for the cable guy, who was here to hook up my new cable and Internet. It's ten bucks cheaper than the old company's service and allegedly has faster 'net (not that I've noticed) and a better channel lineup. Well, it's got more English-language channels, including news from Russia, news from China, the Australia Channel, and EuroSport (German ping pong at last!)

All you need to know about what Koreans care about in the Western world is that the system carries CNBC and Bloomberg but not CNN; it's reminiscent of Kyobo Books, which has bookcase after bookcase of Anglophone business books but a measly fiction section in which Sidney Sheldon is considered a hot author. (But I digress... I lost a bunch of good Korean tv channels. At least there's BBC Entertainment, so I get an hour a week of Doctor Who from two years ago. Vanessa must have spent three or four hours last week helping Lauren, Bob, and me get the new hookup.

I'm glad the flag bearer on the left has made good use of the mustache I donated.

We had no classes on Friday; instead, we divided the students. Um, I mean into groups... let's not get grisly here. I had a group with Faina, our new English teacher, and Ron, the principal and his wife, Jill, and Faina's and my homeroom kids.

F

Faina's on the left. I dunno who's on the right... short white hair... apparently it's my dad. Huh.

All of the groups had the task of taking photos of themselves at well-known spots all around the historic center of Seoul. Our group was doing great until, after two and a half hours afoot and 15 shots, the kids ran out of energy and decided to, first, squabble about where to go next, and, secondly, spend a half hour of our precious time at McDonald's. We finished second, and by the time everyone got home, we were all happy to have survived the trek.

Tug's worn out, too.

On Saturday, I carted two packs of veggie dogs up the hill above Itaewon to the Margaritaville-themed social of the Seoul Flyers running club. I'd met a few of them at my last race but haven't been able to join the group runs. The get-together was at a lovely apartment right near Mount Namsan and Seoul Tower. Jae, the president (and everyone else I met) was friendly and helpful, and the Heineken and daiquiris flowed freely. I'd hoped to clear up some confusion-- should I do the marathon like this: run at nine-and-a-half-minute-mile pace for four minutes, walk a minute, all the way through, as I've been training for? Or just do 11-minute miles with no walking?

Jae's on the left, too. (When did I start to look like Tim Robbins?)

I'm delighted to say that I came away twice as confused as I went in... Jae, who hates run/walk, thought I should run the whole way. Shira, who likes run/walk, thought I should run/walk. In addition, Jae suggested that I appropriate one of the race entries of someone who had to cancel out of the Chuncheon Marathon, which I tried to enter two days too late. Chuncheon is two weeks earlier than the Joongang I'm registered for, has a prettier course, and allows six hours, not five, to finish. So now what? Try the run/walk there and if it doesn't work, the slower run in the Joongang? Two marathons in 15 days? What about my work friends who said they'll come out to cheer me on in the Joongang? They're not going to take an hour-long bus ride into the countryside for the Chuncheon...

People who are faster than I am are on the left. And the right. And directly in front of me... as usual.

Oh, my brain hurts. And my knee. And my calves are a little tight. And a few of the students have been giving me a pain in the...

On Sunday, I ran my six miles, got caught up with Lauren over coffee, and then wasted half of the day looking all over town for a couple of items I couldn't find in any stores. Today, well... no run, no Lauren, found one item.

I've been afraid of having nothing to do all week while the locals travel, but Nikki and Dex have invited me to their apartment tomorrow for grilled tofu, and the Seoul Veggie Club is having a Chuseok Day picnic on Thursday (on top of the buffet lunch ten days ago). And, dammit, I've got lots to do... that German ping pong isn't going to watch itself.

 ...so long from me and from Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear.

Heavy winds, 90 percent chance of pain

Above, a sore grandfather and a "stone grandfather".

[I've put lots of photos here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043177&id=1033628095&l=6ee7f4eb59. 

You don't need a Facebook account to see the pictures. G'ahead. Cut and paste the addy, g'wan over, take a peek, and c'mon back.] 

* * *
Our school field trip to Jeju Island, 50 miles off the southwest point of the peninsula, was certainly memorable.

