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Stranger in a Strange Land Newsletter: November 2005

Dear Readers,
So much has happened in the last 36 hours I don't know where to start. I've slept in three different beds in the last three nights: a twin sized bed in a hostel in Seoul on Wednesday night (where I had been sleeping for a week), then on a wood floor with a pad on a farm in the middle of Jeju Island (a large island part of South Korea), and last night I slept again on a wooden floor but in an apartment in the main city of Jeju Island: Jeju City. It's been a trip.

Wednesday night I decided that despite a slight cold I still had and the likelihood of there being almost no other people, I decided to go out to a club with friends from my hostel in the happening area of Itaewon to end a really nice week in Seoul. It was my first time in Itaewon and I was not impressed. Granted it was Wednesday night and other nights I'm told it is in fact happening.

Those nine days I was in Seoul I went out clubbing quite a few times. It's a strange culture. A full description thereat would not be appropriate for this newsletter, but all I can tell you is on Wednesday night and Monday night before that, I realized the immense value of just dancing for fun. I don't want to be a guy who's just there to get a girl and I want to ignore the girls who are just there to drive guys crazy. I'm not talking about every girl who is dancing sexy either. On Wednesday night this one girl walked into the club and went straight to the dance floor shakin' it like nobody's business. And she was GOOD, really good. But she was there to have fun, unconcerned whether anyone was watching her (and we were!) and it made all the difference in the world. That kind of thing just makes me want to get on the dance floor too and have fun dancing well. Oh and I did... I love that stuff.

Anyway, back to the last 36 hours: I woke up Thursday morning to finish packing. I realized the limit of my wonderful Eagle Creek travel bags: the zipper broke. I never thought it would happen but when you take a full stuffed travel bag and then add a whole new outfit worth of clothing and a pair of VERY nice shoes, it pushes the limit. I bought the outfit in Dongdaemon which is probably one of the coolest places to shop. There are buildings, sidewalks, alleyways, and subway stations full of vendors selling all kinds of things at cheap prices. In the streets you'll find everything and in the buildings you'll find some of the coolest clothing.

It started innocently with me buying a soft, warm brown jacket because I just plain needed one, and it was cool. Then I came back in a couple days and something came over me: I bought a pair of shiny black leather shoes (something I've wanted for awhile), a corduroy Newsy's/Kangool type hat that matched my jacket, a pair of tan pants that came with a brown suede leather belt and matching trim on the back pockets, and then the real clincher was an Asian-awesome tight long sleeve shirt, cool design, with random English words and phrases written on it. It was sweet, people, it was sweet. Anywhere you go in Asia you see these t-shirts, many of which look really good, but have the most ridiculous things written in English. But they're cool and that's what counts, and now I had one that matched.

Anyway, thanks for indulging this side of me that doesn't usually get to express itself. Back to the packing: I did, in fact, manage to get everything in fairly securely despite the broken zipper and left for the airport. I picked-up some kimbap at my favorite shop near the hostel. "Kimbap" literally means "nori (the seaweed they use for sushi) rice" and is basically a Korea style sushi roll. And it costs less than one US dollar. I've been eating like a king here in Korea and I love it. But kimbap is just a snack really so once I got to the airport I got some "kimchi udon." On the menu it had Korean writing, called Hangul, and English writing which said "kimchi noodles."

But I knew it was kimchi udon because I can read Hangul, son! That's right I can read the words but I don't know what they mean (though my Korean is getting better). Hangul is actually very easy to learn and an amazingly ingenious alphabet invented about 600 years ago. I learned a lot more about it at the brand new, huge National Museum of Korea that I went to on Monday, two days after it opened on Saturday the 29th of October. I literally could only look at one of its three floors it was so big, and luckily that included a lot of history and a large exhibit on the Korean alphabet.

Yes, I could read udon in Hangul and I could eat the kimchi that came with it. I'll address kimchi and my experience with it in another newsletter. There's a lot going on there. Once on the plane the flight was a joke. After going on plane rides for 10+ hours across the Pacific a flight that's less than an hour seems like a sneeze. But as I exited the airport I was greeted by palm trees and that was a change from Seoul. Soon, I was also greeted by Mr. Yang the WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) guy I'll be working for the next couple weeks picking tangerines and so on. And he's also supposed to provide me with a place to sleep, but as I mentioned the sleeping arrangements have been odd. At first it appeared that where I slept, where we worked, and where he and his family slept would be three different places.

The first night I slept at his friend's farm where I'll be working occasionally, including helping "teach" some kindergarteners English next week (I think that means I'm supposed to play with them and talk to them while they look blankly back at me or laugh). It's a very nice farm, beside the lack of mattress but when given the opportunity to stay at Mr. Yang's place in the city I took it for convenience sake. He said he assumed that a WWOOFer would prefer to not live in the city but I'll have plenty of chance for that at other WWOOF farms.

As I walked into his apartment his daughter came around the corner, bowed, and said "Anyung haseyo" (formal "Hello") in the cutest voice and I just melted. She is according to Korean counting 4 years old and almost 3 according to western counting (don't think about it too much, just trust me). His wife is very nice too but doesn't speak much English at all, so we haven't interacted much.

Let me quickly cover all the things that's I've done so far on Jeju: rode a horse for the first time in my life as the sun was setting, picked persimmons (it seems like a cross between a tomato in looks and nectarine in texture), ate more tangerines than I ever have in a day, saw a big beetle with pincers almost as long as the rest of him, saw those funny green geometrically shaped beetles, saw a quail (maybe not that bigga deal but it was my first time), and went to a dinner with Mr. Yang's extended family that they have once a year for honoring their ancestors. The shrine reminded me a lot of what I saw at the funeral for my "step-grandfather" in Japan, only no flowers. There were incense, candles, lots of food and drink and some beautiful writing. Also, as I found-out in Korea they often eat the food after they offer it to the ancestors and believe it's especially healing. I believe it too.

Well, I want to write more but I think even my most diehard fans may find this newsletter to be getting a little long. I'll write tomorrow about California and answer some of the questions people asked. I realize that I've written about girls, shopping, food, and money mostly and that people asked about more hoity-toity topics, so I'll give the people what they want tomorrow. Take it easy everyone. Feel free to write back.

Thanks,
Eli