Patrice the Explorer and the Far East

A Very Important Errection

nobody@vox.com(Patrice the Explorer) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:39:59 +0900

So, as you all know, this year's Presidential Errection (as the Koreans would say), is a huge one. This errection is so big, it makes all others seem frail and insignificant. The sheer magnitude of this errection makes simple talk irrelevant. In other countries, like my home country CANADA, we choose our politicians based on a combination of what they say and how drunk/high we are. However, the Koreans have realized what human beings will sooner or later all come to see. Something this important can only be settled by...DANCE BATTLE!

The Song's about Free Trade...DUH

The sign in blue says "a president that will change your life" and so he has, so he has. I seriously nearly shat myself walking past this, just thought you guys at home might get a better understanding of Korean politics and how democracy should work. The election's over by now, this guy lost. I bet the other guy had b-boys.

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Flight of the Chingoos

nobody@vox.com(Patrice the Explorer) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 04:23:27 +0900

So, i'm finally in a place where I can write about the last few days. Had I written this maybe 48 hours ago, it would've been total gush-fest, going on and on about how horrible it is to be so much more alone in this distant land. Certainly, the departure of each successive chingoo was a blow. How can you say goodbye to a group of people that have become completely interchangeable with the amazing experience and overall happiness i've had here? Walking around Sinchon after leaving the airport to drop off Ryo, Gelly and Amy (suffering from acute sleep deprivation of course) was like some 28 days later nightmare except instead of a zombie virus it was airplanes that snatched away my life. Nothing had changed, but everything was different. Leaving PC bang without going on and on about how hot PC bang girl is with james, ryo and seth was like some hollow imitation of the life i've become used to here. Previous accounts of me at my most 정신이 없어 were like totally shattered.

However, I feel as though the shock of this drawn-out experience has somewhat subsided and i've been able to contemplate the new course of my life here and of the friendships i've made. Silver, James, Ryo, Gelly, Amy, Katharina, Sylvia, soon to be Alex...overall i've just come to realize how lucky i am to have had you in my life at all. I mean, seriously, you're all so fucking cool! I really can't stress enough how amazing you all are, i've learned so much with and from you all and will always remember the awesome time we've had together... i feel like i've been to war or something with you (if this was WWII, I would totally be that alcoholic guy from office space thats in band of brothers). Although it's sad as balls that our friendships will never exist in the forms that they have here, i have no doubt that they will weather both time and distance (cut to me like 50 years in the future drinking and making obscene jokes with you guys in future-sinchon...complete with drunken 어저씨-bots hitting on future seth) If anything, the sadness of your departure just reaffirms your impact on me. Now it's time to explore new dimensions of these friendships and of my time in Korea. I mean, i'm starting the year with a two month pan-asian adventure with Hannah and Peter, what the fuck do i have to be depressed about? I know i'll see you again. To cut through the long-windedness, I truly love you guys.
Fuck, this totally did turn into a gush-fest...i'm such a pussy.

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Sang Sang Madang and Evelyn's Birthday

nobody@vox.com(Patrice the Explorer) — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 22:09:55 +0900

So in the leadup to the chingoos leaving, this was definitely one of the more fun nights. It started chillin at the 상상마당, or Sang Sang Madang. It was really good to have this time to just this time to meld with ppl and act fucking stupid.

lazing it up

The Sang Sang Madang is essentially a ridiculous building, paid for by KT&G, which I assume is Korean Tobacco and Guns, they probably operate puppy-killing factories too. This place contains everything from a gallery, to a cafe to a concert venue (where Seth's "elevator friend" informed him of a hardcore show going on that night). Plus there's like a fucking rotating wall-door and cylindrical toilet stalls.

Attempts to study korean prove futile and the incredibly cute anime-eyed waitress definitely proved distracting... i blame her for my less-than-mediocre test results.

Yeah, thats Astro Boy, so fuckin what?!

Circle-smoke

Once we circumvented the rotating wall things, we went out for a group-smoke with Astro Boy with the streets of Hongdae as our ashtray.

Seth's across the street at Dr. Fish for like 8 hours.

친구unit

Finally, everyone made it Just Red "Fusion-Pub" wtvr the fuck that's supposed to mean, for Evelyn's birthday. Like anyone who's anyone from the exchange crew showed up, it was cool seeing everyone together. Evelyn had to get carried out...Derek's doing.

How come every time Nina takes a picture she looks so fucking sassy?!

Gelly looks bummed.

