The one with all the conclusions: part 3

The trip to Japan is nearing an end, and it's ending on a more positive note than it began. Why? No particular reason.

When I came, I planned for a 4-day trip. That morphed into a 6-day trip. After panicking, I regained my head. I stayed at the cheapest "hotel" I could find. I ate Subway every day, and had simple snacks from Japanese convenience stores. And on that note, the chicken here doesn't taste very good. It's kind of sticky, and moist, and a little skimpy on the meat. But it's cheap, at a buck a pop. And it goes well with that tangy cider they serve, which tastes like a hyperactive Sprite.

Today, finally, I went to the Korean consulate and applied for my visa. It was a long wait, which began on Thursday. I had received my visa number on Friday evening, too late to apply, thus being forced to wait till today.

The lovely lady whom I had seen at the consulate's reception desk was not there today. I had wanted to see her face again, for it was soft and sweet-looking. She had eyes as deep as a lake, with her hair pinned back, tight, the skin on her face taut and her cheeks aglow in red, like puddles flowing out of her dimples.

Instead I was greeted professionally by a man, a blue blazer on, a bald spot lurking under the crown of his head. He told me all I needed to do, and I did it. There was another lady, with a mole just above her lip, who helped me finalize all the paperwork, and who told me to come tomorrow to pick up my visa and passport.

So I left, to wander again. Everything seems too far away from here, not worth the effort to travel to it. And the cost of a taxi is very high, enough to make me stay put. Which means this trip will not furnish many photographs -- though I have to admit that Japan is quite stunningly wonderful.

The one truly happy memory I take away from this trip, is the purchase of my first-ever vinyl record. I purchased Music From the Unrealized Film Script, Dusk at Cubist Castle, by the Olivia Tremor Control. I was hoping to find also some vinyl of Neutral Milk Hotel, Forever Changes and Blonde on Blonde -- but no such luck awaited me.

Now, even without a vinyl record player, I have begun my collection. And it will be great.

Tomorrow, then, I go back to Korea, land that I love. And life will begin in its usual way. Oh boy, I can't wait to see my students again.

I unlock my body and move msyelf to dance: part 2

Day 2 in Japan started with the unwelcome sight of the time. It was almost 10:00 a.m. as I pulled up the curtain of my cube, unveiling the soft lights of a dozen 30-watt bulbs scattered down the hall; and directly across from me an empty hole, which another, smarter man had vacated -- and surely with enough time to avoid the penalty for staying past check-out time.

Despite that I was going to be staying in the same hotel every night, I still had to check out. The hotel works like that, see. Other hotels might let you just stay a second night, but this place didn't cater to that style. Check in, sleep, check out. 4 hours after check-out, come back and check in again. It's a bit vicious.

My first stop was the embassy. The computer there welcomed me. I checked my e-mail, and to my dismay found that my visa number still had not arrived. Worse, according to my boss, I would not receive it in time on Friday to apply. So I would instead have to apply on Monday, perhaps not to get my visa till Tuesday, and then not to leave until Wednesday, if all worst-case scenarios panned out. I had brought 3 days worth of clothes, 4 days worth of cash. How to stretch that into 6 days? I proceeded to bitch.

And then worse news arrived. My coworker, Courtney, who was on a similar adventure -- but was supposed to have gotten back to Korea the night before -- was missing. She had not been at the airport when my boss went to pick her up. Now I was faced with the prospect of trying to find her: in a city that was altogether foreign, without much sense of direction, I was going to have to look for another person. I looked for an hour or so, but the hotels I checked showed no one by that name.

Having nothing to do, I went back to my hotel, and checked in again. Emotionally exhausted, I went back to sleep, fearing that staying awake would only bring more bad news.

The night came quick. I ventured out again around 8 o'clock, refreshed and feeling optimistic again. I now had an idea of my surroundings, and was determined not to sit on my ass for 4 more days and do nothing.

There was a record store near my hotel. It was called Time Bomb, and it promised "Rare & Used Vinyl" -- an exciting prospect. I bounded down the steps to the sub-ground level store, and tremulously took it all in. There was 60s electric blues playing over the loudspeakers. I nodded discreetly to the Japanese girl behind the counter, then walked in. The next hour cannot be described, for I was transported out of my body and vicariously lived through every album in the store. I desperately searched for a handful of albums, the things I would definitely buy, but they weren't there. But that didn't stop me from holding up LP after LP and staring at it lovingly: the Housemartins, Daniel Johnston, Dinosaur Jr., the Stooges, Television, Bob Dylan, Todd Rundgren, Frank Zappa, Morrissey, the Animals, David Bowie, Atlas Sound, Pavement, B.B. King, the Birthday Party, Captain Beefheart, the Beatles, Nirvana, and so on.

