6 splendiferous books I read in 2014

Jamie Todd Rubin, of whom I am now a steadfast devotee, just did a similar post on his wicked-cool blog, so I thought I'd do one of my own. I didn't read quite as many books as I wanted to in 2014 (between two moves, Miss H going home, two semesters at Sejong University, a train trip through the Japanese Home Islands in February, and an overland transect of Indochina in summer), but at least I made it into the double digits. Some of the titles I picked were real jim-dandies.

Without further ado: 

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
I'd read Heart of Darkness, and appreciated it for all it was by itself. But there was something about Conrad's oeuvre—his flair for painting vivid pictures of the exotic corners of the earth, and the colorful folk who people them (born of his own experience as a sailor)—that captivated me. That same flair wasn't lacking in Lord Jim. Conrad tackles questions of duty, conscience, guilt, penance, and moral courage, all while weaving a colorful tapestry of both human and natural scenery in Indochina and the South Pacific islands. A heck of a good read, and an absolutely flabbergasting ending. It'll either reaffirm or destroy your belief in karma. 

Dune by Frank Herbert
A friend bullied me into reading this. I'd caught snippets of the 2003 TV miniseries with James McAvoy, and heard bits and bobs around the Internet from those teeming millions of slavering fans, but never really considered it to be up my alley. Well, I wasn't wrong; I don't think I'll be continuing with the series. But I can easily see why this book has been called the greatest masterwork of the science fiction genre. Herbert does a spectacular job of world-building, touching on economics, politics, sociology, religion, and biology, while never losing sight of the overarching narrative nor the gigantic cast of characters, giving each one enough limelight as he or she deserves. It was so well done that I didn't even realize it was an allegory about oil politics in the Middle East.

I have to admit, the shai-hulud were pretty freakin' awesome.

Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
Don't get me wrong: I absolutely hated this book. But I can hate a book and still acknowledge its intrinsic worth. I'd like to give you a synopsis of this door-stopper, but I'm afraid it's...impossible to describe. Even William Gibson, the noir prophet, the father of cyberpunk, the man who coined the term "cyberspace," the first winner of the science fiction "triple crown" (the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Philip K. Dick Award), and the author of the masterful Sprawl trilogy (which I have yet to read), doesn't quite understand what Dhalgren is about, and admits as much in his foreword. Whoever did the jacket copy couldn't quite verbalize it, either. But therein lies the book's pull: it teases you into believing that you have the story and its deeper meanings pinned down, then erases them and lays something completely different over them, until you wind up with a palimpsest of cultural significance and societal commentary that's impossible to sift into a nugget of moral truth. Even the title's meaning is left up to the imagination. It's a book that reads like a poem (and indeed, Delany was a prolific poet), and is just as enigmatic and florid. I hated it because I wasn't smart enough to figure it out. 

Kowloon Tong by Paul Theroux
I'd read plenty of Theroux's travel writing, but never his fiction. This was my first taste. (I intend to read Saint Jack and perhaps The Lower River at some point in the future.) A chilling tale of Britain's handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, as told from the viewpoint of Bunt, a milquetoast business owner and British citizen born and raised in the city by his domineering mum. The bad guys are sinister, their motives devious, and even the innocent are guilty of something. A book I could hardly put down, thanks to its faithfully-reproduced setting and sizzling characters. 

Ghost Train to the Eastern Star by Paul Theroux
A bit of a cheat to stick in two books by Theroux, perhaps. But this title is nonfiction, at least. A follow-up to Theroux's epic journey through Asia by train in 1975 (chronicled in The Great Railway Bazaar), Ghost Train is Theroux retracing his former route 33 years later, as an older and wiser but just as curmudgeonly man. So much has changed since he last came this way that he has to change his line of march; chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan force him to deviate through Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan instead; Vietnam is no longer divided in two, and he may now travel from Ho Chi Minh City to Kunming, China, in an uninterrupted line; and he stops off at a few disused gulags in Russia, just because he can. He meets old friends and makes new ones along the journey, seeking, as he himself says, trains...and finding passengers. 

The Korean War by Bruce Cumings
I'd wanted a straight, no-nonsense, battle-by-battle account of the war, and I didn't get it. What I got was an examination of the social context, geopolitical causes, and back-room wheeling and dealing surrounding the war, and a scathingly revisionist one at that. Cumings takes the United States sharply to task for, among other things, assisting Syngman Rhee to quell the Yeosu Rebellion and thereby stifling true democracy in the nascent Republic of Korea; committing the No Gun Ri Massacre; and for making no effort to understand or sympathize with thousands of years of established Korean cultural norms and traditions before slashing a line down the 38th Parallel and calling it even. The book was tough to swallow—especially as my grandfather fought in that forgotten war, and almost certainly lost some buddies in the process—but on the whole, I'm glad I read it. If you want an unvarnished account of the political, social, and cultural fronts of the Korean War, this is the quickest and simplest book to read. 

There, that's done! As you can see from my new widget from Goodreads at the bottom right of this page, there, I'm knee-deep in Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (fantastic; "Me Imperturbe" is my favorite poem so far) and The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. Miss H and I are reading that one together. She's never read any Vonnegut (gasp!) and I needed to read more, and I figured TSoA was as good a place as any to resume.

One more thing: I don't think I managed to even read 20 books this year. Horrendous ratio, not at all up to my standards in high school. I have some friends on Goodreads who read fifty books this year! It's all because I was bound up in Anna Karenina since October of 2013, and then a coworker gave me Dhalgren. Well, 2015's going to be different. I'm going to do 35 books, or I'll be a Rhode Island Red.

Until next time, fellow bibliophiles...

