cocktail review no. 68 - Presbyterian

"A man with God on his side is always in the majority." 
— John Knox, the father of Presbyterianism

Continuing on in the vein of simple cocktails you can make at home ('cause who likes to go out and hunt up a whole bottle of blue Curaçao just for one measly drink?)...

This is one of the most well-known highballs—and yet, well, it isn't. It's the most famous cocktails that nobody's ever heard of. You wouldn't hear it mentioned at a party or a rave, even though its roots go back further than many other lauded alcoholic creations. It's rather like one of those scratch-'n'-win things you'd buy at a gas station: unknown and inscrutable from a distance, but a little digging and the information is revealed.

And what a wealth of information. Famous drinks always have a plethora of variations—everyone has their own margarita recipe, for example, and everybody likes their martinis a little different. But the Presbyterian has a staggering number of variations: literally trillions. Before I go any farther, I should give you the (baseline) recipe. Here it is:

• 1.5 ounces whiskey
• 3 ounces club soda
• 3 ounces ginger ale
• 1 lemon twist

Pour the bourbon into a highball glass half-filled with ice cubes. Add the club soda and ginger ale in equal measures. Add the lemon twist and serve.

A few words about the flavor: simple, direct, easy, and fine. The fire of the whiskey is tempered by the fizz of the ginger ale and the club soda; the ginger ale adds sweetness while the soda tempers it; and the lemon twist adds just the perfect touch of citrusy tang. If you're looking for something a bit more exciting than the classic highball, then this is the drink for you. And if you like anything that resembles a whiskey fizz or an old-fashioned, then you'll love the Presbyterian.

But you wanna know the best part? You can customize this drink. Mix and match the ingredients until you find a winning combo. You can use bourbon, American rye, blended Scotch, or Irish whiskey. Some people substitute 7-Up for the ginger ale and some people add lime instead of lemon. It's up to you. Whatever floats your boat.

Isn't having choice great?

off to Japan!

You know, a measly month doesn't seem like adequate recompense for 18 long months overseas. I mean, Korea ain't the gulag. Far from it. (It's the lime, turkey, bourbon and Mexican food gulag, but that's it.) But I forgot how easy and comfortable it is to live in one's own country, and how much I missed my folks. Now I'm staring down another 18 months in the LTBMF gulag before I can get back to it all.

That being said...I accomplished a lot this month.

Reunion with my extended family at a lake resort in Iowa? Check.

Eating the hell out of my favorite foods, including fleisch salad sandwiches (my favorite food in the whole Universe)? Check.

Reminding my mum and dad what I look like? Check.

Visiting my old haunts, like Victoria Gardens and Barnes & Noble and Total Wine & More (where I picked up a nice bottle of Hendrick's gin, lovely stuff)? Check.

Driving a convertible under a gorgeous California sunset while wearing a Hawaiian shirt and listening to Led Zeppelin on the radio? Check.

Shooting every gun I own? Check. (Dad and I are going trapshooting tomorrow, so we'll get the shotgun knocked off the list. Leave no gun unfired, that's my motto.)

Flying? Well, no. I'm out of currency. But I did stop by the dinky little Apple Valley Airport and see how everybody was doing. Not much has changed. The same old planes are parked out on the flight line, the same grey heads are chatting in the flight school, and so forth. Somebody's 18-year-old son is a flight instructor now. Jeez.

The only things I haven't done, in fact, would be eating at my favorite burger joint (that's also happening tomorrow) and finding my novel notes. I located my Bowie knife, my binoculars and my violin, but I'll be danged if I can find my piles of notes. I must have hid them so well that even I can't find 'em. Oh well. The outlines and prewriting are easy to forsake—as Stephen King would say, they probably aren't worth a tin shit anyway—but there were some lyrical snippets of dialogue in there, plus a few meritorious vignettes. I guess I'll just have to wing it until I come back to the States for good and unpack all those boxes.