James' Ska2 photo

Next stop was Ska 2, which played everything but ska music. Pretty much it was its free-ness and absence of having-to-payness that drew us.

Such a random place, which fittingly was followed by a reunion with...wait for it..

Return of VJ Lady (aka Sarah)

NICE VJ LADY! Nice VJ lady, which you will remember back from my first post (spektra) was there with her whole entourage. I should correct my earlier post, she's not British, but has seamlessly adopted the lude hand gestures.

Partying in the Sub-basement

Finally, we made our way from the basement to the sub-basement for an extended dance sesh. Sooo fucking tired, somehow Evelyn is still alive.

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Beatles Bar 아저씨

nobody@vox.com(Patrice the Explorer) — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 16:49:52 +0900

Oh, look at the BALLS on that xmas tree

The night begins as countless others have. Drinking outside the Buy the Way (albeit a more festive version) with Ryo

and James. James buys me cigarettes and i'm highly appreciative. However, things quickly take a disturbing turn upon deciding on the Beatles Bar as a venue...

Don't let the photo fool you, he's got the Socratic lust for younger man

Everything was going swimmingly, all our drinks were bought by this seemingly jolly, content man and his scary, belligerent philosophy professor friend. This usually isnt so unusual as Seth is something of a minor celebrity in Korea for his overt whiteness and a certain je ne sais quo. However, this time was different.

What you can't see in this photo is the sheer terror gripping Seth as he is trapped in the clutches of this drunken degenerate. Also you can't see the ball-touchage that would quickly ensue.

Of course being the charitable person I am, and thinking it was just the language barrier that was making Seth so uncomfortable I went over to talk to the 아저씨. Soon I was dragged into the the iron grip of this drunk fucker who proceeded to, in what my rape-victims anonymous group would later refer to as, invade my personal space to the point of kissing my neck and telling me how beautiful I am (if only i would lose the lip ring that is).

By now, i'm sort of used to being called good-looking by Korean guys, they usually mean it in a complimentary way. Same with gushy soju-ridden 아저씨's getting a little too touchy-feely. It's sorta a cultural thing. This guy though, made me feel like the Jennifer Connelly character in Requiem for a Dream or Leo in Basketball Diaries. Plus his friend had this lazy eye that made it hard to tell if he's looking at you or somewhere else. Finally, Seth and I managed to escape the awkward conversation and reclaim some of our dignity by paying for our own drinks and promptly leaving.

The Mangled Wreck

As you can see, Seth is physically mangled as well as showing all the classic manifestations of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Ryo's assuming his standard response to everything...namely taking a sympathetic nap....

And being Teddy Roosevelt.

Meanwhile, Amy seems ambivalent.

Look at me! I'm ambivalent!

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South of the River, West of Sobriety

nobody@vox.com(Patrice the Explorer) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 22:31:09 +0900

Answer

So us North-of-the-Han folk rarely venture below the river. Mostly it's a combination of laziness and poverty.

Nevertheless, last Thursday we attended a FREE concert put on by our corporate overlord Hewlett-Packard. It's sorta like when the serfs get invited to master's home to basque in a level of luxury that would make hedonismbot pay a visit to the vomitorium. Anyways, the show was a sorta multimedia blend of really cool visuals with Coldcut, DJ Nu-Mark and JUICE (i love you juice)!!

A Traincar Named Desire

Although the show was free, drinks certainly were not. And with a beer running at around 12$ I got my Cass Red on in the subway in front of the disapproving eyes of Korean commuters. And since Ryo got on the train in the other direction...I GOT IT ALL TO MYSELF!!

Doing a Line before the Show

After seeing the lineup to get in, i exclaimed "shibal" (which loosely translated means "vagina for sale" but means something like the F-bomb) to the taxi driver--who laughed.

Walkin' the Line

Here we make the most of the hour-long lineup.

Drunken Tigers

The first act was this famous Korean hip-hop duo called "Drunken Tiger." We wouldn't have known if not for Joseph, but apparently they're some BFD. So yeah, for anyone that wants to hear what rapping i n Korean sounds like...go nuts.

Nu-Mark

This was DJ Nu-Mark, the guy from Jurassic 5, he came on after Drunken Tigers. He used various random props to mix with, it was pretty cheeky...watch for the monkey with cymbals

Coldcut Opening

Then Coldcut came on and proceeded too show us things i really wish i was high for.

