The Smell of Pepper

Zooming down the gravel road on my newly rented moped, my senses were elated by the smell of Kempot, Cambodian pepper and the breeze across my nose. With my friend, Tim, a little way in front of me, I accelerated the bike and searched in the distance for his ocean-blue helmet; I had chosen a bad time to fasten my pace. I was just approaching a hill that curved down to lead onto a bridge with a small creek and a big drop-off below. I was scared and knew instantaneously that I could not control the bike as well as I thought. I slowly began to break, but with a manual bike, once you break, you lock the front tires. I had two choices: attempt to steer the bike down the hill and cross the bridge or force fall to my left. I chose the latter of the two.
The crash was loud, but not deadly (obviously). I looked first at myself. All I could see was blood seeping through my yoga pants and blood and gravel intermixed on my left arm. Screaming for Tim to come, I then noticed the bike: broken. The clutch was messed-up and the breaker bent in. My heart sank, but then was re-lifted when Tim came running up the hill--actually hobbling as a couple weeks before he had hurt his foot while on a moped. Struck stupid, Tim was unable to help soothe me. I knew that I needed to take the reins of the situation: get to a hospital and then fix this bike before the owner charged me an exorbitant rate to fix it.
I found a few people on the side of the road. Through hand gestures, I was able to get a crowbar and bash the clutch and breaker back into place. A family took me into their home and gave me their child’s t-shirt to wipe off my arm. Considering this was probably the only t-shirt this child owned, I was driven to a quiet cry-session. When questioned of my tears, I blamed the wimpy sobs on my arm. I toured their pepper farm with a smile and tons of questions (even though my arm was killing me), and purchased some of the most aromatic black pepper I’ve ever smelled.
After I was done with the tour, the grandma of the bunch tried to put anti-freeze or something of the sort on my arm to help with the infection; I politely declined. The son and owner understood and hopped on my motor bike to take me to the nearest road-side doctor, while his sister and mother road behinds us. Tim took the caboose role.
Once at the doctor (an ancient man), I realized he did not speak English. Thinking quickly, I began to speak broken French as Cambodia was once a French colony. He smiled and responded in French. We were able to communicate what happened to my arm, what he would have to do to repair it (just some antibiotics and rubbing alcohol), and of course what exactly was wrong with my friend Tim’s foot. Nothing, but a sprain and lack of rest as Tim was attempting to party his ass-off and see all the major historical sights before he had to leave his beloved South East Asia.
Not wanting to waste a day in Cambodia, Tim and I hopped back on our bikes and road around the countryside. We watched a beautiful sunset and ate peppered crabs fresh from the Gulf of Thailand.
Arriving back to our hostel, everyone was worried about me, especially Maggie who had ditched Tim and me that day to wander around Kempot with a local man. As usual, the local man fell in love with Maggie and confessed his love to her, only to be denied by a clueless Maggie who thinks all men just want to be her friends. A yeah, a right. As she was simultaneously trying to sooth me and run away from her new suitor, I sat there in an amazing bliss. I had survived my accident, spoken French, eaten delicious crab, watched a beautiful sunset with my ginger best-friend(not an Orangutan named Suddam, but Tim), and was the center of attention to the bustling hostel. The day couldn’t have been better.



My two fellow companions: Tim-the-Ginger-Zasly and Maggie-the-dubious-lover-Quinn

Room 203 (Don't read if you are already worried about my travels)

I woke up with an aching stomach and a severe headache--drinking rum(Tanduay)with Filipinos will leave you like this. As my friend Maggie continued to slumber through my whispers, I decided to venture outside of our hotel room and into the loud streets of Dumaguete, Philippines. Not knowing the time--I don’t have a watch--I figured I could go to a grocery store and pick out some fresh mangoes and healthy yogurts for breakfast.

I made my way down the spiral stair case and approached the lobby. In front of the sliding glass door two police officers stood talking with the hotel’s security man. I thought that was rather strange, but then, police are always roaming the streets and having casual conversations with locals anywhere you go.

