Goodbye Korea, Hello Thailand

Well, it is officially Talkster summer vacation. It is currently 6:56 a.m. and Ben and I are sitting in the terminal at Incheon Airport outside of Seoul. We're taking a week long holiday on the beaches of Phuket, Thailand. Aside from having to leave Suwon at 5:15 this morning everything has went perfectly so far. Airport shuttle was super quick and absolutely zero lines for security and customs. I'd estimate we spent about 10 minutes between the time we entered the terminal and when we reached our gate. Every time I fly internationally I'm impressed with other countrys' ability to effectively manage an airport. Whenever you fly domestically at home you have delays, long lines, cancellations, and it is generally about on par with a dental cleaning. Just flying from Chicago to Saginaw caused me more headaches than I care to mention. Somehow the rest of the world's airlines have solved this Rubic's Cube of effectively managing people; perhaps this is why U.S. air carriers are all bankrupt? Hopefully the other two legs of our journey today go as smoothly (layovers in Hong Kong and Kaula Lampur, Malaysia) and we'll be in Thailand this evening sipping beers on a beach.

Expect tons of pictures and blogs during/after Thailand. I would say if I could choose one place in the world to visit, Thailand would be it. I've been fascinated by this country for quite some time and I can't begin to tell you how giddy I am to be finally going.

EDIT #1: Currently in Hong Kong sitting at the gate awaiting our flight to Malaysia. Trying to get to the gate was quite humorous. Every time we joined a line to go through security they would close that line and direct us to another check-point. We walked back and forth, back and forth between the same two check-points for 15 minutes before they finally led a group of us back through the terminal. Then the (presumably) Chinese woman in front of me in line tried to go through security with a cordless drill case full of plants. She looked shocked when they asked her to step aside so they could investigate. Also of note, both Incheon and Hong Kong International are far nicer airports than I've ever encountered in the U.S. Really impressive architecture, nice layout, extremely clean, and, most important, well organized. Every step of the way there was an English speaker to make sure we were headed in the right direction.

Take it easy, but take it.

A weekend to remember

This past weekend is quite easily the most ridiculous 2 day stretch since I've been in Korea. I probably can't do it justice in a blog but I'm going to try.

Friday night we ate dinner at our usually spot and then the four of us (myself, Ben, Charlie, and Haji) went to check out a place called "Wa Bar" that Haji had told us about. It is apparently a popular foreigner hang-out, it is closer than NOW Bar, and we all needed a change of pace anyway. We ate french fries, drank beer, and argued about the need for a playoff system in college football. Actually, we didn't argue about that at all, anyone with half a brain knows that the BCS is total crap. Anyway, after a bit we start chatting with a couple sitting next to us. This is where things get interesting.

Emily, a native Korean, and Alan, a teacher from Ohio, join our table and the night gets slightly ridiculous. Long story short, Haji leaves (after picking up the tab, what a boss, right?) but before he goes the idea of norebang is introduced into conversation and he strongly suggests that we do it. Now, before I came to Korea my idea of karaoke was the embarrassing experience of singing in front of a bar full of strangers. Norebang (literally "Sing Room") is different. First, you have a private room. There are two microphones, a handful of tambourines, and a remote control where you enter the song you want to sing. So with our new friends leading the way we proceed to spend a really hilarious 2 hours in this room singing Boyz 2 Men, Dr. Dre, and even "Play that Funky Music White Boy." I cannot even begin to express how funny this whole thing was. The best part was when our hour was up we weren't ready to leave so Charlie decides to go barter with the people to give us more time. I believe the quote was, "How much until 3 o'clock? We're gonna do some epic shit!" Drunken norebang was a fantastic time to say the least.

So that brings us to Saturday. We made plans to meet with Emily and go to this bar/club called "Monkey Beach" in Seoul. We spent the afternoon playing screen golf (another 40 for me on the front 9 at Pebble Beach including a horrendous 5 on a 89 yard par 3). After golf we came back, changed, and met up with Emily at Suwon Station. After a 90 minute journey on the subway with 2 transfers we arrived in Apgujeong and met up with Emily's friend. So this guy introduces himself as "DJ Kim" and we later find out he is paying $800 a month to train to be in a boy band. So now it is the trio, Emily, and DJ Kim. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed into Monkey Beach.

So the club is a Thai themed bar which is funny considered Ben and I are going to Thailand next week. It was really a typical bar with a few expections. First, the cocktails we served in giant buckets. For $15 you could get a bucket of mixed drink that had EIGHT shots. That's right, eight shots. So, it goes without saying, that after two buckets it was time to dance. And dance we did. Everyone is basically dancing on this 50 foot long picnic table. A great time was had by all. The other awesome thing about Monkey Beach was they had a guy in a Halloween mask walking around playing a game. If you beat him in Rock-paper-scissors you got a free shot. If he won he got to whack you on the head with a plastic hammer. I obviously lost and took a beating. Charlie redeemed our group and took him down.

So, yeah, it was absolutely ridiculous and I spent most of yesterday recovering. Ben and I head to Thailand on Saturday so there will be plenty of things to blog about soon. I hope everyone is doing well. I miss and love you all. Take it easy, but take it.

Photo Blog

Here are some pictures from my recent adventures. Blogger won't let me re-order them nor does it publish them in any sort of discernible fashion. After about 30 minutes of frustrating trying to make it look decent I'm giving up. Just look and enjoy. If you click the pictures you can see a bigger, higher quality version.

Totally legitmate soccer fan right there, ladies and gentlemen.

