Merry Christmas from Atlanta!

There were only two reasons to come home, and being with my family over the holidays was reason number two. Reason one, of course, was Stephen Jones Photography.

Last week my family bought a Christmas Tree. However, there was no room in the living room for it, so my parents put it on the coffee table. Where once a lamp, coasters and a few magazines rested, there sprouted a tree reaching a foot or two higher in the air than nature intended. Dad and I clothed it in lights, Sara and her boyfriend came over and we all decorated it with ornaments from the dusty boxes mom brought downstairs from Sara's closet.

Ornaments are like personal artifacts. Not all of them have stories, but many of them are from different times in my life. Sara found ornaments with pictures of us as children, ornaments we made in grade school, ornaments from Happy Meals, ornaments my grandmother once hung on Christmas trees when she was a girl and she and her mother were living alone in Kansas City, estranged from her violent father.

Even the generic ornaments my parents bought from Ace hardware over the years, the balls and butterflies with their brass hooks, told a story. There were ornaments from the seventies when my parents were first dating, ornaments from eighties and nineties when Sara and I were kids, and brand-new ornaments bought just this year that one day will be from this period in our lives.

We drank eggnog and brandy and listened to the London Philharmonic play Vaughn Williams' emotional orchestral arrangments of ancient English folksongs. We talked. We laughed. We were a family. I found myself satisfied for once with my decision to come home.

I've thought long and hard about going back to Korea. Starting a business is hard, but that isn't the reason. I am not a stranger to hard work. In fact, the difficult part of starting a business is finding time to put your feet up and relax. No, I seriously consider going back to Korea because life was so damn easy there.

I can already hear you saying, "But wait! You bitched a lot about Korea." And you'd be right. I did. It was. But not like this.

Teaching was hard, living in Korea tried my patience, but I loved it because it was different. I felt like every day was an opportunity to explore, to learn. Even though my days had a pattern, there was always the chance for something totally mind-blowing to occur. Learning the language and navigating the culture presented challenge enough to keep my mind occupied. Not only that, I had a steady, relatively good paycheck, a challenging job, and lots of spare time. I have none of those things here, especially the spare time. Also, there is something about Atlanta that changes everything. The magic of 'new' is gone.

My waking hours are framed by an emotion resembling remorse. I am starting out on a new path, but it feels old. The excitement of Korea and the Appalachian Trail is absent. My surroundings are so familiar, and with familiarity comes dullness, the unspoken curse of memory.

For the last few years, I have lived away from home. College, Chattanooga, The Trail, Hattiesburg, Korea. Long has it been since I woke to the sound of my parents making breakfast. Strange are sounds that never change. In the space of my absence I have grown a lot, and arrived home far from where I left. But little has changed in those years. The owls still live in the trees towering over my house where it slowly ages in the wooded cove of a midtown neighborhood. My dad still labors every weekend to keep it standing. Some friends have moved away. Others stayed, married, had kids. I see them and remember, and when we speak, one or both of us carries the burden of meaningless memory, recognition without bond, things done or undone that don't matter anymore but still seem to cling to us like a faded tattoo barely visible under our sleeve. We're adults talking to memories of childhood.

The 'oldness' of Atlanta acts as a weight, a burden weighing me down. It is the weight of birth. Everything about me was born in this city, starting with my physical being in the fall of 1979. Within a ten-mile radius from my house is my first day at school, my first friend, my first kiss, my first experiment with drugs, my first broken arm, my first broken heart. If experience is the brick and morter of personality, Atlanta is where I was built, and when you return to the place of your construction, you cannot help but feel the rough hands of the creator upon your soul.

There were plenty of times that creator screwed up. All of my issues, my personality problems, they were all born here, too. Some of them were with me when I was born. Others were the result of experience, and sometimes during my travels throughout the city, I come across these personal epitaphs. There's the corner by Mary Linn Elementary where John Arnold used to beat me up after school, and that's the park where I broke up with a girlfriend I was close to. Here is the school where I spent a year with no friends. All of these experiences left marks on my soul, scars that itch faintly as I drive by.

Anywhere else in the world, I still carried this luggage, but they were easier to ignore. Living in and around Atlanta is to live a lot closer to who I am, the good and the bad. Viewing those old tapes in the cold light of adulthood makes things worse. My shortcomings suddenly take on form and reason. Some of them I feel like I can resolve. Others look to me like boulders stuck in a mountain side. Big. Immobile. Perhaps part of the mountain itself. I must learn to live with them or get around them. This is who you are, because this is who you were.

One thing Atlanta can't do is tell me who I will be, though it has become clear that whoever that person is, he will be shaped by who he was. There is no avoiding it. How I change is entirely dependant upon how I handle the issues and history that Atlanta has held up to my face. Starting Stephen Jones Photography is only part of what is starting in Atlanta. Stephen Jones himself is starting, too. Who he will be is not immediately apparent. Against the fading portrait of my youth I must craft a new work of art.

Some things and some people will fade away. Others will come into the foreground. Interests and passions will be stoked, habits formed, clothes bought and hangouts established. I will catch a break and my business will thrive. Or it won't and I'll find something else to do. It doesn't matter. Over time, the person inside will make it's habitat outside. It takes years. I must be careful about which parts of my past may become part of my future.

The only thing that is new about Atlanta, the only magic that awaits me is within myself. I will bring to this city a person it has never known, and that person will grow and thrive and build a new life. I do not have to be ruled by my past, but in order to move beyond it I must face it and come to terms with it.

I large measure, this is what Christmas is all about: Rebirth. To me, the principle lesson of Christ's birth is that what has happened is trumped by what is and what will be. To live in wholly in the present is an act of confession. To focus on the future is to forgive.

Sometimes I feel like the message of Christmas is lost on most Americans, most of whom mistakenly celebrate it a week later at New Years. Decorating the Christmas Tree with my family has reminded me of the good experiences in my life that live side by side with the bad. I am reminded that life is a mix of good and bad experiences, a series of questions against which we are all tested, and those of us who can smile at it all have passed with flying colors.

Peace

--Notes

OK, I'm going to try. I've sat down at my computer. Photoshop is off. So is GoLive. I've made time and space to sit down and update Sokonotes.

When I returned from Argentina, I was swallowed up by my ambition. For those of you who don't know, the primary reason for returning to the States was to start a photography business, and as you will remember, I went to Korea specifically to raise capital for that venture. I'm not positive that I have enough money, but I'm here and it's going to happen.

Heck, I've already incorporated. if anyone needs a photographer, just call Stephen Jones Photography Inc. The number is on my website, www.notesjones.com.

Starting a business, any business, is an uphill climb. I really had no idea what that climb would be like. I sort of dove into the venture the same way I approached a big mountain on the Appalachian Trai: Well, as the White Blazes go, so go I...

God, I wish it were that easy. If only someone could tell me how to climb this mountain. But when starting a business, everything is left up to you, including the destination. There are no trails, no blazes, and for some people, no summit. Sometimes my parents, who run a business of their own, half-jokingly lament that they will work until they die. They'll be climbing forever.

I don't want to climb forever, and I've discovered that the key to summiting the climb is deciding where the top will be far in advance.

Like any climb on the trail, the hard work of starting a business is good work, rewarding in so much as it feels like I am finally in control over my life. I don't feel like I am mindlessly spinning my wheels for someone else. As a free-lance photographer, I set my own prices, I decide how much work to do and I keep my copyright. Oh, and I can say 'no.'

