LostSeouls:Diary  

I feel like I should really address the rumours about my friendship with a well known public servant who lives North of the border. A few days ago the picture shown below appeared in a local newspaper under the headline

There are several inaccuracies to this headline which I'd like to go through if I may.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that if you play Kim Jong-Il at Scrabble and don't let him win, he has a tendency to kidnap your eldest child and feed him through a mincer, but I hardly think that having a short temper is the same thing as "half-crazed" do you? On the contrary whether feeding cake to the swans on his beautiful private lake, or enjoying a short pleasure flight over the barren fields south of his huge mansion, I've always found Jongi-ya (as I call him) very pleasant company.

As for the term 'notorious'- I think it's about time that journalists grew up, stepped into the real world and realised there is a huge difference between having your name on the Interpol "Wanted" list and being "notorious". Finally, the term "arms dealer" is thrown around far too liberally these days, and I was assured by the kind-hearted North Korean dictator that the Plutonium I sold to him would be used for medical research, generating power, and helping cute kittens out of trees.

So let's hear no more nonsense about an extradition on the grounds of treason OK?

Some pictures today- Eonmi Kim, the translator here at the office is on maternity leave now looking after her new little boy, congratulations to her and her husband Mr Park (Korean women keep their maiden name after marriage). I don't think they've fully decided on a name yet, it was going to be "Pil-Iip Park" for a while there, since it sounded good in Korean and was a close approximation to the western "Phillip", but Eonmi checked it out with an astrologer/fortune teller or something and found out that name was unlucky. So now I think they're going for "Ha Park" ("박 하"). The family name "Park" is fixed of course, but most Koreans chose two syllables in their forename- (Eon-Mi, Bo-Heon, Sae-Jin etc.), Eonmi likes to be different though. The chinese character for "Ha" means river, and  the full thing "Park Ha" (in Korean you say the family name first) sounds like the word for "mint".
Mint.

Things I have learnt from Eonmi's baby so far:

• Korean women are told not to wear high heels when pregnant
• ...or eat spicy food
• Seaweed soup is supposed to be very good for women who've just given birth
• As is staying wrapped up in bed
• Eonmi does go to fortune tellers really, despite her telling me she doesn't
• Koreans have great hair from day 1.

Now I'm just waiting for an invite to go round to her house so I can coo at the little lad and marvel at his little tiny fingers.

Going out on Thursday night messes you up for the Friday. Fact.
The classy plans I had to go to a jazz place wearing some kind of sophisticated academic clothes all fell through when Heidi called up with some friends and said she was coming to Hongdae. We did however manage to keep things pretty upper-crust by drinking wine on the terrace at Agio and then going to the world's fanciest noraebang- a place so classy that you had to take your shoes off before you were allowed into the waiting area, with a small fountain in the actual singing room.

For the first time in a while the westerners were outnumbered by Koreans 3-4, Heidi had met up with a man ("Rock") whose son she used to teach, and his 'junior'. This junior ("Jakey") was a guy who went to the same University as Rock but 9 years later- which makes for a pretty well defined relationship in Korea where the younger guy has to show respect to his 'Sum Bae', and the older guy is supposed to look out for the youngster. Jakey is a big Manchester United fan and when I told him I was from Manchester too, he was amazed- most likely because he was already pretty drunk by the time we met him, but still he must have shook my hand 30 times during the night and taken the Man Utd shirt he was carrying out of its bag to show people and have pictures taken just as often.
I suppose it must be pretty weird to support a team on the other side of the world and then meet someone who used to live a few miles from the ground, although to be honest I had to question how much of a real fan he was when he told me Liverpool were his 'second team' and Manchester City were OK too. I'd keep that quiet if you ever go to Old Trafford Jakey.

Korean people seem to treat a noraebang very differently to us waegookin by the way- instead of trying to do a Boy George dance whilst singing "Karma Chamaleon" as loudly as possible, they seem to prefer difficult ballads and actually sing them properly- all 4 of the guys (two in their early 20s, two proper grown-ups) we were with had really good voices and hit some high notes that Michael Bolton would be proud of.