Well, this is it. We're down to the wire. I leave on Monday. I'll lose a day traveling west (go jump in a lake, Phileas Fogg) and arrive in Tokyo on the 30th. I'll kick around town on the 31st—the Sumida River cruise, the Imperial Gardens—until Miss H and Miss J get in from Seoul in the afternoon. Then it's DISNEYLAND on the first of August. After H & J go home on the 2nd, I'll journey down through central and southern Japan in the shinkansen (bullet train), taking in Mount Fuji and Lake Biwa. I'll tour Kyoto for two days, petting monkeys and drooling over gold-plated buildings, then hop the train again for Kumamoto on the isle of Kyushu, spending the next 48 hours meditating in Reigando Cave and finding out who's buried in Miyamoto Musashi's tomb. Then it's to Fukuoka and the high-speed ferry to Busan, South Korea.

One of the other cool things about Kumamoto is that it's where Eiichiro Oda lives. He's the guy who writes and illustrates One Piece, my favorite manga/anime. It rather heavily influenced my magnum opus...

After that? For the month of August (school doesn't start up again until September), I was planning on finishing Novel #3, e-publishing Novel #2, and polishing Novel #1. Not to mention learning functional Korean. I really ought to be able to have a decent conversation by now instead of fumbling along like some chuckle-headed tourist.

There's also a humor site I'm writing regularly for now: Rabble Rouse the World. Check it out if you have the time. Ribald jests and laugh-tastic memes abound upon that literary pirate ship. Come aboard, mateys. Arrrrrrr.

I also intend to spend some of August finding all those charming Korean nooks and crannies that I haven't explored yet: Gangwon-do, for example, where the mountains and lakes and rocky beaches are. I just acquired a Canon EOS Rebel T3i, and after a bit of fiddling I'm sure I'll be a master photographer with it. So there ought to be gorgeous pictures of Japan, Korea, and environs pouring into this here blog come mid-August.

Stay tuned. You're in the front-row seat. You can't leave just when it's getting good!

writing updates, 7/24/2013

There's only three of them, so pay attention:

ITEM ONE:
Novel #2, the one I wrote for NaNoWriMo last year, is almost ready. I'm half done with the second-to-last edit. (The final edit's just going to be a glorified proofreading.) After that I'm formatting it and e-publishing it for the Amazon Kindle. We'll see what comes of that...it'll be a test case. I'll make sure to properly advertise on this here blog so you can run to your nearest e-reader or tablet and buy it as soon as it's launched. The title will be Mugunghwa: The Wreck of the Rose of Sharon.

ITEM TWO:
Novel #3 is half-finished as well. It has a title, a table of contents, and 51,000 words or so. Nearly ten chapters out of 19 (planned) are complete. As I said earlier, I'm 50% finished with being 66% ready to sign a three-book deal. In case you forgot, Novel #1 and #3 are Books 1 and 2 of my big sci-fi magnum opus. (Novel #2 is historical fiction.)

ITEM THREE:
I got rejected again. Sad day.

Just before I left Korea I submitted a 1,700-word short story (entitled The First Twenty-Five Years) to Daily Science Fiction magazine. After the customary wait, I got an e-mail back. Instead of the usual rejection notice (which I'd received for the seven or eight other stories I'd sent to DSF), this e-mail was different. Here's what it said:

Andrew,

We have good news and we have bad news. The good news is that your story has made our second round, rarified company that more than 90% of submissions do not reach. While half or more of our second round stories will not ultimately see publication under the DSF rocket, this story has reached the final go/no-go before launch.

The bad news--and I promised you some bad news--is that it will take us time to make that final decision. Expect an additional two weeks or so, but don't be surprised if it's a month from today. Thanks for your continued patience, and thanks for sending us this worthy submission.

  - Daily Science Fiction Staff

Wow, huh? You may imagine the palpitations my heart went through as I read those words. After all these months and months of writing crap stories and languishing in impoverished rejection, I'd finally made the grade. Okay, not "the" grade. "A" grade. I'd gotten past the initial rejection phase. I'd landed myself in the second round of review. Not bad for a beginner, eh?