Saying 'no' feels good, almost as good as saying 'yes.' When I say 'yes,' I get paid. When I say 'no' I feel like I am setting my own course. I don't have to take every dumb assignment some desk jockey thinks up while wolfing down donuts. But if I want to take that dumb assignment, and that desk jockey wants it down bad enough, I can set my own price, and that price is damn high!

So far, I haven't taken any dumb assignments. Being your own boss has it's advantages. It has it's disadvantages, too. I don't get overtime. In fact, I don't get paid at all. I haven't cut myself a check in two months, but I work all the time. How long has it been since last I updated?

I am a ruthless self-employer. Whenever I try to sit down and relax, there is a little voice in the back of my head admonishing me. Shouldn't you be using this time to work on your website? Prepare mailers? Call clients? Keep up with your books? Deal with that printing error? Even now, sitting at my computer writing this blog, it distracts me. Is writing this blog really nessisary? Does anyone really read it, anyway?

But it isn't about that. It's about taking time for myself.

When you don't take time for yourself, when you don't relax, your days begin to run together. Eat, sleep, wake, shower, shave, work, run, teach, tone, print, call, drive, eat, sleep, wake, shower, don't shave, work, run, breakfast, and on and on and on and on until one day you wake up and it's Friday. How is it Friday? Do I have plans? Oh, I have that football game for the Gwinnett Daily Post. Shit.

Better cancel that date.

Some weeks the only time I had to myself was the seven or eight hours I slept. What is funny is that I do a lot of catching up in my sleep. I've had dreams where I am hiking, going out with friends, even watching movies. I've had dreams where I've sat by the Chatooga and fished for trout, dreams where I am drinking a beer with Gavin, dreams where I've been at a concert with Wes.

Luckily, I've realized that if I do take time for myself, I am a better photographer for it. It's hard, but it has to happen. No one can live a life so unbalanced for so long without going mad. So I make a few hours available every night to watch TV with my folks, or go to Trivia Night with my sister, or high Stone Mountain with Jennifer. I am also going to try and make room for blogging. Look for update, however irregular, every few weeks. I'll include photos from the assignments I've taken.

Oh, and I plan on finishing the blog on Argentina. Just let me finish this website first, which I need to go work on now...

Peace.

--Notes

NOTE: This is part two of a multipart series on my trip to Argentina. If you missed part one, scroll down and read it.

I loved the Argentinean people. They were vibrant, beautiful, full of life, and awfully creative. See? They finally found a good use for the PC tower! (I'm an Apple user, for all of you who don't know)



After I finished touring the photographic exhibits at the end of Florida Street, I found myself at the crux of a daunting situation in a foreign country. Tengo hambre. I'm hungry.

My (sort of useless) Spanish phrase book (because Argentineans don't speak Castilian Spanish) in hand, I walked down the stairs to the basement of the building where there was a food court selling everything from steaks and sandwiches to Chinese food. There is nothing as interesting to a traveler as the food he or she encounters. It is one of the first things people ask me about Argentina or Korea.

Lunch was to be my first meal in Argentina. I wondered if the plump, pimply girl behind the cash register felt any pressure as I haphazardly ordered a submarine sandwich filled with something called "Lomo" that wasn't in my Castilian phrase book. Was she worried about how I might react to Argentinean food? She had me pinned as a Shankee from the second I opened my mouth.

"Olah, me gustaria, uh, uhhhhhh, pee-dir lo-mo, uh..." I stumbled.

She smiled patiently and finished my sentence for me in perfect English.

"..Italiano. Do you want fries and a cola?" Sure. Boy, that was too easy. Korea was so much more fun.

Wait, back up. Shankee? What's a Shankee?

"Shankee" is the word Argentinean people pin to ignorant American jackasses like me. Actually, it is little more than the word "Yankee" pronounced in the Argentinean Spanish accent, which slides Y's and LL's into an "Sh" sound. "Llamo" sounds like "shamo," "yo" sounds like "sho," and "Yankee" sounds like "Shankee." I resent that nickname. I'm a Boston fan!

After a long wait, I got my lomo submarine. Lomo is nothing more than beef tenderloin, and it goes well on French bread with mayo and tomatoes. They served me a coke with no ice and a plate of salty, rubbery fries. Typical mall food court fare, I thought as I mindlessly consumed the mastication-resistant fries. I rode the sugar buzz all the way home, where my blood glucose levels crashed and I fell into a fast-food fostered sleep on Faith and Bernardo's mafia-made couch.

Mafia-made couch? I guess I didn't mention that the mafia runs Argentina, or so it seems. A day didn't go by that someone didn't mention the mafia and/or how they are closely related to the government, a sort of Argentinean Department of Nefarious Deeds. People said, and I believed them, that they were closely tied to the police through bribes and blackmail.



All sort of inconveniences, infrastructure problems, monetary issues and even the couch I was sleeping on were the result of some super secret anarchic ultracapitalist subculture existing just under the surface of a seemingly lawful society. Sounded like home to me.

Oh, and the couch. It had, uh, character.

Faith and Bernardo, who recognized the awful state of their couch, insisted I sleep on a spare mattress, which was a million times more comfortable than the lumpy brown couch. Actually, I hadn't complained about the couch. After six month on the Appalachian Trail, I can sleep in any weather, anywhere, on anything, and if it just happens to be soft, well! The couch was soft. Lumpy, yes, but soft. I slept well on both couch and mattress.

The story about the couch went like this. Faith and Bernardo went to a futon store, found a mattress they liked, and asked for it to be delivered. Upon delivery, not a solid Japanese futon but a loose brown corduroy bag filled with shredded foam was heaved into their apartment along with the convertible bed/couch frame that came with it. My friends complained and demanded the correct mattress be delivered pronto, but it all came to naught, and they knew who was to blame.

The Mafia! (cue dastardly music/evil laughter).



As you can tell, I took the whole matter much too lightly. People made it sound like the mafia was this omnipotent force, everpresent, never sleeping, waiting behind every tree to leap out and nab your purse. Luckily, I don't carry a purse.

People would point out something backwards or ridiculous about Buenos Aires, speculate in the form of a question as to the nefarious rationale behind the seemingly irrational phenomena indicated, and then let the obvious answer hang in the air like a fart. Mafia. Had to be. Bastards. I found it all amusing, and tried to encourage Faith and Bernardo to see it the same way. They didn't, and with good reason.

In December of 2004 a fire ripped through the Cromagnon night club where hundreds of people had gathered to hear the rock group, Los Callejeros. Someone had wired the doors shut to prevent people who hadn't paid from entering the concert, and 194 people died in the resulting fire trap, including several small children. Fingers were pointed, the owner was arrested, and investigations were dutifully conducted.

The investigations found the government's fire inspection unit badly managed and corrupt, the fire department and emergency response teams underequiped and poorly trained, and the owner of Cromagnon to be unreasonably oblivious to the obvious fire hazards in his club. The mayor lost his job over the matter, but it was small consolation to the residents of Buenos Aires, who all knew who was really behind the disaster. Mafia.

Monday night Faith and Bernardo took me to club called The Konex to hear a percussion group called "Time Bomb" do their thing. I hadn't yet heard about Cromagnon at this time. Bernardo's college friend Martin drove Faith, Bernardo, and another friend, Diana, to The Konex along with me in his old blue Renault stick shift.

This is a picture of Martin, who everyone calls by his nickname, Tincho. He graduated from film school with Bernardo, and uses his tremendous talent to a number of artist ends. He is a virtuosic painter and his films exhibit a masterful command of timing, light, and photography.



