Seoul & a Jimjilbang, Good Times, Bad Times

I'm typing on a bright pink keyboard right now.
Once I got to Seoul Jono hooked me up with his fancy apartment key and a "T" card, you juice this thing up with Won, stash it in your wallet and use it for all transit. (buses, subway & taxi's) We chilled for an hour or so at his house, drank a beer and left to get some food. He wanted to introduce me to Galbi (Korean BBQ) in his neighborhood (Yatap) but we got sidetracked with my T card education and just got on the subway to Itaewon. This is the area of town that's got nightlife, and we found a pretty good Galbi joint right off the subway.

So they bring the marinated meat to your table and cook it right there with 'shrooms, garlic and whatever else you wanna pile on there...it was great. This was my first introduction to Gimchi also, which I'm still not sure about but I keep trying. Gimchi (I think) is cabbage that gets soaked in their version of hot sauce, buried in the ground before winter and left to ferment for a few months or maybe a year. Regardless it's very strong, and different, but seems to be a staple such as cole slaw for us, hot carrots in Mexico, or sauerkraut for the Poles. I'm trying to acquire the taste for it but most people I've spoken to about it say it took them at least a month to get used to it.

Two of Jono's friends, Sue & Ben, joined us at the Galbi joint and we proceeded to drink this great Soju that's served from a Bamboo pitcher and tastes like apple cider, it was a good start to the night. From there we went to a bar, had some beers, did a few Jaeger shots and moved on to a Hookah bar.

Here's where it gets interesting, because by this point Jono & Sue were hammered. We toked on the hookah for a bit while swilling beers and after about and hour I realized Jono was MIA, yet one of his shoes was still at our booth? I had done like three laps around the bar and he was no where to be found. Ben said he knew where he was, so we we went to the bar-back, asked him to unlock the bathroom and there was Jono passed out on the can. (mind you, with one shoe on) I guess he never smokes Hookahs, got dizzy and needed some quiet time ;) Anyway, when we got back to our booth Sue was passed out as well. It was time to start winding down, the time was about 3am.

We got out of there, put Sue in a cab, and they wanted me to see"Hooker Hill" which was very similar to Amsterdam's red light district, hotties competing for our attention from doorways wearing almost nothing and it's like 10 degrees, hilarious, and hot, but mostly hilarious. Once Jono & I each took a dive (ice + drunk + hill = fall down go boom) we hit one more bar, since they never close, and had another beer. Finally we decided to really call it a night, so we got some kebabs (basically gyros with thinner bread) & meat sticks (chicken) then caught a cab back to his crib for some sleep. (It was noon my time, 5am in Korea.)

The next day (Saturday) we had some breakfast and spent the day on the computer booking our rooms in Hong Kong & Macau. Eventually we went to the Jimjilbang, a Korean bathhouse/sauna. This was killer, many different temperatures of hot pools, cold pools, western style (stand up) showers, eastern style (sitting) - a sweat lodge, different styles of Sauna, some just plain hot, some thick with Eucalyptus, the floors in Korea are heated so people would just lie wherever, I guess if your into it one can just pass out here for the night in a quiet corner. The actual Jimjilbang is co-ed and seems to be where families or couples go for a night to eat, and get massages or whatever. We actually did this treatment for like seven bucks, you put your feet in a pool and these little fish nibble all the dead skin off. (Dr. Fish) It was weird but I guess I needed it cause they pretty much ignored Jonos toes while they were mackin' on mine...10 years of wandering OB barefoot, I'd built up some grime :) We got some beers for this experience, I needed to be distracted cause yes, I'm ticklish, and it was. There's also a gym and all the spa amenities that any girl who reads this is used to, I wasn't so familiar.
Now it gets strange again, Jono wanted to get a scrub. For like 8 bucks some dude in the bathhouse will scrub you with a rough loofah to strip your dead skin off, supposedly this is very healthy and effective. So we did it. It was like a massage, except rougher, faster, and a little painful. We were obviously smoother when it was all over, I think I lost a significant amount of lower leg hair, but in the end (we were there like 6 hours) we were incredibly relaxed & rested. I forgot to mention that we both passed out for an hour or 2 in one of the more mild temperature saunas. We went to an Irish Pub around 1am for a few pitchers and got home around 5, my hours are all messed up, I'm obviously jet-lagged. Cheers to Jono who had no problem staying up and entertaining me.

OK --- now I need to sidebar, about 5 days after I got laid off (December 10) my friend Tom & I went to visit our buddy Dave in Mendocino County (12 hours north, above SF) - we both needed to get away. I brought my dirt bike with me since he lives on 80 acres of woods, and within an hour I ran out of trails. So Dave mentioned that we could clear an old logging road, with both of our recent life changes this seemed like the perfect outlet for any frustrations we might feel. So we busted out the Chainsaw, clippers, machetes, and cleared some 40 year old brush. Spent 2 days doing it and made a damn fine road if I do say so myself. We got it done just before their first snowfall of the season, the next day they got 8 inches and I realized I had contracted Poison Oak.

POISON OAK IS EVIL! You see, I used to get poison ivy pretty bad as a kid, and had gotten some cases of poison oak since living in Cali, so I wasn't too worried. But it kept getting worse, on the 5th day I had to drive Tom to the SF airport and my right forearm was oozing puss, yeah, I know, nasty. I was disgusted as was he, I could barely sleep since it actually hurt as well as itched. That night we met up with some friends in the city (DJ Mikey Lixxx & his girl Kristen) and I proceeded to drink as many Long Island iced teas as I could just so I could get a good nights sleep. Woke up the next morning and it had gotten even worse, my entire arm was a blister, so I went to St Francis' Emergency Room in downtown San Fran, where they were even amazed/repulsed/confused - so I told them I needed a steroid shot, as well as pills, which is how we used to treat it when I was a kid. They obliged, thank god, and I hit up the pharmacy for some Valium, 600 mg Ibuprofen & prednisone (the magical steroid that's really bad for me but seems to be the only thing that works) -- I was on my way to recovery, after a night in Mill Valley @ another old friends house I picked up Dorothy at the airport and went back to Dave's for some R & R.

By the 22nd we were driving home & it was drying up, YIPPEE! I felt way better and other than the fact that I was shedding skin things seemed to be looking up.

Around Christmas I had run out of the pills they had given me, yet I still had a few patches on various parts of my body. Luckily years ago I had made a run to Mexico to pick those magic pills up for a situation just like this, so I took more. I knew I was coming to Korea and the last thing I wanted to do was deal with this here, so I made an appointment with my doctor for January 5, I told him my story & he told me to put some aloe on it. I did for 3 days and it was still sticking around, WTF, so I called him and he gave me yet another 'script for prednisone. It's January 8th, I leave on the 14th. I took it and honest to god it was gone. I had a few random dry patches on my arm but it was really gone, and I was happy since this was the last thing I wanted to deal with in Asia.

Now back to the scrub, and it's effects... It brought the poison oak back! Yeah, really, my right arm is blistered again and my lower legs are covered, I noticed it on Sunday and hoped it was just a fluke, hoped I had enough of that damn steroid in my system to clear it out. Nope, it's now Monday night and it seems to be right back where I was on day 3 or 4 (Dec 14th) - where the hell do I go in Korea to get this treated? How do I explain it? I called Dorothy to send me the remaining pills I have at home and it's Sunday there, Monday's MLK day and there's no mail, so the soonest she can get them out is Tuesday which means I see them maybe Thursday?!?!? WTF, I need an ancient "Korean" secret or something.

Today I took a bus to Gyeongju, 4 hours from Seoul, I'll get into that in my next post.