Weather: cloudy but not too cold.
leave the hotel and find. . . 10,000,000 junior high students on a field trip. There's a parking lot the size of a football field full of nothing but busses. Jesus. It's out of control!! Some girl comes up and says the only English she knows: "I'm a pre-tty girl." And walks off. Um. . . .
a bunch of little boys are clowning on my pink hair too, but those fools are speaking Korean anyway, so I don't even have to deal with it! what's more The Hair serves as a good icebreaker for people who are friendly. All in all, it's fun to be pink in Korea.
Then I go for a hike by this amazing waterfall!
FRIDAY
WEATHER: it's raining like heck today, so I don't hike.
Take a bus back to Seoul and check into another hotel in Myong-dong. My penpal
says it's a popular vacation spot for Japanese tourist girls. apparently they
come to get plastic surgery in Korea: first-world talent at 3d world prices??
SATURDAY:
Weather: not exactly sunny, not exactly cloudy.
It's saturday night, so it seems like a good time to meet my drunkest penpal, named Yeonhee, to go dancing. I like to dancing in every city I visit, just to see how it's different from home! Yeonhee is some 21 year old party girl who is dating some US army guy. He's away. but she knows all his army buddies, and we're all supposed to go dancing at some army disco in Itaewon, the 'foreigner district.'
I meet her at this bar full of white people, it's got a Texas, OK Corral motif, and everyone is drunk. I am acting defiantly faggy just on General Principles. I give yeonhee and her gal pal a hello kitty stamp. there's some amazing fucking Broomhower-sounding Texan GI guy there who is hitting on yeonhee, saying the same 3 things over and over again. when I ask him if he wants a hello kitty stamp, he leaves! later on, cowboy comes back and I get him started on the subject of the Dixie chicks, with amazing results.
Yeonhee is talking about her drunken exploits of last weekend. She punched her ex-boyfriend in the nuts.
I tell her, " Jesus, look at these drunks! I'm going to be killed tonight. Will you protect me?"
Her: well, my army pal is coming with us. He can protect
you.
Me: but I want to see your nut-punching maneuver!
Her: don't worry, I'm personal friends with most of
the guys who start fights around here.
That's gotta be among the least reassuring reassurances I've ever heard. . .
Yeonhee's pal is her total opposite: a nerdy plump introvert with Coke-bottle glasses. I get along better with the pal, despite the language barrier. We do portraits of each other. I tell Quiet Girl that she drew me way too cute! Later I give Quiet Girl her portrait and she's really happy about it. a bunch of guys are all saying hi to Yeonhee, but no one is even so much as looking at Quiet Girl, which is pretty shitty.
then we go dancing. we're in this insane, crowded-ass army bar with multicultural jocks and hoochies and it's pretty cartoony. I'm wearing a Hello Kitty ring, a baby-blue cardigan, and lime green pants, and I'm certain I'm going to get killed. we go to dance but her friend refuses to dance. Yeonhee solves the problem by ignoring both of us equally and going to some other bar where she can chat up her GI pals. so now I can't dance AND her friend has no one to talk with, since I don't speak Korean. This new bar is only playing Korn, and the GI guys are all singing along, playing air drums, etc.
eventually Quiet Girl leaves and we go back to Army Bar #1 and I finally think we can dance, but I'm wrong. now YEONHEE doesn't want to dance. huh?
she just wants to flirt with her boyfriends' friends. shit, I don't care if she's not dancing with me… . .she should at least dance with some other guy, and not just sit on her butt. I'm the old guy here, I should be the one not dancing!! but I say, fuck it! and dance by myself and get some high fives from amused black guys and I have a great time and sweat everywhere. There's so much spilled beer on the floor, that you can slide your feet around and do this wacky fake Mikel Jackson shit, so I make up several new Beer-Sliding Dances.
On the other hand, I'm totally aware of how my need to be surrounded by Asian
girls at all times is analogous to yeonhee's need to be admired by white guys
all the time. it sucks being so smart, fucking seeing things from the others'
point of view. STUPID maturity, I hate it SO MUCH. . .!! 
In the subway station , some shirtless USA guys are screaming, 'COME ON!
WHO WANTS SOME??' and slapping each other.
ok, here's Sunday:
weather: same as yesterday. "Jeans and a sweater" weather.
hang out with my new pal, gunhee bauk. he's that cool skater kid. his dad used to work for hallmark cards and dropped out to write a book on the history of Mongolia. how fucking cool is that?
pretty fucking, that's how.
we go shopping and talk about intillectual shit. . .. He's an expert on Spanish literature, and black metal!
then I'm off to meet my college pal Eunjeong. Her three favorite things are Jesus, Mozart piano recitals, and making me eat Korean food. I've managed to run away whenever my other penpals drag me to Korean food, but Eunjeong is just too irresistible. The food is great! Lots of vegetables, and bland enough for my American mouth.
MY FAVORITE KOREAN FOODS:
"Gal-Bi", the ribs of a cow. that's
right, i eat ribs now.
"Dong-Chi-Mi" , the 'liquid kimchi' it's not hott. . . it just tastes
like nothing you have ever experienced
"Bi-Bim-Bob." this is tangy vegatables and rice. rock on.
and my #1 favorite: KOREAN
PICKLES!! mmm. . . . pickles. . .
Eun Jeong not only brought her pal Jeong Yeon, but her sister Hye Jeong too. Hye Jeong looks the most conservative and churchy of the bunch, but the shit she says is so off the hook! She thinks that the interrogation scene in 'silence of the lambs' is the most romantic thing ever, has nightmares about flying and then falling into the sea, and idolizes Charlton Heston. Huh? Actually, all three young women think Heston is the perfect man.
I ask if they've seen his new movie, "bowling for columbine." But really I'm just jealous.
intro
: part 1: part 2
: part 3 : part 4
: part 5 : part
6 : part 7 : part
8 : engrish : storesigns
: poo : links