Tall Tales From A Short Canadian

Hi,

While my photos will never do my experience of Beomeosa Temple justice, I am quite confident that some real gems await viewing on the two rolls of film I spent yesterday. All in all, this was the coolest thing I’ve seen in Korea so far. A 45 minute crowded subway ride and a 15 minute bus-ride up the mountain led me to one of the most reknowned Buddhist sites in Korea. I was immediately blown away by the mountain scenery. During the bus-ride, we gained a good deal of elevation, and despite the haze, I could see layers of mountains in the distance. The forest here was a real forest, with big, old-growth trees, mostly pines and gigantic bonsai-looking trees. I even saw two or three new species of birds, altough they evaded my pentax admirably. The temple itself was spectacular. It was kind of cool to see all these (sometimes vain and superficial) Koreans in their tight, google-getting clothes, high-heels, and make-up, getting right down and reverent in front of all the Buddha statues. I laughed at one point when a family entered a temple. Their shoes were parked neatly outside the temple doors, and at least one or two pairs were flashing (yeah, some of the shoes have light-bulbs here–a truly impressive and crucial improvement to footwear). It was a neat contrast.

Anyway, after googling (my word-of-the-month) with awe all of the lower temples, I decided to head up the trail behind the temples where I saw many Koreans, dressed as if they were about to ascend major peaks, heading up a rocky but well-marked trail. I followed. About twenty minutes up, I came to an off-shooting trail, and followed it. It brought me to a whole different temple set. Again, I hope my pictures work out, because this place was what my interest in Asia has always been about. Not only were the architecture, art, atmosphere, and altitude all awe-inspiring, but throw into the mix a chanting monk with a drum, a lack of tourists, bells bobbing and bonging in the mountain breeze, and millions of tiny lit candles glowing from several rocky apertures, and you end up with another world entirely. I sat outside of the main temple for close to an hour, listening to the singing monk and the chimes and admiring the rocky peaks around me. It was so refreshing to see a different side of Korea. Generally, it is the commercial side of Korea that screams endlessly into your senses here. And man, is it ugly! But this… this was priceless. I can’t wait to go back. Actually, I fully want to do a temple stay at this or another temple.

Anyway, I hope the pictures I took will turn out. I cannot wait to post them, but am still awaiting my first real paycheque before I can afford it. There were so many golden Buddha statues in all of those temples, ranging from miniature to monolithic, but I couldn’t with clean conscience bring myself to aim something clumsy and mechanical at representations of the Awakened One. I had many great photo opportunities involving monks and nuns going about their daily business, but elected not to take them either. I felt very anti-Buddha even carrying a camera around in place where people essentially work every moment of every day to detach themselves from cravings and habits. Cameras seem like extensions of man’s craving, craving to possess and control. As soon as you photograph something, it loses its Suchness, it becomes a representation of a representation… Ok shut up, Steve.

(I should add that I witnessed a Buddhist monk step out of his chambers and snap a picture of himself with a digital camera so as to assess how he looked. Hand-mirrors became obsolete here with the rise of digital cameras and cell-phones. Korea really is a land of contrasts).

So, having a bunch of poisons still knocking around inside of me, I decided to continue my ascent of the mountain. I was wearing old skate shoes and a casual jacket. Most of the hikers I passed eyed me with curiosity and disapproval, especially when they took into account that I was not wearing hiking boots, didn’t have gloves, knee-high socks, a hiking staff, or gortex of any kind. Was I crazy?! No. The trail was nearly as well-trodden as a city sidewalk, but these Koreans love their outdoor gear almost as much as their haendupones (hand-phones). And shit, they did look better than I did! So on and on I went, always up, until I hit the apex of the trail. Cool! I’d made it to Geumjeong Fortress, which I’d read about but actually had no intention of getting to today. I don’t know the whole history of it, but it consists of Four Gates (one of which you can see in my photo album) and a kind of down-sized great-wall-of-china type thing snaking along the hills and mountains. I cursed the smog, which was obscuring an expansive view of the valley below. The view I had, however, was still worth the hike. Had I continued, I could have visited more temples, seen more mountains, and viewed more of Korea’s largest fortress, but being out of shape and full of Friday’s toxins, I elected to enjoy a kimbap roll on a rock and begin to descend.

