My bogus alter ego, Dakota, is taking over my life. People I never even met before are calling me Dakota. People call me Dakota even when I’m not wearing my authentic cowboy hat. I want my life back! Maybe I don’t. I need to figure this out.
As I am now living in the city, I’ve made an effort to get out there and make some new friends. I know a lot of people up here already, but there are plenty of new faces to discover.
There’s too many Aarons. One Aaron has been reasonably helpful in helping me adjust to the strange new ways of the city.
I met another Aaron on Friday night, hanging out at a bar in a basement run by a Canadian expat. The two bars above had to close down, so this one, known simply as “the bar”, is something of a survivor. (side note: the gutted bar where me and a friend almost had to spend the night has been bought and remodeled, it’s now a tacky place called “Hans Deli.” I haven’t gone in yet but I’m betting there’s no pastrami).
Rather mysteriously, Aaron wasn’t in a chatty mood that night-maybe he was feeling protective of his wife, who was friendlier and more interesting for a number of reasons. Anyway, here is our “conversation.”
Dakota: Hey, where are you from.
Aaron: HERE. (unlikely; he’s wearing a Chicago Cubs t-shirt)
Dakota: That’s…interesting. Are you a teacher?
Aaron: NO.
Dakota: Oh, what do you do?
Aaron: I WORK.
End of conversation.
As my high school didn’t say in the lobby, “there are no friends here, only strangers who’ve already met.”
When he first said that, I was duly intimidating, thinking that maybe this guy was a pimp or a spy or something crazy that he just couldn’t say out loud. Of course upon further reflection…
…baseball is a much much much much better sport than cricket.
I “discovered” a fun new hangout spot. It’s not so new, but it will be a hangout spot, because it serves western food and that now gives me FOUR places in the old city that I can eat at now, which is really exciting.
The place is called “Winnie’s Brunch”, and Winnie is a real woman, and her omelettes are real eggy. It opened in March, right next to city hall, and the Jeju writer’s workshop has been meeting there, and now Aaron/Dakota/Tae-Sun (my Korean name) hangs out there too. They serve a bunch of fancy stuff like brunch pizza, eggs benedict, omelettes, bruschettas, and the most creative thing might be the “chip sandwich”, which is the same thing as a “french fry sandwich” except they spelled it wrong.
Here’s an article about the place, courtesy of the Jeju Weekly:
http://www.jejuweekly.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=2592
There’s also a korean chain called “Pho Bay” which is like a fake Vietnamese place, but I like it anyway. The noodles are like bibimbap with Vietnamese noodles but that’s okay, it’s more authentic than the Outback steakhouse.
Back to Winnie and her brunch: I walked in there on Thursday and stumbled upon a language exchange club. They made me feel bad about drinking and then they made me feel WORSE when I told them I didn’t even know hangul.
Oh yeah, and like the title says, I’m learning hangul. Gonna start writing the blog in hangul by Friday.
Culture Time 