Days Five Thru Infinity: Winning Over the Koreans

It was easy. A wink of the eye, a smoochy face, and a sly grin lured 'em in for the giant kill. And they've fallen hard. Just look at those innocent boyish good rooks and you can't help but try to break the language barrier. English Schminglish. It's all about my shekshi body language right?

This has been the most fantastic week I've lived since that week when I was born. Even though my liver is now crawling at a snail's pace and crying in exascerbating pain, Joe and I have managed to steal the hearts of Korean girls everywhere. And in the process, I debunked a personally held myth: not all Korean girls are hot. It's true, yes, it's true.

I've been trying to get my act together to brog every day, but we've literally been so hurriedly busy touring Seoul and Busan that my creative spirit has had to take a back burner. Poor creative spirit. But it's okay, I'm letting it spin out of control in this entry.

Let's kick it off with more food. On Tuesday, Joe and I met up with Yunhee and her friend Eunyung in Pusan, the a huge port city in the South of Korea, much like San Diego to the rest of Southern California. Because we were pegupoh (hungry), of course we scoured the streets for some belly-filling excellence. And what did we find? The Pusan Fish Market! Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. We patrolled the aisles seeking the best of the best, and when we finally decided on our lobster (aww...he's your lobster), we ordered our soju and faceplanted ourselves in the fresh ass seafood. It was so damn good I ate my tongue.

But I didn't. Instead, we went to a Japanese-style dive bar and a magoli dive bar located in completely opposite ends of the city (and this city is almost the size of New York). Magoli is this traditional alcohol that's served soup-style and tastes kind of milky and carbonated. Mashita (delicious). It gives you a massive headache about an hour after consuming this deceptively powerful beverage, and when you wake up from the spinning room around you, you drink more. Or at least that's what we did because this monstrous nightclub yelled out our names from the other side of town. Arabian Nights is what it was called, and it could easily have been a Las Vegas show with the choreographed dancers, impressive solos, boy-band type performances, and the stripper. She was hot.

Okay okay, we get the point. You party a lot Stephen. But what about the touristy stuff? Well, there hardly was any, unless you count our hike up Nam San (North Mountain). As the wise old Joe said to me before our binge trip began, "The monuments, statues, and sights will always be there. But our youth is now." I full-heartedly agreed with him, but when we found a famous gate (think Arc de Triomphe) burned crispily down to the ground on our first day in Seoul, I added a pinch of salt to the quote and then took a shot of chamisul (a type of soju). Dagindeyo. That hits the spot.

On Thursday, we took the subway and train back to Seoul, a good three hour ride that largely consisted of me recovering from the previous night's four dinners and clubbing. By the time we got back (this time staying near Seoul University), we knew #1 the night was still young, #2 we were still young, and #3 what you're supposed to do if #1 and #2 happen to coincide. Keep in mind by this point, I've absorbed a good amount of comical Korean phrases that I could whisper into the ears of the any Korean drunkard (again, redundant), so I was ready to "practice" all night long. And I did.

I've never been to so many norebangs (karaoke rooms) so frequently and not sing more than a few songs in my entire life. We were always with great company, and I'm not talking about the hostesses that take us back to ancient times. You know, before civil rights happened. Here's a good time to make some education out of our experience. Keong, my long lost twin brother, explained to us that Korean men are often so stressed from long hours at work, serving in the military (mandatory), and living with their Korean wives that very often they'll just go to norebangs almost every night. They get the cozy company of these hostesses, who have yet to go meechesoh (crazy) due to the thing called matrimony. You know, that thing that feels like falling off a cliff. With a knife in your stomach. Yes, Stephen, tell me how you really feel about that. They're really great though. They've got this stuff down to a science. And I'm the experiment.

Okay, okay, enough about the fun. Let's talk a bit about culture. Wait, I take that back. Korean culture is embedded with drinking. Keong says Koreans love challenging themselves, which explains why he drank himself stupid til 2am on Wednesday, then woke up at 4am to go training at the military camp in the mountains. And, when we met up with him Thursday night, he treated us to some excellent Korean BBQ and several bottles of soju. Here's how to order this sweet juice of life: "Yogio! Soju hanbyung juseyo!" Excuse me! One bottle of soju please! That is all I will ever need to know of the Korean language. You too, Phil.

So, I've decided to leave work in America and become a supermodel in Korea. Things here are so materialistic that I can't help myself advertising beers and whiskeys in every freakin' photo I've taken in this paradise of K-pride. That's not a bad thing of course. Korea, or Seoul I should say, is on the cutting edge of the fashion industry, importing swank ass goods from France before Gap even has a chance to think it'll turn a profit this quarter. See this jacket? I caught a reflection in a spoon of me wearing it while I was eating my omurice, and I remember thinking "wow, you're ridiculously good looking, maybe you could do that for a career."

And that's when I kicked this giant teddy bear in the nuts.

Ita buja. See you later.