After shopping and making some appointments, I came back to the hotel and found that the police officers had quadrupled, and this,of course, resurrected red flags in my head. The desk clerks were busy shuffling papers to avoid my eyes; there was a strange smell wafting in the air. Having a very sensitive nose, I can usually place smells, but this was a smell that I’ve never known. It was a mixture of dead fish, human excrement,and rotting. As I began to make my way closer to the stairs, the smell began to intensify. I wanted to ask questions, but decided it best to go to my room. As I began my ascent up the stairs, a police officer cut off my path and began to climb the stairs with a towel over his face. Curiosity got the best of me. I decided to ask a very non-ostentatious question, “Why do you have a towel over your face?”

The man stared at me for a millisecond, and with his cold dark eyes he replied, “Because there is a dead body.”

At that instant I froze in my tracks. I looked at the man searching for more of an explanation or sympathy for the corpse, but received nothing. The officer proceeded to head up the stairs and turned on the second floor--the same floor that my room was on. As soon as I turned the corner the scene unfolded to me:

An uncountable number of officers now stood in front of the room next to mine. Large camera lenses were pointing at something in the room and one could hear the loud fluttering sound of their flash, the tearing of duct tape, and the clattering of a gurney.

I sprinted to my room, pushing through the officers and attempting to arouse Maggie who had not been awakened by the forensic noise. Maggie had drank a little more than I the night before, and was still in a dream when I woke her up. She was lethargic and confused. She assumed that I was lying about it trying to get her up earlier than she wanted. But slowly she realized that I wasn’t playing my usual games and the sleep cloud began to clear into a small panic, “What if we see the body?” she said.

This hadn’t occurred to me before, but as soon as the words were uttered I decided this was something that I didn’t want to see. Luckily she agreed. Eventually we devised a plan to stay in the room for a little while longer to avoid seeing the police carry the body past our room. We also turned on the TV as loud as we could to muffle the sounds of a crime scene that was becoming more and more grusome as we waited patiently in our room.

Twenty minutes passed and I couldn’t stand to look at the peach walls any longer. I could only imagine that the next room was a mirror of our room, and knowing that what I was seeing could have been someone’s last image was starting to mess with my brain. The phone rang and the front desk informed us to leave as soon as possible. I asked her for some details about situation next door, but she told me it was under investigation, and she didn’t have the liberty to say. She simply said to put a towel over our faces because the smell has gotten much worse.

As we opened the door, we noticed most of the police officers had gone and there were just a couple of men with latex gloves. Maggie began to sprint down the stairs and I followed her. Outside on the streets a mob of Filipinos attempted to look into a black van that was acting as a temporary tomb for the 203 occupant. Once Maggie and I finally pushed our way through the door we began to run. We ran so fast and so far that we eventually made our way to the downtown, where a tricycle picked us up. We told the man to take us to the closest hostel. Once we arrived at the hostel, we didn’t negotiate the price and ended up paying triple the average fare, but we didn’t care: we were away from the mob, the smell, the unknown story.

I took a deep breath and looked at the clock--10:30 a.m. Thus, before 10 a.m. on September 1st, 2010 in Dumaguete, Philippines, Maggie and I slept next to a murdered body, ran from a mob and were screwed by a tricycle.

We could only go up from here.

To create more commerce and more community to the Continental Divide, America created railroads. All along the passage from East to West you find railroads. The East might house more subways and mass transit, but it is in the small towns of the West that you find the seemingly endless tracks.

My town in particular was a transit spot from Chicago to Seattle. Railroads made the town and my grandfather made the railroads. My father and mother both from the West of the Great Divide lived near a railroad and as small children could only fall asleep to the sound of distant train whistles. I too grew up near the tracks. My window faced a lake and the tracks were in the distance.

