I met Molly at our favorite brunch place in Hyewha, Comfort Zone. Despite the sporty kind of name, the place is decorated all in jewel colored fabrics, exotic and arty. The word brocade comes to mind, also satin. I would need my friend Maria there to name and number the textiles. The place is two floors. There are lots of couches, and small chandeliers and some cool photography on the walls. Based on the knick-knacks the owners have either traveled a good deal, or there is a Korean sort of World Market I haven’t found. But personally I think they’ve travelled. You can tell when Koreans have had some sustained contact with other countries. Moving on. Brunch is delicious and only costs 5,000 won, though they only cook the eggs scrambled. The owners are adorable and they speak English quite well. It’s usually very slow for brunch, which blows my mind, but is also good for me because I can always sit where I want.
Yesterday was my second day of freedom from teaching for the next two months. TWO. I really recommend the public school system for anyone looking to teach in Korea. But I digress. Molly and I pampered ourselves in Hyewha, as is our custom. After brunch we got our bangs trimmed. I got a wash and a blow dry because now that my hair is healthy, the damned thing can’t absorb oil the same way it used to and it has to be washed everyday. Gross. I’ve been growing my hair long. I’m having a hard time digging it right now. I think it makes me look like a little girl. After the salon we went and got more coffee at the best god damn coffee shop in Seoul, De Chocolate Coffee. I inflicted some of my goofy videos on Molly, a la the ones I post here, and in them I had short hair. She agreed that I did look good in it. She also got a tad bit bored looking at my videos. Some people have no taste.
More pampering in the form of shopping happened. I lost a lot of money on the deal. Instead of getting a manicure, our oringinal plan, we opted to see a movie. Because really, we do have to look after our money. Ahem. We saw half or more than half of Little Ashes, the embarrassing docudrama about a young Salvidore Dali and his unrequited romance with a Spanish poet and revolutionary. I can’t remember the guy’s name. Why they cast wooden, British, beauty queen Robert Pattinson of the Twilight movies as Dali I can’t guess. It was so cringe worthy. The clandestine romance between the two young artists was totally devoid of any any any sexual tension. What the hell? Two hot dudes and not a spark. Bad accent from Pattinson, boring script (lots of covert looks and smoking and imbibing of beverages), the sense of time was way off, the background paintings were cheesy, there was some sort of civil war going on, but you wouldn’t tell from the story hardly. It sucked. It also starred some startling hair, ie Pattinson’s pubes, plus a really atrocious wig in the beginning. If there is one thing that gets my goat in movies, it’s goofy fucking wigs. Good on Korea though for bringing an art-house, gay romance to their mainstream theaters.
We tried to soothe our bad-movie inflicted pains by playing darts. There are lots and lots of billiard rooms in Seoul. The first one we went into every table was full, there weren’t any darts, plus some young asshole saw two foreign chicks enter a room where only young Korean men were playing, and he blatantly was pointing us out to his drunk friend and laughing. I was super rude to him, stared him down, told him hello in the impolite form. In general it is my rule that it’s okay to threaten Korean men. They are small and they back down from anything. Also my time in the classroom is spent having authority over teenage Koreans, and frankly these dudes in the pool hall don’t look much older. The next pool hall had only tables without pockets, and you get four balls I think. We had no idea what that was. The third place had darts, but it was some fool electronic darts. It was decidedly stupid, so after playing one game we high-tailed it to the foreigner district Itaewon. I thoroughly whooped Molly, mostly because she’s competitive and she was getting too worked up. She said she was bad, but I think she has it wrong. I’m just very good.
We got a late late dinner of gyros. Some very drunk and very ghetto military came into the little gyro joint. I’ve heard less cussing in a Tarantino flick. They also sounded really aggressive with everybody. Kinda freaked me out a bit. Makes me appreciate how we make the Koreans feel, as we are hands-down louder and more confrontational.
Yeah, so that is what I did yesterday.