From out of the mountains and into the shopping malls (First trip to Daejeon).

Korea is a place built for rovers. Beyond the rolling stone lifestyle one could have on the cheap public transportation system and big city 24 hour spas where you can sleep for 5 bucks a night, They expect you to get up and go at a moment's notice. I moved into my new apartment on Friday and I have no idea what my address is besides room 308. The apartment is obviously an efficiency studio but there is plenty of room for just me. The kitchen comes with a stove top, a rice cooker, am electric water heating pitcher for tea, a refrigerator, and a little microwave. It also comes with a dish rack that I had to put together IKEA style. It is too large for the counter space it is supposed to rest on some I took some of the plastic trays that it came with and sit the dish rack on the trays and some bricks behind it to balance the weight and give the contraption more of a ledge space to rest upon. This is just another symbol of adapting to Korea's adaptability.

Another with the quick move out of the hotel is that I have no internet. I am sitting on a food crate on a sidewalk around the corner stealing wifi from someone named Zio. Thank you Zio, wherever you may be in the little sector of the world we share.

On Saturday my posse and I went to Daejeon. It is a city of about 1.5 Million people and pretty much directly in the center of Seoul. Although it is not the Capital of Korea it is kind of like Sacramento in that it is in the middle of everything but often overshadowed by the larger cities of California. Daejeon is less than 15 minutes by train and it only costs 5,000 won round trip - which is less than 4 dollars.

I went with my fellow Americans Sam, Lopa, and Heidi. As we waited at the train station a beautiful woman in a pink coat came up to us and asked if we knew Chigan. This would have been awkward but in fact we all do know a Chigan from our time in Seoul. We had a quick video phone conversation with her. Chigan lives in Seoul but her grandmother lives in Okcheon apparently she had told the woman that there were some foreigners of interest to look out for in the city - especially a blond with a fedora. I guess I do stand out. My style has gotten some looks in this little city. My coworker Sam says that I dress like a 70's pimp. I really don't think so but a couple days ago we walking down the street a group of highschool boys shouted "Pimp" at us and no there appears to be an international consensus to Sam, that I dress like a pimp. I think my recent style is more of a James Bond meats Tyler Durden.

Anyways, in Daejeon the for of us just wondered around aimlessly. We had no specific plan for the day beyond enjoying the freedom of the weekend. The first thing I noticed when getting off the train was an enormous bright orange office building and I mean orange like a traffic cone. I can't say for certain if the Korean version Caltrans is housed there - but it should be. We actually walked the wrong direction from the train station and ended up heading for the suburbs. The suburbs are of course the opposite of American suburbs. In Korea the outskirts of town is more likely to have 15-20 story apartment buildings and Daejon had dozens upon dozens of them.

It was right after noon on a Saturday and the children, in all of their uniformed glory, had just been released form school to ransack the city's PC gaming cafes and shopping malls. The gawked at us silly Americans. I was the only blond for miles. (In Okcheon, it appears, I am the only blond in town.) We eventually veered back toward the busier section of the city. We found a booze shop with booze that was priced similar to the states. They love their booze in Korea. If only they loved beer as much as Whiskey because I can't get a single liquid hop in this entire nation. Sam buys some Jameson and Heidi is excited to find some Morgen David on the first day of Passover. She buys two bottles. Both of these purchases will be half consumed by the end of the night.

While we are wondering we see a place called "The Galleria" on the other side of the street. It is a huge multi story metal glimmering building. And "the Galleria" is in the Neiman Marcus font (I didn't notice that factoid - my fellow American Lopa did). The only way to cross the street at this intersection is to go down into the Subway. The intersection has absolutely no crosswalks. Its go down or go around.

We go down and find an enormous underground shopping center. It appears to go for miles to the right and to the left. Heidi needs to find a USB cable and Lopa needs some gloves so we start to window shop. The setup of the mall is interesting because there are hundreds of stores but maybe only four or five types of stores and many of them are grouped together. You can go past three shops that sell a lot of hats and socks followed by three that sell cell phones and then three waffle/smoothie shops. It is actually how all of Korea seems to set up its shopping. In Seoul there is an electronics area and a musical area. A city of over 10 million and they don't bother to spread it out.

As we are wondering the malls the legions of schoolgirls in uniform, spending their Saturday at the mall as they do everywhere in the world where their are schoolgirls and malls, are all making notice of the four westerners. I'm not really shopping for anything so I'm having fun and smiling at the girls that stare - which makes them squeal, giggle, and the whisper to each other. Many of them say hello and exercise what English skills they have, but most of them just stare. I kind of felt like a Jonas Brother or a Beatle. It was entertaining.

At one point a little girl walking with her parents bumped into me but she was so small that I did not even notice her but my fellow Americans told me later that she looked up at me with wide, shocked and curious eyes.

From the underground shopping me we went to wonder another street mall. McDonald's where there through a big party in another of their new Wrap. They are marketing it with exclamation points and hammer-strength-tests. Exclamation points were everywhere and the masses were excited to consume the corporate treats. We watched the hysteria briefly and then wondered along to where a group of school boys saw us and said "hello." To which we replied, "Hello, how are you?" And they said, "We are well." Then there was an awkward pause and from a distance of thirty feet they said, "You are so handsome." To which I replied, "No. You are so handsome." Then the kid that said it didn't know what to say but his friend must have told him to say thank you - which he did, and then we turned the corner off to wonder the big city.

We decided we should try to see a movie so we looked for a theatre. Lopa saw someone eating popcorn and asked her where the cinema was. She said it was by the train station on a back streets. We looked and looked. Heidi asked a old guy in front of a building if it was the theatre and he said yes. We went upstairs only to find a bunch of old people dancing to some bumping modern music. One of the oldmen had herpes all over his face. Maybe it was a nihilist club meeting.

I go back to the mainstreet to find our bearings right when the girls ask a dating couple if they know where the cinema is. They do know but they don't know how to give the directions so they start to guide the group but I am a block over so Sam, who is as loud, fast, and large as the Dallas airport, starts yelling my name but I don't here him. He whistles but I'm too busy looking back and forth on the main street until I turn around and see him cranking his arm like he's lassoing. So I head on back. Apparently the girls had gotten embarrassed by Sam's hootin' and hollering and started to go ahead without us. The local dating couple had given Sam curious looks because of the commotion. When I caught up the theatre was in sight and the couple had turned around and was heading my way. I said thank you in Korean even though I was just some random guy on the street. They seemed to understand what was going on.

After the movie my fellow Americans decided that we had wondered enough for the day and Lopa hadn't found gloves so we should catch the next train before her hands chipped off. We ended up drinking and playing "Never have I ever" (to which I lost every single round) back at the hotel. I guess even rovers get tired and need to spend a Saturday night resting in the little city that, no matter how awkward it feels, is now our home.