A family next to me (while I ate) googled (last time, ok?) me like I was an alien, or a freak-of-nature, perhaps. A kid, about 8 or 9 years old, exclaimed indiscreetly: “Yongoogin!”, which means British, or may mean anyone who speaks English (although I am usually refered to as “Megoogin”, which means American). He was going on about me and the family just stared and nodded. It made me wonder what it’d be like if this situation were reversed. Imagine: A lone Korean comes wandering into a heritage site in Canada and you’re sitting with your family having a picnic. “Look, it’s a Chinaman!” one of you shouts, pointing rudely, and you all just eat and stare. That kind of shit just wouldn’t fly back home. And yet, it is not uncommon here in Korea. Well, the little fucker wasn’t done with  me. When I dusted myself off and began walking towards the trail, the boy jumped up and said something to his family about  the Yongoogin, and started following me with a stick in his hand. He was just so loud and undisciplined (as I had been on Friday, come to think of it), and he was destroying the peace of mind I had achieved at the temple earlier. I raced down the trail, having fun bounding among the rocks, and the Korean boy, following at a distance, pretended to shoot me with his machine gun, as if he were playing the hunt-down-the-foreigner game (again, could we get away with that in Canada?). When I got around the bend and out of view, I seriously considered preparing myself to ambush the little puke, hopefully scaring him enough to make him piss his pants, but hearing the sound of his family not far behind him, and feeling all zen and shit, I decided to just go on with my day.

I went back to the second temple and tried to regain my peaceful feeling, but my brain was messy, and so I just went back down to the main site, snapped a few shots of the pagoda there, and jumped into a packed bus with the other sardines. While exhausting, the day was a big hit for me. I can’t wait to spend a weekend with those quiet, bald, introspective monks sometime.  

Sunday stands in great contrast to my Friday night. Following a dinner with friends, I had ended up at a  local, mostly expat bar call “Starface”, where for $15 you can drink all you want till 3 AM. A three piece band (consisting of good looking, scantily-clad Korean women… not nearly as hot as you, though, Nic!) kicked off the night playing pop melodies on violins and cellos, and they were followed by a tight jazz-blues fusion band. Great night, but oh the price! All weekend, my polluted brain had my Buddha-Nature lost in smog!

BEOMEOSA

GEUMJEONG

Happy Chinese New Year,

Tee Cha Su Tee Bun

Above: HAEUNDAE BEACH, my current front yard.

I really don’t have a ton to write about today. I’ve just been busting my ass lately trying to teach a room full of snarling kindy-beasts a play that we have to perform in front of a bunch of parents in less than three weeks. So far, the little buggers can’t even pronounce half the words in the script, so you can imagine how much fun I’m having with it! Talked to Nic today (as I do every day), and we tentatively plan on getting her here in time for Valentine’s… assa!

I just wanted to alert people to the fact that in my album there are now a handful of pics… nothing special, but you can see my very small apartment, my beach (Haeundae) on an unusually cloudy day, as well as Gwangali Beach. They looked grainy, as mentioned before, so I tidied them up in Photoshop and shrunk them down. I have since taken many pictures in a place called Dongbaek Park (where an APEC meeting took place months ago, featuring greats like Paul Martin, George Dub’uh’yoo, and many other world leaders; apparently the Koreans held major anti-Bush riots both here and in Seoul during it all), and I will use my time this (LONG!) weekend to go into the heart of Busan to catch some pictures of Russian sailors brawling in the streets or something equally exciting. I may even go to Beomosa, which is Busan’s Big Buddhist temple site, located way up in the mountains (yet still accessible by subway!?).  If I do, I’ll post some great pics after I get paid (I can barely afford instant noodles right now, let alone photo development)… Think February 8th, or so.

Below is a picture of my apartment, taken from the beach. It just gives you an idea of my proximity to it. Mine is the middle building in the last picture. The words on the side of the building, written in Hangul, say “Ku Ree su Tall Beechee (meaning Crystal Beach), home of whip-weilding Kindergarten Ringmaster and occasional Fire-eater, Su Tee Bun!”

My shitty albeit free apartment…

Gwangali Beach below. It’s just a few subway stops up the coast.

Dongbaek…

Don’t me get wrong. I LOVE Canada, especially my snug mountain valley and its beasts, and of course, I love many Canadians very much. But . . .

