digging the summer from under my nails

School is back on. Summer is officially over--the free weeks, not the heat. We're still melting, bitching and moaning about the humidity, relying too heavily on air-cons and paparazziing our weekend adventures. The parties are back to being punctuated by days of desk-warming and repeat-after-mes to smooth away the engrish ingrained in the over-worked brains of Korea's youth.

I missed my students, my coteachers, my school. It's good to be back.

I miss summer already.

Beaches, mud, festivals, Beijing...the last few months have overloaded me with new friends, crazy visions and more dancing than even I thought possible (is that possible?).

International BBoy Championships, International Graffiti Festival, Seoul: July 3-4

Heading up to Seoul for a weekend with the girls, we watched poppers and lockers and breakdancers battle it out onstage while beats were delivered from some top djs from around the world. All of Korea's dance traditions were brought together in an amazing performance of popping, locking, traditional drumming, martial arts, breaking and even some fans to bring it all together. Best cultural display I've experienced in Korea.

We walked by a river where graffiti artists climbed ladders to tag their soul onto Seoul cement. We sipped coctails in the sky above the lights and noise of one of the great sprawl of the city. Our version of a funkified sex and the city weekend--just Seoul instead of New York, flipflops instead of prada heels. Love my girl time.

Boryeong Mud Festival: July 17-19

A soju-filled bus ride delivered our crew to the West coast waters of Daecheon beach in the middle of the night. Small town, huge waves, loads of white people. We crammed into over-booked, under-cooled motel rooms, two on the floor, two on the cement bed. Shared our bunks with mosquitos. Woke up to rain, wind, and giant waves. Didn't stop us from finding the mud. We slid, wrestled, hosed and painted. Walked around in wild colored war paint--intox and detox all at once, hail the amazing powers of Boryeong mud. Rode waves and fought to survive and celebrated our exhausted triumph with 30+ bottles of makoli the restaurant owner kept going and purchasing from the store for us. Woke up to a sunny day and kissed our dirty bodies goodbye to return to inland civilization.

Pohang Fireworks Festival: July 25-26

Five of us cram into a car late Friday night and roadtrip up the east coast in search of the penis park. We stop in several small, dark towns, knock on doors of minbaks (guest houses), are turned away no-room-in-the-inn style (poor Mary, how we empathize), and finally end up on a cliff about a small port town in a shining-esque motel with an empty front desk and a vending machine for room keys. Not sure about the size and worth, we snag a key left on the desk and sneak into a room, crumpled from the one-hour bookings notorious in rumors of Korea's seedy hush-hush sex scene. Whack in our 50,000won, three in bed, two on floor, giant splooge stain next to me on the headboard (lovely reminder of what awaits us in the morning...). The coast is beautiful, the penis park is hilarious. An actual park like many others, with traditional pagodas, shrines, yet this one is teeming with phalluses--including a ten foot penis statue we all rode like a bull and a moving penis cannon. Also including a recreated whore-house with a man pile-driving a woman in a room scattered with old currency, a man in the next room counting it all up, and a little boy peeking in on them through a window. All with unnecessary detail. The visiting Koreans laughed just as much as we did. Conservative culture my ass.

We left for Pohang, in time to spend a bit of time with the crew on Bukbu beach-ee. Posco, the steelworks factory that juts out across the right side of the beach, usually offers little more than an industrial rape of the scenery and the potential development of a superpower for all of us who swim in its toxic waters. But this weekend, Posco offered an explosive celebration to make any July 4th display jealous. 87,000 fireworks set off in one hour. Massive. Four countries were competing with their displays, Korea, of course won (we all thought Japan deserved it, but that would NEVER happen here)and a bonus KPOP girl group performance. Thousands of Koreans crammed onto the river walk, streets, hills, all standing there, not oooing and aaahing at all. Just crammed, craned people, clapping when performances ended. Very un-Korean, considering their screams an wails even at seeing someone cute on the screen in the classroom.

Required night of Pohang makoli revelry brought us back to Bukbu, where late night swimming and dancing in the sand led us into the morning. A beautiful, explosive weekend in so many ways.

