In Hind Sight

For those of you who don't know, my partner Emergency Contact, has a unique relationship with the world. Don't get me wrong, she's a smart cookie - in fact, she's Dr Emergency Contact, but there is the element of the distracted academic about her. Take the following exchange for example. 


EC: You know you've got things on your mind when you put your contacts in... leave it for a couple of hours and then accidentally put them in again. I spent the morning wondering what the hell's gone wrong with my eyes. 


Me: That is both hilarious and tragic. 


EC: And, when I took one pair out, and then put on my glasses, I went, 'Hey wait a minute. I don't need to be wearing these. Cool. No. Wait. What the HELL is going on?' 


Me: Are you going anywhere without adult supervision today?

An Ode to Skyrim

Dorothea Mackellar (OBE) will be remembered for “My Country”, as most Australian school kids have trudged their way through those lines that start with, “I love a sunburnt country”. 

But, she was also interested in art, politics and in later life, she really got into computer gaming.

She was particularly fond of The Elder Scrolls trilogy. So much so, that with a very small amount of imagination, she wrote an ode to Skyrim; the third of the games.

I love Bethesda’s construct

A land of stabbing pains

Of see-through mountain ranges

Of shouts and levels gained

I love her many dungeons

Her empty, shallow sea,

Her mutants and programming errors

This RPG for me

Scale

Emergency Contact and I live opposite a sports oval. It is very well used.

We were coming home from weekly shopping when a ball rolled onto the road in front of us. I drew the car up sharp. EC's head jerked forward and I felt bad, but what normally follows a soccer ball onto the road... ?

When the inevitable chaser in team-uniform appeared on the road behind the ball, EC said, 

“Jesus! That's a bloody big child!”

I added, “Yup. But normally we just call them men.”

Seoul Survivor

For those of you who haven’t been to South Korea, you will find this blob a penetrating insight into a culture and its people. For those of you who have, you will find it hopelessly half-arsed.

But, you don’t come here for the latest update to Ban Ki-moon from his cultural attaché so let’s do this.

On the map, South Korea looks approximately halfway between Japan and China. When you get there… it feels exactly halfway between Japan and China.

Don’t tell the Koreans. I think I mentioned it once but got away with it.

Japanish

• Bowing
• Seniority
• Politeness
• Yelling as entertainment
• Masochistic challenges on TV
• Tech-fetish
• Efficiency
• The sound of the language
• The look of the people
• Public transport
• White gloves on service personnel
• Twisted sexuality
• Latent gayism
• Order

Chinesish

• Air-quality
• Size of the city
• Rubbish
• That odour that washes over you frequently
• Brand-names
• Murder of English on signs
• Reckless approach to fun
• Reckless approach to crossing roads
• Reckless approach to public health
• Reckless approach to my dinner
• Battery housing for humans
• Money

Halfway betweenish

• Smoking
• Traffic
• Personal safety
• Regard for the government
• Treatment of women
• Pricing of electronic goods
• Food

Seoul is vast. It beggars the mind in exactly the same way the Shanghai does. It’s got half the population, but when you are talking about things of that size you just stop comprehending and sit slack-jawed at how many identical, white, residential tower-blocks there can be in the world.

Anyone a bit sceptical about human impact on the planet should see it. In Australia, we simply do not get to witness what the weight of humanity can really do to a place. We sit on top of Australia like a gnat on a donkey. Koreans sit on South Korea like Nigella Lawson on a race horse. (It’ll probably make it across the line. It'll also probably have to be turned into stew afterward.)

Everyone under the age of 40 has a phone that is halfway in size between an iPhone and an iPad. Also, everyone looks under 40 and there are no iPhones or iPads here. The Samsung rules supreme. Oooooh, Garaxy.

The time of year you choose to visit a place will influence how you feel about it, so keep that in mind. But, it is brain damagingly cold in Seoul at the moment. I can’t imagine living with it. My delicate tropical glands don't know how to cope and I’ve had a persistent nose-bleed for three days. 

Koreans have a deeply civilised streak (and don’t give two hoots for fuel costs it seems) every building is heated to “desiccate”.  I’m either sweating like a sumo in a sauna or crying like a codger in the cold or bleeding from a frozen orifice.

And, do you know, I quite like it here.

Smash That Together, Cupid

There’s a huge circular underground metro type thing here in Seoul. It’s huge. It’s underground. It’s circular. When I mentioned this to Smurfy, he said, “Like a Large Hadron Collider for people”.

We laughed.

But now I’m here, I’ve realised - it is. Where two metro trains collide is where babies come from.