It would take more pixels than I can afford to go into detail about everything we did, so I'll just make a list.

On Wednesday, we flew there, had lunch, visited a teddy bear museum,

clambered about on volcanic cliffs, walked on a lavalar (lavanic? lavalliere? I need a lava that won't drive me crazy) beach under otherworldly rock formations,

had dinner, walked a mile to a beach where we attempted to frolic in 35-degree wind chill and horizontal spatters of rain, gave up, walked back, conducted violent sporty activities in a gym, drank beer (teachers only... I think) and went to bed (well... floor).

By Thursday dawn I was in more bodily pain than I'd ever been in my life, including after mild-to-medium car accidents. Sitting cramped in the plane and the bus, hiking and hiking on an arthritic knee, wrenching my shoulder, back, and foot and taking skin off my knee by taking a nasty tumble on a wet rock by the hotel parking lot, sleeping on a mat on the floor... I was afraid that I wouldn't die in the night.

I loosened up over the course of the day, long enough to climb this:

for these views:

On Thursday, we walked in a cedar forest with trees coated in overnight snow, visited a folk village where everybody but I chuckled at one of the island's famous black pigs in a tiny stonewalled pen and then ate the pig's older brother, walked along another rocky beach, climbed a 600-foot-high long-dormant volcano (above), visited the female diver (for abalone and seaweed) museum, stopped at a botanical garden that had long lava tubes (tunnels made by rushing molten rock), navigated a huge botanical maze (I thought I could do it quickly, but had to hedge my bets), had dinner, did three hours of noraebang (karaoke) for which modesty forbids me from naming the star, but he put the "Y" in YMCA... you haven't heard a rendition until it's been rent by me. Then beer and floor.

On Friday, we had breakfast at the hotel (I couldn't face one more helping of gloppy white rice and fixin's, identical to our other breakfasts and dinners, for breakfast, so I had cookies and liquid yogurt), walked about the stone statue park, and flew home.

We were all exhausted, though all the students had an uncanny ability to sleep all the way through our multitudinous bus rides. As for me, to quote the Fourth Doctor (Who?):

"Oh, my arms! Oh, my legs! Oh, my everything!"

The trip was such a cascade of stuff that it's taken me a week and a half since our return to finalize my impressions, and frankly even now I'm leaving 90 percent of it out. But here are a few final impressions.

The guide on our bus told us that Jeju is famous for three things: wind (oh, so much wind), rocks (on beaches and piled in hundreds of walls), and women. (When it comes to what Jeju's known for, contrary to the vocal stylings of Mr. Marvin Lee Aday, two out of three ain't that hot.)

The place is really, really relaxed about toilet stuff... you don't want to know what the famous black pigs eat or what they're known for biting off if you're not careful in the outhouse. And the stone statue park had seats shaped like butts for that oh-so-special gag picture... and a statue of a guy on a toilet, under which people had thoughtfully piled a bunch of little stones.

The island is overrun with seas of yellow canola (rapeseed) flowers. Everybody on the island who isn't catching stuff out of the ocean is selling citrus fruit. (Y'know, I never had a kumquat before... they're so good!) Although there does seem to be a thriving job market in driving buses and narrating for the Griswolds.

And, oh, have I've missed the ocean.

The weather improved from simply miserable to just unseasonably chilly during our stay (Korea's Hawaii? Ha!), we were all far past exhaustion (when, after all, just sitting in school with 80 kids is enervating enough), it was so good to get back, and it took me three more days before my foot, knee, and back were pain-free enough to go for a jog.

But it was pretty cool.

Weak ends

My weekends generally aren't slam-bang thrill-a-minute affairs. Sometimes something or other happens, sometimes not; about the only thing I can generally count on is Sunday morning coffee or brunch with Lauren.

