Summer’s here. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that i was commenting (well, complaining) about how long the Japanese winter was lingering around stubbornly refusing to succumb to the spring. So i guess i should be happy that summer is here, the heat has started, the humidity has cranked itself up and all of a sudden everybody is sweating like a penguin in a sauna. Summer in east Asia is a bit like being steamed or slow roasted in a pressure cooker. It doesn’t hit you like a wall of heat but gently bakes you until all of your bodily fluids have vacated their normal positions and instead relocated to your underwear and, for some reason, your lower back.
This is just the beginning. July is the starter. August and early September are worse. The government has launched the wonderfully titled Japan Meteorological Association Extreme High Temperature Forecast. This is very nearly useless. It’s designed to give different regions morning warnings if it's going to be more than 35 degrees. It's almost always going to be more than 35 degrees. It's a bit like having an Oxygen Warning or The Sky Is Blue Update or Rupert Murdoch Owns Some Dodgy Newspapers Forecast. But it's a fantastic name. One of my mates already wants to start a band called The Japan Meteorological Association Extreme High Temperature Forecast.
Unfortunately The Japan Meteorological Association Extreme High Temperature Forecast doesn’t seem to follow any of my simple/useless advice for aggressively humid summers.
1. Go for swim in the morning.
2. Eat ice cream in the afternoon.
3. Drink ice cold beer in the evening.
4. Stop complaining about the heat. It makes it worse. Much worse. Why do we do it? Why do we always tell each other it’s hot? Sometimes people will just say, “Wah, it’s hot today!” as a greeting. Why? We know it’s hot. We’ve got fully functioning nervous systems and smelly feet. We are aware that it’s hot. Stop telling us it’s hot. It’s Ju-fucking-ly. It’s always hot. Everyday. Saying the word “hot” every five minutes makes it hotter. Shut up.
The only rest bite comes when there’s a typhoon which blows the heavy sticky air around for a few days and floods everything but that seems more like a punishment for eating too much ice cream and drinking too much beer.
All of this is making headline news here more than usual due to the fact that the half the nuclear power plants in the country aren’t back online yet, Fukushima nuclear plant is still the same as it was in March and so everybody is saving electric, using less air-con and drinking more cold beer. Hand fans are now a more common accessory than an iphone on the trains and buses. Everybody carries a little handkerchief/sweat blanket thing to wipe the sweat out of the eyes and off their faces. Shops sell “ice scarves” that have some kind of chemical jelly in them and you stick it in the freezer and then wear it on the way to work hoping to keep off the heat. I think i might get one, stick it down my pants and wait for autumn.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
Busan and Myoden
I’ve just spent the past week in Korea. I had a week off work and i found a cheap ticket to Busan, Korea’s second city, and thought i’d catch up with some old friends and see a country that used to be home but i hadn’t seen for two years.
I arrived at Busan airport and stood at the bus stop waiting to be taken to the train station. I friendly Korean guy started chatting to me about Busan and travelling and Japan and i thought, “This is a decent welcome. Nice happy, friendly, people striking up conversations at bus stops.” Then he said something about “many problems” in the world and the “meaning of life” and he thrust some leaflets in my face about God and Jesus. It’s interesting to see just how fast you can change your opinion about a complete stranger. Thankfully he didn’t follow me onto the bus that zoomed its way through Busan which resembled a high rise city that recently fell out the sky and landed on the side of a load of misty green mountains next to the beach.
I didn’t stay long. I was aiming to meet up with some old friends in Seoul. It wasn’t until i arrived that i realised that Seoul was a bit of an old friend too, having lived there (on and off) for almost two years, and it dawned on me how much of the place i’d completely forgotten about. There are the middle aged men with bright pink polo shirts tucked into shiny black trousers with shiny black shoes and shiny black hair getting drunk on soju and barking at each other into the night. There are the cackling old perma-permed women laughing and joking wearing their purple floral print shirts selling food from street stalls. There are the nightclub salesmen trying to coerce young women into nightclubs and bars. There are the taxi drivers who honk and grumble if the car ahead isn’t breaking the speed limit or the bumper in front. There are the bus drivers who seem to be heavily involved in their own personal Grand Prix to see who can drive the fastest to the next red light. I’d forgotten about Seoul. It seems to live constantly at maximum revs, full speed, foot to the floor. Eat. Drink. Work. Sleep. Play. Fuck. Shop. Chat. Shout. Sing. It’s ferocious. And Korean people also seem to take the same approach with their emotions as they swing from Maximum Happy to Maximum Angry to Maximum Funny within minutes. Shades of grey don’t exist in Seoul. Just endless neon. But i remembered that that’s what i both like and dislike about it at the same time. People wear their hearts of the sleeves (and, quite often, their pockets, and jeans and shoelaces and anywhere there’s a free space) which is both entertaining and affirming and yet i doubt many people in Seoul ever thought, “Understated is underrated” or “Hmm, maybe that’s a bit loud.”
