Ugh.

My total number of posts was too low for September, so I'm cheating and squeezing in a final one.

Jen and I are both under attack from a Korean flu bug. This bug, apparently, is some sort of super-virus bent on destroying all Americans living in my apartment. Oh my Lord, this thing sucks.

I'll try to post a better blog tomorrow- depends on how I'm feeling. But right now I'd settle for calm stomach.

Hell, at this point I'd be thrilled with some certainty I could put a full meal in us.

So, yeah... ugh....
-Al

Al the Wookie

Greetings!

How are things? I know I didn't blog last week, but since you had such a wonderful outpouring of support I knew that today I had to make this blog happen. So here it is. Here is the shining beacon of your day. Here is what makes getting out of bed on Wednesday worthwhile. Here is...

That's all the bull I can shovel in a paragraph. Let's get to it, shall we?

I suppose we should start with the most exciting story, and gradually work down to things no one cares about. Ok? Sounds good.

So Jen and I were getting onto the subway last Saturday. The general rules of etiquette for this is the same as an elevator. You wait for the people to get off, then you get on. Jen and I, being smarter than a used piece of sandpaper, have figured this out. So there we are, the people getting off unload, and Jen steps on with me a foot or so behind her. All of the sudden, a Korean man, probably about 35 or 40, steps off the subway. He's muttering angrily to himself in Korean. He glances at Jen as they are about to pass, then purposely pulls back his shoulder and slams it into my wife. My wife shrugged him off and stepped on to the subway.

I, however, felt a stronger reaction was necessary.

I faced the gentleman and politely informed him that he was not permitted to touch my wife's person in any way, shape, or form. I then asked, firmly, if he understood. His response wasn't as affirmative as I felt was warranted, so I stepped closer and repeated myself. He then seemed to understand the reality of the situation, and chose to leave the area.

I almost chased his sorry ass down when my wife called to me, and told me to get on the subway before it left. So I did.

Now in each subway car there's a row of abut ten seats on each side. My wife had grabbed a seat, and motioned for me to sit next to her, telling me the whole thing was no big deal. I wasn't quite cooled off, and so I repeated my stance that my wife's person is not to be touched by strangers, possibly stamping my foot slightly.

That's when the girl screamed.

No, I'm not kidding.

A Korean girl, probably around 20, was standing with her boyfriend about 10 feet away. At this last... ok, outburst, she shrieked, grabbed her boyfriend's hand, and drug him to the next car. Within about 15 seconds, this episode had cleared about half a subway car.

Now, in regaling Benoit with this tale, he put it best.

"Man, listen, you gotta think about how they saw this. You're basically Chewbacca surrounded by Ewoks. And man, if Chewbacca starts screaming at one of them, the others are going to be scared."

Which leads to our first photo of the blog...






Bonus: I got a corner seat on the bench.














Hey, here's the entrance to paradise. Who knew it was on a sketchy part of the Han River? I didn't go in, but someone should call the pope. We've been wrong this whole freakin' time.









So this obnoxious little dog is named Midget, and this picture of him is in my apartment. Funny story...

We were having dinner with some friends when one mentions that another mutual friend needed a dog sitter for the weekend. Jen volunteers. Quickly. I, in my always understated way, explained that I didn't think this was a good idea, and if she chose to follow this course I wanted no part of it. Nevertheless, here comes Midget. Midget is old. Midget has some kind of skin problem. Midget smells bad. But Jen isn't a shallow person, so she just embraces the little bastard. I'm ignoring it, enjoying my evening. Then, about 12:30am, my wife comes back from walking it and tells me that she's just seen the most perfect bookshelves, and would I mind helping her get them back to the apartment?

Ok, a little background for those of you not in the know:
We were told we'd have a furnished apartment when we arrived. "Furnished" in this sense meaning a bed, tv, table, and chairs. Things like couches, bookshelves, dressers, etc. were not included, so we have had to find what we could. Lucky for us, Koreans seem to like new things, and they are constantly getting rid of perfectly good furniture. So Jen and I were forever wandering past the trash pile, scoping out any good stuff. It's how I am now rocking a huge La-Z-Boy style recliner, along with a matching couch, boasting a pair of recliners on either end. That bad boy is amazing.
The bad news is we have to haul the furniture about a block, then get it into the elevator, then out of the elevator, then down our narrow hallway before trying to bend the laws of physics by making it clear a wicked corner just inside the front door, while getting it up a step.

Time in.

I am not feeling this at all. But my wife smiled, and I clearly wasn't being given a choice, in the traditional sense, so off I go. The bookshelves were nice. They were also huge and amazingly heavy. I managed to "borrow" a dolly I found and haul this pair of behemoths the block back, into the tiny elevator, out the tiny elevator, down the hallway, past the neighbor with the sleeping infant, through my door, around the wicked corner, up the step, and exactly where my wife wanted it. Twice.

During this little adventure, Jen was concerned that Midget would be crushed. No such luck. She locked the little demon spawn in our bathroom where it had a full blown temper tantrum. We let it out, and the little bastard was pissed. It wouldn't let Jen near it, just kept growling, and running around. Jen finally got the thing to chill out, gave it some treats, and it laid down quietly. Jen, exhausted from watching me haul those damn bookshelves, went to sleep. I stayed up an extra hour, messing around the computer. Midget even came and laid at my feet. "Maybe this won't completely suck," I foolishly thought.