All this excitement meant for a pretty late night, I managed to get about 8 hours sleep before I had to be up again for my new regular Saturday afternoon football. JC, the guy who introduced me to the team picked me up from outside the hotel again, last week I was five minutes late and had a pizza (breakfast) under my arm, this time I was on time with just a few sandwiches, so I'm getting better. Maybe next week I'll be 5 minutes early with a bag of apples and my laces tied. After the match (I think we lost 7-6, I know I scored two) the Christian guys I play with formed into a choir and started practising hymns for mass the following day, they then encouraged me to sing a song or two on my own. Now, in a Karaoke room after a few drinks you have to physically remove the microphone from my hands, but in the afternoon sun, with 50 high school kids kicking a ball around behind me I'm not all that comfortable doing an acapella version of "Livin' On A Prayer", so I politely dodged the requests and we sat around eating grapes instead. We did sing one song together; it was a call-and-resonse thing that American kids sing at birthday parties, called "Who took the cookie from the cooo-kie jar." ("Not Me", "Then Who?" etc.)
Now it might seem to you that all this after-game stuff, might sound a bit lame. That's because it is.

Saturday was Stephen's birthday, so a group of us went to eat dinner at a kalbi restaurant near the train tracks on the Sinchon/Hongdae border. This was kind of my suggestion although I'm not sure why- I've heard that the restaurants by the tracks had a reputation for serving the best meat when trains used to stop there before they got into Seoul- presumably the people who lived there could then select the best beef and pork before the merchants in the city-centre markets got their hands on it. Now though, trains only run along this track very rarely (I've walked down it a few times), so the only incentive to go there is that it's lively, there are some big restaurants there, and it just seems a bit more adventurous to say "Let's go and eat by the train tracks!".
Whilst eating I was talking to Heidi's boyfriend Bo-Heon (a certified dreamboat), he's from Mokpo which has a reputation as a breeding ground for gangsters, so I asked him about a few things I'd seen in Korean gangster films and was chuffed to hear they were all true. Apparently in every high school there are kids with a reputation for being good fighters, and when they get to a certain age, gang bosses will come around to the schools and recruit this year's crop of talent. I know that's not a good thing really, but you have to admit it sounds pretty cool.

After the meal we went to a bar where they had the worst music you've ever heard: Whitesnake, Whitney Houston, Roxette, the Abba mega-mix and so on. We would never have resorted to the place except by this stage there were 9 of us and all of the good bars we tried were too full to fit us in- it's a shame too because when they we finally left and went next door (to a great place called "9 Mm") they were playing great tunes, including Asoto Union, my favourite K-group.

Went to HodgePodge and met up with Shawn, Julie and John, but by that time I was really feeling the effects of too little sleep, an unusually early 7pm start and my third night out in a row. Managed maybe an hour or two in the nightclub before calling it a day- popping another couple of RU21 pills (maybe I could get that company to sponsor my website!) and hitting the sack.

8 October

One of the Project Managers from the Manchester office was over here this week, Adrian has never been to Korea before and was only around for a few days- we did manage to have one night out though. After work I went to town with the boss of the office I work in, Adrian, and two of the guys who work in a different department of the Korean company.
Adrian said he wanted to see downtown Seoul so we had dinner at the restaurant on the 33rd floor of the Millenium Plaza building at the top of Jong-No. This was my choice since you can't see the whole of downtown Seoul from up there, but you certainly can see a hell of a lot (also it's really expensive and I wasn't paying). The chicken I had was great, although I still don't really know why the more you pay for food the less you seem to get; Adrian's plate was licked clean in about two minutes flat, "I come from a big family- if you didn't eat quick, you didn't eat" he explained.

From there we went to Insa-dong and a bar I've been to several times before, that I knew would get a reaction from these guys. The only way I really know to get there is to walk the full length of Insa-dong and then come back through an alleyway which runs parallel to the main street. I say alleyway, but it's really just a small urine-soaked gap between a police station and a fence. This leads you through to a small backstreet and the unmarked wooden door of the bar-  then you just have to make sure there are no cops around, give the secret knock, and howl like a wolf three times . The interior has a low ceiling and a few small tables, some semi-private rooms and a raised area with cushions on the floor. It's all kind of randomly thrown together and has a lot of 'character', nice place in my opinion, but Mr Chong and Mr Kim, the korean guys I was with seemed really shocked that I'd brought them there. I guess when you're wearing a business suit and tie you don't expect to find yourself in some hippy bar with a cat walking around whilst some student plays acoustic guitar at the next table.

Anyway as with every time I go out drinking with Koreans, I had a great time, and though I picked the venues, Mr Kim picked up the bill at every single place we went to. Adrian's either going to go back and tell his family that Korea is an interesting and varied place, or that he needs a tetanus shot and this James character isn't safe to be around.

Before I went to bed I took three "RU21" tablets. These are supposed to prevent hangovers by some sort of chemical/herbal wizadry, and I think they might have worked. Woke up feeling tired, but then I went to bed at 1:30 and woke up at 7:15 so that's no surprise, other than that though I felt fine. Now people (i.e. Dunkjonesy) have told me that it's all in the mind, but if you feel better you feel better- whether it's a Jedi mind trick or a miracle cure.

