Seoul II Seoul

The Story so far:

[7/17/2002 5:58:44 PM it's hot here but not as bad as i feared. the weirdest thing is there's no sky, only grey. smog of course, but the locals insist that it's just "fog". so it's hot but no sun beating down. it's the end of the rainy season so it can start pouring at any minute, though it's only rained once since we were here. our first day, we were walking through a winding outdoor market in walking distance from the hotel, filled with cheap clothes, tons of world cup gear, fruit, the odd car and scooter forcing its way through the pedestrians. suddenly drops began to appear. mel and i quickly bought a couple of umbrellas from a stall. meanwhile the merchants instantly kicked into action, rigging up a complex series of tarps to protect their wares, like sailors hoisting up sails. the rain hit hard, us under our brollies, navigating the ropes and tarps and people and vehicles. welcome to seoul.

[7/17/2002 5:51:39 PM
we're staying in the hilton, as luxury as it gets here. the literature requests that one not wear shorts in public areas of the hotel but i'm flaunting that as much as possible. when we arrived we were informed that we were scheduled to check in the day before. i calmly insisted they'd made a mistake, even as it dawned on me that i had fucked up, not taking into account the time change when i made the booking and that we were hitting seoul on sunday, not saturday. it seemed clear that they were gonna charge us for the no-show, basically 200 bucks down the drain, but i remained calm, protested that they'd made a mistake. the next day i talked to the asst. mgr. and repeated my story. the day after that a fax appeared in our room: no charge for the no show. i beat the fucking hilton, man....that felt great. meanwhile, they're still beating us: nothing's free, not even the coffee in the room.

[7/17/2002 5:43:16 PM
where do i start? my first indication that i was stepping into a different world started as the plane neared the end of its 11 hour journey. a video popped up on the tiny screens built into every seatback displaying two airline employees sitting side by side in airplane seats that were placed in a grassy meadow. with wide smiles and a goofy song, they began demonstrating exercises we could do in our seats to overcome the physical effects of the flight. i watched with sleepy bemusement as practically all the koreans on the flight thrust their hands in the air, twisted their heads around, moved this way and that way following along with the cheery video images. of course, i rested on my hands. no need to try and fit in anyway: i'm an outsider now, no doubt about that.