Now in Colour!

I'm not sure why, but for a long time in Korea there didn't seem to be many choices when it came to car colour. Most days I can look off my balcony and it's a melange of black, grey and white cars resting out in the parking lot. Yaaaawwwwwnnn!


I've been noticing quite a bit more colour these days, especially on the cute little boxy looking cars people are driving around. I think it's nice to see some diversity here, even if it's just in automoboobilage.

Drive-by Comment-hate

I know I shouldn't let that comment mentioned in the previous post bother me. I tried willing myself to let it slide off me and away - like the proverbial water and the duck's back sort of thing,...but yet I've found myself thinking about it over the past couple days.

I don't think I'm a stupid person by any means, but I just don't get it. What sort of satisfaction comes from trolling around and leaving hateful message's on a stranger's blog? Does the commenter want me to pay a visit and spew my own vitriol his way? Tell him what an asshole he is? Is he that much of a masochist? Maybe he wants to start a comment war.

Well, I'm not like that.
To me, that seems,...well, "ugly!" And lawd knows, I'm all about the beautiful here in Jelly-land.

I have to say though - the thing that I REALLY don't get,...the thing that pisses me off the most - is how he's picking on something so innocent and defenseless. I mean, it's a CHIPMUNK! Sure, Chippy may have very well fallen down a tree or two - but I doubt it was "ugly tree." I don't even think there is such a tree. I bet Chippy's parents didn't think the(y) were "too ugly to procreate." They were just doing what comes naturally, and I'd bet they were every bit as cute as Chippy. And I hope Chippy was never laid by a human,...that's just sick, man. It makes me wonder what sort of perverse shit the commenter is into. Porn stars and rodents? I just don't get it. Now I kind of feel bad for posting the pictures of my chipmunk buddy. All he wanted was some peanuts and instead he gets peanuts with a side order of HATE!

Luckily I don't think he has a computer, so he'll never be the wiser.

In Case You Missed It

In my comments about the chipmunk post:

NIGHTMARE BELIEVER said...
"Oh God! You Canucks make me so sick! Especialy your picture. You hit each and every branch on the way down ugly tree and then must have broken your face on the ground. Did your parents not know the were too ugly to procreate?! Have you ever been laid....by a human? Holy smoke.....You wouldnt turn me on with a porn star friend."

Chippy

Mmmmmm....peanuts!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

As I mentioned before, "What's supposed to happen is that I head off for a sweet vacation in Canada and everything stays exactly the way it was when I left. Nothing changes, there are no new developments and when I come back and ask people "What's new?" they say, "Nothing!"

Unfortunately, that's not the way things work. My trip back to Korea was a little bit rocky. I spent my last night in Canada with my brother in his backyard getting fairly loopy on Wobbly Pops - though Jeff was far more wobbly than I. I started saying I should be getting to bed around 2:30am, but he disagreed and suggested we drink eight more beers. Some time later we heard a massive BOOM and my brother said, "What the hell was that?" I, being all fuzzy and mellow, checked the sky above us and reported it wasn't thunder as there were no clouds. It wasn't until I was back in Korea that I learned about the massive propane explosion that forced (a bazillion?) people to evacuate their homes. I'm still sketchy on the numbers. The fire was quite a long ways away from us, but still SO loud. My brother didn't even remember hearing it until I e-mailed him from Korea.

We were late getting to the airport. Actually, we arrived just over an hour before my flight, but I was told I was too late to check in and I should report to the counter over yonder to re-book. I was (all fuzzy) and mellow about this news, "What? I should spend another day or two in Canada? Okkkkaaaayyyy!" My brother wasn't as easy-going, "I've come to the airport FIVE MINUTES before a flight and still got in! %^#&*!!"

