night 1--lost in paradise

ryan in better times early in the evening

surprise, surprise: wouldn't you know it would be these two culprits responsible for our losing paradise on the first night?

warning: don't be deceived by the name of the soju on the right--'charm', it isn't. if i didn't know better, i'd think it would be an acronym meaning, roughly, "CHew-your ARM-off delicious". even i had to acknowledge that it was nearly undrinkable, although if i found myself living on the island for, say, a year, i'd probably end up drinking endless quantities of it because that's what the locals drink.

seung-hee looks sceptical at the bold assertion made by one of our party that the night's ending would be innocuous...

cheers to her for knowing us better than she would care to...

all that will be said about this first night is that we had delicious raw fish, fine drink (okay, it was fine once we switched soju brands), and met a good bloke via a friend back in gangneung. his photo for this night is unavailable, but he will show up in all-too-recognizable detail soon enough. his name is chris, he hails from cambridge, england (not massachusetts), supports nottingham forest, and is a closet toon army fan--though it, like most homophilia is disguised as homophobia, was disguised by overboard attempts at proving how much a toonaphone he was.

there will be no mention of anyone's getting lost while walking home at 0300 hours, collapsing like the spanish national team at every football world cup in front of some local's house and thereby alarming the elderly woman there by herself because her husband was taking care of the tenants at their nearby pension. there will be no stories of this person's not responding to continued attempts to rouse him or her nor will there be a tale of how this kind couple--in spite of their outright fear of the mass of intoxication decorating their porch and throwing empty cans of peanuts at them for disturbing his or her sleep when they finally did rouse him or her--bringing out a blanket and pillow so he or she would neither be uncomfortable or chilled by the night island air.

nope, there'll be no stories, no names shared, no secrets unsealed, no gender revelations, even, because, as the squid and locals there have been saying for millennia,

"what happens on ulleung island gets filleted on ulleung island."