And I thought Korean was hard....

I step off the 6 train clutching AM New York in my right hand. The combination of the dank, subway air and my tie being tighter than a toddler and a treasured toy makes it difficult to breathe. I wait for my moment in the turnstile and arise out of the depths of the city into the crisp, October day.

Everything is going well. Everything is routine so far.

I walk across Park Avenue, dodging a bike messenger and squinting towards my office on 51st Street. All is normal. All is calm.

Now comes something different. Something strange. It's one of the more nerve-racking, stressful times of my day (Besides sending a fax or trying to scan a magazine cover).

I need to get a cup of coffee. Starbucks is located right next to my building and the most convenient cafe when I'm rushing into work. It is also probably the best. But that's where any positives end.

I hang a right before my office and head towards Starbucks. There's a long line that wraps around the entire inside of the small shop. My palms begin to gather sweat. My heart rate quickens. Lips chap. Mouth dries. I'm terrified. I take a deep breath and pull open the door. It doesn't budge. Then I notice the PUSH in bold, green letters on the front glass. Ahh yes. Right. Something I've seen everyday for the last 2 weeks, but still haven't processed. Must be the nerves.

I push the door forward and walk into the cafe. But it's more like walking into some alien world. A female employee with a green apron seems to be speaking in tongues.

"pike pilly, tazo chai zen, frappachino monichato, bilboozi-bananafatto!" she screams.

Even the customers in front of me are speaking in a similar lingo. The woman points to them and they respond with "pike zowie" "diddly doodie" "ponowi bonowi." I think I even hear someone order a "boombastik shaggy fantastic."

It's like everyone is possessed or brainwashed by this green demon behind the counter. And she's getting closer and closer to me. I don't know if I should just turn and make a run for it or be a hero and destroy this creature.

Finally she gets to me and points her narrow, twisted finger at my confused face. I pause and everyone spins around to look at me. Even after two weeks, I don't understand this foreign culture and language. I quietly say "medium coffee?" Because really, that's all I want. It's a coffee shop, isn't it? Shouldn't a medium coffee suffice as a reponse?

The woman's face twitches into a grin and she begins laughing. A high-pitched, evil laugh. Similar to that of the Wicked Witch of the West.

Then everyone starts laughing and pointing at me. "A medium coffee? He said he wanted a medium coffee? Hahahahahaaaaa"

The woman then says something quickly in her language to a co-worker. I think my order went through, but I really can't tell.

I shuffle off to the side of the counter where the coffee is being brewed. The man at the helm is yelling in the same, odd language. I feel bad believing him to be a victim of turrets-syndrome. He also seems to be in the midst some mad, science experiment. Smoke is shooting out of the contraption in front of him. Whistles are sounding. Pots are clanging. Babies are screaming. Looks something like this.

At this point my vision is blurry and I'm becoming dizzy. I'm starting to hallucinate. Coffees are being dropped on the counter and picked up by the queue of zombies. I want to get out of this madhouse, but don't know what my drink is called. Was it a pike grande? A picky chao? Largey in chargey? I can't take it anymore.

I race to the front counter and reach for a coffee.

"Pike grande?" the woman snaps.

I nod. Ashamed to speak my native language in this wild world.

I throw her some bills and escape without even collecting my change. I don't even know if this is my coffee. What is coffee? I needed to leave and get back to real life.

Hopefully, someday, I will understand this strange culture and not feel like an outcast. But for now, Starbucks remains a wild, wild world.

Couch Surfing

Have you ever slept on a couch for a week straight? How about 3 weeks?

Although I do have a job in New York City, I do not yet have an apartment. So, I am sleeping on a friend's couch on the Upper East Side and probably will be there until early November. (He doesn't know that yet. Hope he doesn't read my blog. Actually, who cares. He better be reading my blog. I'm living with the guy.) For anyone that's ever slept on a couch for a period of time, they know there are two sides to the sofa.

One side is open to the rest of the room. Open to the world...

You're propped up on the pillow, TV remote in your hand, happily clicking away between Sportscenter and HBO's favorite movie to play right now; "Home Alone." Nothing says Christmas movie season quite like October.

You have a plate of chocolate chip cookies resting comfortably on your stomach. In my case, the cookie plate is sliding down towards my waistline. Instead of popping out, my stomach actually indents inward, forming a hole. Some good-ole' fashioned Monagan Malnutrition. Looks and feels similar to this.