I'm doing NaNoWriMo 2014

In the wake of Ace & Roc's rejection of my first novel, Revival, I've done a lot of soul-searching, self-persecution, and agonizing about the precise reasons why. What I finally hit upon was this:

I've lived my entire life under a cloud of puerile delusions—which were pretty typical of my generation, but that doesn't make having them any better. I grew up with two simple goals: (a) to make my mark on the world, and (b) to have fun and never work hard. I realized a couple of days ago that those goals are mutually exclusive. Up to this point I looked at both my journalism career and my writing as mere games—cheat codes to get me out of doing any heavy lifting in life. I should have seen them for what they truly were: real jobs requiring real effort. If I had just treated my career and my writing with a bit of respect and seriousness, taken some initiative, had an ounce of industriousness, put in a drop of effort...maybe I'd actually have a career right now. I'm due to go back to the United States in early January 2015, never to return to Korea, and I'm going back with no prospects, hardly any job experience, and not a whit of marketability. Who knows what I'll wind up doing, or even if I'll find any meaningful work at all? If I'd just tried harder in my youth, perhaps I'd be published already, and working as a respected magazine columnist or radio talk show host, with a first novel printed and another slated for publication, with savings and investments and mortgages and a 401k...instead of, you know, utterly wasting the first thirty years of my life trying to ensure that said life was as fun as possible.

So I've decided that, from now on, I'm going to put more conscientious effort into my work—both my nonexistent career as a journalist and my writing skills. 

To that end, I decided to do NaNoWriMo this year. The reasons are fourfold: 

Reason #1: I need to get back in the habit of writing every day. Ace & Roc probably rejected me because my writing was almost good, but not quite. It was sterile and clumsy enough to preclude any chance I had of publication. There was too much fixing that would have had to be done before the thing was fit for the press. I haven't been writing every day, not for a year or so now. NaNoWriMo is a great way to jump-start the habit again. I need to sharpen my skills—reforge the swords, so to speak. And NaNo is the furnace. 

Reason #2: It's a good way for me to stretch some new writing muscles as well as the old ones. The novel I decided to write this November involves a female protagonist. I've never written anything from a female's first-person perspective before. I get the feeling that the lady characters in Revival are pretty sterile and flat and weak-chinned, so I'm gonna use this NaNo to train my brain in the subtle art of writing strong, intelligent, and engaging women. 

Reason #3: I did some clicking around over on Robert J. Sawyer's blog (he's none other than the president of freakin' Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America). I discovered something earth-shattering: Revival, my first novel, the first entry in what I had hoped would be an epic science fiction series...is not science fiction. Nope. It's got some elements of the fantastic and the metaphysical, and what science is involved is rather soft stuff, even pseudoscientific. That puts it firmly in the realm of speculative fiction, perhaps even fantasy. Small wonder Ace & Roc rejected the manuscript! All this time, since the age of 19, I thought I was writing science fiction, and it turns out that I wasn't. That made me question what I knew. Do I really know what sci-fi is? Did I ever? 

Obviously I need to get reacquainted with my chosen genre. When I get back home in January, I'm going to buy up as many Hugo- and Nebula-winning novels as I can, read through 'em, and find out what great science fiction is really all about. I'll shelve the Revival series for a while and focus on writing and publishing short science fiction to build up a solid foundation of writing credentials—enough to attract the attention of a literary agent. After I get that agent, then I shall focus on finding Revival a home. I know it'll have a home somewhere, but probably not with a traditional science fiction publisher like Tor, DAW, Ace, or Baen. 

But for now, for the month of November, I'm writing a science fiction novel. A real one. Hard science fiction, where facts are facts, the science is sound, and there's no fluff or fantasy. I want to see if I can do it—if I actually know what sci-fi is, and if I can write it. The best way to learn is to do, right? I'm using NaNoWriMo to relearn the nuances of my craft so I don't make the same genre-busting mistakes I did with Revival.  

Reason #4: Simply put: writing hasn't been fun lately. That's probably why I haven't been doing it on a daily basis, why I let it slide. It's become a chore. Even before I decided to look at it as a job that required real work, it already felt like a toxic bore. I couldn't tell you why. Maybe I felt hemmed in by all the rules and characterizations and plot lines I'd spent years constructing for the Revival series. Maybe that same series was sapping all of my creativity. Maybe I'd gotten so wrapped up in publication fever that I was looking at every writing project as a potentially salable piece, and putting enormous pressure on myself to make it perfect and right and good with the very first draft and psyching myself out. Probably some combination of the three.

I need to pull back, take a breather, and remember why I want to be a writer: because it's fun, dang it. Crafting worlds, playing God, moving pieces around on a chessboard, and all that rot. Oh, and potentially creating something that other people will see and love, and might inspire them to create something themselves. 

And you know what? NaNoWriMo, so far, has been exactly that. FUN. 

It's November 2. Yesterday afternoon, I commenced writing Charlie Ward, Interstellar Soldier-of-Fortune, a space opera. This story has been a blast so far. The thing is practically writing itself. Words are rolling off my fingertips. My brain is a blast furnace. My knuckles are oiled and ready. My mind is teeming with words. On the first day I did 2,500 words in less than an hour. Finished the first chapter. Ka-BOOM!

This is the only image I could find on Wallpaper Abyss that approximated my MC's appearance and demeanor.

So here's to getting back into the daily writing game, sculpting my first female protagonist, reacquainting myself with my one and only literary love (science fiction), and just having a ball with writing again. I'll keep you posted about how it all goes. 

This is the refreshed and rejuvenated Vaunter, signing off. Gotta go do another 2,500 words. 

10 things to do in the Hong Kong international transfer terminal

Not my photo.

What to do when you're trapped in an airport for twelve hours? It depends on the airport. Major ones obviously have shops and cafes and even game arcades where you can whittle away your time. But what if you're a lone traveler stuck in the transfer terminal of, say, Hong Kong International Airport while you wait for someone else to show up? 

No cafes, no bookstores, no arcades, and just a single forlorn noodle shop. 

Four power outlets and eight hundred people in line to use them. 

Free wi-fi that keeps resetting itself (and whatever webpage you were visiting). 

The city's too far away to reach quickly or cheaply, and besides—you don't want to head through customs and immigration and wait at the airport entrance for fear of losing your beloved partner in the crowd. 

So you sit around in the lounge for eleven hours, tapping your feet and losing your mind. 

Here are some tips to help close that day-long gap in your sanity: 

1. Leave the airport. No-brainer, this one. I was waiting for Miss H to show up on a late afternoon flight, but you aren't! Get out! Go to Hong Kong! You'll miss all the fun stuff below, but you'll save a lot of time. 

2. Take a walk. Explore! Throw that bag over your shoulder ('cause there aren't any lockers or anything) and walk the whole hundred yards from one end of the terminal to the other. If you get really bored, ride the escalators up and down for two hours. Or take in some sights at the shops...both of them. Don't just sit around; you'll give yourself bedsores. 

