2005-02-17 - 8:36 a.m.
The winds of change are blowing and...surprisingly...they smell nice.
ohmygodok...so we all know that my daughter is coming to visit and that I am so nervous that I am about to blow cookies (Cookie was my nick-name in Korea, BTW), but did you also know that she called me last night?
She...called me.
What do you mean, "Big Deal!" SHE CALLED ME!
She has never, ever called ME. It was the first time...EVER. And she spoke to my wife; this marks the first time my wife has ever heard her voice. You have to understand that until just recently, my former-spouse didn't even want my daughter to know that I had another family. That was, obviously, unavoidable and not-so-realistic, but we're talking about my former-spouse here.
You should have seen my wife’s face; she had a Ferris wheel look on her face. It was really cute.
I pick her up tomorrow - I'm flying to her, picking her up and flying back. Yes, she's nine years old, but these are the conditions that said former-spouse laid down for the interaction. Like anything else, I was willing to concede to her wishes just to make the visit happen. Some things are more important than logical thought patterns and money.
My daughter loves American history, so we're going to spend a lot of time in the city (DC). I can't WAIT!!!
You're still stuck on the nick-name aren't you? Fine (thanks for LISTENING), I'll fill you in.
I arrived in the Republic of Korea (RoK) on Christmas day, 1991 - shortly before the New Year, for you non-calendar types. In Korea the Air Force has, actually "had", this tradition known as the "Green Bean." I say "had", because the new PC Air Force has done away with such debaucheries. The Green Bean is this event where all the old salts, who have been in Korea for longer than you (the Green Bean), take you down town and walk you through every, single one of the 5,000 one-room clubs that line the streets of Song Tan city (the town outside the gates of Osan Air Base).
To say "walk you through" is inaccurate - you go in, sit down, drink copious amounts of Soju and skunk beer, fight off the juicy Monsters and move on to the next bar.
Soju = Commercially produced Korean moonshine made from sweet potatoes. It contains formaldehyde. There are no production controls on ANYTHING in Korea, so one bottle of Soju might be 4% alcohol and another bottle 500%. Soju has what is called the "gravity effect." If you drink it while you're sitting down you're fine. If you attempt to stand up...this is the part where you meet Mr. Newton's friend gravity and the vomit soaked floor. Every bar in Korea has a vomit soaked floor. We'll talk about the "Soju Experience" in a later post - until then, look up the Chicken Head bar in Song Tan city.
Juicy Monster = these are the girls who work at the bars. They are part dancer, part prostitute, and partly trying to get you to marry them and take them back to the land of the Big BX. They are called "Juicies", because they will request that you, "Buy me Juice-ee?" The "Juicy" is a drink with alcohol and some kind of fruit juice. The Korean language (Hangul) ends every word with a vowel sound, so when Koreans attempt to say English words, they add an X-treme vowel sound on the end, thus "Juice-ee." They are referred to as "Juicy Monsters", because you often have to fight them off, like a monster. Juicies used to be Korean, now they are primarily Russian and Philipino.
Anyway, (nice little history lesson) my Green Bean was on New Years Eve. We went to every god forsaken bar on the strip and it wasn't until we departed the Eagle Club that my body finally decided to disagree with Korea, which invades your body like the Borg, and expel every last ounce of fluid in my body out through my mouth. I think my liver tried to escape too, but the rest of my internal organs said, "OH no you DON'T!" and pulled it back in.
So, we're all standing there on the street when I look down, point at the puke and proclaim to the guy next to me, "Hey, I puked." I puked in every club there-after and didn't stop puking for the next three days. I think it was the combination of formaldehyde, yogurt from the “White-Dogs” (Soju and liquid yogurt), feces ridden ice (feces being shit), quail eggs, Korean air, Miss Kim burger, Yaki Mondu and whatever other horrors entered my body that night.
I puked for three days.
Thus the name...Cookie.