These tracks were always something that filled me with curiosity and fear. Late at night, when only the grasshoppers spoke, the whistle would blow and I would know that it was 3:35 a.m. If I was restless, I would always imagine what was in the cargo of the train. Could it be tons of chocolate milk cartons that would be on the lunch tables of my school? Could it be a hobo coming from Seattle to make a new life for him or herself in Chicago or was it a crazed serial killer –Angel Maturin was the famous ‘train killer’ of the 90s-- coming from the south ready to snatch and steal the kids living near the tracks?

When I moved from the tracks to go to college, I found that I couldn’t fall asleep as easily. I missed the sound of the iron pedals pumping to their location, the echo of a lone horn in the night, and the crickets among the grass. Mostly, I missed the thought that if things got really bad I couldn’t hop the train to a new place across the line that divided the relaxed from the uptight and separated Broadway from the Pacific. During my college years, I found other people fascinated with the tracks.

Some of my friends, all male, even decided to ride the rails down to California. They would clothe themselves in the perfect hobo masquerades, trading their well-educated speech for the peasantry slang in a Steinbeck novel. They would do this during Spring Break when I would flock to Florida or Las Vegas, any place that got me out of the Oregon rain. I would come back with a tan and they would come back with stories of how they were able to con train pirates and how the wind felt when you road on top ar’ train. The stories grew from jokes to legends and tactics for the future comrade who needed instructions on how to escape the FBI, while riding through the Red Woods.

In those two weeks, they had more adventure than I had growing up near the tracks. I was envious, not only that they had enough courage to go through with this, but that they would risk their lives to do something I had only dreamed about: entering a train cubby to ride to the next town, not really knowing where that next town was or who you might run into in one of the miscellaneous train cars.

Don’t worry mother, I’m not going to hop a train here in Korea, but I do think that life is worth taking risks.

The train tracks in the picture once tied South Korea to North Korea. They were blown up and all connection between the 38^th parallel were lost. There are no free spirits that hitch a ride from Seoul to Pyongyang on a whim to visit a friend or just merely to see what stars look like on top of a train as it zooms through the night. Instead there is an empty passage way. There is a stop of a dream.

The tracks seemed to be like any I had seen and it reminded me of how connected we are in this world and how easy it is to end these connections. How we can get close, but sometimes cut all ties. We fear the tracks that are meant to make us united. In lieu of all the news going on between the South and North, I think these tracks will be mended again. I hope that one day a young Korean girl living on the boarder will be able to hear the train at night and dream about all the magical lands that she can travel to just over the 38th parallel... If she could just jump on the next train.

When old men act like children and your food moves...

Just another beautiful day in Korea. My smile simply will not fade from the glorious day I had at an island near my town.

It began with hiking up cliff faces and crags to see the beautiful sea of my town. Picture below:






We experienced our own adrenalin pumping playtime by racing one another up cliff faces and almost falling to our doom:







A quick detour was made when my companions and I heard old men giggling like little school boys and drinking too much, but just enough Soju (traditional Korean alcohol). Nothing beats old men and board games for a way to put a smile on your face and feel at peace with your own aging:







And for dessert, we had raw fish that was brought to our plates still moving. Yummm, the smell of the salty sea:







I just wanted to share this adventure with you all as it made me so happy!!!

Bear Claw

Bear Claw (noun):
A term coined by the Sandpoint Tennis Team circa 2003 in reference to a ball that bounces over the fence or walls which surround a tennis court, after the player has just CRUSHED an over-head.

Derivation:
From the glazed donuts found in the bakery section of any given Safeway. Like the glazed doughnut, the 'Bear Claw" is in fact... delicious.

Example:
Well, just picture this...
Nadal, Spanish colored (not the archaic word used to describe African Americans, but in fact the feelings and wave lengths exuded during a Spanish film) tennis player, verse Murray, ugly English bloak, at the Australian Open 2010. It's the second set in a game that's not in favor of Nadal. Nadal is pissed, exhausted and utterly hot. Murray (struggling for the ball) hits a half ass lob, in an attempt to go over the well positioned Nadal.

ACCESS DENIED.

Murray was not able to surpass the 6 foot something Spaniard and instead hit it at a perfect angle for the notorious Bear Claw. With one graceful hit, Nadal was able to Bear Claw at the Australian Open.