You're chit-chatting with your roommate about what to eat tonight, sneaking glances out of the 27th floor window into a brilliant NYC skyline. Hell, maybe you're even balancing a q-tip on your nose or blowing bubbles out of your ears. You're free to do anything on this side of the couch. It opens out into the rest of the room. The possibilities are limitless.

The other side of the couch is a black hole. Where quarters and dreams go to die...

You're having a great baseball conversation with your roommate and Home Alone is just getting to the part where Kevin utters "This is MY house. I have to defend it!" Safe to say, you are pumped up. You're enjoying life on this side of the couch.

Then your phone rings. And it's not in your pocket.

It's ringing with a muffled, suffocating sound. Kind of how a baby would cry if a pillow were pressed on its face.

You know where the phone is and you don't want to reach for it. But you have to. It could be your girlfriend. It could be your boss. It could be Zesty's pizza delivery.

So you turn from the picturesque, New York City night lights and smiling Kevin McCallister and come face to face with leather. Dark, lifeless leather. It's like you just fell down some deep cave in the middle of nowhere. You can't hear. You can't see. No one can hear you. You can barely breathe.

You stuff your unsteady hand deep into the crevices of the couch. You clench your teeth, not knowing what may be hiding under these cushions. Body parts, dead gerbils, old baloney sandwiches. Something could bite you. Someone might grab you and pull you inside. Into the unknown.

I think someone was murdered on this guy's sofa. Even he doesn't know what some of the stuff is:

You end up just leaving your phone inside the monster and waiting until daylight. It's safer then. You pull your face away from the face-sucking suction and are back facing the television. Back facing the world. "Home Alone" is right where it left off and your roommate is still talking about the Yankees. Figures. Time had stopped while you were gone.

So those are the two sides of the couch. Heaven and Hell. I have another couple weeks on the couch in NYC and I hope to stay in the correct position. Don't want to fall into the endless abyss. This video sums up that experience pretty well. The guy in white has entered the wrong side:

From Bimbipap to Wok&Roll

I'm STILL ALIVE!!! From my last post on the best blog by an American living in Chuncheon, South Korea for 12.5 months while eating a steady diet of rice and tuna fish, one might think Kim-Jong Il and his army attacked the South and ended my ability to blog. My blogability. But Kim did not invade. I simply stopped blogging. All blogged out.

Reasons I stopped blogging? There are many.

1. I was involved in a heated blog war with a fellow "English" teacher (http://yorkshiretokorea.blogspot.com/2010/09/stealing-your-soul-everyday.html. Best blog by an Englishman living in Chuncheon, South Korea for 12 months while ruining innocent lives with Chinese rubbing alcohol)

Anyways, I choked. Couldn't keep up with the weekly blogs this maniac was putting out. He was constantly blogging. Blogs were going up even when he wasn't blogging. It was madness. For his last 2 months in Korea, he didn't speak to anyone. You had to read his blog and comment back and forth in order to have a conversation with him. More focused than Jordan in his prime. More focused than Eisenhower on the dime. More focused and ferocious than this little guy:

Well, I couldn't keep up with that manic pace. I was busy absorbing the culture. Drinking Soju in talking bars, eating triangle kimbaps, watching Iron Man 2 at the local theater.

2. I was also searching for jobs. Furiously searching for jobs. Presently, I think I belong to about 8 job websites. Hotjobs.com, CareerBuilder.com, GoogleJobs.com, JobbyJobJobs.com, JobHere!GetyourJobHere!.com...I was trying anything. Spitting resumes and cover letters out like Dylan be spittin' hot fire. I received a few responses from the hundreds of apps I sent out and almost had to do a Skype interview from my apartment in the Chunch'. For these interviews, I thought about putting a poster of the periodic table behind me, throwing on some reading glasses, smoking a pipe and looking up from a Dostoyevsky book when the call came in. Maybe answering in Korean. Unfortunately, none of these interviews came to fruition, but I have found a job since returning home. I will be working at a Public Relations agency in New York City starting next week. I have to wear a suit everyday. I may even have to comb my hair. My life is over.

3. Finally, laziness. A disease that affects us all at different points in our lives. Some of us can avoid the plague all together. Just look at Thomas Edison, a Korean middle-schooler or my mother. Some suffer with the sickness their entire lives like Artie Lang and Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. I like to think of my laziness as a minor slip-up. A David Hasselhoff type slip-up. Only without the entire world watching:

I fell victim to laziness my last 3 months in Korea and am comfortable enough to admit it.

