to gill and peggy

together with helen and without tears, though with a lot of cheetahs

it's been just over a week since i last made an effort at this. been in sort of a malaise about it all because it seems that, at the moment, life is the same every week. same beach, same people (usually), same antics, same bouts of tame lameness it seems. no need to bore you with a weekly report of our cavorting when it's not much different from week to week.

however, i did finally manage to muster up the wherewithal to post the above photo and deliver an explanation. helen, thanks for enlightening me on your the spelling of your mom's name.

i do have some pictures from the Dano Festival i've told you about and about which some of you have read on other web sites near this one, but they will be posted at another time and when i've sorted through all the ones taken of the river...at night, without flash, while in the feverish clutches of dongdong ju madness.

this one is for the moms out there: those of you who are moms and have moms. those of you who've lost moms know what i'm talking about.

my friend, helen (above, for those of you with ADD), who is now on an extended journey through the world (part of this "around the world on 80 squid"--or maybe it was 'quid', i can't remember--was a brief jaunt back to the peninsula because of her hastened departure), was scheduled to leave korea around the time of my marriage (mid-april), with her going away party unknowlingly slated for the exact day on which my wedding was held, thus meaning neither of us could make it to the other's fete. well, as it turned out, only one scheduled fete was held while two funerals were soon held.

i bumped into her on thursday night, not knowing either a) she'd left early or, B) certainly not why. we held a customary greetings and catchup chat, along with apologies for missing out on weddings and going away parties before the i raised the inevitable question upon being told that her party had been cancelled.

"my mother died, mate."
"holy shit, helen, i'm so sorry. was it sudden? was it expected?"
"yeah, she had cancer and had been in the hospital for a while. i was supposed to have seen her about a week later had she not died."
strange math began to go through my head regarding dates, as were thoughts of my own at having supposed to have travelled to see my own mother soon had she not died.
"when did your mom die, helen?" i did not expect the reply she gave, though i had thought that her mom's day couldn't have been too far off from my mom's.
"she died on that monday before my party."
"monday, the 11th?"
a nod in the affirmative.
"monday, april 11th, 2005?"
"yes, why?"
"that's the day my mother died."

that was eerie enough until it became obvious that helen thought april 11th, 2005, was the anniversary of my mother's death.

"no, helen, my mom died on the exact day, this year, as your mother."

well, the night suddenly went from a fairly early night out of normalcy to a late night bout of crying, tequila and whiskey shots in memoriam, and, to be honest, healing. it is to be said that i really cannot remember anyone's else being at bar bumpin' that night, save for rory and tania, to both of whom i owe a debt of thanks for being there and helping helen and me get through our tears and ruefulness (though other web sites may actually chronicle their exploits of that night slightly differently).

helen has departed our fair peninsula again, but not our hearts and thoughts. we shared very few more tears after that night, but we did meet several times and have several more drinks again over the next few.

thus, this particular dent in aetherspace is dedicated to our moms: though they've physically departed this whirling ball of wax, they've not left our hearts, thoughts, or memories.

gillian and peggy, we love you and miss you. here's to you...

beach delirium

plastic bag (lower right) signifies "safe-swimming day" in korea's east sea, as it means that all sea life in the area have choked to death on them and the sea is now free for us marauding humans to enjoy

after the night of futbol madness, we decided the next day frolicking on the beach was a great idea to tame the toxins. korea's beaches around gangneung are generally pretty clean and the water famously clear, but the beach culture much different from what most of us non-koreans are used to: those of us not from korea aren't generally accustomed to seeing people standing next to the water in a business suit or high heels, or swimming in jeans and a sweater, or afraid to go out into the surf deeper than waist level.

near our house in gangneung, i must say, we are lucky in that there is a choice of beaches from which we locals have a bevy to choose. most out-of-town koreans and other tourists to the area only know of gyungpo beach and its crowds, high prices, clogged traffic, and other general riffraff. however, us locals know about such beaches just mere kilometers to the south--such as gangmoon, anmok, and namhang beaches--where people can swim freely, fish without worrying about hooking a tourist, eat and drink better for less money, and, in general, not have to deal with the pains of throngs of tourists.

our adventure on this day, as most days in which we hang at the beach, happened at anmok beach...

the battle wages between my wife and "big" ryan for best beach badmintoner... in the end, ryan goes down as seung-hee takes the crown

partly responsible for all that was to follow

a more lonely sight could never been seen; whom to blame for this irresponsible parenting? "big" ryan, of course, while playing "best beach badminton survivor"

raw seafood!! perfect complement to beer, soju, and general seaside merriment...

can't really explain what's happening here...

steve and his purple shirt, nicked from his father-in-law just for the occasion

insane, bloody insane, i tell you. the water's about -20 celsius at this time of the year; only someone from england and midwest america would consider this tolerable temperature...

jason managing to dress and take a shit at the same time--remarkable!!

