FUCK

Took a little longer to get the internet than I expected.
I was supposed to inherit the guy who owned the apartment before me's internet contract but he decided to be a standup dudebro and sold it to a friend instead.
Fortunately I managed to break into a neighbor's router because they didn't change the default router password and they were blockbusting it anyway.
So between the jet lag and adjusting to not being a citizen of Freedom anymore and doing other shit with my time there has been a lull in updates.
But it's okay because I made a hiatus post so there's no problem there.
So here I am sitting in my underwear at 12:30 in the morning just in South Korea instead of America now.
How much changes and how little changes.
South Korea is quite a trip, too. I could spend an entire post just talking about that instead of some bullshit blog but I imagine people come here for blogs so let's just do the thing where I post around blog entries and barely acknowledge them.
Yeah this'll work.

Guys, I can't even tell you how much I love Speed. I watched it every night for a month when it came out on tape (yes, VHS). I have what you might call a Keanu Reeves situation and this movie only exacerbated it (I also watched The Matrix every night for a month and also every time HBO showed it when it first came out). I mean, I still think the extra bit at the end with the subway is overkill and unnecessary, but generally speaking, it is an excellent action movie, and while not quite at the top tier of the pantheon with Die Hard or the Terminator movies, it's definitely in my top five. Also, I kind of totally ship Keanu and Sandra Bullock because of this movie. I am just saying. 

Yeah you go ahead and ship the hell out of that movie you fucking weirdo.
So anyway I left the US of Freedom on the 21st I think of May and proceeded to ride on an airplane for what I understand to be the next 127 years.
First I left at 2 AM with my dad to drive up to Raleigh Durham International Airport. This was after not sleeping at all, so already I'm down about 24 hours of sleep.
I proceed to fly to New York which takes, what, an hour and a half or so?
Then there's a five hour layover at JFK.
Then I fly the next 13 hours from JFK to Incheon-Seoul International.
I catnapped what I suspect is 5 hours but when you're flying over Canada, the North Pole then down into Russia and China and around North Korea and you cross about 17 timezones and the international dateline time sort of stops having meaning.
This wasn't all at once, of course. I'd sleep about an hour then wake so violently one time I actually found myself standing up before I was fully awake.
Definitely not a nervous reaction, or anything.
So I land at Incheon.
At this point I'm so delirious and not thinking I see a distant island and assume it's Japan.
It's technically possible to see Japan from Busan but, of course, Incheon is on the other side of the country.
So then I meet the lady what got me this job.
She's pretty much my first introduction to what Korea really be like.
So we chit chat, catch a bus ride where I thought we were going to die about ten times (turns out it was very tame compared to later trips in transportation)

- I've been thinking a lot about Bucky lately (um, even more than usual I guess?), because the thing is, the thing is, Bucky's recovery should be hard and it should be heartbreaking at times but it should also be hopeful. The whole point is that he comes back from what was done to him. He's not the same person he was, but no one who lives any significant amount of time remains exactly the same person they were at 18 or 24, even if they haven't been sent off to war or had unspeakable things done to them, and it's not that Bucky is 'fixed' or whatever, it's that he survives long enough to be able to start living again,

Yeah I'm sure you can characterize better than the fucking people hired to do that for their job you fanfiction writing zero.
Anyway so we ride in the bus and chitchat a bit then it's time to go to Gimpo airport.
For the record I like Gimpo airport. It reminds me of the airport I lived by in North Carolina.
As in they built a way better airport not an hour away and it's sort of struggling for a use in 2014.
So you probably know the purpose of an airport is to milk you for as much money as possible so I've officially had to check my luggage twice at 100 dollars a go and I'm about to do it a third time.
I walk up, put my bags on the scale.
The lady looks at the reading and starts saying words.
I don't know what these words mean but I know instinctively as a citizen of the USA that means it's time to get my wallet out.
So I get my wallet out.
The lady who got me this job grabs my wallet from me.
She looks at the lady demanding money and there is a tense argument in Korean for about 3 minutes.
Finally a manager walks over.
He looks at the lady wanting money
He looks at the lady who got me this job
He looks at me with this look in his eye that says "oh God just kill me"
He shrugs and waves my bags through.
No baggage fee.
She hands me my wallet back and I immediately know the gift I bought her for getting me this job was a wise investment.
Like we talked about books and I said you know she's the one person you know so maybe make sure that stays cozy.
I kind of suspected she was an operator but I didn't know--
and that proved a correct assessment.
So she puts me on the airplane to Gimpo and this is my second lesson in how not America Korea is.
After a scary moment of trying to find the baggage check station because they suddenly got suspicious of shaving lotion I go to the place where they put you in the airplane.
But hey wait a second we're going downstairs.
Oh ok now we're just in the airfield.
Oh now we're getting on a bus and driving out to the middle of where airplanes live and they're loading us on it like it's the 1950s. Complete with the stairs.
There's literally no one stopping me from just bolting down the runway.
They'd never find me.

snapshot from the life of a fangirl:

Why is this story so terrible? AND WHY AM I STILL READING IT?

