from the flat earth's edge

~
2007.08.07 22:51 CST (EST + 12 hrs): Beijing, People's Republic of China

Appreciative head-nods and ethereal hugs and handshakes from across the Pacific, brothers and sisters. I have recently returned from delicious lunch -- Sichuan malatang (literally 'spicy soup') with ample fresh greens, sliced spuds, cauliflower, quail eggs and a variety of spiced oils and salts, splayed across warm rice. Easily my new favourite meal.

Understandably, I have to grown to love the world's various bowled offerings: from dokk-mandu-guk -- Korean rice cake soup with dumplings, to spicy, mysterious, healthy yet filling malatang, all the way from the sultry, temperamental miso with its sunken seaweed, to the thick richness of hearty pea soup or the cleansing simplicity of broth, not forgetting the amalgamated and cleansing phò. Population, permutations and time have given heed to the multitude of things to be boiled, simmered, sautéed and assembled. This, adeptly, found its niche in the bowl: the raised receptacle into which all threads finally find themselves, to be consumed and completed, rejected or restrained.

I am enjoying the throes of being in love: I had yet to experience its fullness, complexity, security and warmth. These are each precious and reflections better understood once articulated by the self, either prior or simultaneously. Luckily, I have established a significant emotional base and am familiar enough with blue to recognize red when I see purple; green when touching yellow. The resounding lesson -- if the latter term can be (ever) used to describe such a transient non-state -- is that journeys are continual, progressive, often regressive, but all the time passages of awareness from stagnations of dark. This begs the question: are light and motion addictive? And secondly, are grey processes (and 'states') necessary to feel the flux of up, down, aware and asleep?

Over time, we become increasingly conscious that answers are not always ours and as such grow comfortable with times of inner discussion, outer debate and the mingling of these two, unknown thirds and unforeseen perpendicularities. Being is no longer a thing or place to name or be: it simply is. Shining with the security of this assurance, we seek higher, less assured routes: off we trod, spanning and scanning the transitions there between.

From there to here,


S*

"I seen the demons/But they didn't make a sound/They tried to reach me/But I lay upon the ground."

~
2007.07.30 15:38 CST (EST + 12 hrs): Beijing, People's Republic of China

The Good, The Bad, The Foreign: In No Particular Order

Perhaps unexpectedly -- at least to me, I was sick with the big D (ends in "rhea"...no not the ostrich's cousin) for the first two weeks and lost very little weight considering the paltry sum retained. Shit-attack central. Then, early last week, we went to a tex-mex joint to relax over nachos, a veggie burrito and pitcher of frozen margaritas. Later that night, I russled awake around 2:30 suspecting the tequila murdered the bug in my stomach then rushed to the toilet to empty myself via the orifice standardly dedicated to intake. Coincidently, this marked the end of my, *ahem*, bumquakes, and I've been swell since.

My first class is morning until noon, then a lame, near-four-hour split and another class until six. Although, the past few mornings, I've been up at six and on the badminton court for an hour, having it out with the locals. It's awesome: I haven't played since grade nine...and they school me, but it's all good. All that to say that I've only recently getting a bit of exercise and sweating off some of my spare tire.

It is absolutely and persistently muggy. One cannot stay clean for a minute: the air sticks to you (and the subway is even more of a sauna). In Beijing, filthy air plus sweat plus dirt plus crazy constant humidity equals good, sticky times... Contrastingly, evenings are wonderful moments of atmospheric respite, cooling to a comfortable warmth with clearer skies and quiet breezes often materializing. And as our neighbourhood tucks in before midnight, post meridiem strolls are ambles through a private paradise.

Most would like it here: there's something interesting around every corner, and locals are widely friendly. I return stares all the time then crack a smile, calling on their rich sense of humour, usually offering a grin or laugh.

There are good, cheap fruit shops on every second intersection and coolers of beer and beverages on every other. Everything is low-cost and affordable (read: nicely cheap): taxis, drinks, groceries, restaurants, pharmacies.... Roughly converting renminbi yuan to Canadian dollar, we've been quickly calculating fifteen percent of the former to find the latter. Previously, we'd been dividing by six or seven but multiplying by 0.15 saves many a mental tangle. 0.14 is more accurate but we round up and the cost of living still comes out to, well, not much.

Shopping for clothes is fun and bartering is mandatory. They'll try to squeeze you immediately by, for example, starting at RMB 1200, then letting it finally go for 200. Criminal, but I don't blame them (give them the hard eye and say " bou-sheh why go-rin!" ("I'm not a foreigner!"). The one tiresome aspect of clothing markets is the incessant hassle. You are yelled at, pulled on, grabbed and held, and hollered at until you finally show interest in the wares on offer. Though showing too much (by initiating the haggle, for example) and leaving without a purchase apparently confuses them, seemingly troubled with the concept of refusing an item on qualitative grounds (versus price) -- as proved by their constant and continual debate over "how much do you want to pay?". Sifting through the stalls, they'll smile and swear that they "remember you from last time" and that they're giving you the best possible, "friend" price. Reactions encountered when shopping and bartering in Beijing range from: pouting and silence to laughing and back-patting. All told, with minimal effort (the learning curve is quick), you leave most stores with arm-loads as pockets remain heavy.

Students are awesome: ambitious, determined and quite socially aware. I talk to my oldest (sixteen through eighteen) about world geography, history, politics, philosophy...and they have little difficulty following. They offer substantial feedback on most topics and can often be found debating issue after issue on myriad subjects. This is where their sense of humour comes in handy: they are serious about their knowledge while laughing at their inaccuracies. Of course, they like video games and their comics, as most (Asian) kids seem to, but when asked to pay attention, they are thankfully rather obedient and respectful.

Locals are quite nice and you're never in want of an English speaker. Lessons dictating the latter are integrated into each of their high schools' five year curricula, causing near-perfect vocabulary and pronunciation when you least expect it: at the grocery store, on the metro or outside a changing room.

I don't know about cities like Shanghai or Nanjing -- which are closer to the coast and further from the Gobi, but Beijing-borne smog is so thick that real sunshine is a fleeting, bi-weekly affair normally induced by rainfall and strong winds clearing the skies. At a less lofty altitude, the scent of a full sewer never escapes the wandering nose, thus catching a pungent whiff is not uncommon, even in decent neighbourhoods. What's more, contrary to my relative unfamiliarity with Korean squatting (three times), hunkering down has been locally inevitable.

Krista and I are happy and positive. We are, nonetheless, uncertain as to the fate of our second three-week stint as our current school is experiencing a lack of enrolment for August. As such, our agency is working to organize our upcoming schedule(s) and location(s). Our fingers are crossed for something fun which, any way you look at it, will be new, interesting and a good challenge.

From here to there. Until the next update, be well.

Czech it,

S*

~
2007.07.13 11:37 CST (EST + 12 hrs): Beijing, People's Republic of China

Krista and I landed in Beijing yesterday, slightly ahead of schedule, were effortlessly processed through customs and were met by the recruiting agency staff only moments later, outside the gates, with our names misspelled. After a twenty-five minute drive from the airport, we were taken to our new apartment which, to be honest, is actually really nice: two bathrooms, dining room, living room, two big bedrooms with air conditiong, two television sets, a computer room and connecting the entire back of the space is a windowed balcony that overlooks the massive shared park that is also the centre of a complex of high-rises (about ten of them in a round formation).

We met the director of the agency and three of her staff before being let to shower and relax in the early evening. Around seven, we were taken to a local "famous" restaurant to meet five other foreign teachers (two middle-aged ladies from Montreal and three Aussies). Next, we were treated to a dozen appetizer dishes spanning fresh salads to baked tofu, baby spinach with peanuts, beef and tomato stew, whole baked fish, spicy chicken...with beer, tea and juice for everyone. The main dish, as I'd seen before in China, was roasted（Peking）duck which is served sliced with side dishes of slivered cucumbers, thinned shallots and jiang jiang (thick, black sauce). After dipping each of the items in the sauce, they're placed in a thin rice paper "tortilla", wrapped and eaten in two or three bites. Awesome delicious.

We got home from the restaurant around nine o'clock and were ridiculously exhausted from having only slept a few hours since Monday (we only had two hours to crash on Tuesday night and slept only sporadically and uncomfortably on the flight). At any rate, we passed out around nine-fifteen and slept until six and didn't get out of bed until eight-ish. This morning, we investigated a bit of our surrounding neighbourhood on foot and went all the way to what is being constructed as the Olympics' indoor track stadium (refered to as the "Bird's Nest" because of it's exterior design ... super cool by the way). We found the local department store which, in Asia, normally refers to a grocery store, butchery, bakery, beer store, pharmacy, clothing and general goods store all wrapped into one. We bought groceries for the week and a few amenities like toilet paper and house slippers.

We're now sitting in a French cafe where we finished sumptious coffees and used the computers for free. All is going well and we are scheduled to meet the director of our school this afternoon (two o'clock) for an "interview" and review of the materials we are hired to teach. Later this afternoon, we will be taken on a neighbourhood tour by one of the agency staff (Kevin) who we met last night and lives near us. His English is excellent and he has been nothing but extra helpful to us.

We're really excited to be here together and even more so to have a free weekend before we start working on Monday: sightseeing time!

I hope this finds each and all of you well and happy.

With love and smiles,

S*

Current read(s) in progress: The Walrus, "The Catcher in the Rye" - JD Steinbeck

~
2005.02.20 EST: Ottawa, Canada

Hmmm, updates are tricky motherfuckers. Let's start at the middle then. I came back from fourteen months of Korea, a touch of Japan, China and Thailand. Having returned in December last year, I spent the first two months doing absolutely nothing but eating well, breathing deep and not washing my hair. Slowly, I evolved from that model and am now serving at a restaurant that's on it's way downhill (slowly; but most of the staff don't see it yet), and have recently moved into a lovely and spacious one-bedroom apt. in the literal heart of Ottawa. I like it; although the rent can be qualified by singularizing the noun at the end of my opening sentence.

Right then. So things are going well as the delta of my life slowly increases in quality and quantity with the passing turns of each years' river. University was a blast and living with roommates was interesting and largely educational, but life as an adult is a funnily unpredictably one. (Is there a manual or model somewhere?) In my own hours of self-questioning and editing, I often wonder if the people I know really know where they are as much as I don't. Most answers come daintilly in the windows at night, I realized, to sit gracefully on your brain when the sun rises. Then, you make that paramount decision to get vertical.

It has come to seem that the things that receive too much thought or planning or attempt at control are the things that fail -- or get turned over like cards played, and now useless. Abandoning yourself to these winds is as Hunter Thompson refered to the whim of the great magnet, pulling us each in different directions -- but pulling nonetheless. Of course, this is all good and fine, but forgetting or trying to skip the natural processes of our personal evolution can be dangerous and in the end bite (or bless) our forty-five-year old asses for twenty-year old steps in odd directions.

