Sleeping Jellyfish

This is probably the exact opposite of what a concerned parent wants to read about their child half a world away, but…

I’ve got a bad case of senioritus. You know the debilitating affliction of all institutional education victims? Well it hit, and hit hard. I’m still productive. My Japanese is constantly improving, I’m keeping up on the news and what the latest international hubub is. Watched part of the Manchester United game last night, and I’ll be finishing two books that I’ve been reading this week. But when it comes to work work, the last thing I want to do is anything related to class. Its difficult, but I think I’ll be able to make it through. We have a bit of a break next week for Golden Week, where April bleeds into May and the well greased work machine that is Japan shuts down to go have a picnic and hit on their co-workers underneath the sakura trees. They just started to bloom here, and I will take copious amounts of pictures, I promise.

For now, lets finish up the Great Korean Exodus Pt. 2.

Adding another scar to the collection

After AJ had left on Sunday, we went out for dinner and drinks, and as young men often do when socializing in large groups, we became drunk and unruly. No trouble at first, but then we met the Korean Lebowski. If you are my age you probably have seen the movie The Big Lebowski, and for the others, it probably wouldn’t make sense if you did. Let it suffice that at one point in the movie a group of eurotrash nihilists say, “Give us the money Lebowski.” which is one of the handful of phrases we all actually knew how to say in Korean. In our case, while getting ready to leave the bar, we had laid some money on the table while sorting out the bill, and the guy at the table next to us put it in his pocket. We had originally started talking to them on friendly terms, but then Lebowski took our money. So we tried to confront him about it, in Korean, Japanese, and English, but nothing would come of it. So after a while arguing we cut our losses and left.

We headed towards the Monkey Town internet cafe, and while everyone was piling in down the stairs, I took a turn and wandered off on my own. Speaking from experience, this is not an intelligent thing to do. The stars (and circumstances) were aligned against me: drunk, in a strange place, unable to speak the native language, no cellphone. And this is where it gets foggy.

I woke up right next to Monkey Town, but unfortunately without friends, camera, or wallet, and with a clump of dried blood on my forehead. After gathering myself and sorting out where I was, I sought shelter at a pharmacy down the street and watched the US vs. Japan baseball match where we (the US) were brutally trounced. After the game I dozed off in one of the chairs until someone nudged me awake, and unsure of what to do next I thought I might find a free computer to use at Yonsei University where Yong Hyun and Yong Tae attend.

Yonsei is amazing. Great facilities, a gorgeous campus, and one of the most amazing libraries I’ve ever seen. I am very interested in returning there in the future for either work or school if the opportunity comes up. I accessed a computer, and did what all college students do once they sit at a computer: I checked my Facebook. Facebook got me ahold of Jay, AJ’s friend in Gwangju who was then able to call Yong Hyun, who was then able to come meet up with me in 20 minutes. But, as luck would have it, as I exited the library to wait for the guys I ran across Yong Tae chatting with some friends outside of the library. With a Yong Tae-sized grin, he shook his head as only a good friend would to another friend who has done something dumb. He quickly went into Korean mode though, assessing my damaged head and what we should do next (their hospitality knows no bounds).

We went to “the hospital”. I’m not sure if there is no differentiation in Korean between “going to the doctor”, “going to the clinic”, or “going to the hospital”, but I would have called this place a clinic. If you’re even mildly ill, a good Korean will tell you to go to the hospital. Odd. Regardless, Yong Tae explained that I was an alumni of Yonsei University (false) and had an accident the other night (I was more a victim of myself, but…), gave the doctor his information, and I was stitched and out of the office in about 40 minutes. No questions, just vitamins and antibiotics. A noticeable difference between Koreans and Japanese is their attitude towards rules. In Korea, all rules are negotiable and are accepted as such. In my experience, that can be anything from the speed limit to falsifying medical records. Total expenses for the medical treatment? About 5$. For two visits and pills. I can’t wait to go back to America and not have insurance when I graduate!

Doctor Edwards to the OR, paging Doctor Edwards...

The rest of the Korean trip went off without a hitch. I cancelled my cards, called Mom and Dad, borrowed money for the week (which wasn’t much ’cause Korea is SOOOO CHEAP), and was still able to visit AJ in Gwangju. Came back to Seoul Saturday night with AJ, had a great dinner and some wine with Yong Hyun’s parents, and then was off to the airport early Sunday morning. Blaise had given me the last two days on his rail pass, so I took local trains up the Eastern spine of Japan, staying over in Matsushima one night when the trains ended, and arriving in Akita the following evening.

It wasn’t until I returned and got settled that I realized what a pain losing my wallet was. I have to replace my Alien Registration Card and my National Health Service card. Without those two I couldn’t go to the doctor, and it didn’t seem to be a very quick process, thus, as you can see, me and Sandy gave it the ol’ college try, and taking the stitches out was really quite easy. Just a pair of pocket knife scissors and a desk lamp, and snip snip snip, 7 stitches out and on the desk. Virtually no blood.

Again, I’m reminded of the absurdity of the whole situtation. And the loss is setting in, too. Business cards, notes from friends, my Hales Corners Public Library card, things that I’ve had ever since I started using a wallet were kept safe and hidden in my right back pocket. I still haven’t replaced my wallet yet.