Unfortunately, about three weeks later, I wound up with the same old rejection slip in my inbox. Ah well. At least I know now the caliber of writing I must put out in order to be considered for publication. And I've assayed the market and know what kind of stories they like. Now I can sit back, think of a good idea, stick in all the ingredients, and hopefully get accepted next time around.

Wish me luck...

sweet vindication!

vindicate [vin-di-keyt]

verb (used with object), vin·di·cat·ed, vin·di·cat·ing.

1. to clear, as from an accusation, imputation, suspicion, or the like: to vindicate someone's honor.
2. to afford justification for; justify: Subsequent events vindicated his policy.
3. to uphold or justify by argument or evidence: to vindicate a claim.
4. to assert, maintain, or defend (a right, cause, etc.) against opposition.

Vindicate. I've always liked that word. The moment I first saw it (in a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon; Bill Watterson does wonders for the vocabulary), I added it to my lexicon. Over the years I've tried to use it as much as possible. Vindicate. It's got a nice ring to it. It sounds exactly like what it means. There's nothing more satisfying than shouting the two words in the title of this blog post whenever the justness of your cause and the righteousness of your position has been confirmed. Sweet vindication!

And believe me, I've been vindicated.

For years I labored in hopeless drudgery, praying that one day I'd get to where I wanted to be. Maybe I'd have to put up with some unpleasantness on the way. I'd feel like I was in limbo sometimes. But one day, I told myself, things would be different. And now they are.

Nearly eighteen months ago, in February of 2012, I left the California desert and boarded a plane for South Korea (for the second time). The circumstances of my going were dire indeed. I had lived in my parents' house for the last two-and-a-half years, and no matter the state of the economy or the kindness and warmth with which my folks took me in, I was at my wits' end. My ego was crushed. My soul was in shambles. I felt rather emasculated. I hadn't been able to find a decent job, and even though I'd gotten my private pilot's license and put myself through bartender's school, I was still without prospects. It was the same situation as mid-2008, when I'd first gone to Korea. I'd been living for six fruitless, jobless months in my parents' basement in Wyoming. It was a nightmare.

And here I am, now, in July of 2013, ready to depart once more for Korea. This is the final week. My parents have been their usual lovely selves, and have seen to my every need (material and emotional). On the 29th I shall board a jet plane at...um...either LAX or Ontario (that's Ontario, California, just so you know) and fly to Tokyo, there to spend eight days touring the central and southern regions of the country by bullet train, and then a high-speed ferry to Busan. (I'll talk more about this trip later.)

Things are different now, don't you see? I'm not leaving out of desperation. I'm not sick at heart. Hopelessness and despair and jealousy no longer hold me in thrall. I've forgotten what despair feels like, in fact. It's just as well I didn't put too many maudlin posts up on this here blog, 'cause they'd ring hollow and puerile to me (and you) now.

On the contrary, my return is triumphant. Everything seems to be looking up. I'm not going back just to work, I'm going to have fun. I have an awesome job waiting for me, plus my special girl and our troublemakin' cat. Thanks to my stateside sojourn, I have a new Lensatic compass, an attaché case, a wine-bottle opener, new clothes, and adjusted vertebrae. (I dug into my closet and found my duster coat, my binoculars, and my army-surplus goggles, too.) Plus, I have another month of vacation left. After this jaunt through Japan, I'm spending the rest of my time kicking around Seoul and the northern provinces, checking out all the stuff I haven't had time to see yet. I'm also packaging my second novel (the one about the General Sherman incident) for publication before the end of the year, and finally sitting down and learning Korean. Things are going to be great. Heck, they already are.