Undisputedly, life is crazy and we should be happy to have had the chance to buckle into this particular part of the roller coaster. We got to see the millenium change, we'll see Castro and the Pope replaced, the whole while watching Europe's powerful social bonds increase, serving to rival Asian economic ones as the age of the West slowly comes to an end. I wonder too, that in a raging age of financial and personal progress for the few, when will the masses get theirs?

Whenever that time comes -- and later still, after the waves of change have receded -- I will be eager yet curious as to where the high water marks will be left on this slice of civilization we have the unfortunate habit of calling 'ours'.

I miss all of you in particular ways, and in that same vein I wish you each the best in your particular responsibilities and undertakings.

Remember to keep updating your old mind programming, it's the only way to keep your head and bridge the gaps. And if that doesn't work, think of everything that's ever gone right in your life and how little you had to do with it. Magnetism, indeed.

Stay warm and czech it.

S*

Fave current track(s): "Presidential Suite" - Super Furry Animals
Current read(s) in progress: "A Short History of Nearly Everything" - Bill Bryson, "Toro" magazine (The Crime Issue)

~
2004.12.23 13:51 EST: Ottawa, Canada

I'm hearing so much new music.

And the books are amazing. People refill coffee. Cabbies understand, while streetsigns make sense. To me. I'm being anthropocentric, but it's good to be back.

Thank you.

So, since I've returned, lots of people have been happy to spend time together and jump into each other's minds. I've been in so many sandboxes and the gifts are still amazing. I appreciate it. It's simply that every moment here gets exponentially better than the one preceding it and, as such, is incrementally better than it. So the now is, by definition, the most excellent moment to date.

When people talk, I can hear what they're saying and I understand now that a generation on the move is a herd of animal nomads roaring down a flexible path. Multiplied by millions. There is an energy in this climate that is categorical, it's active. Designers are living a dream life and some friends work on Sunday. It's a world in which we can choose to sell our ultimate commodity: ourselves. And, over the past three weeks, I'm seeing that some prices are low, low, low. While others held out for a lot more. Others are still holding out, but whether they're sitting on a gold mine or a pair of threes remains to be seen. Until then, we should endeavour to continue careening happily through early adulthood, overworked, stoned, drunk and as deranged as every generation before us, the differences and similarities with whom you may have neglected.

Everyone's eyes are on something monumental and valuable. Like nine-eleven and the Internet are our only milestones. But there's the error. Those are the tip of our dove's headfeather perched atop a weathervane pointing south, that we placed on the apex of the pyramid we built at the summit of the ice cap that will slide over the world and eventually melt, landing us on a space which we will collectively declare our new Capital where all things are indeed and in fact created equal. Embrace the future, everyone.

To all those celebrating holidays, remember to take the time to talk to your family. If not, give a stranger a piece of gum without being awkward. Then smile and hold the door for someone.

Czech it.

S*

Fave current track(s): "(Drawing) Rings Around The World" - Super Furry Animals
Current read(s) in progress: "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" - Mark Haddon, "The Vice Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll" - Gavin McInnes and Shane Smith

~
2004.11.29 02:53 Pacific Standard Time (EST - 3 hrs): Vancouver, Canada

From Seoul, I have reached the other side of the Pacific and in lieu of a trove of spices, I watched the specimen, street-side. Here are the results from The Vancouver Experiments.

S*

Fave current track(s): "Fried Grease" - The Greyboy Allstars
Latest reads: "Immortality" - Milan Kundera, "The Alchemist" - Paulo Coelho, "The Chronicle of Manchwidang" - Kim Moon Soo
Upcoming reads: "The Sirens of Titan" - Kurt Vonnegut, "Rosshalde" - Herman Hesse

~
2004.11.06 13:30 (EST + 11 hrs): Haad Sai Ree (Ko Tao island), Kingdom of Thailand

At a soft pace, I etched north by northwest up aquamarine waves in the Gulf of Thailand from Ko Phangan to Ko Tao, exposed and happily searing under pure Thai sunshine. Wrapping up an over-extended five-day stay on Haad Rin Nok, the hour begged mobility and a change of scenery. So move I did.

Moored and disembarked, I quickly saw that life on Ko Tao -- the northermost destination of three main islands in the Gulf, off the peninsula's east coast -- is a more knowing and silently slower-paced world than its southern neighbours. The smallest of three, this island is mainly considered a diving locale, but for those curious or discerning enough to venture its shores, an atmospherically calm world within a world awaits.

Ko Tao is largely mountainous in the centre, with Haad Sai Ree -- the longest and most oft-tread beach -- spanning the middle third of the island's west coast. Unlike other resorts, restaurants and commercial beachfront amalgams, this beach's bars, bakeries, dive shops, Internet cafés, bungalow cottages and resort communities are linked by a peripheral, lit, interlocked path, mimicking the shoreline, making access to all facilities simple, even pleasureable -- much unlike the meandering and confusing dirt arteries clogging beachfront hamlets elsewhere.

To the eye, property landscaping is far superior on Haad Sai Ree as coconut and ficus trees mingle with multitudes of tame or wild white, fuschia and yellow flowers of tropical descent. Together with excellent upkeep and casually-slung bright hammocks smiling from many a front porch, the surroundings are altogether electrifyingly pacific. Haad Sai Ree's appeal is in its apparent care and carefulness in creating a layered environment designed intuitively with an eye on the warmth of a welcoming and space-concious aesthetic.

This beach's eateries -- as most places in Thailand -- serve sumptuous food: rich and overly affordable yet creative and healthy. To wit, the nightlife is smarter and better-suited to those tourists or travellers seeking a sharper and elevated way to spend their money and evenings. Beach bars built into stolonate tree roots stand quietly and smile below the soothing haze of floodlights lit green, nestled and shining into the underside of ginko crowns -- their total glow tumbling down to the straw mats and candlelit wicker tables, with sipping patrons lounging sweetly to the sound of unending, lapping waves and the sultry beat-filled music of a contemporary generation.

And as many coastal settings throughout the Kingdom, Haad Sai Ree proved equally hypnotic, standstill and welcomed as a hugging caress after a long time away, recommendable to anyone searching for leisure time's more adept face.

From this sandy and wave-lapped side of the globe, to wherever your nightlight glows low, this is your friendly neighbourhood S* sending you tight vibes and a deep gaze from a land where wanderlust is a celebrated symphony looked upon with great admiration and a smile at every turn.

Stay well and be love.

S*

Fave current track(s): "All That We Perceive" and "Until the Morning" - Thievery Corporation
Current read(s) in progress: "Immortality" - Milan Kundera

~
2004.10.31 21:57 (EST + 11 hrs): Haad Rin Nok (Ko Phangan island), Kingdom of Thailand

Last Friday's Full Moon party on Haad Rin "Nok" (Sunrise) was populated, busy and anti-climactic as expected: the lead-up nights being much better than the actual main event. As far as international must-see party venues are concerned, Full Mooning in Thailand could stand a substantial overhaul. Improvements could include a greater variety of music (translation: more genres than hard trance and top-40), less glowing body paint and a proper chill-out space for the chemically mesmerized -- to name a few problems; to trace the tip of the iceberg.

I suspected that it would be a party with the lesser seductive form of "mass appeal" since over 10,000 people normally show up to shake down. Mind you, after talking to the locals, this October's was the slowest one of the year: they usually host over double. Nonetheless, those ten thousand party-goers generously brought with them the gracefulness of varied and excessive consumption, predictable music, lame venues, and hordes of snugglers, gropers and those ambitious enough to screw on the beach while an army of dilated pupils staggered along the sand and water's edge, occasionally stopping or slowing to stare at the moon or urinate in the sea.

All told, I've thought about my time there and have since rallied my own mind to break the myth of this event, to be real. To not remain latched to the fantasy notion of a worldly and ground-breaking party populated with the open-minded and culturally adept beneficient hippies of high-school documentaries. No, more aptly put, full mooning is the orgiastic trophy held high by a cross-section of an unaging generation who simply doesn't care about itself. Somehow, these people find that keeping its notion immaculately cherished maintains their collective tribute to the idolized graven images of their personal "Gilligan's Island Gone Wild." Through these eyes, I don't consider the notion, or beauty, merited.

In the end, I am resolved and truly believe that it might have been a beautiful and honest celebration once ago. When it was original and thus cool. Since that time, in my view, it has morphed into an oversize international tourist convention on debacle and carelessness, relinquished to hide on a beach facing the open, unjudging sea and ever-watchful nocturnal white circle in the sky.

Temporarly and only minorly disappointed, I remain open-minded and hopeful as I continue this venture through The Land of Smiles.

From here to there, all.

S*

Fave current track(s): "Dynamite!" - The Roots, ft Elo
Current read(s) in progress: "Immortality" - Milan Kundera

~
2004.10.22 22:19 (EST + 11 hrs): Haad Yuan beach (Ko Phangan island), Kingdom of Thailand

I watched the upside of a coconut tree, behind my eyes, and the stubby slabbed cement columns went up up up. In front, its beautiful twin perched away, falling fruit at its foot. It remained in bondage for better reasons than most: harnessing the blue knit hammock, some lighting and a swing looped tight to a high branch. To my right, several yards of sand lightened progressively as waves lapped up its legs like milk running off a sandy bib.

"It ain't where you from, it's where you at."

The most memorable part of today was rolling in waves. I spent the majority of my woken time tumbling nimbly across the rolls, watching for swells, crouched, forearms and hands sitting on the whitest foamy tips. Ready. I let myself be carried a lot, and it was nice -- as a permanent sedan chair might be in Venice, if it were as clean as it is beautiful. After that, I pet a caramel and white dog for a long while: behind his ears and under his jaw.

It's been tricky trying to manage my time between all this swimming and crashing into soft crispy shallow waters. The sand is very coarse here -- like kosher salt, but in more shades than white. Although ... the seasalt is like a fine silt that covers you and gets in your hair and ears. There's no denying its therapeutic values so each toss into the breaks comes with a welcome dash.

The food is creative and warms the body. Mixtures of textures relax and soothe, without being overbourne to smells, tastes or other senses pushed too far. I ate glass noodles tonight, and it was basically very impressive spaghetti, done with olive oil, a dash of cream, and meat shredded casually into the blend. Covered in cracked pepper, it was heaven.

It would be grand to have fellow friends here -- I am convinced that every one of you reading this needs to be in Thailand sometime in the very immediate future. It is crystalline and hypnotic (but more on that word another time).