And this is Diana, a lovely entrepreneur from the same neighborhood Faith and Bernardo live in. During the economic crisis in the late 1990s, she lost her job working as a designer with an internet company, and started her own business helping independent designers of all breeds network and sell their products online. She is also an amazing photographer, who proved to me over the course of two weeks that it is the photographer who makes the image, not the camera. Don't worry, I'll explain later.



OK, where were we? Oh yes, the KONEX. This is also a reference to my previous thread on the mafia. Ah-hm.

Martin parked down the street from The KONEX, and I was the first one out of the car. A gruff, middle-aged man with a stocky build and a polypro windbreaker walked up to me and started speaking fast in Spanish. He had a serious look on his face, and I wondered if he was mafia. He certainly looked the part. The only words I understood were "car" and "to pay." Martin and Bernardo quickly took over for me, as the man was starting to get exasperated, as answer to his questions was a slow, "un momento. Habla despacio por favor." One minute. Please speak slower.

"Mafia," Faith said in a whisper as Bernardo and Martin dealt with the man. They had to pay him a small fee for his "protection" against thieves. A couple of pesos and no harm would come to Martin's car. How funny, I thought. A human parking meter!

All the money actually bought was protection from the man himself. When we returned to the car later on, he was gone. There was nothing in the car worth stealing, as someone had already ripped off Martin's stereo long ago, and Tincho had been shrewd enough not to replace it. An American living abroad (from my home city of Atlanta) named Sarah and her friend joined us.

The concert itself was a treat. We entered what had been a factory that had been converted into a cavernous music venue with giant red neon letters spelling the word KONEX laid out diagonally in front of the windows. It looked like a set from the first Batman movie. I would have photos, but Faith and Bernardo urged me not to take a camera, as it would result in a more personal meeting with members of the mafia.

The band, Time Bomb, was a collection of music students, focused mainly on percussion, headed by their charismatic professor. They practiced at The Konex, and then afterwards put their skill and talent to work for whoever could spare seven pesos (two bucks). It was an absolutely astounding show.

Ten to twelve musicians sat in a circle around their master, a dazzling array of percussion instruments laid out at their feet. As we walked into the room, they were working on a simple but catchy phrase with their drums. Their professor, the conductor, stood at the top of the circle with two small hand drums on stands by his side, his black wingtip shoes keeping time on the floor. He was a thick, jovial man dressed in dark clothing with thick black hair and a pirate-like mustache.

He swayed like a martial artist to the increasingly complex rhythm, watching and communicating with each musician with a series of homegrown, unique and delightful hand gestures customized to change the meter, instruments, styles or even which musicians were emphasized.

Over the course of three hours, the conductor and his students filled The KONEX with a thunderous, emotionally charged sound made from scratch. They brought in new instruments, different styles, mixed them in unbelievable ways and toyed with the sound like the wind plays with a falling leaf. Everyone was dancing, clapping and swaying to the sumptuous beat. Everything and everyone, down to the crowd itself, became an instrument in the hands of the conductor.

At one point, the conductor set the audience to clapping in time for him, and upon that human pulse he brought a symphonic masterpiece to life, sending the crowd into wild cheers. It is said that friendship is one soul in two bodies. By the time Time Bomb was through, everyone standing in the KONEX were friends. The cadence united us and released us as each melody changed, built and resolved itself over and over again. I realized how much color and creativity was to be found in Buenos Aires, and the whole night I pined for my camera. As we drove home, I ached to go explore.

Over the next two weeks, I got my wish.

The next day, Faith took me downtown, where she works as a mortgage saleswoman (another benefit of being bilingual), and knowing my love of the outdoors, pointed me towards the Parque y Zona de Reserva Ecologica Costanera Sur. This massive stretch of managed land spans dozens of city blocks, bordered by downtown Buenos Aires on the western flank and the Rio de La Plata to the east.

The route Faith chose took me down the long series of dikes that lined the main avenue downtown. In the first dike, sailboats rested.



The area by the dikes is another trendy location slowly being turned into a haven for tourists. Called Puerto Madero, it made for pleasant sightseeing. To my right were buildings housing upscale restaurants and pricey lofts. To my right was what looked like a train station converted into similar monuments to Western comforts and decadence. An artful bridge pictured on the cover of my city guide spanned the dikes. Called the Woman Bridge, it was designed by celebrated Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava Valls. Wes, these photos are all for you, my friend.







Rowers silently glided past me as I stopped at a small cafe for lunch. I had a lot more luck this time. I ordered a chicken sandwich on pita bread and a cup of espresso. Cost to me: $4, and Faith told me later I got ripped off.



At the end of the dikes, the road turned into the ecological preserve. In the turn of the century, it was a popular destination for bathers, and had docks along the ponds for such purposes. Nowadays you'd have to be absolutely bonkers to try swimming in the Rio de La Plata or any pond fed by its polluted, neglected waters. Unlike the Koreans, the Argentineans don't have a particularly close relationship to the sealife living side-by-side with them.

"Our backs are to the river," Bernardo pointed out about the city's design.

I walked a broad sand path towards the river, bikers, joggers and school children my companions. Behind me, the skyline of Buenos Aires rose above the razorgrass and pine trees.





People rested and took in the open space, a necessity in a city the size of Buenos Aires.



Others looked for a place to escape and be together.



At four thirty, I met Faith after work and followed her to her next job: Teaching English in the Palermo district. But you will have to wait till the next update for those stories and photos. Also, I'll get into the joy of using Spanish and Rashashana with Bernardo's family. Jeez, I'm only two days into my trip. Don't worry, there won't be 14 updates on Argentina, but these first few days really stand out. I guess that's true anywhere you go. It's all about travel. So till next time...Peace. --Notes

NOTE: This is part 1 of a multipart series about my trip to Argentina. There are ALOT of photos. You can imagine how much there is to say.

I'm back from Argentina!



What? Argentina? Wasn't I just in Korea? Isn't this SoKo, as in South Korean, Notes?

Yes. Amazing isn't it? For a thousand bucks and a few uncomfortable hours at 40,000 feet a person can sleep under a different set of stars and wake up in another world. In my case, that other world was Buenos Aires, Argentina.



When I first thought about it, Argentina didn't sound quite as exotic as Korea. I spoke a little Spanish. I had more background knowledge about Argentina than I ever had about Korea. By 'more' I simply mean I knew they had cowboys, boleros and invented the Tango. I also had heard of this place called Patagonia. I wanted to visit it.

In fact, most of my trip to Argentina was geared toward exploration. When I go on vacation, I'm not one of those people who likes to spend days sipping margaritas on some sun-soaked beach by an azure sea. I simply can't sit still long enough. I itch to get out and learn about the strange world in which I awoke. Luckily for me, Buenos Aires is custom made for such an oddball vacationer.



It is my opinion that one of the hallmarks of growing older is a steady narrowing of one's worldview. As the years pass by, we start taking the world for granted. Our eyes become accustomed to whatever little space we've chiseled out around us and we miss out on the discovery and sense of wonder that characterized our youth.

Little by little, routine and the daily grind wear down our senses and starve our imagination. Meals become nothing but food, the flowers become scenery, and the people around us become like furniture in a huge house in which we only occupy one bedroom. The seasons come and go, the news changes, sometimes we buy a new car, but very little holds magic for us. Everything is normal, plain, uneventful, simply there. And then one day we're ninety.



Traveling changes all of that. Traveling, especially international travel, is frightening stuff. You pay a thousand bucks, you get on an airplane, and nine hours later you are standing in a place where no one knows your name, no one speaks your language or shares your culture or your history, and quite possibly resents that history (if you are American, that is). Heck, they might not even know how to make a rye bagel!

