Bonfire of the Waeguks

Well, it was bound to happen sometime.

Although I can’t be too sure it was the first time while I was here, for at least the first time since the last time, my body decided that lying half-conscious was more important than doing anything on Saturday and we sailed right past the 12-hour sleep mark on our way to a 5 pm wake-up call.

Most of the reason was for this was that me and a friend were buying each other non-stop rounds of rum-and-cokes (at New York New York bar, no less!) in a rather pointless race to the bottom; I’m not sure if I ‘won’ the race, but I was dealt several rounds of disappointing news and at one point in the night I was sloppily making my way through curry pork, extremely upset, and had this wonderful conversation:

Me: Nobody likes me. I’m all alone in this world. November sucks.

Friend: If I didn’t like you, why would I be staying up until 4 am with you (listening to you whine)?

I had no rebuttal to this.

The next evening was considerably cheerier. Up north, at Iho beach (where the volleyball tournament was) was “Guy Fawkes” night, and there was a huge bonfire right beside the water.

Earlier, I also had my first chance to wander around for a bit along one of the main streets of Jeju city. Although it is still an incredibly ugly city that is done no favors by cloudy weather, I must say I was impressed by some of the western-style shops and restaurants. Jeju is the place to go for good non-Korean food, and I’m not just talking about the Outback Steakhouse.

Among the ‘discoveries’ I made:

*Zapata’s, a quasi-authentic Tex-Mex outlet with a big tv playing soccer and salsa music in the background. Of particular note is their ‘tortilla pizza’, and perhaps just the fact that their salsa tastes like salsa can be considered a major accomplishment.

*La Vie, a tiny tiny (like REALLY REALLY tiny) hole in the wall, behind a hotel and next to a playboy bunny ‘business club’, which has some of the best hamburgers (apparently) on the island. I wouldn’t know, I had a salami and cheddar cheese sandwich, which was very delicious (the thick-cut salami was very meaty). The owners are married and speak good English, and the place is decked out with lots of wood and it feels very zen and hippie in a rustic kind of way. There were three foreigners with me when I was there playing the guitar and trying to come off as laid-back cafe musicians (they did).

*Tom and Tom’s coffee, a fun but overpriced venue that also specializes in fresh pretzels and strange bread ‘sensations’, like this giant mound of ‘sweet potato’ bread topped with whipped cream. Perhaps another time.

Also, I still need to make my way to one of the two recommended Indian restaurants up north, Raj Mahal and Baghdad’s. One of them is said to have excellent naan. I hope to find out soon.

Back to bonfire night: although the party wasn’t quite as ferocious as I’d hoped it was going to be (some idiot did try and jump the fire, and managed to not face the consequences), we did burn a bunch of pictures of Cameron (the British PM) and it turned out to be a fun meet-and-greet. I gave a friend a 5000-note for a beer run and he came back and shoved a bottle of soju in each hand. Call me Aaron ‘Double Fist’ Dorman. But don’t actually call me that.

Overall the bonfire served as a fun casual meet-and-greet, with the ratio of people who I was happy to see/people I was sorry to remember existed being around 65:2, which is pretty good, right? After midnight, everyone got bored and went downtown to the bars and clubs, where things got really fun.

After non-stop dancing around about 72 5 hours, me and my posse treated ourselves to a 5:30 am pork bbq, and then “treated” ourselves to one of the most spectacularly seedy hotels on the island.

How seedy is seedy? To get in, you have to basically crawl through a hole in a back-alley and manage your way through this weird roofed courtyard which kind of looked like a place for storing garbage, and there were random people just lying on the ground.

Anyway, inside, there’s this 4-foot Korean lady who might be the only person who works there, as she multitasked as the desk manager, the cleaning lady, the bellhop, and the person banging on the door telling us to get the hell out when it was time to go the next day.

The rooms had no towels and there were  stains on the bed (lots of red-hmmmm) and sheets. There were two opened bottles of water in the fridge. At least there was a balcony that had a lovely view of the slums beautiful Jeju skyline. I guess you get what you pay for; the room WAS 30,000 won (30 dollars).

This place even had a name! The “Juliana.” I actually kind of want to stay there again. The place is inspirational. It could be setting for all kinds of things. A horror/slasher story ala Psycho; a sci-fi twilight-zone episode (who is the little Korean woman? A gnome? An alien? God?); a gritty drama about the lives of suffering artists and druggies holed up in this hotel (or something like that). Oh Juliana, how I’m going to “miss” you this week while I sleep in my own bed. Now I have both the knowledge of a place I can stay the next time I get stuck in the city, and a great incentive to never get stuck in the city at night again.

Happy birthday, Aunt Nancy!