I've met a wonderful couple from England, travelling the tour of Asia, having taught in China for two years. We've covered so many topics and they are both very intelligent and sociable that sentences flourish easily and without effort. Along with us are two quiet, but energetic girls from New Zealand. We have taken to hanging out in a fivesome, whether at the beach or café.

The number of tourists at our resort is small and it makes for easy strolling without distraction or disturbance; one almost feels solitarily beaming when on the beach. It's great. I suspect the numbers will generally increase as the date of the full moon party is approaching -- the 29th, we reckon. (Much closer to that date, I might make a temporary move to Haad Rin beach and stay a night on the sunset side, specifically for the party).

Until then, return the smile as I send you all tight vibes for a peaceful time wherever you are.

S*

Fave current album: "Black on Both Sides" - Mos Def -- (I know I've already listed it as a fabulous album, but lately, it's really been there when that's exactly what I wanted to listen to).
Current read(s) in progress: "Immortality" - Milan Kundera

~
2004.10.19 17:54 KST (EST + 14 hrs): Bangkok, Kingdom of Thailand

Bangkok. What a great city. Forty-nine hours in and it's everything I love about Asia and the tropics and travelling. Upon arrival, I immediately, but sadly drew the parallel that Thailand is Cuba without sanctions: things are splendidly upbeat, rich and diverse and most people are generally happy to be here -- whether they're locals or wandering falangs like me.

Yes, and down every avenue, I see the world's smorgasbord strutting by wearing tattoos by the body full, smart fashion by the armload, smiling, meeting each other, whispering their unspoken collective hushing desire to be tasted, devoured and remembered.

I will be good to this country, as it has already been to me. Life's easy equation is happily enacted here: do good, be good, feel good. In fact, to be less silly and more direct: I feel tremendously happy and high-spirited here. The air is thick with the warmth and its people and I have regained my capacity to laugh and smile and appreciate and mirror that warmth for what it is.

Too, I have regained my long-ago-thought-lost abilities to party past sunrise -- not seen en force since the cobblestoned days of my European trod. By chaos and chance, I have already crossed paths with some excellent Brits, Aussies and one Frenchman. The latter, who after a random streetside invitation for beers, delayed his trip northward to stay an extra night and celebrate Bangkok with me. As thanks, I shacked him up in my double room's extra bed and it's been great to have someone to hang out and share ideas with -- not to mention unearthing my less-than-oft-used lingua franca of educated times gone past.

The food here is excellent and cheap. Spring rolls are to die for while street cart noodles with pork and shallots, mystery-meat-on-a-stick, pineapple halves, papaya and watermelon quarters and a wide array of fruit juices are equally incredible. The Thai people are gorgeous and exponentially more socially adept than their Korean counterparts. Socio-sexually, figuring out which are ladyboys or not is heavily problematic at best. Almost always, if she is unreasonably friendly and considerably attractive, she's a man. Unfortunate, but educational to look at. The backpacked crew are also tanned and scrumptious: Tel Aviv is highly represented here, along with the Dutch, Irish, English, Aussies -- well, nearly all under the sun. Happily, the mix is one of the better global ones in which I've had the pleasure of mingling. Good kids, all of them.

I've only been here for two days, but I've soaked up two wats (Buddhist temples), slept less than 10 hours in the last three nights, eaten everything I could get my hands on, been to discos, pubs, and planned a vacation north (after the beaches, I splurged to pay for four days up in Chang-mai trekking, riding elephants, rafting, etc). I also had some clothes made; Italian wool pants and Egyptian cotton shirts -- knowledgeable, no pressure sales and cut to fit. They're even keeping them for me until I get back to Bangkok in a month. I also treated myself to a two-hour Thai massage. A highly personal affair (I easily imagine some girls might find it rather intrusive) but a great way to improve circulation and flexibility. I was very impressed, but the next massage will be Swedish, that is to say oiled and more concentrated on tenderizing the muscles rather than bending joints.

The city's air is comparably filthy to Seoul's so that doesn't please my lungs any, but fresh food is everywhere, so rejuvenation is only a few bites away -- and that for a few bhat, if that. Mind you, I'm not helping matters much by tuk-tukking my way around the city all time -- I'm surely headed for a less-than-glorious death by two-cycle engine, but until then, wave as I go by. As there is more than one way to get around this locale, I also zipped around the city on the back of a motorcycle, made all the more interesting dodging cars and burning rubber, speeding at opposite traffic, head-on.

All told, a red-letter time so far -- and I'm only staring at day three.

I'm down to Ko Phagnan (one of three islands off off the southeast coast, in the Gulf of Thailand) tomorrow night on the overnight choochoo and intend to stumble around in a twelve-day blazing haze, listening to Mos Def and Jack J, relaxing seaside, hammock underfoot.

Life is easy. I will write more from the edge. Until then, remember to share love with all.

S*

Current read in progress: "Immortality" - Milan Kundera
Suggested upcoming read on the block: "The Tibetan Book of the Living and Dying" - Sogyal Rinpoche

~
2004.10.15 13:07 KST (EST + 13 hrs): Seoul, Republic of Korea

Hello all. I'm leaving Korea for Thailand in two days (October 17th) and am very exicted. I plan to see Bangkok for a few days then jet down to an island off the peninsula's southeastern strip -- preferably Ko Pha-Ngan. Once there, I'm limiting myself to a strict three-week diet of relaxation, tanning, reading, hammocking, snorkelling, volleyball, sleeping and enjoying each local flavour as it passes my way, slurping up the world's buffet.

I will try to write from there. Until then, stay well friends.

S*

Fave current tracks(s): "Whirlwind" - (DJ) Greyboy, "A Song For Assata" - Common
Current read(s) in progress: "Immortality" - Milan Kundera

~
2004.09.24 12:32 KST (EST + 13 hrs): Seoul, Republic of Korea

It's been a while since I've posted from a public place and since I wandered into this coffee shop between my morning and afternoon gigs, I figured I use the opportunity to etch a few more words into the ether. For a period, blogging to the world, whispering my story to the universe had become a near-fully private event. And a lackluster one at that.

E-mail correspondence has fallen to an all-time low -- my inbox, once a flurry of activity, is now limited to pre-programmed newsreels, tallying the dead and disturbed from Iraqi gunfire, Darfurian ethnic cleansing, Haitian floods, and the rise of the East-German far-right. Personal phonecalls are few and far between, given the overarching sentiment that there's really not much to say to my friends and family back home; in truth, I guess my everyday schtick is just like everyone else's: running around, finding food for the queen.

In reality, my routine has seen some considerable bumps in the last while. I've uprooted my life in Suwon, reinstalled my living arrangements to my girlfriend's small apartment in northern Seoul and have been freelance teaching for nearly three weeks now. Beneficially, this period of disruption caused me to realize and learn a good bit about this system, slinging me through it while other times letting me ride it's profitable crest.

Living in a colony of relatively similar, cramped-space workers is -- for lack of a more astute word -- interesting at all times. Never a day goes by that I don't see something that piques my curiosity or pushes my buttons. And, having immersed myself in a few global scenes, it's a weighty confession, a heavy admission, that I have not grown entirely bored with my locale.

Yes, and I attribute it to a million independent factors: from the sheer size of the metropolitan area to the puzzling nature of it's homogenic androgeny and cultural-archaicness-cum-financial-super-capitalism, to finding out, time after time, that most people eat rice, three times a day. It's the simple things, to the mundane irks, to the large underlying pros and cons that make this place, like any global place: unique.

But this early afternoon's time is pressing on and I have to jet to gig number two, and hopefully end this week with a smile and few more cheon in my pocket. So to all who haven't heard from me in a while, take heart, I'm doing fine. Things are up and down, but hey...where in the world aren't they?

From here to there, saying hey and signing off from a little café called the "Delta" outside of Sinsa Station, on the south side of the Han river. To quote a better musician than I: "The sun is shining and the weather is sweet."

Ride on and turn the people on, my friends, and remember to take it easy, but take it.

S*

P.S. I was one second away from hitting "save" when a 1:00 p.m. fist-fight just broke out in my upscale coffee shop. Ahhh, Korea: never a dull moment.

Fave current track(s): "The Midnight Rider" - The Allman Brothers
Current read(s) in progress: "The Tao of Elvis" - David Rosen

~
2004.09.16 22:00 KST (EST + 13 hrs): Seoul, Republic of Korea

Do you know any musicians? Writers? A true painter of faces? Who among you knows the Artist, per se? What is it about this elusive creative process that burns and fades at the will and whim of the wind? I have no answers these days: streets look dirty, the air smells foul, books are lines of black words on dog-eared yellowing pages. And, as you might imagine, this is proving to be a royal pain in the ass.

As someone who enjoys the tumble of syllables and riverine fluidity of slick linguistic gabbing, finding my senses unattuned to my surroundings is one of the more stifling feelings I can imagine. Probably the second worst. The first being suffocation from laughing too much. (See? I have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm writing inanities).

But seriously folks, here's the kicker: it's that not anyone -- especially me -- can muster enough mastery to create, create, create like a Kerouacian Roman candle. But so many try: articles and songs, books and tracks fill the nooks and racks, the glossies and the airwaves for the world's hungry eyes, minds, ears and hands. Fair enough. But what happens when those artist's shine shines too dim? Or not at all?

Hell, even waxing on waning is hard to do. What more can I say than I've hit a low point? I don't see rasberries or butterflies in my dreams anymore; maybe it's the country, maybe it's the instability, maybe it's me. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

But yes, friends, the upside is that there is always a next step in the impromptu evolution of all things. I -- for one -- am most assuredly staying tuned to what's in store for the next chapter, phase, stage or sequel to my not-so-obvious transformation.

Until then, I'll be here, cross-legged, inhaling slow and patient heaves, gathing strength for the next round ... I've got a feeling this is only a segue. Because when the tall blonde finishes her tour around the ring with that placard, on my toes I'll again be.

From here to there, friends.

S*

Fave current track(s): "Hey Jude" - The Beatles, "Upgrade (A Brymar College Course)" - Deltron 3030, "Pale Blue Eyes" - The Velvet Underground
Current read(s) in progress: "The Tao of Elvis" - David Rosen

~
2004.08.23 23:53 KST (EST + 13 hrs): Suwon, Republic of Korea

"Yes, I know it's been a while. Of course I miss you too. O.k., fine, you miss me more. Rock-paper-scissors ... damn, you win. "

Yes, cats and kids I'm still in Korea, pining away, working. Nothing exciting or new to report save the following:

First, in a fit of frustrated style-related boredom, I shaved my lid -- nothing severe, only a brush-cut which is nothing new but which -- upon further consideration -- may be hard to handle for the uninitiated or for any of my post-1998 acquaintances (for the truly curious, investigate album 11).