Scary, isn't it? But what is the age-old saying? What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger? Yes, I believe that's it. Sort of cliché, but it fits. International travel DOES possess the ability to kill us, making the saying even more true. However, by defeating those fears and getting the most out of the experience (as well as not getting killed), a person gains alot.

Travel renews the sense of wonder and wide-eyed amazement of youth. When I stepped off of that airplane in Buenos Aires, all five of my sense were awake and vividly alive, tasting, listening, smelling and seeing in a way I hadn't experienced since I did the same thing in Korea back in September of 2005. All around me people were speaking Spanish, and my mind was furiously trying to recall the three or four years of classes I all but slept through in high school and college.

NOTE: A few days before I was shopping at the local farmer's market in Atlanta with my parents and I happened across my high school Spanish teacher, Nieto Studstill. She was happy to see me, and asked me how I was doing. When I told her where I was going and how bad my Spanish (still) was, she shot me a look that said, "See, I told you!" You can imagine how I felt.



That feeling came back to me as I waded through Argentine customs. Como say what? Unlike in Korea, the words coming out of people's mouths were not a complete and total mystery. Spanish is closely related to English both grammatically and in terms of the latin based vocabulary. Also, Argentina is populated with immigrants mostly from Europe. Racially speaking, I fit in pretty well. My mouth gave me away.

Luckily, the woman working the desk of a taxi company spoke flawless English, and I arranged an inexpensive ride into town. As the driver loaded my suitcase, I had a chance to look around myself. The Buenos Aires sky was a deep blue and the spring air as dry and cool as the Fall weather in Atlanta. To my right, a family was greeting a recent arrival back into their arms. They all kissed each other on the cheek as they loaded her things into their car. Their chatter was warm and friendly and felt like a good omen to me.

The journey into town was long. Outside my window the slums of Buenos Aires flew by, block after block of empty roads, cinder blocks, metal bars and graffiti. As we neared the center of town, the slums gave way first to suburban ranch houses and then to quaint apartment buildings, shops and cafes. People, dogs, trees and busses flashed passed my window. In many places the pavement had been worn away by time, cars and weather, exposing the much more resilient cobblestones lying underneath. My taxi shook and lurched to a stop beside a shuttered convenience store nestled into a corner of a slate-grey two-story building along Rocamora Avenue.

The driver patiently waited as I rang the intercom button. A groggy but excited voice from my past answered. A few minutes later, my old friend Faith Marden opened the door and welcomed me with a big hug. Down a long hallway and up a flight of stairs and I got a second helping of hugs from her boyfriend, and my friend, Bernardo Bronstein. The two had met in Paris five years earlier, and settled (for the time being) in Buenos Aires.

This is Bernardo.



And this is Faith.



It had been a long, long time since either Faith or Bernardo had been up at 7:30 in the morning. Faith taught English and worked for a company selling mortgages and Bernardo taught English. As with many people in Buenos Aires, their jobs didn't usually start till late morning or early afternoon. They found it strangely entertaining to be up before 10.

"So this is morning?" Bernardo quipped as we pulled out the table for breakfast. I unpacked the grocery bag full of goodies Faith's mom entrusted to me to deliver to her daughter. Issues of the 'Funny Times,' a can of organic pineapple, and an avalanche of socks spilled from my suitcase. However, the true treasure I bought for the couple the Saturday of my departure from Atlanta. Faith laughed with joy when she saw them.

"Yeah! Bagels!" she squealed and took them into the kitchen. We caught up with one another over a breakfast of bagels and the strong Argentine tea, Mate (pronounced Ma-tay), which looks and tastes something like kudzu and packs a massive caffeinated punch. Faith and Bernardo have been living in Argentina three years running, with no indication of returning to the States.

Why should they? Life is good in Buenos Aires. Rent, bills and food are cheap, the transportation is adequate, and work is plentiful. Faith and Bernardo's linguistic dexterity afford them a certain degree of competitive advantage in the Argentine job market, which has become a mecca for multinational outsourcing.

Their apartment is a simple one-bedroom affair with a big living room, one bath and a kitchen so small only one person can stand in it at one time. A giant wooden-slatted shutter opens to a concrete terrace overlooking Rocamora Avenue, and you can even climb a steel ladder to their roof, overlooking the neighborhood rising up all around in bright shades of gray.





Many of the buildings in Buenos Aires have a lot of character. And though I saw many buildings sporting grand architecture and classic facades, by far my favorite building lay across the street from my hosts' apartment: A small two-story apartment building I named Mr. Roca. See if you can spot him.



See him? In the middle? He's the one with his eyes half-closed, a bright yellow mole and a Marine haircut. I wanted badly to try and convince the people living in Mr. Roca to help us make a movie in which they pulled the lampshades on the windows up and down to make it look like he was talking.

Around lunch time Faith and Bernardo went to work. I followed Bernardo into downtown Buenos Aires and cut loose as he headed for the office. He dropped me off at a park named after the Argentinean hero, General San Martin, and pointed me down Florida Street towards a photo exhibition by Magnum photographers on September 11tth.

Florida Street is home to one of the city's premier touristy shopping destinations, and sported the usual harbingers of capitalism.



Some of the shops even sported a little Konglish (though I guess it should be termed 'Arglish' in Argentina).



I walked the streets past numerous shops selling everything from cellphones to leather jackets. Wow, I thought to myself. "I'm in Argentine Nampo-dong!" I couldn't help but compare Florida Street to Gwangbokdong. The two were just too similar, so I focused on the differences.

One of the main differences were the poor people who haunted the awnings and stairwells around the shops hunting for spare change from tourists. In Nampo-dong, such people were there, but rare, and almost always just adults. It's not that Korea is bereft of poverty, but rather that the Koreans are better at sweeping such people under the proverbial rug. One of the shocking aspects of walking Florida street were all of the homeless children, some of them just babies, walking barefoot and filthy from person to person or sitting on the sidewalk.



Naturally, people living off of the charity of others have a keen eye for American tourists. We also sort of stick out. I walked down Florida street in a $250 Gore-tex jacket with a brand-new LowePro camera bag on my back, a digital SLR in my hands and a pair of blinding white New Balance sneakers on my feet. According to Faith, no Argentines wear New Balance shoes and nobody but a tourist would carry his camera around his neck. There is simply too much street crime in Buenos Aires.

I hadn't walked 100 meters down Florida street before a girl who couldn't have been older than 8 walked up to me with a baby tucked under one armpit like a football and the other hand outstretched to me.

"Monedas, monedas," she begged. Her hair was knotted and filthy and her skin was dark with dirt. There were no shoes on her feet. My heart went out to her, and I dug out a few coins. No sooner had I given her the money than three more children quickly changed course and intercepted me at a busy intersection.

"Monedas! Monedas!" The implored, spurred on by the first child's success. "Oh, shit," I thought, suddenly trapped between my conscience and the simple reality of exponential and inexhaustible demand growth for my charity. I could already see other children across the street eyeing me. I was saved by an Argentine in front of me who turned around and said something harsh in Spanish that scattered the children. He nodded to me as if to apologize and the light changed. I crossed the street.

Waiting on the other side of the street were the Volantes (however, the "V" is pronounced like a "B"). A volante is basically a flyer for some local business, and lying in wait all down the length of Florida street are the people who pass them out. They prowl the street, thrusting the volantes into the hands of passers by. Another 200 meters and my back pocket bulged with volantes advertising everything from strip clubs to Chinese food.

