more weekend update with attractive subheaders

I'm finding it hard to focus today. earlier today I gave my 30 days notice for my job at city hall. It's weird that exactly a year ago I had been fired from my chuncheon gig. Yet here I was today, thinking about contracts and formal letters. Mr. Bak, my supervisor, took it surprisingly well. He was too hungover to be very reactionary about the whole thing. I remember a time when I swore I would never move to seoul, would never want to go to a big city—too many foreigners, life moves too quickly there. But at that point I also had jules and rory with me and they were all the entertainment I needed. Which is not to say that suncheon is without its merits, fike and Erica being my surrogate jules and rory over the last few months. I've also gotten to travel a lot while I've been here, but I think I've spent the whole time in suncheon waiting for things to happen to me instead of being proactive in my life. I like the idea of having things to do. a great weekend in seoul bookended by a shitty Friday drama class and a shitty Monday drama class was what finally made me realize I didn't have to stay here in this city or in this job if I didn't want to. Quite the revelation.

Friday night lights, I just really wanted to type that. Bar nana (banana!)
so yeah, this weekend marked another visit to seoul with Erica and mike. Friday was sort of a stressful day, as I'd bought the bus tickets for 6:20, but didn't finish work until 6. the whole day I felt like I was rushing: rushing to eat because I was nice and kept playing games with munchkins for an extra 15 minutes into my lunch break, rushing to finish my drama class, rushing to get to the terminal on time. I got there with about 2 minutes to spare, thanks to the superior driving skills of a student's mother. She was saying "fuck" and "shit" the whole time she was swerving in and out of traffic.

So we arrived in seoul a little after 10, caught the subway and found a shitty love motel. the next day the plan was the dmz tour, so we didn't want to get too drunk. Went to itaewon, as it seems to be the default when you show up late-ish and indecisive on a Friday night. Not all the bars are full of douchebags, though the random assholes loudly parading themselves down the street would make one think otherwise. Seriously, where do these people come from? Are they all english teachers? That's mildly disheartening. There's one place I've been to every time I've gone to seoul now (at least for round 2 in suncheon) called bar nana. It's great—interesting décor, Korean dudes with tattoos. Sometimes there's good music. Other times it's standard dance-y music. I can deal with that as long as everything else is cool. Normally there aren't too many people, but on this particular friday nite it was packed. Some chick was flailing around quite a bit, so that made for good entertainment. an asian looking dude came to sit down next to me, so I told him the seat wasn't taken and spoke a little Korean, and he's like "dude, I'm American too." So I felt like an ass. But he was really cool and even made his way into some of my pictures that have yet to be posted. Plus he bought us beers, so that's always a bonus. Post bar nana, made our way back to our motel.

Dmz (sans girly mentionings of dudes)
We had to go to our meeting place at 8 in the morning. Bus departed at 8:20. the first half of the day involved going to all the same stuff I went to last time when I was disappointed: tunnel (including the uber-melodramatic 7 minute butterfly film whose only goal seemed to be to diminish the severity of what's one of the most uniquely hostile situations in the world. But whatev), rail station. The first train to north korea had actually only left the station on Thursday, so it was cool to be there so soon after a pretty historic event.

after a tasty lunch in what appeared to be a log cabin in the middle of korea (that's weird, just so you know), came all the good parts of the dmz tour. the sort of shocking, unsettling stuff. First we went to the freedom bridge ("is that freedom rock? Turn it up!" I believe I made that same joke last time…). not really too shocking, but that's where we changed buses to go to panmunjom/joint security area. We drove for a little while to the military base of camp bonifas, where we then had our passports checked again. Met our American military personnel "tour guide" (I don't seem to recall him speaking. But he was hot. I know, I know, sorry, that girly part slipped into the recap…). then we had a briefing and signed a waiver saying we might die and all that shit. And the biggie: "visitors will not point make gestures, or expressions which could be used by the north Korean side as propaganda material against the united nations command." Yikes. Every time I went to brush hair out of my face or adjust my sunglasses, I was afraid I would be shot. Anyhoo, Boarded onto blue UN buses and went to the joint security area/mac conference room. That's the room where one side of the table is in north korea, the other side is south korea. I don't think I even had my whole body on the north Korean side at any point. But I think most of the right side of my body still counts. It's funny that I don't think of those things until after the fact. Stood next to a Korean soldier who looked fucking scary and not real. I think my picture sort of reflects that fear. After the jsa, we went to the freedom house. I'd call it more of a freedom pagoda. surrounded (on 3 sides at least) by north korea. After that we got to look out on a nice vista (?) of north korea. I guess it was pretty. You hear all this stuff about how the dmz is the most-well kept natural wildlife preserve in the whole world (despite the thousands of landmines that remain), but it didn't look particularly pretty. I dunno. But I got lots of good pictures. After that we passed the site of the ax murder incident (go to wikipedia, fools!) and then the bridge of no return. Then the long bus ride home that I seem to recall touching upon briefly in my last blog.

Jazz and hookah and just a general good feeling
Later that night we decided to explore a different area of seoul (this, of course, after eating fantastic Mexican food in itaewon and drinking mojitos. It was quite nice). So we went to another university area and wandered around looking for a love motel for about an hour. Though it sucked to not have our lodgings in order, it was nice to get to wander around in this totally different part of seoul. It actually felt sort of sophisticated and classy. In a lot of really bizarre ways it reminded me of Austin, tx. All those nice restaurants and coffee shops that had actually had some effort put into their interiors. We finally found a hotel, not a motel. Which means it's slightly more expensive, but we were sick of walking around with all our shit (particularly me. When i'm in a rush I tend to overpack, hoping that I don't forget anything by virtue of including everything I own). So we unpacked, snuck Erica into the room (or so we thought), napped, and then went out on the town. We ended up at a jazz club. That was only slightly surreal. In the 8 months I've been here I've been totally starved for music of any sort. Of course there have been the random excursions where I hear traditional Korean music, but hearing and seeing live jazz was probably more overwhelming than I would have thought it could be. They were great. 2 saxophonists—an alto and a tenor—drums, stand up bass, piano. It was so nice and calm and a highlight of the weekend. I felt like a normal human being again for about an hour. Listening to live music like normal people do sometimes. Drinking a beer and just absorbing it all. it's easy to forget how much I miss live music when I've been stripped of it cold turkey. And then I see things like this and it's sort of inexplicably overwhelming, a reminder of what I've been missing, whether I've realized it or not.

I suppose this is it for now. Still have the hookah bar, lantern festival and random guy who thought I was a prostitute to cover. Oh, and the raelians. Fucking crazy peeps!