3. Get a snack. There's only one noodle joint, but so what? The noodles come in a salty broth and have forlorn little bits of soggy hot dog in them, and that never gets old! No convenience stores either, so that makes your choice real simple!

4. Read a book. I hope to God you brought one! Or five!

5. Surf the Web. You might have to wait around for three or four hours until someone vacates a seat near one of the four power outlet stations. Just don't forget to be polite and kick the old Chinese grandma's luggage off the seat, because goodness knows there aren't people waiting to sit down, Granny! 

6. Update your journal. Lots of exciting things happening in this terminal! Even more exciting than the time you got a dull, rusty spike driven through your head with a mallet!

7. People watch. All sorts of people come through Hong Kong, heading to and coming from every part of the planet: Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, an American in a business suit, Chinese, Chinese, more Chinese, two or three Arabs, Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, a couple of Japanese coeds, Chinese, Chinese, and Chinese. You can also marvel at the aircrews (foreigners and Chinese!) stuffing their faces at that one single noodle shop with the soggy hot dogs. 

8. Meditate. You probably won't feel stressed or antsy at this point, but in case you have accumulated a smidgen of white-hot, misanthropic rage in your belly, curl up on that nice, clean carpet and oohhhmmm it all away! Just don't get run over by anyone's luggage or kicked by any Asiatic who has no sense of personal space. 

9. Shell out for extras. Some of the nicer airports in the developed world have VIP lounges where you can eat a meal, go online, watch a movie, get a haircut, or take a shower or a nap, and Hong Kong International is no exception. It might cost a little extra but it's infinitely more comfortable than crashing on a lounge bench. And by "little extra" I mean about a hundred U.S. dollars an hour. Pocket change, right?

10. Look on the bright side. I mean, eleven hours of your life isn't much, right? That's only as long as it would have taken you to eat three meals, read seven chapters of your book, spend a lovely day together with your significant other, put in a full day's work on your laptop, or basically do anything else remotely useful. No time at all! And when the eleven hours is up, you'll meet the love of your life and the two of you will have a ball in Hong Kong! 

...after you wait in line to get through security, pay one hundred Hong Kong dollars, and spend 40 minutes on the Airport Express to the city, that is.

Hong Kong International Airport, baby! It's all you can stand!

Bangkok, day one (part II)

The latter half of Thursday, July 24 went swimmingly, and more than made up for the crappy first half. 

I hopped the BTS Skytrain from Ratchathewi Station to Phrom Phong, about five or six stations south. (Only 34 baht compared to the 150 I'd been paying them crooked tuk-tuk drivers.) Upon leaving the station and walking a few hundred yards, I noticed a plywood sign. It was affixed over the threshold of a restaurant named Im Chan, across the four-lane road beneath the elevated railway, and read "THAIFOOD VERY GOOD AND VERY CHEAP."

Well, how could I possibly pass that up?

I waltzed right in and ordered up some shrimp pad thai for 50 baht and fried tofu, also 50 baht. A hulking, delicious meal for only $3.50. I was beginning to succumb to the charms of Southeast Asia, corrupt tuk-tuk drivers and nosy Thai geezers notwithstanding. It was nice, for once, to not be able to decide which items on the menu to select...but to have the sound financial option of selecting both.

I smacked my lips, paid my bill, and walked a few blocks further, to the area of Sukhumvit Road between Soi 26 and Soi 28, to a little foreigner-owned bookstore called Dasa Book Café.

Not my photo.

The smell as I walked through the doors was a wondrous blend of hardwood floors, dusty shelves, yellowing pages, creased bindings, and dog-eared covers. I paused for a moment to savor it—it'd been many a long year since I'd smelled that particular deliciousness. 

I was looking for something to replace The Catcher in the Rye—my copy of which, in fact, is even now sitting on the shelf in Mixed Dormitory C of Boxpackers Hostel off Pretchaburi Road in Bangkok, awaiting the next thirsty reader. Almost immediately as I entered Dasa I spotted a tattered copy of Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim and snatched it up. I'd been meaning to read it for ages. A couple of minutes later I noticed a cardboard sign that had the legend "MORE BOOKS UPSTAIRS!" scribbled on it in black marker, so I ascended a narrow mahogany staircase and located the sci-fi section. There I found Frank Herbert's Dune and The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein. I almost bought both, but I figured I'd limit myself to two books, as heartbreaking as that was. I didn't want to bring a whole library home to Seoul in my backpack. I selected Dune. 

The final item on the day's list was to find some high place and get the lay of the land—preferably a cocktail bar that wasn't too picky about dress codes. So I chose the tallest building in Thailand: the Baiyoke Sky Hotel.

I paid $10 and rode up to the observation deck on the 77th floor, which was something like a museum. It had photogenic artifacts scattered about, tailor-made for the vain Asian obsession with selfies. 

...which many a Westerner has fallen prey to.

I took a leisurely stroll around, looking at everything. It was only four o'clock and I had some time to kill before the sunset (or the bar opened, whichever came first). I took the elevator up to the 83rd floor and walked up two flights of stairs to the rotating open-air observation deck. A fine, cool breeze was blowing, wiping the sweat off my forehead after my steamy trek through south-central Bangkok. The city sure looked pretty in the late afternoon sunlight.

Then I went down to the bar, had a Manhattan, and watched the sun sink lower...

...directly into a welter of storm clouds boiling up from the western horizon. 

Rats. No sunset?

I paid 300 baht for my drinks and went back up to the observation platform. The wind had freshened and I could see that it was raining like hell a few miles to the west, on the outskirts of the city. I dithered around up there until the first drops began to fall, and then I went back to the 77th floor, opened up Dune, and began to read. The thunderstorm rolled across the city and rain pelted the windows. Lightning flashed at three points of the compass and the room darkened to nocturnal depths. 

I was determined to wait the storm out. Sunset wouldn't be until nearly 8, so there was a fine chance that this monsoon squall would blow itself out before then. My instincts were correct. The sun broke through at 7:45. I slammed my book shut and raced back up to the top deck. 