I grabbed a bite to eat before venturing back to my hotel. The warm air in the lobby greeted me, as well as a couple girls who were on a sightseeing tour.

"We're in Osaka for one day."

"Oh, yeah? Any good sights to see? I'm only here for a visa run, so I haven't much to do."

Etc.

Around 3:30 a.m., after a chat with Miranda, I went to take a bath. The hotel didn't have showers, but it had a sauna and a bath. The prospect was daunting, being around a bunch of ugly naked men, sharing the same bathwater. But I needed to wash. And it turned out not to be so bad. The real problem was more that if anyone tried to say something to me, I could not talk to them because I did not have my hearing aids on.

Sleep still did not come easy. It was 4 a.m., and I went into the lounge, pulled up a chair, and began writing. The lounge was mostly empty, but sporadically being occupied by comers and goers. I pulled out a notebook, and began writing. 1,500 words escaped my pen before a yawn escaped my mouth. And so, putting away the notebook, I went upstairs to my cube, to rest, and then perhaps to repeat the day over again.

Japan, chicken, and vinyl record players: part 1

I am sitting in an internet cafe right now, contemplating my course of action over the next few days.

On 90 minutes sleep, I woke up on Thursday morning, mostly packed and with an hour to get ready to leave. I finished packing, showered, and made it out to the bus stop, catching the airport bus and arriving at the airport 45 minutes before takeoff. The flight was only an hour and a half.

I arrived in Osaka, which is Japan's second largest city, at noon, on a blustery cold day. I swam through the crowds of people exiting and hurried to customs, filling in my immigration card on the way. I received a 90-day visa from the lovely lady at the counter, who was also kind enough to take a photograph of my face, and fingerprint me (she thought well enough of me, at least, to skip the anal cavity search).

After spending an hour wandering into various shops and looking for signs of my varied destinations, I finally found the Korean embassy. The flag hung limply in the wind, two guards in front of the stairs, like the flag, relaxed. I slipped past them with a nod. Inside there was a woman who spoke very good English, and my first thought was that I wondered why she was sent to Korea's Japanese consulate branch.

As I sat down at the computer there and checked my e-mail, hoping that my visa number had arrived from the Seoul Immigration Office, I glanced at the clock. It was only 3:00 p.m. I was already exhausted. I clicked away, confused momentarily by the keyboards, and discovered that no, my visa number had not arrived. I left the consulate a few minutes later to get a bite to eat.

I spent the next several hours in search of a) an internet cafe; and b) a decently-priced hotel. Neither were in great supply, it seemed. In my quest for the latter, I stumbled into a place called Hotel For You, which promised a 5,000 Yen room (about $50), which, while not cheap, seemed reasonable. Except it turned out to be a brothel, evidenced by the flyers inside which promised a girl -- admittedly they were quite cute, some of them -- for a low price. Sheepishly, I walked out, smiling serenely, forgetful at the moment of my exhaustion.

It took me 3 hours to find a hotel for the night. There were other places, but they were already booked, and they were prohibitively expensive, too, if I was to stay in Japan for more than two days. The place I found was a capsule hotel, which reminded me, strangely, of the movie The Fifth Element.

I decided enough was enough, that I was staying in. My feet ached. My backpack felt like a ton of bricks. I kicked off my pants and lay down gently on the pillow. The instructions for the alarm were all in Japanese, but fiddling around I figured it out. I figured out, too, how to turn on the television, and change the channels. The last two channels were only Japanese porn, which, I discovered, is censored, making it hilarious to watch all the movements, and not actually see much. The censoring, though, was poor -- The Jerry Springer Show does a better job obscuring things -- so I could actually tell what was happening, for the most part ("Is he using one finger, or two?") which only made the fact that somebody decided to censor it more hilarious.

Only a few seconds later, and I decided to turn off the TV. I grabbed about for my book, which I had started on the plane: Jesus' Son, by Denis Johnson. After finishing a good 30 pages, I laid back again, turned out the light, and went to sleep, not to wake for 12 hours.

Lost in multiple translations

In two hours I am supposed to wake up, take a shower, get dressed, and leave my apartment. My destination is Japan.

The trials in Korea are almost all relatively small. You learn how to order food, because you can affect an accent, and because practicing your order a lot means you're eventually going to be understood -- and that's the whole point. You're hungry, dammit.

Transportation is so easy in these parts of Korea that it's almost laughable to consider bus and railway systems back in the States. The Seoul Metropolitan Subway has something like 700 stops, spread across 9 lines. Buses run every few minutes to and from Seoul, with local buses just as plentiful and busy. Taxis are everywhere, too. More importantly, they're very cheap, and fast, and nice.

