tv

I try not to spend a lot of time just sitting alone in my apartment. I much prefer doing other things alone. I like to take walks, usually I'll start walking toward something and walk until I get lost. I can tell when I'm getting lost, because the expressions on the faces of the Koreans I see will get more surprised upon seeing a white person. (White people are a common sight in the district I live in, Songchon, but are irregular for the people in the more suburban surrounding areas.) When I realize I am indeed lost, I turn around and wander back, looking for a familiar landmark.

I also enjoy going to the nearby Dunkin' Donuts. I usually take a book or magazine, which I'll read for an hour or so while sipping on an overpriced coffee. (Brief aside: Korea needs to learn the "fast" aspect of "fast food". Sometimes I'll order a plain coffee and will have to wait 5 minutes for them to make it, because they don't have any readily available. And the last time I went to Lotteria, which is a local burger joint, I ordered a meal and was told "ten minutes." They even gave me one of those vibrating pagers that you're given at an Olive Garden or something when you have to wait for a table. I picked it up, stared at it, and stood 5 feet away from the counter, baffled.)

Anyways. New paragraph. Dunkin' Donuts. Sometimes I'll forget to take something to read, so I'll just sit there for a little while and people-watch and listen to indecipherable conversations, occasionally coming across a familiar word or phrase.

These activities are usually reserved for the weekends. I can't squeeze a 2 hour walk into my weekday routine, and my Dunkin' Donuts visits are much more brief. At night I am too tired to do anything other than have some dinner and then head back to my apartment. It's a nice, quiet way to end a day spent wrangling Crasians.

While at my apartment (note: not my home, but my apartment) I turn to that glowing box of nothingness, television, to pass the time. Television is pretty rampant here. Every corner store or restaurant has a shiny new plasma or high definition TV inside, to the point where it's glaringly out of place. I went to a tiny, take-out pizza shop the other day where I heard I could get a 6 dollar pie, and inside, even though there was barely enough space to stand, I found the shopkeeper staring at a huge plasma TV on the wall, transfixed by the S. Korea vs. Iran soccer match that was on that night.

Lucky for me, every night on the cartoon channel, Tooniverse, there's a few episodes of The Simpsons, broadcasted in English with Korean subtitles. I enjoy those, but this post isn't a critical review of episodes of The Simpsons, so forget that I mentioned it. There's also a couple of movie channels that I get. One, called SuperAction!, plays a steady dose of American action movies from the mid to late 90s. Other stations play more recent Hollywood movies, the kind of movies that someone with a girlfriend might have seen already. So, they're new to me. (Scopejuice: Love Actually and Step Up are played here all the time.)

One thing that there is a ton of here is WWE, UFC, and other MMA. At any given time I can turn on the TV and find at least three stations with some form of pugilism. It's ironic, given the peaceful nature of Korea that surrounds me. Hell, the cops here don't even carry guns, I've even seen a pair of cops walking down the street holding hands. (Korean men interlocking arms or hands is a way to show friendship, and doesn't have any gay connotation to it, even though it sure does look gay.)

Sports channels are readily available. I get a lot of English Premier League games, which is nice. When those aren't on, there's usually soccer highlights or replays of older games. There's a Korean basketball league as well, which is interesting for a few minutes but loses it's allure pretty quickly.

There's also a lot of what any westerner would identify as a crazy Asian game show, or variety show. These are pretty much a mystery to me, because God knows what the hell is happening on them. A lot of bright colors and yelling, that's all I take from them.

The funniest thing I've come across could most aptly be described as "sexy billiards". Sexy billards, plainly put, is women playing pool; but the devil's in the details. It's an outdoor event, and the women are young and wearing next to nothing: a bikini top and mini-skirt. The spectators of this event consist of dirty, fat, middle aged men with their hands in their pockets. The best part is that these girls are terrible at pool. They'll thoughtfully ponder over a shot, attempt to find the angles with the cue, line it up as perfectly as they can- while the cameraman lines up the most lurid angle he can- and then promptly miss the ball they were aiming at completely. They will then feign dissatisfaction, while the male spectators look on approvingly. It's hysterical.

Other than that, there's your normal historical, educational, or news channels which are probably pretty interesting if you can understand Korean. I can't, so it's The Simpsons and EPL for me. I'm glad I have it.