At some point during the holidays, I turned into one of those obnoxious drunken foreigners that are apparently an embarrassment to the more productive foreigners. Now, I could feel badly about this and resolve to spend my 2008 being a more productive foreigner. Or, I could say Fuck That Noise and live it up. Given that I'm somebody who honestly hasn't had a lot of fun in her life, I think that I'm going to go for the latter. I recently told a friend of mine that I was currently having the most fun that I've ever had. His response was that he wasn't sure if he should feel happy or sad for me. In this case, I much prefer the former. There is little use in being depressed about events that have long since passed when I can be having the time of my life right now. This being my current disposition, it goes a long way to explaining why I've been acting like a college student lately. While I've certainly done some regrettable things and met some people I'd rather forget in the last couple of months, I've made a few fantastic friends along the way. Without them, Christmas Day 2007 wouldn't have been the Spectacular Random Show that it was.
Christmas morning didn't quite happen, as I slept happily on my friend, The Aussie Madam's, floor-mat until about 2 in the afternoon. Christmas "breakfast" consisted of fried eggs and toast. Aussie Madam is a much better host than I am, as there is no way that I would have gotten out of bed to cook had she been in Busan with me. She gets an A for effort. The original plan had been to meet another friend of ours, The Hoover, downtown for some afternoon shopping. We forwent shopping in favour of not getting off of our asses until 5 and then grabbing dinner at this cute little Italian restaurant, Italy Italy. It was here that our evening of spectacular randomness began.
While waiting for a table at Italy Italy, The Aussie Madam noticed a coworker of hers waiting ahead of us. Alone. On Christmas. In Korea. The Aussie Madam quickly noticed the level of suck in this situation and invited her coworker to join us. The coworker accepted her offer, if only because it meant that she'd get a table sooner than if she were to eat alone. Given the great warmth of the reception we received from her, I suspect that was actually the sole reason. As it turns out, The Aussie Madam's coworker is apparently not a huge fan of people, The Aussie Madam especially. After attempting to make polite small talk with the coworker, it quickly dawned on me that this girl sucked. She sucked hard. Throughout the meal The Girl Who Sucked was curt, dismissive, spent most of her time texting people on her phone, and made absolutely no effort whatsoever to involve herself in the conversation or get to know us. The Girl Who Sucked was so bloody Bah Hambug that when she finally got up to go to the bathroom, the three of us stared at each other in stunned silence for a few moments. After taking moment to collect her thoughts, The Hoover spoke first. "Is she angry or something?" My response: "Dude, that chick sucks!" We quickly come to agreement that The Girl Who Sucked sucked so hard that it was shocking that her mother hadn't spontaneously aborted her as a fetus. Thankfully, The Girl Who Sucked finished her meal very quickly and took her miserable ass elsewhere. Roughly half an hour after The Girl Who Sucked's departure, The Aussie Madam received the following text message from her: Thank your friends for the crudest dinner conversation that I've ever had. Bah Fucking Humbug, eh?
The Hoover felt that Christmas wasn't Christmas without a religious experience. We collected our other friend, SGTF (She's Got The Fever) and made our way to the closest church. The "church" looked more or less like a kimbap restaurant with a cross on the wall and a picture with Jesus and Friends on the door. The Hoover decided that instead of going in, she'd just have a photo op in front of the building. Me being the dirty little attention whore that I am decided that I wanted in on this action too. Naturally, I put a leg in the air over the photo of Jesus and friends and posed for a shot. As I was holding this pose, which SGTF suggested looked somewhat like I was pissing on Jesus, a couple of men from the church walked passed us. I temporarily feared a verbal lashing in response to the graphic disrespect that I was showing their church. I had clearly forgotten that I was in Korea. As opposed to questioning what we were doing or looking alarmed, the men remarked: "so beautiful!" That's right, folks. Pissing on Jesus is a beautiful thing. Only in Korea Land.
Sometime after this I encouraged the girls to go out drinking. Again. As a result, I missed the last train back to Busan. When I arrived at the train station at 3am they advised me that the next train left at 6am. I considered my options and decided that instead of getting a hotel room that I'd hit up a PC Bang (internet cafe) for a couple of hours. In that PC Bang around 4:30am, I finally let go and did what I had wanted to do for the last couple of days: I cried. I cried, half a world away from the place that I'm supposed to belong; a place that I never felt I belonged in the first place.
1 comment:
Don't despair. You're going through what every traveler in a foreign land does on Christmas. If it makes you feel any better, I remember drinking my face of in a little village in Ukraine, with a group of friends and the girl I was seeing at the time. One minute, we're ordering drinks at the bar, the next, we're on our way to a 9th century cathedral, with no heat, listening to a Russian priest preach the midnight mass in Ukrainian and Latin. This was not to stop the drinking, however. It was for just such an emergency that I had two mickeys of vodka on me. You'll feel better when the holidays are done. Happy New Year, Rebecca. 2008 is going to be one hell of a year.
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