Nevermind,...an Air Canada lady came to collect me and told me I should buy a lottery ticket, as it was a miracle I was going to get on. (What really happened was they'd given my seat away!! Bastards! But it all worked out fine because I got a BETTER seat anyhow! I was originally in 37C, but ended up in 31A! SCORE!) The flight was fine, except for the man in the mismatched clothes with the brutal cologne who sat a seat over from me. I'm fairly sure he was the Phantom Farter on board. However, I LOVE the new online entertainment system that lets you choose what movies or TV shows you get to watch! I watched an HBO comedy special on Dane Cook (who I'd never heard of before) that had me all LOL'ing. (But, sadly, not ROTFMOL'ing.) Still, I got not sleep on the flight, and I connected in Tokyo to Seoul and then bussed it to Seoul's bus terminal to take a five hour ride back here and arrived a full 28 hours later. I was drag-ass knock-down tired.

Funny thing about jet lag and exhaustion,...sometimes it causes insomnia. (Who'd'a thunk?) So I was still awake when I needed to start getting ready for work. I called my boss, and bless her heart - she said I could take an extra day off to rest.

And rest, I did.

The next day my phone rang before work and it was my boss. I thought she was calling to see if I'd recovered and was ready to head back into work. I had, pretty much - but, actually she was calling to give me a heads up that SHE SOLD THE SCHOOL! My NEW boss was going to be at work and she wanted to warn me so I wouldn't die of shock, or something like that.

So nothing's really the same. I've got a new boss - a MAN - who seems nice and gives me big smiles throughout the day. But, he doesn't speak English and he fills the Teachers's Room with Korean-Man-Smell (a mix of soju and garlic? Those who have ridden the subway here will know what I'm talking about.) They've also hired a new Korean teacher as well who came in for the first time yesterday. She's tall - and so far that's all I've got to say about her.

I feel misplaced and disjointed and wishing I was back in Canada.
I think I may have overstayed my welcome here.
That might not be true, really,...I still feel welcome here - my students were overjoyed at my return and the people in my neighbourhood (the people that I meet, when I'm waling down the street - they're the people that I meet each day) seem to have missed me while I was gone.

Still, when I think of the people I flew away from it feels like a Big Hand is shoving its way inside my chest to clutch and squish my heart and lungs.

That can't be good, eh?

Meow

Kamikaze is good and was well taken care of while I was in Canada. I was very pleased to return to my apartment and find he hadn't used my bed as a litter box like he had the during my last trip. Here he is contemplating his scratching post.


And here's Mittens, my brother's cat.

She weighs about a quarter of what Kami does, so you tend not to notice her creeping upon you while you're sleeping. She then will attempt to lick all the hair right off your head. That'll wake you up - and it will definitely freak you out how INTENSE her face is. She's determined that all hairs MUST! BE! LICKED! OFF!

It Was the East

I woke up one morning in Canada because there was a big orange ball of light glowing on the wall beside my head, and I was all, "But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?" because I am so very Shakespearean in the A.M.

It was the sun arising once again to kill the envious moon.
Out on the dock, I think I heard an angel sing "Good morning, Jelly!" (And, "Welcome back to Canada!")

Sad Face

What's supposed to happen is that I head off for a sweet vacation in Canada and everything stays exactly the way it was when I left. Nothing changes, there are no new developments and when I come back and ask people "What's new?" they say, "Nothing!" As it was, I spent my time away not touching a computer (and I didn't miss it either) but was shocked when I returned to check my e-mail and find out my good friend Sher, of What Did You Eat? passed away on July 20th after a sudden heart attack.

I don't even know what to say, so let's meditate on this picture for awhile and be thankful that every moment is another chance to tell someone you love them.

I miss you, Sher.

Because my Brother Pointed it Out

and it rocks,....
Feist:

Grill Up

In the mood for some BBQ? How about some pork? Mmmm'kay? Well, how about some,....


RECTUM!!!!
(Rectum? I damn near killed 'im!)
Rectum is yum yum!

This isn't really rectum - this stuff. It's the intestines of the pig, and it's also the specialty of my friends' restaurant. There's a lot of work that goes into preparing the intestines so they're ready to get grilled up. One must be fastidious with the cleaning of this stuff or you're going to get pretty ill. Maybe die. Something like that. So my friends clean it up very carefully inside and out and then they're all put inside an actual washing machine that only washes intestines! Then it's left to marinate in some special concoction that has a KIWI base! Pretty cool!

