2005-11-17 - 3:08 p.m.
I have these grand plans of writing various very short stories about my travels, and various exploits in my life so far. I don’t claim to have done anything really spectacular, but I do have some silly stories, which still make me giggle. (And wonder what the hell was going through my mind at the time.)
When I think back to the best summer of my life there are a few very memorable summers. The summer when I was 19 and I spent a lot of time in Vernon playing rugby and realizing that I have this sexuality thing that makes boys act strange. The summer past I had a great summer loving Adam and together planning our lives together. The summer I want to talk about was the summer of 2001. I was in Korea and I had made some great friends, S and D.
S and D worked at the same school and lived together and I met them at a bar frequented by many of the foreigners in the city. (FYI- I was a foreigner.) We had a great time at this bar, lots of drinking and partying. This summer I really learned about sexuality, I wasn’t a slut or anything like that, but I learned the art of flirting and generally just came out of my shell. Conversing! With Strangers!
Eventually we felt like big fish in a small pond and we wanted to see a little more nightlife in the country. So one weekend we struck out to Seoul. It wasn’t too far, it was a four-hour bus ride there, and the bus system there is far superior to what we have here. They run from point A to B and don’t make stops in between. So you can catch a bus from anywhere to anywhere, easily. Once on the bus we realized that we were not the only foreigners with the same plan. The bus had several other Canadians, Americans and Aussies on it, all with the same objective- to take in Seoul.
Once we arrived in Seoul we knew where we needed to head to- Itaewon. It was the area of town where all of the American army boys frequented. When we got there and went into the first pub I was in awe. Here I was in Korea, and yet this was a very American pub. Very. American. It was excellent. I loved Korea and all things Korean, but damn I wanted some good beer. They had this yummy beer called Red Rock, which was similar to Ricards here. So as my girls and I scope the place trying very hard to play it cool we realize there is no reason to. The place is full of men. Let me repeat. Full. Of. Men! FULL! I was like a kid in a candy store; American army boys, most of them officers, surrounded me. Now after being hit on by every slimy Korean man in a 50-block radius (damn blonde hair and boobs), I was ready to belt out God Bless America! (And I’m Canadian!) They were so polite and so attentive. I understand why: no English-speaking females to be seen, loneliness, and good old-fashioned politeness beat into them. (It was strange being called a female, but that’s how they were trained, apparently girls or anything was too degrading in the army.)
Anyhow I digress, we go to the pub, meet many lovely, lovely men, but we want to dance. So we are directed to Hooker Hill. Oh yes, HOOKER HILL. It’s a hill, (how’d ya guess?) lined with bars and brothels. Bar, brothel, bar, brothel, where a few good men can get liquored and well, you know…. So the three of us hike to the top of this hill to a bar and manage to bypass the whole line of men. The bar would be a dive here, it was all dark and not well kept. There were some creepy couches along the wall, but they proved to be a very popular place to, shall we say, visit? The music was standard top forty. Really the bar wasn’t that great, but I had so much fun there. So many men, so little time.
One evening I met this army guy and he buys me the obligatory rose that they would all try and charm you with. As the night progresses we decide to leave and find a quieter place to get to know each other. As we walk down Hooker Hill, several of the ladies called for him by name. I didn’t think twice about that until the next day. So the some place quiet turned out to be my hotel room. Sordid details aside, we didn’t speak again, that he knows of. So now we’ll quickly advance through history. A few months later I met another guy on the Hill, Eric. He was all cute and shy and truly nice. We would meet up on the weekends and have fun and it was a good fun, not a drunken debausheriesque fun that S and D were so good at having. (I was still quite shy and would be in awe of their unabashedness.) Anyhow in the early stages of our “relationship” I would call him at his barracks during the week, as he was at the northern most base and I was in a town 5 hours south of him. The barracks are really a big dorm, with one phone and who ever was closest would answer it and go and get the guy it was for. So I call one evening and the guy that answered seemed really familiar, but I didn’t think much of it. So Eric comes on the phone and we chat and make our plans and the conversation was over. After he hung up I had a realization. The guy that answered the phone was the guy I met the first night on the Hill. They were essentially roommates! Luckily for me I don’t think that the figured out how they were connected.
The rest of the summer I spent going to Seoul on weekends, Eric and I weren’t exclusive. But we would see each other as often as we could. There were other times I would meet a guy and Eric would show up and we would be all crafty and ditch the other guy. It was most amusing. I am sure that I sound like a giant whore. I wasn’t sleeping with all of these guys, just dancing and drinking. They wanted more, but I learned my lesson early and fast. One night as we were escaping some guy we wandered down into the gay section of Seoul and the Hill. Eric was so uncomfortable that it made me laugh. I can understand how a guy might squirm, but he really was freaked out. He was so worried that someone would see him come out of that district and draw up some freaky conclusion.
The whole story of Eric and I ends when 9/11 happened. He was under high alert then had to go on field duty. I was done my contract a short while later and we never heard from each other again. Without being all sentimental and stuff, the look that would have been on my face when I realized that Eric lived with the other guy was priceless. I wish I would have had a mirror.
