Megabot

Holy Mechanical Museum, Batman!

I would consider myself a fairly avid museum patron. I've been to the Louvre, the Guggenheim, the Musee d'Orsay, Tate Modern, Reina Sophia...yadda, yadda, Prado. I have even been called a "friend of the arts" ( although, it's an admittedly shallow relationship based primarily on schmoozing and eating hors d'oeuvres with pinkies out; it's not like the arts ever call me at home or invite me over for dinner).

However, in all my years of wandering through these great echoing marble halls of canonized genius, gazing upon the artistic achievements of human skill and creativity, falling piously silent in the presence of captured perfection, still one question has remained. Where are all the robots? That question has now been answered.

While out exploring an unknown corner of Seoul, 3 friends and I found ourselves looking up in reverent astonishment at the foot of The Seoul Robot Museum. This sacrosanct reliquary housed a collection of priceless masterpieces to match any of the esteemed galleries of Europe. Ok- well, maybe not, but it was still wicked cool. The visit began with a bit of philosophical aperitif about man's insatiable desire to create life. These deistic tendencies have, throughout modern history, spawned such miraculous creations as Pinnochio, Frankenstein, C3PO, AstroBoy and Al Gore. All, with the exception of the last, of whom were proudly on display under glass...Al Gore had his own special room.

We spent a few hours touring through the exhibit which included everything from a first edition copy of the "Wizard of Oz" (...ahem, Tin Man, Robot) to the hamburgers and french fries transformer toys from McDonald's HappyMeals, now evidently priceless collectors items. I used to have the complete set...I think I melted them down with a magnifying glass one sunny Saturday afternoon.

So lessons and cultural experiences gathered from this last outing: The word "robot" came from a Czech term which means "forced labor," and comes from Karel Capek's play "Rossum's Universal Robots" translated in 1923. Robots are the natural evolution of human theological progress and physical laziness. And, finally, HappyMeal Toys are not the worthless cheap pieces of plastic my mother always told me they were.

Robots serving smaller hamburger-shaped robots...interesting.

Dublins, the Only Irish Pub in Seoul. If you squint you can pick out Sean (gray hat), Beth (pigtails) and John (black baseball cap) in the upper-right

St. Patrick makes an appearence in Seoul. Craic!

Shamrock in Seoul

What is less Irish than Samuel L. Jackson?...South Korea.

But that wasn't enough to hinder the small but raucous Irish community of Seoul (which is to say, any white ex-pat looking for an excuse to drink Guinness and sing along to Van Morrison) this past St. Patrick's Day. A couple friends and I counted ourselves among the Celts, if not by ancestry then by alcophelia, and put up our frothy pints of Guinness along with the rest of the rowdy rugby hooligans that descended upon the ONLY Irish Pub in the city.

The Koreans never saw it coming. You could see the bewilderment in the eyes of those passing on the street. To them, this otherwise mundane Thursday night had suddenly fallen under the irrepressible presence of Irish drinking songs, giant green leprechaun hats, mad fiddle music and incoherent accents. But for me, it was as memorable a St. Pat's as could be hoped for in a country were the only clovers you see come in Lucky Charms, and Samuel L. Jackson is still more Irish than the average Lee.

Making a break for it!

Outta' Seoul

This week our beloved Seoul English Village was shut down by the city government, which in and of itself is something I like to off-handedly mention because it makes us sound like some kind of espionage multinational exposed in a government sting operation. I'll let all of your imaginations run wild with that and move on to chronicle my adventures of the past 3 days.

Sprung from the confines of the SEV compound we had one mission in mind: Get the hell outta' Seoul. 3 friends (who's names have been changed to protect their identities) Bith, Saen, and Jomes and myself skirted town and headed out on a bus to the east coast, Sokcho and Seuraksan Mountain. Loaded down with only essential gear: books, CD's, wine and m&m's, we arrived on the coast around 6:00pm with snow-covered peaks on one side and a sandy stretch of beach on our other. We crashed at a off-season Beach "Condotel" with heated floors, a balcony overlooking the ocean, and even a hairdryer in the Room!

The first night was spent exploring the off-season resort area, where we were the Only foreigners to be seen. Our presence grabbed the eager attention of many restaurant owners and shopkeepers who leapt from the floors of their restaurants to come to their big sliding glass doors and beckon us in. At this point we were hungry enough to order something off the menu without knowing exactly what it was. Some hot red spicy stew arrived with some kind of seafood floating in it. Halfway between sea-sponge and scrambled egg, it elicited some very interesting facial contortions. In the end we identified it as a somewhat phallic sea urchin we had seen in the huge tanks outside the restaurants. "Cha-chi mulgogi" in Korean (in Latin, "aquias-phallusius, or its common nomenclature "penis-fish")

Mmmmm....cha-chi mulgogi

Beach to Peak

Our second day in Seuraksan covered a wide span of geological and geographical areas. We began with cereal and Frisbee barefoot on the beach.

a little after breakfast disc

Then we headed for the mountain.

