Korea
Japan
Hong Kong
But there are so many other places I may wind up... (hopefully not jail or dead).
I am using this space as a blog, and as a way to dump the dailies I take from my camera (Panasonic GH1 and Samsung TL320). I want those who are interested to get a daily-updated, unfiltered view of my crazy Asian adventure.
Yellow Dust and Craziness, Korea - Day 4
Today was such a fucking awesome day; except for the nighttime, but I won’t talk about that, cause today was just too damn much fun.
Everyone was pretty messed up in the morning from drinking too much the night before (and only sleeping a few hours), but who cares! Man up, assholes. We took off for Gwanghwamun for a St. Patty’s Day parade..in Korea! How silly.
Met some crazy Irish dudes dressed in green paper suits on the way there. Ernie wore his lucky underwear on the outside. They were giving away free guiness! (Vinh is jealous). Personally, I think guiness tastes like asshole, but its a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Korea, I’d be a bitch to resist. So we drank midday, chilled around the parade, tried to steal some tickets so we could get free shirts, but there was a 20ft drop separating us and the back of the ticket booth (where the hell did that come from!?) so we took a little break in McDonald’s. I tried their bacon-tomato burger (somethin I’ve had my eye on for a few days now)…and yeah it tasted pretty crappy. Don’t bother yourself with it.
We chilled in McDonald’s for like two hours just talking until finally Ryan was all, “dude, we’re wasting our time! lets go!” which was a damn good idea. David, Ernie, Ryan and I walked from Gwanghwamun to Insadong, this beautiful little shopping area. Along the way, seemingly out of nowhere, the sky turned this orange-yellow-brown, it was an amazing color, something I’d never seen before. We had no idea this shit could kill you.
My parents told me they saw a news report about the yellow dust on TV. Apparently is a crazy heath risk! We had no idea. We were outside all day.
On the way to Insadong, we came across an art gallery that had some INCREDIBLE art pieces. The place was small, but had so much interesting art lying around, from about 5 or 6 different artists. What struck me so much was how much all of the work from all of the different artists seems to communicate with each other, almost as if they were from the same person. I think a common theme was perspective, but there was so much variety it literally blew me away. The only name I got was Jun Ho Kwon, he did papercraft and structures built from metallic tubes. Those structures would then have freezing cold water pumped through them, which then caused the entire piece to frost over. Truly amazing.
Then we arrived in Insadong. Such a beautiful place! There were so many awesome shops and restaurants, and it all felt like a tiny village. Checked out some upscale tea house where I talked to the artist for a bit, then headed over for the main marketplace, this 4 or 5 story open-air building, where you just walk up around inside perimeter to the top, passing shop after shop along the way. That place kicked ass.
Then we got crazy hungry and found a place that served kimchi jun and bamboo soju, shit was sooo good! I mean damn. We’ve been eating well in Korea.
Afterwards, we hit up an arcade and played some crazy games. Apparently arcades are a rarity in Korea! They’re all about the PC-bongs here.
Around 9p we met up with Katy, Marcus, and Pat. We ate some crazy meat (like, Korean BBQ type shit but WAY better).
The meat was so damn good. And it didn’t stop. And neither did the soju. It was pretty much all you could eat and drink. And since there’s no tipping and no tax in Korea, it came out to be about $11 for the whole thing.
After that we hit up Hongdae, an area close to the university with tons of bars/clubs/younameits. We chilled at a bar for a bit for more drinking, then went to this club called TinPan. Walking in I immediately recognized the joint. I was here two years ago the last time I was in Korea. In TinPan2 (just across the street from TinPan), I was propositioned for sex immediately after walking in. It took me half an hour to convince that girl I wasn’t going to have sex with her.
But I digress. TinPan and TinPan2 are some of the craziest clubs you will see in Korea. People dancing on tables, drunk, making out, no room to breathe loudass music, asshole foreigners, tourists, slutty natives, sad nerds (well, only me), and everything debauchery you can think of. Shit was crazy. That’s where my night started to suck. I always go to these crazy ass clubs, and I know how to dance, and I do dance, but no girls seem to care. I don’t know what I’m lacking. I’m not out to get laid, just to have a good time. And at these wild and crazy places, I always end up feeling so alone.
Oh well, better luck next time, kid. The day overall was just too awesome to even let this bother me. Outside the club around 3a I saw an orange lamborghini parallel park between a white mercedes and a black Audi R8, with a white ferrari just one car down. TinPan is the place where all your dreams can come true. And AIDS!
As always, here are the dailies