The intestines actually look just like intestines when they're placed on the grill. They start to get all tubey as they cook - the restaurant fills with this smell that's not bad at all. It's like bacon without the smokiness. Drooly.


After they've plumped up you snatch them up with tongs and cut them open with scissors. Then brown them up. I like smushing them into the grill so they sizzle and get good and crispy on the outside.


Then they're dipped into this spicy sauce filled with thinly sliced gochu (spicy green peppers) and peanuts. It's very delicious as well.


You can pop the "mackchang" (intestines - also called "holmone" in Japan) into your mouth just so, or cradle them up in a lettuce or sesame leaf with some sliced onions that are soaked in soy, vinegar, and wasabi and a nice sweet roasted clove of garlic. The intestines are chewy. Like fatty pork gum. I love the smell of mackchang, but can only eat a bit before I think "uhhhhh, that's enough chewy pig rectum for me."

T-Minus 2 days

Time goes by so fast. I'm heading off to Canada for a nice little vacation in a couple days. I'm hoping to spend a lot of time having fun at talking in WARP speed English. If joy and laughter don't envelop me during every moment I'm back in the motherland I'm going to kick everybody's ass.

No pressure, though.

I'm also hoping that this break in my regularly scheduled programming is going to knock me in to gear creativity wise. Sheesh. I'd intended to write a bunch of posts (about what, I dunno) over the past week, but,...

But,...
I don't know.
I caught a bad cold and I think everyone is stupid?

Those aren't really related to one another, yet they've both made me pretty crabby.

Here.
Look at a puppy.

Whyfore he bark at me every time I pass by?
He kind of looks like he wants to bite my jugular out, eh?

Bad Bad Me

See? This is why it's good I don't have children. I'm neglectful. Forgive me, y'all,...it's been three weeks since my last post. I just haven't felt moved by the blogging spirit lately. If I had a baby it'd be all "Wah, wah, FEED ME!" and I'd think, "Yaaaahhhh - I'm just not that motivated."

That's not true. I'd totally feed the baby. I feed my cat every day - so there you go. As a matter of fact, though, I ran out of cat food after feeding him his breakfast this morning and so rushed after work to the local pet store in my town (one of one of a kind here) to fetch him some chow. Usually I head downtown once a week at least to grab his food, but I haven't had the time lately. I caught the local store just as they were closing up, but they unlocked the door for me. (Aside: poor un-airconditioned dogs and puppies on the inside of that shop! The place reeks something horrible and is overrun with fruit flies. There must be at least fifteen dogs and twenty puppies all caged in that stink. Poor things.) So I was happy to have made it to the pet store before they closed (forty five minutes early than their sign says they do) but was dismayed to discover they had no cat food! So Kamikaze just ate up a dish of fine Korean "chicken and jelly" dog food. I expect him to start barking anytime now.

So if I had a baby wah-wahing for some food chances are I'd pop a beer in it's mouth and give it a tattoo.

In my absence from this here blog I had a fling. So, the camel aspect of my being has been satiated. The fling has flung now and I'm flunged out. Posting will resume.

For about a week, that is.
I'm flinging myself to Canada next week where I will spend a few days in the big city and no less than eighteen days in max-chillax mode at my family's cottage. Details and pictures will surely follow whence I return in mid-August,...but starting mid-next-week this here space is probably going to get pretty dark.

Don't cry for me, though. I intend on eating half a delicious Canadian (and therefore not subject to hysterical Korean protest) cow done up right on the barbeque. And the beer,....ohhhhhh Molson je'taime beaucoup.

*TAP*TAP*TAP*

Is this thing on?

Escape

I forgot to mention that the wee praying mantis escaped their little home. This was taken a couple weeks ago on a Monday, and all the little babies were long gone.