As I neared the photo exhibit, I passed other, more enterprising, Florida street denizens. A student of music played classical guitar. Another man performed magic tricks. A couple danced a sort of hyper-athletic Tango.



And for a few bucks you could have your picture snapped with the handsome old dancin' geezer.



These children employed their musical talent to pick up a few coins. Faith told me some of these kids allegedly work for the mafia, and if they don't make enough money then their "boss," usually a parent, will beat them at the end of the day. After I snapped this photo, they both begged change from me and I gave them more than I had given the barefoot girl with the baby.



Some people make their wages legally. This man worked as a "human billboard." He patiently waited for the traffic light to turn red and then, as other people crossed the busy avenue, he walked out into the crosswalk and held his sign up in front of the drivers stopped at the light. He was a friendly man, and said his was an easy job, as it afforded him lots of time to listen to music and talk shows on his mp3 player.



I finally made it to the exhibit and was brought back five years to that cool fall day in early September when the world came to a standstill and 3000 people needlessly lost their lives. It was hard and strange to relive that day. The photos were massive, well-composed and captioned. After the 9-1-1 exhibit, I plunked down a few pesos and took in an exhibit on the Mexican artistic genius, Frieda Kohal.

The Argentines take the arts very seriously, as I will get into in in the third installment of this multipart blog. Next up: An all-percussion orchestra and the exploration of Buenos Aires. I hope you enjoyed part 1. Look for the next update in a few days. Peace. --Notes

My time in Korea has come to an end.



It’s been a while since I updated, and I apologize for the delay, but the current of life picked up over the last couple of weeks and I just never found the time to update SoKoNotes. I started this update from seat 51A on a Boeing 747 bound for the United States and I finished it up a few days after returning to the USA.

As I sat in the terminal at Busan’s Gimhae airport preparing to board the plane for Narita, I looked around me. There were a few Western foreigners in the terminal. From somewhere behind me I heard a voice speaking in English. It was a man talking to his wife. The voice was just close enough to penetrate approaching reality and just distant enough to seem like it was coming from a dream.

It was surreal to sit there and listen to strangers talking and understand what they were saying. For so long I have lived in the artificial silence of a language barrier, unable to understand more than a few words. From behind me came the sound of my past, the sound of my homeland, the sound I will need to reacquaint myself with these next few weeks.

I continued to listen off and on to the Westerners, who sat behind me on the airplane. Their conversation was nothing special, but I simply marveled at their words. Simply listening to them speak and understanding their words was fascinating. I thought about the structure of language and how strange a tongue English actually is. I wondered what it would be like to listen to English and have no idea what was being said.

The halls in Narita were crowded with Westerners. It felt a little uncomfortable, like slipping on a shoe you haven’t worn in a while, to be among them. For one year I have been a minority, and I have long enjoyed both the anonymity and the minor celebrity my white face and blonde hair afforded me.

As I walked the halls towards my gate, I suddenly felt stripped of those qualities. I became boring old Stephen Jones from Atlanta all over again. As I boarded the plane and the nice Japanese gate workers spoke to me in English, I realized that nobody around me knew of the powerful experiences I had lived this past year.

It felt just like September of 2003 when I scaled Mount Katahdin and completed the Appalachian Trail. Over six months I had learned all the habits, skills and tricks of a long-distance hiker, and the minute I stepped into my parents’ minivan and drove out of Baxter State Park, it all became practically useless, history, trail behind me. I shaved my beard. I hung my pack on a nail in the attic. I started looking for a job.

The one thing I never hung up were my memories of the experience. To this day I can flip through one of the many notebooks I kept on the trail, read the entry and instantly be carried to that exact day on the Trail. I can smell the air, I can taste the sweat, and I can feel the ground under my feet. There were people I met there that continue to be my friends and experiences that helped shape and mold me into the man I am today.

The very same concept holds true for Korea. My experience in this small nation has been no less enriching and amazing than the journey on the Appalachian Trail. I learned more about being an adult in one year than in the entirety of my ‘adulthood.’ I rose to challenge that I was completely unprepared for and I left a success. I lived in a foreign land and learned how to solve the problems contained within that relationship. I discovered elements of myself that were good and bad and I became more familiar with both. I made a friend who changed my perception of myself and taught me how to love another person with my whole self.

Korea has been good to me in so many ways. Korea has affected me deeply, even my language.

I caught myself thanking English-speaking people with a ‘Kamsamnida’ and as I traversed the Narita terminal I accidentally greeted a few new faces with ‘annyong hasayo.’ I felt embarrassed, but sort of proud that such words were reflexive and natural. These changes speak to effects on my being that I cannot guess at, changes in my perception of the world that I have not yet realized.

My last week at ESS Best Jr. went by without much fanfare. I brought my camera and tripod to class with me and took photos with all of my favorite students. Advanced Three and Four were saddened to see me go. The students gave me candy and letters and promised to treat the incoming replacement - A Canadian named Laura Spencer- with dignity and respect.

I spent entire blocks of class simply teaching them how to pronounce here name. Most of the students have a hard time with L’s and R’s. They inadvertently pronounced her name, ‘Ralla’ or ‘Rolla’ or ‘Rollar.’ Han-sol, in Advanced Three, turned the class’ poor pronunciation into a joke and nicknamed Laura ‘Roller-skate Spencer.’ Someone in Dave’s class coined the name, ‘Ms. Pencil.’

The youngest children were the most perplexed by my imminent departure. The middle school students all wrote me cards and Eun-hee had the entire 1S students make a heart-shaped goodbye card for me. It was sort of odd to read their letters and all at once be touched in my heart and want to correct their grammar at the same time.

Some of the students were very personal in their letters, and told me things that made me feel like I had actually done a good job. The students praised me for my enthusiasm, patience and how much fun they had with me. They said they could tell I really cared, and they meant it.

However, it was these very qualities that the students liked so much that had the opposite effect with my employer. The state of my relationship to ESS Best Jr. had grown cold and impersonal in the last few months of my tenure. Mrs. Nam, who when I arrived would pay me compliments and trade jokes with me, was just a notch better than my enemy when I left.

I greatly angered that woman in the Spring by directly confronting her style and the methods of teaching, methods encouraged by Mr. Kim, methods I considered old-fashioned and a waste of the students’ time. Mrs. Nam caught me playing with 3B before class. We had turned the blue podium into a pirate ship by laying it on the floor and we were pretending to sail through the classroom. I guess it was a little over the top, and I braced for the worse when I got back up to the teacher’s lounge after class.

Mrs. Nam didn’t disappoint. She began to berate me in front of everyone in the office. She had some valid points about proper discipline and teacher conduct, but I have a short fuse, and I was angry over the public humiliation. I met her head on.

Emboldened by my status as a Native Speaker, I got into a screaming match with my boss, and I spoke my mind on Mr. Kim’s methods. For Mrs. Nam, this was a direct insult, and all that kept me from getting fired was my status as a Native Speaker. From that point on, the compliments and jokes ended. At the core of my relationship to Mrs. Nam, and by proxy my relationship to all of the Korean teachers who used Mr. Kim’s methods, was a mutual lack of respect and distrust.

I also had to teach closer to Mr. Kim’s methods in order to keep from being dismissed. I despised the drudgery and total lack of imagination inherent to these methods, and a dark, angry place grew under my skin. When Mrs. Nam and the other Korean teachers took me to lunch on my last day, they all sat apart from Gavin, Dave and I and we all barely spoke to one another.

