FUNERAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've done a lot of strange things since coming to Korea. I've eaten whales and dogs, I was on MTV and the Korean equivalent of MSNBC, I got married, but none of those things are really bound for the history books. Yesterday I bore witness to history as it unfolded...or something similar that makes me sound less dramatic happened.

After the death of the former-president, Noh Mu-hyun, there was some debate over what kind of funeral should be held. Apparently there are three varieties for heads of states here. There's the standard issue family funeral (ie. no outsiders), there's a state funeral, and then there's something in-between known as a "people's funeral." That's the one Noh got.

Anyhow on Friday morning, JH and I headed towards 경복궁 where this event was happening. We ended up getting off well before 광화문 station and walking the remaining distance through a sea of humanity clad in yellow*. As we made our way through the crowd some dude gave me Gatorade and a yellow cardboard visor with Noh's face printed on it, and also a yellow paper airplane for me to throw at a funeral procession (I didn't throw it, since it seemed like a rude thing to do).

We made our way up the street, but when it became clear we could go no further, JH and I stopped and watched the funeral as it was broadcast on one of the big TVs outside one of the newspaper buildings in that area. It was pretty odd to be standing in the street mid-morning on a Friday with masses of people watching a funeral on a giant TV, but there I was.

I was glad I was there in person because I was able to see and hear some things that clearly would be edited from the nightly news version. For example, when Lee Myung-bak's face came up on the giant TV screen, a bunch of people started cursing him out and calling him all manner of vile and profane names that bear not repeating in a family friendly blog such as this#.

The funeral wrapped up on the big TV and then it became known that the funeral procession was going to drive through the area. The crowds in the street were told to move back (not get out of the street) to create a corridor through which the hearse could drive. Which shortly thereafter it did.

The procession drove right past us at a crawl. Lots of people threw paper airplanes at it. Lots of people were really emotional about it. The guy behind me in particular was really weeping. The weird thing was that as the procession was driving by, 윤도현 was playing a rock jam on a stage nearby, providing theme music for it.

After the car drove off, JH and I began making our way back through the sea of humanity that had assembled. As we walked I wondered to myself how many of the crying, sad people there had wanted Noh's ass thrown in prison a couple of weeks earlier. I kept those thoughts to myself...until now, because I just typed them on the internet, and many people can read the internet. I'm stopping now.



* Random Korean Cultural Note - Korean pop groups all have a color associated with them so that fans of that group can wave balloons of that particular color at concerts so everyone knows what group they support. This practice seems to have fallen out of favor in the realm of pop music, but still holds true in Korean politics. Noh Mu-hyun's color was yellow. Lee Myung-bak's color is some sort of blue.

# They called him "씹새끼" and other junk that was less crude.

LAMB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Sunday afterevening we took a train ride up?...down?...over to Incheon for the sole purpose of getting our grub on Chinese style...or Sino-Korean style, whatever the case may be. The train ride there was pretty uneventful by line 1 standards. Usually there's dudes pissing on the train or crazy people eating their own faces, but apparently on Sunday afterevenings the Incheon bound line 1 train is empty. One hour later we were in Incheon.

The weather was really cool and refreshing which was nice. It's gotten pretty hot over here recently, so the cool sea breezes were nice, which I think I already said a line ago. Speaking of things I've already said, our only mission was to have dinner, so right out of the station we started looking for a restaurant.

J.H. did not want Sino-Korean food such as 자장면, 짜장면, or 짜짱면, nor did I, so we started looking around for "more authentic" or at least less Korean fare. We wandered around a bit. I bought a pair of kung fu shoes from a dude on the street for the reason that I hate having to tie and untie shoes when I'm doing some 2 minute bullcrap job like taking out trash or going around the corner to buy beer or sandwiches or some other crap like that.

After wandering around a bit we decided to go eat lamb hot pot at a restaurant called 北京莊 (북경장). We ordered two servings of it plus some sort of dumpling soup since J.H. wanted to eat dumplings. After a few minutes they brought out a massive hot pot and set it before us. Then came heaping plates of vegetables, tofu, lamb, and some weird ass noodles. Holy smokes was it a lot of food...and then they brought out the second serving of meat. J.H. and I can both house a lot of food, but there was seriously enough grub for like 3 or 4 dudes.