One of my worst fears has come true. Stephen Harper, whom I have passionately disliked since I first saw the weiner on television, is the Prime Minister of Canada. I lived in Alberta, amongst the Wannabe-American Earth-Suckers. They love Harper there. Look out Canada, especially gay and lesbian Canada and members of the Canadian Armed Forces. Remember who was furious that we didn’t run up and lick Bush’s balls when he wanted us to follow him on his Blood-for-Oil conquest? Stephen Fucking Harper. Stephen red-neck corporate-puppet looks-like-a-Jehovah’s-Witness-and-lacks-charisma-entirely Harper. I am terribly ashamed and in disbelief. Sure the Liberals did some fucking up! But at least we had a leader who stood up to Bush during the Iraq War. And who dwarfed Bush and stood amongst the world leaders with poise, and a sense of diginity and confidence. Now the weasel Stephen Harper will re-align Canada with the Bush Administration. Canada will become an American lapdog. Canadian soldiers will follow America into meaningless money-making wars. Good ole Protestant ethics (you know, like gays and lesbians are god-darned evil!) will mix with politics like they do with them Suthern Republican buggers, and our country will go to shit. I don’t trust him. I believe he is in allegiance to the Bush Administration, and has been all along, which ties him to a force bigger and more destructive than we can even imagine. I hesitate to call myself a Canadian. I can’t believe you elected him (yeah, YOU! Okay, not you, but YOU!)! It’s embarrassing.

Okay, well, now that my political rant is over, I would like to write as briefly as I can about a chance encounter I had on Sunday while strolling along the raw fish street at the end of Haeundae Beach. I cannot say the man’s name, as he imparted very confidential information to me. He was a Korean chap of roughly my age, and he was either a bit drunk or a bit crazy. Anyway, he asked me where I was going. My plan had been to walk around Dalmaji Hill to the next beach over to see if indeed people surfed there regularly, which is what I have been told. Immediately, he started talking about God, alien races, and the state of disease the world is in, all very passionately, with a profusion of multilingual swear words and animated gestures. His English was a bit unconventional, but it made him seem all the more poetic. Well, I was really hungover (maybe still mildly drunk from the night before) and so we hit it off very well. In fact, we seemed to share many of the same beliefs and sentiments regarding many subjects that are close to my heart.

We sat at a little picnic table between Haeundae Beach and Seonjeong Beach behind a military post and talked for hours (the soldiers have posts like this all along the coastlines to defend against attack from the sea by the North Koreans). The view was expansive and quite beautiful. It was so clear you could see a Japanese island, as well as miles of sandy coastline. After quite sometime, he told me in confidence (and here I am publishing the shit!) that he was constantly plagued with guilt for time he had spent serving the South Korean Army as a covert-operation sniper. On top of this, when he had returned from his sojourn with the Army, he found his wife was pregnant with another man’s baby. Anyway, it was a very heavy afternoon, and I felt quite privaleged to have received this man’s tale and company. The entire conversation had many spiritual connotations throughout. In the end, we shook hands, hugged, and called each other brothers. His family owns a sushi restaurant right on the beach, and I promised him that once Nicole gets here, we’ll be paying him and his restaurant a visit. About 10,000  won ($10) will get us stuffed with fresh, raw fish. Super good guy, this one!

Tomorrow is Math and P.E. day with my kindergarten kids. This is generally when the week starts to fall apart. It gets ugly in there: pencils, eraser bits, snot, tears, blood, and crayons flying like the debris of war. I’m serious about this.

Well, the habs are playing like shit and Harper is the new P.M., so I guess now is as good a time as any to be abroad. And as for you lucky snow hounds in the Kootenays: I fart in your general direction…

Peaceout,

Tee Cha Su Tee Bun

Dear readers,

For those of you unfamilar with the expression “assa!”, it essentially boils down to a big, fat “Yyyyessss!!!” in English. This is exclaimed by Koreans, especially children, during moments of elation (such as that experienced when they get candy from Tee Cha Su Tee Bun, when they beat their classmates in recreational or academic activities, or when they blow to fragments their digital enemies online). I have included it in today’s title, because, a few things aside, all is pretty bloody a’ight.

I saw a very polite, articulate doctor today who told me that she did not believe I have scabies, mites, lice, crabs, or any other parasitic problem (this deserves the biggest “assa!”). And sure enough, since taking the allergy medicine she prescribed for me, my itch is almost a thing of the past. What’s more, my cough is nearly gone, the matter which I cough up is no longer black, florescent orange, or dark green, and my eyes begin to again twinkle with health and charm. I am also adjusting nicely to my new ‘hood, and to my job, and I guess a month or two is a pretty acceptable adjustment period for a dramatic change of livelihood and residence any way. 