The air had a heavier, wetter, more relaxed feeling, as if some pent-up energy had been released, and sky and ground were but two lovers lying in bed and sharing a cigarette after a tempestuous bout of lovemaking. A few stray droplets still blew through the air and tickled the eyebrows and lashes. Loving couples stood tangled up with each other as they watched the sun peek through a hole in the clouds and illuminate all creation with its soft pinkish-gold light. Then the fiery orb sank out of sight beyond the western horizon and its ruff of grey oblivion, and I capitulated and went home. 

I made two resolutions that evening: to tour western Bangkok by water bus, see two or three temples, and do it all without setting foot in a tuk-tuk. Come back tomorrow to see how it all fell out.

writing updates, 3/7/2014

I haven't touched Novel #3 since mid-February. I was compelled to shelve it during the Big Move to Gangnam. Moreover I don't really like the way it's going. Do you have any idea how tricky it is to write a party of twelve hardy adventurers out of a collapsing subterranean green-quartz temple without using every cliché known to humankind? I thought I had a pretty original idea, but (as has happened to me so many times) I'm getting that nasty, familiar, I'm-such-a-hack-writer feeling. Speculative fiction/alternative reality writers are more susceptible to this feeling than the more mainstream scribblers, I suspect. (Crime writers, too, probably. Jeez, they have a tough row to hoe. I'm glad I'm not one of them. Novel #14 or #15 is slated to have murder-mystery overtones, so I might have to brush up on my skills before then.)

Anyway, that's not what I came here to talk to you about. I came to talk about my short fiction writing. Every resource I turn to tells me that I need to establish myself as an author of short stories and novelettes before I can even start thinking about publishing a novel. But every short story I've submitted has been rejected. Here, take a look, I've kept records. In this digital age, an aspirant writer doesn't get paper rejection slips anymore; we just get e-mails. Or nothing at all. But I've kept electronic track of my submissions and this is the long (er, short) sad litany: 

 1. Tues, 12/11/12 - Daily Science Fiction ("The Maze," 770 words) - REJECTED

 2. Sun, 12/23/12 - Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine ("Incommunicado," 3,440 words) - REJECTED

 3. Fri, 1/4/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("Liquid Courage," 1,140 words) - REJECTED

 4. Wed, 1/16/13 - Fantastic Frontiers ("Liquid Courage," 1,140 words) - NEVER HEARD BACK

 5. Fri, 2/8/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("Plea Bargain," 1,130 words) - REJECTED

 6. Fri, 4/19/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("The Time Gun," 2,830 words) - REJECTED

 7. Thurs, 6/03/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("The First Twenty-Five Years," 1,740 words) - SECOND ROUND OF REVIEW - REJECTED 

 8. Fri, 6/26/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("Only One Boot," 980 words) - REJECTED

 9. Wed, 8/14/13 - 3LBE ("Liquid Courage," 1,140 words) - REJECTED 9/11/13

 10. Wed, 8/14/13 - Space Squid ("The Time Gun," 2,830 words) - REJECTED 11/15/13

 11. Thurs, 1/23/14 - Asimov's Science Fiction ("Plea Bargain," 1,130 words) - REJECTED 1/29/14 

 12. Wed, 1/29/14 - Asimov's Science Fiction ("The First Twenty-Five Years," [R] 2,700 words) - REJECTED 2/1/14

 13. Wed, 1/29/14 - Ace and Roc Science Fiction & Fantasy ("Revival," 112,000 words) -


 14. Mon, 2/10/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("The First 25 Years," [R] 2,700 words) - REJECTED 3/4/14

As you can see, I'm still waiting for word on my novel manuscript. I submitted it in late January, and the Ace & Roc website informed me that I can expect to wait five months for a response. In the meantime, I'm shopping for agents. I should really start doing that more energetically, actually...

But getting back to the main point: I haven't written nearly as many stories as I should, much less submitted them anywhere. I just keep sending in the same tired old drivel that seem puerile and stale when I look back on it now. Some of them I've rewritten (that's what the "[R]" means in that last entry), but that doesn't change the fact that they suck—as the continued rejections indicate. Only one of my stories has even made the second round of review. Granted, I haven't submitted that many, but that opens up a whole new can of worms: I'm working a job that gives me four months off every year. Most writers would kill to have a schedule like that. What use am I making of it?

I need to write some new stuff. A lot of it. Short stories, novelettes, even a novella or two, maybe. Good stuff. Fresh stuff. Mature stuff. Stuff that gets me published and makes me into the sci-fi writer I think I am. 

So I've got an idea. One of my other writer-blogger friends posted an exciting article on Facebook the other day. Amtrak is going to start offering free rides to writers. Imagine that: a snug berth, a bottle of wine, a good view out the window, and a laptop (or a notepad and pen, if you're Paul Theroux). Intoxicating idea, no? 

That's far in my future for now, but it did get me thinking about having a "writer's retreat." It's plausible now that Miss H and I are in a three-bedroom apartment. We've elected to have one master bedroom, one guest room and one office-cum-den. I could readily commandeer the office-cum-den for, say, a week of successive evenings and just bang out some good writing. I'm all fired up now that I've read Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama. Absolutely spectacular hard science fiction never fails to inspire, and Clarke's got me wanting to to follow in his footsteps. 

So I'm going to do it. A "writer's retreat." Instead of spending my evenings plugging defenseless animals on Deer Hunter 2014 or watching Almost Human, I'm going to write. For a week. For as many hours as I can. If I get stuck on one story, I'll start another. That's one thing that, thankfully, I'm never at a loss for: inspiration. Give me a pen and a notepad and in five minutes I'll come up with some killer ideas. It's executing them properly, with fresh angles and unique perspective, that's more difficult. Hell, not all of the stuff I churn out may be science fiction, either. I might try some historical fiction or even straight-up mainstream contemporary fic. Who knows? It'd be good to take the shackles off, remove the filters between my brain and fingers, and just see what flows out from under my fingernails. Worth a try, right? Then I'll have a fresh batch of stories, character-driven and lyrically written, which will perhaps be more along the lines of what DSF or Asimov's are looking for. 

I'll let you know when I begin. 

Wish me luck...

Gangnam, Mongolia, and the Grand Canyon

It's the witching hour here in Seoul, and it's time for some updates. This blog's been clogged (see what I did there?) with my Japan junket and The Art of Manliness challenge I took in January. Time to give you the skinny on the others facets of my life.

