On the back of a scooter, soju in hand, we zipped across speed humps through narrow, paved roads behind buildings, on our way to the apartment.
It was, I admit, the first time I had ever been on a motored bike for a great distance. Well, it really wasn't a great distance, but it was certainly the farthest I'd been on any bike.
I was trying to branch out, meet people, get to know those I'd drank with at Zio Ricco's on Wednesdays. Some people were hanging out at a house on the other side of Hadaedong. Or was it another name? Time will blur the lines a bit.
It was cold, I do remember that. I remember the haze, that constant companion that floated into the light like an endless mist. Korea being the size it is (really small) with as many people that it has (a whole lot) who drive cars (a lot of them) and who worship at the temple of technology, it's easy to see why there would be a slick of pollution to coat everyone and everything.
The soju is cheap there. It should be, that's where it comes from. A sort of watered down vodka, it's easy to drink, even easier to get a hangover because it's so easy to drink. Three bucks (well, 3,000 won. Who knows how the currency conversion has changed since 2005) gets you three bottles. That and a pack of Dunhills and I was ready to go.
One of the other teachers, we'll call him Elliot because I honestly cannot remember his name and will likely never, said he'd pick me up from the main road because directing me through the backroads to the apartment could get a bit confusing. I grabbed my booze, my smokes, my coat and headed outside.
Did nature once live in Jinju, South Korea? Of course it did; it lived everywhere at some time or another in history. But, in many parts of this mid-sized city (350,000 is by accounts rather diminutive for Korea), nature has long since been swept underneath concrete, asphalt and steel. Sure, there's Jinju Castle, there's the outskirts, where Bettina and I walked and found ourselves at a roadside restaurant that also had bungee diving from 50 feet up in the backyard. But, in Hadaedong, there were a lot of buildings, a lot of roads, and its own peculiar, mysterious charm. I sometimes wish I could go back today and explore it thoroughly.
Smoking is hard when you're freezing, and one hand is holding a paper bag with booze, the other trying to keep its grip on the cigarette. Shivering most of the way, I passed by the "toastie" place, the little fast food restaurant that makes sweet tasting egg sandwiches on white toast. I remember sitting inside of the small, white, plasticy eatery while the kindly middle aged woman made my sandwich, her husband offering up a bit of small talk in what little English he could muster. I returned the courtesy with as much Korean as I could muster, which wasn't much.
The circular heater, which resembled an oscilating fan with a heating coil in place of a fan blade, buzzed and whirred heat onto its recepients, which were myself, the husband, the woman and their teenage child. Most people went up to the window on the side of the restaurant to order their sandwiches.
I passed by the bike shop, where I'd paid $60 (60,000 won) for a pretty nice bike. It was a bit heavy, certainly a lot heavier than what I had rode back in the States, but it was solid, and it certainly was good enough to transport me and Estevez on a great trip around Jinju, which led us to Shinandong, the movie theater, and a viewing of War of the Worlds that rattled my already tenuously hinged brain.
Getting to the intersection for the main road that sliced through this part of Jinju, and over the bridge to parts unknown took only about 5 minutes. Nothing else, besides those two businesses, really interested me. There was the school I taught at, the high school adjacent to it, the P.C. Bang at the end of the road, the bread shop next to it, and the chicken place that sold, likely every other chicken place, significantly overpriced food, but the rest of the unnamed road was relatively unassuming, uninteresting. At least, that's how I perceived it at the time.
I crossed the highway and walked into the light of a Hyundai-operated gas station, waiting for a few minutes before "Elliot" puttered up on his scooter. I hopped on, clutched my soju in one hand, his waist in the other and proceded to go on my first motored bike ride through narrow, paved roads behind buildings, on our way to the apartment.
