My shadow stalks me at night in artificial light.

Taxidrivers are manic and their service is practically free.

I hung out with this guy tonight and his amazing camera.

Its 1:47AM.

Someone is housing cups of black soil in the bathroom - nothing grows.

It is cold.

Aboriginies on ice.

So some Russians stole some ceremonial dance moves from the Australian indigenous after watching it on YouTube or something. Anyway, they've made this ice skating routine based on the traditional Aboriginal dance that everyone is talking about, complete with dark costumes adorned in paints, and red loin cloths, etc:



I don't know about you but I find it vaguely amusing the extents to which people can exploit the indigenous. Not in a HAHA way but in a kind of ironic way.

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY WEEKEND.

Friday, you wake up and go to the gym. When you're done you sit at a Dunkin' Donut alone and eat two donuts, one glazed one sugared, along with a latte, you immediately regret the sugared donut.
For some reason you're in a good mood and back at your place your housemate comes up to visit. You sit together in your room, hes on your computer and you make fun of his hair. He says he needs to cut it and so you suggest he lets you shave it into a Mohawk for fun.
He agrees so you go downstairs to his room and shave it. You go shopping together and are amused at Korean peoples reactions to a big white guy with an angsty Mohawk.
You help him buy some shoes and then eat at a Canadian place called Yaletown. You order onion rings for the appetiser but they serve you wings which tasted good anyway. You eat a burger and go home to get dressed to go out.
You wear a white top with a black skirt and your friend jokes about how he can not only see your nipple but the whole areola. You put on a coat and a red scarf and catch the bus to a suburb called Hongdae. You meet the crew upstairs in a kfc. Before you go to a restaurant and watch them eat BBQ. You shoot soju.
You go to Karaoke. Everyone is drunk and you try to sing Kiss by Prince but no one there really likes it so you're singing on your own and you butcher it.
You go to zen bar, theres about ten of you and you order a bottle of tequila. You eat cake and the DJ plays a happy birthday song. You and your friends girlfriend start ordering rounds of tequila, two at a time because they only cost $1.50, you have at least 8 more shots and you're dancing with your friends girlfriend.
Its time to leave and you're catching a cab back to your suburb, your friend and his girlfriend go home and you're walking somewhere with a Korean friend. You pee in a public bathroom because you were complaining and then you make your friend buy you some gum that ends up tasting like disinfectant.
You go to a bar called 'the bar' where your other friends went.
Josh a creepy American-Korean guy you met last time you were in Korea who at the time asked if he could dress your face with make-up rocks up out of nowhere to say hi. Later he walks in on you while you're in the male toilets for undisclosed reasons. You laugh.
Downstairs you see the Colombian gangster you had a run in with last time you were in Korea. He's harmless - you hope. One of his friends tries to hit on you, you take his sunglasses, then throw them over the bar because you don't like them. The barman cant find them. You get a beer and sit at a table across from another Colombian gangster, a tall one, dark haired, gold earring. Your memory fades and you wake up at 3pm in your friends apartment.