It's funny 'cause it's true. *hands*

Fuck me.
So at this point I realize it's approaching 6 PM some vague time in the future and I've slept maybe 5 hours not all at once in the past--
3 days?
4 days?
For me it has felt like 3 days but it has actually been 4 days going by time changes.
It's slowly catching up to me but the adrenaline is still screaming through my veins at a million miles an hour.
At this point I'm so out of my element that I'm not even sure I had an element.
So I'm on an airplane to Busan and I realize this journey is finally nearing the end.
The pilot spends what I suspect is the entire flight talking about baseball in English.
He saw the entire 30 or so people on the plane. I'm the only round eye so I'm pretty sure he was just talking to me.
About baseball.
I'm 30,000 feet over the middle of South Korea listening to a pilot talk to me about baseball with no way of responding.
I haven't slept in 3 days.
If you notice me saying "I suspect" a lot it's because, well, as I said the entire journey was such a blizzard of insanity, hustle and not fully grasping the situation that it might have been weeks for all I knew.
I'm glossing over the 13 hour flight, incidentally.
Let me back up and say there's a point about 8 hours in where you realize you have to be on this airplane for another 5 hours where you start hoping it just quietly drops into the Arctic.
No survivors.
So I land in Busan and there's supposed to be a man with a sign.
Of course he doesn't have a sign. He just looks for the one American exiting the airport.
So he helps me load my shit into his van and I get in.
It occurs to me this could just be a kidnapper and I could be on my way to North Korea. He just walks up to me and grabs my shit and I just go with it.
At this point I don't care I just hope they make it quick.
So I'm informed Busan is about an hour away from Changwon so I dig in and let the haze settle over me.
It's twilight, there's some kind of 80s music on and this guy seems chill so I'm thinking hey, this isn't so bad.
I need to get a radio and enjoy the smooth sound of 97.1.

Last night, I rewatched "Curahee" and "Day of Days," which I feel make an amazing 2 hour movie, even if you never watch the rest of the series, though I of course highly recommend (re)watching the whole thing, especially since all the HBO shows are now on Amazon Prime for free.

[I might finally get around to doing a Wire rewatch, because I won't have to unplug my Roku to plug in the blu-ray player, which is annoying. Why does my new television, bought in September 2012, only have two HDMI inputs? one of which goes to the cable box, so the other two have to switch out (yes, I could get a splitter or whatever it's actually called, but I'd rather just complain, especially since it's easy enough to unplug on cord and plug in the other when necessary, and also so much is available streaming now that I don't have to actually do it that often.)]

Wow she likes The Wire.
That's not a show you can "ship" easily so I figured it'd be a bit above her.
Also it's really gritty and not at all cute.
It's pretty violent and grim, in fact.
Oh but that black guy who was in Pacific Rim is in it. That's probably why she likes it.
Fuck.
So anyway after about 20 minutes we're just there.
Welcome to Changwon.
This guy is there to meet me. He grabs my shit and we go up an elevator.
I haven't slept in 47 hours at this point, I feel like I've been fired out of a cannon and already I know I don't like this guy.
My legendary snap judgment of my fellow man hasn't failed, at least.
So we go upstairs. I meet the boss who doesn't speak English. He tries to give me food and at this point I'm not having it. I just want to sleep and not die.
Or maybe die.
I don't even know at this point.
So after a weird 10 minutes?
50 minutes?
Who knows?
I get in the dude who I reckon is an asshole's car and we drive to the hotel.
The hotel is like nothing I have ever seen. Firstly it exists on only the 10th floor of this 12 story erection of a skyscraper.
So I take a shower (first in two days wooo) and I realize oh
hey
showers don't come in stalls in Korea.
Whatever.
So I go to sleep and pass the fuck out.
It is 8 PM.
4 hours later I wake up and I'm pretty sure I'm dying.
I somehow go back to sleep about an hour later and I wake up, whamo, at 9 AM.
I'm supposed to meet them at 1 and I figure this is a getting to know you bullshit exercise.
So I dick around until 1. I watch the TV.
The TV is fucking surreal. I'm watching what I assumed was 3rd string girl band Ladies' Code and some flamboyant homosexual watch video of other fags ambushing guys on the street and asking them about what it is they're wearing.
Then Ladies' Code talks about what losers they are based on this information.
It's at this point that time dilates and I have about 10 minutes of thoughts in 10 seconds.

