방 방 방 (Bang Bang Bang)

WHEW I have this really strong taste of onions in my mouth. The thing is, after our dinner of dumplings, dimsum, sweet and sour pork, spicy chicken, and fried tofu, there were still soooo many onions on the plate. My coworkers and I (they're not even coworkers anymore, well they are but, ok friends) had dinner at the Chinese restaurant.... which is a dimly lit cave on the 2nd floor of a building, with velvet red couches and red stringy curtains seperating the glass-topped tables.

I SO don't deserve to be living it up here the way I do. Today it was Kylie's birthday (I work with her) and Meagan and I went downstairs to get her flowers (did I mention I work in the 3rd floor of a building- everything in Korea is in some floor of a high-rise building, businesses go up to about 10 floors, apartments often to 35), and after we picked them out, the girl sprayed glitter on them. Imagine, pink roses, red roses, a big yellow lily, backed by spruce, wrapped in lavendar paper with random French words on it, tied with a hot pink bow, and then SPRITZ glitter on everything. Throughout the whole process I thought, "ahhh how tacky, ahhh, ahhhh" and then when she was finished, "WOW. Yepuda!" I couldn't stop saying. It means "pretty" in Korean. Have I been here too long, because really flowers covered in glitter and tied with a big pink bow really are pretty.

My friends spoiled me on my birthday. I think I'm coming down from it. I had four cakes, three "Happy Birthday" serenades, three chances to blow out candles and make a wish, and constant reassuring, "It's YOUR birthday. You could tell me to eat poop, and I would." My family here is a bunch of eclectic foreigners from all corners of the English- speaking world, and seeing as none of us have any obligations, ever, birthdays are a valued celebration that gives us all something to, well, celebrate. I ate Thanksgiving dinner on my floor with chopsticks, said "Merry Christmas" to my friends in the Seoul airport over some disgusting fast food, and shouted "Happy New Year!" as fireworks blasted dangerously close to my head on the beach of Ko Chang in Thailand. Every holiday this year has been unfamiliar but somehow more important, because all that we took for granted is gone and we have to find a way to celebrate it.

My goal was to have dinner and visit every 방 in Korea. 방 is pronounced bang and it means "room." There's 노래방, noraebang, which means singing room, DVD 방, PC 방, and 짐질방, jimjilbang or sauna. If you speak Korean, I apologize for the gross spelling errors, if you don't, imagine those little symbols on every sign in front of your face and try to imagine how overwhelmed you'd feel stepping off a plane and seeing it on every building and every menu. I have learned to read and write Korean (although not understand or spell properly), and it really helps when I see a sign reading 치킨 (that phonetically spells "chikin"), or 사우나 (again, phonetically, "sa-oo-na", sauna!) Korean students won't shut up about how much they love King Sejong, because he invented Hangul (Korean writing), and I must admit I am proud of him too because it is much more phonetic than the English alphabet, and much easier to read.

Anyways. The plan succeeded. We had dinner (shabu shabu, it's Japanese where you throw thinly sliced raw beef and vegetables and noodles into a boiling pot of broth on your table and just eat it as you cook it),

went to a PC bang and got our nerd on (these are the haunts of adolescent boys, they come to kick up their feet and play some Star Craft, which I discovered is an intensely boring alien/robot game, I apologize to Star Craft afficionados). The room was lined with granite countertops, shiny, brand-new computers, and computer chairs complete with footrests and headrests, by far the most comfortable I've ever experienced. The cost is $1 for an hour, $2 for 3 hours, and $6 for 12 hours. Yes, 12 hours was an optional payment time frame. I still choke a little thinking about that but, I shouldn't be surprised. You should, and I hope you are. Tim and Jon tried to help us girls, and not to be sexist, but after 40 minutes (and attempting to play computer games online but not wanting to fight anymore), I walked by my friends and took note of what they were doing. Keisha: facebook. Jamie: writing in her blog. Nicole: watching Grey's Anatomy. Meagan: attempting to use YouTube. Cam: good job Cam! She was the only one still dragging her robots to the crystal mines. I was also lucky that my computer was blasting the volume. The man saw me attempting to put on the headphones, and came over and cranked my volume. The nerd beside me looked over, irritated, but continued to play his fantasy sports game. He was there for the long haul.

We tried to go in DVD 방, which is a room where you go to watch movies, but seeing as these places are generally for shady and questionable dates, no more than four could fit into a room, and not comfortably. We contented ourselves with taking a group shot and leaving.

Class was restored when we sat at an outside bar with trees, bushes, flowers and white Christmas lights. It's on the fifth floor of a building. Excellent gardening. I ate my third cake of the day.