Jisan Rock Festival: July 31-Aug 2

Early Friday a few of us bused up north to the mountain resort of Jisan. Instead of a ski lodge, the valley had been converted to camping rock festival and cancun spring break. Away from straight-line, back-to-back tent city, people set up camp in every odd bit of land they could grab in the trees. We staked our claim in a flower bed, sleeping in the tiger lilies and a forest filled with spiders. We beat the heat in the giant pool they had built at the bottom of the ski slopes (massive!!!) and rolled and battled on giant inflatable toys when we weren't sipping mojitos (REAL lime and mint!!!) poolside. Saw some amazing Korean bands that didn't play Kpop. Got up front and rocked out to Belle and Sebastian, Vampire Weekend (BEST), Massive Attack, Pet Shop Boys, and others. Spent three glorious days rocking out in the ROK: great DJs, danced like wild animals with the fire dancers at the Poi Stage, painted faces and bodies, buckets of tequila, foam dance tents and more. Made poetry in a creek with a bunch of amazing Koreans. Bailed on the midnight bus home to stay another night for the best treasure: I stumbled upon a circle of Koreans in the empty main stage field. We grew to about 25 for a Monday morning sing-along, our harmonies boosted by the free end-of-festival booze and the charge still pulling us through the weekend.

It was a very crunchy Monday, all of us traveling home, wordless, brain-dead. Amazing.

Beijing: Aug 3-10

One week in Beijing was not enough. We passed through metal detectors and saluted Mao at the beginning and end of our trip, heralding our pass into "communism." China felt less communistic than Korea--it was full of diversity, nasty bathrooms, bums on the streets, and people eager to rip us off if we weren't the wiser (lucky for me, I am a wiz at haggling ^_^). We stayed in a nice hotel if you ignored the sewage smell that would creep in and the fact it was so hidden every taxi ride was a battle. We braved the subway, sometimes so packed you couldn't move to exit), taxis, buses. Navigated our way through hutongs, got our spirit on in temples, climbed the wall (scaled it, more like), smoked hookahs on rooftops, relived the olympic glory in the Bird's nest, ate duck (and I forced down jellyfish), dim sum, more tsingtao beer than I care to recall, haggled for tourist items that for once were appropriately made in china while scorpions writhed on sticks in snack street, saw pandas and got pissed about the big cat display, danced through the forbidden city in the rain...phew. Not all of it. Hardly.

    

My top two experiences in Beijing were, however, not listed above. My friend Sean had a friend-of-a-friend one time connect that, through the glories of facebook, saw we were going and met us there. Shanshan, our beautiful tour-guide into the secrets of Beijing. With her help we found ourselves at the finest and oldest 6-story (still had to wait) duck restaurant, a small family restaurant tucked between the skyscrapers of downtown, and to a big gay chinese birthday party Saturday night. We dressed in our beach gear for the theme, took shots of cheap chinese liquor and headed into a posh little apartment-cum-bar filled with half dressed, very hot men, caviar, dancing, little light up party favors, a cake with a penis, and plenty of suggestive smiles. 

 Gay parties are the same back in Kansas, if a little-less polished, a little less Asian-colored (do not mean to sound racist or insensitive, I promise. My friends from these circles will entirely understand) It was wild, ending in an over-packed, over-priced dance club where the men were too focused on their pairings to dance openly, so we left. What a riot of a night.

The other highlight of Beijing was when our group of four became two and Kevin and I, eagerly trying not to waste our last day, had an adventure searching out, and being rewarded by finding, the 798 Art District. We strolled through an old converted industrial section of the city. Factories-cum-galleries. Cafes in tree tops. The entire place was an interactive walk of eye candy. There were sculptures everywhere outside, from a giant train, giant Stalin heads, Giants in cages...it was awesome. We walked, climbed, touched, posed for an unimaginable amount of photos, and finally fled the head to a standing-only bus back to the city, back to the haggling of Silk Street. 

There's so much more to tell.  So much of the city we didn't even see. I can't believe we were going to try and cram both Beijing and Shanghai in one week.  Never would have worked.  So glad we stayed.  Kevin and I really lucked out having that extra day with all we were able to cram into it.

