This post will probably be very long because I'm trying to sort some things out and the beach full of people despite the midnight hour really wasn't conducive. Nor is this PC bang but at least I should stay more focused. Most of this will involve me trying to decide what I should do about my job and the period up to next March probably. Just be warned that it will probably be depressing or boring.
I'm in Pohang right now. I don't know how I feel about a lot of things. I don't know what to do about anything.
It's my vacation right now. It really doesn't feel like it though. I thought vacations were about relaxing, trying to enjoy yourself, basically escaping work. I'm finding it very hard to not think about work. My self-prescribed method of pretending I had no job didn't really work. I have no idea what I'm going to do. My vacation started on Wednesday. I told my boss I would go help for 2 hours with the move. Then my bike was stolen and I just became very selfish. I had every intention of going until I woke up late with a small headache. It really made me not want to go. I thought about it for several minutes and then decided to say 'screw that' basically. This stolen bike thing really got to me. Plus I didn't feel like having a big discussion as I left after 2 hours or however long I would've stayed. So now, I just get to stress about what is going to happen when work starts again on Wednesday. I'm sure I've completely alienated myself from everyone. I can just imagine going to work with a sea of glares directed at me. Actually, I can't since I don't really know what the school looks like. I know where it is and poked my head in (well tried to) as some people were doing some constuction work on it. I'm sure there will be some discussion maybe about everything. My phone teaching, the fight, lack of control in the classroom, general attitude, the whole gamut. August will be my 5th month. I really wish I didn't have to give 40 days notice. That's way to long to work in an uncomfortable environment. Let's do some math let's say 6 weeks and 5x6 is 30. 30 work days. Yeah, way too long. I really thought I could go until the end of Semptember for a full 6 months. I really don't know though. Maybe the new office will change things. My vacation so far hasn't. I thought I could have a little break and come back feeling refreshed and invigourated. I don't imagine that happening in the next 3 days.
Anyways, on Wednesday, I ended up spending most of the day on my bed. I was waiting for Alex to tell me he was ready to leave and he waited for basically the same thing and we ended up leaving a lot later than either of us had planned. He called me but in my paranoia about work I didn't answer the phone. In any case, I'll take responsibility for the confusion. I really just wanted to get the hell out of Daegu. I hate being in an apartment provided for by my employer. It really just makes it feel like I can never escape my job. Never. I even had thoughts of him coming to my door. I locked my door just in case though he probably has a key. I really don't like feeling like I'm in a slave-master relationship. This little rebellion of mine makes me feel like I'm just in for a bit of punishment. It didn't really empower me like it should've. I'm sure it has to do with the bike. You really can't stay in power long when you become a victim of theft 30 seconds later. Empowered to helpless in half a minute. At any rate finally I did leave my apartment. Got to Alex's place. I took a taxi there. The subway really is faster I think or much better value at least. The taxi seemed no faster. Then we went to the bank. I couldn't get my card to work at one of the machines. I'm used to having only one kind of Daegu Bank screen. Anyways, made me feel more powerless. Got on the train and headed for Busan. We got on the subway and left one station only to find we didn't pay the correct fare. We jumped the turnstyles. Oh, in Busan too, I lost my train ticket and couldn't leave the station. Actually, I could and some guard just let me through. i know I should've had the ticket. I'm the guard just wanted to avoid using English. Sometimes, it's good to be a foreigner. So more feelings of powerlessness. We also got off at the wrong station and walked to the next one. We found the place listed in the Lonely Planet. It was a love motel and there were Vegas style call girl cards outside the door. The 2 of us went in and probably shocked the staff. First of all, we weren't Korean, second we were 2 guys, and third, we wanted the room to sleep. So we got up to the room. There's a double bed and a dresser and table. I shared a bed with another guy but for some reason it didn't feel the least bit weird unlike every other time I've done it. I guess when you deal with odd things happening all day it's hard for anything to really be that weird again. We walked around forever trying to find a decent restaurant in this district that's basically red light but not explicitly so. We found some place. I picked it just because it was Since 1982 and the 2 of us were from that year also. We looked at the menu. I don't know Korean foods really. I just asked for chicken. I got the same thing I had with the middle aged Korean man and his family. It wasn't too bad. I can always eat chicken, well maybe not always. We got quite a few stares in that place. You'd think with Busan being a bigger city than Daegu that they'd be more used to foreigners. I didn't get that impression at all.
