Lager, lager, lager, lager, shouting.

lord of the sink part two: the two trowels

"Cast no dirt into the well that gives you water." -- Korean proverb.

Yes, the saga continues, as Mario and Luigi spent the weekend systematically destroying my apartment. I returned home on Friday night to a floor smeared with concrete paste, my washing machine in the kitchen, my toilet on the balcony, and the overwhelming stench of wet concrete all through the house. By Sunday, the entire building was gushing gallons of water into the street. I was actually embarrassed by the knowledge that all this chaos was caused by dodgy plumbing in my apartment. Needless to say, I had to move out, desperately awaiting Part Three: The Return of The Sink. By yesterday, the forces of evil had been defeated, and peace returned to the people of Jayang-dong, and to the plumbers' credit, they did come round last night to clear up the mess. Due to budget restraints, I assume, my new bathroom floor now has a trendy tricolore effect of big orange, medium-sized black, and small red tiles, which looks surprisingly like the German flag.

The weekend was a drunken affair, with our new teacher George's introduction to soju, Korean loopy juice, which worked its usual magic. Afternoons were spent wandering zombie-like through shopping malls. Another Brit arrived on Sunday. With three of us now, it can't be long before the Empire returns to its former glory, what what. Preparations are already in place to institute a Raj-style oppression of the ECC staff room. Might grant the Canadians clemency if they behave themselves.

Here's the birthday boy himself.

Some of his lanterns (same presents every year when you get to his age).

A crazy Buddha bash to celebrate.

a sour plumb

8:20 in the morning is a great time to do a lot of things. Chief among these is, of course, sleep, which is a fine activity to be enjoyed at any time, and holds a firm second place in my all-time top ten things to do. Other 8:20-compatible activities include drinking, dancing, sitting in taxis and bothering "Persians". Nowhere on this list, however, will you see the word 'plumbing'. Unfortunately though, my landlord only has five years' experience in dealing with foreign tenants who keep funny hours and, as a result, overlooked this rather crucial maxim.

And so it was, yesterday, at exactly 8:20am, that I awoke with a jolt to the sound of pounding at my door. In a sleepy panic I mistook it for artillery and, like a good patriotic citizen, attempted to duck and cover, a maneouvre best attempted from a standing rather than a prone position, with the result that I nutted the headboard of my bed (incidentallly, where are all the "Duck and Cover" advertisements in Korea? We are arguably several steps closer to nuclear oblivion here than America ever was, but this is, naturally, never mentioned). Consequently, by the time I reached the door clothed only in my scraggy kecks and a quilt, my moodometer had swung from "mildly cranky" all the way over to "witheringly hostile". I swung open the door and assumed a combative stance, ready to deliver early martyrdom to the Jehovah's Witness beyond. But alas and alack, it was only my inconsiderate twat of a landlord with a Donald Rumsfeld smirk stretched across his face.

LANDLORD: "Anyong haseyo?" ["Are you well?"]

ME: "Bu-YA?" ["What the fuddleduck?"]

Landlord muscles past and enters my bathroom, pointing and muttering at the floor. He apparently wants to dig up my floor, tinker about underneath it, and put it back again.

ME: "Chigum?" ["What, right now?"]

LANDLORD: "Neeeeee." ["Naturally."]

ME: "Aniyo. I-ship bun." ["Au contraire. Twenty minutes."]

At this point the landlord performs the very particular Important Korean Man sound (see previous post) and jerks his head away slightly; this means "I appreciate your position, underling, but unfortunately you are powerless against my supreme will. But, just for the amusement of it, I will allow you to barter with me."

ME: "Shower. Shooowwweeerrr. I-go! Ship bun." ["Shower. Shooowwweeerrr. Look, this thing! Ten minutes."

If he was determined to dig up my floor without warning, damned if I wasn't going to seize one last opportunity to get a shower. So I did, and having finished said shower, I wrapped myself in a towel and stepped out of my bathroom to be greeted by my landlord (who, rather than taking the opportunity to nip back downstairs for a coffee, figured he could bear to wait ten minutes just outside my bathroom door), his wife, who greeted me with a cheery wave, and the plumber, who didn't wave but was content to stand and watch bemusedly as I dashed into my bedroom. In the end, I decided to pretend they weren't there, ironed my shirt half-naked, whacked on some soothing Zero Seven and left them to it. God knows what happened after I left, but certainly by the time I returned my floor was still intact, and all that appeared to have changed was that ssomebody had put my bag of washing powder in my sink, and flipped my tap's switch over to 'shower', so I got soaked when I tried to wash my hands. Maybe they just did it all for shits and giggles.

This incident is an improvement on last Saturday, though, when an extremely short and fitful sleep ended with my waking at about half nine with a distinct feeling that something wasn't right in my apartment. I never cook, so it wasn't the gas. I couldn't hear any running water and the iron was off. There was a shuffle and a clunk. I put the feeling that there was somebody else in the apartment down to lack of sleep and paranoia. Imagine the bowel-loosening realisation, then, when two large, dark shapes passed by my slightly-ajar bedroom door, that there was indeed somebody in the room. Not one somebody, but two. I grabbed a hoover attachment and leapt out with a battle cry. But not to fear, for it was only my mischievous friend The Landlord and his trusty sidekick The Plumber. Having let themselves in, and seeing me asleep, they had considerately opted to creep around my flat in the dark, presumably with the intention of ever so quietly jackhammering my bathroom floor apart, solving their little aquatic conundrum and stealthily replacing the floor while I slept. Which might - might - have been even weirder than discovering two middle-aged Korean men tiptoeing around my apartment in the morning.

Anyway, the point I am very laboriously getting round to is that while the moniker "Land of the Rising Sun" is logical for Japan (it's in the East), and Thailand has truly done a lot of gurning, grovelling and grinning to earn the title "Land of Smiles", "Land of Morning Calm" seems to be the most inappropriate possible name for Korea, being as it represents the polar opposite of what mornings are like here. Vegetable trucks blare out their wares through tinny speakers, sales reps call your mobile at 7am, four of our teachers are woken daily at 8:30 by an impossibly loud announcement at the local school, and the scene is generally one of that typically Eastern brand of chaos.

Last week was Buddha's birthday. Happy 2569th, Bud - that's a lot of birthday bumps. It's also a lot of candles, but fortunately being Buddha and all he has massive temples big enough to fit all his candles in, and on Wednesday we traipsed up to one of these to see what all the fuss was about. It was very interesting (I'd say enlightening, but that might be a bit crass given the subject) to visit a temple in the middle of the city, but once you turned your back on the skyscrapers there was an ounce or two of Zen calm to be found, and some nice little displays of lanterns, some floating, most hanging. Each lantern has a little tag dangling from it, the idea being that you write a wish for a friend or your family, and Buddha will sort it out when he gets round to it. The coloured ones were apparently dedicated to the living, and the white ones (which I found in a spooky little glade of trees), to the dead. White seems to me to be a far more apt and depressing colour for death than black, as it really does evoke a pallid, drained image once you make that connection. Just a residual thought from when I read Moby Dick, which popped back into my head after seeing the Koreans have apparently had the same idea.