THE BIG MOVE TO GANGNAM
Miss H and I started packing tonight. The bookshelf is completely empty, the dresser (which we use for miscellaneous storage, cramming all of our clothes into our wardrobes) is 80% done, and the games drawer has been packed up. The entirety of the kitchen, the wardrobes, the veranda and the bathroom remain, however. Both of us are remembering how much we hate packing. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Why are we moving to Gangnam? Well, Miss H was justifiably discontent with her job here in Gwangnaru, so she elected to switch jobs at the completion of her contract in late February. The new job she found was with Gangnam SLP, in Gangnam-gu. Gu, if you'll recall, is a word roughly analogous to "borough" or "district" or "ward" in English. Seoul has 25 of these gu. We live in Gwangnaru, which is located in Gwangjang-dong, a neighborhood of Gwangjin-gu, widely regarded to be the city's most multifarious ward. Now, however, we'll be moving to Gangnam-gu, which is noticeably larger and more oblong than Gwangjin-gu. As far as I can tell, Miss H's school and our apartment are located at the extreme southern edge, in the neighborhood of Irwon-dong near Daecheong Station on Seoul Metro Line 3. The boonies, as it were. Go any farther south and you're not in Seoul anymore, Toto. We will, however, be deliciously close to the glitzy Gangnam Boulevard, and the attractive neighborhood of Sinnonhyeon beyond—the same place I bought a copy of Kafka's Metamorphosis and read it in one go while sitting in a coffee shop in the Urban Hive, remember? There's also Yangjae Citizen's Forest, which I already know and love (and am planning some kick-ass summer barbecues around). We're right next door to Jamsil, with its humongous (albeit undergoing renovations) COEX Mall, and the Jamsil Sports Complex where all the best baseball games are played. It'll be a cinch to slide over to ritzy Apgujeong or across the river to Ttukseom Resort, too. Location, location, location. 

But first we gotta move there. So we're packing. We move in on the 1st of March. We're not using a moving service with a Kia Bongo like we did last time. He showed up at our old place in Bucheon at 8:00 at night and by the time we were all moved in to the new place in Gwangnaru it was midnight. We want to make it quick and easy this time. So I'll be obtaining a temporary international driver's license and renting a car. Preferably an SUV or at least a crossover—something with some cargo space. Then I'll drive our stuff to the new apartment in Irwon-dong myself. It'll be the first time I've ever driven Korea, or any foreign country for that matter. I'm heading to the DLA (Driver's License Authority) in Mapo-gu tomorrow to obtain a temporary license. I may have to take a test. Wish me luck. 

SPRING SEMESTER AT SEJONG UNIVERSITY
The pre-semester staff meeting is February 24th. I like my new schedule: on Mondays and Fridays I start at 11 and have two classes, finishing up at one o'clock. Tuesdays and Thursdays are the heavy days: 9:00 a.m. - 5:20 p.m., with a few breaks here and there. On Wednesdays, like usual, I have no class at all. I have a new type of class this time around: a combined reading/listening class that affords me some degree of freedom with resources and materials. I'm very much looking forward to selecting the best passages and audio clips to give the students the most effective (and fun) time possible. My commute will be longer, of course, but finding out the quickest way from Irwon-dong to the university (which is in the Neung-dong neighborhood of Gwangjin-gu) is going to be an adventure. 

What I'm not looking forward to, though, is getting my visa extended. This is always a hassle. It requires an entire day, a ton of paperwork, and a great honking trip into Yangcheon-gu in West Seoul to the main immigration office—and that's if everything goes smoothly. If the immigration officer decides that he needs to see some extraneous document that wasn't included on the official list, he can do so—and send you away until you acquire it. Sometimes one must make two or three trips to immigration to get everything sorted. That's the other thing I'm doing tomorrow besides hitting the DLA: renewing my visa. I called immigration twice and asked them the same question: what documents do I need? The answers tally, and I think I've got everything prepared. Let's hope I only need to make one trip. 

FLYING
Nothing doing. I'm in Korea, remember? Though I have figured out what I'll do about flight training when I return to the States. It looks like Miss H and I might wind up in Las Vegas, Nevada, when all is said and done. That's assuming we find jobs and cheap housing, but this locale is the most likely spot we've run across. Imagining that all goes as planned, we'll be living in Vegas, Miss H will be doing social work, and I'll be doing radio and bartending. On the side, I'll be working toward my commercial pilot's license. Once I get that (plus a few other ratings like high-performance and multi-engine and perhaps even instrument) I'll start applying to the companies that do flight-seeing tours over the Grand Canyon. I'd kill to fly a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter over that humongous scar in the earth. 

BOOZE
When was the last cocktail review I did? Halloween, probably. Things went nuts toward the end of the fall semester last year, and then the holidays hit, and then January was taken up with that challenge, and early February was my trip to Hokkaido. So...yeah. No booze. I'll probably restart my review schedule sometime in late March. Gotta wait for the dust to settle from the Big Move and the Spring Semester. 

On the home-brew front, the boys and I just bought a huge bulk order of malt extracts and yeasts and hops which we can play around with. But we'll get to that in a few weeks. For now we're just enjoying the amazing American pale ale we brewed up in December. We've discovered that adding an extra little bit of priming sugar to the brew just before bottling creates the perfect amount of carbonation. There's no fixing the sediment problem (not without secondary fermentation, which none of us have been brave/industrious enough to try yet), so all we have to fix now is the color and clarity. Oh, and the flavor. The last two batches have been spot-on, though, so I have high hopes for our next brew: a maple porter, my pick. I'm scanning the Interwebs for a suitable partial extract recipe. Let me know if you have any suggestions, dear readers. 

And speaking of reading...

READING
I hung up The Great Shark Hunt (Hunter S. Thompson). I'll keep it and read it later and put it up on the shelf and it'll look all groovy and sophisticated to passersby. I have other fish to fry, though. During the long train journey down through Japan I finished reading Paul Theroux's Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and The Terror by Dan Simmons. Good reads both, though I found Simmons's work a bit more stimulating (probably for this reason). I'm almost to Part Four of Anna Karenina, and have finally begun to enjoy it. Tolstoy knows a lot about human beings and can describe what he knows simply and clearly. After I finish this weighty volume I reckon it's either Robinson Crusoe or The Catcher in the Rye next. I need to get back into fiction badly.