Next day we decided to change places. We went over to Gwangalli beach (I think that's the name). We decided to stay at Hotel Hermes. The classiest place on the strip of beach probably. It was quite nice aside from a few things that had little to do with the hotel. Well, I guess room service was problematic and it may or may not have led to Alex's leg scabies. 2 beds in this place. Well first we asked for the price and the 2 at the desk acted like it was the craziest question they'd ever been asked. At first we got 2 rooms but then they figured out that by 2 beds we meant the same room with 2 beds not 2 beds in 2 separate rooms. Anyways, that day seemed rather fine. We went swimming. One guy saw us and ran to pose with us. Again, because we don't look all that Asian. He was in his 20s too. How could you be so fascinated by us? Alex wonders if the photos will lead to some embellished stories. Not hard to embellish, I saw these 2 guys walk down the beach. That photo really would require embellishment, I think. I would find it to be very dull. By night though, it was a little depressing. We tried to find some place to eat. Nowhere looked good. They all looked like the standard Korean restaurants. Some drunk wanted money and had to pushed away so he would finally leave. We ate at some place and continued to get drunk really. Both of us kind of thought that with most of Korea being on vacation these 2 weeks that it would be really easy to meet people. We met no one. We bought some whisky and in my drunken haze bananas were what I wanted. Well more than a haze really. We went back to the room and tried to order a pizza. This was one of the more memorable moments. I asked to order a pizza, well I asked for a pepperoni pizza because I figured it would be easy even if it wasn't on the menu. Nope, only Oriental pizza. What about the pizzas on the room service menu? Well, if we wanted those we had to go to the 19th floor. Though they can be made on the 19th floor they have some kind of tracking device that will not let them go down stairs or elevators. Ok, what's on the Oriental pizza? We never got an answer to this one. All I know is no roadhouse pizza, and no New Orleans pizza. Anyways, time passes as I replay all the ways to make sure I understand that the only pizza we can get from room service is the Oriental pizza with mystery toppings that is not on the menu and none of those on the menu can be ordered. So after this, I talk to a different woman. She says we can have something similar to pepperoni pizza. Great. 5 minutes later there is a telephone call. No, we can't have that pizza. What about the oriental pizza? That somehow disappeared as an option altogether as did the pizzas on the 19th floor. We have a menu so I ask what there is left to order that we can have. Ham sandwich or ham and cheese. I'm really amazed we got something resembling ham and cheese sandwiches. This probably isn't even interesting but due to our rather dull weekend it was very amusing and they were 7000 won. Things that make you go hmmmm...... (funny to one lone soul....possibly).
Next day we got up pretty late. Well not really. I woke up at seven due to my new found ability to sleep only after heavy intoxication. I tried so hard to fall back asleep but 4-5 hours of drunken sleep regardless of bed comfort, temperature, or noise (all of which were ideal) was all I would get. So 4 hours later I went downstairs and got a massage. That was thoroughly bizarre and basically involved me naked on a table in the corner of a big room with people going in and out. Sometimes a towel covered me and sometimes it didn't. At one point a man wearing only tiny shorts was sitting on the back of my legs while I was covered by just the smallest of towels and he was trying to pop my back at every single vertebra. I think only one of them popped and I'm not even sure that it did. I think he must've been frustrated and I don't know if the fact that he couldn't make it pop is good or bad. Anyways, that was weird but I felt relaxed afterward though maybe somewhat violated.
Anyways, then we went to Haeundae Beach. The most famous beach in all of Korea which last weekend hosted 800,000 people. That's not a typo 0.8 million. At least, according to my source who I tend to trust. It was rainy the whole weekend so the beach wasn't really the best place to go. We got some stupid straw cowboy hats and went to the casino. We actually both ended up winning. I doubled my 10,000 on video poker and then won maybe 30 or 40,000 won on blackjack. Alex was ahead by 10,000 only when we left. Pretty good though. Then we went to eat and some Thai place. How the bill ended up being 77,000 between us both I'll never understand. The chicken was too spicy hence my note about usually, almost always really. I ate about half of it. Anyways, then we went back to the casino where Alex proceeded to lose 50,000. I was up and felt pretty good and decided to bet 25,000 on one hand. The minimum was 10,000 and I think I played 20,000 maybe twice. Anyways, so I knew that would be my last hand no matter what. My first card was a jack and I felt pretty good about it. And then the second one came. An ace. Wow! I got a blackjack. Then the dealer had an ace and then I completely confused as all the players at the table turned to me to ask me what I wanted to do. I didn't know what was going on. It was all about insurance and I knew I didn't want any so I shook my head but then they thought that I wanted to stay on 21 or something and that I hadn't answered what they asked me. Anyways, it was all rather confusing but I ended up winning 110,000. A small amount really but exciting none the less. Enough to pay for our second night at the Hermes. On the way back we almost got in an accident and then we walked up and down the beach several times feeling lonely. My joy at winning was very short-lived actually. I think I'm happier about it now than I was then though I was just now more depressed than I was last night, if that makes any sense. Probably not.
