"Only in Korea"

It's not yet 9 in the morning and already, I've had an eventful day. First off, instead of being roused from sleep by the interminably annoying beep of my alarm, I was prematurely awoken by the ringing of my phone. At 6am, one of the teachers from my workshop decided it would be a good idea to call me. Even though my mind was cloudy with sleep two questions were running through my mind...a) How did he get my home phone number (not my cell) and b) WTF?!?!?!

I mean honestly. Who does that? I guess I should mention why he called... this teacher is in my Wednesday afternoon workshop. He asked me to come to his school's festival and I told him I would check my schedule and get back to him on Thursday or Friday. Well, bless his soul I guess he was just too eager to find out the answer and called me AFTER Thursday but BEFORE Friday. Can't really hold a grudge against him for that now, can I?

After my morning grooming routine I headed to school and arrived to find a enormous brown box in my desk. Straight from the motherland. My face must've lit up like a Christmas tree because the teacher across from me was giggling. I'm not ashamed to admit that I physically hugged the box and caressed it a little. Thanks Family!

So, that about catches us up on my day today, but let's now take a few moments to delve into the past, as it has been quite some time since I updated. Let's rewind almost 3 weeks to a weekend in Seoul.... *wavy dream lines*

Well, the trip started with an uncomfortable 5 hour bus ride. We had the misfortune to be stuck on a regular intercity bus for the duration of the trip (instead of an express comfy bus). These buses are actually quite nice for a short trip, but fill it up with lots of people at the end of a work day and only let us out once in 5 hours...it turns into a hotbox of gross smell and tension. Anyway, we planned to arrive early evening, but we didn't take into consideration the Friday evening traffic, so we rolled in around 9:30. Our first destination was Itaewon, which is a very "Western" area of the city, built up mostly for the American GI's. I equate it with Torguta, the port city from Pirates of the Caribbean where there's filth and bar fights and whores. I had been there before almost a year ago with Bobbi and Carol, but it was during the day. Man is it different when the lights go out. We quickly found a place to stay. Three of us in one tiny room. The bed was built for two, but there wasn't enough room for one of us to sleep on the floor, so we ended up sleeping three on the bed, sideways. Think of the three stooges. That was us (me Carol and Mel)...stooges. Anyway, after getting a room we headed out to find some food. We came across a Canadian Bar called the Rockey Mountain Tavern and decided it was fate. Oh mercy it was fantastic. Not only was the entire place decked out in Canadian paraphernalia, but they also had....wait for it.... MOOSEHEAD!! *drools*. It was expensive, but so worth it. Oh man. Awesome.

The next day we woke up and started shopping. The place had literally transformed over night. What was a dark, prostitute-littered, drunken yelling-filled cesspool was now a vibrant, lively shopping district filled with all types of faces - white, black, asian, indian. It was great. The highlight for me was the used book store, at which we would've spent more time if our stomaches weren't grumbling with hunger. *sigh* We will meet again, book store, we will meet again.

In the afternoon we went to a different area called Insadong. It was much more traditionally Korean with lots of little shops harbouring souvenir-ish things. We had indian food for dinner and while the Chai Tea was more than disappointing, the Samosa made up for it. Insadong reminded me of Niagara on the Lake (at least my memory of it. Who knows what it's like now). The streets where bricked and not paved, traffic is shut down on Saturdays, people just walk around visiting stalls and window shopping. It was very culturally alive. We stayed in a much nicer hotel this time...no hookers to contend with. Late at night I was pretty much a zombie, but couldn't pass up the opportunity to go to DongDaeMun...an outside market and shopping mall that was open until 5am. NUTTY! We strolled the stalls along the streets and found some interesting things. I bought a new pair of glasses (only frames) for a cool $5. Sweet! they are blue with wide arms and the arms have a blue and white checked pattern.

After the 5 hour bus fiasco, we decided to treat ourselves to a train-ride home on Sunday. It was mighty relaxing. All in all, a wonderful weekend in the big city. One more interesting tidbit from the weekend:

When we were taking a taxi, the driver offered us a piece of gum. I was already chewing gum so I said "isseoyo" which means "I have it". He looked at me funny and then asked me, in korean, where I was living. I told him Jeollanamdo. Even through my foreigner's accent he could tell that I didn't learn to speak Korean in Seoul. I'm effectively learning "hick" Korean down in the south country.

Anyway, that's about it for my Weekend in Seoul..let's fast-forward to last weekend...and the party in Mokpo...*dream squiggles*

The event: Maura's brithday
The style: 1920's murder mystery
The character: Dina Diva

that's right folks, we had a full-out murder mystery party and I got the role of the lounge singer-turned actress. Parfait, non? Before I talk about the actual party it's time for...

Korean Hair Salon Misadventures

This is what I was going for:

I showed the stylist (no English) the picture. I immediately saw the confusion in her eyes. The events that followed were both hilarious and disturbing. She washed and dried my hair and then tried to get that particular type of wave using a round brush. I thought she was being pretty creative and doing a good job. When she was finished it looked alright, just kinda...big. As you can see from the picture, the waves are very close to her head, so to try to achieve this, the stylist pulled out the gel. After globbing a bit on my head she realised that this was not the way to go. She disappeared into the back and return with a jar of green...stuff. I can't even tell you what it was but the consistency was like mucous. Radioactive snot. It was gloopy and stringy and gooey and altogether NOT meant for someone's hair. She rubbed it around for a bit while I looked on in fascinated horror. A few seconds passed and me and Mary and Virginia realised just how hilarious this was. Eventually the two stylists were laughing too. The stylist recognized her folly and took me back to wet my hair and start again. I thought she was going to continue with gel, but no! Once I was back in the chair, she puts even MORE of this green ooze on my head!! Virginia ran to get my camera. Thankfully she did, because now everyone can see what was really going on...

hence the title of my entry..."only in Korea". Anyway, right after the video ends I said "Hajima" which means stop and pleaded with her to shampoo my hair. What is usually a 5 minute shampoo turned into a 15 minute cleansing. Oh mercy. Anyway, after that I just asked for wavy hair and the result was great. I looked good. Lesson learned.

Moving on. The party. Amazing. There were tons of characters there. I was the diva, there were many gangsters, a private dick, coppers, the mayor and his wife, bartenders, flappers, etc, etc. I somehow picked up a southern accent (although it was set in chicago). I think it was reminiscent of the last time i did a murder mystery. [O-Week 2003. Noah and I were a white-trash couple from the deep south. Heck Yeah!!] I even sang a little ditty at some point (after the murder). Big props to Mary and Crystal for organising the party and thanks also to Shannon and Richard for hosting. It was, dare I say it, the Cat's Meow.

This coming weekend marks an historic event: The first ever meeting of the Jeollanamdo Book Club. w00t! You'll be hearing about that!

Thank you for reading and have a happy day!