And speaking of getting back into fiction...

WRITING
Still no word from Ace & Roc Science Fiction and Fantasy about my novel manuscript. I sent it to them, did I tell you? (I told Facebook, but I don't know if I've told you.) I sent them a query e-mail with the first ten pages of my manuscript copied-and-pasted into the body, as per their submission guidelines. Ace & Roc are imprints of Penguin Books, in case you were wondering. I chose them because I read somewhere that Cormac McCarthy sent his first novel (The Orchard Keeper) to Random House because it was the only publisher he had heard of. And they published it. Miracles do happen. I'm holding out for mine. I submitted the e-mail on January 29th, and Penguin's website warned me that manuscript queries can take up to five months to garner a response. So I'm waiting and praying and shopping for agents, just to be on the safe side.

On the writing front, Novel #3 is a chapter and a half from being done. There's a lot of edits to do but I'll mow 'em down fast. Novel #4 is still where I left it when my computer died last November. I must revisit it soon. I'm also going to crank out some more short fiction just as soon as the heat from the Big Move and the Spring Semester blows over. I'm slogging through Mugunghwa (my old NaNoWriMo project from two years ago) and making adjustments, corrections and clarifications to that as well. It should be ready to go by spring. I'm not sure whether to e-publish it or send it to an agent, but I'm mulling the question over. 

I really need to get some more pipe tobacco. I should do the whole mulling thing properly.

TRAVEL PLANS
Well, I've done Japan, Korea and China. That's the extent of my Asian travels. Bit paltry for almost three years, right? So it's time to up the ante. Miss J, Miss H and I have been talking about Mongolia. Buddha's Birthday and Children's Day are right next to each other on the first weekend of May this year. That means there's a four-day weekend coming up in mid-spring. Flights are cheap. Perfect time to hit the steppes, we reckon. We're thinking a nice hotel in Ulaanbaatar, a ride on a Bactrian camel, a traditional meal with a Mongolian family in their private yurt, watching the Kazakh falconers do their thing, a pony roundup on the open steppes and a bite of the finest Mongolian cuisine. I'll let you know as events develop. I'm still planning on Alaska this summer, and would love to do a train trip through Argentina and Chile if finances allow. Stay tuned. 

LIFE IN GENERAL 
I haven't been to the gym in weeks. In fact, I'm about to head down there and cancel our membership, and see if there's any sort of refund possible. Miss H and I didn't realize when we signed up in October that we'd miss a full third of our six-month subscription to Art Gym when her contract expired. If they won't give us a refund, then we've forfeited ₩80,000 apiece. Darn. At least we know now how much of a time commitment we're making when we sign up with a gym. 

The winter weather in Seoul remains pleasantly mild, with temperatures hovering around the low 40s and nary a snowball or an icicle in sight. The yellow dust from China, however, is kicking into gear. I'd love to be walking around in the open air and taking in my last views of scenic Gwangjin-gu, but there's a jaundiced scum in the air and it irritates my lungs and throat something fierce. I can't be bothered to wear a mask, either. So screw it. I'll stay inside and play the Facebook version of Deer Hunter 2014. 

SCI-FI ART
I haven't given you any of that in a while, either. And since every blog post (no matter how small) needs a picture, I give you this doozy. Make of it what you will: 

Hokkaido diary: Tokyo Skytree and craft beer

As before, I'm trying the Paul Theroux approach to travel writing: no bloviating, no florid soliloquizing, no fluff. Just straight-up description. As Mary Chesnut wrote in her Civil War diary, "My subjective days are over."

I'm going to do something a little different this time around. Instead of just telling you blandly about my week-long trip to Hokkaido in the past tense, I'm going to include snippets from the journal I kept. Present tense is always more vibrant and visceral. 

So. Day 1.

Hokkaido diary
2/2 - 2/7

2/2:

• was almost late for my flight, but made it. Miss H saw me off. I sure do love that girl.
• nice sandwiches on board, though thin strips—Japanese style
• next time I'm taking the limited express to from Narita to Tokyo (¥1000, or $10) instead of the Skyliner to Ueno (¥2400, or $24)
• Looking at Chiba Prefecture for the first time in six months—still as gray in the sky, but browner in the grass. And not stinking hot and humid
• Checked into Capsule Value Inn Kanda. Met a very nice Finn named Manu (?)—talked about mandatory Swedish in Helsinki schools, idiosyncracies [sic] of the Japanese culture; his dad was a farmer, but he lusted for knowledge at a library 16 km away
• tried to go to Tokyo Skytree; cost ¥2000 to get in. I said "screw that noise, I've been up Tokyo Tower." Checked out the Minolta Planetarium, but cost ¥1000-¥1300 to get in. 
• went back to Kanda and ate maguroichibadon (sushi over rice) for ¥700
• found a craft micropub called Devil Craft nearby—tried microbrews with Mel, a foreign reporter for the Japan Times (and occasionally the Korea Herald)
• Sacked out in my capsule, reading Paul Theroux, hearing Finnish snores and Japanese farts

I'm getting to be an old pro at hopping back and forth between Japan. Getting to Incheon Airport was a breeze. I made it onto my flight with just five minutes to spare because I underestimated how much time it takes to get there and check in. The gate agent even scolded me, his face flat and impassive. But I made it, and that's the important thing. 

I did the same thing as I did last time: I cleared customs and immigration at Narita, exchanged my Korean won for Japanese yen, and then forked over ¥2400 of that precious wad ($23.42) to ride the blue Skyliner to Ueno Station in northeast Tokyo. Then it was a couple of stops down the Ginza subway line to Kanda Station, where, after a bit of poking through back alleys and some help from a good Samaritan (a shortish middle-aged Japanese fellow with his hair cropped close to his skull and a bellicose demeanor), I found my capsule hotel, the Capsule Value Inn:

I checked in and stashed my stuff in the lockers, retrieving only my camera. Then I went back downstairs. Passing the front counter, I bumped into Manu, a Finnish fellow with the look of a mean drill sergeant: buzz-cut hair, blade-like nose, his face all angles and hollows, hardly an ounce of fat on his body. His eyes were piercing gray-blue and his English was flawless. He'd never stayed in a capsule hotel before, and as he was leaving Tokyo the next day (like me) he thought he'd give one a shot. We chatted for half an hour on the hotel's front stoop before I headed off to see Tokyo Skytree. 