I had hoped that once the little guys broke free they would wait around for me to show up and then climb aboard my finger and, like, sing me a song or something. They probably made scarce though because of me. They knew some big thing stopped by a couple times a day to stroke their nest and say "ooooootheca." I think they were inside imagining me salivating and licking my lips anticipating what a tasty snack they'd be once they'd made their way outside. I removed the ootheca and snapped it open to investigate the inside. There were little pods to house each of the little mantis. One cool thing about little praying mantis babies is that they hatch as perfect little replicas of their parents. Trés cute.

I miss having the ootheca to pass by every day, though. I need a new touchstone.

Meanwhile I escaped through the countryside to the beach. The rice paddies are growing up prettily.




Spot the crane?


And the sea was lovely. I could have swam in it, but was in my jeans and a T-shirt. Still, I had a nice wade to almost knee deep.
Spot the fishermen?


There was an animal skull on the beach. Probably a dog, and I spared you all the photographic evidence. It was unclear whether it was consumed by man or beast. That was gross, but otherwise it was a nice day.

Rocky

We got a new teacher finally. Yeeee hah! I don't know too much about her, except her English is crap. I know I shouldn't be surprised, but still I am. She's worked as an English teacher for at least five years, so I expected her to have a decent grasp of the language. No dice. She also talks to herself. A lot! And as I speak to her she repeats words I say multiple times. It's kind of like speaking to a parrot.

We went out for dinner in the middle of the week to celebrate her arrival and my FOUR YEAR anniversary. I was pleased to find that New Teacher drinks. Often at our meals out I was the only one having a few glasses of whatever, and it's always nicer to have someone to "cheers." Thing is, New Teacher started rocking herself back and forth about halfway through the meal and didn't stop for another hour and a half. I just found it to be weird.

Another weird thing happened on Friday when I showed up to work to find one of my student's mothers waiting for me. She owns a bar near the school and we've become very friendly. She had a favour to ask me and came inside so my boss could translate. Pancha (my student's mom) has a friend who is going through some marriage troubles and has left her husband and come here from another city. Apparently she's already gotten herself a job, but doesn't have anywhere to stay. Pancha was hoping I'd let her stay with me.

I only had to think about it for .0025 seconds before saying "uhhhhh no way!"
I looked at my boss and said, "Please tell her I'm sorry, but that's impossible."

I live in a studio apartment. There's no way in hell I could handle a middle aged woman sleeping on my floor. Who I don't know. Who doesn't speak English. Pancha just hoped that I'd be cool and sleep alongside this stranger on the floor Korean style.

I think that's the nuttiest thing anyone has asked me to do since I've been here.

Jindo Dog

Here's the big jindo dog that gets really excited when he sees me coming by on my way to work. I always stop and give him some pets and tell him he's a handsome fellow. Sometimes I'll sneak him a treat. It's such a drag he's chained to his doghouse all the time. He's very much NOT trained, so if he's happened to escape off his chain (which has happened a couple times) he jumps all over me. He's very strong.


Here's Jindo Dog yesterday looking stupid with eyebrows that some dumbass drew on him.

Granny Gets Down!

There was a bakery across the road from my school that I almost never went to. I guess me not buying anything there affected them, because they packed up their stuff and closed up shop a couple weeks ago. The construction guys swooped in a couple days later and started renovating the place. I didn't know what the store was going to end up being, but I was hoping for a giant multiplex cinema.

No such luck, though. Another bakery opened up in the the old bakery's place.
Ah well.
But, with the opening of the shop came the usual circus complete with a clown and dancing girls. Damn, it was loud! It's usually a challenge to get my voice over top ten screaming little students, but when you have a nightclub outside your window,...fuggedaboutit. (They also hired a truck with two dancing girls on it that drove around the neighbourhood blaring dance music. When the truck would swing by this way we got double the noise pollution. Cuckoo!)

Check out the granny who broke rank from the vegetable selling halmonies!


Nice bums on the girls, huh?