And in the coming 18 months, I have all sorts of trips planned. That's right: I'm finally getting to travel like I've always wanted...and like I've always promised you, dear readers. For the Chuseok holiday this year (in September, I believe), Miss H and our friend J from Bucheon will venture into China; in January 2014 there's a road-trip across Australia, plus a beach holiday with Miss H in Malaysia; in the summer of 2014 there will be some kind of jaunt along the Pan-American Highway, possibly on a motorcycle; and in the winter of 2015, for my final hurrah and last departure from South Korea, there will be a grand trip from Beijing to Moscow aboard the Trans-Mongolian/Trans-Siberian Railways.

You'll get to hear about all this on the blog. Of course.

After that will come my glorious return to the U.S. of A, wherein will resume my flying career (also blogged about) and a rewarding foray into radio journalism and punditry. And the novels (the big ones, the sci-fi series I'm always rattling about) will get published somewhere in there, too.

See the difference? I have prospects now. I'm not just going to Korea to keep my head above water and pay off my loans. (Those are almost all gone, by the way.) All my waiting and hard work, years of it, are finally paying off. I can now settle back and enjoy myself some. At last there's the promise of a wondrous future and fulfilling life ahead. It was always there—it never really went away—but it was mighty invisible for a time.

Water under the bridge. I no longer feel like I'm pedaling toward my goals on a rusty unicycle with a bent rim and a flat tire. Now I've got me one of these:

And, though the road be hard and long, Miss H and I shall persevere.

Let the games begin.

cocktail review no. 67 - Leprechaun

Honestly, I'm not running out of ideas. Okay, maybe I am. But that's not the reason why these cocktail posts keep happening so infrequently. I'm not sure what the reason is, exactly, but I'm quite certain that that's not it.

Regardless, I'm going to keep going with these cocktail reviews. You hear that? I mean it. They won't lapse like my random travel destinations column did. I'll consider it a mark of highest shame if I don't crack an even hundred reviews. There are at least that many drinks I've tasted. Perhaps I should review more shots. I'm worried that would make this blog too popular, though. If you'll look over there on the right (and down a bit) you'll notice that cocktail reviews comprise half of this blog's "most popular posts" list. I'm not sure what to attribute that to. A sizable cross-section of the people trawling the blogsphere must be thirsty, I guess.

Or leprechauns.

Anyway, enough chit-chat. Let's get to the point!

I branched out a bit from The Bartender's Bible for this one. (That book is currently 6,000 miles away from me on my bookshelf in Seoul, anyway.)

You like gin-and-tonics, right? Well, so do I. But I've had 'em a lot lately and I wanted something new. New, but simple. Either I'm getting lazy in my old age or I'm coming around to my Dad's golden rule. I just can't be bothered to make really complex cocktails lately. Or even anything that involves a shaker. Highballs are where it's at for me. Glass, ice, three ingredients, and boom: cocktail deliciousness.  

So this here's the leprechaun! A take on the gin-and-tonic or the whiskey and tonic, using Irish whiskey:

• 2 ounces Irish whiskey
• tonic water
• lemon twist for garnish

Pour the whiskey into a highball glass half-filled with ice cubes. Top with the tonic water and garnish with a lemon twist.

And there you have it, folks! Two seconds and you've got a zesty, powerful, refreshing drink that'll still put some fire in your belly. Gin's good, don't get me wrong, but it can sure chill you down. Whiskey always puts the heat into my innards. This is a good, strong kick of a drink. As always, I invite you to try it for yourselves.

More reviews to follow. Stay tuned every Thursday. My research department has become much more assiduous now that I'm home in the States and not grading deadhead students' papers. Get ready to sit back and join me for a drink once again. We're breakin' a hundred, got it?

fires at midnight

I've spoken at length about this topic before, and I don't intend to repeat myself. But I'm going to say a few words in defense of my friend Jethro. 

Jethro Tull, that is.

I just downloaded their 1977 album Songs from the Wood from iTunes, and it is glorious.

