The (Month-Old) Story Continues

Before I get into it, I'd just like to mention this: remember from my last post, the Korean guy I told I was in a band? I got a call from him the other day, asking when my next show is so he can come and bring all his friends. So that's touching, and now all I need to do is start a band, write some songs, and then get a show. Stay...tuned for that, I guess.

Before I got distracted by, well, life, I was talking about my first week in Korea. Last I left off was my first night, when I hadn't met anyone yet, so let's move on to the next day: I actually meet people! Yay!

The morning starts off with meeting in the lobby of the hotel at some ungodly hour like 10am or something so a van can take myself and the other teachers-in-training to the hospital for physicals. It's in the van that I meet my cohorts for the week, who turn out to all be pretty cool, which is a relief. The physical goes well and I later find out my urine didn't test positive for anything, which is also a relief.

After the hospital we're dropped off back at the hotel and left the weekend to ourselves, so I take off with some of the other teachers to COEX Mall, which is supposed to be the biggest underground mall in all of Asia, which makes it pretty hot shit in the underground mall world. In fact, COEX is such hot shit that it has these:


Interactive digital mall maps! They have touch screens and can do shit like you choose a destination and it plots you a route there. COEX: 1, every other mall ever: Zero.

I get back to the hotel and have the rest of the night to myself, so I decide to get some beer. If you guessed that shit was about to "get real" then you sir are correct. For starters, check out what's written on the side of this bottle:


"EXTREME AND EXCLUSIVE BEER FOR THE EXPLOSIVE MINDS"
Jesus fuck. This beer means business. It'll be perfect for-wait, what's this...


2.9% Alcohol?! Who's this beer for, Korean 10-year olds? That are girls? And drink extremely weak beers? This disappointment helps to cushion the blow of what would happen next, and evolve to define my night: I spilled the beer.


OH NOOO!!!!
Man, that bottle just busted to shit the second it hit that floor. Extreme and exclusive beer for the explosive minds, indeed. Well, I got straight to wiping up the mess with hotel kleenex and flushed them all down the toilet.

Wait, I can't hear you. I shouldn't have flushed a huge mass of wet kleenex down that toilet, is that what you're trying to tell me? WELL GEE, INTERNET PERSON I'M IMAGINING RIGHT NOW, SURE WOULD'VE HELPED IF YOU TOLD ME BEFORE I GOT BEER-DRUNK AND DID JUST THAT.

Remember that fancy toilet from a few posts ago? Oh yeah, it got backed up real good. Now, here was my dilemma: I had no plunger (or indeed any other solution for fixing a backed-up toilet). I could try asking the people at the front desk, but it was already very clear they spoke no English, and my guide book didn't have any handy phrases for a situation like this. I could try miming the action, but this being a love hotel I was a little worried miming a plunger action would have them confused at best, turned on at worst.

Yes, it was a tough situation. So I finally bit the bullet, and...went to sleep. Surely housekeeping in the morning would fix it.

Morning comes, housekeeping didn't fix it. Well played, Hotel Major. With the ball in my court, I marched straight down to that front desk and made a fool of myself through the art of symbolic gesture, but it did get the guy up in my room with a plunger. Crisis solved, I fuck around with Korean Rosetta Stone and drink more beer by myself in my hotel room.

In conclusion, it is now 6am and I would rather go to sleep than continue talking about me backing up a toilet. So, I will leave you with this mystifying piece of Engrish found on a restaurant wall:


Fuck you, I'll life my life however I damn well please.