After that we went to noraebang and sang songs for I don't know how long. I don't remember when we started but we ended around 4:30. Erin's voice intermittently was working. If you have been to a noraebang (and there are some in the states), you will understand why. This noraebang was actually a bigger place with a bar and strangers. Generally they are a comfortable room with a huge TV screen, flashing disco lights, cozy couches, two microphones, and a five-inch thick binder of songs (a half inch of English). It costs about $5 a person an hour, so when your time runs out, well, in my experience we generally don't pay attention to the time. I don't really know how they charge. At this noraebang, it was technically a karaoke bar so it was free. My friends are some of the most fantastic performers I have ever seen. Let me tell you some of the artists on our playlist: Beyonce, David Bowie, CCR, Taylor Swift, Journey, Frank Sinatra, and Billy Idol. Jon and Jamie sang in Chinese. I busted out the 비 song I've been trying to learn in Korean (sorry to brag- but I held my own and I am so proud- the Koreans present were stunned that a white girl knew about Rain). There was a drumset and a guitar on the stage, tambourines everywhere, and this guy and his girlfriend gave me some cake. This Korean man, with his tattoos all over his arm and his tracksuit, gave Mick Jagger a run for his money. I have never heard a guy sing that well and that high and that raspy in real life. He looked like he was about to pass out. And even though his girlfriend was texting in her booth, I think she was proud of his talent. It didn't matter anyways, because we were cheering him on enough to fuel the concert. Meagan kicked off her shoes (we were all wearing fake adidas sandals and crazy Korean socks- quite common here, total cost was $5, hers Doraemon and mine bunnies with 3-d lips),

and piroutted across the stage, her huge afro unleashed, doing a perfectly choreographed performance to David Bowie's "Let's Dance." Some people refuse to noraebang because they don't like Karaoke. The best thing about it, though (usually) is that only your friends are present, and the stage and flashing lights remind you of how famous you are. I will seriously miss this part of Korea.

After that, we went to a jimjilbang. I have to pause for a moment and think of how to describe this place to you. I think I will go chronologically.

1. Pay a very sleepy looking attendant for six towels and six sets of prison clothes: pink for the girls, dirty yellow for the boys. Seperate by gender.

2. Walk past lockers, and discover that the blankets on the floor are snoring women. Quietly open a locker and change into your prison clothes (baggy capris and baggy not short-sleeve not long-sleeve shirt)

3. Tiptoe up the stairs, and emerge into a huge, open room. The floor is littered with bodies all in contorted positions, that light is minimal, that of the moon at 5 AM. Note that the seeming war victims are people sleeping. Men, women, boys, girls, some snoring, all faces in the naiive and concentrated contortions of sleep. Eerie.

4. Tiptoe past the bodies and open a small door to a room. It is 52 degrees celcius (125 farenheit? Nah, it wasn't really that hot but it said it was). There is a solitary girl sleeping on the salt rock floor, her face pink with perspiration, her left hand clutching a water bottle. We sit down on the floor, and quietly marvel at the amethyst stones covering the ceiling and the almost primitive stone mosaics dancing across the walls. Exit.

5. Poke our heads in various other caves of other temperatures. Return to 52 degrees and realize it's empty now. Lay our heads on wood-block pillows and stare at the amethyst ceiling. Am in awe at the entire thing. Too bad Meagan took her glasses off, although she was walking around with her nose in the wall exclaiming, "WOW! REAL ROSE QUARTZ!" She recalls when, upon previously bringing her rock collection to class, her students accused her of stealing from a jimjilbang.

6. 15 minutes pass and boys emerge in the doorway, looking much too big for its tiny-ness. Tim is already sweating profusely. We lay on the floor and toss salt rocks on each other (Jamie insists its healthy) and take note of the increasing heat. Conversation lulls to a halt. Tim shows us his soaking wet wood block pillow. It's time to exit.

7. Find a door, go outside (we're on the 8th floor), and see locked up bungalows, trees, and a playground set with a slide ending in a four foot swimming pool. The pool is empty. The sun is starting to come up. We look like insane asylum patients, wandering around, Meagan easing herself down the slide and into the pool, Jon falling asleep in the plastic beach chair. Girls feel cold and go back inside.

8. Return to the lockers, decide to go in all the hut tubs and cold tubs. There are various pools of every temperature, made of rock, water spilling into them from granite, showers lining the walls.

9. You can't wear any clothes in this part. Don't worry, it's seperated by gender.

10. Play in the water. Meagan swims laps in the pool. I accidentally spill a bucket of soap bars in the hot tub and we try to fish them out.

11. 7 am. 60 year old women begin coming in, showering before they get in the hot tub. I'm about to fall asleep in the water.

And that was the jimjilbang! And that was my birthday. I didn't tell you about the distressing and pride-shattering experience of having my hair dyed prostitute blond (I'm sorry, but there is NO other adjective, and NO other person, not even famous, maybe Lady Gaga, that I have seen with hair this color. However, I spent a lot of money on that and I am not going to turn back now). It's growing on me. And thankfully, growing out. I'll get it fixed before I go home. And this time, I'll go to a hairdresser who speaks English. My "냬, 냬" (yes, yes) in Korean and pretending to understand this time did not serve me well. At least, after dying it twice, he put some brown lowlights in the bangs he cut (against my will, I learned that 앞모리 means bangs, dang, I thought it meant color), making the whole thing seem like I meant to look like a crazy punk. In any case. It's all part of the experience. Thank God I'm here where everyone is either weird, or Korean, and no one judges me any more than they did before.

This is what I asked for.

This is what I got.

Thanks for your prayers about my students! Today Lily bought me banana milk (she's 13), and yesterday James (7) just went to town with braiding my hair. The kids like platinum blond. And they're all that matters, right?