Next, one week ago, in a fit of liquid chilvarly I leaped to the defence of a friend on the verge of being mauled by two lecherous and overweight Aussie goons and earned my very first broken body part -- the right hand to be specific -- acquired somewhere between the twelfth and fifteenth intersection of my fist and the heavier goon's melon. Why yes, thank you for asking, I do look stupid in a forearm splint.

Third and lastly, my current English teaching contract is being pre-maturely amicably terminated (if such an adverb-verb marriage can label the situation) one month shy of it's original date. It would seem that my two-week Canadian stint in May left a murky conversational residue of misunderstanding, whereby my employer mistook as concrete my hypothetical offer to "stay an extra two to four weeks in October." Unbeknowst to him, this was purely one of many suggestions I offered him in exchange for the two weeks home. The others being: to find either a part-time or full-time replacement, or to simply not receive pay for the duration of the time spent off the job -- at the time, the latter being the only accepted solution. And so, as a lovely July surprise, when I asked him to discuss and confirm my contract's finish date and what monies he would then owe me, saying that I was happily scoping Thailand for October, you can imagine my shock when he answered my question with the following one: "And why didn't you consult me before making October plans?!"

Riiiiiight.

Now, being the astute businessman he has most assuredly proven himself to be, realizing that -- as contractually stated -- I would not be in his employ later than the end of September, he swftly moved to hire my replacement. But, as we've barely spoke since that late-summer conversation, my recruiter had to serve as the intermediary kind enough to tell me that my replacement will be arriving at the start of September, not October.

As such, as of August twenty-eighth, I will be unemployed, semi-casted, and wearing a tuque if the mercury decides to glisten southward. A sad and sorry sight, I suppose, but things are looking up as I've been aiming to get out of Suwon for some time now. And hey, life always happens for a reason and this time is no exception.

As it is always surprising and enlightening to find out what that reason is, stay tuned to your friendly neighbourhood blogger and drunk poet, the star with a capital "S", e s s t a r.

Czech it,

S*

Fave current track(s): "Hip Hop" and "Umi Says" - Mos Def, "Grind's Tone" - Andrew Dalrymple
Current read(s) in progress: "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" - Ken Kesey

~
2004.06.24 22:11 KST (EST + 13 hrs): Suwon, Republic of Korea

Since I'd flown home for a short thirteen-day stay, two weeks ago, a friend asked if I'd write about my first 24-hours there and describe my perceptions -- cultural or otherwise, my shock, my joys and sadnesses lived while back in the large land of Canadia in my place among many, it's capital: Ottawa. In the end, I managed to chisel out a sketch of the larger psychology of being home.

It was interesting, eye-opening, scary, relaxing, warming and refreshing to be home, even if it is now a shell of an old likeness thereof. It was nice to see my family and friends at the airport (I've never flown into receiving arms before -- revealing and embarassing, given my travels), it was great to be tremendously stoned for most of those two weeks, it was great to be completely demolished by the astounding power of heterogeneous crowds, beautiful women, good music, public deceipt, religion, creative food, good wine and the traditions and rituals as I know them proper. I was also relieved to know that proper energetic flows and an inherent rhythms still line the walls of my favourite staircases, red brick façades, wetted walkways and leafy crowns. Unsurprisingly, from a combination of living overseas and having visited -- albeit briefly -- many global destinations, I have come to realize that Canada is truly an incredible state of mind.

The mere presence of diversity (if something so socially monumental can be introduced as "mere") speaks volumes in and of itself. Not only is everyone literally freelancing their own lives, no one seems to flinch at the very differences that consitute the whole. The big picture of Canadiana is like staring at art on speed -- bleeding both with the intense parts of a Basquiat collage and the anonymous, chaotic slashes of a Pollock. The trick is that you'd think that so many people doing so many different things in a massive space like that would have a disastrous and complicated image (sort of a 'too many cooks' catch) but it's that very mix that swirls so many colours into one simultaneous palette of them all. A walking museum, a human exhibit, a sidewalk sale, a fresh peach dripping summer sugar, a baby smiling. Pure, underappreciated beauty. Pure, honest reflections of a place called home.

And when I felt complicated and confused walking into a shopping mall though, I realized that there lies something embarrasingly evil about the evolution (or corruption?) of architecture that has permitted the engineering of modern buying spaces -- the bazaar come full, rotten circle, I suppose. When I first walked through the beautiful glass doors -- shining steel splitting for me -- I knew that every curve, every light, every angle, colour, sound and refraction geared me to do one thing. Each height measured, each scent articulated to a science, the shape of tables presenting me their wares ... each worked over in focus groups very much focussed to produce the ultimate answer to modern society's ultimate question: "How To Sell?". Yes, and since I had happened into this space after a few hours of strolling through markets of fresh flowers, butcheries, bakeries and other honest shops, the impact was huge. As expected, I spent.

On the subject of design, the point of my visit (my friend's wedding) brought me to a Catholic church and I was again left speechless at a building rife with symbols and symbolism so intent on the pursuance of belief, of pennance, of celebration. It was incredible to be in a church again, if only to understand its marking presence in the earlier years of my life and to understand that although I believe in the principles of good and right behaviour, I subscribe to the subservience of the individual parts of its ritualistic message with great difficulty. In the end, I felt warmed and humbled to feel the realization of dormant thoughts come to light, to articulate fruition.

So I was home and knew it. Yes, and it was good to be there and to know that a properly-poured pint lay steps from my door and the smell of big trees, clean soil, healthy air and crisp, wet rain were the first to reach my sinuses outside the terminal, bags in hand. Refreshing, too, to know that friends would sacrifice a Saturday night to greet me in style, refreshing that people were easy to talk to, traffic was friendly, roads were safe and that I could see stars at night and the pale disc of moon in a leftover morning sky as the sun rose opposite, smiling, to meet it.

I spent the week running errands, celebrating lunches and re-bridging gaps, some, luckily, still open from when I left. I watched movies, smoked joints, and talked into the night with souls that I missed. I reconnected with friends, watched them wed, played games with them and talked to their children, rode in their cars and investigated their homes. It was good to have territory both new and old to sniff, to discover, to know again -- to re-fire the synapses layed dormant from time away.

For now, I will not return for a while. And I am saddened to write this. I suspect the road becoming more and more travelled -- i.e., Korea -- will keep me satisied for another short while, but where and when this path will deviate, I cannot tell. I have Buenos Aires and Beirut on the brain, but I'd settle for Montréal in a contest of geographical atonement any day.

From a temporary place called here to one forever in my heart dubbed there,

Czech it,

S*

P.S. If anyone can find a Mandala Vision colouring book, please let me know; I'd love to have one sent here. I'll gladly pay for goods and services rendered. You know how to reach me.

Fave current albums(s): "Very Mercenary" - The Herbalizer, "Pet Sounds" - The Beach Boys, "Since I Left You" - The Avalanches
Current read(s) in progress: "The Crying of Lot 49" - Thomas Pynchon, "Wax Poetics" magazine

~
2004.04.27 22:33 KST (EST + 13 hrs): Suwon, Republic of Korea

Thoughts accumulated over the past while:

-----------------------------------------
Mountains are beautiful, but not much for conversation.

Leonard Cohen: "I change/I stay the same"
Serge Gainsbourg: "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"

Doing laundry all day is productive. Being productive is sedative. Mass production is mass sedative. Accomplishment (as production) is reproduction's placebo.

Why the Third World will always be below the First: measuring ourselves once upon the worth of our reproduction, we know turn to it's suffixless twin: production.

Infinity; life after death; man and woman; the Nile Delta

Teaching in Korea: "Of Mercenaries And Prostitutes"

The surrealism of commercials.

The psychology of bridge building and chaos value.

20 random pedestrians are the same as 20 in step.

Get a really good job.

Asian societies don't segregate human activities: the doctor sees the streetsweeper go to work.

[Noise as a refraction of noise, in which noise is a message] What happens when it's not a refraction and mutual noise meets?

My sense of hearing is tremendously heightened when I'm stoned.

Anthropsychological engineering analysis.

Slow food and life is beautiful
-----------------------------------------

Stay well all,

S*

Fave current track(s): "Astronomy (8th Light)" - Black Star, "Release Pt. 1, 2 and 3" - Blackalicious
Current read(s) in progress: "Galapagos" - Kurt Vonnegut, "A Scientific Romance" - Ronald Wright, "The Economist" magazine, and soon to be read "Norwegian Wood" - Haruki Murakami

~
2004.04.03 14:44 KST (EST + 13 hrs): Seoul, Republic of Korea

Having reached the mid-point of this Korean tenure and given that I think about things too much, I have alloted much headspace of late, to the idea of symmetry and the concept of centrality. Here, as anywhere, the parallel beauty of something's centre is as perfect as, say, how a bridge or a crux is not only relevant for its stellar insolubility but even more so for the pure simplicity of its symmetry. Otherwise said: Le milieu est simplement le centre. Allegorically, peering from a bridge is knowing simultaneously that the past is behind and its reflection lies ahead. Waiting.

Six months in and, as refreshing as an orange unpeeled, my seesaw's left is now rising to surpass the right.

April's spring, like music, is also one of nature's bridges. Here, naked and greyed forestscapes attempt to conceal clouds of sunken violet azaleas while streets are alit with forsythia's curious and creeping bright yellow-golden bells. Elsewhere, puffs of creamy white and diluted lavender electrify crabapple trees, while yellowing magnolia blossoms tower majestically like silken white roses sprung from wooden fingertips. As necessary as it is beautiful, this floral rite of passage -- combined with rising mercury -- complements the sun as it delays its daily, westward dip. And as days grow longer and nights warmer, I stare front first with a knowing squint from the centre of this sixth month's bridge.

Somehow, what was once a surreal jump across the Pacific has emerged to be a cornucopia of reflexion, excess and perspective. And despite not being as apocalyptic as it sometimes seems, my time spent in Korea has nonetheless been generously accentuated with hurdles and hedges; and even though questioning their overall benefit is a rhetorical debate, it is not one to be taken lightly. Musing it over, I realize that it has been -- and continues to be -- more than I'd foreseen. Nonetheless, embracing each day like a cannibal would a calf, I pile each memento atop the last, hoping that the sum of its parts might well be transported back to the world I knew before. And perhaps, with luck, as a thunder cloud is electricity's bridge to lightning, I too will be wise enough to mine or accumulate some semblance of usefulness for future release.

Thus, as thermometers continue their accent towards summer, spring unravels its chaotic palette: blinding you, causing you to lyrically wonder: "Where's that confounded bridge?" Fortunately, the answer is -- as always -- right under you.

From here to there; stay well all, and enjoy the vitamin D.

