Am I still here?

Any gains I made at the gym were wiped out over the past five days, with multiple trips to McDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut, plus 85 beers, 15 jager shots and 10 gin-tonics. It had to be the first vacation I've ever had from work were I just wanted it to end. That wouldn't be the case if I wasn't 10 days from going home, but since it was, I tried my best to sleep 20 hours a day, waking only for alcohol and food intake. Before the holiday, I decided that I would hit up a few of the touristy sites around town during the break. I don't know what I was thinking, though. I had no desire to do that. There are two cool things to check out in Seoul, and that's Seoul Tower and the Korean War Museum, everything thing else is either a crappy temple or just crap.

I made my last trip out to Itaewon the other night and thankfully, it left with me with that dirty nasty taste in my mouth like always. On the bright side, we did go to this country bar uptop of Hooker Hill, where they seriously had every country song ever made. It was almost like being in Nashville, just chilling out and listening to some quality music, except there were $10 whores right outside the door and my friend was plowing his Korean girlfriend in the bathroom.

At Woodstock Tuesday night, unfortunately, I met a Korean guy who spoke perfect English and had traveled the world. And if there's one thing worse than a normal Korean, it's a douchebag who has been other places, comes back to Korea, and still has the nerve to defend Korea against it's insular, pure-blooded, f-the foreigners, attitude. He said Koreans have cause to discriminate because of poor behavior by American soldiers, namely when they ran over and killed a few people several years ago. I honestly almost brought up the VTech shooter, not because I believe for a second that would justify any sort of backlash against Koreans, but because that is the kind of ridiculous logic that flies in Korea.

Another foreigner posted this on a web forum, and it sums up the experience of white guy perfectly, and the fact is, if you don't agree with this as a foreigner, you're either drinking too much or you've got thicker skin than a elephant:
"The constant endless little things are what get to a person. Each tiny racist or discriminatory thing builds and builds. Imagine a paper cut and everyday you get a new paper cut on the same place...that's Korea."

Going out to lunch with my co-workers last week was about painful as expected. Me and Nathan were put in our little imaginary cage and separated from the rest of the group. Credit to the new Korean teacher, though, who planned the event and pretty much did talk to us the entire time. I worry about her, though, since she is constantly violating Topia's most cherished rule: Make the foreign teachers feel as unwelcome and uncomfortable as possible at all times...or face death.

Not much else to report, this is the homestretch and I'm just trying to make it through it alive. This weekend will be the last, which only means I won't remember it. Nice life.