Last night, I went out for a fun, low-key night of eating and drinking with three of the teachers I work with, two Koreans and a kiwi. One Korean is a wonderfully nice lady who is the key mediator and interpreter between the school director and the waygoogins (honkeys, foreigners, expats) at the hagwon, and the other is my home room kindergarten teacher (nice lady, funny as shit, and lately becoming quite helpful in the classroom). Hanging out with Koreans here is the way to go, because you really get the inside scoop on customs, good things to eat, where to eat ‘em, good substances to drink, where to drink ‘em, and if you’re fortunate, you may be introduced to enjoyable drinking games for becoming swiftly and efficiently drunk (fortunately, last night’s events never quite reached that stage). We left what is now beginning to seem like sleepy little Haeundae, and took the subway to Kyungsung, a nearby happening University district. Little did I realize that, while food and drink in Haeundae is cheaper than it is in Seoul, the rest of Busan has cheaper food and drink than either. We shared a huge, spicy chicken stew, which was mind-fuckingly good, four bamboo bottles of delicious, high-grade soju, a monster pitcher of maekjoo (that’s beer), a platter of fruit, french fries, and other goodies,  and crushed ice with berries and chocolate sauce. I was fretting a bit when it came time to tally up the cost, but my worries were easily dismissed when I was told I owed 12,000 won (about $13) for everything. Not bad! It was fun to get out to a little more of a hip area, to see some people (Kelly and I were pretty excited to see a lesbian couple on the subway– you’ll understand if you ever experience the cookie-cutter confucionist conformity of most of Korea), and to have some drinks. Another thing that is awesome about having Korean friends is you have so much time to practice your Korean. They love to help. Three hours of conversation last night did more for my Korean than weeks of studying my little indispensible Korean handbook.

While I understand my initial assessment of Busan was that it is colder, more remote, and just not as exciting or convenient as Seoul, my attitude has since done a 360 (with a tail grab, how’s about). Busan is better! Where I live honestly is beginning to feel like a resort town on the edge of a fairly big city, which I guess it pretty much is. Looking at a map today, after our beach and the other more remote beach past that, there really is nothing but rocks, waves, and squid-toting ajumas. U2, the bar which is located conveniently and dangerously below my apartment, feels a lot like the Farside (for those of you wondering: “What the fuck is he talking about?!”, you can replace the name ‘Farside’ with a familiar, comfortable small-town bar of your choice). The cool, chain-smoking  DJ named Joo (a name which translates as ‘booze’) downloads whatever song you want off the internet and plays it. Lately when he sees me come in (once or twice a week, tops!), he plays songs by the Sea and Cake, Pavement, and other great bands. I like that.

Seoul is a big, congested, polluted hive of nausea-inducing intensity compared to this (in my oh-so humble opinion). Busan is much more my speed. The people still push, shove, spit, scowl, and piss me off, but far less than in Seoul. Almost every day here, a Korean approaches me and offers to help me with something, whether I need it or not. Today, a well-spoken Korean guy helped me buy a mattress cover. An employee at this PCbang worked fervently for a half-hour trying to hook up a CD reader so I could look at my photos, and wouldn’t accept my money when he failed. The guy down the street gives me deals on these delicious berry-stuffed, deep-fried fish-shaped cookie things I’ve become hooked on. The expats aren’t as full of themselves here, either. They actually (usually) do say hello, whereas in Seoul, you were usually regarded by fellow foreigners with the same general disinterest that everybody has for one another there. Intimacy doesn’t come easy, I guess, in a city of 15-20 million. Busan is a manageable 5 million, although the population swells here in the summer by a couple million.

Check this interesting morsel of trivia out: Word has it that Haeundae beach is the second most popular (in other words, crowded) beach in the world (the most popular is in Rio De Genaro… I spell that right?). Anyway, I can’t remember if I mentioned this earlier, but an average of 1.5 million people visit the beach across the road from my apartment every day during the summer. Try to imagine what that will be like. It will be like everyone from Calgary, and half the people from Edmonton squeezing on to a beach together. It’s not that big of a beach! Apparently, the whole street is just a big party/rodeo/nightmare/circus/piss-up for two solid months… which’ll have its fun moments, I reckon.