Time was, I'd go to a music store (say Barnes & Noble, or Best Buy when they still had CDs). I'd pick a band I liked and listen to a few of the sample tunes on the provided headphones. If I found an album that had at least two songs I loved right away, I'd buy the album, take it home, and listen to it all the way through. Usually, on the second or third play-through, I'd start finding other tunes that I liked. Five or six of them, usually. Maybe I wouldn't like them as much as the original pair that had caught my ear, but they'd still be listenable. Customarily there'd be one or two tracks that I just couldn't stand, and I'd always skip over them on subsequent play-throughs.

I knew I had a winner in Songs from the Wood when every single solitary track tickled the pleasure centers in my brain. Every one. I've already gushed about this on Facebook, but every song on that album is a gem, unique and mellifluous and utterly addictive. It's only ten tracks, including the bonus items, but I've never spent $9.99 more wisely. I just can't get enough of that wonderful, wacky bard Ian Anderson and his restless flute. I was already familiar with the title track and "The Whistler," but they withstand the test of time. My particular favorites from the album are "Jack in the Green," "Cup of Wonder," "Fire at Midnight," and "Beltane."

"Fire at Midnight" is a particular love of mine due to its evocative lyrics. Listening to it, you can just feel the damp chill outside the door of your cottage, the warm crackle of the fire, the rich gold of the hot toddy on the mantlepiece, the soft rugs and wood floor beneath your feet. It just makes you think of cold spring nights and mist and quiet evenings and cheery conversations and delicious drinks and all the lovely intangibles that go with them.

Oh yes. I believe in fires at midnight. Here, I'll show you:

Yes, I added text to this picture, but the original image isn't mine. Boo-yah.

If you want my advice, go to YouTube (or better yet, iTunes) and look up that song. "Fire at Midnight" by Jethro Tull. Give it a listen. Click on the image I've provided (to expand it to full size) and stare at it while the music plays. You'll wonder why all your day's stress just vanished in smoke. I dare you not to make yourself a hot toddy or go stargazing or pen a few romantic verses afterward.

Double-dare you.

sci-fi art, entry #3

I'm not going to say much about this one; just do whatever you brain wants to with it. I will say, however, that this piece inspired a very pivotal scene in Novel #3 (which has just cracked 45,000 words and ten chapters). Make of that what you will. You may wish to click on it to expand it to its full size.

One more thing. The reason I don't usually credit an author for these images is because I found all of them on free wallpaper sites, often without any author's or artist's name listed. And that's kind of nice, you know? Keeping things anonymous. Just letting the dreamers stay in the shadows and do their thing and weave dreams for the rest of us.

simple as sleeping

I went around in 2009 loudly proclaiming that living in South Korea wasn't all that different from living in the United States. Pardonable, in context. I'd lived there for a year and was sick and tired of it. Eagerly, I would point out that everybody drove on the right side of the road ("right" meaning both "opposite of left" and "correct"). The signs were mostly in English. They had stuff like coffee houses and convenience stores and pawn shops and shopping malls. They were fond of things like soccer and baseball and pizza and hamburgers. They showed American movies in theaters and had English-language radio stations and bookstores. Korea, to some extent, was little America.

Well, I'm here to amend that assertion. It turns out that my research wasn't complete. My opinions were somewhat premature. Even something as simple as sleeping, it turns out, is different in Korea.

The first thing I noticed when I got back to my folks' rambling three-bedroom tile-roofed stucco house in California was how well I slept at night.

                                                                                                                       from Tumblr

Now, sleep and I have had a rather torrid relationship. She first began to welch on me in 2005, when I compressed a disc in my back while tobogganing down a dike in Fargo, North Dakota. (Don't ask.) I was not to find a wholesome, restful night's sleep for two or three years after that incident. I reached some species of equilibrium after some visits to the chiropractor in early 2008, but I never really found true relief.

Matters were exacerbated in mid-2008 when I moved to Korea.

Why's that, you ask?

Because Korean mattresses are rock-hard, that's why.

Seriously. They're like iron. Adamantine. Obdurate. Stony. And all them other hard-sounding adjectives.

