disappointment

Amazingly, I didn't realize that I was being a bad host until after I rousted Allison out of bed at 7:00 a.m. We were to head for Los Angeles that morning, December 15. I can tell I'm going to have a hard time writing this. Already my mind is wandering. The Gods Themselves is gleaming at me from my nightstand (curse you, Isaac Asimov), my flashcards from bartender's school are tantalizing me from one corner of the bedspread, and the wind is howling outside my window. Plus there's something embarrassing that happens in this story that I have to tell you about, and I don't wanna. But here goes anyway: Yes, I'm a bad host. The one thing I hadn't counted on when planning Alli's visit was how early we'd have to get up every morning to actually make it to the marvelous places we intended to see. Why'd we have to get up so early? I'm glad you asked. It gives me a chance to complain. I live only 60 miles or so from Los Angeles. That's it. That's maybe an hour's drive. Less, seeing as the speed limit's 70 miles per hour on the freeways. There's just one little thing that prevents me (and everybody else) from reaching Los Angeles in an hour. It begins with a "T." Traffic. That's it. Traffic is the thing. There are about 90,000 people living in the Apple Valley, Victorville and Hesperia areas alone. Odds are, any given day, that some of them are going to want to go "down the hill" (south on Interstate 15 through the Cajon Pass). And of course, once you get down the hill, you are in the L.A. Basin, which, as of last year, has nearly twenty million people in it. More than half of them are in Los Angeles alone. And all of them want to go somewhere. Usually right when I want to go somewhere. Dammit. So, in order to get anywhere in Los Angeles on time, you must tack an extra half-hour to an hour (or more) onto your travel time. We had no set time for our arrival at Universal Studios (thank God) but we hit the road about 8:00 nonetheless. Things weren't quite as bad as I'd feared, but still pretty clogged. It was the middle of the week after all. There were only 700,000 people on the roads instead of the usual 20 million. Long story short, we made it. Alli was a champ yet again. I had appointed her my navigator, and she never missed a turn. She also kept me abreast of the route at least two turns in advance, which I appreciated immensely. We pulled up to Universal Studios, parked (our lot was adorned with many blown-up images of Woody Woodpecker), and walked into the outdoor shopping center. Unsurprisingly, there weren't too many people about at 10:00 in the morning. The Hard Rock Café was the quietest I've ever seen it, even with the blaring guitar music. None of the shops caught our eye, festooned as they were with amazing paint jobs, life-size cutouts of King Kong, neon lights, and other assorted foofaraw. So (after a brief stop back at Roger for my camera), we adjourned to the park proper. Down the sidewalk, turn right at the big spinning steel globe and the mist machines, stand in line for 30 minutes while the Eastern European tourists try to haggle about ticket prices, and then go in through the blue gates. (That's how you get into Universal Studios.) The first thing that confronted us as we entered was a large bronze statue of a director, a script girl, and a cameraman, who were busy filming everybody who came in. The director was crouched down in a most ridiculous position, his index fingers making twin L's as he framed the shot. We started meandering through the ever-thickening crowd. If we'd thought that the shopping center outside had been glitzy, we got a real wake-up call inside. The place was off the hook. The most astounding collection of shops, boutiques and souvenir stores lined the crooked alleyways, leaning this way and that, and covered in the most outrageous assortment of protrusions and add-ons. The effect was intensified by the Christmas decorations which had been laid over the structures. Various movie cars were parked here and there, including the Bluesmobile from The Blues Brothers. You know I couldn't have resisted getting a picture in front of that. After satisfying our curiosity on the streets, we headed for the rides. The first one we took was, logically, the grand Universal Studios tour. That was a piece of wonderfulness. We drove through movie set after movie set, past movie car after movie car, through sensation after cinema-caliber sensation. I won't spoil it, of course, but I will say that we had a close encounter with Norman Bates, from Psycho; rode out a massive earthquake in a subway station; barely dodged a flash flood and some vicious dinosaurs; and even sneaked along Wisteria Lane while they were filming Desperate Housewives (quiet, please!). There weren't too many shows we were interested in. I