Post Script

Apologies for that last bit of venting. Time and perspective tell me that I'm actually fine. My stomach and foot are well and good, and fortunately I have enough savings that money is just numbers in the bank. I'll pretend I lost it in the stock market, or something else grown ups do, when they're busy not getting robbed in 3rd world countries.

And now, back to photos of beautiful places and cute children:

So, yeah.

I got poisoned by shrimps. Our bungalow had a toilet of the water-pouring-instead-of-flushing variety so the smell of previous bathroom trips was close at hand all 6 (or was it 7?) times I vomitted. The mosquitoes had no mercy and filled up on me while I was busy purging. The power went off at 7am and without the fan the heat went from opressively fucking hot to OPPRESSIVELY FUCKING HOT. My one bottle of water ran out around the 3rd puke or so, so for the rest I could just shish and spit the non-potable tap water and dry heave and be dehydrated until the shops opened up in the morning. But now I'm better.

It was a wooden sish-kebab skewer, dirty, and lieing flat on the ground. And then it was, somehow, stuck inside the top of my foot. It was dangling there under my birkenstock strap and it didn't hurt until after Kyle pulled it out and he agrees it was in there about a half centimetre. Now I can't bend my toes very much, and my shoes rub it, but I think it's just a dull stick being inserted into my foot meat kind of issue and not infection issue.

They were buried under 20 ob tampons, the kind without the applicator. I'm not saying if there were applicators it would have changed anything, but I want you to know he (or she) was up to his (or her) wrist in vaginal cotton swabs before they found the roll of bills. I won't tell you how much...well, fuck it. It was around $600. That's not including the $15 Canadian I've been carrying for the last 2 years, which was hidden in an entirely different part of my bag. They did have the luxury of time, I suppose, to rifle around through my things since I had, as the sign at reception suggested, left my key with them so as not to be lost or stolen elsewhere and accrue a modest fine.

Anyway, I laid down to sleep after a 15 hour bus ride this morning and there was hair and jizz on my bed. So when we went to see a statue of the largest reclining Buddah later I just wanted to take pictures of garbage and shit. Maybe that's allowed though.

los Filippinos

Everyone said not to go to Cebu City. Oh, but it's just for one night on the way to the islands, it'll be fine, no worries. Then a street urchin pushes you into oncoming traffic and all of a sudden going straight from the airport to the ferry terminal seems like such an obvious choice.

Just kidding, I crashed a motorbike. But now it seems better, right? It's all about perspective. Especially when you're lying in a pile of gravel when a motorbike on top of you.

Also in the Philipppines:

Got stopped by the police whilst driving a scooter (pre-motobike whoopsies daisies) with an expired drivers license. Blabbered an explanation, was told that Filipino police are very kind, agreed, heartily, and went on my way.

Visited a prison, watched inmates dancing, had an awkward conversation with a guy the same age as me who's been in jail for 7 years (with 4 more to go), dealt with my white, middle class, first world guilt.

Met a monkey named Kieko. Kieko had to be kept on a leash because he learned to make fire by watching people light cigarettes and then started lighting matches on the bungalow roofs.

Got sea and land-sick.

Vomited into the ocean while swimming, fully clothed, to a deserted tropical island (*see above).

That's about all that I remember right now, but I might be having heat-induced amnesia.

                                                                 JAZZ HANDS!

Going going gone

I had intended to write an 'end of Korea' wrap-up post. It was meant to be a nice thing about the old man who sells potatoes around the corner from my house. About how, after passing him nearly everyday for 2 years and smiling, bowing, and saying hello in the most honorific form, he would occasionally grunt and nod at me in response. About how this could perhaps be a witty metaphor for my time in Korea.

Then I thought of writing about all the things I'd never done until I moved to Korea. Teaching English, learning a non-roman alphabet, living in a Confusious society, getting food poisoning, being a racial minority, having expendible income... About how these things had affected or changed me, but written in a light, pithy way, not a Chicken Soup for the Soul kind of way.

But now I'm in Indonesia, after three weeks in the Philippines, and already those things seem so far away that already I'm hardly the right person to accuratly comment on them anymore. Furthermore, the heat has cause my wit to escape from my body via my sweaty armpits. And lastly, but not leastly, the television downstairs is blaring what sounds to be Indonesian muppets and I'm super curious if  Miss. Piggy is wearing a headscarf. I've got to follow through on something eventually, so maybe this will be the one.

Exerpts From Packing

sometimes packing up your entire life becomes just too much to handle. so, you glue down your eyebrows, paint on new ones and let Lady Maionaise do the work for you.

*Lady Maionaise is my drag name. You can't have it. It's taken.

Oh, Joseph

I never heard from him again. I guess he's still thinking of a great idea...

That was weird

There's only 16 days left before I leave Korea, so I'm really trying to savor the moments. Moments like finding a little turd on the floor of the school bathroom. It's precious, you know? Not that floor pooping isn't a totally common thing; it's hard to line everything up properly, I respect that. Shit happens, and sometimes it's to the back, left or right of the squat pot. But this particular turd was standing straight up. Just standing there, perpendicular to the floor. I  don't want to suggest that it was, say, planted that way, but I am saying I've never seen a little poop log stand at attention by itself either...

Then there was the precious moment of watching an elderly man struggle to get up the stairs onto the bus. I felt a little sorry for him because the stairs are quite steep, but then he stumbled and turned around and so everyone could see that actually he's drunk. So drunk he peed his pants. And then he doesn't have money so he has to get off the bus. So he struggles back down the stairs and gives the bus a 'pat-pat' to see it off but the bus still doesn't leave. The driver's looking in his rearview mirror so everyone turns around to check out what he's looking at and it's the old man, of course. He's fallen down, passed out, half on the sidewalk, with his legs dangling out in the street. And then, after I've imagined each of the 100 ways he could die, the bus pulls away...

Yesterday I got my vaccinations for travelling and the translator was explaining which shots they were giving me, yadda, yadda, yadda, oh and don't shower today. Shmexcuse shme? She looked at me, confused by my question, and tells me again, slowly, not to shower because I don't want to get an infection, do I? Umm, yeah, totes. But...do you know what I do with the same water that comes out of the shower? I put it in my mouth and drink it. For breakfast. So if you think the tap water getting through a band aid, into the literal pinprick in my arm will cause an infection then you should take a look at my hard, hard insides...