Pop Goes the Weasel

I went back to Mt. Palgongsan and Donghwasa Temple on Wednesday. (Actually, that sentence belongs in the Departmental Bureau of Repetitious Redundancy Department, as those names mean Mt. Palgong Mountain and Donghwa Temple Temple, and you can see the photos.) (And yes, that's a picture of the spot where I tripped; I told you the sidewalk was bad.)

I was supposed to go with Micah, the newest guy at work. For me, teaching in Korea is a huge adventure; for him, it's the Ritz: he's spent several years tramping around Afghanistan, Pakistan, and a bunch of other places that end in stan, sleeping on the locals' floors. Be that as it may, Micah contacted me that he'd barely slept the night before, so I went alone.

I learned something about myself on the ride out. The bus was packed to the gills, and I ended up standing down in the stairwell at the exit door. Every time we came to a bus stop, I'd come up off the stairs to let people out; at one stop, everyone around me (but me, for a moment) noticed that I'd step up, someone would disembark and the door would start to close, I'd step down, and the door would open. I'd step up, it would start to close, I'd step down, it would open. This happened three or four times. Inside of five seconds, everybody in the back of the bus was laughing.

I thought it was funny too, and I was laughing as much as anybody. Not long ago, I would have been humiliated because I thought they were laughing at me; now I just felt how funny it was. So here's what I learned: I've shed a lot of my defensiveness and ego. Knowing my ego is shrinking makes me so proud of myself! (Wait; what?)

The trip up the mountain was challenging and uneventful, so I'll skip to the trip down. I just kind of struck out on a new trail, which ran out, and I blundered about a bit, sharply rightward and steeply downward (kind of like the Bush administration).

Within ten minutes, I made two unexpected acquaintances. A big ol' ferrety animal popped out from under a rock and froze when he saw me. I froze too. We stared at each other for quite a while, then he skittered under a log. When I came home, I searched the 'net and determined he's a Siberian weasel; I don't know if he tried to google me. (I've been trying to upload a picture from the Web, but apparently the tech department at Blogger is also run by weasels. You'll have to search for Siberian weasel images yourself, or take my word for it: he looked like Frank Burns.)

Then, way out in the woods, I was greeted by a Korean lady who knew some English. I thought at first that she was taking pity on my befuddled expression and was going to help me find my way, but then she said she was Jehovah. I was pretty impressed till I realized that none of the bushes was burning. She meant she was a Witness. She asked me if I could read Korean and wanted to give me a J's W tract. I played dumb (that is to say, acted naturally) and went on my way.

I finally found a real trail and the way to the Donghwasa complex. It's hard to encapsulate how I feel about it. There are many buildings of various degrees of religious importance, and a mixture of worship and rubbernecking going on. I saw a monk in an Adidas track suit, and people touching their heads to the floor in a pavilion facing the giant standing Buddha (which, the brochure says, encases two pieces of the historical Buddha's bones.) As I've said before, I find the icons and music offputting, and there was a deep tuneless chant, which I thought sounded vaguely menacing, playing over loudspeakers the whole time.

But I still feel very peaceful there; I don't know if it's the setting, with the mountains looming above and all around the courtyard, or the earnest belief of the pilgrims, or what. But, for whatever reason, it's one of the most serene places I've ever been. Afterward, on the walk down to the main road, I passed three women kneeling in front of a Buddha image carved into a boulder; the sign said the image was carved between 1200 and 1400 years ago. St. Augustine calls itself the "Ancient City" because it's 443 years old; I guess it's all a matter of perspective.

Then I walked down to the bus stop, checked for blood on the sidewalk and found none, and came home.

... I look like a monkey, and I smell like one, too.

Ninety percent of my birthday on Sunday was really frustrating, mostly due to me. But I confirmed something important... I just don't get really down anymore. For many reasons, I guess, my downs are better than most of my ups used to be. And the day turned out well, anyway, so hurray for me.