These are the reasons why I did not finish my blog in Korea, but I feel as though I have overcome them and hope to continue blogging from this point onward. That or end up like Hasselhoff vs. the cheeseburger.

Stay Kool Korea?

So there's this short guy in your high school who won't leave you alone. He sits right behind you in the classroom, poking you with a pencil and dousing your ears with wet willies. In the cafeteria line, he rests his neck on your left shoulder (seems to like the left), whispering insults in your ear, begging you to slap him in the face. Sometimes on the bus, you feel warm, spit balls hit your face. Every time you turn around, you catch the 4-eyed midget with a straw in his mouth claiming "I didn't do nothin'!'"

He even breaks bathroom etiquette and pees in the urinal next to you. Too close for comfort. He doesn't even stare at the wall. Just glares at you, daring you to go first.

He's a punk. A rotten kumquat. He pesters you nonstop.

But you don't do anything. Not something "drastic" anyway. If you wanted to stand up to him, you could, and you would probably be about 2 feet taller than the boy. His nose at your belt buckle. You would destroy him in under 10 seconds. He doesn't have many friends/cliques. Nobody likes him. So why don't you go ahead and take on the "challenge?"

It could be that you're scared of his big brother (who seems to be getting bigger everyday). His shadow looms large in the community and at school. Like Yao Ming at Tianjin Nankai High School, he is the big man on campus. He's always close by and supports his next of Kim (sorry kin), no matter how poorly he acts.

Also, there's that gun collection that the kid always brags about. It was once his fathers and now he claims it as his own. He's always threatening people with it. Your school counselor, Mr. Uri Ntrubl, has penalized him a number of times. Hasn't stopped the stubborn ankle biter. It's the one significant piece of equipment the kid has, if he has it at all.

There's also your well-being to think about. You're doing so well in school, sports and making bank at the new writing internship you Won in a state-wide essay contest. You've come a long way since the early years and that renown playground fight. The one where you repeatedly kicked that boy where the Sung don't shine and he ran away, pleading for you to stop. Come to think about it, that kid seems like a pretty similar character to the foe you face today.

But now, you're making new friends. You're really moving up in the world. Your Seoul is in the right place. You don't want to ruin all these positives with some stupid scuffle that could ruin your reputation.

So you sit back and take it, even though you're sick and tired of the little brat. You know one false move could set off a firestorm. Maybe your friends will help you figure out the right decision. Maybe not. You wait...Who will make the next move?

The Korean conflict has made big news during the past couple weeks. For me, the tension has never been higher. I say "for me," because I really don't see any panic amongst Koreans. Nothing has changed. Granted I don't speak or understand much Korean, but my students, school secretaries and neighborhood all seem as cool as Kobe in the 4th quarter. Meanwhile, many foreigners, including myself, are as collected as the Mets in September.

In the morning, I read the news from the NYtimes, CNN, BBC and the two Koreas seem on the brink of war. I then walk outside and see politicians dancing on the streets with frightening mascots, the old lady on the sidewalk still begging me to buy her bananas in front of school, and at night, the old men in suits are still stumbling around, red-faced, trying to figure out where or what a home is. Business as usual in Chuncheon.

How do countries act in these situations? Shouldn't we be scared of an attack? How serious is it? We are 45 minutes from the border. Who knows? Maybe this is what you're supposed to do. Go about daily business. I have no idea. Canada has never threatened the US with any real danger, except maybe Avril Lavigne.

One time...in Okinawa

An amazing trip with a tremendous friend.

I met my roommate of 4 years at Ford-ham University on Okinawa Island. Four years of being in the same room/apartment together throughout college.

Why the same roommate year after year after year? Were we snogging? Never. Well, maybe one time. I think it was after one of those 13 hour Howl spring weekend drink-ups. Nico had a rastafari wig on from The Roots concert. I thought he was Jill Scott.

Was it that we were socially inept and unable to make any new friends after our first year? That had to be part of the problem. All 8 of the guys in our senior year house were also in the same hallway freshman year. We developed sets of inside jokes that revolved around horrible nicknames for classmates (cheesehead, snaggletooth) and the Arnold Schwarzeneggar soundboard. The latter we used to prank call local Bronx restaurants or random people in our phonebooks: "Let me talk to your mother! Get your mother please!" Sometimes we'd even talk in an Arnold tone at a bar/party. "Hi. How are you. I'm Detective John Kimble...(puzzled look from stranger)...I'M A COP YOU IDIOT!"

