The Iceberg

By golly, I’m beginning to take a liking to her.

Photos courtesy of SportsSeoul.com

Passing through the campus in a taxi, I spotted two female students walking along the side of the road. I stuck my head out the window and hung my wiry plastic fingers over the door. The taxi driver picked up on my intentions and slowed down as we approached the girls. Engaged in conversation, the girls cast a casual glance my way, then did a double-take, followed by a loud shriek that continued until the taxi was no longer within hearing distance.

Perhaps the taxi driver was wrong. Earlier, when I entered the taxi, I looked at his grinning face and asked him if I looked scary. “If you were alone, yeah. But since you are with the others (my co-workers), not really,” he told me. Judging from the girls’ reaction, I concluded that I had the look I was going for. Puhahahahaha!!!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we were going to a Halloween party at a bar called Yellow Monkey, but on a whim I suggested that we spend a little time out and about town before the party. Our first stop was a grilled pork (삼겹살) restaurant called Twaerang (퇘랑) in Yeoseo-dong (the “new” downtown of Yeosu) for some galmaegl-sal (갈매기살). If you ever make your way to Yeosu, I highly recommend this restaurant. The galmaegi-sal is fantastic. I’m told that it’s pork, but you’d swear that it’s beef. And at 7000 won per serving, it’s a great deal.

But I digress. We got out of the taxi (the taxi driver giggled as he took our money; I think he wished he could hang out with us) and made our way to a convenience store for cigarettes. Walking along the road, we were greeted by stares. Not the typical look that foreigners get and not really anything that expressed fear, but more like a “what are these nutty people up to?” kind of stare. Finally someone blurted, “Oh! Halloween!!!” and we knew they were on to our game.

I’d say that there were about forty patrons in the restaurant. When we entered, about thirty-five of them turned to look at us. Then about ten phone cameras swung open and the photo-taking commenced. We received a variety of comments. Nearly all of them positive. One older man typed something into his phone and then approached the woman in our group. He showed her his phone. “Give me a city map,” read the message. We didn’t quite know what to make of that. He was pretty drunk, and a bottle or two of soju later he was looking at me in a way that made me just a little uncomfortable. I started to suspect that he didn’t realize that I was a man. Yikes!!!

After dinner, more photos, and a few handshakes, we meandered over to Wa Bar, which I think I also mentioned in an earlier post is about the swankest bar in Yeosu. Again, we were greeted by a mix of positive comments and a few startled reactions. Inside the bar, more photos taken with phone cameras. Two girls came to our table and sat down and had their photo taken with us.

We finished our beers and left for the party. I must say that the party itself was the lowlight of the evening. Not that it was bad per se. It’s just that, compared with the rest of the evening, it didn’t have much to offer. I don’t know, maybe for the foreigners who’ve only lived in this area it was kind of nice to have a large gathering, but for me it felt no different than a typical Saturday night at Gecko’s in Seoul. Everyone wearing costumes notwithstanding.

After a couple of hours at the party our group decided to go to a nightclub. This was the most fun of all. Upon my first venture onto the dance floor, the phone cameras once again came flying out. I was surrounded by people who took momentary breaks from their dancing to capture shots of me. It felt like I was surrounded by paparazzi. I tell ya, these gweesheen types just can’t get any privacy. When everyone had their fill of photos, I was able to do my gweesheen groove - which is not easy in a costume that was way too large.

To answer the question, “Can gweesheens pull?”, let me just say that everytime I went out to dance there was one particular girl who, apparently attracted to gweesheens (or so I thought), gyrated her way towards me. Showing her my supernatural swing, I asked her if she wanted to join us at our table. Her answer? “No.” That’s it. No hesitation. No, “No, thank you.” No, “Thanks, but I’m with my friends.” Just, “No.” Humiliated, I made my way back to the table and vowed that I would haunt this girl for the rest of her human life.

Now, concerning the video. All I can say to that is, “Good help is hard to find.” The aim for the night was to capture my interactions with people around town. Since it was essential for me to be in the video, I enlisted the help of one of my co-workers to do the shooting. Unfortunately - and I’m putting this nicely - he apparently had a love-hate relationship with the zoom button the whole night. The first ten minutes that he shot (which would have been the best footage) were taken with the lens zoomed completely in, so all he got were a lot of close-ups of people’s eyes and nosehair. However, I managed to weed through it and compile a little bit to show. I zoomed it out twice for him only for him to zoom it back in. In the end, I had to take the camera away from him. He’s been banned from future camera priveleges.

