Tales from Texas Street #1

I love Texas Street. Texas Street is pretty quiet and full of Russian tourists and the occasional group of American sailors on shore leave during the day time. At night it opens like a noisy, neon flower.

Today being Saturday I was being especially lazy. I just puttered around my apartment, tidied up, downloaded a pile of movies to watch later. Nothing interesting. So around 9 pm I decided I'd go out and take a stroll around my neighbourhood. I needed to pick up some tofu to make some doenjang gu (bean paste soup), and I was craving a homemade cheeseburger, too. This cute Filipina always calls to me from her restaurant at the bottom of Texas Street, so I figured I'd stop there and try a couple of her burgers. I live at the southern end of the strip and it's about a 20 minute walk to the north end, long enough to be and adventure.

I took a walk down Texas Street to my bank to get some cash from the bank machine. On my way down Texas Street I saw the riot of vice and culture that is Saturday night on Texas Street. A pair of Russian guys holding hands (open homosexuality is taboo in Korea), the usual assortment of familiar heavyset, bleached-blonde Russian ladies calling to me from the doors of Russian "cafes", some attractive Russian girls heading to the "juicy bars" (places where nice-looking Russian girls get you to buy them expensive watered-down drinks in hopes of taking them home), and the clothing and trinket shops that are mixed in with the Chinese restaurants and liquor stores.

On my way back, a Korean guy, middle-aged business type stopped me, the conversation went like this (I'll just refer to the Anonymous Korean as AK):

AK: "Excuse me."
Monk: "Yes?"
AK: "Are you Russian?"
Monk: "Anio, Kanadae. (No, Canadian)"
AK: "Hangookmal haseyo? (Can you speak Korean)"
Monk: "Hangookmal jokum. (Only a little)"
AK: "I want to buy a handgun."
Monk: "Sorry, I can't help you."
AK: "Kamsa hamnida. (thanks very much)"

After this strange encounter (although not so very strange for Texas Street, I guess) I stopped in the Filipina's place and got two of the most delicious home-style cheeseburgers. Just like the ones from Ches's Fish'n'Chips back home but with fresh cucumber instead of pickles. And when I said that I wanted them with everything they were about to put fried egg on them. No dice, when I want some comfort food I don't want anyone to mess with my head. I'll try the burger with egg another time when I'm in my usual "anything goes" mood.

I stopped at a neighbourhood store on the way home and realised that I can now speak enough Korean to ask for garbage bags (garbage bags have to be bought in your district, they're kinda pricey, about 50 cents each, but they subsidize the cost of trash collection.)

I'm going to lie back now and have a big drink, watch a movie and maybe look up how to become an arms merchant in Korea. Or maybe I'll just keep teaching English and enjoying the freak show that is my neighbourhood (and possibly my life.)

Bluegrass folky funk night at Moe's

I went to Moe's Restaurant (it's actually a bar, don't ask, I don't know why either.) to hear my friend Amy's husband, Paul, play some funk music. It was an interesting lineup of three bands. The first band was a seven-piece bluegrass band, then there was a sort of folky-jazzy duet and then some reggae-inspired funk. All three bands were great! I think I need to get out of my neighbourhood more often to do stuff.

Last week I went to my director's husband's restaurant in Gwangalli Beach. It's a pretty fashionable spot and they tried out some new menu items on us. There was a pop band playing. They were pretty good, not really my taste in music but good nonetheless. They wanted us to clap while they were playing one of the songs, one with a double-clap and then pause, double-clap then pause. For some reason the Korean ladies I was with couldn't do this. They could do a simple single clap in time with a beat, but they saw me do the double-clap, tried it and it all ended in gales of laughter because they couldn't do it. Very weird.

Unexpected long weekend

My school (the YMCA) only teaches for 20 days each month. Each month that has more than 20 weekdays they cancel a day of school but they don't usually tell me when until Thursday or Friday before the weekend. I love surprise long weekends! It doesn't allow for a lot of planning but it sure feels great to know that you have an extra day off.

This Saturday a friend's husband's band is playing at Moe's, a foreigner bar uptown. I think I'll get out of my district for a night and see what it's all about.

I've got a bunch of pictures to upload and a pile more posts to make. My schedule of split shifts and the adjustment to it has put me off-kilter for a few weeks but I think I'm finally getting used to it (more or less)

Radio Interview

A buddy of mine who we'll call Moll is a news editor for a wire service out of Phoenix and he asked me if I'd do a telephone interview for radio distribution in light of the Virginia Tech shootings. It went alright but I have no idea if it was broadcast anywhere or not. Moll told me that it was okay after he took out the "Ums" and "Ahs". I haven't done any radio-type stuff since I gave up the CBC radio column about 6 years ago, maybe I should get some practice. I think I miss my soapbox now.

