met my good friend clayton in this university area of seoul post jazz bar. went to a hookah bar. i'm a fan of these places. i liked the hookah bar in itaewon more, felt more intimate, darker. plus it had a bitchin cheese plate. i like those characteristics in bars--hookah or otherwise. but this other place was okay, as the general atmosphere of the whole area picked up the slack. didn't really matter after the jazz bar (where i drank some german beer, not cass or hite), my night was made.
went to bed relatively early that night (3:30 ish is early). slept in until around 11, as we had no major plans, other than going to a parade later that evening. when we left the hotel, erica and i tried to evade the front desk chick and just left fike to deal with her, as she obviously saw us and knew that we were three in a room, not two. so we headed outside and just waited for fike. he seems to do well in these situations, as he's mastered the art of being aloof and "i don't speak korean." so erica and i waited for about 5 minutes outside, getting progressively more nervous (you wouldn't say nervous-er, would you? sounds weird if it is a word). then fike emerges, walking hurridly saying "let's go. start walking." so the lady told him he had to pay $10 more for the extra person, at which point he said "just a moment" then left. i think she probably assumed he had to go to an atm, so we just left. that was pretty funny. it was already way overpriced--paper thin walls and tiny rooms, not any different than a motel, aside from jacked up prices. plus, that was $10 we desperately needed to contribute to our "sunday afternoon getting drunk" fund. a moral dilemma, no doubt, but clearly our thirst outweighed the needs of this hotelier.
we headed to the bus terminal to stash our bags for the day and eat. took us a while but we eventually found lockers. hopped on the subway and headed towards city hall where all the festivities were. one of the first things we saw during our festival experience was a parade of raelians. i could spend some time explaining these peeps, but instead i'll divert you to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raelian they're big in the korea, i guess. you could sort of see the raelian chicks' boobs, so hey, that was cool. then we saw lots of hare krishnas and buddhists, all hanging out parading about and making crafts. along with the thousands of other festival goers. we were hands off festival goers, content to just wander around amidst the throng. erica and i did participate in one booth. we wrote letters to orphans in laos. at least my dude was from laos, i don't remember where erica's was from. that was fun. i might even get a 6 year old pen pal out of the deal.
after some meandering, decided that afternoon beers were in order. so we sat at a soju/kimbap tent of sorts, observing and drinking. this is where the creepy dude who thought i was a prostitute came into the picture.
so i have a very large tattoo on my back, and no, it's not a butterfly or a dolphin or some chinese character. also not a lower back tattoo--you know, whore stamps. i
was wearing a dress that revealed some of said tattoo. nothing more scandalous than the near ass-baring skirts and slutty stilettos or whore boots that so many korean girls wear on a daily basis. but i guess tattoos make people think you're easy. anyhoo, dude had been staring at us for a long long time, then mustered up the courage to talk to fike first, to feel us out. once he realizes we're all americans, he seems a little surprised but still friendly. so we're talking, he says he's been to missouri but that he didn't like it. okay, whatever. then he very aggressively tries to cover me up with his jacket. so i politely tell him i'm not cold. but he's forcing this jacket on my back. so i violently shove the jacket off of me. and once again i wanted to shout "don't fucking touch me!" i'm not some little kid, i'm not a wild animal, i'm an adult and don't ever want to be shushed or touched by complete strangers. yaaarrrggghhh! shake an angry fist! and besides, can't he see that my tattoo is intricate and beautiful? you think a russian whore has that kind of attention to detail? so after that i just kind of sat there stewing. but if it hadn't been for that awkward time spent with gross dude and us feeling the need to ditch him, wouldn't have awkwardly run into hot dude (and his family) in insa-dong. so i guess it all worked out.we drank at an indian bar, then hit up a 711 for some cans o' beer, then ate at an italian restaurant, then headed over to the parade. continued drinking the cheap beer. and once again the parade was a magical, otherwordly thing. thousands of pale lights steadily streaming off into the distance, gently punctuating the bustle that is everyday seoul. good eats.
after getting nice and toasted, had to leave the parade early to make the 10:20 bus back to our small town. needless to say, the beer aided our sleeping quite a bit. so even though monday is my earliest day of the week, i felt well-rested.
buddha's birthday was actually on thursday, which meant a day off work. sort of a teaser since you still have to work on friday, and then it's the weekend, but i'll take a day off whenever i can get it. i had entertained going to some temples or going on a picnic, or doing something arguably productive. but instead it rained a lot and i was grateful for the excuse to do indoor things like eating, drinking and passing out drunk during a full theater's viewing of pirates of the caribbean. yup, i'm a responsible adult. so yeah, ate shabu shabu with erica and fike. it sort of sucked--too much dwenjang (sp?)--but i gorged myself anyway. after that we decided to go see a movie. so we get to the theatre and end up having 2 hours to kill before the movie. head to a mini stop, wet and thirsty. wow, that sounds sort of dirty, but i'll go with it... 3 pitchers of beer later, we're sort of inexplicably wasted. sure 3 pitchers will get 3 people drunk, but there's really no logical explanation for just how drunk we were. i dunno. it was bizarre, but fun. so in the theater we continued our drinking spree, finishing a pitcher of beer and then moving on to a bottle of wine. i'll be honest, not a great idea, but an idea nonetheless. then i passed out. woke up and felt nauseaus, went to get a soda. fike and erica met me at the snack bar so we could leave. so yeah, don't ask me how pirates of the caribbean was, i have absolutely no idea. all in all, i think it was a day that buddha himself would have wholeheartedly endorsed.
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