birthday boy, "skinny" ryan

annoyed introspection at its finest

no one seems to notice either rory or the camera

...except, perhaps, my friend, amy, back in SoCal...!

oops, camera's drunk again...

another lovely anmok beach sunset 

rory muses, one eye on me, one on my drink, "while this jackweed is taking another photo, making i can nick another of his beers..."

once the mayhem at the beach gave way to hunger, we all scattered to the four winds for an hour of clothes change and decompression. disregarding hunger for food and needing, instead, to continue nurturing our liquid diet, we all met at the coolest bar in all of korea: bumpin', in the heart of downtown gangneung.

run by a funky, hip korean man that we usually just call mr. lee, it serves no soju, no traditional korean liquor, no korean food, only beer (mostly imported, though with one or two korean mainstays) and imported western liquor: vodka, rum, bourbon, whiskey, tequila, and scotches of all kinds.

mr. lee can drink with the best of us and is generally regarded as the most generous man on the planet because of his penchant for pouring scores of free shots throughout the course of a given night for any given customer and, sometimes, on special occasions, for the entire bar.

though a night drinking here can total more than two or three nights drinking at a traditional korean bar where only soju or dongdongju are served, there are times when one needs to feed the soul what it is the soul is craving...

we passed the night away here after our day spent at the beach...

seung-hee and i--the camera's a little close, but...

the aforementioned "steve shirt", only now in all its splendor

the scene at eclectic but oh-so-cool bumpin' once the place started filling up

world cup dementia

only peter seems aware, and wary, of the impending madness about to enter this bar

it has been, regardless of where i've lived, a tradition of mine since college to gather friends together on the thursday night of every week for a drink. as you'll see from the photos below, this thursday actually was just a 24-hour friday of futbol (soccer) and soju mayhem...

the 2006 world cup in germany is only 12 months away and qualifying games are held to determine which of the 32 nations will make it. the world cup is my favorite sporting event and i follow it--and its qualifying--with undisguised passion and fervor. korea is currently involved in the final stage of asian qualifying and there were, at the time of the photo above, three games remaining. korea are fairly comfortable and confident of qualifying, but each of the three games left are crucial and they could still be left watching on the sofa, like yours truly will be.

korea's next game was the friday in question above, june 3rd, 2005, and this is the story of the game, our preparation for it, and the activities that followed.

these chinese characters actually mean, "alcohol so good and so potent that your horse will get drunk"

the party started under the chinese characters above inside a japanese bar in a korean city, as a korean, an australian, a south african, an englishman, and yours truly--he of no true nationality--sought to solve the mysteries of the orient and the soliloquies found within the mating call of the indonesian polar bear.

IRMD: instrument responsible for mass drunkenness: bamboo soju

the camera was pretty drunk itself at this point

carlos thinks there's a naked porn star inside the camera

the masses were gathered and expectant as the match kicked off

a mere few hours after we had drunk the japanese bar out of house and home, we all stumbled home, put in a few hours of sleep, then a few less hours playing games, er, teaching english, before we headed for our futbol-viewing home: a bar called 'junji gaebyuk", the translation of which is, "may the albatross feeding on your wounded leg become drunker than you were when you wounded your leg in the first place."

or something of that nature...

anyway, in the 20 months that i've lived in gangneung, i don't think i've ever failed to watch a korean senior team futbol match at anywhere else other than this bar. it's not that this bar is so good, it's just that it's under the school where most of us who hang out to watch footy work and near where most of us live and, thus, so convenient. forget the fact, please, that i no longer either work at that school or live in the same area: it's less one of those traditional things to do than it is a superstitious thing to do. of course, we've been going there for so long that the owner knows us and we usually get little perks of additional finger food or a free bottle every once in a while, not that has any bearing on it all.

it is also the innocuous starting point of the night that saw my friend, big ryan, and i watch the sun rise (in a sense) two weeks prior, the details of which can be read by scrolling further on your gamma iode machine.

continuing, this particular match featured our korean boys in red v. uzbekistan in tashkent. for a clearer translation, uzbekistan once was part of the former soviet union and its capital city is called tashkent. the more cogent of our readers may associate uzbekistan with such unpleasantries as riots and uprisings happening in the past two weeks, but there is a great deal more to uzbekistan than this, i assure you. in fact, they are very closely related, in many ways, to the uyghurs of western china, about whom i've written in another, nearby, part of cyberspace.

however, this is neither the time or the place for a history or social studies lesson. this is about futbol.

if korea could win the match, tickets to germany could essentially start to be printed. lose, and panic sets in--and more drinking than usual amongst the masses. draw, and tickets could be printed, but only by those departing sobriety for a week-long bender in the name of futbol. in other words, korea needed a win, though a draw wouldn't kill. avoiding a loss at all costs was the goal...

the usual suspects gathered on this friday night, 10pm local time, and off for a ride we went...