Charlie, Ben, and I after the game. Looking really authentic with our scarfs on loan from Hans.

Great view.

The gang during the game.

Inside the stadium about an hour before kick-off.

Alex and I inside Suwon's Big Bird Stadium.

Big Bird Stadium from the street.

Ian, Alex, Charlie, Hans, Ben, and I before the game at a dak galbi restaurant.

One of my favorite foods on the entire planet.

Charlie digging in. See my last blog for more info about our love of this food.

I found a burrito restaurant in Seoul. Happiest moment in awhile.

The next four are from the 3rd Annual World DJ festival. It was basically an all night dance party on the bank of the Han River. I may or may not have blogged about it; I can't remember. It was a really incredible time.

Korean 4th of July

Well, my first ever Indepedence Day outside of U.S. borders was a great one. I had such a great time yesterday that I felt a blog was in order. I also managed to take some pictures so I'll post those at the end of the blog.

First, I have to introduce a new character into the blog. Han Sang Hyun (Hans for short) is the assistant manager of the local Baskin Robbins. We've recently become good friends with him and have been hanging out with him a fair bit outside the confines of our frequent ice cream runs. He is easily one of the 5 nicest people I've ever met. This guy is literally bending over backwards to make sure we're taken care of and we all sincerely appreciate his efforts. It is so cool to think we made such a good friend just because we like ice cream and we speak English.

Hans is a huge soccer fan, so he and Ben are always talking about soccer when we go get ice cream. About a month ago he suggested we should all go to a Suwon Bluewings game together. We settled on going yesterday because in Korea July 4th is just the day between July 3rd and 5th. Hans did a great job of planning out the whole day for us. We met up with Hans at BR wearing our blue shirts (obviously have to look like true fans) and then set off to get some food before the game.

Another side story: one of our favorite restaurants suddenly closed about 2 weeks ago. One day we showed up and it was boarded up. Now it is some kind of lotion store. We were devastated. They served one of our favorite Korean foods and Ben, Charlie, and myself have all been craving dak galbi something awful ever since. Well, luckily our boy Hans was able to show us another dak galbi restaurant. It may sound crazy, but this was easily one of the highlights of the day for me. I can now sleep easily knowing we'll be able to get out weekly dak galbi fix again.

Oh, I should do a roll call of the day's adventure. The group consisted of myself, Charlie, Ben, Hans, Alex and Ian (Dad, don't worry, I now have pictures of everyone). So after we ate our delicous meal we wandered over to KFC to load up on some food for half-time. Hans had this huge duffel bag he lugged around all day that was full of everything we could ever want or need. He had bottles of water, soda, Suwon t-shirts, soccer scarfs, and now a family size bucket of chicken. Did I mention how nice of a guy he is? In Korea you can just carry in a huge duffel of food for yourself which is in stark contrast to the Big House where they basically cavity search you upon entering the place.

Next we jumped in some cabs and rolled over to the stadium. I must admit, I was quite impressed. The 44,000 seat stadium was really beautiful and for $8 we had pretty sweet seats in the "supporter" section. Now I'm not entirely familiar with the workings of professional soccer, but I do know the fans are pretty much lunatics and Suwon's fans were no exception. They stood, clapped, and chanted pretty much the whole game. We managed to work out a few of the chants despite our lack of Korean. Hans gave Ben and I the rundown of the players and who to watch out for which made me feel like a more legitimate fan. We got some giant bottles of beer for $4 and settled down to watch the Bluewings take on Seongnam. The weather was absolutely perfect and we all were grinning ear to ear.

Again, I know next to nothing about soccer but Ben is pretty much 'The Schwab' of 'football' so I will default to his judgment on the level of play. The teams were certainly competitive but the game itself wasn't very sharp. Granted, most of my soccer watching is done on the International level at the World Cup so I should probably hold these guys to a lower standard. They didn't play much defense and basically just sprinted up and down the pitch the entire game, which I suppose was more exciting than the usual chess match nature of soccer. Suwon had a new Brazilian player playing in his first game and he happened to score the game's only goal. It was quite comical though. He was breaking down the field looking over his shoulder for the ball when it shockingly hit up directly in the back of the head. He regained his composure, broke in, and scored. Even Hans admitted it was quite a lucky goal. The fans went apeshit and all was well with the world.

Now I think soccer is a great game but I have one major complaint: the flopping. It seemed that every 5 minutes someone would be on the ground rolling around in pain. They'd stop the game, the trainer would run out, a golf cart would carry them off, and then 2 minutes later they're back in the game perfectly fine. It is all just a giant show to try and draw penalties but it seems quite ridiculous to me. It was so annoying to interrupt the flow of the game just so some asshole could pretend to be hurt.

It is worth mentioning that several Korean people asked to take pictures with us at the game as though we were celebrities. I don't think this occurance will ever stop being funny and awkward. First these high school boys down the row from us asked to take a picture with Alex. I mean, he's just sitting there watching the game, why would anyone want a picture with him? Then after the game we were down in the front row taking pictures near the field and these Koreans walked up and asked to snap a few pictures with us. Fair enough, let's take some more celebrity photos with strangers.

After the game we came back to the neighborhood and had some beers at the Ice Pub where we drank with Hans last week. A good time was had by all. After that Hans wanted to see our humble abodes so he came back and checked out our apartments and hung out playing video games with us.

All in all, probably one of my more memorable and enjoyable 4th of Julys. Great weather, exciting soccer, delicous food, cold beers, and fantastic company; what more could a guy ask for?