Just Met A Girl Called Korea

First time in Seoul and I’ve seen almost nothing of Korea... so what the hell? Let's make some generalisations.

Incheon international airport is a long way from the city of Seoul. It took hours at a decent speed to get into town after landing. After spending nearly 11 hours on a plane to get to Incheon, you then backtrack under your own flight-path for two hours in a bus to get to your hotel. It’s so far out of town that I wonder what it’s doing, claiming to be Seoul’s international airport. I think it might be more accurate to claim to be Pyongyang’s.

I usually look forward to a decent bus or train trip in a new town. Chance to get a feel for the local traffic, the local architecture and the locals. This bus was so frosted, bespattered and misted up, I saw nothing. We could’ve been driving through the long, dark teatime of the soul for all I knew. Having seen a bit more of Seoul in the daylight the next day, I can say this. It’s a giant Asian city with lots of Dunkin’ Donuts, Papa Pizza , Texas Beer Houses and other traditional South East Asian dining establishments.

Question: Have there been a lot of disastrous fires in South Korea? I ask because my hotel, which is nicely appointed, has a really obvious preoccupation with fires. Everywhere you turn there’s a 3 kilo extinguisher, the doors all open in strange directions (Like, my room door opens outwards. That’s got to be a fire thing, right?) and there’s an inertia-reel harness arrangement, bolted to the floor with a window-smasher sitting next to it, so I can repel down the side of the towering inferno if I feel that I’m going to get done medium-rare using the stairs.

Here’s a business tip; I reckon that new little car maker, Hyundai, is going to do quite well here. I sense that Daiwoo might have managed a toe-hold as well.

Here's a health tip: If you are part of a region where it is an economic beehive and also the place where they will find Patient Zero of the next global pandemic - Cover your damn mouth when you hack up a lung, will you?

And it is cold. It is colder than charity. It’s into the negative C’s and it’s raining. By contrast, the interiors are hot. They are hotter than the lunch I just had.

It’s kind of good, though. I like it here, so far.

Next Week, On "Who's Your Favourite Baldwin?"...

I tweeted recently that we had had our inaugural game of “Who’s your favourite Baldwin”... and that Daniel was the winner.

I need to elaborate. Smurfy found this in Wikipedia:

In 1998, Baldwin was found running naked through the halls of New York's Plaza Hotel shouting "Baldwin!" and was arrested for possession of cocaine.

There’s nothing in that that sentence that isn’t good, but there is a fair amount that is baffling.

Yelling your own name… as though you have just won something. Brilliant. Makes the copper’s jobs a bit easier, too.

Arrested for possession of cocaine. While naked. Where was he snorting it from? Brilliant.

Again, from the same reliable source:

Baldwin starred on the VH1 reality television show Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, filmed in 2007, but left the show after the fourth episode. His stated reasons for leaving included having a prior commitment to an acting job and the others' behavior interfering with his recovery, but it is eventually revealed that he left because of inappropriate text messages he had sent to Mary Carey, fellow patient in the same treatment group as him

The only thing that’s not so brilliant about that is we originally read it as Mariah Carey and fell about laughing for about fifteen minutes. Can’t explain why. It’s not as funny when it’s not her, but as he seems to be living in a fantasy land so, you know, goose, gander, Baldwin.

Enemy Mine

If you’re going to have a nemesis it’s important to have a good quality one. Take me for instance… I have a proper one. I loathe and detest my nemesis to a level where I actually lose sleep over them. I stay awake, just to get in a little extra loathing. My nemesis is able to affect my life. He can make it good or bad. I'm pretty sure I can affect his.

I have talked to my nemesis every week, for at least an hour, for the last three years. I always talk to them on a Wednesday. That’s important, that is. You’ve got to have regular contact with your nemesis. You can’t just see them every now and then down the street or at school reunions. You’ve got to know them nearly as well as you know yourself.

I know my nemesis so well that my hatred is not pure. Sometimes, I feel a little sorry for them. Sometimes, I even see their point of view. That’s the way it has got to be with a nemesis. There has to be a little yin with the yang. There has to be some dependence on each other. Something that binds us inexorably across the fields of space and time. There has to be, let’s face it, a little love smattered through the deep, stinky veins of hatred.

I get shaky and angry for about 12 hours before I talk to them, and I feel an almost pathetic sense of relief when the phone call ends - and that’s where I want to thank my nemesis. Because, I talk to them on a Wednesday and after it’s over, I almost feel like the weekend has started. Everything else feels easy.

Thank you nemesis, for being such an unholy thorn in my side that I am able to relish at least two days of the working week. If and when our relationship is over, we'll keep in touch of FoesBook.