Because one blog just ain't enough

wow, february passed me by. this is how i've been spending my free time. damn korean winters. enjoy!

http://caseywithlasereyespewpew.blogspot.com/

korean ingenuity at its finest

i'm tired of typing with capitalization. due to extreme laziness, from now on i will type exclusively in lowercase. there might even be some errant misspellings. hey, at least you're getting an actual post and not some bogus korean link about the coming of the apocalypse. (read: taco bell comes to korea and mindy can die and go to heaven.)

anyway, i realize it's been eons since last i sat down to write, but the winter doldrums have set in and my life is not really all that exciting. alright, i did go to china, but this is not a travel blog. and besides, i hate reading about the adventures of others -- they tend to read like one giant itinerary -- so i'd rather not bore you with the copious amounts of bitching i did while hiking the great wall (10k in below freezing weather did not a happy engrish teacher make) or how the chinese government issued one christmas- themed decoration and used it in every storefront to commemorate the holiday or how i now firmly believe that if i try hard enough i can work chairman mao into any joke.

but i digress.

what i really want to talk about are meat sausages. specifically the kind one can find in any korean convenience store and that make me want to both giggle with delight and cringe in disgust.

right? if you live in korea (or many other asian countries, i suspect) then you are familiar with the snack sausage. this is mystery meat at its finest: prepackaged fish/cow/chicken/cheese parts conveniently suctioned into an easy to carry wand of deliciousness. now, i have never actually partaken in a snack sausage as i prefer to keep my consumption of "foods that can be sucked out of plastic" to a minimum. (otter pops do not count as they are not actually food and ARE delicious. what can i say, i've got standards.) anyway, last wednesday an old friend shared this link on facebook and implored me to send a few "meat styli" her way. (btw, that is actually the plural of stylus, i looked it up.)

a meat stylus? in korea? fuckin' ay, what will they think of next? as you can imagine, i was intrigued, so i did a bit of my own research and happened upon this link. see, the iphone just recently made an appearance in the Land of Tax the Shit out of Foreign Goods and has proven to be quite popular. but it's a pain in the ass to remove one's gloves just to make a call/check cyworld/take pictures in coffee shops -- enter the meat stylus. for the price of a candy bar, koreans everywhere can now keep their digits warm, do business AND snack. brilliant!

i needed to see a meat stylus in action, so monday afternoon when koreans everywhere were celebrating the lunar new year, i grabbed my friend jarvis and headed to the family mart. we picked up a snack sausage and set to the business of styli-zation. (oh, that was bad.)

AND... it worked! it really worked. i realize this is incredibly anti-climactic as i have no video to prove the efficacy of the meat stylus, but trust me, it works. and besides, i lost my camera cord in the black hole that is china, (along with my ipod cord and my favorite yellow sunglasses) so even if i filmed it, it would be stuck in my camera forever.

and then i found twenty dollars. (did that make it better?)

I think I just peed a little...

Yes Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus. (Oh god, please let this be true.)

2010 is the Year of "Follow Through"

I survived communism and a week's worth of a-MAO-zing jokes at The Chairman's expense.

It snowed a foot in Seoul on Monday. It's Friday and snow removal continues. (Like ACTUAL snow removal, with dumptrucks and forklifts and shit. I'd love to know where they're putting it all...)

Winter solstice means the days are getting longer and I don't have to walk home in the dark.

I missed another Christmas with my family, and according to my mom, they were prime form this year.

I've been without internet for a month and I think I've actually kicked the habit. Except I'm sitting at the Fat Boy PC bang at 11:30 on a Friday night.

An an entire decade's worth of poor choices, debauchery, financial fuck-ups and heartbreak is over. Along with my twenties.

Hello 2010!

Reasons Santa's Not Coming to Korea, Redux

Because I'm all about saving the earth, I thought I'd do my part and recycle -- blog content, that is. In light of my most recent trip to the doctor, I've been working on a "12 Days of Christmas"-style ode to Korea, but I'm not done.

Instead, here are the top ten reasons Santa's not coming to Korea, with updated commentary, of course.

Reasons Santa's Not Coming to Korea.

1.He got sick off melamine cookies in China. (Remember the melamine scare, back when Korea could just blame China? Ahh those were the days, before swine flu and hand sanitizer and common sense came to Korea. Wait a minute...)

2.He's still waiting on his visa. (I hear ya Santa. The glut of visa applicants is sizable, but what else is a recent grad with a Social Sciences degree supposed to do?)

3.Dog isn't the only meat that provides "stamina." Look out Blitzen.

4.Korean parents report, "nice, but not nice enough." (I think my Korean parents would report, "smart, but not smart enough." And they would be correct.)