Still, through all of this strife, I made out alive. ESS Best Jr. bought me my plane ticket, paid me my last paycheck, bonus and had the students gather in the auditorium Friday night to say farewell. Earlier that week, I wrote a speech and my girlfriend, Hyun-jeong, translated it into Korean for me. Here is the photograph of me reading the English version of the speech, which is below it.



Well, here we are. Twelve months ago I stood at this very spot and greeted you for the first time. Let me tell, time flies, and what can seem like an eternity passes in the blink of an eye.
Twelve months ago I stood behind this podium still a boy: Scared and insecure, unprepared for the great challenge before me. Over those twelve months, you and I grew together. I became familiar with your strengths, weaknesses and personalities, and I came to know me own personality, strengths and weaknesses, too.
But there is more. I knew that when I stepped into that classroom, you would ask me to be the adult, to be a voice of justice, moderation and wisdom. By addressing these demands, I have learned powerful life lessons. I have learned to be patient, thoughtful and caring. I have learned how to be a good friend by cheering you on when you succeeded and being supportive when you failed. I always strived to answer your questions, and I have taught myself to be humble when I didn’t know the answers. In many ways, I arrived in Korea a child, and I will leave as an adult. You shared in that transition. You challenged me to be more than I am, and I rose to that challenge.
I stand before you now preparing to depart for my homeland. It is hard to say goodbye to you all at once. I want each of you to know that wherever you go in life, you have a friend and a brother in me, and as long as I live, my house and my heart will always be open to you. I want to take each of you by the shoulders and look you in the eyes so that when I say this, you’ll know it comes from my heart: Thank you. I hope to see you again someday.

* * *

Afterward, Mr. Kim said a few words for the kids. I don't know what he said.



Hyun-jeong translated the speech so well that Mr. Kim read it to the students for me before I did. After I gave my speech, the students gave me a standing ovation. I shook hands and traded smiles as I walked down the aisle, Gavin filming the whole affair with my videocamera, Dave taking stills. It felt great.

All the rancor and bitterness I held in my heart for my employers evaporated. Yoo-jin and Han-eol gave me flowers and an impromptu speech (that was really impressive). The Korean teachers even gave me a nice letter and Mr. Lee gave me an amazing Korean mural which now rests in my dining room. Even Mrs. Nam gave me a hug. I felt sort of dazed.

Afterwards, I waited around the teacher’s office for the second-year middle school students to finish class. They had promised me a treat. I set up my camera and waited.

Dave rummaged through my drawer for overlooked goodies. Mrs. Nam and Ms. Ha chatted. I sat and stared at my empty desk, wondering where the time went. I pray that when I die, I don't feel the same way. So much of life doesn't feel like it's actually being lived sometimes, and then a part of it ends and I am left wondering how I could have lived it differently.

Of course, that is not the way I feel about my time in Korea, but until that moment, it had felt that way. I had been exhausted much of the time, stressed out from managing all of those classes, a disgruntled boss and a language barrier. I spent too much time feeling negative and angry, defensive and powerless. In the end, it was time very, very well-spent. The power of leaving lifted me out from those dark clouds so that I could see the truth. I love this place, I love these people and I will hold no grudge against any of them.

At 10 o clock the second year middle school students poured out of the sweltering auditorium and into the teachers office where I was sitting. We snapped photos, traded gifts and laughed. Here's a photo. Notice the befuddled look on the guy on the far left. Today was his first day.



Mr. Kim broke the party up with a series of sharp commands in Korean. The students all came to attention.

‘Don’t you all need to go home to your mommies and daddies?’ he enunciated in a flat, syrupy tone of voice that carried more meaning than his words. ‘I think we should let Mr. Jones go home,’ he finished, as if I was inconvenienced by the students. We all obediently filed downstairs and a few of the students made plans to take me to lunch the last Sunday I was in town.

I met them at Starbucks in the early afternoon and ate seafood noodle soup. I marveled at their English, which was much better than I had originally thought. They told me about their plans for the future and how much they were going to miss me. I bought them icecream and we exchanged a few more gifts, email addresses, and even a few tears. We took pictures at the Gwangbokdong intersection.



What I found so wonderful about the meeting was that I felt no uncomfortable change in status from Mr. Jones the teacher to Stephen Jones the foreigner. They treated me with the same respect. I felt honored to have been their teacher, so aware of the fact that the passing of my face is like that of water under a bridge to these children, so easily replaced by another and another and another with each passing year.

I smiled and got embarrassingly emotional as I sat and prepared the photos for SoKoNotes. Here are the group photos I took with my favorite classes. This first picture is of my sixth graders, Advance Four. I had this class the longest - nearly eight months. They went from being my most hated class to being one of my most loved.



The next photo is of my all-time favorite class at ESS Best Jr...Advanced Three. This was the best group of children I have ever taught. They had real panache, character and enthusiasm that made me smile every day. They could make a Winter day Spring. They were an inspiration. One of the little boys, Jin-soo (to my left), spoke better English than most of the children in the school regardless of age. When I would award a student an "Outstanding" for making a really good sentence, Jin-soo would get up out of his seat, run outside the classroom and declare "Outstanding!" Then he would run back in the classroom and declare with joyful abandon, "IN-standing!" Does it get any funnier than that?



This is Advanced One, my most troubled advanced class. This class wasn't composed entirely of students who had properly earned an 'advanced' ranking. There were a few dopes and goofballs, but it was these jokers who made this class so much fun. One of them, Joon-byeong, was particularly funny. Whenever I gave out word-search puzzles, Joon-byeong ignored the English words he was supposed to find in favor of the strange, random, meaningless mix of consonants and vowels that appealed to his warped sense of humor.

"Teacher! Teacher! Look!" Joon-byeong would say and point to a haphazard combination like JZXXCER. "Jazzecksser!" Joon-byeong would yell and burst into raucous laughter.



Next is 4S, a completely unremarkable class except for how hard they tried. Oftentimes at ESS, there are simply too many bright kids for the advanced class, so they less gifted ones get knocked down to the next level, "S." The "S" kids tend to be very good students, but not quite as talented in picking up languages as the advanced kids. They are really nice and fun and I only had them once a week, which bummed me out.



Another class that I struggled with early on and then grew to love was 1-2A. These incredibly young children were really bright and could be fun to teach. However, ESS Best Jr. didn't properly equip me for teaching these kids. There was neither adequate materials or enough time to really engage them, so we mostly just played games. It was babysitting. Fun babysitting, though. This was the best photo I could manage out of this bunch.



Nothing in my life has reminded me of how much I've lost by growing up quite like the children. They reminded me, and then they gave it all back to me over the course of twelve months. Although I've grown up a lot in the last year, I've also been put back in touch with my inner child. They say as you grow older, you grow harder. Maybe so. But I would say I am a harder man with a softer heart.

A lot of the kids wrote me letters. Their English is splotchy, but their words are sincere and beautiful to me. Here are a few of their letters to me, verbatim.

Mr. Jones

Hello! I’m Mi-gun. First, I’m very sad because you will leave ESS. But I’ll not cry because you will go to your country to achieve your dream. You are my best foreigner teacher. When I didn’t have pride of English, you helped me very kindly. So it is very helpful to me. I like your smile and your cool character. We had practiced the play, we went to Summer Camp, those were very good times! I will never forget you. You love taking pictures, don’t you? So you will be the best photographer. I’m sure about that. Don’t forget us! Thank you very much!! I was really happy with you. Be happy.

To Mr. Jones you likes Korea and taking photos.

Sincerely, Mi-gun.