Part of my Tao of Travel (again, I'm ripping off terminology from Paul Theroux, but the man's traveled farther than most and he's got some good tips) is this: once I get to a city, at the soonest possible juncture, I find a high place and take a look down at the city from there. Get the lay of the land, so to speak. In August, on my way through western Japan, I did it with Tokyo Tower, Mt. Arashiyama in Kyoto, and Kumamoto Castle. I've done it several times in Seoul: Namsan Tower, the 63 Building, and Dobongsan. I've looked down on L.A. from the Mount Griffith Observatory, the Rim of the World Highway, and several others. I think it's nice to get a bit of an overview before you dive into something, you know? Like looking at a menu at a restaurant or reading the abstract of a scientific study.

But here's the thing: I'd already looked down at Tokyo in August. And I'd done it in the bright daytime, when the air was clear. A moist, slimy fog was stuck to Tokyo's back this night, and I doubted whether, even from the Skytree's Tembo observation deck a redoubtable 450 meters off the ground, I could have seen much of the city. Moreover, even though this was the tallest tower in the world and the tallest structure of any kind after the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, I wasn't up for paying ¥2000 ($20) to get in. The lines were humongous, the night was chill and foggy, and I was content just to stumble around at the tower's base with my head craned back, looking at the clouds swirling around the tower's 634-meter spire.

Then I headed back to Kanda. I was in the mood to just sit and have a beer and reflect on the long, exciting journey ahead of me tomorrow. By some cosmic stroke of luck, there was a brewpub just around the corner from my capsule hotel. It was called Devil Craft, one of only two in Tokyo, run by a trio of American expatriates, crewed this night by two handsome and bantering Japanese fellows and filled with foreigners. I fell into conversation with one of them, an Englishman named Mel, who looked almost exactly like Richard Attenborough in The Great Escape and wrote for the Japan Times. I sipped the Miyama Blonde (by Shiga Kogen Beer), Rogue Brewery's Yellow Snow IPA, and Left Hand's Fade to Black, a rye ale. All were supremely delicious. Mel and I chatted away as we drank. He asked me about living in Korea, I asked him about working for a newspaper in Japan. The man had quite a long list of interesting things he believed: he'd interviewed Paul McCartney for 20 minutes and said he hated him; he disliked the Irish and thought the Potato Famine had been faked (just another example of Irish self-victimization); he felt the whole Dokdo/Takeshima possession dispute was bollocks; he avoided films and had no idea who Sir Ian McKellen was. He'd served as a parachutist in the RAF during the Iraq War and had broken both his legs, being sent to Australia to recover.  Japan was a stopover on the way back to Britain, but Mel had liked it so much he'd stayed. He'd married a local and gotten into newspapers, and would be interviewing Lionel Richie on that musician's Japan tour in a few weeks. Right now he was collecting man-on-the-street interviews about the upcoming Tokyo mayoral election and whether the Fukushima incident should factor into it. He wanted to interview me, but I demurred; I wasn't sure how much my job would be worth if Sejong University learned that one of its junior professors had shown up in the Japan Times yapping about Tokyo elections and nuclear meltdowns. No matter; Mel had plenty of bites. He'd already interviewed one of Devil Craft's waitresses and, shortly before I arrived, had become engaged with a foreign-born Japanese man and his Russian wife. Lots of fish in the sea. Mel and I parted as friends, though I did not share his views on the Irish.

Then, my head reeling, I wobbled back to the Capsule Value Inn and spent an hour reading the rest of the Tokyo Andagarundo chapter in Theroux's book. I set an alarm, turned out the light, and waited to see what fortunes the next day would bring me.

Get ready for Day 2: Tokyo to Sapporo. 

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 27: start a book

Silly me. When I first read the title of today's challenge, I thought it meant "start writing a book." For two weeks I was all in a sweat to finish Novel #2 so I could start on Novel #4. (Novel #3 is half-written, but there ain't no way it would have been finished it in time.) I guess that means I'm a writer after all. It came as a shock when I actually clicked over to the AoM article and saw the truth: I just have to start reading a book.

All too easy!

I'm actually in the middle of three books right now. The first is Paul Theroux's Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. Published in 2006, the book recounts the author's retracing of his epic train journey through Asia 33 years prior. I'm frantically trying to get done with the chapters about Vietnam so I can read about Theroux's train trip through Japan while I'm taking a train trip through Japan. This is Theroux's modus operandi, in fact. He buys books about the country he's in and reads them on the train. Sounds like a blast.

I'm still working my way through The Great Shark Hunt: Gonzo Papers, Vol. 1. These are some of Hunter S. Thompson's most notorious and infamous stories, concerning the world-shaking events he covered in the sixties and seventies, articles he published in Rolling Stone and elsewhere: the killing of Rubén Salazar, Super Bowl VIII, the decadence of the Kentucky Derby, and others. Some of these events laid the groundwork for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. (The book was inspired by two trips Thompson made to Las Vegas with Chicano lawyer Oscar Zeta Acosta so they could talk privately about the Salazar case.) It's fascinating reading. The sixties and seventies are vivid and colorful — particularly through Thompson's chemical-laden vision — and the historical events which took place are still relevant today.

...but not that relevant. I'm honestly finding it difficult to get into the stories on a personal level. You had to be there, I imagine. "There is no distance on this earth as far away as yesterday," Robert Nathan said, and he was right. All this stuff went down over forty years ago now. Old news. I'll finish whatever story I'm reading and then lay the book aside.

Finally, I am slogging my way through Anna Karenina. I think I'm a few pages away from Part Three, but dang. This is a hefty book. And again, it's difficult to get into. One of my globe-trotting college buddies, whom I'll call Levi, has read Tolstoy extensively. He did War and Peace first. He called it a "590,000-word page-turner." The way he described it made it sound as though it was impossible to put down. He finished it in a ludicrously short time. Then he turned his attention to Anna Karenina. He, like me, could barely get through it. Compared to War and Peace, Levi said, Anna Karenina was little better than a soap opera.