5.He's tired of taking his boots off at every house. (Again, my sympathies. Perhaps you should think of trading in your steel-toes for some lime green slippers. I know a guy on the street who'll give you a slammin' deal. Easy-peasy lemon squeezy, Santa)

6.Wait... where is Korea? (Right between World Domination [read: China] and The Hot Chick [read: Japan])

7.He's tired of taking hits to the sleigh. Apparently N. Korea takes that whole "DMZ" thing pretty seriously. (Come on Kim Jung Il, the world already knows how much you adore American commerce. Let the fat guy through unscathed and maybe Steve Jobs'll throw down a shiny new iPhone.)

8.He's got all the drunken spousal abuse he can handle at home. Why even leave the house?

9.He's tired of lugging his sack of toys through all those Soviet Bloc apartments. Get a chimney!

10.Mrs. Clause hates kimchi breath. (Tru dat.)

*Thanks to Erica, Trevor, and Justin who helped post this on the whiteboard in the teacher's lounge (oh, the irony) last Christmas.

I miss that job.

Perhaps I should rename this blog "Adventures in Social Sleeping"

So, after spending too much time in Starbucks, they've cut me off. Never deterred, especially in matters of free wifi, I headed to Tom N Toms down the street, where the cinnamon hot cocoa is heavenly. And what did I find? Three people, completely passed out! One in front of her computer, presumably from too much Cyworld-ing; another sitting across from his girlfriend who decided to pay him no mind by taking pictures of herself with her camera phone; and the third splayed across a bench with Korea's Milli Vanilli, two Korean dudes in full dreadlocks whom I'm pretty sure live in my neighborhood because I regularly see them at the Super Deluxe Food Cart around the corner. *side note: do you think it'd be inappropriate to run screaming at them, begging for a photo? Perhaps yes, I think...

Update: the ever doting GF has just tried rousing her sleeping prince by stroking his head and whispering in his ear. It's no use. She gave up and he continues to sleep. In Tom N Toms.

Add this to the list of "Only in Korea"

So, this might possibly be the most ridiculous post ever, but I am ASTOUNDED, I mean utterly amazed at the number of people who fall asleep at my local Starbucks.

My internet went out about a week ago on account of me not paying the bill as I was under the impression that bill was being paid by my school out of the 100,000 won "maintenance fee" I pay each month. Apparently that fee only covers the cost of my Building Ajumma's "trash sorting services," but I digress. Anyway, I'm not paying the bill until after China (so I can spend copious amounts of money on the knockoff Northface jackets and Rolexes my mother has requested), so I am without internet. This is patently unacceptable, so I've been spending a lot of quality time in Starbucks, soaking up the free internet and that fact that no one seems to mind that I only sporadically buy anything. Sweet.

And in that free time I have witnessed a hell of a lot of social sleeping, one borderline pornographic public make-out session and a handful of women snuggled on the couches, sans shoes. When did this become okay?

Last Saturday, after my weekly breakfast date with Amanda, we ventured to the 'Bucks for some coffee and interwebs. The only available seats were a pair of overstuffed armchairs facing a couple, peacefully entwined in each others arms, dreaming the afternoon away. Alright. We turned the chairs to face each other, and did our best to ignore the happy couple. After about an hour, they both decided to rejoin the world, stretching, cooing to one another, and generally making Amanda and I sick with their merriment. And then they started to make-out. And feed each other. And lick their lips seductively. It's like they were in their own soft-core porn, except they were fully clothed and IN PUBLIC. Now, I've been repeating the mantra "Seoul is for lovers" for a good year, but that's because everything is tailored to couples -- the couples set, the couples underwear, Namsan Tower. But public displays of affection of this magnitude are practically unheard of in Korea. Amanda and I were shocked.

Then there are the women who bring their snuggies and a good book, kick off their shoes and curl up on the couches for a nice afternoon of reading, only to fall asleep with the books in their laps. I find this exceptionally weird because, last time I checked, Starbucks was a coffee shop. You know coffee, that drink that keeps cops and college students awake at ungodly hours? How can these people doze in a public place after downing a caffeinated beverage? I've had a hard enough time falling asleep in my own bed on the rare occasions I've milked one toffee nut latte after 8PM.

However, I think my favorite social sleepers are the Korean Businessmen. They sleep anywhere -- buses, subways, park benches, gutters (I've got a picture on my phone of a businessman doing just that, I swear), and Starbucks. For the past three hours I've been watching three businessmen alternate between dozing on the couches, and making prank calls on their celly cells. (Okay, maybe they weren't making prank calls, but since I believe most of the Korean workweek consists of looking busy and not actually accomplishing anything, I think it's safe to assume their calls were of little importance. This is the direct result of the mandatory 80 hour workweek.) It's always funny to see a sharp dressed man sleeping on a couch, his head slumped to one side, his mouth lolling open. Makes 'em seem vulnerable and sad, instead of misogynistic and adulterous.

Of course, one could argue that I'm just as ridiculous, nursing my single cafe Americano for four hours while I pass judgement, I mean blog, on my surroundings. At 3,300 won each, I believe that works out to about 825 won per hour of Internet usage, which is far more expensive than blogging at home. But not nearly as interesting.