Long-past-due update

Ye gods, I didn't realize how long it's been since I updated this thing. I've sort of disappeared from the Internet for a bit, it seems. My apologies to anyone who thinks I've died or faded out of existence or something.

So since my rather depressing set of issues back in the time of my last post, things have been remarkably good. Seoul's weather has been nice and warm (though it's becoming really hot now, not that I'm complaining), I've been to a few interesting places, and Hanna is here visiting me. Hooray!

I'll try to make this as coherent as I can with my poor memory and go chronologically.

Jinhae
After the evening in Changwon, Tom and I went to Jinhae with the rest of his coworkers to see the cherry blossoms. A 20-minute drive became over 90 minutes because everyone was going there for exactly the same reason. But it wasn't so bad, anyway. Once we got to the town itself, we took in some of the sights: a uniformed police officer sitting on a bench and weeping into the arms of his partner, a man impeccably dressed in a business suit sifting through garbage the entire five minutes we were stuck in the same place (he was looking for a glove), and innumerable identically-dressed couples, most walking or carrying tiny white dogs which were either dyed pink or wearing shoes. The city itself is beautiful, of course... cherry blossoms everywhere, and it's right on the sea. We saw a turtle ship and dressed in the uniform of Korean naval officers.

Busan
Mina, the girl I met in Changwon, invited me later that week to go to Busan with her for a weekend. Busan is one of Korea's larger cities, and has the country's most famous and largest beach, Hyundae Beach. We walked down it Saturday evening as people all along were shooting off fireworks or sitting in the sand holding hands. We were headed toward the 7-11 to grab some beer for a relaxing seaside drink, when we passed a man lighting a large number of candles in the sand. Interesting, we thought, but we kept going. Then we passed him on our way back.

The man was standing in a heart-shaped enclosure of lit candles, with his bewildered and laughing girlfriend in his arms. A crowd of people were gathered around to watch them. He spoke, and Mina translated for me - "Will you marry me?" The crowd applauded.
Then, before the deliriously happy woman could answer, a voice came over the loudspeaker: "This is beach security. There are no fires allowed on the beach. Please put out the candles and disperse."
Right in the middle of a marriage proposal.

That made my night, because the security people were saying nothing at all to the drunkards lighting off fireworks a few metres away. I believe that the security guard could only have been feeling lonely, and got particularly bitter when he saw this wonderfully romantic scene unfolding in front of him.

Besides that, we saw an aquarium full of bizarre fish and lovely penguins, and two famous temples on the seaside (beautiful... I have pictures, but I'm far too lazy to post 'em now), and ate black noodles at one of Korea's most famous restaurants. Highlights of eating include one place we saw claiming to serve "live food" and tanks all along the streets with the strangest and most phallic-looking squirmy creatures you could ever hope to see.

Seoul Writers
I discovered a writers' group online which meets every two weeks to share and discuss the writings of its members, give criticism, and do writing exercises to get us all in creative mode. I've joined up and so far been to three of them (scheduling issues). I enjoy it, and it's actually helped a bit in getting me writing more.

DJ Festival
One weekend I arranged to meet a pair of girls who were new to Seoul. We wandered around Dongdaemun (and completely failed to find the flea market again - turns out it moved), Namdaemun, and Gyeongbukgung (a palace, where we saw huge numbers of people in traditional dress marching around and posing for pictures). Later they joined my coworkers and I at the World DJ festival, wherein I saw more foreign faces than I thought existed in Korea and had my ass grabbed more times than I could possibly count. It was fun, though mostly I stayed in the beer tent being amused by the antics of drunken English-speakers and taking pictures of men who kept telling us we weren't allowed to take pictures. Some strange acts included a German man wearing a suit made entirely of coloured flashing LEDs wandering around the stage while music played.

Daegum-gul
Caves! Mina and I went to see caves in Daegum. We took a tour, 'cause it was cheaper than going ourselves. Like everything outside of Seoul, it seems, the area is fantastically beautiful. The caves are in mountains surrounded by trees and rivers and strange people selling wooden statues of penises. Sadly, they've become a bit of a major tourist attraction, so there were steel walkways and guardrails stopping you from doing any real exploring as well as huge crowds of people. The second cave (there were two) wasn't so crowded, but you weren't allowed to take pictures. Still, it was fantastic. There's an underground lake inside, nine metres deep and filled with the clearest water you could hope to see, slick white flowstone, and bizarre stalactites ranging from the standard phallus-shape to paper-thin sheets of rock. Waterfalls too. An amazing place, and I wish we were free to explore on our own. Not in Korea, I'm told.

Hanna
Hanna's here! We did all kinds of exploring together and discovered that there's actually a park near my apartment, which makes Gangseo-gu a thousand times more livable. She spent a lot of time sleeping during her first week here, but we went places and saw things and generally have been having a lot of fun. In-town we saw Iron Man, went to Insadong, and drew pictures with pastels we found at the 1000-won store. Last weekend we went to Gyeongju, a city full of history as it was Korea's capital until a couple hundred years ago, and saw burial mounds, entered a tomb, went to temples and museums and ate strange food at a really friendly restaurant and slept in a bed that was actually big enough for two people. Amazing! Before that we also went to the traditional hwaeshik, where my boss takes the new and departing teachers out for a night of eating and drinking and ridiculous drinking games. Hanna was quite embarrassed after one of the Korean secretaries told me, "Your girlfriend is so beautiful."

In her first week here, we went to the relocated flea market and Hanna bought a traditional cymbal (she was so happy about that) as well as an autographed record of "Korean art songs". In the aisle that nobody goes to without glancing about to make sure no one's looking, we found odd sex toys, mainly consisting of products which fit over your regular genitalia to make them... um... larger. There was also a man carving a penis out of wood, who embarrassedly allowed me to take a couple of pictures of him.

Next week we're going to Jeju Island, to see a volcano and caves and old women with spears diving for fish and waterfalls and all sorts of lovely wonderful things and I'm very excited but mostly excited simply to have Hanna here for a month.

The next six months feel like they're going to be so much more livable now. I'm doing things and I'm feeling good.

I also have my blue belt in hapkido. I think I've destroyed at least one of my shoulders, but hopefully that will heal somewhat during my week off.