did notice, however, that they were going to have a 30-minute "stunt show" at the Waterworld stage. I'll be the first to admit that Waterworld (that apocalyptic Kevin Costner movie) is a piece of crap. But it's a fun piece of crap, sort of. So we said, "What the hey!" We didn't regret it, either. There were explosions, and people falling dozens of feet into water, and fireballs, and shootouts, and hand-to-hand, and some of the most judicious use of zip-lines that I've ever seen. Those explosions and fireballs were the real kicker: loud, flashy, and so big that you could feel the wave of heat 50 feet away in the stands. There was even one point where they hurled a complete replica of a seaplane over the wall and into the water, where it skidded across the arena, in flames, and fetched up against the fence, practically in the faces of the people in the front row. That was...neat. The stuntmen (and stuntwomen) were really well-trained. Nobody missed a fall or failed to take a punch realistically enough. Jet-skis figured highly in this show, and some of the stuff they did with them was absolutely incredible. It was hard to believe they were doing it all live, right in front of you. I'm talking jumps, and dives underneath the water, and dodging explosions, and all that cool stuff. It was a good show. Better than the movie, I'll warrant. Better stunts packed into less time. Plus the leading lady was cuter. Eventually, we satisfied our curiosity with the upper lot, and descended to the lower lot via the Starway. This was an extremely long escalator, covered by a glass tile awning. The lower lot is where all the rides are. Including Jurassic Park. Oh heck yeah. We went straight for the dinosaurs. I was giddy with glee. Of all the theme rides in the park, including The Mummy, I was the most anxious to ride this one. I mean, come on! Dinosaurs, for Pete's sake! Dinosaurs! It was everything I'd hoped it'd be. I got into the car, and we started off down the jungle river. It was hard to believe I wasn't in the movie (or rather, the book...the literary version of Jurassic Park, which is a million times better than the movie, actually has a river segment that presages the Universal Studios version). The sun was shining through the trees and ferns and fronds overhead, forming golden beams that fell onto the swiftly flowing water below...the effect was cinematic as well as beautiful. I won't spoil the ride, but man, is it ever a gut-wrencher. Allison and I clambered out of the car thrilled, our shoulders soaking wet, our hearts thudding, unable to keep the grins from our faces. We had survived. We had to take pictures to commemorate the event. That was about it. Neither of us were much interested in the other rides, and we'd seen the rest of the park. So we wandered lazily out (stopping for a few minutes to get surveyed), and got back on the highway for the Walk of Fame. We had a nice stroll down Hollywood Boulevard together, even despite the grunge, and the whiskery black blues musician singing at us, and the kinky lingerie shops every hundred yards. We ate lunch at Combo's New York Pizzeria, where the slices were about this size... ...then got back into the car and began heading in the direction of the La Brea Tar Pits. Or, we attempted to. We soon discovered that I was going the wrong way. We need to pull a U-turn, head back down Hollywood to Vine Street, and hang a louie. But where to pull a U-turn? Hollywood Boulevard doesn't generally allow U-turns in turn lanes, and there aren't too many streets leading off, just narrow alleys. Unwisely, I picked one of these alleys to turn around in. This one had a couple of decently tall buildings on either side, one of which was a youth rehabilitation center with several cars parked outside. The other looked like some official building of some sort, with a few men dressed in business casual on the stoop. I pulled into some van parking, began to reverse, and— BAM. The Jeep jerked. There was a sickening sound, a sound I knew all too well: blunt metal meeting blunt metal, hard. I'd backed into somebody. I lost my head. I twisted around in a desultory attempt to see if I'd caused any damage to the other car, and, seeing none, pulled forward and out. As I was driving past the other building, one of the semi-formally-dressed men raised a hand and yelled "HEY! You hit that woman!" My head was still in the clouds. I was scarcely aware of what I was doing. "Bad?" was the only thing that came out of my mouth. "You'd better see," the man said, not aggressively, but not passively either. He pointed back at the other car. My head began to clear. It began to feel like the inside of a dry, dusty Egyptian tomb, in fact. So did my gut. I reversed, made sure I was as out of the way as possible, got out, and took a look at the