The Good Times are Killing Me

I don't like to complain, but I've had some pretty shitty days lately and for some reason I always feel better when I lodge a complaint and send it into this abyss we call the internet. If you aren't in the mood to hear somebody bitch, this may be the wrong place for you.

For those of you that know me well, you know how important cooking is to me. There are very few things in life that give me as much pleasure as gathering some friends and cooking a big meal for everybody to enjoy together. I attempted to do just that on Sunday night.

There was a big English football match. Two of my good friends over here cheer on the Tottenham Hotspurs and they were matched up against perrenial powerhouse Manchester United. Even though I may not be the biggest "football" fan (we call it soccer,) I was excited to be a part of that sporting atmosphere. Some of the all-time favorite days of my life have been days involving big sporting matchups. They provide a time to get together with friends, have some drinks and join together in pursuit of a common goal - blacking out after the game ends. Regardless of how much I cared about the outcome of the game, I was excited for the event.

We all assembled downstairs and went shopping for chickens together. It had been a while since we last cooked beer-can chickens so we decided to do a round of them. I got the grill going and suddenly, two irate older Koreans showed up. They were talking down to me like I was a second -class citizen. The went on a tirade and one of the only words I understood was "police." Within minutes the police were there, telling me that I couldn't grill because the neighbors were complaining it smelled.

Allow me to bitch. My cooking smells delicious. We hadn't even gotten any food on the grill - there was only the smell of charcoal - and it smelled better than any alley I've been in in Korea. To get a better idea of what Korea smells like, follow these simple instructions:

1. Get a blender
2. Inside the blender, place a diaper full of shit, a cat that has been dead long enough to begin rotting and bigfoot's dick
3. Either blend or puree, depending on the desired consistency

This should give you a pretty good, tangible idea of how Korea smells. Considering that this is the smell I have been living with for more than the last 11 months, you might understant that I was absolutely flabbergasted to have an old man tell me that I was ruining the delightful aroma of his beloved neighborhood.

One of the worst parts of this whole exchange was the fact that the man and woman were ranting and raving to the police and, as expected, they were using Korean. I was given no chance to defend myself or my actions. I knew that the language barrier would make it impossible to get my point across well enough to persuade the police to allow the barbecue to continue. It was a situation where other people were ruining my evening and there was nothing I could do about it.

After a horrible evening on Sunday, I was almost looking forward to waking up on Monday morning for school. My intensive classes are all over which means I have to be at school a whole lot less and get to go in a whole lot later. Things were looking up - until I woke up.

I awoke to find my hands and feet covered in little zit-like bumps, boils and rashes. They were itchy like chicken pox, red and gross. The pharmacy offered little help, so I thought I could just wait it out and they would go away. I awoke this morning with twice as many bumps and they have now moved to my back, knees, theighs and stomach - as well as multiplying in the aforementioned places.

I was way skeptical of seeing a Korean doctor, but at the urging of my boss, I decided it may be time to do so. The doctor had trouble communicating with me. I told him I thought the outbreak had been caused by a batch of bad tuna. I asked him for Benadryl and he told me that he would prescribe me the next best thing.

When I got to the pharmacy, the pharmacist told me that the doctor had given me the wrong thing. "This will not help," she said. "You need more than this for your problems. This won't do at all." So I've got a pharmacist who speaks my language and has access to pills she can't give me, and a doctor who doesn't speak my languge who has access to pills he won't give me.

Korea has really been beating the shit out me for the last few days. I would fight back, but my hands are too swollen with little mystery bumps to make a fist.So now, here I sit in Asia, barbecueless and itchy, hoping that things get better. And it sure seems to me like they will, because I can't imagine things getting much worse...

Much love from Seoul