Maybe it would be worthwhile going out tonight and tomorrow just to make triply sure that these things really do work and it isn't just psychosymatic- Saturday is a friend's birthday  (Stephen ) so I imagine we will 'make a party' as they say in Holland. Tonight I'm celebrating the fact that Sam's brother has just had a baby, making her an aunt for the first time.
Whilst on that subject, congratulations to Eonmi who had gave birth to a little boy on Saturday- I'm going to post his picture up soon, so clear a space in the folder marked "Cute".

Whilst over at Shawn and Julie's on Sunday I bought a DVD player from Wal-Mart. It's a little smasher, about the size of one of those new old playstations, and does all the stuff DVD players do. Ideally this should mean that I can rent recent flicks from the nearby video store for a lot less than the 7,000-13,000won I normally pay at a DVD bang- but I'm not sure how happy the guy will be with me having no Alien Registration Card (something most foreigners need), or giving my address as a hotel.

Before I worry about that though I can start to make headway on the stack of DVDs I've already bought and was planning to watch on the smaller screen of my PC. First in the pile was "Midnight Express"- a film about some chump who decides to tape 2 Kg worth of dope to his body and smuggle it from Turkey to the USA- twas a pretty good film with some strange ideas about justice, and a soundtrack by the guy who produced "I Feel Love". Next up: "Police Academy" parts 1 to 17.

The player cost 128,000won (60 quid) in the end, 31,000 cheaper than the same model I saw at Carrefour (see picture). I'd heard rumours you could get something similar from Yongsan for 100,000 (50 quid), but I'd already spent an hour wandering around that area trying to find it, so thought a bird (i.e. DVD player) in the hand (i.e. my bag) was worth two (i.e. slightly 1 cheaper DVD player) in the bush (i.e. Yongsan). Any further bird/bush analogy related questions, please let me know.     

 5 October

Brrr, the picture of those feet dangling in the pool at the top of the page (mine by the way) are starting to look a bit out of place at the moment, it's turning cold. Not properly hat and gloves freezing but the kind of weather where I'd go to the seaside for a day-trip and my Mum would say:
"Oooh James, it might turn a bit nippy when we get to the pier, go and get my scarf would you?"

The sun has been shining though, which made it perfect weather on Saturday for a game of footy with my brand new team 'The Apostles'.
I'm telling this all backwards- but basically I was waiting for the bus to work on Friday when I got talking to this guy who works near the airport, lives near me, and plays every week with a team from his Church. This kind of stuff always makes me a bit wary of people, when you ask what they did at the weekend and they say "Oh I slept, and went to Church" you've got to wonder exactly how sad their life can possibly be (NB someone said that exact sentence to me today).
This guy seemed pretty well adjusted though, and I figured Christians wouldn't beat me up for missing easy chances. I'm really glad I went too, they were such a nice group of fellas- warm, welcoming, generous (except the ball greedy centre forward), and so inept at football that even I managed to score a hat-trick with a banging headache and a mouth dryer than Ghandi's flip-flop. I'm going back next week, and reckon within 3 months I'll be standing outside the Department store at Sinchon wearing a suit and singing "Kum-By-Ya" into a microphone with my eyes closed (NB again, people actually do this).

The reason for my banging headache then, was a night out with Sam in her home 'town' of Anyang. I say 'town' because I don't really know what the correct term is- it's on the subway line to Seoul and there are hi-rise buildings all the way from there to the city center, but is totally self-contained and so far away that it's classed as outside the City Limits. We met at the "Carre-Four" supermarket and went inside to buy some groceries- it was a genuine Hyper-Market with 40 kinds of kimchi, enough soju to sink a ship and a little "foreigner section" that had such exotic fare as chicken soup and pasta.

Since I don't have a kitchen I don't get to see grocery stores very often so was starry eyed at the stuff you could get in there- we eventually struggled out with 3 bottles of wine, french bread, camembert cheese and the many complex ingredients needed for that classic english dish: Beans On Toast.
Maybe we should've seen the flaw in our plan, maybe you already have, but basically you need more than beans on toast to soak up three bottles of wine. Once we'd finished the lot we stumbled off to a little soju place where the seats are surronded on all sides by fish tanks, and from there to a place called 'Rockssin' where it all gets a bit blurry.