The dictionary defines the word mattress thus: "a large pad for supporting the reclining body, used as or on a bed, consisting of a quilted or similarly fastened case, usually of heavy cloth, that contains hair, straw, cotton, foam rubber, etc., or a framework of metal springs."

The reptilian part of my brain defines a mattress as "something soft and squishy that you sleep on and which bounces or yields when you sit down or jump on it."

Korean mattresses fit the first definition but utterly belie the second. I quickly learned not to leap or spring onto my mattress, or even to sit down on it in an abrupt fashion, for it was like leaping into the rubberized bed of a truck. The shock would bruise my brain and jar every joint in my body.

The reasons behind the excessive firmness of Korean mattresses are unclear. Tradition, I suppose, has something to do with it. Koreans only recently started using mattresses. A lot of them still sleep on the floor, on a thin futon-like pad with a blanket and a pillow. I suppose Korean mattresses were created with the hardness of a linoleum floor in mind, not the comfort of the sleeper. 

I'm beginning to entertain the notion that the Korean people harbor a deep-seated streak of masochism. They define mountain climbing and hiking as "climbing an endless series of uneven stone steps," for one thing. They eat mouth-searing, uvula-melting foods like gamjatang in summer, for another (and have the brass neck to claim that it cools them down). And now this: ossified mattresses. Forget everything you think you know about firmness and box springs and backaches; I've got you beat. I used to wake up feeling like some beefy prize fighter had used me for an accordion. My lumbar region throbbed like a bald-headed salesman hit on the head with a frozen salmon. It was miserable. I tossed and turned and ached and moaned for a year on Geoje Island, then went back and did it again in Bucheon. Things improved when I moved to my new place in Gwangnaru in late February of 2013, but it was the moment my head hit the pillow of my old bed in my old room in that old freakin' desert that I really conked out.

Now I sleep all through the night without stirring, and let me tell you: I never did that when I lived here before, when I was in high school. Some nights I'd wake up every hour with my mucus membranes drier than a Bedouin's beard, and have to ninja my way out to the kitchen for a glass of water. Not so anymore. It's like my pillow is soaked in chloroform. I'm lovin' it.

                                                                                                                www.dailyotter.org

Of course, the location of said pillow (in my old room in California, a familiar, peaceful setting) might have biased the experiment.

Anyway, I stand corrected. It's the little things that you tend to notice. Things like talking, traveling, cooking, eating, and (as we've seen) sleeping are all vastly different in Korea than they are anywhere else.

Now you know the rest of the story.

in which the Vaunter comes home to roost

Well, I'm back. I survived 13 nonconsecutive hours on various jet planes to get back to the U.S.A. The family reunion in Iowa is over. The journey home to California is complete. The sun has risen on a new day. The valley looks the same as ever as I gaze down upon it through a shimmering veil of heat waves. That blasting desert sun is the same muted, nebulous thing that shone upon me in Seoul, but undiluted by haze or moisture. The skies are blue, my eyes are dry and my hay fever's resurgent, but at least I'm no longer caked in sweat. (It evaporates almost instantly.)

I didn't expect there to be much difference between this short sojourn home (after 18 months abroad) than there was when I came home Korea the first time (after only a year)...but there is a difference. Odd feelings and sensations are crowding upon my consciousness. Circumstances are much changed from my innocuous return to the U.S. in July of 2009 (four years ago!) and things just aren't the same.

There's the obvious, of course: Miss H isn't here. It certainly is strange—and crushingly lonely—to drive around this town and know she isn't here. Looking up at the stars (most of which I haven't seen in 18 months) without her feels very wrong.

When I returned home in 2009 and lived with my parents for the ensuing two and a half years, the adjustment was practically seamless. My old toothbrush was still in its drawer. My furniture and possessions were still in my old room. My toiletries were still in the bathroom shower, and my clothes were still hung up in the closet. This time around, in 2013, only my easy chair and bed remain. My stuff's packed in boxes in the garage or shed. (Part of my to-do list while I'm home is sorting through that junk and retrieving the unread books and other items I want to take back to Korea with me.)