other car (coincidentally, another white Jeep Cherokee). What I saw made my stomach plummet through the asphalt. There was a misshapen dent the size of a ham in the other Jeep, right where the driver's side door met the front panel. My mortification compounded a hundredfold. It was bad enough that I'd backed into somebody. It was worse that Allison had witnessed it (let alone been in the car when it happened). Worst of all, however, was the fact that I'd almost run for it. The self-recrimination began immediately. I was a cheating, sneaking coward. And now Allison knew it. I wished that all of hell's fire and heaven's fury would come whirling out of the ether and smite me dead. Outwardly, I remained calm. Not even I know how. I waited while the neatly-dressed man sent one of his friends inside the rehabilitation center to fetch the owner of the other Jeep. (He knew her personally, and knew this was her car.) While we waited, the man told me, "I'm just trying to help you, man. We've got cameras all around here." He made a circular motion with his index finger. I looked up. There were indeed traffic cameras pocking the alleyway. It was a fortunate thing the man had stopped me, I realized later. If he hadn't, and I'd driven away, I would've been a whole heap of trouble. Presently, the woman came outside. She was short, middle-aged and blond. She was not angry, but she did express regret that I'd punched in her new panel. (She said that she'd just gotten it redone.) I did not admit fault, as I'd been instructed to avoid doing, but instead made my apologies and willingly supplied the woman with insurance information. I dutifully copied hers down also. Her insurance card was expired, and she got a bit miffed when I asked for further proof of financial responsibility ("You hit me"). But in the end, we completed the transaction. She went back inside, and I folded up my insurance cards and got back into my own (completely undamaged) car. I pulled back onto Hollywood Boulevard wanting nothing more than to melt permanently away into sludge. I couldn't even bear to look at Allison. Throughout the whole thing, she'd sat calmly in the passenger seat of my Jeep, passing me paper and pens like a helpful angel, even cracking a few jokes about the whole thing. She was marvelous. But I still felt awful. I felt bad that I'd subjected her to being involved in such a hassle, and worse that she'd witnessed my attempted escape. And then, as I was thinking these things, Allison placed a hand on my shoulder and said, bracingly, "How ya doin'?" I told you she was wonderful, didn't I? The accident had taken up some of our time, enough that the La Brea Tar Pits were too close to closing to visit. More's the pity. We went to LACMA instead. You know, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. After a few missed approaches and go-arounds, we made inside the parking lot, and took the elevator up to street level. The ticket seller told us that, if we waited 15 more minutes (until 5:00) we could "pay whatever we wanted" for admission—that is, make a donation. To kill the time, we toured the museum's current outdoor exhibit, "Urban Light": It's just what it looks like: a bunch of iron streetlamps stuck close together and set alight. Doesn't seem to qualify as "art" to me, but it was beautiful, and I guess that's enough. The ironic thing is that Allison and I had had a rather spirited debate on what should and should not qualify as "art" that morning as we ate breakfast at IHOP. As soon as we came in sight of this particular exhibit, Allison turned to me and said "There, does that qualify as art?" And I said, "Maybe if they turned 'em on." And then, mere seconds after turning away from the ticket booth, the lights came on. I turned to Allison and said, "That's better." There remains little to tell. We toured the museum, discovering some of Picasso's little-known sculpture, and admiring Luis Meléndez's vivid and massive collection of still-life paintings. Finally, we piled back into the car, fought our way out of Los Angeles on I-5, drove to San Diego, spent a few fruitless minutes searching for our hotel (which didn't seem to exist anymore), gave up, found a Howard Johnson, got a couple of rooms, and went to sleep. I lay on my bed in my pajamas, watching Robin Williams opine profanely about politicians, mulling over the disappointments of the day. Both Allison and I were disappointed that there had been so little to do at Universal Studios. I was disappointed that we hadn't seen the La Brea Tar Pits. As for my disappointment in myself for what I'd done that day...well, that was nowhere near subsiding. Allison, too, was likely disappointed in my driving skills...to say nothing of my irresponsible cowardice. I could only hope to to give her less cause the next day.