We road cable car up, taking in some incredible craggy views as the wind blew snow off the peaks in swirling dust clouds. The day couldn't have been more perfect, with clear skies and a view from the top of mountain all the way to the ocean. The air was so incredibly fresh it was like drinking cool clean water after only having hot flat soda for a month. 5 months breathing in the smog of Seoul my lungs practically stung with the altitudes sharp purity and thin atmosphere.

Way Up Top!

We hiked a bit to the precipice and called out over the valley "RIIIIICOLA!" then stopped for a coffee at a small lodge hut, staffed by a single man with a stately beard and mountain man eyes. We toasted our selves and then toasted our beers to our adventures, splitting a feast of kimbab and chicken skewers before heading back down to sea level.

Back at the foot of the mountain we came upon an enormous statue of the Buddha, which had appeared considerably smaller from the observation deck on top of the mountain. We bought a bottle of blueberry wine made fromthe wild berries that grew on the mountain, I can't resist the local organic produce. We then took a moment to stop on the arched foot bridge crossing to the Monastery and shared a round in four small paper cups, remembering of course to pour a bit on the ground as an offering, and a tribute to those back in Seoul. Then we entered the snow covered Monastery and poked around under the elaborate and colorful winged-roofed pagodas before heading back into town.

Wow, now that's one big Buddha

Silly Monk, you should know better

Snow in Sokcho

Our final morning came with a surprise. About 1 1/2 feet of snow covered our beachfront view. James and I bravely ventured out into the elements for supplies at the nearby family mart, trudging through the blizzard-like winds and snowy thigh-high drifts. We returned from our arctic trek with eggs, (soy) milk, bread and ramen, all the necessities for snowed in survival. We made a magnificent breakfast of scrambled eggs and improvised a couple recipes of french toast, one exceptional displayof culinary creativity incorporated Cookies 'n Cream Herseys Nuggets.

Hey, where'd our beach go?

Pic-nic on the bus back to Seoul

Heading Home

After cleaning up we decided to try to get back into town as early as possible to catch a bus back to Seoul. We began our journey through the tundra, a couple spontaneous snowball fights errupted, and more than one arm-flailing slips on the ice sending us all into bent over peals of laughter. However we slowly and cautiously made our way to the bus terminal, catching the 1:40 bus that creeped it's way along the slush-covered highway through the mountains back to the city. We claimed the back row of the bus and set up a feast of remnants left from the weeked stock: Kimbab, chicken skewers, oranges, a sashimi salad, dried seaweed and one warm beer. Then we sat back and watched as the conditions outside the foggy bus windows grew icreasingly temperate. By the time we reached Seoul the snow was gone, replaced by smog and asphalt. But it was a refreshing trip nonetheless. Definitely one to be repeated.

Korean Acting Debut

For all you who ever wanted to make it big in the Korean Television Industry, and I know many of you have had such glamorous aspirations, this is for you...you sick sick fools.

This weekend I drudged through my second day of filming for a public education English Television Program on Korean station EBS. Think PBS only exchange the "P" for an "E", then replace Mr. Rogers and the cast of Seasame Street with myself and hyper, over-animated Korean actors- aaah yes, now you get it. It's a recipe for wackiness...and learning.

I started my day at about 8:30 with 2 Korean women battering and smattering my face with enough powder to open a ski slope on my nose. Then filming the scenes began promptly at 9am, right on schedule...and by 9:02 that schedule was officially off. Setting up the lights, then adjusting the lights, then setting up cameras, adjusting the cameras, then waiting quietly to adjust the sound, then some more camera adjustments...oh and could someone fix that light...hey, why not another camera adjustment...No, you know what, let's reposition the shot entirely. Of course this was all transpiring in Korean, so I did my best impression of a wide-eyed oblivious doe and waited for someone to look at me, nod and say, "Ho- kay".

The scripts this time around were mercifully short and simple which made the actual filming of the dialogues pretty quick. We banged them out in only 3 or for 4 takes. Unfortunately, in between each of those takes was an obligatory 15 minutes interum of waiting uncomfortably ...then the "Stan-by"....wait for it, wait for it... (make awkward eye-contact with dialogue partner...smile and shift to avoid making further awkward eye-contact) aaaaand ..."Ku!" (Flawless Acting, Superb Performance) ..."Ho-Kay...one mo' time"

This lasted from 9am until 7:30pm when I finally finished my last scene at the Bank: "Very good sir, I'll need to see some I.D. if you don't mind. If you'll sign here, I'll get you your money." I was so convincing everyone in the studio whipped out their Korean Driver's Licsence on the spot and had pens ready to sign for cash.

HA! After such a long day I would have given it to them if it would have gotten me out of there sooner.