WCB - (#IDON'TKNOW) Arms Inside the Ride

Big Kamikaze has a Big Giant Mouth, which is good for chomping up all the fishies. Still, his Big Giant Mouth cannot contain his Massive Giant Fangs.
See?


They're ferocious and fierce and liable to bite your fingers clear off, so I try to keep my hands inside the roller coaster at all times.

But sometimes I forget and my hands and fingers are just wandering around doing stuff and then *BAM* I've got a cat with fierce and massively uncontainable fangs attached to my digits.
See?


I couldn't take a picture of the aftermath because that there was mah pitcher takin' fingah. Now I've got a nub.

He's Japanese, so Kamikaze Kamakiri Kitty is a good name for him, but if I'd gotten him when I travelled around in Scotland I would've totally named him Fangs MacNubmaker.

So now you should all Highland Fling over to Sher's and see the kitty with a shoe on her head. I think Laura's high. Thanks Sher for hosting this weekend's round-up and I hope you're feeling better.

Star Flower

Purge

When I was younger my family lived in a house with a furnished basement. I used to spend time down there because that's where the television lived, but you would only find me there if my father wasn't home. The downstairs was his domain, and I made sure to make it seem like I had never been there at all once I'd turned the TV off. We never ever watched TV together. In fact, we never really did anything together after we'd moved to that house. I stopped showing up for the most hostile passive-aggressive experience on Earth dinner once I started high school, and my father bought himself a car with only two seats in it, and my ass was never invited to grace the passenger side.

My extended family didn't gather together too often, but would occasionally have some reason to come by to the most hostile passive-aggressive place on Earth our house. On those occasions, my father would dress up in a tie and his festive red vest and head down to his basement domain and stand behind his bar like he was waiting for his first customers to stop by. Everyone else would stay upstairs on the first floor. The three velour stools on the other side of the bar downstairs always stayed empty.

If I'd have had more courage I might have sat down in one of them and asked, "What the hell is WRONG with you?" but I was too twisted full of rage and pain. I hated the guy, but I couldn't stop my heart from reeling, thinking that downstairs was the angriest loneliest man in the world.

I've spent my life trying to figure out what was going on with him, and I've never been brave enough to ask. I've also never really had the courage to talk about any of that mess with anyone, and I don't think it's done me any favours.

"Time heals all wounds."
Does it?
Time distances. It ticks. It carries you away and allows for experience that might help you to view the past from a different perspective, but I don't think it heals. It may help to make circumstances that were once so jagged and angry seem less so. But, maybe not.

I was at a bar a few weeks ago and a couple of drunk guys approached me to have a chat. One of them was very nice, but he gestured toward his friend and said, "He is drunk asshole." I took him at his word and avoided talking to his buddy who sat on the stool next to him. At some point, the asshole said something to me (I honestly can't recall what it was, but it was ignorant) and I told him to fuck off. He reached around and grabbed me by the hair and yanked my head back. Hard. I grabbed the bar with one hand, trying not to be dragged off my stool, and grabbed his wrist with the other one.

"Let go," I said. "Seriously, let go of me."
His grip tightened as his friend urged him to stop.
I tried another tact, "I'm a girl! Let GO!"
And he did.
And without even thinking about it, I leaned over and punched the guy in the head. Which felt good, so I punched him again. And now his friend was telling me to "hajima," and so I stopped. Punching him. But I stepped off my stool and kicked him hard in the shin. His friend pulled him away, out the door and up the stairs.

I was alone again, and my mind transported me to the other side of the bar and quickly suited me in a tie and a festive red vest. And so I asked me what the hell is WRONG, and I've spent the last few weeks examining all this wreckage that time has helped to bury and form into a hard hot ball in the basement of my soul. I don't think it's just a coincidence that I've had a bad stomach ever since, and I've felt so guilty when I think about my actions, even if the guy was an asshole. There's no going back in time to make things any different about my past, but I think it's just about time to yank all this shit out into the sunlight because it's affecting my present.

"We consume our tomorrows fretting about our yesterdays." -Persius

Now it's time to figure out how to make myself let go.

"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." -Maya Angelou