* * *

To: Mr. John

How goes it, Mr. John? I’m your a pupil, Ji-won. Thank you for the tip. Thanks. I’m sad, because you are go to the America. But I’m never cry. Um, that explains why your English is good. I envy you. I wish I could speak English like you. AH! And you miss me. You can always get me on the phone. We all miss you. Please come and see us sometime. Could I see you again? Goodbye my teacher, Mr. Jones.

--A wise saying--

Little deeds of kindness, little words of love help to make earth happy like the heaven above.

Ji-won.


* * *

To Mr. Jones!

Hi Mr. Jones. I’m Da-mi. I write a first letter to you, because you will go your hometown. I met you on September first in 2005. Do you remember? I remember then. But you’ll go your hometown, by the way I’m very sad. I think you are the best teacher. We had great times. I miss you so much. Maybe you will a great teacher in USA. I believe you. I wish go Havard University School. Then I will meet you. I remember first and last Summer camp with you. In the future we will meet in Havard. Maybe you are a teacher and I’m a student. I wish...Idon’t know much English, but in the future I give you a perfect letter to you. Bye Mr. Jones. You must not forget me.

From Da-mi

* * *

Hello Mr. Jones. I’m the cute girl, SHin-eun!!!
Teacher. You’ve going back home, so I’m very sad!! And thank you for teaching me!!! Teacher! Teacher! This box is for you, and I made it. I’ll give you photo. Mr. Jones. Your class is fun!! And thank you for the bag. Ohhhhh! This is my address. I will send you a letter and please write back. Teacher. Always stay healthy and don’t forget me!!! Good bye teacher.

I’m Eagle. I love you. Teacher. Shin-eun.

* * *

I love you too. All of my students. I love you, too.

It’s funny. Only a few boys wrote letters to me. One of them, a third-year middle school student abstained from writing me letters. Instead, he began sending me bizarre, schizoid email messages I took to be friendly. He was always a really quiet boy who suddenly came to life in the final weeks of my stay. His English is horrible, but I know he means well. Here is one of those funny messages I received after I left.

OH - I'm sorry ...   My answer the letter is late .   I'm !  I'm ! see my picture in your homepage ~.      Um ....     When hiking in the mountain  , I'm help Ha Jeon Young teacher !  I'm  proud of myself ~   and thank you ..  You're very very take a picture ?  well!!
However ~ I love you   hahahahahahahaha - Young-jun.

* * *

Following my last day with ESS Best Jr., I went to Jejudo with my girlfriend, Hyun-jeong. We had been planning the trip for a few weeks, as it had been our dream to get out of Busan and be a real couple, even if for only a few days. Up until this point, I had been a secret Hyun-jeong kept from her mother, who like some Koreans, probably would not have sanctioned our relationship.

As the airplane approached the runway over Jeju, I felt like I was descending into a central American banana republic like El Salvador or Nicaragua. Lush green farms covered the island, broken only by the occasional road or village. Mountains rose in the distance, shrouded in clouds. I could see the ocean through the window on the other side of the aircraft. The glass oval filled and emptied with blue while my window filled and emptied with green as the plane tilted from side to side on its final decent.

Rental cars were cheap, in the neighborhood of $30 a day. However, the woman behind the counter informed me that I would need an international drivers license in order to rent the vehicle. This was disappointing. I tried to make due with my Mississippi license, which I insisted was internationally certified (despite any markings to that effect), but the woman stood her ground and flat out denied me my God-given American RIGHT to drive a car!

So we took a bus.

The bus took us to the other side of the island, to a town called Seogwipo, where there had been an Ironman triathlon the day before. Here is a shot of Seogwipo.



And here is a shot of a man with a bicycle, presumably to highlight the previously aforementioned information concerning a triathlon that had previously occurred on the date prior to our imminent arrival in the glorious Korean city of Seogwipo. Right.



Our hotel room was, well, not what I had paid for. Actually, it was very far from what I had paid for. My sixty dollars a night had bought us what looked like a set from a porno filmed in the 1970s. Earthy browns, oranges and yellows were the colors of choice, though the walls were white. Our bathtub was an olive green set on an orange-tile floor. The air conditioner wasn't on, so the room was an oven. A pitiful electric fan standing by the TV was our only respite until 5PM, when the air conditioner was slated to come on-line. None of this mattered to either of us. We were free! This was our own little slice of heaven, a veritable Eden compared to the awful, stifling purgatory of Busan.

That afternoon we decided to go to the east end of the island and see the famous sub-island of Ewdo. We spent a couple of hours looking for the ferry in Seogwipo before giving up and hailing a cab to take us to the bus terminal. Upon entering the cab, the driver informed us that there was no bus to Ewdo now, that we had missed it. He kindly offered to take us there for $30. OK, I said, willing to see some of the island at almost any price. I had lost my mind.

The trip to Ewdo was long, and once we got there, the woman at the ferry terminal told us that the last ferry had already left and we were too late. We walked out of the terminal under cloudy skies, the afternoon slight quickly slipping away. There was no bus terminal in sight, just a huge parking lot and a long, bleak gray breakwater twenty feet tall stretching into the ocean. A group of taxis was gathered in one corner of the parking lot, and they grinned at us as we walked by.

One of the taxi drivers ran up to us. He had a cocky grin on his face that instantly told me that Hyun-jeong and I were being milked for cash. He almost jokingly offered to take us back to Seogwipo. Sensing a scam, I protested, but he put his arm around me and did his best to convince me that there was no bus back to Seogwipo and his cab was the only method of transportation back to our hotel, thirty miles distant. I was enraged, but I had no choice. Hyun-jeong agreed with him, and so I had no recourse but to pay the man $28 (he gave us a discount) to take us back to our hotel.

The cabs had managed to talk me out of sixty dollars. I would learn later on that such charlatan behavior is common among Jejudo Taxi drivers. On the bright side, we got to see a lot of the Jeju countryside from the window of the cabs.

To make up for our blunder, we decided to stick close to home for dinner. We walked down to where the river met the ocean and followed it down a beautiful winding stone path to a waterfall lit RockCity-style by sodium-vapor lights. The air was cool and the path was sheltered by trees and bordered by the river on one side and the cliff wall on the other. We took pictures.



For dinner we ate the famous Jejudo Black Pork Samgyupsal, so named for the famous black pigs raised on human feces.

Raised on human feces!?! What!?! Wait a minute...

Gavin had heard a rumor that the pigs were fed human excrement because it made their flesh taste better. This, I presume, had been fed to Gavin via Dave, who had got it from one of his adult students back when he was working for ESS Adult. Dave and his wife spun many tales such as these, all culled from their students. I never told Dave or Susanna this, but I think now it was all alot of Korean urban legends, or so I hoped as I wolfed down black pork samgyupsal in that restaurant on Jejudo.

Hyun-jeong didn't seem bothered by the rumors of the black pigs' disgusting diet, and told me such rumors were just that - rumors. Rumor or no, the samgyupsal was the best I had ever eaten in Korea. (For those of you who don't know, samgyupsal is basically half-inch thick, unseasoned bacon that you grill on your table, cut into pieces and wrap in leaves with kimchi, vegetables and soybean sauce. Very, very delicious)

The next day we decided to hike Jejudo's signature mountain: Hallasan. Jejudo is basically the remains of an ancient volcano, and Hallsan is the cone. It rises over 2000 feet into the sky and sports a small crater lake at the top.

Hyun-jeong and I jumped into a cab that morning and directed him to the bus terminal.