Day Ten: Gwangju

It's been Jeju redux time here in ol' Jeollanam-do Province. The weather stinks. I awoke to sullen overcast and drizzle, exactly the same as when I first arrived on Jeju Island. Seemed the bad weather moved up here. Anyway, regardless, I got up, dressed, phoned my parents and took off for the museums. First I dropped by a Ministop (sort of like 7-11 or Family Mart) to get some breakfast. While I was selecting some triangle gimbap, sausages, orange juice and one of those fibrous drinks the Koreans are so proud of, a Korean man standing at the counter and chatting with the clerk-ladies looked up and noticed me. He attempted (with an expression on his face I wasn't sure I liked) to ask me a few questions in Korean. I didn't understand at all. This only seemed to frustrate him, unlike the other 99% of Koreans I'd talked to who were patient and only chuckled if you didn't get it. So unaccustomed was I to being treated in such a manner that I got rather irked with the guy. I gave him a saucy wave as I left. To add insult to injury, the gimbap wasn't even that good, reminiscent of that awful ersatz meat pie I had yesterday. Danged if I ever go into a Ministop again. There wasn't much going on at the Gwangju National Museum. The main exhibition hall was closed for renovations or something, which left only the gardens and the "education center" (whatever that was). The stupa, grinding wheels, and headless sitting Buddha figure on the lawns were unimpressive, but the five-story pagoda wasn't too bad, even despite extensive weathering. Be that as it may, I didn't deign to take any pictures. I'll say this, too: some relics don't look like relics. You know what I mean? Those crowns and jewelry that I saw at Gyeongju didn't really look old. They'd been too perfectly restored. They were too shiny, too well-preserved. The weight of ages didn't press down upon them; the wonder of the ancients didn't radiate from them appreciably. But on the grounds of the Gwangju National Museum, there was an old celadon kiln that lay half-excavated and covered by a pavilion. That gave me the shivers. It just looked old, and ruined, and ancient, and forgotten. There it was, broken pottery scattered all about, the roof half-collapsed (or perhaps cut away to allow interior viewing)...it was like gazing upon that shipwreck at the bottom of the East China Sea off Seogwipo Harbor. The kiln was monstrously old and ruined, appreciably so. Just one look invoked visions of the kiln as it once was, whole, in use by creative artisans, churning out beautiful sea-green pottery, perhaps for the dining tables of the Joseon kings. I wondered how those artisans would feel about their tool in its present state, gazed upon by the unimaginable inhabitants of some future age. About five minutes after I'd entered, I left the National Museum and walked under the Honam Expressway to the Folk Museum. That was much more worthwhile. It was 500 won to get in (500 more than the National Museum had been), but it was more than worth it. The museum had lots of amazing artifacts dating from the Goryeo period through Joseon. There were hand-made hemp and straw sandals, octopus fishhooks, huge wooden scoops (for digging irrigation ditches), wedding clothes, children's toys, even earwax removers (resembling really tiny spoons). There was a diagram of the wall of some popular antiquarian Korean women's hairstyles. Most fascinating was the collection of ancient printed novels. Korea had block printing hundreds of years before Gutenberg, and printed novels, though not as common as today, were still made and distributed. To see a book, with an intricately carved wooden cover and pages covered with printed Chinese symbols, dating from nearly a thousand years ago...well, it was humbling, to say the least. I left the Folk Museum, leaped into a pedestrian tunnel to avoid a cloudburst, and then sauntered jauntily on to the Art Museum, showcasing works from Korean, Japanese and Chinese artists (with one or two Westerners thrown in). It was a 500-won "blah." I could take it or leave it. The modern art section, as has been true for every single modern art section of a museum I've ever been to, was a complete waste of time. A piano painted entirely white. Sunflowers made of computer CD drives and disc trays. A space capsule made out of luggage. A desk caught in the act of flying to pieces. Whoop-de-doo. The sculpture and painting galleries were much better. I was pleased with one piece in particular, called A Hidden Stream. It was a cave made of bronze, with a trickle of silvery stainless steel pouring out of a concealed cleft. The effect was pleasant, especially the way the stainless steel had been made to "overflow" the sculpture proper and run down the pedestal it was sitting on. In the paintings gallery, I was flabbergasted at the beautiful simplicity of one painting, entitled 8 Strokes. It was simply that: two strokes of a brown brush (at right angles) and six strokes