As some of you may recall, I was always a bit possessive of my little home valley when the spring Albertan invasion began, and was greatly relieved when it subsided in the fall. This year, I have a feeling my experience will be similar, times about 200. Anyway, summer will be intense.

My shoe-box wonrum beckons.

Eatin’ lots o’ fish,

Tee Cha Su Tee Bun

Well, I haven’t had much to write at all of late, as I’ve been either A) ill, or B) working, or C) both at the same time. A new and irritating problem has arisen. I think it may be scabies. I itch like crazy. I was told that the blankets on my bed were new when I got here. Within a day or two I began to notice long, black Korean hairs in the bed. Shortly after that, I washed both blankets, but my leaky washer only runs on cold water (at least, it’s hooked up that way). Now, every night, I itch like fucking mad, and on top of that, I’ve just been really run down with phase nine or so of this Korean flu, or whatever the hell it is. Today, I confess, I’ve felt better than I have in ages. I had a happy hangover day. None of my  Kindergarten kids cried (yesterday I had a whole room of them crying and fighting–these young ones try my limited patience!), and going out and meeting people the night before was absolutely necessary and refreshing. But tonight, this itch is consuming me. What’s worse is that the only doctor I know around here is Korean and speaks no English, so while I could go in, mime my way through to him, I doubt he could do the same as far as diagnosis and treatment go. So until I find either a Korean doctor who speaks English, or a Korean to accompany me to the doctor, I will only itch. And itch. And maybe bitch a bit about itching. And teach. Yeah, teach and itch. Sorry if I sound like a bad nursury rhyme. I spend virtually all my time talking to foreign children or to myself.

Oh, and by the way… I got some pictures developed, and some were pretty good. However, when I viewed them at fullsize on a computer, They looked like absolute garbage. My camera has never taken bad pictures, so I don’t know if it can be blamed on the development, a dud roll of film, or my recently cracked lens hood. Regardless, I uploaded one lousy picture here of the view from the window of my mite-ridden apartment. It’s embarassing. But until I get some more pictures snapped, that’s alls I gots to show, yo.

Cheers.

Tee cha su tee bun

Anyoung,

My demon of a flu-bug is almost gone, with just a little residual cough left, although my stomach is having a very difficult time adjusting to all the rice and spice here. I’ve only settled for McDonald’s once since getting here, but I am considering it tonight. I’m all over the raw fish, but can’t really afford to eat like that all of the time… at least not yet. Just no more rice, please.

Koreans can be the biggest, rudest bastards, but they can also be incredibly helpful and friendly. Two days ago, I was walking past a bunch of Korean men sitting in a parking lot around a BBQ, getting drunk on soju and playing with a stray dog. One of them pulled out what looked like a real pistol, cocked it, and took aim at me. I started laughing at him, thinking it normal Korean humour, and half-expected a laugh from the gun-toter. Instead, his eyes bulging red, he muttered in Korean and kept the gun aimed at me until one of his friends finally scolded him to put it away. The guy with the gun looked wasted, and not very pleased at my alien presence. Who knows? Maybe I almost took one in the chest.

The overworked Koreans vent at PC bangs, such as the one I am in at present. All of them are giggling maniacally and blowing holes in digital enemies on their computers… and we’re talking twenty and thirty year olds. If I lived the life of a Korean male, with their stupidly intense schooling and mandatory two year army service, I’d smoke, drink, and cyber-fight heavily, too…. maybe. One of my kids told me to fuck off in Korean yesterday, and another called me a dog-baby (equal to son of a bitch in English). I learned these expresions my last time here. I schooled ‘em the best I could, becoming as fearsome as possible (for such a chill and personable guy). So far, all of my classes are very good, as I’ve set the standard of behaviour early. These two classes are a little tougher, though, and a couple of students seem immune to my military-style punishment. I finally had to cry for help from a Korean teacher once yesterday. Amazing. The little shits respond immediately to a Korean face, male or female. Oh well… Like I said, most of my classes are good. It’s the bad ones I get paid the Big Won for, I suppose.