Day of the needles

My doctor back in Canada recommended that I get a vitamin B12 shot once a month a while ago, it's not critical, just recommended. I hadn't had one since November so I spoke to one of my adult students who's a doctor. He actually had the hospital pharmacy bring in stuff from Seoul or something. You can buy it in any pharmacy in Canada without a prescription. Vitamins and the like are expensive and unusual here.

So, anyway, I went to the hospital to get the injection, it's intramuscular which means I can't really give it to myself. When your muscles tense it's like trying to put a needle into a block of wood. The nurse gave me the shot in my butt and I just expected to hop up and walk away but then she started smacking me on the ass. To get the injection moving, I guess. I started laughing and in a few minutes half the nurses were rolling on the floor laughing, too. I look forward to my next shot.

Later the same day one of the kids came to class with a syringe loaded with liquid. (completely unrelated to my uproarious morning) On closer inspection the syringe had a steel needle at the tip. I removed the needle and gave it to the director, accompanied by much whining from the student. She'd bought this little item in a toy shop apparently and was really upset that she couldn't have the steel needle part. When I asked her why she said "It's not as scary.", to which I replied, "Exactly." At least the first needle of the day was funny.

Just the facts, ma'am

My apologies to those of you who are checking my blog and not finding any new posts on a daily basis. I've been run ragged with my schedule lately. Not that I seem to be getting a lot done, but anyway... Here's what's been going on lately.

First a couple of gripes (whine, whine):
I've never been one to get a good night's sleep often enough, but lately, with the split shifts I'm working, I find I'm tired all the time. Part of this is due to the fact that I've had some kind of pain in my butt ever since my surgery back in September. One of my adult students is a doctor and he arranged for me to see a physical therapy surgeon. Apparently I have some kind of weird muscle cramp in a pelvic muscle. He gave me a Lidocaine injection that made it go away for a month but it's come back and I need to go see him again. I believe they can arrange for some kind of physical therapy to correct it. Whatever the hell it is. I'm planning to take some yoga classes, maybe they'll help too. I'm old and falling apart, what can I say. I'll keep going until I can't move any more, though, too much stuff to do.

The split shifts are okay but I find that working from 6:30am to 8:30am and then again from 3 pm to 6:30 pm kind of puts a crimp in my day. I usually come home after work in the morning grab a bite to eat and take a nap. Then it's lunchtime and time to go back to work again. I think this will change soon when the kids are out of school; hopefully it'll make my day more compact.

Friday I went to a nice place in Gwangalli Beach uptown. My bosses husband owns a sort of posh beach restaurant and they invited us up for beer and to test some new menu items on the hapless teachers. I had spaghetti that was more like Singapore noodles with cheese (interesting) and some kind of Japanese-style octopus filled pastry (tasty if you like seafood.) Only my boss and one of the Korean teachers spoke English, the others spoke Korean, Japanese and Chinese. We managed to have a weird conversation about language in a mixture of English, French, German, Chinese and Korean. I know how to be polite in several languages, it's a survival skill. If you can say 'hello', 'please', 'thank you', 'yes', 'no', 'straight', 'left' and 'right' in any language you can get by with gestures and goodwill I think. This will be tested later this year.

I have a crazy plan to do a bunch of travel and teaching at the end of the year. How that works out will depend on how much money I can save. I can hear the skeptics amongst you saying "Rod can never save money, he'll be home without a cent." This is true, but I really want to do this trip, so I don't think that saving the money to get by and travel while working will be much of a stretch.

The plan so far is to visit a few places in Korea and maybe a short visit to Japan, which can be done fairly cheaply. Next February when my contract is up I'd like to take a ship to China and work for a couple of months, take the Trans-Siberian to Mongolia for a few days, then go on to Moscow maybe to teach for a month or two. After that I'd like to take an ESL teacher's course in the Czech Republic, maybe work for a month or two, then either come home or make a quick visit to Tunisia by ship via Italy. If I can arrange it I'll travel to Montreal via container ship out of Marseilles, France and be home by late July or August. Sit around Newfoundland for a month and then come back to Korea to teach for another year.

So, that's the dream. We'll have to see how it works out, but if I get any of it done I'll be happy. It's on the list of things that I feel I need to do:

1. Live and work in another country and culture.
2. Travel around the world under my own steam and see it all from the ground.
3. Learn to survive anywhere with a minimal amount of stuff. This one is hard, I'm a packrat.
4. Teach (anything.)
   

If I can do it I'd like to complete an education degree and teach in schools somewhere in Canada, but I haven't figured out the plan for that yet.

Sadly, I had to give up taking French classes for now. Maybe when my schedule changes I'll find it easier. I started the course a week and a half late and was having trouble catching up and keeping up at the same time. Maybe in the summer.

I've been taking pictures and seeing new things here but I have to sit down and sort them out.

I plan to do a big post on Korean food culture from my point of view. I have to take a bunch of pictures and select a few others first.

I hope you're all well and I'll post again in a day or two. Right now I'm going to go and make some French toast and take a nap.