 

After football on Saturday, I thought it'd be an idea to see what Shawn and Julie were up to, they asked if I wanted to go over to their place, Songnae- which again is sort of in Seoul, but sort of miles away. After a fine, fine meal of BBQ Pork marinated with wine and bay leaves, we headed off to another rumoured "Foreigner bar" in nearby Bupyeong.
"Goose Goose" turned out to be a sound bar, big, good music, pool table, probably 70% westerners. We ended up playing pool with 2 fine Korean girls (married), and being invited to a party by some North American types- all in all a good night's work. Even though the plan was to have a quiet(ish) night, we somehow ended up sat in a fried chicken place at 5am waiting to collect our big box of hot-as-you-like legs and wings.

The next morning it was back to the realm of the supermarket, this time Wal-Mart. I swear where I live if I want to buy, say, football socks and blank CDs (for legitimate backup purposes only) I have to traipse all the way on the subway to Dongdaemun Stadium then get back on the subway to Yongsan. Let's say I set off at 1pm, I'd barely be back in time for judgement day.
These kids in the suburbs have it easy, everything you could want is all under one roof in the local megastore (they have Tesco's here too you know!) and whilst you're browsing for toothpaste you can already smell the fish you might fancy eating for your tea.

Whilst looking for a map to show the places I visited, I found a great site that shows what Korea used to look like back in the days of M*A*S*H. Brilliant, brilliant stuff by a vet called Neil Mishalov. Then and Now

 

 1 October

So I'm sat in the staff canteen with a few of the guys from the office yesterday when I notice that one of the people next to me is trying to subtly point in my direction. Not subtle enough for me though as I'm a bit of a Sherlock Holmes on the sly. 
I recognise the uniform they're wearing as being from the coffee shop I used to go into every single morning to buy a coffee and blueberry muffin where the staff have always seemed to find me kind of a novelty item. I suppose whenever I come in they're wondering

"Why is that westerner in the airport 5 days a week?",
"How come that big nose is here for 3 months at a time and then we don't see him for ages?" or maybe
"How can he eat all those muffins whilst retaining the body of an olympic athlete?".

Eonmi, the translator here, went into the same shop once to buy her breakfast and the man behind the counter told her she was getting fat. She was, in fact, 7 months pregnant but it's nice to know someone will tell you when he thinks you've already had enough bagels.
If we went in there together, Eonmi would get the full 20 questions about me, most of which she'd make up random answers for as the mood tooke her ("James? He's my husband / boyfriend / brother / kidnapper"), but through her I eventually found out that one of the girls had a thing for me. I should probably have worked that out when I got a free cookie jar with my muffin one morning.
I would ask the girl out on a date, but neither of us speak the others language, and she's got enough going on with that operation to remove her cataracts. 

Anyway I thought the subtle pointing in the canteen was fine and dandy, but didn't really know what to do when one guy got his 'handphone' out and started taking photos of me eating my dinner:

*Please note that the preceding story was mainly written so that I could have something to go alongside this picture I took in Jong-no at the weekend.

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Since moving to Shanghai in 2006,I have kept a new blog called I Spy Shanghai.

Other Blogs

My mate Duncan's round the world trip Also featuring guest rants by an angry irishman.

Owen in New Zealand A mate of mine who, having grown tired of the old Zealand, sold up and moved to the new one.

Around The World On 80 Quid Helen travelled around the world then landed back in somewhere called "London".

Flying Waygooks One to watch- fresh for the 06- y'hear?.

Rory's What Not To Do In Australia, after leaving Korea, Rory is trying to integrate back into normal society. Well, Australia anyway.

Wyatt an American who understands Korean- but will he understand his new Korean wife?

My good buddy Rachel Lynn's site cute kids, boundless enthusiasm and more photos than me. YES!

Oregon farm boy turned Juicy Girl expert American Mark

Shawn's blog. Tragically Shawn is no longer with us, his memoirs of living in Korea are still a great way to see what living there is like though.
Shawn also wrote a book-

Chase me ladies, I'm in the cavalry British humour. [not based in Korea]

Proper blog celebrity Jason Mulgrew (Adult content warning- he swears more than Rory)

General Korea sites

The Yangpa- it's Korean for Onion...

A fine site for Koreans who want to study in Canada

Random good stuff

[i.e. Where I namecheck all my mates' sites.]

Fat Custard
It's amazing how much good stuff there is on the Internet, and not all of it is porn. Download the magazine you find here and you'll LOL or I'll give you your money back.
ProperTop
Quality Northern (English) Internet humour 'webzine'.
Citizen Erased
Great alternative music site with a busy message board
Beer In The Evening
Pubs, pubs, pubs, england's greatest asset catologued and reviewed.
Richard Massey
One of my best friends went missing from New York City, Christmas 2003. I miss you mate.