End of Story:
Nadal had some knee injuries in the third match and inevitably lost to Murray. But in the world of tennis, the only thing that really matters is the "Bear Claw." In the eyes of many and the hearts of the strong, Nadal came out victorious.

Also, I would like to say that I thank the Lord everyday because my gym finally is playing the tournament and I can finally stand something on Korean television.

Ragdoll and Baby

Ragdoll and Baby Simultaneously

Fellow blog patriots,

Sorry I haven’t written in awhile. I have been very busy here in Korea. I’ve picked up several hobbies: rock climbing(very big sport in Korea), learning to play the ukulele' yoga' Taekwondo(Soon I’ll be able to break wooden boards with my hands and fists),and trip preparing(I’m taking a much needed four day vacation to Japan for skiing in February).

Along with these very dangerous hobbies, I have also been assimilating to the Korean lifestyle:

1.Kimchi Maniac. If I don’t have kimchi at least once a day, I immediately contract a cold.

2.Workaholic. Vacations are a thought of the past. The longest vacation I will have all year will be four days, that’s including the weekend.

3.Pushy Spitter. I enjoy spitting on the street and pushing random strangers, as long as they are younger than me.

4.OCD. I have grown accustomed to peeling every fruit and vegetable I eat. Koreans overload their fruits/vegetables with pesticides.

5.Bower. Occasionally I bow to people, but I’ve recently been having some neck issues, so that Korean custom is on hold.

6.Naked enthusiast. I have taken a liking to Korean public baths.

Korean public baths vary tremendously. I actually went to the largest public bath in Asia (although I’m sure Japan also has claim to the largest public bath). The largest bath in Asia compared to the other public baths I’ve gone to is more closely aligned to a spa, thus it is named The Spa.

The Spa had dozens of hot saunas that were for both sexes. Mind you, we all had to wear loose fitting cotton clothes that looked similar to Taekwondo drab, except that they were an off-set maroon color. The Spa was equipped with a TV room(you could watch your favorite TV shows while overlooking the skyline of the second largest city in Korea, Busan), a smoking room, high-end massages and a workout facility.
And, of course, The Spa had the baths. Bathes are a place where women and men separate into their various sexes, get naked, rub each other raw and glee with delight. This is really where the story begins…

Now, being detail oriented and not wanting your imagination to run to wild: "The Bath," or should I say, baths, are wonderful and composed of a series of rooms with hot and cold tubs. The tubs have multiple water temperatures and switching from the extremely hot ones to the icy cold help with health problems and prevent future ailments. The pangs of going from hot to cold so drastically reminded me of jumping into the snow after soaking in a warm hot tub: the feeling is exhilarating, frightening and nippy.

If you have already forgotten this detail, I will remind you again: Everyone is naked and everyone shares the same large baths. It is imperative that you shower before you get in. On my trip to The Spa, an old woman actually grabbed my arm and began rubbing it to ensure I showered properly; the more she rubbed, the more she realized that my arm was a little oily from my massage earlier that day. A sneer crossed her face as she called me Russian.

Oh, I didn’t mention my massage earlier that day? Well, let me indulge.
First, Koreans are insane about their skin. They spend tons of money on cosmetic treatments for their skin and judge people’s beauty by the glow of the skin and the white porcelain perfection of it. Women and men exfoliate once a week with very rough cloths; they’ve done this routine since childhood and thus the cloth no longer hurts their skin. When you go to a public bath and get a massage you are being scrubbed with this catlike-tongue cloth.

In a public bath there are three ways you can receive a massage/skin scrub:

1.Scrub yourself: Public baths have small "stations of beauty" for this type of activity. I like to call them this because the stations are not beautiful, nor are the women at these stations. The stations consist of a mirror, a small white stool (again everyone is naked and women switch without sanitizing the seat),and a woman scrubbing herself to oblivion.