This past Friday, I went to Gangnam (ritzy shopping/dining neighborhood not too far away) with Chris and Zach for burritos and Corona at Dos Tacos, a little hole-in-the-wall Mexican place, followed by a refreshing beverage at Castle Praha, the hofbrauhaus where we had spent New Year's Eve. Saturday, I think I bought some soy milk and maybe bananas; I forget the details in the excitement. Sunday, Lauren and I had coffee and went to Yangjae (nearer, less ritzy area than Gangnam) to the dollar store, which is great: on my last two trips, I've bought two plates, a serrated knife, a belt, a tie, two oven mitts, two glasses, a wastebasket, and some fridge magnets; total cost: fifteen bucks. And that was my thrilling weekend.

The weekend before was a long one, Monday being Seollal (Lunar New Year), the country's biggest holiday. Sunday was hectic; I chased halfway across the metro area to a Veggie Club lunch, then walked around for a half hour trying to find the place with inadequate directions and the typical Korean jumble of competing signs:

(The swastikas are Buddhist; the Nazis stole the symbol. I admit they are somewhat unsettling to me nonetheless.)

Just as I was giving up, I finally bumped into somebody else looking for the restaurant and she phoned the host, who came out to get us. (The place was down an alley.) Not a great lunch, though, just bibimbap, which I eat three times a week anyway.

Then I took the subway to Dongdaemun Market, Korea's oldest conglomeration of shops, which is hard alongside Dongdaemun ("Great East Gate"), which once upon a time, guarded the edge of the city from invaders and, I guess, middle-aged, moustached  English teachers...

 

The "market" itself claims 30,000 shops, and is for me both imposing and, for me, pointless. There are massive department stores, ten-story buildings full of shops and kiosks, hundreds and hundreds of storefronts stretching for many blocks (both above and below ground), street vendors, and alleyways full of stalls selling an incredible array of... well, everything: clothing of all kinds, food, shoes, electronics, purses, furniture, all cheap, mostly knockoffs, all piled up like Satan's attic had exploded, none of it anything I wanted and little of which would fit me anyway.

I had gone with the hope of finding Waegook ("Foreigner") Books, which an online site had said was at "Stall 27". This is rather like looking for Tree 3021 in the Black Forest. If the place even exists, it's probably stocked with books like Great Hobbit Linebackers and Sarah Palin, Renaissance Woman.

So I ended up spending seven hours and having a disappointing lunch and buying nothing, but it's okay; I'm pretty good at not having expectations and, as the Carpenters sang, "It's one more round for experience and I'm on the road again."

Usually my weekends are less tiring. Sometimes I get a bit down, sitting in my apartment on the Far Side of the Earth and watching the cat sleep. Generally I'm fine. Like 'most everything in my life, weekends will get better when baseball season starts; with two teams sharing Jamsil Stadium, the Bears (huzzah!) and the Twins (meh), there is a home game almost every day but Mondays, the tickets are cheap, and they have beer there.

Meanwhile, all's weak that ends weak. Or something.

Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1395

Yesterday, Zach, Chris, and I walked through the unbelievably crowded artsy street Insadong to Gyeongmokgung Palace, which was originally constructed 514 years ago (back when I was in high school). If you're a syntax stickler (which, I realize, sounds like some small exotic hedgehog) you may find "originally constructed" redundant. Au contraire, smart guy... the Japanese army burned it to the ground in 1592, and after its reconstruction in 1867, murdered the queen in 1895 and razed the buildings again in 1915. Apparently it will be another 20 years before it's completely rebuilt. But what's there now is pretty impressive.

Here, let me show you: (Click on any picture to enlarge it.)

I need cooler facial hair..

...and sartorial help from Carson Kressley...

...and a cooler pet.

Zach, Spot, and Chris.

You'd think the king would at least have a Barcalounger

That's a bed in the middle. Ow.

Would you like a Dr. Pepper with your Moon Pie?

The gazebo.

What, this old place? It's not much, but it's home.

I bit off more than I could Chuseok

Happy Chuseok, everybody! Unlike last year, when Heeduk invited me to his parents' home to share their observance, this one, today, has been solitary for me. While Koreans are feasting with their families and bowing to their ancestors' pictures, waegookin (foreigners) are left with nothing open but the 7-Eleven. Still, it's been a busy few days and a down day or two isn't such a bad thing.

