Talking With A 75 Year Old Genius Outside A "Jazz" Bar

I didn't do much yesterday. I pretty much walked around outside the goshiwon late in the afternoon. I talked with a 75 year old man who was working in a little shitty room the size of a box, outside of a Jazz Bar. He told me the show would start an hour and a half later. We talked about Koreans, Jews, Korea, the Korean War, my troubles at the goshiwon, Namdaemun, and how he had studied at some university or college in Kansas in 1955. I think he said it wasn't fun. He learns new English words every day. He read to me from a newspaper, trying to figure out the meaning of the word "snapped". He thought it meant "broken", which it usually does, but in this case, two things had snapped into place on a Japanese space shuttle called "Kibo", I think. His English is excellent! I was amazed! It turned out the Jazz Bar was a bar with K-Pop performances. I got out of there. I was quite disappointed. I told the old man it was K-Pop crap. He loves Classical music only, and has family in Flushing. He doesn't like the Rolling Stones or the Beatles, he said. I took some pictures around the neighborhood, and that's about it. Ah, between my first time talking with the man and my trip back to the "Jazz" Bar, I ate a 12 piece McNuggets at McDonald's, and also ordered fries and a Sprite, and my stomach was quite full! At the Burger King next door, I took pictures of Everly Brothers and Ricky Nelson albums haha.

A Fun, Rainy Day With Mina Noona & A Decent Haircut & Three CDs For $25

Yesterday, I met up with Mina Noona at Ddook Sum. The meeting was at 1:30, but I got there way too early, around 12:40. So, I went to a local PC bang (for the first time in my life). Everything there was very hi-tech. I only used MSN Messenger and Facebook. Then we met up at 1:30 at the train station, went to Mindeulleh Cafe in HyeHwa, which is a nice, small, artsy town not too far from her house. After that, we saw a movie, ate seolleongtang (it was my first time eating it, and I thought it was good but bland), and then walked in the rain to Ch'eonggyech'eon. The original plan was to take a cruise on the Han River, but it was pouring rain, so I suggested taking a look at Ch'eonggyech'eon. Unfortunately, it was simply raining too hard and the area was closed to the public. So, we went to Red Mango and I got a watermelon smoothie-like thing. It was delicious and really tasted like watermelon. Mina got the mango flavored one. She realized she lost her phone, so I called her phone, and her guess was right; she had left it at Mindeulleh Cafe. So, we went back there, got the phone, walked as the rain got harder, and said goodbye at the subway station.









I woke up very late today, talked to my mom and brother on MSN but wasn't able to see them on the webcam, talked to Mike a little bit, ate at Bennigan's for the second time, asked a guy on the street if there was a cd store available, found the place easily (it's the same place from last year!) and bought three discs for 25 bucks; Jimmy Rushing, Big Joe Turner, and a Big Joe Turner/T-Bone Walker one. There was also a Sidney Bechet, a great Jelly Roll Morton that my local library has, and a solid John Hammond disc that I think is all electric. After that, I got an excellent haircut. It took almost two hours, I'd say, or at least an hour-and-a-half. The woman who cut my hair did a great job, and we talked in Korean the whole time. Then, a different woman, who is a year younger than me, washed my hair with shampoo, and then I sat back down in the original chair while the first woman styled my hair with gel. After all that, I got some honeydew/melon ice cream and then returned to my room. Right now, I'm listening to one of the discs I bought.

The Day I Didn't Sweat

Yesterday, I actually didn't sweat! It was amazing! I left my room close to dinner time, ate some slightly undercooked pork which made me sick this morning, wore my silly yellow t-shirt with Korean on it (the shirt's too small!) and spent the evening listening to music!

Taeha Noona & More Pizza Hut Haha

I don't want any more Pizza Hut!!!

Last night, I met up with Taeha Noona in Shinchon. She said it took only twenty minutes for her to get there, so I was relieved. We ate at Pizza Hut, where I never want to eat again, and then saw a movie. We had a great time! By the way, before this, I was YELLED at by the middle-aged man working here. You see, in Korea, you are supposed to take off your sneakers/shoes on the first floor. I live on floor #4. For some bizarre reason, this man gave me a key to a locker on the third floor, but the locker isn't really on the third floor; it's beside the staircase. Therefore, he decided to mix Korean and American shoe/sneaker culture and confuse the living shit out of me. So, I was in the habit of walking up to the third floor (not really the floor, but between staircases) with my sneakers on, taking them off there, and then putting them in the locker. He explained to me (well, he yelled at me in Korean) that I'm supposed to take them off on the first floor and carry them up to the third floor by hand. So, this is what I have to do to get from the streets to my room:

1) Enter code on keypad
2) Walk to second floor and take sneakers off
3) Pick up sneakers and walk with them to the locker
4) Use my key to unlock the locker and put my sneakers in there
5) Walk to floor #4
6) Use a different code on a different keypad in order to get to my floor
7) Use a different key (not the locker key) to open the door to my room

FUCK YOU, YOU STUPID FUCK!

He wrote on paper that he has cameras everywhere, and that if I do what I did one more time, he will throw me out without a refund. Why the FUCK does he think I would do this purposely? It's his fucking fault, because he is mixing Western shoe culture and Korean shoe culture together by putting a fucking locker between the bottom floor and my floor. He's making it confusing for no damned reason!