It tasted really good, though the spicy broth was crazy spicy. Somehow I was relatively uneffected, but J.H. claimed it was delicious but kind of hard to eat. It was a good thing that the pot was split down the middle with one side being spicy broth and the other side being not spicy broth. Like I said the food was really good. Vegetables were fresh and there were some sort of odd noodles (we were pretty sure were made of rice, but were hella thick unlike rice noodles you get at Vietnamese restaurants) that almost turned into gelatin when they were cooked. Anyhow two massive servings of lamb hot pot, plus an order of dumpling soup (that was less massive but would have been more than enough for lunch) ran us 34,000 won, which at current exchange rates is like $28 American or something like that.

After we had eaten we walked around a bit. We bought some Tsingtao beers and some sort of food known as 옹기병 (甕器餠). 옹기병 is awesome! It's basically dumplings that are cooked by sicking them on the walls of some big ass urn that has burning charcoal inside it. They get roasted and come out all hot and delicious. If you're ever in Incheon and want to rock 옹기병 go check out the shop called 十里香. You can't miss it, it's the shop that has big ass smoking urns outside of it.


We took our brews and 옹기병 to some tiny park done up Chinese style (as opposed to the bigger park done up MacArthur statue style up a hill) that we didn't see the last time we were in that neck of the woods. Brews were drank and 옹기병 was eaten and then it was getting late, so we headed back to the train station and boarded a train bound for Seoul. An hour or so later we were back home. It was awesome and an awesome time was had by all...or at least the two of us.

FLIPSIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Moving was successful in spite of everything. I now dwell in a penthouse apartment, and if I didn't have like $7.34 in my bank account I'd feel like a millionaire. Since before the first dudes crossed over the ice bridge, man has constantly been dissatisfied with their dwellings. The only solution to this dissatisfaction has been to move, and as any of those cavemen (or anyone else who has moved) could tell you, moving is never fun. It's even less fun when you live on the fifth floor and the building has no elevator.

Enter the crane car!

Instant elevator.
Refrigerator passed through bedroom window
like a kidney stone.
Bookcase stranded below...
"What case?"
"Bookcase."
"Yeah, I'll bring that up!"
God bless you crane car.


So now the house is almost all set. The internet guy comes on the morrow and a back ordered TV is slated to arrive on the 20th or something. Oh and we need armoires or dressers since all my clothes are in big ass boxes, and that's not cool at all.

Oh and for your reading pleasure here's the best story from moving day:

I went to work in the morning. After work I called my wife to check where I needed to go. She said the movers were already at the new house, but she needed to do some sort of crap at the bank. She needed me to go to the new house to make sure the movers were working and weren't rummaging through her unmentionables, but not before I picked up something at the old house: a vacuum cleaner. My wife suggested that I take my bike down to the new house since the new house is close enough that a bike ride is feasible, and also because my bike was at the old house and needed to move to the new house. The only problem with this was I still had my briefcase with me.

My bike is manly as hell. It's steel blue and has at least 10 speeds...possibly 18...possibly more! As such, there's no bullshit on my bike to carry anything other than one (1) manly dude upon it. I can't even carry a wife or significant other! I weighed my options.

I could try and Chinese-delivery-man-it to the new house. No, that wouldn't work, because I had the briefcase too, and it was too cumbersome to try and grip the vacuum and briefcase in one hand. Damn!

There was another bike I could ride. It had a fixture to strap junk to it with, and a basket. It was my wife's bike and it was decidedly unmanly. Did Maria ride a bike in The Sound of Music? I wouldn't know because of my manliness. If she did happen to ride a bike in it, that's what my wife's bike looks like...and it's red...and only has one speed...and I think some flower design around the logo. Awesome.