As I've been whining, the school's trip to Jeju Island was canceled due to fear of that swine behind the curtain; it's been a good though hectic week nonetheless. On Wednesday, the whole school went to Nami Island, a little resort northeast of Seoul. The place, perhaps borrowing a leaf from Key West, styles itself the "Naminara Republic" and issues passports to its visitors. It's a small, leaf-shaped island in a lake, and is much beloved by Japanese tourists because it was featured on a Korean tv show that was wildly popular there.


The Naminara Republic is replete with (in case you're a nihilist who doesn't believe it really is a small world after all) a King of Pop display,

artwork (of which this...

...was my favorite), little electric Model T's, duck boats, ostriches,

restaurants, bike rentals, trails, and a big big field perfect for our school "Olympics": three-legged race, balloon toss, egg-and-spoon race, and the like, all topped off with a nifty photographic scavenger hunt. I'd like to point out, first, that the Cornpeople did not finish last (eighth of nine teams isn't bad), and also that I didn't get to draft my own team. Kinda like being a Mets fan. (For God's sake, must you keep bringing up the Mets' season?)

On Thursday, the kids had off and the faculty had an in-service day, after which Mr. Park, the director, took us all out for a massive dinner at VIPS Steakhouse. Ironically, I had one of the best meals I've ever had in Korea, as their salad bar has salad (shocking, I know), all kinds of fruit, pasta, pizza, desserts, five kinds of coffee... it was a really nice time with everyone there, darkened only slightly by the fact that when I got out of the cab as we arrived, my pack zipper came open and the bottle of Chilean cabernet Mr. Park had given me for Chuseok shattered all over the sidewalk. (When we got to the restaurant, I couldn't figure out why the floor was sticky... it seemed like a nice place and all... till it occurred to me that if you walk around in Chilean cabernet, the soles of your shoes are likely to be a bit agglutinative.) (I swear, that's the first word from a thesaurus that I've ever put on this blog.)

Afterward, a few of us went up the stairs to the street, looking for a bar, walked around, found none, and went back down to the one in the basement, where we had a pitcher of good German lager. It was nice, and demographically and linguistically balanced: Lauren, Chris, and me as the Anglo contingent, Korean-Americans Susan (who speaks Korean) and Nick (who doesn't) and our office manager Jin and secretary Michelle, both lifelong Koreans who speak wonderful English. Chris, Lauren, and I are customarily beer buddies, but we'd never been out with the others before, and it was good to see them on a more social level. Nice folks.

Yesterday (Friday), we were off for the holiday, and I was delighted to get a text from my Kiwi friend Emma, up from Daegu for the weekend. (By "Kiwi", I mean that she's a native of New Zealand... she is neither green nor fruity. Come to think of it, though, she is small and flightless.) We went to What the Book and then to lunch, both in the notorious Itaewon neighborhood, then took the subway to the Ingwangsan Shaminist Hillside Walk, as Lonely Planet calls it.

Right in the middle of the world's second-biggest metro area, we walked ten minutes up a very, very steep hill (one to rival Gunshop Hill in Ithaca, or all of the hills in Florida combined) and entered a little village carved out of the rockface, with winding, uneven stone stairs and the little homes of Buddhist monks; we wandered innocently into a yard and a monk came out to tell us, in English, that we should feel free to walk around and take photos. (The tv dish on his home and the next-door convenience store's advertising Cokes and cigarettes seemed utterly incongruous.)

The area apparently is a key, ancient Shamanist shrine, especially these rocks...

...which allegedly house many spirits, but most of the religious presence is Buddhist:

 

...and that's Emma. This is me...

One odd thing about the life we waegook sangsaengnim (foreign teachers) live is that we make friends easily, but know all the while we won't see them for long. Especially at the hagwons (private, evening academies) people come and go as if they were on a traffic circle. I hugged Emma goodbye on the subway, knowing I'd never see her again, as she'll be back in Middle Earth soon, and thinked heavy thunks about the transience of life and how I'll miss her.

Sic transit emma mundi.