I also wrote 1000 words last night! Shocking! 

So I get hopelessly lost. My phone, naturally, doesn't work.
Despite promises that it would it doesn't make outgoing calls. It can text oh, it can text if you pay.
Thanks a lot, Verizon.
My data was turned off.
Thanks a bunch, Verizon. Sure am glad I paid 100 dollars a month for this wonderful service.
Now they're emailing me about renewing my contract. You could piss up my leg that's how pissed I am over this phone fiasco.
So I go to the phone in the room. It doesn't work.
It just doesn't work.
If it works I don't know how to make it go.
Numbers resemble American numbers. It's a set of three then a set of four numbers.
No area code though, that's weird--
so this shit ain't working.
So I go outside the hotel and I see a guy about my age and through desperate looks and elaborate pantomime I manage to signal my desire to use his phone and he just hands it over.
I can't imagine that happening in America where a basically non-verbal foreigner emerges from a seedy hotel and just asks to make a phone call and the hapless dope roped into this just goes "yeah ok."
So I call them and say holy shit I can't find the place.
OH BUT I SHOWED YOU YESTERDAY says the asshole I talked about before.
Dude you took me in a car
at night
showing a man with severe jet lag who hasn't slept in a week.
Yeah I forgot.
I know it's straight up the road and a left. I don't know which way I'm going though.
Well get a taxi, click.
FUCK THAT GUY.
So I manage to enlist an entire street corner in Changwon--
like 15 people--
to help me solve where the fuck it is I am and where the fuck it is I work.
Somehow through elaborate pantomime and broken English we figure it out and they hail a taxi for me and tell the guy what I need.
Thank the fuck Christ the people on the street are so nice.
That's one thing you learn pretty fast in Korea. People are super nice.
They'll walk up and start talking to you.
You tell them you don't understand and they'll keep talking to you.
I talk back in English.
No one understands shit but we're having a conversation.
It's like Ghost Dog. Ever seen that movie?
Anyway so I get to the job and this manager is a real asshole luckily I don't have to deal with him too often.
Owner seems like a nice enough guy though.
I wind up staying until 9 PM that night because I need trained.
Trained how to give kids a test.
Is this real life?
Yes it is.
So shit goes and goes forever and I think time dilated again.

 I have looked at a lot of condo/co-op listings over the past few weeks, and man, people are terrible at taking pictures. Eventually - I don't have a time table but eventually (and hopefully before interest rates go up too much) - I'll progress to looking in person, and the pictures won't really matter, but for now, at least, I've figured out what my priorities are and what would be in my theoretical price range. I'm reconciling myself to leaving Manhattan, too.