My old room is now no longer "my old room," you see? It's a guest room, nothing more. The spare bathroom is stark and barren, the old tile ripped up in anticipation of its replacement, my toothbrush drawer shanghaied for other purposes. This house has completed its awkward transition to empty nest.

I'm almost 27, and this process doesn't bother me unduly. But it's more than that. It's not that I don't feel like I belong here, don't get me wrong. On the contrary—I hardly belong anywhere else. It feels great to be back. It's great to see the folks after so long, to reconnect with good friends, to sit down in old haunts and taste familiar brews. But that's exactly what's so strange. I feel like I belong to two worlds. It's like I'm being pulled in opposite directions, as though disparate facets of my soul are engaged in a tug-of-war for my psyche. One is the hard-bitten California desert rat, with his sunglasses and his guns and an airplane and a banged-up Jeep; and the other is the globe-trotting expatriate, the dauntless English teacher entrenched in South Korea, taking field trips to Japan and China in his sweat-stained safari jacket, a fedora on his head and shabby boots on his feet, a roll of gimbap in one hand and a camera in the other.

This is the first time I've ever felt like this, and it's weird. My soul is in flux, my mindset is mutable, and (jet lag aside) I'm restless as hell. It's a tricky situation. My to-do list is lengthy and various: I want to sort through my stuff, see the dentist and the optometrist and the chiropractor, talk to the bank (and my nearest Verizon rep), and purchase a crap-ton: laptop cooling pad, digital SLR, podcast equipment, and who knows what else. I also need to relax, of course: that's the point of a vacation. But I just can't seem to do one or the other. I'll get up and wander around, wanting to be productive, but not willing to venture out into the 99-degree heat. So I'll sit down, and try to write or YouTube or play games, but soon I'll lose interest and be on my feet again. It seems the insidious cocktail of jet lag, reverse culture shock, and loneliness is contrary to the spirit of a vacation. 

So, here I am—your humble correspondent, back in the land of his birth (well, lengthiest residence, at least). The next few days will be spent centering myself, eating my mum's home cooking, watching bad daytime TV, making delicious sandwiches with real cheese and honey ham, and getting up the gumption to pursue that to-do list. Over the next three weeks, I'll be sipping my dad's home-brewed beers, reading Ben-Hur, gouging away at Novel #3, sorting through dusty boxes, sitting in the rope chair on the back porch, listening to the hummingbirds and coyotes and cactus wrens, taking walks in the evenings, missing my girl and my squid-rice, loving the California sunsets, and venturing out at night like some crawling desert creature.

Wish me luck...

Insadong gets me every time

It's July 1, and the day after tomorrow I'm boarding an airplane and flying back home. Not permanently, oh no. There's a family reunion in Iowa that I'll attend for five days, for to see all the aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents. Then it'll be three weeks in the desert.

As so often happens, a multitude of emotions war within me. I feel excited by the thought of seeing my long-lost relations again (I haven't seen some of them in three years or more). I'm dreading the transcontinental flight (always a killer, that). I'm psyched for spending five days at a lakeside resort and the inevitable water sports that will ensue. I eagerly anticipate seeing that pack of reprobates (um, I mean my old pals) from the desert once more. Though flying is out of the question (I'm not current anymore and haven't the time or money to spend on a biennial flight review), I'd sure love to go shooting. I'm a tad forlorn at the thought of leaving Miss H here all alone while I'm gone, and doing without her for nearly a month. (Okay, I'm positively heartbroken.) But I'm pumped at the thought of seeing Japan (and possibly Mongolia, I haven't decided). Think about it: I'll finally be living like I've been meaning to live since I graduated high school. Footloose travel and all it entails. That warm, sunny, bubbly feeling of a dream being fulfilled—like sun tea brewing on a hot day—is welling up inside me.