of a white brush, on an olive-green canvas. Unremarkable, you say? The result looked remarkably like three strips of white linen hung over a wooden frame outdoors. It was uncanny. The simplicity of it was stunning...and beautiful, as I said. And that was basically it. I walked out, got a cab back to the station, grabbed some milk, water, and a Snickers bar at Family Mart (I'd been nursing a slight headache for a couple of hours, and figured some fluids and a sugar rush couldn't hurt) and returned to my hotel for a few hours. After resting up, I sallied forth once again. Thus I got a cab to Chungjang Shopping District. This proved to be similar to the Gukje Market in Busan. It's a wide area of narrow streets, jam-packed with shops stacked on top of and smushed in next to each other. It's the closest thing to Diagon Alley, I'm sure, that you'll find anywhere. The atmosphere of the place is charming: closet-sized yet chic clothing shops galore; restaurants and bars aplenty; pop music blaring from every speaker; vendors selling delicious twigim (fried food); and bushels of young and trendy people everywhere. It's quite overwhelming for a country boy like me. My first stop was 25, a hip and famous record store. Lo and behold, true to the guide book's description, there were CDs from all over the Western world there, at good prices too. They had classical music and Korean traditional favorites as well, plus a bucket load of K-Pop and Asian pop music. After deliberating for a bit, I up and bought Viva la Vida by Coldplay, The Battle of Los Angeles by Rage Against the Machine, and Gold (the best of James Brown). Hey, I'm expanding my musical tastes here a little, give me a break. The bill came to 48,000 won, and I walked out of there a contented man. (Something along the lines of "Oh boy, this should see me through the eleven-hour flight to Los Angeles!" was running through my head.) After that I wandered about a little and even got lost a couple of times. It's a big place, far bigger, I suspect, than Gukje Market and Jagalchi combined. Then I spotted dinner. I was quite hungry by this point, despite consuming some triangle gimbap and some meat-on-a-stick after leaving the hotel, and had been subconsciously searching for a restaurant. And there you had it: Mujinju, a three-storied and classy restaurant near the western edge of the shopping district, specializing in bossam. Bossam is basically slices of rather fatty pork, which like most Korean meat is wrapped in a leaf with some vegetables and sauce and eaten. I ordered the kimchi bossam (meaning I wrapped the kimchi up with the meat) and very delicious it was. They don't serve portions for fewer than two people at Mujinju, however. So I had to eat quite a bit. And the meat, as I may have mentioned, is very fatty. Half fat, I'd say. When I ordered, the waitress dutifully jotted it down, hesitated, then looked at me and said in English, "Do you like fat?" With a grin and a nonchalant swish of my head, I said "I do." I didn't like the kimchi very much...it was a tad too sweet for some reason. But the bossam itself was delicious. It was served with two sauces (brown and mustard), as well as ssamjang, garlic slices, and pickled onions, and some cabbage soup for afters. Also, when I'd finished eating, the staff brought me some absolutely delightful cold cinnamon tea to sip on. That stuff is amazing. I hope I can get it back in the States, because I've never tasted any tea so flavorful or sweet. Mujinju itself is quite well-appointed as well. The interior is mostly wood, stained tastefully dark. Some charming lithographs of Chinese characters and pastoral scenes complete the decor. The place is architecturally challenging: M.C. Escher-like, almost. The three floors of the restaurant are stacked haphazardly atop one another, as though by some careless child. But the service is grand, the staff well-dressed and friendly with at least a working knowledge of English, the food delectable, and the cost not too steep. For a two-person helping of kimchi bossam I paid ₩21,000. That's about $16.50 or so. Not half bad considering the state of the world economy, eh? After dinner I went next door to the Joybox Arcade. It was small, but there was plenty of choice. Arranged around the southern and western walls was a bevy of small, violently purple compartments that looked like photo booths, but on closer inspection proved to be miniature noraebang. (Noraebang means "singing room" in Korean, remember? Korean karaoke.) Two people could squeeze inside one and have their pick of songs to sing, with a TV screen and microphones. I didn't see how much they cost (sorry). I do know that I blew about ₩2,000 on Time Crisis II (300 won per game/respawn). As I was walking into the arcade, a small group of young men outside caught my attention. They were busy challenging the punch machine. You know, you pop in a coin, pull the punching bag down, and then lay into it for all you're worth. I was challenged by one of the most vocal of these young men (a skinny fellow with glasses and a blue button-down, who spoke English quite well) to see who had the strongest punch. Not one to pass up a martial challenge, I handed him my bag of CDs, and let fly. I scored somewhere in the 8300 range. "That's lowest score," my challenger said, grinning. "We are stronger than you." Yes they were, I admitted. "One more time?" the challenger asked. I said yes, blew on my knuckles, wound up, and tried harder. 