S*

Fave current track(s): "Dry The Rain" - The Beta Band, "Prince Caspian" - Phish
Current read(s) in progress: "The Economist" magazine, "Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow" - Aldous Huxley

~
2004.03.22 23:24 KST (EST + 14 hrs): Suwon, Republic of Korea

Spring has sprung in a stuttered style, here in the peninsular heartland. Sun shines in the afternoon and layers come off. Skirts -- which, I'm told, have only recently come into style -- are seen here and there, hesitatingly peeking above kneecaps, accentuated with jean jackets, clever T-shirts and even the occasionally smart blazer. Nonetheless, nights remain brisk, even cool; wool blankets serving a stolid reminder to residents and visitors alike that playtime is not yet fully upon us. Notwithstanding, and in time, weekend sand will squeeze up between these toes like long, plump blades of green lawn in late July. In time.

By this time next week, I will have chalked 182 lines below my apartment wall's (postered mug of) Thom Yorke, marking a total of six months spent in this foreign land. Time has flown, as some might say; and like most days, it continues to do so.

And despite a weekend run over with excess and laughs spent in Pusan, on the country's southern tip, I hit a lull in positivity in late February, riding a low tide until this past weekend, which I've ascribed to a combination of bad professional energy and a temporarily stagnant personal drive. Breaking the camel's back was a birthday spent without the usual spate of mid-March far-and-wide friends, neighbours, well-wishers and coat-pilers bouncing off red and beige apartment walls until the Ottawan wee hours. (And although these are times flowed under and passed, recalling them cracks a knowing grin and increases my collection of crow's feet).

After tax, I feel that things have improved and I am now well-oiled to roar another two short months before a well-earned break in late-May, early-June. Oddly, it's hard to stave off excitedness and eagerness for this upcoming Canadian jaunt while keeping your wits about you, maintaining focus on what needs to be accomplished in such a short break, home.

Home. I like the monosyllabic metonymy of it's ring. Mantra-esque, even. Home: I will be there soon.

S*

Fave current track(s): "Jah Jah Dub" - King Tubby
Current read(s) in progress: "Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow" - Aldous Huxley, "The Economist" magazine

~
2004.03.21 03:17 KST (EST + 14 hrs): Seoul (Club Palm), Republic of Korea

There's times when I wonder what's gone wrong with it all. Or maybe it's the preconceived notion of what it is that contorts and distorts the whole thing like Chinese acrobatics gone awry. There's a time in your life when most things make sense: you've got the job down pat; you know what you need and who can provide it; you know the numbers for all of the above. Life's funny that way. Then it turns upside-down. But not in any convential, revolutionary sense ... it just happens that way. Russians still line up for club nights and Angolans still preach religion in the street while Australians jabber on about times gone by and people passed away. I guess it's a combination of quasi-perpetual good times and the mid-twenties sentiment of invisibility. An odd pair, that. Combined with countless matches of music or taste or mutual good intention, we meet the people who may or might not shake or shape the people we'll become (and even re-confirm the people we already are). Either way, the human species is a weak one, distracted by so much other than the realities that should preoccupy an active human mind. Walking, straddling the edges of a semi-universe, a parallel universe to the right one that we never really embrace. Disappointing, really. But it's what we've got, so why not go with it...?

S*

Fave current track(s): "Our Way to Fall" - Yo La Tengo
Current read(s) in progress: "Fury" - Salman Rushdie, "Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow" - Aldous Huxley, "The Economist" magazine

~
2004.03.01 19:27 KST (EST + 14 hrs): Suwon, Republic of Korea

A time away. Five months to the day. So much time between walls and spaces spent thinking, watching, waiting for the thought patterns to gel into a colourful mosaic. One benefits from an abundance of perspective when removed from everything previously known: physical realms, emotional cues, visual truths. And the conch never has to be shared. Only when you get away from the crutches, the shelters and the apron strings does clarity start to flake and unfold the reality of your life like crumbling baklava or mille feuilles. And it's a hard thing to take, to accept or contend with because it rolls as a predestined marble towards a big gaping hole, and the questions all come at once making it that much harder to organize or answer them. There is a real and honest purity to solitude. Watching trees swaying on climbing hillsides backlit with amber dusk, they fall to and fro, to and fro, given orders by no one but knowing perfectly well what has to do be done, questioning nothing, knowing whatever it is on the inside that comes after eons of introspective existence, birth, growth and death.

Waves of emotion come like sunrises lately and I'd be dishonest to say that they're unprecedented, and even though they don new masks and costumes, I recognize them as peckish ghosts in search of exorcism. Books to be read, songs to be heard, feelings to be surgically excised, tears to topple and towers to fell. This life is a such a blindingly esoteric and beautiful thing: undecipherable and stealthy as it writhes and courses through the veins of our knowing, conscious and not.

I'll be twenty-seven in two weeks and gaze in the rearview mirror of my life and wonder, ashamed and awestruck, at where the minutes and weeks and footsteps have sauntered off to...? Où sont passées les belles journeés ensoleilées, assis sur les pelouse et les terraces de ma vie? Dove sono andato? ¿Adónde fueron? Have I failed to amass anything substantial or sellable or worthwile? Why don't I know six languages? Why can't I run faster? Talk about more interesting things? Play an instrument? Keep a better beat? Write better? Why can't I remember and piece together the sketchy visuals and muttered sound bytes of my youth? An odd multifaceted dichotomy that no one else seems to be asking. At least not out loud.

But, even by my own standards, this note has become far more hellish and whining than I'd anticipated, so as I mellow with every new steeping thought I'll streamline it down to these questions: Who has the twenty-seventh road map? And will it ship to Korea by the Ides of March?

Stay well, all. Je m'ennuie de vous tous. Mais plus important, je vous aime. Czech it, from here to there.

S*

Fave current track(s): "Happy Valentine's Day" - Outkast, "Lover's Spit" - Broken Social Scene
Current read(s) in progress: "Fury" - Salman Rushdie, "Paris Match" magazine

~
2004.01.25 20:15 KST (EST + 15 hrs): Beijing, People's Republic of China

China. Home to centuries of cultural, technological, social and economic progresses, this nation remained strides ahead of others, only to be mired in muting political ideologies, poor diplomacy and civil unrest. Yet north of the Yellow River floodplain, sprawled somewhere quietly between Mongolia, the Gobi Desert and the Yellow Sea lies an urban melting pot of history and culture: the Chinese capital city, Beijing. I landed at Capital International, eager to follow the throngs of pedestrians along closed streets, past hawkers and vendors, acrobats and locals, all shuffling and mingling, enjoying crisp winter breezes and the noon sun warming cheeks, hearts and smiles. The lunar new year had been rung in: the year of the monkey was well under way.

Without power steering, my nodding taxi driver darted through the hutong (alleyways), past weather-worn doors, dogs and tattered flags, all but scraping the walls on each turn, trading horn-blowing for braking. I had been in Beijing for less than an hour and my end seemed imminent. Then, after an unnecessarily long hunt and having circled it twice on foot, I found the Far East International Youth Hostel, checked in, dropped my bags and made for Tiananmen Square.

It was nearly three in the afternoon and the wind was remarkably cold, but tourists abounded on the impressive space -- it seemingly meaning something different to each of them. And so like a king passing under his palace's front gates, I walked neath the arches of Arrow Tower entering the Square from the south, circling Qianmen to slowly pierce the center of the concrete heartland amid families flying kites and soldiers looking sternly about, all of us surrounded by the monuments of days gone past, immersed in the inescapable slogans and feet that had trod before. Onward, I soon found myself in the centre of the Square, halted, letting the centrifuge of history spin me around, letting the four points seep in: the Museum of the Revolution to the west, the Mao Zedong Mausoleum and Monument to the People's Heroes to the south, the Great Hall of the People to the east, and further north -- past the ubiquitous towering red flag with its dancing yellow stars -- the Gate of Heavenly Peace and the iconic, larger-than-life portrait of the leader of the Cultural Revolution: Chairman Mao. An impressive sight for any eyes, I stopped only metres below the effigy, letting the vestiges of its near-century old message seep in and gawked, bright-eyed, at the innocent smiles of a thousand passers-by.

After a brief evening of exploring the Underground Dragon subway system and local culinary haunts, I ventured back to the hostel to explore its warming traditional courtyard, covered by a web of classic Chinese lattice off which hung six bulbous red lanterns, casting their soft calligraphic beams of light on the craggy cobblestone floor at dusk. Soon enough, I befriended a group of British weekend wanderers up from Shanghai and made plans to collectively conquer Beijing the next day. And so, later that first night, we sauntered out together along 'Bar Street', drinking $1.50 gin and tonics, playing pool and trading travel tales and memories of a time and place called home.

The following day, filled and warmed with complimentary eggs and coffee, we set off at noon to tour the ancient imperial court's escape from sweltering Beijing, The Summer Palace. Set in the northeast reaches of Beijing proper, these gardens, pavilions and palace temples rise from the shores of Kunming Lake and straddle the adjacent hillside to envelop the visitor in a world away from the realities of a world outside. We walked through snaking, covered wooden walkways with each overhead beam carrying a different painted scene of blue and green, red, yellow, pink and white. Venturing mid-way across the frozen lake only to be turned back ashore by slicing winds, we sought refuge in the lofty, glazed parapets of Longevity Hill. Gliding past towering doorways, under majestic archways, we moved onto the Cloud-Dispelling Gate, the Second Palace Gate and the Cloud-Dispelling Hall, ending at the Pavilion of the Fragrance of Buddha (as the Sea of Wisdom was closed to visitors). At impressive heights, outside the octagon temple of the (Fragrance of the) Buddha, perched above the totality of this summertide haven, the sun shone exclusively down upon us, as black birds with white bellies hopped out of sight, across grassy hillocks littered with peach and willow trees growing along its entire sloping length.

By late afternoon, the wind having tried to shuck our cheeks and nose-ends long enough, we all plunged back into the heart of Beijing to warm ourselves with evening showers and I, a late meal with my two lovely Danish roommates treating them to Peking duck, spicy slivers of shallots and cucumbers, bowls of cherry tomatoes and marinated turnip. Back at the hostel, the three of us washed down the night with $0.30 quarts of Nanjing Beer and relaxed, sharing each other's tastes in music as we smoked strawberry and apple cigarettes, I learning to uncap the green bottles with a lighter.

My final full day in Beijing, I rushed awake to a 7:40 mini-bus departure, packing nearly twenty tourists destined for an excursion to one of the world's most precious and renowned heritages: The Great Wall of China. Our goal was the unreconstructed -- and thus perilous -- stretches of the Wall at Simatai. (En route, still in the throws of Beijing morning traffic, our bus decided to break down in the second lane of an expressway. Nervous but curious, what followed was a rush of twenty-four male hands shoving the dead and dirty mass through lanes of passing traffic, cars zinging our sides. After what seemed like an eternity, we finally gained enough push to veer it off the expressway onto a side road, leaving the driver to tinker with its mechanical secrets. Et comme on dit en bon francais: 'jamais un sans deux'. Translation: this happened twice). Nevertheless, three hours and 110 kilometres later, we made our objective and hobbled out into the warmth of the lot at the mountain's base.