But chief amongst those feelings warring for primacy in my innermost soul is...well, sheepishness.

Let me explain.

There's a particular street in a particular part of Seoul called Insadong. Insadong-gil, this street is called. Gil, as I understand it, means "lane" or "alley" (though some Korean alleys bear closer resemblance to the Snickelways of York).

Now, I'm not stupid.

Well, okay. Yes I am.

But I'm not a blithering idiot.

I can tell when someone's trying to fleece me.

But the merchants of Insadong-gil get me every time.

Here's the thing: Insadong is a tourist trap. It's a little neighborhood stuck somewhere east of Gwanghwamun (the main and largest gate of Gyeongbokgung Palace) and the Cheonggyecheon (a lovely low-lying landscaped stream that runs east-to-west through the downtown area) in the Jongno ward of Seoul. This street is filled with everything that is innately Korean—or rather, everything that foreigners think is innately Korean, and everything that savvy Koreans know that foreigners think is innately Korean. Catch my drift?

The winding lane is less than a quarter-mile long, but it's packed to bursting with quaint little tea houses filled with wood trim and farming equipment; one-room Korean restaurants tucked under latticed awnings or hidden in bamboo groves; and coffee shops and cafés that were probably avant-garde fifteen years ago. The lane's main feature, however, are the stores and street vendors peddling their multifarious wares: "traditional Korean snacks," jade necklaces and silver rings, handmade wooden puzzles (and other wood crafts like spoons, combs, toys, and statuettes), celadon pottery, metal works (such as bells, wind chimes and assorted sculptures), and oodles upon oodles of folding fans, pincushions, compacts, bookmarks, purses, clutches, handbags, letter openers, ballpoint pens, jewelry boxes, and figurines. Every item is decorated with customary and venerated Korean motifs: cranes, tigers, kings, cattails, women washing, scholars in their crenellated hats, children playing in hanbok, soldiers marching, misty mountains, red-gold suns and redoubtable warships.

                                                                                                       Not my photo, but a dang good one.

A lot of it's junk and I know it. It's touristy stuff. You'd never find it anywhere but here. No self-respecting Korean has a little pewter figure of Admiral Yi on his bookshelf. The stuff looks pretty, and it was probably made by hand, and it would look jolly good in a cupboard or on a mantlepiece. There are exceptions, of course. Some of the merchandise is drop-dead gorgeous, delicately made, and encapsulates Korean culture to a beguiling extent.

But is it worth the money they're asking? Noooooooooooooo.

Do tourists pay the money they're asking? Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees.

Do I know better than that? Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees.

Do I know how to bargain? Noooooooooooooooo.

Do the vendors know that I don't know how to haggle? Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees.

Has that ever stopped me from buying something pretty for myself? Nooooooooooooooo.

The merchants probably know me on sight by now. I'll heave into view, marching around the corner from the subway station, and they'll exchange a look and make the habitual remarks.

"Look, here comes that saphead."

"Hey, the palooka in the blue T-shirt is back."

"Whaddya know, it's that pigeon who always drops a boatload of cash!"

"Bust out the compacts and the jewelry-boxes, Marge! Our favorite schnook's comin' down the street!"

Honestly, I might as well just get the word "SUCKER" tattooed on my forehead. I was wearing a blue T-shirt today with the words Beginner in Korean, please speak slowly splashed across the front in Hangul. All the vendors loved it. They saw it, read it aloud, and burst into laughter. I knew why they were really laughing. They weren't charmed by my earnest attempt to learn their language and fit into their culture. They just knew they'd be able to snow me in two languages instead of just one.

If I was a bit better at Korean and knew how to haggle, I muttered to myself, things would be different, mark my words.

I mean, seriously: two thousand for a tarnished old Chinese coin the size of a silver dollar? Give me a break!

I shall cease my invective here. I'm sure you came here for other things, like my mouthwatering descriptions of food or the salaciously lovely photographs I put up. Tune in for more of that next time on...

THE (SWINDLED) VAUNTER