This was hilarious to us, but extremely isolating for others. It was perfect.

Honestly, I'd like to think that Nico and I were just best of friends. We had many things in common and clicked right off the bat. Love of sport, similar outlooks on life and a fan of good music, no matter the genre.

So it was great to see my man Nico again in Okinawa (even if his hair is now longer than Justin Biebers). Okinawa is a beautiful place. It's a small island south of mainland Japan. I was there for about 4 nights, but nights 2 and 3 were probably the best. Both of these nights we stayed in Nago Bay, a coastal town about an hour north of the airport. We stayed in a shack on the beach, drank some Awamori (local Okinawan liquor, on par with gasoline) and hung out with some local DJs. A vacation that would make my mom proud.

The shack.

I don't know if I can even call it a shack. I may be giving the hostel too much credit. Yes. A shack would have been a step-up.

Driving around the place, you would've thought you were Wall-E when he wheels around a deserted Earth. The hovels looked as if they were made out of recycled car parts. At one point I leaned against a wall and a cadillac horn sounded. Red, orange, brown, black in color. My bed sheet doubled as a cover for my bed and towel after a shower. But none of this really bothered me.

When we walked out our door, there was beach under our feet. Can't miss views surrounded the area. Woke up to the sunrise and ate amazing food, cooked by local families. A spot off the map that I'm glad we stumbled upon.

The liquor.

Awamori. AwwMeSorry! As one of Nico's Japanese friends put it on the mainland: "Arwamori. Verwy Dangerwous!"

Indeed it was. More dangerous than Soju. More dangerous than Akon and Kardinal Offishall

But we felt like we had to drink it. I don't think the locals would've hung out with us if we rejected the cleaning detergent.

One night we went out with 2 local Okinawan girls. Neither spoke English very well. They knew "pizza" "bye-bye" and "Mariah Carey." One of the two had driven us to the bar in her car. We drank some beers and a bottle of Awamori. When we left the bar, we was buzzin' lil' bit. We got back in the car chatting in Schwarzeneggar soundboard voices, giggling back and forth, isolating the two girls who already spoke very little English. Yeah! Just like old times! High-Five!

But then the driver jumped in back with us. We were a little surprised. We were even more shocked when an old man opened the driver door and sat behind the wheel. He turned around and smiled at us, showing 5 teeth and a beard full of fruit flies. The mix of Awamori and immense language barrier had us completely in the dark. We had no idea what was going on.

Eventually we realized that the man was part of an Awamori driving service for people who may have had too much Awamori. And by eventually, I mean 3 days later, when the Awamori hangover ended. Awamori. Awamori.

Awamori.

The Local Boys.

We hadn't really planned on hanging out with the locals in the hostel. We were heading out to find something to eat and a guy invited us in to their makeshift bar.

We walked in and the four men introduced themselves and their jobs. "DJ." "DJ." "DJ." "DJ." Japanese DJs who only played Reggae music and talked like the Jamaican bobsled team from "Cool Runnings." An extremely entertaining crew.

They were also overjoyed to have the day off as a part of the Japanese Golden Week (one week out of the year that every Japanese worker gets off), but really, how often do DJs work? How many Bar Mitzvahs are there in Okinawa?

As we were talking about Bob Marley and Jah Love, a shadow swept across bar. All four guys stood up as this light brown-haired, over-tanned man walked across the room. The guy who spoke the best English whispered in our ears that this fellow was a legendary Okinawan singer. He used to have a band and can now get any girl he wants and get into any club he desires.

I looked at the gruff-looking "star" for a couple minutes. He was sitting by himself at a picnic table, slugging down a bottle of Awamori and sucking the life out of a cigarette. If he was really a star, why was he here with these guys? Where were all the girls? Was he wearing a wig?

He reminded me a little of Bill Nighy's character in "Love Actually."

The night was filled with great food, Peter Tosh and of course, the dreaded Awamori. It was an awesome time and overall, a trip I will always remember. Some day, I'd like to go back to those shelters on the beach. Maybe for my honeymoon? Any takers?

Here's a little video from our night in "Reggae Heaven."