Therefrom, we hiked its inclines stretching westward from its first fortification straddling the edge of a mountain slope overlooking its twin structure across a river (known as 'Two Dragons Playing in the Water'). Slowly, we climbed steeply over the stones and mortar of the blood and sweat of labour past. Said to be the most authentic due to its state of disrepair, this is the structure as the Ming meant it to be, 500 years ago. From atop the Wall, looking out across the surrounding topography -- more of its sections snaking toward the horizon -- one wonders if, in fact, the mountains were the ones built for it, as they fall below the bricks and parade it perfect and solemn and high for all to gaze and marvel. Like a delicate stony icing strung aloft frozen waves of brown ridges draped in velvet foliage, the hills fold green and dusty yellow into a melting skyscape. The scene was majestic yet quiet and incredible, but remained unpresumptuous. It was, after all, The Great Wall of China.

Worn, but exhilarated, the sum of us dragged back into Beijing, slunk into our hostel and reinvigorated with showers, warm food and cold beers. This being the last night for many, we readied to properly pounce on the city, and did so, not returning until breakfast the next morning. Having shut my eyes for less than three hours, I nearly overslept and offset my departure timeline, but finally managed to find a taxi, find a shuttle, and find my way through the labyrinthine airport to my flight, returning safely to Seoul's Incheon International.

In the end, it was altogether an excellent three-day venture into a city that has witnessed some of the century's considerable upheavals and atrocities, but that is slowly ceding to a world outside its own, and will, ultimately, host Olympics in less than four years. This was a red-letter journey into a land once encapsulated, but enrapturing, in and of itself.

S*

Fave current track(s): "Dub Chill Out" - Augustus Pablo, "Nothing Man" - Bruce Springsteen
Current read(s) in progress: Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury, "Beijing" - Lonely Planet, "Q" magazine

~
2004.01.15 22:07 KST (EST + 14 hrs): Suwon, Republic of Korea

It's the start of another new year, and Seoul has seen its second snowfall, complete with icy sidewalks, bundled children and visible breath. Korea's winter is relatively tame compared to the Canadian ones in memory: no two-metre snow banks or iced, hanging branches. Regardless, people still drive their mopeds and sandals in the supermarket are not an uncommon sight. I've stopped asking questions.

Taking it easy on myself, I opted for simple resolutions for 2004 -- this year of lopsided symmetry. First, to finish the last remainder of this Korean professional and financial endeavour and second, to raise the gauge on my total countries visited to fifteen.

The former gets more manageable every day as my students have begun, in the words of a popular modern-day orator, to respect my authority. To be honest, it's more of an earned and balanced respect, which I prefer. This rise in personal job satisfaction is also partially attributable to my recent assignment to teach a specific "listening" module to four distinct groups of students, ranging from the cream to those from the back of the bus. You might be surprised to read that, for me, teaching these segments is truly an excellent challenge that I look forward to it whenever they befall the rotation. I confess: I actually enjoy teaching. As I lecture more and more from this new textbook that doesn't spoon-feed subject matter, seeing eyes open in interest and understanding, I glimpse -- albeit briefly -- at the possibilities of teaching as a career. The percentages are slim, but the thought is a fun one to entertain nonetheless. Thus far, teaching has proven to be a difficult, taxing and ambiguous process made worthwhile by the occasional, momentary flicker of student comprehension. It's truly a beautiful thing.

The latter self-promise of planetary meandering translates into visiting at least four new countries in the next eleven months. Thinking about it, I'll admit that, above the simple appetite of being a geographically global citizen, there's something narcissistic, inflated and overblown about having a sketchbook as a passport. Pasted with visas, scribbled with entry and exit stamps, noted from consulate drop-ins (see: Osaka, Japan: 57 Hours of Turbulence), I never tire of perusing the tattered contents of those twenty-four pages.

And so, in a move akin to an executive decision (a rarity for this Pisces), I opted to spend some hard-earned Won and visit a neighbouring city during none other than January 22nd's Chinese New Year. In one week's time, for three days and nights, I will be breathing in the history of a nation formed nearly 3000 years ago, home to the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City, the Opium Wars, the Boxer Rebellion and Tiananmen Square. From Marco Polo, Genghis Khan and the Ming dynasty to Chiang Kai-shek and General Mao, this Canuck brings his wanderlust to yet another foreign capital, country, and continent.

It was only a matter of time before the backpack saw daylight. Stay tuned for the usual spate of lucid and confused observations from a place called Beijing.

From here to there, Czech it.

S*

Fave current track(s): "The Rollercoaster Ride" - Belle and Sebastian, "Pacific Theme" - Broken Social Scene
Current read(s) in progress: "Beijing" - Lonely Planet, "Adbusters" magazine, "Q" magazine

~
2003.12.24 22:21 KST (EST + 14 hrs): Suwon, Republic of Korea

Skinny yellow deliverymen on mopeds, in Santa suits, dot the roadscape, a few lights sprinkle the night view, and children holler "Melly Chlistmas" when you pass by. This is Christmas in Suwon.

This season, as I've become fond of remembering it -- and have come to know it -- is much different from a Korean view. From this perspective, although my eyes read "December" on the calendar and my body senses the encroaching cold, the holidays are otherwise pretty unevident in this neck of the woods. Nevertheless, as branches remain bare and scarves come out of hibernation, my brain deciphers the embedded rhythyms of a time called winter solstice, and knows that the Holidays are upon us.

Of course, most years around now, I'm snuggled up in snowy Ottawa, watching the plow's blue lights flicker into my living room, knowing that in a few days, I'll be enjoying the creature comforts of good company, home-cooked meals and the fond memories of seeing so many smiles in one place at one time.

Admittedly, in the past, I've largely taken these things for granted, knowing that another year would come and go like the last, only to be on us again before even the garland and the lights were boxed away. I've seemingly also taken for granted that my family and friends were only seven digits, or blocks, away. Unfortunately this year, I'm a tad further than that. If only in body, my mind is back home, wishing I was closer to someone warm because, after all, these times really only do come once a year.

Having said that, I wish you all the best that comes with the season. Be kind. Share. And remember: if you can't give gifts, lend a helping hand or a caring ear.

From here to there, be good to each other and leave something good for Santa.

S*

Fave current track(s): "The State of the Union" - Thievery Corporation, "Brothers and Sisters" - Blur
Current read(s) in progress: "Esquire Presents: What It Feels Like:*to Walk on the Moon*to Be Gored By a Bull*to Survive An Avalanche *to Swallow Swords*to Go Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel*to Be Shot in the Head*to Win the Lottery" - A. J. Jacobs (ed), "General Knowledge Quiz Book 2: For the Making of Masterminds" - Philip Carter & Ken Russell

~
2003.12.17 01:01 KST (EST + 14 hrs): Suwon, Republic of Korea

Carter said it wouldn't last long and since this wasn't the first time he was wrong, I'd come to trust him. In the end, we stopped the mess, somewhere around twelve on Sunday; I, collapsing into a subway car that took me to the end. Twice. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's turn on the rearview...

Noon. A vile hour to be roaming a hotel lobby, in search of more booze, harassing the lounging tourists whose eyes not so much criticized what trouble we'd been in, but curiously wondered where we'd land next. The lackie-in-training doorman nimbly circled us and with a menacing glare finally tossed us out, but not before we'd rode the elevators and had our fun. Sometime, while dropping below the second or third floor, I asked myself how we'd got into this rotten affair in the first place. Looking at my dilated reflexion, I knew I was far from being poolside at the Bellagio, the memory of midgets in pink coattails bringing silver-plattered mai tais -- with mescal chasers on the side -- vanishing as quickly as I'd stolen it.

Curiously, it had only been fifteen minutes since we left the last place, having been scathed with the most melancholic of confused and rehearsed a.m. insults: "Unfortunately. Sir" he started, surrounding us with daggers, "we don't start serving until noon." What a decrepit heap we were. But there we were: four drunk bodies, roaming the awakening cityscape, in search of more. The past three hours spent hustled by floor-walking whores, crooked barmaids and smiling but oily, wretched owners. (The only consolation a series of comforting sounds over the airwaves).

As we'd first stumbled into this last drinkery -- out of that bastard Sunday morning sunshine, somewhere around eight -- it was clear that Caucasians would be this morning's only salvation. As I recall, "one" turned into "one too many," and as I watched myself put down plastic for another round, I took account that we'd quickly made friends with both the fun and the friendlies, but like piranhas, the leeches had crept up and were slowly sucking at my toes. And they came in all forms.

Of course, prior to that, the night was much simpler, back at the four-thirty to seven place, dancing it up with a good man on the tables, the floor jammed with happy youth, ingrained in places known only to them, careening like mad pilots, over flashing neon nighttime skies. Johnny, the blond behind the wood, said a gin and tonic would do me good, and since I'd always made a point of listening to men, men-enough to wear aprons, I less than ruefully obliged my host. Since it was an underground joint, it thankfully meant no glimpse of hope or light dare ask any question of us. Especially down here. But even if it had, it was still too early for that kind of hellish introspection.

We had just come from a two a.m., third-floor dance place where the locals didn't know how to groove and strange vibes were all around us. Was there no love? Or were we oozing the liquor already...having been hunched over too many poorly diluted, strangely cut-rate and tequila-chased cocktails somewhere after ten and before one? So many questions left unanswered. Either way, I still had the idea that we'd started this thing together, knowing too that nothing short of handcuffs or an uncooperative tap jockey could stop this soaking landslide. And from this side of the globe, neither of those seemed likely.

As the night edged on, I gambled with the possibility that this was all a corrupt dream, fed to me by some belligerent muse. In the end, I was shaken -- but not sobered -- by the lyrical memory of dying dreams being the best I'd ever have. Granted, in my state, although it was tiring to wrap my head around such a heavy notion, it was nice to know that being awake made these dreams that much better.

From here to there,

S*

Fave current track(s): "Satellites" - Doves, "The Browns At Home" - The Greyboy Allstars, "Ambulance" - Blur
Current read(s) in progress: "Introduction to Communication Studies" - John Fiske, "Seoul Classified" magazine

~
2003.12.09 01:17 KST (EST + 14 hrs): Suwon, Republic of Korea

It's tricky to write about something that doesn't change. Even a washing tide gets less lovely with every lap. This is the pitfall of routine. I suspect we are all victim to it somehow: work, study, play. And the worst part is not that we do it on a systematic basis but that by definition, we keep at it day after day after day. At the day's end, what mementos can we parade or trophys hold high? Usually few.