My impression of Beijing was one where past-present-future all collide into a wild and quite interesting study of humanity. The service was terrible, the bathrooms disgusting (I opted for the alley several times after walking in on 6-squatting shitting woman with no stalls to divide them), and we were melting and dripping in the heat the entire time, but we forgive these things, or add them to the flavor of the experience. Beijing was refreshingly diverse--clothing, body type, behavior, structure...It was impressively successful in its chaos.

Bag checks and cameras and metal detectors were constant reminders of regulation, but other than that, it was not the cold hard communist place people invision it to be.

Amazing week. Exhausting, dirty week. It was nice not getting stared at all the time, nice not feeling like a fat cow in a field of gazelles. But I was surprised I found myself very excited to be back in Korea, another land of plastic--but at least plastic smiles and toilet seat covers ^_^

Handsome Furs concert, Daegu: Aug 12

Another amazing night taking down Daegu with Gi and Kelly. Started with dance-juice in a bag (really strong stuff!) from vinaroo, then headed to a club: Teengirl Fantasy (DJ pair from Chi-town) and Handsome Furs danced us into the morning. I got to talk to them for a while at the bar (amazing stories to be shared, really cool people). The epic night (as they always are) ended with us passed out waiting for the am train on the steps of Lotte Dept. store. Laughing the hole way back to Gumi.

Seoul for skin and ska: Aug 14-15

So sick of rice. I miss bread and whiskey and the prairie, so I've got an ode to it tattooed on my back now. Went up to Seoul for the ink with Gi. Spent the day in a tattoo parlor with the boys of B2K (some old R&B group from Cali), watching WWF on one of their laptops. That was painful, the needles weren't.

Jisan reunions followed, catching the end of a Korean ska band and getting drinks with beautiful souls in Seoul. Ran into about 5 different people from the festival. The universe keeps running us into each other.

International Body Painting Festival, Daegu: Aug 29

One of the tamer festivals I've been to in awhile, full of Eye Candy, painted bodies, painted faces, painted nails. We sat on the grass and watched belly dancing, martial arts, norae, mamma mia shouts, and walked around to see the artists marking magic on naked bodies. Quite cool to see.

Followed by the usual Daegu revelry. After a vinaroo pitstop reunited me with some pohangers with paint, I found myself in a colorful crowd: I as an anime doll, with a pirate, a cow, a cherry blossom, some varicose-veined cheeks and a cat. We were about the only ones downtown at night with face paint, and a few odd looks would bring a reminder through the blur that we were quite a site that evening. Sunday brought the discovery of an English commune for hippy expats--a bookstore, organic cafe, clothes-swapping, yoga-teaching, drum-circling top floor of goodness. I will return.

Daegu Wants to Funk: September 4

Finally, a theme party worth getting dolled up for (though my Manhattan crew threw theme parties to put these expat-korean born dress parties to shame). BUT we got our headbands on, shiny tights, bangles, glammed and glittered up our faces and we ladies strut the town to meet at JEEEP (by far our favorite bar in Daegu). Thank you, my dear Mr. Sean Cridge who got the party to happen. Funk and disco ruled the night (except for an odd hour where a different dj took over for a bit. boo) and I am proud to say I lasted til 6 am in leather leggings and my 2nd night of heels in Korea. Smokin!

Three of us ended up in a makoli bar with some random koreans, enjoying squid and peppers and drinking from bowls until the sun came up.

There is an expat summer in-brief. So much more happens. There are too many quirky stories to keep up with, but here we are, celebrating, learning, living...mostly celebrating ^_^

Korea has been kind to us, and while we bemoan our lack of things from home, we revel enough to fill those holes. I make it a goal, everywhere we go, to get some kind of cultural event and some kind of partying in (usually heavier on the latter), and I'm doing a damn good job of it. Experience so much we can't even sleep.

I'm really happy here--a sustained happiness plateau that I've been riding for the past year or so. At this point, I don't feel like I'm doing much growing over here in Korea, just living and getting to know what it means to be a part of these different cultures--westerner, weagook, korean, human. Livin it UP! (And while I'm here, what better way to spend my time than enjoy it, eh?) We are the rockstars in this country--for the locals and expats alike. We gather and build and let loose a storm of excitement wherever we go.  Say kimchi.