Korea, Koks & Kwogk

Saturday

In the morning I checked out the TV again, more porn, that guy must be a stallion to go all night! I headed out to a famous temple which was a must see, "apparently". I got up the mountain via cab; it's cheaper if you share with someone, which is kinda cool. after looking around the temple I went up to the information desk to ask where the next one was, the ladies behind the counter were English volunteer guides and thought that I was asking to be shown around, I tried to explain that I had just seen everything, but they were intent on showing me around, due to the fact that a reporter was there to do a story on them, so I got to be the dumb tourist. But first they said we had to have lunch in the temple. This was a free lunch, and I could see why. Although I feel you can never complain about something that is free, but that food was shite. The lady explained that the Buddhists believe that if you don't eat everything on your plate, that it will be waiting for you when you die, it sounds like she went to the same school of thought that my parents went to when I was growing up. Never the less, she didn't finish hers, but I did. I guess she's in for a surprise when she dies.

A few things stood out for me at the temple, one was the kid that cracked his head open on a rock in front of me, blood just pissed out, good thing I didn't trip over, that could have been me. The second was that in the no-go sections of the temple (they still have monks living there) the signs were written in Korean, so I "accidentally" walked into some monks sacred area and took photos, all the time wondering why they were all staring at me, I just figured its their culture. It wasn't until my second tour with the lady that I found out the truth.

I headed off to the next temple, which was a 20minute train ride. I asked to go to the cable cars, but instead the bus driver dropped me off at the Botanical Gardens, so I started my trek to the cable cars, which people assured me was 15 minutes walk over the hill. On the way I met 3 old Korean men, Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dump and John. The first question they asked me was "are you American?" when I assured them that I wasn't, we exchanged pleasantries and they told me to follow them to the cable cars. I thought that this was a stroke of luck, three old men showing me the beauties of Mountainous Pusan whilst smelling of Korean Sake (alcohol).

After 2-3 hours of hiking however I began to wonder if they knew where the cars were. I was always told "next mountain, understand?" I would smile and say "yup" all the time wondering if they even knew where we were going. It was kinda funny when Tweedle Dee had a slight disagreement with Tweedle Dump and took out his pocketknife and threatened to stab his good friend Tweedle Dump with it. I put it down to the alcohol, after smiles and John intervening Tweedle Dee stopped thrusting it towards his friend's abdomen and repocketed it.

Drunken old people are generally more stupid than young people in my opinion, they remember how they used to be, and alcohol brings back that invulnerability. As demonstrated by the 3 stooges at various times, like when I wanted to have a photo taken overlooking the city below me, and the stooges were trying to tell me to walk further out on the ledge, like whatever! Another time they would suddenly decide that they knew more than each other. For example;

T. Dump "I am going this way"

John "but the track goes this way"

T.Dump "I am smarter than you all, shortcut, shortcut

T.Dee (pulling his knife out) "come back here"

Greg "I just wanted to ride in the cable car"

This happened several times, so I tried to side with the pocketknife or the least drunk guy. Eventually we reached the cable cars, although they hadn't taken me to the bottom of the cars, we had climbed to the top of the mountain and descended upon them. I was amazed and pissed off, but after living in Japan that becomes a second nature. The 3 stooges said farewell and told me to jump aboard the car, as they were starting their descent. I figured that I would rather trust 3 drunk Koreans than a cable car packed full of Koreans, better the devil you know as they say.

We got down the mountain in a hour and went to a restaurant where they proceeded to buy Korean food and alcohol, all hot, which I don't particularly like, not to mention that the "meat" we were eating was pigskin. After a few shots I noticed John wasn't drinking, I asked why, and he said that he had a damaged liver, which meant that he couldn't. This was amended by plying his shots with 50% alcohol and 50% Coke, with friends like these, who needs enemies? Things livened up when Tweedle Dee pulled out his pocketknife *again* to threaten his friend. The waitress started yelling at him to put it away, he tried to explain to her that it was small, and could hardly do any damage. She wasn't having any of it, and told him to put it away because of the other customers, he tried once more to explain to her, but he lost his argument. I said farewell to my new friends and swaggered back to the hotel where I was staying. They have a section of movies, which you can watch for free, the only stink part was that 90% of them were porno; I selected "Final Destination", not the porn, the teen suspense flick and settled into bed.