So anyways, we were quite down on Korea since aside from the beach and casino, Busan seemed exactly the same as Daegu. The people were the same too really. We decided to go to the 19th floor to see if we could get pizza there. We could and it was awful. Well really not worth the extra long wait or all the confusion from the day before. We also had some Guinness which was quite good but quite expensive. At least Alex got a glass for it. We also had to sit next to some drunk man and his angry wife. It was really quite strange that we got more negative/unwanted attention in Busan and less of the attention we wanted. We got a lot more stares for some reason and some kid on the subway just today made some motion to his friend about how hairy my legs were. I totally called him on and looked him straight in the eye and rubbed my hairy legs while making ooh and aah faces. I don't think it had the desire effect though as he just continued though I had done nothing. Anyways, I wasn't sad to leave Busan today. They have this noise at the station though that sounded like a noise in some tapes I have to play at school. It made me so ill at ease. I really don't know what to do about work.
I got home. It turns out that I had left my lights on the whole time. I don't know why I would've had the lights on when I left at 4 on Wednesday. I was a bit suspicious that someone had been to my apartment. Maybe I did leave them on. Anyways, my room was as hot as ever. I tried to decide what I should do with the rest of my holiday that I now had to spend alone. I thought maybe I would go to Seoul and try to have some fun. Trying to have fun though doesn't seem to work though. It's all about the expectations. Had we assumed we'd have rather dull experiences in Busan it would've been fine. Had we expected it to really be no different from Daegu, it would've been fine. Instead we come back feeling a little defeated at our lack of success. I didn't even get to have a decent night's sleep. The next morning might have been fine except that some Creed song blared from across the beach up to our 9th story window. God was it loud. Why do you need to test speakers at 9am? How loud can we really get these speakers? Anyways, I decided that I wasn't going to stay in Daegu for another few days and I wasn't going to go to Seoul since I doubted I would have much fun. I decided I would go to Donghae and try to go to a remote a town as possible and decide when to quit my job or possibly to just keep it for the sake of convenience. It's all about timing really. Maybe I will just save it for tomorrow night since I probably won't be doing anything. This is what I do when I travel by myself. Spend the day looking around, after nightfall I eat, and then I go to an internet cafe until I think it's late enough to go to bed.
I went to 3 stations and finally got to the one selling tickets to Donghae. They were all sold out so I just picked some other city on the coast. I could go there but I'd need to transfer in Pohang which is why I'm here. I actually met a nice woman on the bus. We had a strange little conversation full of broken English and broken Korean. I wonder if we both took the same things from the conversation. Unlikely. Anyways, she told me to go to Bukbu beach and that's where I am. They were having some kind of music festival and fireworks. Anyways, the music wasn't good and I missed the fireworks mostly while looking for food on the otherside of tall buildings that separated me from the sea. I think Bukbu beach is actually the best beach I've been to in Korea. I'm a fan on the finer sand is what it comes down to really. The bridge at Gwangalli beach really made it feel industrial but I would have to say that it is nothing compared to the steel mill across the little bay. It looks kind of nice at night in that spooky kind of futuristic way. I remember I had a dream once about living in refinery. It's something about those tiny columns covered in lights. It makes me think of some dirty polluted castle. I really just wanted to walk along the beach alone with my thoughts. It really is amazing though how sometimes more people can just make you feel much more alone. The beach is too crowded so I will probably leave tomorrow and go to the city that the woman told me was only known for lobsters. It's not even mentioned in the Lonely Planet(I have issues with this being like the unofficial guide of everyplace but that's another story) aside from being on the map. We'll see how that turns out.
I'm surprised the direction that this entry took. I thought it would be a lot whinier than it ended up being. Maybe I should just stick to descriptive things about the past rather than contemplate about the future or maybe I'm just delaying having to come a decision about what to do. Maybe I will just change the opening or delete it rather. I don't know why I write like this. It's much too stream of consciousness. I don't know whether I like people knowing how I think. It's really rather indecisive isn't it. I don't really weigh pros and cons either. I try too but basically I just think about something for a bit and then choose something impulsively really because I'm tired of thinking about it. I guess I'll leave it up. It's just easier. The title I might change, the current title is :This will likely be long. Vacation/Work stuff again. I'm a bit proud of my titles. They are usually good. More interesting than the content at any rate.
Let's see 2 more things. So the woman on the bus made me realize that it's really not that I dislike Koreans at all. I actually find them nice on an individual level most of the time. It just really doesn't make me feel any less alienated from their society. Of course, right after they got off I couldn't find my ticket and had to pay the fare again (only 6000 but still) and of course within 2 seconds of looking off the bus I find it. That kind of made me doubt my newfound optimism of Korean people. He wasn't very nice to me, as if he knew the whole time that I didn't have a ticket and had snuck aboard or something. I really wanted to show him that I did have a ticket and my desperate searching hadn't all been an act. Anyways, I went to a restaurant tonight and the chef and waitress were really quite nice so maybe these won't be a couple days spent wallowing in self-pity and serious self reflection. I'd think I'd better stick to these lowered expectations though so when I came in here to write I was feeling quite depressed about everything. Maybe I just needed to tell Cal-Mo-Dee how I was feeling or whoever you are if you are reading this. Now I just need to think of a different title and go to bed.