What do I think happened? I think I probably went upstairs from Monkey Town to explore the building, and stairs when under the influence are often times much more difficult than you would imagine. One misstep, an unforgiving wall, and a soju soaked brain combined to create a situation perfect for an opportunist who has no conscience against taking advantage of foreigners. I had a pair of work gloves in my pocket instead of the my wallet, and my camera was gone, which is why I think it was a 2nd party that took it. The camera had pictures from Florida on it, which is unfortunate, because that was a great time. Oh, Cruel Fate!

In the end, it was a great trip. I would gladly suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune for such an amazing trip with such excellent friends. They say that people bond better when they travel together. They are exactly correct.

Classes started today. This is my last semester at AIU before I return home in August. So far my schedule consists of:

• Japanese 301
• PLS 410 – Chinese Foreign Policy
• ECN 303 – Int’l Political Economy
• IGS 200 – Intro to Global Studies

I was going to take the Cultural Background of Language course but its already full, so I’ll have to find something else to fill the gap.  Again, no class on Fridays which is nice and 9am Japanese everyday, so I should be able to get in a good routine pretty quickly. I had the option of testing into JPL 302 but it would have conflicted with two other courses that apply towards my majors, so I’ll hopefully compensate that with some extra self-study using the next textbook.

March was an odd month. The weather went through waves of warming up and cooling down, followed by snowfall and naturally the melting. The first two weeks were spent mostly sleeping. Me and Sandy would wake up sometime in the early afternoon, make dinner, and then go about our evening. We were able to go snowboarding at least a few times with our Japanese friends, and we sulked at the loss of many of the international students who were returning to their home countries. Yong Hyun is now the only Korean guy left at AIU (which I think is hard on him).

On March 11th we had a birthday party for Blaise, and on the 13th I took a night bus to Tokyo for my flight on the 14th to Seoul. I arrived in the morning and had quite a bit of time to kill so I went over to Shinjuku and met my friend Kei and ate at the same awesome Indian restaurant that I ate at last time. My flight went well, and I made a nice friend on the way over. Her name is Eun Beol, she’s from South Korea and was visiting her sister who works as a translator in Tokyo. She noticed that I was reading a Korean-Japanese-English phrasebook and asked me about it, first in Korean, then in English, and when I responded out of habit in Japanese she was pleasantly surprised. She also spoke Japanese, supposedly better than she did English, but I think she was just unconfident. So we talked about whatever for the rest of the 2 hour flight, we both had significant others abroad, we both were on the verge of graduating, we were both worried about “what comes next” and other stuff. Switching in and out of Japanese and English as needed, she helped me with my Korean pronunciation and learning useful words, not the kind of words everyone learns when first start learning a language (think of what you learned in the back of the school bus from the older kids).

Florida was great. Thanks and Congratulations to AJ’s dad and his wonderful bride Carol for hosting us and for their wonderful ceremony. It was a “beach ceremony” with just the two of them, their kids, and significant others (I was one). Carol’s boys are great guys, and made me miss Wisconsinites more than ever. I’m pretty alone over here as the only Midwesterner (except for the two new kids from St. Cloud) so it was great to have a taste of home, even though we were in Florida. Oh did I not mention that? The ceremony was in Marathon, halfway between the mainland and Key West, which is why no one saw me. It was fantastic weather and I got a bit of a tan, had some delicious freshly caught fish.

We returned to Seoul on the 21st. What occurred that day was actually quite miraculous. It was the most fluid and uncomplicated “meeting up” that ever happened. There were six separate groups that were supposed to meet in Seoul on that day, and we did, all within a matter of hours. AJ and I were actually first, and so we went to a computer to try to check Yong Hyun or Yong Tae’s phone number after I had tried to use the ones that I had already written down. We had seen that a flight from Akita was coming in an hour or so after us and suspected that it could be the one I remembered Sandy saying that he was on. And guess what!? It was!

As we started logging into the computer, AJ spotted Sandy, Michal, and Yong Hyun come out of the arrivals exit. I called out to them and we rushed down to meet them. Then the Kim’s, Yong Hyun’s parents came to meet us, followed by Yong Tae at the airport entrance. Yong Hyun’s mom (from here on “Onma”) said that Yong Tae looked like a tour guide, which is hilarious, because he is definitely the planner of the group. Nick was the last one to arrive via Incheon, so while the others took the car back to the apartment, Yong Tae and I waited for Nick and took the bus. Yong Tae got a call from Blaise saying that he would be arrived on a highway bus early that evening and asking where he should go now. Blaise had gone south from Akita to Hiroshima with another friend earlier and then had taken a ferry from Shimonoseki to Busan. Yong Tae directed him to the same subway stop that our bus would get off at and bam! Before we even crossed the street there was Blaise, suitcase in tow. Six different groups, about 2 hours and we all were able to meet. After such and amazing feat, it could have been Karma that brought the next misfortune upon us (though I received the brunt of it.) To be frankly honest, however, it was several pitchers of beer, a few unneccessary bottles of soju, a Korean named Lebowski, and an internet cafe called Monkey Town that set the circumstances for Sunday’s incident.

I love Korea

Stay tuned, stay clean.