"Canadian faggots!"

Yesterday Jimmy and I went into the American part of Seoul to try and find him a pair of shoes. While we didn't manage to find any size 14's, we did succeed in getting laughed at for being freaks. Koreans have small feet, and you know what that means, don't you? That's right: small shoes.

Then we went to get something to eat at this place called Gecko's, where the burgers are good and the GIs are in abundance. They seated us next to five or six soldiers. One immediately said "Gee, I wish I had a purse," an apparent allusion to the fact that Jimmy and I carry messenger bags. We ignored him. Then, he called us Canadian faggots. Jimmy said that he is in fact an American, and that this guy talking at us is a douche bag. He didn't like that. His friends apologized, but he said that he had nothing to apologize for. The rest of the soldiers seemed pretty cool, and a few sat with us and chatted about what our respective jobs are like, but that one idiot continued to lip off at us. Jimmy said that he ought to shut the fuck up, and said that if he wouldn't get deported he wouldn't be sitting there letting this guy talk to us like that. We learned that this idiot has a history of beating the shit out of Koreans and getting written up and having his pay severely docked for it. A cool dude if ever there was one.

Then we went to the artsy part of the city called Hongdae, where a big university is, and did some more shopping but had no more luck finding shoes for Jimmy's mutant feet than in Itaewon. We then headed to a bar called Tin Pan, where tequila shots are a buck and a half (Mexico only rips off North Americans for tequila) and Jack and cokes are about three. We drank there until going to a show at Drug Club (which unfortunately only serves one kind of drug) where eight bands played until about 3:30 in the morning. One band's lead singer is from Kitchener. They're called Sun Radio, and they're pretty good. Check out their MySpace thingie. Suck Stuff is one of the best punk rock bands I've ever heard, and they put on a ridiculously good show. The Waking Party made me very, very happy, especially when they played an up-tempo, rock and roll cover of TV On The Radio's "Staring At The Sun". One of the bands was all-Korean, and most had at least one Korean member, but the music was distinctly Western, which is good, because Korean music sucks really bad.

I've got some pictures off of Jimmy's camera. Some of the breakdancing show from awhile back, some of our coworkers, one of a cool Irish guy wearing a Beat Happening shirt, and some of the puppies downstairs. (They're giving them away for free, but I don't have time for a dog, much less a dog that will soon be rather large and in need of food and exercise.) We joke about eating them, but that's not very common here anymore (although a friend's dog was once chased down the street by a drunk construction worker brandishing a hammer and licking his lips). There's also a cool picture of Jimmy (180 cm tall) standing next to a Thai kickboxer (they're all midgets!), moments before he ate him.

Bye!