SNC12471

Part of the show was straight up electronica from Coldcut but a lot of it was this kinda hip-hop fusion stuff with JUUUICE. We made it up to the front of the crowd and regularly shouted shit at him to let him know we a) speak english and b) are bat-shit cra-z. Seriously, this was a cool show and the visuals were pretty boner-inducing.

Shots from the night. Cred to Katharina Nemec for the awesome group photo. And to answer your question, yes that IS Barbarella as the background. This is the epic scene where Barbarella is captured and put in the orgasm machine.

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Fat Beats at the Temple of Orgiastic Laical

nobody@vox.com(Patrice the Explorer) — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 19:03:20 +0900

Temple of Orgiastic Laical

So, yesterday i spent the night at temple. Not to be confused with the kind of temple on the right, this is the temple of orgiastic laical.

Like totally real temple

Alright, so for those of you not up on your obscure latin terminology, a laical or laic is a noncleric or secular person (a layman). So essentially how i interpret this sign is: "this is the place where all the non-religious people come to orgy." This, i guess, is accurate if you don't count fat beats as a religious persuasion--which I DO.

This club is located in 홍대 (hongdae), which if you haven't heard me say before, is perhaps the coolest place in Seoul. Hongdae, which is the area surrounding Korea's best art school, is home to some of my favorite locales in Seoul and some of the craziest/most-awesomist Koreans i've encountered.

Small, chill underground (literally) bars, featuring usually excellent music.

Booze in iv bags...seriously cool in the gang

My favorite coffee shop, complete with amazing coffee, intermittently crazy/disorienting music, a really chill owner and chingoos!

Legit ramen shop, complete with eating contest and glutinous Koreans in mickey mouse shirts...

So anyways, now that you get a feel for Hongdae, i'll get into some specifics. Last night was our friend Jake's birthday/bitchin electro-pop dance party/general night of drunken debauchery...

Drinking Buy the Way

Pre-pre-funking began at Buy the Way...
If cheap booze and bangin' tracks a good bar make, then hey, Buy the Way across from starbucks is better than like half the bars in shinchon.

Followed by pre-funking at Ho Bar III. I shit you not, there is a chain of bars called "Ho Bar" and there are 6 variations. I'm told that the "Ho" part comes from the Chinese root word meaning "happy," but come fucking on. Anyways, with dollar fitty tequila shots, i'm willing to put political correctness aside.

And Finally, the Funk...

Electro-Chingoos

Electro-pop dance party in Hongdae+Chingoos=this picture.

Ryo, James, and the Austria-possia (Katharina/Sylvia) get their groove on...

Sweat and Lazzers

Just like Halloween, we mobbed the stage. From the level of sweat everyone has, it should be obvious the beats were entirely too amazing for my endocrine system to cope with. Daft, justice, sebastian, klaxons, mstrkrft, digitalism, boys noize, SMD...pretty much everything that gives me a music-induced boner!

Frankie may say relax, but i say DANCE

That bitchingly awesome person to my right is my friend Silver. Good thing Giulliani temporarily let her out of New joisey (albeit it with toll-booth administered feramones for tracking purposes). Thanks to her we knew about Spektra and i got to meet the stud of a DJ laying down these obese beats.

Then came the brawl...

Fight Club

The shit hits the fan as two foreigners start fighting on the stage. This is everyone trying to restrain them. Although luckily there was like an 8"9 like 600 lb German named Igor on call to scare the shit out of any possible contenders. Khrushchev would be proud...

Nice VJ Lady

Nice VJ lady's computer got broken in the chaos. Her "fuck-off" finger expressions confirmed her Britishness...

The Showdown

Outside the club, Derek got all sassy with crazy looking Dutch-halfy girl. As you can see, the trash-talkin (한국말로 of course) escalated to the collar-popping stage. I believe her name was Dianna, Daina, Dinna? maybe?

Moments later, a cat fight almost began between D-something-or-other and random Korean passerby girl outside the convenience store

Meanwhile..

Utter Contentment

The bro-love is brimming. Alex, his Spartan blood-lust finally pacified, has succumb to the double-layered coat of booze and friendship to keep him warm. He is very content to be the ham in the manwich.

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Yo so this is the plan

nobody@vox.com(Patrice the Explorer) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 20:31:32 +0900

Okay, so this is what I'm gonna do. Rather than go back give you all a point by point blow of what I've been doing the last 3 months, I've decided to start blogging from this point on. If you don't like it, check my facebook pics for a general idea of what i've been up to since i got here, if that's still not enough I'll probly refer back to older instances with pics and shit. If that's still not enough, don't be so fucking lazy and stalk me like a real person!

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