8787. "Wow! Good score." Then it was my challenger's turn...or rather, my challenger's champion's. Another guy in a white T-shirt and shorts cleared some space, then kicked the punching bag with a swinging right leg. His score was well into the 9000 range. Even though he technically hadn't punched the thing, we'd never agreed beforehand on the terms of the contest. We'd just set out to see who was stronger. I figured the sportsmanlike thing to do was pay up, so I gave the winner a thousand-won note, shook hands with these fellows ("You are a good man," they said) and went inside the arcade. After the second boss kicked my butt on Time Crisis II, I took to wandering again, but I didn't really see anything I wanted. I don't really do shopping, unless it's books, music, or guns. Or manly outerwear. I nonchalantly went into a shoe store, looking to replace my old Kamik trail shoes or even my Columbia work boots, but no such luck. I've never been much of a Converse fan. Then I spotted the Baskin Robbins. Now, to be honest, I'd just consumed two helpings of fat back at Mujinju. I hesitated at the parlor doors, gazing at the familiar, comforting blues and purples inside. What the hell, I thought. You're only young once. I went inside. I eschewed my usual Jamocha Almond Fudge for a big helping of Cherry Jubilee (King Cone, baby...three thousand won). Aw man, it was awesome. Cherry ice cream definitely deserves to be honored foremost amongst humankind's greatest inventions, right up there with umbrella hats. As I was sitting in the upstairs room, slurping my ice cream happily, I noticed a pair of rather giggly Korean schoolgirls sitting at the table next to me. They kept looking over their shoulders at me, then putting their heads together and speaking softly and quickly. I caught snatches of English phrases, and deduced that they were figuring out how to speak to me. And then it happened. "Hi. How are you?" I absolutely love this about Korea. Coming from a land where most foreigners are looked upon with suspicion, if not outright hostility, it's refreshing to be in a foreign land oneself and be treated unerringly with curiosity and friendliness. Okay, yeah, sure, they might've just been practicing their English on me, but hey...they could've hurled some racial epithets at me and flounced out, too. But they didn't. "I'm fine, thanks," I said (my standard reply). "How are you?" There followed a halting conversation. At my every reply the speaker would put her head together with her reference book (her friend) and then figure out what I'd said, and formulate a reply. This worked so well that eventually we wound up taking pictures together. It was kind of funny: as I handed her my camera so she could take our picture, the speaker brushed herself down and made what I deduced to be some self-deprecating comment about her appearance. "Gwaenchanayo," I said. "Yeppun yeoja imnida." It's okay. You're a pretty woman. The girl threw her hands over her face and went into a fit of embarrassed giggles. Then we took pictures, said very cordial and amiable goodbyes, and then they left. It was just five seconds after this that a couple of Baskin Robbins staff members walked up to my table, presented me with plastic shot glass filled with purple ice cream, and bade me drink it for free. "This drink is called 'Purple Berry Blast,'" one of them explained. It was service (see Day Eight: Jeju). I drank it slowly. It was delicious. Dang, I am going to miss this country. In fact, this little three-hour pilgrimage I made to the Chungjang Shopping District in Gwangju underscored everything I'm going to miss about Korea: gigantic open markets, talkative people, delicious food, music in the air, atmosphere, culture (Oriental and Occidental)...and Korea itself, really. I wandered around a little more, but I'd just about seen everything. The sky was beginning to drip a little, and I was anxious to get back to my room and (a) test out my new CDs and (b) hit the sack early. (I need to catch the bus out of here pretty soon tomorrow; I reckon it's going to take me up to seven hours or so to reach Gohyeon.) So I caught yet another cab (Gwangju is filled with them), had a short ride back to the train station (during which the driver and I admired the legs of a rather gorgeous woman in a short skirt and pumps riding sidesaddle on the back of a scooter), a balmy stroll back to the Koreana Tourist Hotel, was greeted by that same spooky stuffed tiger, and... ...well, here I am.