the first 24 hours

focal point concealed.

somehow i slept 12 of the 15 hours it took to go from jfk to incheon. i think that's a new record for me. we landed in the dark at 5 am and immigration, baggage claim, customs and the express bus back home were all quick and uneventful. it being an early saturday morning, my neighborhood was still quiet, which was nice. i dropped off my shiz, took a gander at the lightening horizon and made haste to the subway to see what was left of namdaemun.

since i live on line 2, i usually get off at the city hall stop and walk the half-kilometer to the old gate instead of transferring. but after walking what seemed like the appropriate distance, it wasn't there. perhaps 2 months in the usa had me misjudging my environs. so i took the underpass to walk to the next intersection, but the signs said i was already there. i exited and then realized why i had missed it. the great gate's burned carcass was concealed by a huge wall of beige panels. as the area's magnificent focal point for so many years, it was disorienting to have it camouflaged by a bland case. for the first time, i was seeing the area's boring glass towers.


rather than pretend nothing happened, i assume that city officials erected the wall to avoid gawker delays or accidents on the busy 5-way intersection. but in a country so accustomed to catastrophe, it felt inappropriate to cover it up. there were windows on the side facing away from the street, but glare made it difficult to see the men in bright orange vests digging through the rubble inside. outside was an altar with flowers, fruit and a large photo from the good ole days. i saw a handful of people come by to gaze through the glass and at people's scribbled messages.

pilgrimage made, i returned home and went online. i dislike most expat blogs about korea, but there's one that shares my interest in the eccentricities of living here. so i was disappointed to read his remarkably mean-spirited take on koreans' grief re: the burned gate. while i had sensed a little bit of the "korea is backwards" sentiment from him in the past, after reading a couple of his other posts, it was obvious that he is one of many (mostly white) expats who have a weird kind of animus against korea... to the degree that they enjoy dehumanizing koreans while they are grieving. it's strange to me why so many in the "korea haters club" choose to live here.

let's hope sooner rather than later.

haters aside, after two months away it's great to be back. later that night, after a few rounds of drinks on itaewon's homo hill, i, along with a coupla buddies and their new mankubs, crossed the alley into the hot and crowded "why not?" dance club. it felt good to be reunited with the scores of pretty korean guys i had missed while stateside. past 5 am the crowd had thinned and since the trains had started up again, i gladly paid the 900 won ($1) to get home. a quick post-drinking snack at the 24-hour seolnongtang jip helped keep the vomiting impulse at bay before rushing home to get into bed before sunrise, since it's weird to go to sleep in the daylight. day 1 completed.