Haha cool enjoy sleeping in a hallway in Manhattan with the rats
So anyway at this point they send me home because I was looking a little haggard and a visiting parent apparently took offense that they weren't letting me recover a bit before throwing me into it.
So the first week is pretty uneventful, honestly. Just go to work
see training that I don't need because at this point I'm not even sure what it is I need
Friday rolls around and I go out with one of the western teachers and her friends.
So it's three American, 3 Brits, a girl from Scotland and an Australian girl.
The Australian girl is like 7 foot tall and natural blonde so needless to say she got stopped on the street.
It was quite a spectacle all around.
Had my first drink of soju which is Korea's experiment into how dangerous they can make alcohol.
It costs 1,200 won at a 7-11.
Yeah they sell hard liquor at 7-11 here and you can drink at 7 AM if you want.
There are no laws.
There should be a couple of laws.
1,200 won for those of you who don't know is about a buck fifty.
A dollar and fifty cents.
What does soju taste like for less than the price of a Big Mac?
It must be like motor oil, surely.
The answer is it tastes like water.
It goes down like water.
You are drinking water, basically.
Except it will fuck you up.
So I had to say no to that because that's how alcoholism begins.
That was only later, in fact.
At this point in the story I've already shotgunned a bottle of it.
So everyone is very impressed with my ability to not be dead at this point and I start thinking apparently all that visualization that I'm a space marine has paid off.
So now it's time to go to norebang since it's this one grill's birthday.
What the fuck is norebang?
Well nore is Korean for noise
and bang is room.
It's karaoke.
It is fucking karaoke but we call it norebang because that's just what we call it.
So me and Adam--
this British engineer who has lived here for 3 years--
we get separated from the party and wind up going to the wrong floor.
This is norebang too but this is sexy norebang.
What the fuck is the difference?
It's hookers.
Obviously, come on.
So I'm standing there
at 3 AM on a Friday
after alcohol like water
this hooker is trying to talk to me
I look outside and it sinks in: I've finally done it. I've eversed (that's barely a word fuck off, Firefox spellchecker) and I'm in a William Gibson novel.
The lights
the fact this hooker, in South Korea, is just trying to have a casual conversation with me because we just happened to hit the wrong floor--
I'm here.
So we say no, in fact, we wanted the boilerplate norebang experience and not the sexy norebang so we leave.
Some time later we leave and it's time for sleeping.
It's 5 in the morning.
Anyway great next morning. Woke up around noon.
No hangover because I don't get those.
So then--
Jesus.
Stuff on the weekend.
I spent something like 9 hours trying to buy a radio to listen to that smooth 80s. I finally find a place that sells radios basically directly behind where I was staying so that was good.
I get it.
It's a piece of shit. Picks up like 3 stations including the University of Changwon's station which mostly just plays The Beatles, weird shit I can't identify and English lessons.
So, you know, typical college radio.
I don't remember Sunday. I'm pretty sure I watched TV all day.
Tried to figure out what the fuck Tasty Road was and why those girls were famous.
Working--
get my apartment.
The lock doesn't work very well so I just leave my door unlocked.
Have to clean it because it's been uninhabited for 7 months and wasn't very clean to start with.
Bizarre stain on the floor I can't get out.
Except it covers a lot of the floor.
Basically at least once a day I feel like I'm in a David Lynch movie. Shit is happening around me that's so surreal I can't even begin to explain to you what's in front of me.
Like you can't even make quality judgments about this shit. Is it good? Is it bad?
All you can say is that is a thing in front of me that exists, somehow, on the same material plane as me.
I think I figured out why, too.
It's because if it was totally alien to me I could just call it that.
This is unlike what I'm used to and be done with it.
But no, of course, there's always one tiny detail that informs me that no, normalcy isn't far away.
Like last Saturday I'm going to Daiso to buy bowls and I see a man and a woman having a screaming argument with each other and the people around them are just walking around them not paying attention-
and I don't mean like trying desperately not to stare because it's rude like you've just seen a retard or something. I mean they don't give a single fuck about this. "Yep, same shit as always" seemed to be the general emotion.
So I've stopped to watch this because what the fuck and that's when I notice they're arguing outside of an Olleh mobile dealer (that's a cellphone provider here) and Olleh has a bad habit of playing music that's too loud outside their store.
What's on the radio?
Is it Kpop like it usually is?
No, it's Careless Whisper by George Michael.
Something about the situation, because of George Michael, just made it too weird.
That was the touch that it needed.
So to get away from it all I wander in a direction I hadn't gone yet.
I come across this building.
It's an apartment complex.
But not just any apartment complex.
This thing is like a hab block from Warhammer or Judge Dredd.
The size of this building is fucking mind boggling. I'm going to get a picture this weekend.
Just the sheer logistics of this thing had me reeling. The people that lived just in that building were like a small city.
Then I look down and I see a middle school and I realize that entire school probably only takes kids from that apartment complex.
Then I look to the left of it and to the right and I realize oh
there are three of them.
Then I start to walk to them because I'm still not sure if maybe my mind is playing tricks on me and I see a city map.
There are 26 of them.
I'm sure this is just a big city thing and I'm not used to it because I lived in fucking Maryland and North Carolina but something about those buildings made me dizzy.
So anyway I guess to get to my assessment of the situation I'd have to say so far it has been overwhelmingly very positive.
The job is a job but it isn't so bad.
The people have been very friendly.
The sights have certainly been unique and always interesting.
I handle the surreal elements very well since that's basically my interest and aesthetic but I can see why people might struggle to adapt to a foreign setting like this.
All I can say is about 4 years ago I applied for a job in Japan and almost got it but didn't and I'm really glad because I doubt I'd have been able to hack it.
I needed to know things I didn't know then.
So that is the story so far.
I'll probably go into details about this shit more later--
probably not here, though.
I'll see.
Anyway I gotta go to bed. It's 2 AM.