"Oh?" He asked. "Where are you going?" Hyun-jeong told him and he shook his head. "Hallasan? You can't go there, it's too late to catch a bus. There is no bus there now." I looked at my watch. It was 10 o clock in the morning. The cabbie continued. "I'll take you there now for 20,000 won, if you'd like." Hyun-jeong began to nod in approval, but I detected the hint of the same scam the cabbies pulled on us the day before on our cursed journey to Ewdo. I cursed under my breath.

"Pull over, let us out." I said and paid the cabbie his two dollars. The driver protested, but I insisted and we left his car. Hyun-jeong was confused, but I said we should at least check the bus terminal before we took a taxi. Hyun-jeong called the bus terminal while I scored some egg sandwiches for breakfast. Hyun-jeong was just hanging the phone up as I walked up to her with the steaming egg sandwich. She looked upset.

"The cab driver lied!" She said. "There is a bus to Hallasan, and it's only two thousand won!" What was more, the bus runs all day long. I felt vindicated. Later on, Hyun-jeong's friend Yoo-jin would confirm my suspicions that the Jeju taxi drivers were notorious for ripping tourists off. We were lucky to have only been 'taken for a ride' just once.

HJ and I rode the bus up to the trailhead for Hallasan. The rest area was shrouded in fog as we bought kimbop, candy bars, water and rain ponchos for the eight-kilometer trek to the top of the mountain. The lady behind the counter said that the park rangers were turning hikers away before they got to the top due to inclement weather, but that didn't stop us. After a brief stop to look at a Hallasan photo gallery, we were on our way up the well-graded trail to the summit.

The hike was really pleasant. A cloud clung to the mountain, lending the forest an uncanny silence. The air was cool, damp and still and the leaves on the trees and bushes glistened with moisture. I felt like Sam and Frodo from The Lord of The Rings trekking through the forests of Galadriel. We talked and laughed and had a good time as we slowly ascended higher into the clouds.

After six kilometers, we stopped for lunch at a camp site consisting of two tent platforms by a wooden staircase. Kimbop and Snickers bars were on the menu. I took a nap while Hyun-jeong snapped photos.





It was getting late, so afterwards we walked back down the mountain and caught another bus back to Seogwipo.

The next day we went to see an art gallery exhibiting the works of one of Hyun-jeong's favorite Korean artists, Lee Joong-seop. Joong-seop was one of Korea's greatest artists rising out of World War Two, with a style obviously influenced by the likes of Picasso.



Though trained in Japan and married to a Japanese woman, Joong-seop took his art in a wholly Korean direction. He lived and painted in Seogwipo for a portion of his life, and a landscape he painted could be clearly viewed out the window of the museum, looking South.

Hyun-jeong and I snuck onto the roof of the building and took photos. I felt like a teenager again, my dad's camera in my hands, getting into mischief with my friends. I tried climbing a wall.



Here is HJ. Isn't she cute?



Here I am checking out the authentic replica of Lee Joong-seop's house. Hyun-jeong pointed out the stark difference between the age-old Korean design and the high-rise condo towering above it in the background. She has such a good eye.



After we flew home to Busan, I spent the remainder of my time saying good-bye to all of the people who helped me live and work in Busan. Here is Soo-ho, my banker. Soo-ho's only request was for white, American t-shirts, which he claims are higher quality than the Korean version one can buy in Nampo-dong.



This is a photo of the crew working at Kimbop Chunguk (Kimbop Paradise), a Korean franchise restaurant my coworkers considered junkfood. For the first three months of my stay in Korea, I ate nearly every meal at Kimbop Chunguk. They had everything: Jiggaes, baekbans, dabops, dankas, noodles, rice, mandu, and of course, Kimbop of all kinds. The ladies who worked there were kind to Gavin and I. They taught me a lot of my Korean food vocabulary, and were very patient as I practiced new Korean words and phrases on them. Lovely women. I wish them only the best.



Naturally, some of the best friends I made were friends with Hyun-jeong first. Here is a pic of her Algerian friend Allal and I at an upscale Indian restaurant in Haeundae. Muslims are rare in Korea, and so it was really interesting and sometimes hilarious hanging out with Allal, who politely enjoyed standing out in the crowd, so to speak. He had a great sense of humor and a positive outlook on Korea, which is rare among foreigners here.



This next picture is of me and Yoo-jin, another of Hyun-jeong's friends. Yoo-jin and Hyun-jeong met while they traveled to the United States together in 2003. When they returned to Korea, they met every week to practice speaking English with one another, a sort of two-woman conversational English club. This is part of the reason Hyun-jeong speaks English as well as she does, and Yoo-jin was no different. Here we are at Haagen-daz together.



Yoo-jin has impeccable taste in food, and whenever we needed a restaurant recommendation, Hyun-jeong called Yoo-jin on her cellphone. It became sort of an inside joke with us, actually. I really liked how forward-thinking and positive a person Yoo-jin was. She also had a good sense of humor and honored me by exclusively speaking English whenever I was around, even to Hyun-jeong. An amazing person.

Here is another photo I took that night of my beautiful Hyun-jeong. Though the light is bad, her expression is priceless.



Of all the people I met in Korea, she is the one I will miss the most. Over the course of our three months together, I fell deeply in love with her. Our separation at the airport was possibly the most painful moment of the last four years. Will I ever see her again? I know so, but not the exact date. The current US-Korea visa requirements present a massive, unwarranted obstacle to our relationship being anything more than friendly. Hyun-jeong needs to jump through numerous hoops, some of them financial, in order to get even a tourist visa to the US.

The sick thing is how easy it is for me to get to Korea. All I have to do is step on an airplane pointed towards Seoul with my passport in hand. POC - Piece of Cake. So I'll probably visit her when the time and money become available.

The other person I left behind is Gavin, whom I invited to Korea back in November of 2005. Gavin turned out to be a brilliant teacher, and we had a lot of fun together over the ensuing months. He took me to dinner at the Lotte buffet a few weeks ago, where we crammed all the steak, lamb and sushi we could into our mouths for forty smackers a piece. Here is a picture I took of him at a samgyupsal place in Haeundae. Check out the restaurant's emblem.



I will see Gavin again in January of 2007 when he returns to Atlanta to take a break.

I gained a little weight over the last few weeks as people bought me dinner, drinks and gave me candies and chocolates for parting gifts. I’m sad to say the ten pounds I lost by eating the Korean diet has been cut in half. I guess it’s fitting that I should put on a little weight before going to America, you know, to fit in.

When I stepped off of the plane in Detroit, a giant LCD screen showed George Bush addressing the nation, his voice booming through the airport. Westerners were everywhere. I felt small, alone and behind the times as I boarded the plane for Atlanta. When I got off the plane, my parents greeted me with cheers and open arms. It felt like a movie. My father and mother held me tightly, repeatedly telling me how good it was that I was home. I hugged them right back, glad to be home.

Atlanta is much like I left it, though now it sports the largest aquarium on the face of the planet Earth and the Braves are a lame, losing team for the first time since I was 12 years old. I only have a week to go before I step on another airplane and visit my friends Faith and Bernardo in Buenos Aires, Argentina for a couple of weeks. So stay tuned, I have more insights into the joys of international travel coming up in the next episode of SoKoNotes.

What? You thought the adventure was over with Korea? Good heavens, no!

In many ways, my life is just beginning. I have a photography business to build and get off the ground. I have to find a way to get Hyun-jeong into my country. I am not finished traveling. If anyone is interested, I can continue this blog for a long time to come.

Well, I've written enough. I'm tired. I'll write again in October when I get back from Argentina. Or I'll write from Argentina itself. Depends. Stay tuned! SoKoNotes will be right back!

Peace.

-Notes