I agree with that assessment. So far we've had Karenin and his philandering wife arguing about appearances, and the adulterous Vronsky losing a horse-race. Oh, and Kitty being neurotic. Nothing even halfway dramatic has happened, unless you count [SPOILER ALERT] Vronsky impregnating Anna and Levin having a fight with his brother Constantin. (That's another thing: I'm still trying to figure out where the hell Levin fits into this story.)

I don't even have the satisfaction of suspense anymore, either, thanks to Miss H. Wrongly assuming that I already knew how the story ended, my lovely fiancée accidentally let slip that Anna [SPOILER ALERT] throws herself under a speeding train and dies at the end. Thanks a heap, lady. Way to ruin the ending. I'll finish the story regardless, before the spring semester is half over.  

But in the meantime, my reading list is backing up. To ameliorate that problem, and fulfill the requirements of today's challenge, I am starting a new book. Coincidentally, it's the first book that I've ever read on an e-reader. Miss H bought a Nook last year in anticipation of traveling, but found it wasn't as functional as she'd hoped, so she bequeathed it to me. I haven't touched it in six months. I can't stand e-readers. I'd much rather have a nice book in my hands and a funky bookmark to stick in it. I'm the ostentatious type who likes to show people all the fancy books on my shelf, or advertise to the world what I'm reading when I'm on sitting on a park bench or a subway train. Reading e-books is just staring at a screen, and goodness knows I do enough of that already. (The results of yesterday's Marine Corps fitness test are proof of that.)

The book I chose is The Terror by Dan Simmons. It's been a while since I read anything without an ulterior motive: research, or getting caught up with the classics, or taking someone else's suggestion. I almost never pick something out and read it because the concept tickled my fancy in some vague, inchoate, intangible way. But when I do, it's always a blast. That's why I chose this book. I'm not going to describe it to you; you can read all about it here. This post's too long as it is. And by now you know me well enough to figure out why I picked something like this.

The novel will be my constant companion on the journey through Japan. One real book and one electronic book should keep me entertained on the Shinkansen ride from Hokkaido to Fukuoka, and assuage my conscience besides.

Tomorrow: read up on Day 28.

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 25: start a debt-reduction plan

Whoo-ee. Yesterday's playtime went very well indeed. I got my tax stuff done, though I had to wait around and sip a coffee frappé while the T.A. finished his lunch. He was quite thorough and efficient, having done tax forms for several other professors before me. It took him just 30 minutes to fill in and print my forms. I was out of there by half past one.

I hopped Line 7 to Line 9, and thence to Yeouido Island. I strolled down Uisadang Boulevard and through the long, echoing pedestrian tunnels under Yeouido Park. A young couple was learning to skateboard down there, their skin jaundiced from the glow of beat-up incandescent lights. Despite signs warning him not to, a scooter driver zipped by as I walked along, filling the air with exhaust fumes. Upon emerging back into the diffused daylight, I found myself across an intersection from the National Assembly. Standing near the guardhouse at the gates were four cold, bored-looking policemen in black-and-yellow uniforms. The grounds seemed dead and shriveled under the muted sky, the grass brown and the fountains bone-dry. The National Assembly building itself, however, was magnificent. Apparently it's the largest building of its kind in all of Asia. I made a mental note to book a tour there with Miss H at some point.

Then the real fun began. Hungered by my walk, I hurried back down the boulevard to a tiny little mandu shop I'd noticed earlier. I sat down at a narrow red table (with recessed steel trays for kimchi and pickled yellow radish) and ordered the ₩3,500 assortment. It was delicious, though the last two dumplings were so spicy that I had to gulp down some water. I retreated back into the subway and took the geumhaeng (express) train to the last stop, Sinnonhyeon (New Nonhyeon), just a block or three north of Gangnam Station. I entered the enormous brown Kyobo Building, delved into its basement bookstore, and purchased a copy of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka for ₩6,900. With the book between my knuckles I jogged across the road to the Urban Hive, which Miss H and I have nicknamed "the Swiss Cheese Building," and Take Urban, the coffee shop on its first floor. I sat down with a cup of Darjeeling and read Kafka's whole story, soup to nuts. It was fascinating, moving, grotesque, poignant, unexpected. I don't know why I didn't read it sooner.

I had intended to walk a few blocks north to the old Nonhyeon Station on Line 7 and catch a train for Gwangnaru and a little izakaya (Japanese-style pub) I knew near my apartment, but I got a call from Brant — you know, the fellow I brew beer with. A buddy of his, Marcus (born in Texas but attending college in Cairo, Egypt), was in town and the two were bumming around together. I'd challenged them to a game of billiards the previous evening. Brant told me to meet him and Marcus at Gangnam Station at eight o'clock. To while away the intervening hours I went to an old nemesis of mine, WaBar, a "western-style ice bar" and sipped their infamous saeng maekju (draft beer) for ₩4,000 a glass. To kill time I read Kafka's story "In the Penal Colony," which was even more disturbing and emotional than The Metamorphosis.

At 7:45 I wobbled down to Gangnam Station. Brant and Marcus showed up on time. We sipped Jack and Cokes for ₩6,000 apiece at a bar called Whiskey Weasel, jockeying for position amid a group of young foreign men and Korean girls having a language exchange. The three of us shot pool and eyed the sultry goings-on. Following my resounding victory, we adjourned to Woodstock, a nearby LP bar. We requested Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Who, Warren Zevon, Wolfmother, Led Zeppelin, George Thorogood, and many more. Bourbon, Scotch and at least four pitchers of beer were consumed. We went back to Whiskey Weasel and shot more pool, our aim now a great deal unsteadier. I vaguely remember getting into a cab at 2:30 in the morning and collapsing on my couch at three. Undoing the ramifications of this bender has been today's sole concern. 

Well, not my sole concern, truthfully. Today is Day 25.

I already have a debt-reduction plan. I fork over $114 every month to pay off my college loans, the total amount of which is now (thanks to years of hard work in South Korea) four figures and dropping fast. My first year at Sejong University was so remunerative that, a week ago, I paid off a whopping $1400 of my debt in one fell swoop just to expedite the process. For the sake of this challenge, I calculated that if I pay $500 a month into my loans, starting in February, I can be totally debt-free by this time next year.

...at least until I marry Miss H and take on all of her debt.

Whoopee. Welcome to married life, Postie.

Stump up for Day 26...