Heeduk's away for three weeks doing mandatory military service, and he asked me to cover one Sunday morning class for him each week. So I did. On the walk back, I stopped at E-Mart for a few groceries, wandered into the CD department, and found a two-disk compilation for 7000 Won. (These days, that's about five bucks.) The labeling was all in Korean, except for the song list: Desperado by the Eagles, Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton, Yesterday by the Beatles... thirty songs in all, half of them favorites of mine. So Happy B to me! Visions of a loaded iPod dancing in my head (wait... that's from a Christmas poem...), I hurried home with my find, stuck it in the computer... these are not the original artists; they're imitators.

I got a birthday call from the New World and talked to my best friend for awhile.

I knew I was supposed to meet Ray at 6 p.m. for dinner, but I couldn't quite remember what the rendezvous point was. I tried to call him, but he was out for the day with his church activities. I had a vague memory that he'd said to meet him by the Beomeo subway station, but that didn't make sense... must have been from earlier in the week, when we'd planned a walk to a lake... must be at the dorm... I think... maybe... yeah, that's the ticket.

I'm not embarrassed that I couldn't remember where to meet him; I'm the spaciness champ, a regular ADDeity. But I am embarrassed that I know that and hadn't written down the location, or remembered to double-check with him on Saturday.

Armed with a pretty good map, I headed out, via 20-minute walk, long subway ride, and 15-minute walk uphill, to find the entrance to Apsan Park, at the base of one of the mountains on the southern edge of the city. I wanted to check out the Korean War museum and then take a nice mountain hike. Got there; no entrance, no signs, no hint, nothing but a green mountain completely blocking the view to the south. Walked along the sidewalk two hundred yards to the west: library, no park. Went back four hundred yards to the east: enormous stone staircase, like the Lincoln Memorial's, but longer and steeper; at the top, a surreally vacant plaza with an oddly shaped memorial tower of some kind, with no entrance, no signs, no pictures, no park entrance.

We now return you to complete sentences, already in progress.

I walked back down to the subway station, took the train downtown, lost 1000 Won in a coin locker setup that turned out to be indeciperable, walked to Kyobo Books, and sat down at their Starbucks for awhile for 3000 Won's worth of bitter coffee. Then I headed over to the dorm, went up to the third floor to Ray's apartment (6:00), but it was just me and my shadow. I jogged a block to the nearest subway stop and took the train to Beomeo (6:15), just in case he was there, but there wasn't even a shadow. Took the subway back to the dorm (6:30), in case he'd just been late getting home: nope.

So I walked a half-mile, took the bus home, and Skyped him the moment I walked in the door (7:00). He picked up right away; we were supposed to meet in front of the DongA department store, and he'd waited till 6:30. Fortunately, Ray is easygoing and forgiving, so I was at the apartment for five minutes and headed back out to the bus and reversed the route.

We wandered around the neon-lit, thronged downtown and ended up at Pizza Hut, which is pretty pricey here: 17,000 Won for a smallish garlic pizza that was so thin it only had one side. Had a good time, though, and a glass of sangria helped. Then we walked over to the incredible waffle place with the incredible waffles and had one o' them big hot incredible waffles with scoops of vanilla and green tea ice cream, chocolate sauce, banana, kiwi, melon, grapes, and a tomato wedge. Wow.

We hung out awhile longer, Ray bought some winter boots, and I came home.

I got another call from my friend, which ended the day very nicely. Mostly I didn't want to be alone all day, and I wasn't. So it all worked out, but maybe most important of all, when I dragged my exhausted carcass up my stairs, after everything had gone wrong and I'd missed Ray and would spend the evening in the apartment... I was okay with that. And that was my best present of all.

(And the next morning I got the world's funniest e-card from my grandboys in California, where it was still my birthday.)

I can't survive 55

(Above: at the entrance to my apartment: Tigger, Florida shell that was my mom's, Samwise Whale.)