Koreans can be so helpful, too. Over-the-top helpful. Today, I put some change into the ticket machine at the Subway. It ate my change, and I was about to spaz because I didn’t have any more change. A guy came over, pulling someone official along with him, and told the man my problem on my behalf. They both helped me get my ticket. Shortly after that, while waiting for my train, some Korean dude tried kicking off a conversation with me. I told him, in Korean, that I didn’t really understand Korean, and added, in Korean, that I was from Canada. My Korean must be getting better, because when I say these things to them, they babble on in Korean thinking I understand more than I do. Any way, I asked him if the train that was arriving went to Haeundae (my stop–my BEACH), and he went way out of his way to walk me to the correct exit and make sure I was pointed in the right direction before heading back down to proceed to his own home. In Seoul once, I had a drunk business man try to hold my hand all the way home (literally, kind of… male’s are pretty touchy here), even running a long distance back to tell me that the subway was closing, and to help me hail a cab. So yeah, these Koreans can be pretty damned helpful, which is a nice change from the usual cold dislike or disinterest you generally get from them.

So for now, my Pity Party is over, and I’m starting to get into the rhythm again. Pics coming very soon!

Tee Cha Su Tee Bun

Good news: There has been less and less blood in my cough-matter over the last day and a half! I begin to feel better!

Bad news: Well, the expected: homesickness, culture shock, loneliness, that whole business.

Our plan is (tentatively) to stay here in Korea for at least a couple of years to pay off debts and save money. Today, I’m thinking if I get to the end of my contract, it’ll be a small miracle. Some days I love Korea, others I hate it. But honestly, being here solo, in a city one quarter the size of Seoul, is harder than I thought. There are, it seems, far fewer expats. A lot of the expats here do the same as they did up in Seoul: drink. Man, people here get sauced, regularly. Now I like a beer as well as the next guy, but I don’t want this year (or more) to be a big, nauseous blur. I want  to leave with my wallet bursting, in good form, good health, and a good frame of mind. Only two weeks in, and I am adopting other strange coping mechanisms. My CD-player does a good job of insulating me from the constant noise and alien bantering, but God have mercy, I only have 4 discs, and I’ve played them to death. I sing out loud in public to drown out the noise. I eat lots, and constantly drink instant coffee (which you can get out of dispensers everywhere you go for about 40 cents a pop). I talk to myself, openly, in public and in private. I obsessively read all the Korean signs around me, correctly forming words orally that have absolutely no meaning for me. All in all, I need a routine, lest I go irreversibly mad.

My classes begin again tomorrow, which I actually look forward to, in part simply because I will have interaction, with students and other teachers. I would like to join a gym but A) I have some health issues that make working out unpleasant and B) the one local gym I’ve found out about in Haeundae costs about $150 a month… Pffffffff! I’d like to get into a Korean language class or something on weekends, and then maybe attend Buddhist lectures or something (I found some in English on Sundays… a long trip from here, though). I’d like to get into a band, for sure. I’m planning a full length feature film, a musical, so I’ll need a good camera. Come summer, I’ll be set up for weekends. There is a slightly quieter beach near my school where you can surf, windsurf, rent jet-skis, etc. Apparently, for an annual fee of about $700, you can have free access to all of it, so that sounds good. But winter? Still 3 more months of the shit to go! Hurry up summer. Hurry up Nic!

My New Years Eve party:

Well, perhaps you’ll laugh, or maybe you’ll end up depressed, but check out my New Years Eve… After a day of sitting in a PCBang (the one I’m in now, in fact) surfing around looking for things to do in Busan if you don’t speak Korean, I returned home and read my fat epic fantasy novel. I took a few pictures on the beach, but it was cloudy. I ate ramyon for supper, again. Finally, around 5pm, I said “fuck it!”, I didn’t care how sick I felt, I was going to do something. SO I jumped on the subway and went to Gwangali beach. Felt like complete crap, but walked around and took some pictures. Some young local had carved a giant Buddha head out of sand, so I took what I hope turn out to be some pretty sweet shots with the lights of Gwangali bridge and various neon lights and circus rides in the background. This got me a public scolding from a reverent old Korean man. I actually felt quite bad, and slipped away sheepishly. When I looked back, flashes were going off like Bagdad around the sand Buddha head, so I didn’t feel so bad. Jumped on the subway. Went back to my quiet, sick-smelling apartment, and again, read. Nicole called me at about 11 just as I was falling asleep. Heard some fireworks shooting off at the turn of the hour and year. Stayed awake till 12:30 watching a Buddhist program in English about how we’re all going to essentially rot. Sat up and coughed violently a bit, and then went to sleep.

whooo      wooohoo                         happy new year

Tee Cha Su Tee Bun

ps photos coming soon……………………………………………………………………..