2.Ask a friend: Many women do this and if I actually had friends here I might do the same. I could just imagine myself requesting, “Natalie, scrub hard in-between the cracks,” or, “Vita, really put some grease in my scrub this time. Last time you went half-ass on my feet." Sadly, I don’t really have friends here that would do such a thing.

3.Buy a friend: I find this scenario to be the most glamorous of them all. Imagine a woman in lingerie taking you(remember you are naked)to a room full of other naked women. The room is reminiscent of a high school gym’s physical therapy room with a ton of rickety old massage benches and the smell of musk. They sanitize your personal massage table by throwing hot water on it.

They then push you down onto the bench like a rag doll and the scrubbing begins. Korean women love being scrubbed by these lingerie women or as I like to call them prima scrubbers. But, I had a little different experience at ‘The Spa’…

After being thrown on this unsanitized plastic bench they began rubbing me with soapy water and by rubbing, I mean they actually threw the soapy water on me. And then they scrubbed. It hurt. In fact, I’ve never felt so much hurt before.

The prima scrubber who was scrubbing me that day was a little ornery. She kept screaming, “You are dirty” to me in Korean and laughing with her fellow prima scrubber at my lack of scrubbing knowledge.

In between the scrubbing of my skin, my faux friend thought it would be nice to help me lose some weight. Some Koreans lose weight by hitting the fat on their body. So while this woman was screaming, “You’re dirty,” she was also slapping my butt, because it’s huge here. All of the anger she had ever felt in her life went straight into my butt. After I thought she was done due to the exhaustion of her voice, she began on my thighs with the persistence of Gandhi and the strength of her great, great, great ,great grandfather Attila the Hun. She colored my thighs crimson. This wasn’t entirely bad because at least I was on my stomach and no one could see me cry, but this sensational slapping didn’t last long.

Eventually, the woman threw me over to my back and began punching my stomach harder than Ali. At this point I started screaming “Ow, Ow, Ow!!!” Instead of stopping she merely mocked me and screamed back “Ow, Ow, Ow” and punched harder.
What a true friend.

After this humiliating and disturbing exfoliation was over, my faux friend changed her personality completely. She threw a bucket of water on me and then began to rub oil all over my body, massaging all the pain away and whipping my tears with an avocado mask. She was as tender as a mother giving a bath to her newborn.

To say the least, I went back, and I do so twice a month. Yes, you may call me masochistic (minus the entire sexual aspect of that word), but the extremes of rag doll and baby are just as thrilling as hot and cold water, confusion and understanding, and life in America and life in Korea.

Fun Fact: Bed Time and Ghost

Dear Parents and others,

It has come to my attention that Korean children do not have a bed time. I see these small innocent creatures wandering the streets late at night and by late, I mean around 11:30 p.m.

I decided to do a little investigating.

I asked my class of second graders when they went to school and like most American children they said they go to school at 8:00 a.m. and like most American school children they get up at 7:00 a.m. to brush their teeth, comb their hair, and play on their new cell phones.

I found this to be rather curious, so I asked what time they and their parents went to bed. They informed me that they went to bed at around 12:00 a.m. and their parents usually went to bed at 3:00 a.m. They did not insinuate that there was in fact a bed time or that they wished to stay up later. Midnight is merely a time for them to go to sleep.

I was astounded!!! A child receiving only 7 hours of sleep with a full load of course work the next day, most my students (second graders) are in regular school for about eight hours; they have about two hours of after school activities ranging from Taekwondo to Piano, and then they have more school activities such as English, Spanish or Math class.

I guess Koreans just don't need that beauty sleep that we in the states do.

Now onto my next topic ghosts:

The other day I was really stressed at my class and I put my hair over my face like Cousin It. The children began to scream, "Ghost! Ghost!"

When I think of a ghosts, I think of a small fluffy character like Casper, but Koreans think of a cryptic Samara from The Ring.

Thus, if I ever want to scare my students into doing their homework and staying up until 3:00 a.m. because they are afraid the ghost will visit them at night, I simply put my hair over my face and tell them, "I'll get you if you aren't good to teacher."