A younger, more agile DiCaprio delivered a perfect line back in 1995, saying "It's been hard, the writing, lately. Terrible numbness then suddenly it comes in beautiful fragments or terrible dreams like nods." He made a very good point, because the trouble with writer's block is not so much the lack of something interesting to say, but the eternally initial wrestling with the fact that you're not really a writer. At least not in any traditional sense. You just have these thoughts floating around, which make no sense out loud, but connect beautifully in your head. Swirls of sounds and sticky syllables. Factor in a past prevalent with myriad assistance and the ensuing unachievability of previous abstraction. Factor in several years of academic exposure, drawn to an immediate end. No more being an addled neo-nobody straggling home along darkened curbs. No more listening to evolved Simians dance at the front of the hall. The end of an era.

And what about the muse? Sensing less around you that actually pulls the trigger has an odd, empty effect: maybe it was fragments of dialogue that fuelled your imagination. Maybe familiar sights. Maybe that quiet red-brick house, numbered '55,' seen every walk home poked the right neurons rallying pen to paper. Could it have been something in the air? Or the right temperature of that daily cup? Who will ever know? Not knowing the answer now is only decayed by the realization that you may never know it. At the end of the day, our heads are at best filled with cycles of murmurs.

I guess in the end, the only way to survive is to go with some form of flow. After all "all energies flow according to the whim of the great magnet." Forget being human, forget being logical, because "the shy cheetah moves with total nonchalance, stickin' it to them in his sexy, slow strut." Leo was primitive and said it best: "Me? I play like a cheetah."

Enjoy your routines. I've got mine. From here to there.

S*

Fave current album(s): "Deltron 3030" - Deltron 3030, "The Last Broadcast" - Doves
Current read(s) in progress: Same old paperbacks (Zen and the Art of blah blah blah) Nothing new ... I'm watching too much TV.

~
2003.11.17 10:51 KST (EST + 14 hrs): Suwon, Republic of Korea

In my experience, travelling is a twofold enterprise with distinct segments.

The first is backpacking -- adventures in which standard forms of reason are abandoned, money is spent indiscriminately and hours are consumed bouncing around different cities, countries or hemispheres. Therein, we do our share to turn the globe into a truly fun place to roam. Working overseas, the second type, is deceiving insomuch as it pragmatically looks like the former, but it rarely embodies the chaotic fun so cherished therein.

Putting yourself on a different global parallel is one way to get away from a label called home, but staying long enough for it to become a new one presents nowhere near the same enjoyment as shifting the weight of a sixty-litre pack off your hips to enjoy the pedestrian breeze of a cobblestoned cafe.

The road less-travelled misses me. I can hear it whispering.

From here to there,

S*

Fave current track(s): "The Richest Man In Babylon" - Thievery Corporation
Current read(s) in progress: "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" - Robert M. Persig

~
2003.11.12 01:54 KST (EST + 14 hrs): Suwon, Republic of Korea

Amigos and amigas,

Word from Guatemala is that my old mate Cuca's cousin is now in second-round running for the mayorship of Guatemala City. Sounds like a party with an open-ended ticket. Either way, he wants to (re-)hit the road less-travelled sometime soon and I said I'd accomodate him as soon as I could (read: in somewhere between 12 and 18 months). Ick, I know. "Start planning now, m'boy!" I told myself.

Far from those tropics, I can safely say that the weather is to my dismay also, slowly, greying over. I've never fully appreciated shady drab climes. I've promised myself that I'd somehow finish my last 20 years sailing through the South Pacific, island-hopping in the sun. Until then and for now ... I have Korea: land of the yellow people whose children gawk, finger and giggle; whose Western development is only surpassed by unbroken ties to underlying levels of conservatism is interesting -- albeit tiring -- but the self always shines through.

I could never make it here without having set up my own private version of home. Of friends and places to be. Music to fill my ears and a comfortable chair in which to curl up. Too bad there's nothing on the tube and I can't seem to locate any English mags, locally. Hmm, the Internet'll have to do, once again. That, and the slow, dull drawl of teaching English as a second language to Korean kids who, for lack of a better explanation, mostly don't want to be sitting in front of a foreigner blabbing along, jabbering inaudible syllables. Most days it's fine though. The good kids really want to learn and that validates the week. A good comment or a fruitful showing make it worth my several thousand kilometred displacement. Evenings, I have books, music and my newfound addiction to crossword puzzles. Which has also put me on the hunt for MENSA-like practice books (you know the stuff they make sure you can do before you're let into grad school, law school, med school and careers like glorified waste collection).

In other news, friends in Seoul have mentioned the possibility of jetting up to Pyongyang in January, during a welcomed five-day weekend celebrating the Chinese New Year. Until then, St.Nicholas-time won't see much relaxation as Koreans don't specifically over-celebrate the day as we do -- hell, forget Boxing Day: the Commonwealth has only spoiled me. Either way, I'm excited already. It's not everyday you get to visit the last Stalinist state on the globe. Apparently Canadians and Swedes are the only ones admitted across the DMZ. I knew maple syrup and duct tape would bridge all gaps. Guess the Swedes are just hot.

By now, I suspect that I'm rambling. That, or you've figured that I'm tired or gone off the end that is deep. Couldn't be that. Jamais. Pas celui-ci.

Take care, all. I miss old times, when I was hanging out, eating Gouda, hunting toothbrushes in Dutch supermarkets, flared off my head.

Remember, if you're ever in the neighbourhood: stop in, say hi, bring some pie.

S*

Fave current track(s): "Mario Man" - Super Furry Animals, "Brakhage (Live)" - Stereolab, "Darkness" - Saian Supa Crew
Current read(s) in progress: "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" - Robert M. Persig

~
2003.10.28 23:50 KST (EST + 13 hrs): Suwon, Republic of Korea

Hey everyone,

There's an absolute reality to the fact that there truly, really isn't any sunshine when you're gone, anytime, you go away.

Life in Korea is alright. Good times, new friends, rediscovered friendships and the love of children's smiles make it all worthwhile. Doubly, I have discovered my respect for all the teachers that have ever taught my wrangly ass. What a shit student I was. (And will, with any luck, continue to be).

There's a place between a Kerouac "pop" and Hemingway's "ahhhh."

I'm there.

What to say about a place where the car's names are odd (what kind of name is "Wusso"?), traffic lights are optional and vendors sautee silk worms in woks by the side of the road? Korea's a pretty alright place nonetheless. I am coming to terms with life in suburbia -- and my district's quite that. Full of bored housewives, out-of-work bricklayers and commuters galore, it has it's charm, but as we all know, charm only gets you so far.

On a recent mission to find the quickest, most affordable route to downtown Seoul, I am proud to announce that I can now make it there in under 90 minutes for less than three whole dollars. To boot, thanks to friends living in the better areas of Seoul, I've come across a great neighbourhood, housing Hongik University -- the city's arts school and it's outwardly-focussed community of students, activists, craftspeople and late-night clubs. Highlighting the calendar's weekends has become my favourite pastime.

That's it for now, so be cool my fam, my friends, and my loves (lovers?). I truly have nothing but respect, love and want for all of you.

If you haven't checked out my marginally-educational-but-largely-lame Web log (or "blog"), it's @ www.thelastofthepiscean.blogspot.com. Thanks. Bookmark it if you like it.

With headnods, handshakes and happy, two-pats-on-the-back-but-"he-kinda-holds-you-uncomfortably-for, like, too-long-y'know" hugs.

Be cool and stay warm. From here to there,

S*

P.S. "What do you think?"
       "I don't know. Cute. But kinda weird."
P.P.S. I wrote a good part of this message from a bar. I guess that some things never change.

Fave current track(s): "Dry The Rain" - The Beta Band
Current read(s) in progress: "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" - Robert M. Persig

~
2003.10.20 14:30 KST (EST + 13 hrs): Osaka, Japan

I landed at Kansai International Airport, a short jaunt from Incheon, around noon on Saturday, not so bright eyed or bushy tailed thanks to a late Friday night of Beck's, pails of seafood and a fag too many. Come morning, my throat was killing me, I was dehydrated, tired and couldn't find a decently-priced bit of food in the entire place. I gobbled down the shrimp and asparagus tips on the plane, accompanied by unknown Oriental delights - some good, others washed away with a few cans of beer, green tea and the most trusted of cureall bevvies, OJ. I had asked for six whole grapefruits but the co-pilot was hungry and he'd dipped into my stash. Although it wasn't yet noon, we were 35,000 feet in the air and those bastards were into that vile shit already. The stewardess looked at me funny, I knew she had answers. But would she talk?

Osaka's airport carries its Japanese name, Kansai, and is built on an island of slowly sinking landfill. A mighty marvel of nothing, really. Overpriced rail connects it to the mailand, intertwining with no less than three other rail systems. If I had known that the complications were only beginning, I would have fled in panic. Japan's not for the weak, or the poor for that matter. It's not for those who can't swim and for those who just can't get along. Nippon is for the meek. It is a land of sturdy, stoic automatons.

Asleep on a train, maps and tourist information splattered all over me like a fly squashed on a wall, I woke up, overdue, having missed my stop. Mind you, getting glimpses of the wrong place can say a lot about somewhere and it's people. Re-routed, I wandered onto streets overcrowded with the homeless, selling broken garbage and half-read newspapers stolen from abandoned factories and hotel lobbies. Dirty-soled and awash in something akin to misery, I hobbled off to an oasis of a hotel, plucked right out of middle-class America and dropped like a fresh eunuch onto skid row Asia.

By then, there was nothing to do but wander out into the darkened rails and roads of Kansai and in doing so, embrace the new air, the quiet breeze and the smell of ramen stands, dotting the landscape. It wasn't Eden, but Dante surely had dropped in once or twice. Straggling, more or less lost, along the overbearing neon backstreets, I met Paul. He'd been in Japan too long he said, and the honeymoon was long over. He took me for a beer: first a British pub, then downstairs to a rock joint where live bands of misfits and disenfranchised shorthairs played covers from a more civilized time in rock n' roll. They wailed while the Asahi fell through us like dew over dandelions and we were happy to be alive and to have met. On a tip to see "friends of friends" rocking out across town, we walked past lines of school girls waiting, pamphlets and the day's purchases in hand, eager to use their fake IDs and find a seat in the not-so-hottest clubs.