Click photo for video

There’s a big Halloween party in Yeosu tonight. I’m going as a gweesheen (귀신) - a Korean ghost. The party starts at 9 p.m., but before that I’m going to conduct a little social experiment. I want to determine what a typical night out on the town is like for a gweesheen. For example, what kind of service does a gweesheen get in a restaurant or bar? How easy is it for a gweesheen to catch a taxi? Can a gweesheen pull easily? I hope to have the answers to these and many other questions after tonight. Stay tuned.

For the “fashion illiterate” among you (or those who forgot to check the seasonal fashion report), The Iceberg provides the following public service. If you are living in Korea and wish to be hip, this is the “in” look this fall/winter:

That’s right. Stripes are ripe. Just slip on that black and white striped shirt and you’ll be swingin’ with the cool crew. Have a look:

The more adventurous among you may wish to strut your individuality by going with the navy blue and white stripe look. Don’t push it though.

Solid! Er, no wait…nevermind.

Damn you Rex Grossman! Damn you to hell!

Jump back two weeks. The Crack Addicts, 2-3 following a resounding 70-31 victory over the Hahoe Mask Drama, were poised to reach the .500 mark as they held a seemingly insurmountable 26-point lead over the Samcheong-dong Rabid Marmots going into the Monday night game. The Addicts had the aforementioned Grossman and Muhsin Muhammad left to score points while the Marmots countered with Anquan Boldin and Thomas Jones. This one was in the books.

But then the unthinkable occured. Grossman played what may have been the single worst game in history for a quarterback - at least from a fantasy football perspective. Four interceptions and two fumbles. Six turnovers from one player!!! The end result was minus seven points. Adding insult to injury, Muhammad scored zero points because of Grossman’s ineptitude. Meanwhile, the Marmots got 16 points from Boldin (against the Bears’ defense!) and five from Jones. A twenty-eight point swing and the Addicts were dealt an absolutely devastating two-point loss.

Still reeling from the defeat, last week I made what I fear is going to prove to be a horrible trade. Darrell Jackson for Byron Leftwich. Right after the trade went through Leftwich was added to the Jaguars’ injury report. He ended up playing, but was ineffective as the Jaguars got smacked by the Texans of all teams. Jackson simply went on to put up 16 points. Wallowing in a funk from the Grossman debacle, my team whimpered to an 18 point loss to the Itaewon Sweet Life last week. I may have to change the team’s name to the Crap Addicts.

Last week I took a nice little drive to a place called Heungguksa.

The temple was built by the Buddhist monk Bojokuksa (보조국사) in 1195 during the 25th year of the reign of Myeong-jo (명조), the 19th king of the Koryeo (고려) dynasty. It is said that the name “Heungguksa” was derived from a saying that goes, “If this temple prospers, the country will prosper, but if this temple perishes, the country will perish.”

Heungguksa is famous as the location where 300 Buddhist naval monk soldiers trained during the 1592 Japanese invasion.

Here are some photos of Heungguksa, which is located about 25-30 minutes from Yeosu by scooter.

The lovely Miss Kim Sa-rang (김사랑).  선생님! 사랑해요.

Those of you who have been to Gwangju might have stumbled upon this restaurant:

However, you might notice that the Korean writing below the food in the poster says, “boneless dalk-galbi”.  Blatant false advertising.  Women - and Lee Joon-ki - would be disappointed.

When I passed by this restaurant again later in the day, I noticed another joint a few meters down the road called “Muffin”.  The yin and yang of dining.  Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me.

A couple of weeks ago I took my old 50-cc scooter into the shop. It was slowly leaking fuel so I wanted to get it fixed (I was pretty rough on it…rarely slowed down for speed bumps). While the shop owner was having a look at it, I browsed some of the other scooters. Out of curiousity, I asked him if I could take one of the 100-cc scooters out for a drive. “No problem,” said the owner and I was on my way.

What a huge difference. While I had discovered that my old scooter was no beast - it had considerable trouble going up hills with an extra passenger on board - I had no idea how weak it was until I rode the 100-cc puppy. When I returned to the shop, I told the owner to just keep my previous scooter and I’d take the new one.

Here it is:

I no longer have to sweat it out when I travel the 80 kph roads around town now. The old scooter topped out at around 70 kph and it was a little disconcerting when cars would fly past. This one has no trouble keeping up. In fact, should North Korea attack, I now feel one-hundred percent at ease knowing that my new scooter will lead me to safety.

I jest.

That nuke sho did fizzle.