Today's my fifty-fifth birthday, and I do expect to get through this year and many more. But you know me: always go for the cheap pun and the pop-culture reference. It by some chance the title of this post is a self-fulfilling prophecy, we'll all have a good laugh.

Actually, I might be 54 or almost 57... it's not my birthday for another 32 minutes in the time zone of my birth, and the Koreans count you as one year old when you're born and everybody officially ages a year on January 1, so... ah well, age is just a number. (Sometimes a really high number.)

I confess to being a little blue around the edges this week. I think I've settled in, and it's getting rather routine. Sometimes I feel about as I often have, as we all do sometimes: "Oh crap, I gotta go to work today." On the other hand, my face is healing up pretty nicely and I finally got into the twenty-first century when I found a cute little iPod Shuffle for 30 bucks. I'm listening to "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" from NPR a lot. Also, the World Series is on, although having the commentary in Korean is disconcerting. Besides that, there must be some glitch in the satellite, as the Mets' uniforms look oddly like the Phillies'.

I have schoolwork to catch up on and a little later I may go for a mountain hike at Apsan Park on the edge of the city; it's a gorgeous fall day, sunny, breezy, not quite 70 degrees. Fahrenheit, that is. My friend Ray asked me to dinner at 6 tonight, so that will be nice. I'm thinking pancakes, or possibly octopus. It's a tough choice.

Vote early and often

I went and voted today. Sorta. I think. I got my ballot via email, printed it out along with the cerificate that said I wasn't cheating (because if you were going to cheat on your ballot, you wouldn't dare lie on the certificate), then got two envelopes, stuffed the ballot in one, then that one in the other one along with the certificate, then unstuffed everything because of course I'd addressed the inner envelope, then did it the right way around.

Then I walked it four blocks from work, through the traditional market full of radishes and mystery meat on a stick and a guy carrying a pan of still-alive, wriggling, suffocating, piled-up-like-sandbags fish-- I'm afraid I'm going to have to alienate everyone sometime by writing more about that general topic-- to the post office and handed it and some funny coins to the nice young lady behind the counter.

Even though I vote in Florida, I'm hoping against hope that my vote will count. Apparently I learned nothing from the 2000 election.

In the end, though, I haven't had a satisfying voting experience since 1994. Back home in Ithaca, you went into a real booth with a curtain and a big red wooden lever. Pull it to the right, you hear a satisfying clunk and the curtain closes, you push down the little metal levers with a nice little click next to the cute little logos for the parties (eagle and star and liberty bell and torch) and the candidates' names, pull the lever to the left- thunk- and the levers reset, the curtain opens, and your votes register.

Now that's votin', you betcha!

Sorry... too much Sarah Palin on the 'net. Anyway, in St. Augustine you just take a pencil, go to a little six-dollar plastic table, connect two halves of an arrow to register a vote for a DEM or a REP, and stick it in a machine that may have been recycled from Lucy and Ethel's candymaking adventure. Not nearly as satisfying.

The absentee way is even less so. I just want it to count. If the Republicans win again, I swear I'll leave the coun... ah, never mind.

Odds and... well, frankly, odds

It's been an interesting few days, at least if you're living it. As you're only reading about it, I make no promises. Actually this is probably going to be pretty dull. I hope I don't lose either of my fans.

It's been a week since I decided to take a really, really close look at the local sidewalks, and I've healed up remarkably well. I had my stitches out yesterday, although it will be a couple more weeks before the doc wants to stop covering it. He told me to not get it wet for a week. I suspect that if I don't shampoo for that time, I'll look like Larry from the Three Stooges, or maybe like our friend in the picture above.

The purple has receded under my eye to the point that it's only visible in a thin line where I have a wrink... a wisdom crease. The doctor says I'll have a small permanent scar, which bothers me, as it may cut my appeal with the local chicks. Maybe if I say it's a dueling scar...