Ewha and Bennigan's

Yesterday, I woke up late. It was freezing cold in my room. You see, the guy who runs the goshiwon always turn the air conditioning off at midnight, so I sleep naked. However, every morning, I wake up freezing because he turns the air back on haha =( Anyway, I got my glasses fixed in 15 seconds (for free!) by a nice lady at a glasses store. I had accidentally slept on them at some point during the previous night. After that, I took a picture of the first place I ate at last year, the evening I arrived in Korea. I bought a cool t-shirt at Migliore Department Store, and then took a pic of Migliore and of Ewha. I didn't really go on the campus, because I'm not a student there any longer, and it's a girls' school haha. I ate a delicious sampler at Bennigan's that included mozzarella sticks, potato thingies with cheddar cheese and bacon, and buffalo wings. I also ordered a delicious"Strawberry Stretch", which is a strawberry smoothie. After that, I went back to my room. Yesterday was the hottest day of the summer. It felt like 110 degrees. Literally! I also cut my fingers a couple of days ago. One finger got cut on the wood above the fridge in my room, and another when I reached into my suitcase and was cut by a razor! Here are some pictures:

Big Update!

So, on Friday morning, I had to move out of Seoul Backpackers due to a scheduling conflict with the boss of the place, Han. I moved out early and went to a place literally 20 feet away for the day. The room was big and there was a big bathroom and a nice bed, but there was no Internet connection. Fortunately, there was air conditioning and channel 2 was the adult movie channel, which I didn't get at Seoul Backpackers hahaha. On Friday afternoon, I had a horrible date with a horrible girl. On Saturday morning, I woke up early, moved out of the intermediary place, went to MyeongDong to kill 5 hours, came back to Seoul Backpackers, and left with Seong In for the Go Shi Won in ShinChon around 5 o'clock. Before leaving, I talked to the cleaning lady there, who is Korean but her family has lived in China for a while. She was actually born in China. So, she can speak Korean and Mandarin fluently, I guess. I moved in to the Go Shi Won, and sweated to death while noticing how incredibly small the place is. I took an ultra-quick shower, and upon leaving the incredibly small bathroom, I noticed that the floor was all wet. I quickly dried it off, got ready, left my room, locked my door, put on my sneakers downstairs, and ran towards the subway. As it turned out, Mina was twenty minutes late, anyway. I got to my destination at exactly 7 o'clock. Apparently, I simply can't be late for anything, because it's in my Jewish blood. We ate at Outback Steakhouse and had fun. When I came back, I got lost, but then was able to find the Go Shi Won. It's pretty much hidden, but it's sort of easy to have a rough idea of where you are, because it's near the subway station and the big, very popular McDonald's. I unpacked, set up the Internet, showered, and talked to people. This morning, I woke up early, talked to Mike and Steve on MSN, showered, and went to meet Tae Ha Noona in order to see the baseball game. The game featured the Doosan Bears versus the SamSung Lions. It was incredibly fun; I took lots of pictures and videos. Afterwards, we went to a different town and sat at a cafe, drinking really sweet iced tea and using the Internet. We looked up Eric Clapton on Allmusic.com, checked the score of the baseball game (since we left early before it ended, in order to avoid crazy traffic (our team lost)), and I showed her Spinal Tap on Youtube. She thought it was very funny! Of course, I also gave her the Guns 'N' Roses concert dvds I bought at MyeongDong subway station, when we met outside the stadium. She came up to me when I had my headphones on and was putting anti-insect-whatever cream on my poor body. It was a great night! Tomorrow morning, I have to wake up early and move to the room next door! Jesus Christ; moving four times in two days! In the following pictures, you can see a hilarious t-shirt from Migliore Department Store in MyeongDong, which I saw on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, it wasn't available in large or extra large. You can also see the Olympic Stadium from 1988, which hasn't been used since then! haha

Ugh!

Yesterday, I woke up late and went to eat jajangmyun. After that, I bought some kebab from the Iraqi guy. He wanted to see my phone again, and he kept bothering me. He wouldn't let me leave. I finally escaped from him. Then I went in search of hotels to stay in. I though I saw the New Korea Hotel in the distance, but it turned out to be the New Oriental Hotel=( I went to an underground shopping mall and talked to two middle aged men, both of whom spoke English very well, for about an hour. We spoken in English and Korean. One of them wouldn't leave me alone, and he kept bothering me about hotels. He called his friend and asked him to help me find a place to live. They both tried to convince me to stay at cheap, shitty places. I tried to escape from him, but, unfortunately, we were walking in the same direction. I finally lost him, and came across two middle school girls in a church playground. I asked them where the hotels were, and they went with me because they wanted to be nice, I guess. However, it must have looked awfully weird and bad when the people on the streets saw me walking in and out of hotels, saying to these girls "Too expensive!", in Korean, at 10 PM. I really wasn't thinking very well at that time. I thanked the young girls and said goodbye to them, and then ran in to the same damned annoying guy who tried to convince me to stay in cheap, shitty places. I had told him I was going home an hour before haha. I escaped from him again, and then I got lost, and finally made my way back to the youth hostel. I told Seong-In about my story. I barely got any sleep last night. Terrible, terrible, terrible.