I detached the hose from the vacuum cleaner and strapped it across my chest like a bandolier. I then strapped my briefcase down on the bike, tossed the R5-D4-esque vacuum in the basket, and took off.

Right out of the gate I got spotted by some other foreigner. I don't know why or how, but whenever I do something dubious like ride a girl's bike while hauling a small vacuum cleaner, or wear a pink shirt, I'm always spotted by other foreigners, and for some reason I'm infinitely more embarrassed when my countrymen see me do that shit. If Koreans see me it's not as bad, because maybe they think, "Oh those Americans...always riding girl bikes and wearing pink shirts...no wonder they all carry guns and Terminator is their president!" But Americans (and Canadians I suppose) know what I'm doing is most inappropriate.

Thankful I played my SONGS FOR RUNNING ON A GODDAMN PIECE OF MOVING PLASTIC™ play list on my i-pod and was able to power past prying eyes that would judge me harshly. Red-faced and on a red, girl's bike I got that damn vacuum cleaner to Magwon. I win!

MOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There's a crew of movers in my house right now and they're afraid of the dark. Me? I'm thankfully on my way to work. Moving is annoying and stressful and I for one will be glad when this day is done, though probably not as glas as JH.

Goodbye Big Bang. Goodbye 스타제국. Goodbye shitty produce at 합정마트. Goodbye "Decapitation Mountain." Goodbye strange, white, Christian dudes with a fleet of vans telling me I'm bound for hell. I'll catch you all on the flipside.

WOLVERINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Thursday we went to see the new X-men movie. I've never been a huge Wolverine fan. Back when I read a lot of comic books, I thought the dude was a sellout, I mean he was in every issue of every X-man related comic, had his own book and was always showing up in Spiderman or Captain America books too. I prefered Nightcrawler and Gambit......and Jubilee (shut up).

So in spite of my not liking Wolverine that much as a character, X-men Origins: Wolverine was a pretty awesome movie. There were a lot of really awesome action scenes, plus it had a couple of dudes from Lost in it, and Daniel Henney got blown up in a helicopter explosion which was badical, not that I really have anything against Daniel Henney...except for those stupid commercials he was in with Gweneth Paltrow.

As is always the case with these kind of movies, I left the theater wanting to go home and read some of my old X-men comic books. Unfortunately for me, my home is in South Korea and my X-men comics all reside in upstate New York in the basement of my parents' house. Damn!

FOOTRACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have to transfer in 대림 almost everyday. The subway station in 대림 is remarkably deep...some really "Journey To The Center of the Earth" bullcrap. Anyhow, it's deep and everyday I race against someone from the top of the station to the bottom (or vice-versa). Everyday I race against dudes in footraces of manliness, only they don't know I'm racing them.

I win everytime.

DEATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Roughly three years ago to the day, I posted about a hot trend sweeping my living room, "The K-pop Cause of Death Game™." It was all well and good, but three years is a long time for a game of any sorts to not have any rules added or changed. I originally said to avoid dance music since no one ever dies in them, however a recent video reminded me that this is not always the case. Anyhow the cause of death is so random that I have taken time out of my busy schedule to present unto you in its entirety, Davichi's (다비치) video, "8282."


If you guessed the cause of death was getting hit by a truck after an elementary school kid used some Professor X-esque shit to throw a rock at you, then you, my friend, must be fuggin' Professor X himself!

Anyhow if Davichi's video was kind of odd, here's another video that will either answer all questions, or maybe create more questions. I now present unto you, in its entirety the video for "사고쳤어요."


Holy Crap! Did you see what they did there? The first time I saw this video I was hella confused. "Hey didn't that kid used to be clean and have super powers? Oh...that entire video before was his imagination. This is what actually happened...or is it?" Maybe it's some Groundhog Day nonsense where they're living the same day over and over again and this video actually comes before the other one and in this one he was a fuck-up, but later on he gets it all right and stops the train from hitting his hot-ass teacher's car. Who knows? Only Davichi, and they're not talking...at least not to me. Oh the internet might know too, but that guy and I aren't exactly seeing eye to eye right now.