You stay in bed for a further 3 hours. The two of you get up to get some food around 6pm. It's snowing. You try to eat but it tastes bad and makes you nauseous. On your walk home you eat a waffle with caramel sauce. Its good. You stop off at your gym to use the sauna because you are cold. It makes you feel better.
At home you get dressed while your friend and his girlfriend are waiting in his room.
You get a cab back to Hongdae and drink soju while you ride. You go to Zen bar again to see a Korean dude and his girlfriend. They order a bottle of Jack Daniels. You try to shoot it but it makes you sick so you drink Budweiser. Across the bar you eye the biggest blackest woman you done ever saw. You point her out to your friend.
They finish the Jack Daniels and 'maybe Ryan' is texting you because he wants to see you. You order a bottle of tequila and agree to meet later at gogo's.
The tequila is gone and you're leaving, behind your table as you get up you see the black woman. You walk over and say hi. Shes perturbed and wants to know what you want, so you tell her you like her and that she should make out with you. She laughs at you. You tell her to come to gogo's and shes walking behind you out of the club. Outside you harass her to kiss you, shes about to kiss your cheek when her boyfriend rocks up and she runs over to him. Hes holding her and you harass her some more. He says she'll do it if you make out with your friends girlfriend. You do. They say no. You leave for Gogo's
When you're there you see maybe Ryan, you don't like him so you dance with other people. You try to leave gogo's to visit a friend but maybe Ryan takes you to a bar. You listen to him complain about his life while you oscillate focus between his crooked nose and the bottom of a beer glass.
You shut him down and get a taxi to your friends place, the taxi driver likes you and he asks you to kiss him on the cheek goodbye. You oblige. When you get out of the cab it takes you 45 minutes to find your friends apartment because you got dropped off in the wrong place. Its freezing.
The next day you go home and eat Samgyopsal that your landlady prepared. Its delicious. You go to your room and watch the Divinci Code followed immediately by Angels and Demons while eating caramel popcorn and then go to sleep hating yourself for it.

KOREA AND QUITTING SMOKING

So. I've been very lazy, not really posting anything of substance for quite some time. However, these things happen, and at my defence I was working like a mule trying to save and get ready etc etc etc for my next point which is I'm in K-town aka South Korea where the kimchi is hot and I'm supposedly a "Russian prostitute".

Now, I've never really had the nous for many subtleties however one can't help but notice in a city of dark haired strangers that your snow white complexion doesn't exactly just blend in with the snow like you had hoped, especially when you're powering down the street alone smoking a cigarette. According to my French friend, who is king of cultural sensitivity, I am the white she-devil and the Ah-jo-shi's (old men/uncles) are going to burn me alive in the city square.

It is things like this that without the guidance of well informed expats I would have been blissfully unaware of. Another thing for instance, never has a Korean mentioned to me the similarities I share with that of the "Russian prostitute" however, it is approximately 80% of expats I meet here that bring the damn thing up - simply because I'm a blonde haired white woman. God bless them.

Apparently in the 90's during the downfall of the Soviet Union while Korea's economy was booming tons of Russian Prostitutes flooded into Korea selling themselves to the willing Ah-jo-shi's and tarnishing the name for my fair creatures indefinitely. And even though its not so bad now as it once was, apparently my quiet stroll up the street enjoying a smoke in the bitter cold is in fact my being crudely bold and obvious of my willingness to partake in all manor of sexual exploit. Great.

This brings me to my third point; quitting smoking. On the way through to Korea from Australia I had to transfer in Malaysia. Excellent I have time, I'm quite desperate at this point, I'll partake in the purchasing of a carton of super cheap cigarettes to take into Korea. However, low and behold, as I'm practically tearing the card with my teeth in the smoking lounge of the airport, packets tumble out with grotesque visual anti-smoking propaganda. That's cool, I can handle it, regardless if its 100 times worse than in Australia.. I'm a big girl, I'm aware of these outcomes.

Roll on new years eve and the subsequent celebrations that carried on for three days as crew here took the party to an other city, hotel rooms and a beach side condo, drinking, having fun, smoking etc. etc. There is one thing in particular that I'm quite fond of here and that is their drinking culture. It's huge. However, its done quite differently to Australia, with most drinking done while enjoying a meal. This is all good and well, where it not for Soju, a liquor of unmitigated horror, where you can party for three days in another city and not remember a thing, and unfortunately it often goes hand in hand with smoking ridiculous amounts of cigarettes, should you be a smoker. Come Monday when I wake up back in my room feeling a little worse for wear, I swallow to discover my tonsils and sore and swollen, sitting at my desk I turn to see a life sized blistering cancer consumed mouth my friend had torn from the side of the carton when I arrived to point out its repugnancy.


I intend to quit smoking.








Australia vs. Malaysia












....and this guy because I thought it was cute.