It's 2am when I lay down. The apartment is dark. Midget is pacing a bit, as I try to go to sleep. Jen is supposed to be getting up around 9am to meet a friend (with the dog). I don't have to be up before noon. Then midget starts whining.

It's that quiet, soft, back of the throat whining. I focus on counting sheep and getting to sleep. Once I hit REM, that little hellion won't bother me. Realizing it's current approach isn't working, Midget pulls out the full small dog whine. This weapon is much more powerful, and cuts through my rest like a knife. I order the dog to be quiet in a loud deep voice. It works on people, cats, other dogs, and once on a 1989 Plymouth. But not on Midget.

Midget and I begin our epic battle while I try my best to let me wife sleep. She does. Finally, growing angry, I get out of bed and get real close to the obnoxious such and such, and tell it loudly to shut the hell up. This works for a little while, but as we round 5am I'm done. I wake up Jen and tell her to shut the damn dog up before it takes a real quick 5 story trip outside. She does what she can, but quickly runs out of ideas. So I called the owner. The owner tells me she uses a squirt bottle when it gets like this. Of course, she didn't include that with the things she gave us, so maybe some food would shut it up, or maybe letting it sleep in bed with us. Jen was up at this point, looking through the bag we were given for something that might help. I was still attempting sleep, Midget was still attempting suicide. I thought, rather than kill it, maybe I should try putting it in bed with me. So I get up, and call the little rat over. Gently, I try to pick it up.

The demon bit me. Caught my finger in it's little jaws and bit with all 15 pounds of strength. I was about to hit it when I realized that would, in fact, end the dogs life, so instead I simply moved my arm quickly, sending it careening into my La-Z-Boy style couch. The dog was a little unsteady for a bit. I love that couch.

It was about 7:30 or 8 before we finally got to sleep. Jen had a squirt bottle before work.


I didn't get to post many pictures of the Man-Date I had a while back, and I'm sorry. Here's the highlights.


This is me with some fake penguins outside of the aquarium. My penguin impression is pretty amazing, so if you're having trouble figuring out which one is me, I'm the 220 lb. brown guy in the front with a green shirt on. Third penguin from the left.









And this was the museum on the top of the 63 Building, tallest building in Seoul. They had a Hello Kitty exhibit. I was a little disturbed. This is not the weirdest picture, not by a looooooong shot.









And here's us on a river cruise at the end of the night. They were suppose to have dinner, but they didn't so we wandered off and grabbed a bite together later. It was amazing.



These are some of my youngest kids. They speak almost zero English, and they apparently are given seventeen pixie stix and a cup of truck stop coffee exactly ten minutes before I arrive. I thought I was going to be forced to end the lives of the small ones until I developed a three prong attack that made peace between our peoples possible.

Prong One: Tic tac toe. It took a bit to explain, but they LOVE it.

Prong Two: Coloring packets. These kids love Pokemon, and Naruto. Done and done.

Prong Three: Gimme five. Up high. Down low. And yeah, too slow. That just happened.


This is the backsides of Mike and Claire, two of our very best friends on this side of the planet. They were being so very Korean here, I had to take a picture. We'd just taken them to Costco for the first time, and they're schlepping home the over sized packages that will provide so much joy. Let's take a look at what makes them so Korean.

1. Matching outfits. A must. I have no idea why the hell Claire and Mike keep doing it, and they do, but there ya go.
2. Carrying a heavy load between them. Very Korean. Very adorable.



So I thought I might show you their front sides too. This is a decidedly unflattering picture of both Mike and I, me for the additional chins, and Mike apparently having some sort of eye seizure, but we just got that giant pile of nachos for free, so I think that makes up for it. We were at Rocky Mountain Tavern (RMT from now on. Learn it and love it.) in Itaewon on Chouseok, which is like a Korean Thanksgiving. We watched three NFL games back to back. It was AMAZING. RMT had snagged a feed back in Canada, but somewhere along the line the Candians decided that the Pats/Jets game just wasn't as interesting as the 49's verse some other team that sucks and isn't Miami. Everyone in the bar was pretty bummed. So, I called Mike (who was on his way to join me), and asked if we could use his NFL Gamepass to watch the game we'd been promised. He said sure, the bar put on the game, the crowd cheered, and everyone was happy. Of course, when I convinced the bar manager that it was worth a huge order of nachos, Mike and I were even happier. Did I mention how the Dolphins beat the living snot out of the Pats? Cause the Jets couldn't. Just sayin.



And this is the decidedly prettier side of this year long double date. This is Claire and Jen at a birthday party we went to on Saturday night. It was held on the 10th floor of a big apartment building, with a 20ft x 30ft balcony overlooking the city. It was amazing, and the people were really cool.







Ok, so this has been a ridiculously long blog. I'm spent.


JUST KIDDING!!!

Ahh... got ya, huh? I'm so cool.

SIGN TIME!!


