it's time

It's five days until lift-off. I haven't written since then, because I have been doing NOTHING. Whenever a holiday comes along, I, inevitably, end up incredibly indolent.* I love being busy, but, more than that, I hate being not-busy, so I save the things I have to do, then I end up forgetting to do them or doing them at the last minute. Like packing. Or learning Korean. Or writing in my blog.

Anyway, in the spirit of Not Being Shy, I think I'm going to put up a video blog - because what could be more outgoing and possibly embarrassing than putting videos of myself on the internet? I hope to document my trip with blogs and emails.** † However, as much as I wish to be very insightful on my cultural confrontation and to be seeing lots of interesting things on my trip (which will be relayed to you by the camera I'm going to buy once I get to Korea), I make no promises. There is no guarantee for quality or quantity for the next three months.

I'm not sure how I feel about the whole thing. There's been a lot of waiting, and I think I have run out of excited. Plus, I have no idea what Korea will be like. All the websites and travel books seem to tell me is how different that place is, so it's hard to maintain excitement for something that is no more than an abstraction to me. I am excited about meeting up with Christopher Crazypants in Vancouver during my layover because 1. It's been such a long time since I've seen him; and 2. I have a good idea of what it will be like (i.e. awesome).

But here's what I know about Korea so far:
1. I'm going to Seoul, a city of a population of 20 million people. An old friend that I don't speak to anymore once wrote this to me: "You [are] one in a million. Which means there are about 8 of you in NYC." It follow that there are about 20 of me in Seoul. Damn.
2. Readers of TIME magazine voted Rain as the most influential person in 2007, and third most influential person in 2008. I'd never heard of Rain until The Colbert Report. K-pop is apparently really big.
3. On the streets in Seoul, the numbers don't go in order. You need a map to get anywhere.
4. They have musical theatre in Korea! Evil Dead:The Musical recently moved there with an apparently K-pop-ish take on it. And they have tons of it, and it's good! Like Sweeney Todd and The Producers, along with some of their own wordless, funny, Taekwon-do musicals like Jump.
5. The biggest church in the world is in Korea.
6. Karaoke.

We'll see how my ideas get fleshed out and how my assumptions will be knocked down. Wish me luck!







*I first learned this word from a really funny email. It's a long story, that I was going to write, but like so many of my stories, it'll probably end up not as funny as I thought.

**Letters take more than a week to go back and forth, and I'm far too impatient and lazy. I still have two postcards with addresses and stamps on them from about a month ago to Sue and Lisa, but I haven't had the time to write something on them and put them in the mail. Add this to the list of things I haven't done. However, if you would like mail, email me your mailing address.

†Danny's lending me his laptop for Korea. He's such a good brother.