While Korea may not have quite stumbled upon the idea of 24 hour diners, they do have convenience stores. And while they may not have figured out that gas stations and convenience really do belong together, at least they have not skimped on the latter: Buy the Way, GS 25, Intro Mart, Family Mart, Mini Stop, etc., etc., etc. Need batteries? Walk 5 minutes or less to the nearest convenience store. Need Kleenex? Walk 5 minutes or less to the nearest convenience store. Need coffee? Noodles? Bleach? How 'bout canned fruit, or cooking oil? Walk 5 minutes blah blah blah.

Do you get the idea? Life is so consistently easy here in Korea that being sent to Japan to get a new visa seems to me a hassle. True, it will cost me some money for food and miscillaneous expenses (fortunately my flight is paid for). But I am essentially getting a free trip to Japan, for 4 days. My trip to China was also for 4 days. There is almost no way to describe this without invoking some happy-sounding predicate nominative, with an adjective form of the F word preceding it.

So as I sit in my orange overstuffed leather chair, in my new apartment in Bundang, and stare alternately at this computer screen and my mostly-full backpack at the end of my bed, I have to say that even when the bureacracy throws me a curveball, and under some ridiculously complicated wording of an arcane law I am to be sent out of the country, at least I can stop and consider the serendipity that even the big trials here have their rewards.

Balloon

For I am a balloon and I'm blowing up
Through each level climbing till reaching the sky
And the white that's around me has made me so dizzy
That when I start to fall, I don't even think I can die

She looks like melting, as she comes through the window
Fleeing herself and the warm shower spray
And as she comes close, I can tell by her mirror
She's leaving her home for all those new endless days

Out in the ocean is a ship, and it's sinking
It buries the engine upon sand and waves
Until all that's left is a captain with a liferaft
For he is too tired from all the years of being brave

Deep underground in the sewers and pipelines
The walls all around keep us calm and safe
And when there's an earthquake, nothing's left fighting
Still every building's as tall as the ceiling it raised

And if as they say there's a taste so inviting
It could make up our minds and forget us all
Those babies so bruised and so bathed delighting
Will wander the earth and then they will crawl away

In answer to those questions I'm sure you have

Are you wondering:

a) Where the hell has Joel been?
b) What the hell has Joel been doing?
c) Why the hell haven't I talked to Joel lately?

If so, I have some answers, albeit brief and not very detailed. And if you have other questions, you're screwed, because those questions are not what this post is about.

I have moved. Yes, my school in Korea which I had taught at for approximately 6 months, went out of business. I'm currently sickling (not really a word, but you get the point) through the bullshit known as immigration. See, my visa was for my old school, and now I have to get one for my new school. Usually, this is pretty simple, just a transfer of the visa, no (or very few) questions asked. But since a) I only completed half my contract, and b) my school is closing, this process has gotten infinitely more confusing.

How confusing? Enough that I have no idea what exactly I will need to do to get my visa corrected for my new school. And I've been trying for a week. Today I learned I might have to go to Japan -- just for one day -- while they process the visa. This would be a pain in the ass, as it's not cheap and is wholly inconvenient. The simplest solution to my dilemma is that the immigration office only needs a form from the tax office that shows my school closed, and then they can transfer my visa to a new school.

Sorry for all the swearing. Believe me, this is less than I was using when I learned all this information.

Oh, and yes, there is a new school. I work in Bundang now, just three subway stops from my previous job. Things are hectic. Monday was the beginning of a new school year, and the school is, for the moment, one teacher short (he's coming later this week) -- so all of us were rushing frantically from one class to the next, covering each other's classes and pretending as if we had a grip on the requirements of the textbooks. We also had to remember all the new students' names.

But it will get better. I'm positive. In the meantime, I can delight in my new apartment -- which is awesome. And I can delight that there is a food shop just down the street from my building that serves Western style sandwiches. Yes, that is indeed a hard thing to find here.

As for other news, I just finished reading a book by Jean-Paul Sartre. That was fascinating. I have to say Sartre was kind of half-assed, though. He couldn't see anything beyond his own ideas. On the surface, I agree with him. He would say there is only a surface, and anything below that is an illusion. Maybe. But then what is the illusion?

That is not a good critique. In fact, it's laughable. And Sartre would probably surprise me with a few things. In fact, I have to say there was a whole lot I agreed with. Sometimes it's easy to forget that the only way a philosopher can never get anything wrong is never to speak. Which I think says more about the futility of words than about the fallibility of rational discussion.

I digress. I have shit to do. Goodbye.