This Past Weekend

Normally, this is the kind of story that would go in the book about the sheer possibilities of life in terms of what can happen to you when you go to East Asia to teach English, but I’ve decided to go a slightly different direction and put it here instead:

The plan was to wake up in the middle of the night on Friday night, go into town, have a couple of pre-bus drinks, and catch the bus to Busan. It was a friend’s birthday that weekend, and we had organized a road trip to that beautiful city on the water in Southern South Korea—famous for its sushi. I had managed to wrangle myself a gig, so that Saturday we would take the bus down to Busan, do whatever, Saturday night I would play a show (a little guitar and singing action), and Sunday we would go to the beach. Awesome.
We all met at the scheduled time (3:30am) at the scheduled place (MJs in Chungdae, Chungmun, Cheongju, South Korea… REPRESENT!!!), and everything was going fine. The sun started to come up and we decided to take off in the heavy mist of the morning. We had been playing pool, and part of the reason we were leaving is because one of the people we were playing pool with had been getting hot-headed and saying stupid things (mainly because he had been losing), so we thought it best if we just leave. I went to go say good-bye to the owner who was a good friend that hosted Cheongju’s open mic night (loving labeled Acoustica), and when I turned around I saw my friend get hit in the face. I don’t think our hot-headed friend realized what happened, and, to be honest, neither do I, but before the situation could be sorted out, all 6’4” 275lbs of me was on top of him, smashing his face into the ground telling him to cut it out, or we would seriously stop it. When I got off him I could tell he wasn’t done, so I picked him up like a baby and repeated the… um… threat. When I put him on his feet, you could tell he was still upset, but having experienced the ease with which I had dealt with his feeble British body, he decided to stop. We wandered off into the morning, one of us with a wobbly tooth and blood coming from a fat lip.
So, we proceeded to get shockingly drunk. It is what it is, they say. It certainly made the four-hour bus ride on a bus built for Asians more tolerable—most of which we slept through.
We arrived in Busan, secured accommodation (always take care of the essentials first), and then our little group split up. There were three boys and two girls, and we were only barely acquainted with each other, which meant that we had different agendas. One of the girls had a friend in Busan, she managed to contact him, and he had met them at the bus terminal. So, the three of them headed off on their adventure, and the three of us headed off on our own. They went to a temple, and we went hiking to a temple/hermitage.
I love hiking. There will never be a time in my life, I’m pretty sure, when the shocking beauty of nature is not the most pacifying moment of my existence. Where we walked has some of the best views of Busan that I have ever seen, and we all stood in awe for some time, marveling. Then, we made our way back to the cable car that would take us the rest of the way down the mountain. The cable car takes you about two-thirds of the way up the mountain—meaning that you have another two hours of walking (or so) to get to the top, but also meaning that it is about a four hour walk up and a two and a half hour walk down. The problem was, of course, that we had no idea which way “down” was AND it was getting dark. What to do? Fortunately, god-given Koreans that owned a restaurant near the cable-car departure at the top decided to help us out. This was interesting, as we had seen cars on top of this mountain, but we had often wondered how they got up there. Let’s just say that it involves one helluva lot of off-roading. So, the three of us went four-wheeling in a Land Rover a Korean couple that looked as if they were easily in their sixties. It… was… awesome, and we figured out how they get the cars up there.
When we got down, two of we three went to the spa—one person decided that he had been to the spa once and had seen enough penises then to last him a lifetime. Korean spas are separated into male and female and the rule is complete nakedness. Having spent most of my adolescent years showering with my wrestling team, this didn’t present much of a problem, and our other companion was a man from China—where they have similar institutions. The gigantic spa attached to the Nongshim Hotel in Busan is one of the greatest and most relaxing experiences I ever get to have. Love’s it.
But, it was getting quite late by now and I did have to play a show after all, so we went back to the hotel, collected our traveling companion, rejoined our other companions, and we all wound up at a very special place near Busan University called The Basement. This beautiful little spot (“A place devoted to subterranean living”) is, aptly, in the basement of a building, and the owner is a westerner from Syracuse. I played my set, it went pretty well, we all had some fun, and the owner invited everybody that was left in the bar out to eat—granted, this was very late at night and there weren’t that many people, but still… it was a very nice gesture, and he took good care of us. Call this a reckless plug for the Basement in Busan… GO THERE! Tell them Eli from Ochang sent you and you’ll get taken care of, believe me.
(There is a short bawdy story involving one member of our merry crew (not me), but this story is best left for another space.)
After stumbling home, we managed to pass out in our rooms and a-wait the dawn of the new day. We were going to the beach, but we had to get supplies first. So, we went into the equivalent of Wal-Mart Supercenter: Tesco’s Home Plus. We bought towels. Okay. I bought a capo for my guitar because I had managed to lose mine. This was a little bit unusual, as I had never before seen a music section in a Hope Plus, but okay. Also, I bought a set of stainless steel nunchuck’s from the sporting goods section… for the equivalent of $3.50. Yes, it was that easy. These things could easily level somebody’s head—thank god we didn’t have them Friday night—and I had bought them at Tesco’s for less than $5. I think that is the only reason I actually bought them.
The rest of the day was spent on the beach, laughing in the sun, wrestling, playing in the sand, walking through the water, and enjoying life. Towards the end of our stay, we decided it was time to sample the famous Busan sushi. For those who don’t know, sushi in America isn’t sushi. That’s what we call Gim-Pop—a rice roll (the California Roll, etc). Sushi is when I see the man remove two fish from the tank, watch him take them back to the kitchen, and return about three minutes later with sliced fillets on a bed of uncooked noodles. Freshest fish in the world. Delicious with sauce.
Well, we got so into the raw fish that we missed our bus home. Whatever, these things happen. So, we stayed another night in a hotel (a grand total of a $12 expense). We caught the first bus back in the morning and slept all the way to Cheongju. Then I got taken for a sucker by a cab driver, but was too tired to argue… because I was home.