Lacking the means for a ride in the Mercedes' above ground, we agreed to be commoners and ride the rails, below the surface, like the undercurrent scum we so obviously were. Paul suggested we skip the formalities of the turnstyle and hit the train running, but his skim through the gate turned into my hopping it and without fail, a blue-topped high-school dropout chased us as we tried, in vain, to pry open the parting train's doors. With a brisk word and a menacing glance, we were escorted out of the station, the doors held open smiling and wide. Resurfaced, we laughed like death row inmates, excited at the brisk buzz of alcohol, being the randomly freaked-out Saturday night good 'ol gaijins that we were -- grinning wide on the streets of Nippon.

We pattered around a few more places, made passes at those who would look, and Paul (having previously introduced me to the local head shops) now entertaining the company of walruses, was nowhere near the edge of the desert but had the eggman fast on his trail. It was promising to be a ride of an evening, and so far, it had been just that. Traipsing to three more less-than-fine establishments, we tackled more drinks as the cactus played mind games with Paul and was thoroughly and visibly gaining on my Aussie partner in arms. Ending up in the worst of Yankee cultural exports, we found a new place and danced to overplayed tunes, spiralling behind short skirts, tall boots and the smell of a million parties gone before us, sticking to the floors, loving the offering. Diluted, dilated and disillusioned, the party and it's newfound crew of eccentrics rallied a cry and scoured the streets in search of the after party which came complete with its wave of hostesses fresh off the job from laughing at the business crowd's inside jokes and doing whatever else payed the rent. Before long, clothes started coming off and before we knew it we were the little leftover indians, with only two of us left standing.

Dramatically, I hobbled like only a true fish can, staggering cross-current against the waves of people heading to particular nowheres on a Sunday morning at 8 a.m. And if I looked half as raked as I felt, it was surely fear I could see in their eyes. They knew where I'd been, but remained curious as to what I'd seen. I wasn't about to let them know. They too, were holding all the grapefruit but I was holding the cards.

As reality set in, much later the next day, it came to my attention that I may not have done one of two things: either I'd managed my funds like a schoolboy at recess stunned by neon, or I'd grossly miscalculated the value of the Yen versus all available forms of barter. It may even have been a combination of the two, but I vowed to put the past behind me and go out in search of quarter: the ATM.

Beyond the wealth and aesthetic film that layers Japan, all that remains is a hollow shell of deep, meaningless bows -- aimed quite aptly at distraction. Without financial or linguistic success, I yammered on about everything, but nothing, to my hosts. Apparently, politeness only puts so much in your pocket, while the sum remainder ends up on the streets selling broken toasters and last Thursday's rifled menus. A poor situation went downhill and got worse with the passing of the minute hand to the hour, seemlingly demanding that every new tick-tock, tick-tock liberate me of more funds.

I awoke Monday morning to thoughts of my primary intent behind this stint -- paying for the visa. But how? Was there no communication in this country? Would these few coins convince them all that I wasn't scum? I put my mind at ease, drew a long bath, dipped into the cold then off to the sauna, to think. To think. Monday seemed to have pulled itself out of the gutter, rising onto it's ugly hind legs only to deliver a short, sharp, swift kick in the gut. Winded and thoroughly unnerved by the onslaught of banks that refused to convert Won, contact my credit card companies or speak English, I let the rising sun's rays temporarily blind me, and awoke -- like from a dream -- to the happy sounds of jingling consulate doorways, saying "yes" to the emergency request of funds. For once in nearly sixty hours, the promise of leaving Japan alive was appearing to come true.

The flight from Kansai was as excessive as the first. As a consolation, the grapefruits became clementines and the vitamin C was a welcome change from the foul and tattered personal plastic that was Osaka. A place only to be revisited, armed to the teeth.

S*

Fave current track(s): "Tenor Man" - The Greyboy Allstars
Current read(s) in progress: "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" - Robert M. Persig

~
2003.10.16 00:33 KST (EST + 13 hrs): Suwon, Republic of Korea

Hey everyone, Esstar here, keeping my head up and my powder dry, still in Suwon, South Korea. First, let me say that I truly appreciate that many of you are reading these posts to, I hope, some enjoyment. The following are, again, topics of common response and interest. (I've been meaning to collect, compose and post these paragraphs for some time now). Please, enjoy at your leisure.


iv. Air Quality and Plants:

The greater Seoul area (I live in the suburb of Suwon which, via a short taxi ride and a long metro ride, can be reached between 90 and 120 minutes) has rather poor air quality. Although not as numerous as Western films and news reports would have us believe, many Koreans do -- in fact -- wear mouth masks while strolling about, riding the metro, bicycling or as they scoot to and fro on their mopeds.

Naturally -- coming from my apartment in Ottawa, containing no less than a dozen plants -- it took some time to adjust. Nonetheless, I have an air conditioner that serves as a means to cool and freshen my apartment's environment. If I don't leave it on perpetually, the air seems to stale immediately. After a long day at work, it proves to be a rather unpleasant welcome. As such, I quickly began the hunt for nice, affordable plants.

Oddly for a country whose vegetation is abundant and lush, plants are sold as very dainty affairs: they're potted in considerably extravagant containers (beautiful ceramics, finsihed wood and, of course, terra cotta -- thus driving up prices). The latest count totals me at five: I've bought and re-potted two small ivy; a cluster of miniature bamboo shoots; and two others that I can't name, but which I assure do the trick. Needless to say, I really notice the increased air purity and oxygen levels. As I also left my Norfolk Pine and fig tree in Ottawa, I am currently in the market for a small tree of sorts. Mind you, most of the ones I'm casing are upwards of 30,000 Won. A problem? Yes. An insurmountable one? No.


v. Food, Prices and Soju: Korean Fire Water

As far as food costs I'm finding the oddest price differences here: some fruit and vegetables are extremely cheap while others are practically inaccessible. Canned goods vary quite a bit in price, but most of them have to be cleared of the dust before use -- Koreans prefer their eats as fresh as possible. Fresh cuts of meat including beef, chicken and pork are sensibly priced, but the incredible variety of seafood has to be witnessed to be believed.

Of course, I feel like such a fuddy-duddied tourist when I turn my nose at the range of exotic seafood scents. Unfortunately for me, I've come to the wrong end of the planet to avoid foods of the "soft, squishy and mysterious" variety. Of late, I have been -- albeit slowly -- trying new treats from the sea. Last Friday night, a group of foreigners were treated to a heap of fresh squirming shrimp, steamed live over a gas range -- the latter propped up as the centerpiece of our dining experience. Once cooked and relieved of their heads, legs, innards and tails we devoured them like it was our job. A royal banquet!

Our hosts, noticing our delight, insisted that we be served a heaping pail (yes, a pail) of assorted clams, mussels, snails and cockles to name what I could recognize. At first thought, I was curious why I was being handed a single white glove ... as it turns out, since the shellfish were shucked then left to cook, meat up, in their own juices over a grate of coals, they would naturally be hot. Naturally, I felt to be again, the tourist. At any rate, if you have yet to try freshly grilled shellfish, please regale your senses. Instructions: buy any form of grill and a net then make a beeline for the nearest coast. Catch, grill, chomp. Black ties and chopsticks are optional. Oh, and as for the white gloves, use tongs to place the piping hot treats in your palm, shell side down, pluck out the goods, smile, and toss the empty carcass over your shoulder. Nothing says "sucks to be a mollusc" quite like it.

At the end of the day most consumer goods I've purchased have been similarly priced to Canadian goods. On the other hand, any rice product or common vegetalbe/root/herb is dirt-cheap (hot chillies, which permeate so many Korean dishes, for example).

Of note is also how some services are incredibly low-priced. A haircut ran me 8,000 Won which translates to somewhere slightly under $9 -- a third of what I'd expect to pay at home.

Although I can speculate to a degree, I am unfornately not too good at macroeconomy; as such, I suspect others might be more aptly versed to fill us all in on why these difference price structures exist. For the time being, I'll do my best to hunt down what deals I can. Unfortunately, I have to report that, any way you cut it, beer is still the same price here. Luckily, "soju" is ludicrously cheap. Vile, but cheap.

Ah, soju, how I love thee, but where to begin? I'll write about what I know, because what I remember isn't much. Soju is described by its aficionados (and their number is ample) as "Korean Wine." It is sometimes fruit flavoured and pleasantly decieving, but is most often clear and thus strong smelling. Bottles of soju can be purchased in a variety of sizes but is most commonly found in 500 mL format. What's more, to illustrate how some cultures are far more advanced than us, soju can even be purchased in handy, lunchbox-sized ... wait for it ... tetra packs! Recess never tasted so good.

Did I mention that it packs a 22% punch? And the fact that it's mainly consumed in shooter format? To boot, it is in fact rude to refuse a shot of soju if offered by your host; especially if the latter is female, older, a co-worker or, well, Korean. I hope everyone's getting the picture. Nightly, businessmen can be seen stumbling along Korean streets, hand in hand with their officemates, dragging their sorry briefcases and slurring asses behind them. An interesting, but pitiful sight. Stories abound of fights, vomitting and persons passed out in the middle of the street, helpless, holding up traffic for all to bear.

That's the darker side of the stuff, but in moderation (or a tad more...), fun times are promised. Luckily for me, I prefer beer to wash it all down, so I'll do just fine. Let me end the soju stories at that, but I can somehow foretell they'll rear up their ugly head sometime in the very near future.


vi: Pets

Some of the oddest things become uber-luxury items in other cultures: a fine example of social dyslexia is how dogs are considered gods. They're pampered to a fault and kept almost as babies. Consequentially, animal items (food, toys, garments) are very highly priced. Comparatively, plants aren't the only ones made pretty. Marlene Copeland could easily develop a cult following in a few short days, if she ever broadcasted her terrible pet show over here. Dogs (and specifically dogs) are dyed, babied, and kept at a miniature stature. Big dogs are largely unpopular and, to date, I've only seen one in total. People strut around, carrying their pups, dressing them up with little shirts, booties and even hats. Fucked up. Once I get a digital camera, you'll all flip your lid.

On the subject of cats, they are, for the most part -- left to get dirty, ratty, thin and all-around unkempt. Mind you, watching kittens wrestle and tackle each other will always strike a soft chord in my heart, wherever I travel. I actually sat for twenty minutes to watch two of them do that "stalk n' tackle" thing kittens do and it was priceless. Some people like to watch plastic bags fight the breeze, but I dig cats.

O.k., amigos, amigas, strangers and neighbours, I have run out of quasi-informative things to say, except that I wish you all well in whatever you're up to these days. I don't know about Canada, but the nights are getting chilly in Korea so bundle up, find someone to love and hold on tight.

With hugs, headnods, handshakes and high-fives from here to there, I miss you all.

S*

Fave current track(s): "Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl" - Broken Social Scene
Current read(s) in progress: "Korea" - Lonely Planet, "The New Yorker" magazine