Mike, Claire, Jen, and I were out shopping and swung through a Dunkin Donuts. Claire and Jen wanted a cup of coffee. They were told no, and here's the sign they pointed at.

That's right folks. I can buy a bottle of whiskey from a 7-11, and drink the whole thing at a table and chair just outside provided by the same store. I can even go back and buy more whiskey, and continue to drink. I can do this for 24 hours non-stop. But get a cup of coffee without a donut? You're out of your mind.

If you want coffee, buy a donut.

It's the law.

Jeju: The Land With No McDonalds

Well folks, Jeju Island was a much needed and wonderful vacation. My student's chances of survival climbed almost 10% thanks to this little venture.

There's a slideshow showing way more than you could possibly care about, but nevertheless, here's some of the highlights:



This is the plane that took us from Seoul to Jeju Island. Seoul is in the northwestern corner of South Korea, and Jeju is off the southern coast. My issue is with this whole "propeller" thing. I mean, I've been in a Cessna, and I'm ok with it for short bits of fun. But if we're going to cram 40+ people I'd prefer something that didn't involve someone yelling "Contact!" To be fair, it didn't fall out of the sky in a fireball of death and destruction.

Our initial attempts at the local cuisine didn't go as well as I would have liked. At this charming little restaurant I was proud to finally explain to the tiny old Korean woman that I didn't want any seafood. She said she had a pork dish, and I thought all was well. I have no idea what the hell is in this bowl, but I can guarantee there isn't any pork chops.

However, for a significantly larger sum of money, our hotel was able to provide some really good food. Breakfast was the most economical of the meals, so we ate there when we were up before lunch.



Fear not, dear friends and family, global travel has not affected our hearts. When faced with a $65 cab ride to go climb a huge mountain, we did what any good Floridian would do. We found our way into town and hopped a bus with the locals. It's also, by the way, where we got our food. Since I couldn't see myself paying $80 for dinner every night, we hopped a $3 cab and nabbed a $5 pizza. The $65 car ride? Try $6 for both Jen and I to take a trip to the other side of the island. Eat it, tourists.

We climbed this. The pictures were great, and I'm sure it was worth it, but LORD, I am not built for mountains. Cool bonus: the picture of us eating ice cream was taken on our way back down. There was a little shop halfway there that sold drinks and ice cream. FAN. TAS. TIC.



This was a strange five-headed animal fountain thing. You can see the full fountain in the other pictures, but the point was that you will get good luck in a specific area, depending on where you tossed the coin. So Jen and I tossed a few at the warthog, which presumably brings wealth. So far, though, I just seem to be poorer by a handful of change...



A "professional photographer" offered to take a picture of us in front of the aforementioned fountain (with our camera), and then proceeded to put us through a photo shoot at a couple other spots right around there. I broke down and bought a $5 photo he took with his Polaroid- it was worth it for the freebie shots he took for us too. This is one of my faves, except that I can't help but notice that my arm looks fat in all of them.

What? I can be sensitive.

Ok, not really.


Our hotel was WAY over the top. We had a room at the Hyatt Grand Regency for $130 per night. Apparently I had some leftover luck hanging in the cosmos, because they bumped us up to a $300 per night room with a bathroom that, believe it or not, rivaled a Holiday Inn Express. We had the full bathtub (Jen was thrilled), along with the stand alone shower (AMAZING). This is neither of those things. This is one of the 2 waterfalls in the swimming pool, this one leading to the swim up bar. Unfortunately, the bar was closed for the season. Between this and a particularly nasty turn at the roulette wheel, I think the Hyatt came out on top.




So as the vacation came to a close, Jen and I are waiting for the airplane. Jeju oranges are popular around here, and folks were buying them from vendors in the airport by the box load. But then I came across this. They aren't selling oranges here, they're selling frozen seafood. Because who hasn't wrapped up a week in paradise and thought, "Gee, I wish I could take home some frozen squid!" I don't know, I hate seafood. Maybe some of you are thinking this is the greatest idea ever. Personally, I love that I could buy a huge box of clams, a huge box of oranges, and a box of cactus flavored chocolate, all while waiting for a twin prop plane to fly me back to an airport named "Gimpo."

Gotta love this place...




Well, that about wraps it up. We did make a stop by a famous museum. Turns out Jeju is also known as "Honeymoon Island," and in that vein you can find the Museum of Sex and Health located not far from our resort. Unable to resist, Jen and I took the tour, as well as a bunch of photos. I'd post them, but then this blog would get flagged as inappropriate and they'd (justifiably) shut down my account. Since that's not going to really work for me, I'll tell you if you should happen to be in a happy monogamous relationship and end up in Jeju, check it out.

But, I push the envelope from time to time. So, for a special and much overdue SIGN TIME!!! the only picture I can safely post.



No, they didn't have this as a keychain. Yes, I looked.




That's going to wrap it up for us. I'm trying to put into a blog some of my thoughts on the whole North Korea/South Korea part of our experience here, but it's just not coming together yet. I can tell you, once I get it out, it's likely to be long and have no pictures. Feel free to skip it if that's not your bag.


Oops! Almost forgot.



Hey! Look! Tropical Dan(ger).


-Al