I wore my new glasses for two days, feeling drunk, before I had to conclude that the lenses weren't right. (I have astigmatism, so if they aren't at precisely the correct angles, you might as well be wearing SADD drunk goggles.) I went back to the optical store and, through the saleswoman's extremely circumscribed English, my gestures, and a little diagram I drew showing my pupillary distance (needed to get the focal points right), I hope we got it right. I'm supposed to get them back in three more days.

I expected to go back out to Palgongsan today to show off my not-running-for-the-bus skills, but woke up with my body saying, and I quote, "Who you kiddin'?" My schedule's shifted so I don't have to go to work till dinnertime most days, so there's no rush. Especially for the bus.

As you may know, I can be pretty indecisive. Or maybe not. Anyway, on Sunday I couldn't decide if I wanted to go to the Samsung Lions' playoff game or just take it easy and check out a department/grocery store I hadn't been to, HomePlus (which is a branch of the British Tesco chain). Fortunately, as both destinations were north of downtown, I headed in that direction and waited for serendipity.

I decided that the ballgame was too much hassle, went to HomePlus (well worth the trip: a bottle of pomegranite juice and some English shredded wheat/cranberry cereal!) But when I came out, it was an hour to gametime and there were the ballpark lights RIGHT... THERE...

Tickets were all sold out, and I thought it might be just as well, but then a scalper buttonholed me and sold me a 15,000 Won ticket for... 15,000 Won. (I'm not entirely sure how Korean scalpers make a profit.) When I got inside, every single seat in the park was taken, and I ended up standing the whole time on the concrete walkway separating the lower from the upper seats, over on the visiting side along the first-base line. On my way there, I saw three Americans, one wearing a Phillies cap, who, seeing me wearing the blue and orange, graciously taunted me on the Mets' collapse.

Speaking of Mets vs. Phillies, I've been to games in Philly where a third of the fans would be rooting for the Mets, which led to cursing and the occasional drunken brawl. I once had a cup dropped on my head from an escalator at Veterans' Stadium. In contrast, here the sets of fans just ignored each other; in front of me were a few thousand Doosan Bears fans with their cheerleaders and flags and signs-- I was even given a kind of Karate-Kid-head-sash reading "Let's Go Doosan" in Korean. Behind and all around me were the Lions' fans. I never heard a harsh word between the two groups.

They'd tarted up the place (and the prices) for the playoffs, with two huge Lion statues in the stands, flame- and smoke-emitting nozzles for when the Lions scored, and a huge banner, twenty rows high, that would unfurl down the stands at opportune moments. The Lions won, my back decided that seven innings of standing on concrete were enough, and I went home.

I received my absentee ballot via email and want to mail it back today. However, I have to print out a certificate swearing I filled out my own ballot and so on, and I can't get it to print. That's odd, considering that the ballot printed. I blame Karl Rove. I hope that Manager Park at school, who speaks no English but is an electronics whiz, can fix that... I would truly hate to not get to vote.

Please insert your own snappy ending here.

Anybody got a chainsaw?

(This picture is two days after the recent unpleasantness. Six stitches lurk under the bandage.)

On the brighter side, I've found out that the prices here for healthcare and the services rendered can be amazing.

When they took me to the hospital, they cleaned me up, examined me, took x-rays, stitched me, gave me an antibiotic shot and wrote me a prescription. Out-of-pocket cost: $19. Cost of one day's pills (nine pills in all): $2.

Each of my follow-up visits: in and out in 15 minutes, checking the stitches, short consult, change the dressing, new prescription: $3.20.

I went to replace my glasses today; I picked out a titanium frame, which is very very thin and tough. The total cost in the States, even at Wal-Mart, would have exceeded $300. Here? Eighty-six bucks. I could have had them in ten minutes, but since I'm astigmatic, they had to order the lenses. At home, it would take a week. I'll pick them up tomorrow.

(Now, if you see the guy in the photo in your neighborhood, lock up your daughters, your sons, and your small animals... and hide the sharp objects.)

This has nothing to do with Korea...

...but it is the best photo in history. And, no, it wasn't Photoshopped.