So i met up with old friends and joined in. I ate too much and drank too much and slept too much and watched baseball too much and tried to do everything in excess. The weather joined in and it rained too much (then again, it is the rainy season) so the Han River was bursting its banks as the roads were bursting with cars and the shops and streets bursting with people. I didn’t really see anything that i hadn’t seen before apart from a few new buildings and i didn’t really eat or drink anything i hadn’t had before as Korean bbq is still damn tasty and Korean beer is still the worst in the entire world (seriously, they should be indicted on some kind of Health and Safety or criminal charges, it’s that bad) and that was Seoul. A nice few days doing too much of not much.
I ended where i started back in Busan on a Saturday night ready for my cheap flight back to Japan on the Sunday morning. Busan was covered in an eerie sunset mist that rolled off the sea and clung to the high rise next to the most famous strip of sand in Korea - Haeundae beach. The neon signs blinked in the shrouded darkening distance unsure of what they were advertising and which buildings they were attached to. Beneath them thousands of people went about their Saturday nights eating, drinking, laughing, crying, driving. Whatever it was they were doing, there was probably a surplus of it.
I arrived at Busan airport and stood at the bus stop waiting to be taken to the train station. I friendly Korean guy started chatting to me about Busan and travelling and Japan and i thought, “This is a decent welcome. Nice happy, friendly, people striking up conversations at bus stops.” Then he said something about “many problems” in the world and the “meaning of life” and he thrust some leaflets in my face about God and Jesus. It’s interesting to see just how fast you can change your opinion about a complete stranger. Thankfully he didn’t follow me onto the bus that zoomed its way through Busan which resembled a high rise city that recently fell out the sky and landed on the side of a load of misty green mountains next to the beach.
I didn’t stay long. I was aiming to meet up with some old friends in Seoul. It wasn’t until i arrived that i realised that Seoul was a bit of an old friend too, having lived there (on and off) for almost two years, and it dawned on me how much of the place i’d completely forgotten about. There are the middle aged men with bright pink polo shirts tucked into shiny black trousers with shiny black shoes and shiny black hair getting drunk on soju and barking at each other into the night. There are the cackling old perma-permed women laughing and joking wearing their purple floral print shirts selling food from street stalls. There are the nightclub salesmen trying to coerce young women into nightclubs and bars. There are the taxi drivers who honk and grumble if the car ahead isn’t breaking the speed limit or the bumper in front. There are the bus drivers who seem to be heavily involved in their own personal Grand Prix to see who can drive the fastest to the next red light. I’d forgotten about Seoul. It seems to live constantly at maximum revs, full speed, foot to the floor. Eat. Drink. Work. Sleep. Play. Fuck. Shop. Chat. Shout. Sing. It’s ferocious. And Korean people also seem to take the same approach with their emotions as they swing from Maximum Happy to Maximum Angry to Maximum Funny within minutes. Shades of grey don’t exist in Seoul. Just endless neon. But i remembered that that’s what i both like and dislike about it at the same time. People wear their hearts of the sleeves (and, quite often, their pockets, and jeans and shoelaces and anywhere there’s a free space) which is both entertaining and affirming and yet i doubt many people in Seoul ever thought, “Understated is underrated” or “Hmm, maybe that’s a bit loud.”
So i met up with old friends and joined in. I ate too much and drank too much and slept too much and watched baseball too much and tried to do everything in excess. The weather joined in and it rained too much (then again, it is the rainy season) so the Han River was bursting its banks as the roads were bursting with cars and the shops and streets bursting with people. I didn’t really see anything that i hadn’t seen before apart from a few new buildings and i didn’t really eat or drink anything i hadn’t had before as Korean bbq is still damn tasty and Korean beer is still the worst in the entire world (seriously, they should be indicted on some kind of Health and Safety or criminal charges, it’s that bad) and that was Seoul. A nice few days doing too much of not much.
I ended where i started back in Busan on a Saturday night ready for my cheap flight back to Japan on the Sunday morning. Busan was covered in an eerie sunset mist that rolled off the sea and clung to the high rise next to the most famous strip of sand in Korea - Haeundae beach. The neon signs blinked in the shrouded darkening distance unsure of what they were advertising and which buildings they were attached to. Beneath them thousands of people went about their Saturday nights eating, drinking, laughing, crying, driving. Whatever it was they were doing, there was probably a surplus of it.
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