Run Devil Run

24 Hour Shopping.

How could anyone not love that!

Seriously, need I say more? Practically lost my mind shopping over there. I believe 24 hour shopping hours should be the way to go; something I think all seriously sultry Asian capitals should encourage in their crowded streets - although I'm sure our own small-minded bureaucrats would whine, wail and weep over the perceived rise in some hitherto unknown heinous crime tied to the extended shopping hours. They always find the flimsiest reasons to justify their nonsensical acts.

Back to Seoul! Just like the oft-abused phrase, over here one mall closes only to have another open. Usually right next door.

Poor Charming Calvin had to run devil run quite a lot as I sped through the endless shopping streets laid out like a treasure trail with unbelievable bargains on every corner. Though of course the number of shops catering to the ladies outnumber the men's, there are still quite a lot of stores offering beautifully fitted work attire with jackets, vests and ties in bewilderingly bold shades. Which I obviously splurged on.

Despite the fact that the clothes - and the shockingly bling ties - were all obviously made for the fragile skinny-gaunt flower boys made famous by the Hallyu wave!

Though I no longer wonder at their incredibly soft, baby-smooth skin. With at least five different cosmetic stores on every street beckoning with samples and freebies galore, how could anyone possibly resist? Seriously at the rate the hyperenthusiastic salesgirls are chucking facial creams, scrubs and masks at baffled passersby, it should be a fashion crime not to participate in the cosmetic frenzy. Every possible cream or lotion for every possible skin surface is available here.

Even a mask for the hells of your feet. I kid you not.

What? There's a BB cream sale?

While most are easily converted once they are drawn to the irresistible siren song of beauty products, the more recalcitrant visitors are literally dragged kicking and screaming by the surprisingly strong salesgirls into the stores for a full makeover. Or at least a dab of BB cream at the very least.

And if the dozens of beauty products available still can't help attain the expected results, there's always the friendly neighbourhood plastic surgeon ready to perform the impossible. Also seemingly available on every street corner.

The Koreans really take beauty regimes seriously.

Time Machine

I gotta admit it must be a bit hard to come from Japan when you're in Seoul.

And I'm not even talking about the weekly protests by the tenacious Korean comfort women who sit in umbrage opposite the Japanese embassy demanding compensation.

No, I think it's even worse to claim origin from Japan when you're making the prerequisite tour of the royal palaces. Especially since Japanese rule over the Korean peninsula effectively ended less than a century ago. Much like the unimaginably vile taint they left over the rest of occupied Asia during the Japanese Occupation - as our aged grandparents are quick to remind us - the Japanese imperialists obviously committed far worse crimes in Korea.

Get out of my palace!

Honestly it doesn't take very long before the embittered mention of the Japanese Colonial Administration is made, usually with a faint sneer of derision, by one of the tour guides.

Guide : Yes, we have lovely palaces but most of it is new. Or at least partly refurbished. 
Paul : Oh really.
Guide : Yes, the Japanese destroyed all the buildings, razed almost the entire city to the ground. 
Paul : Ouch. 
Guide : The Japanese assassinated our queen. And then they forcibly removed our royal family and all the heirs to Japan. 
Paul : Double ouch. 
Guide : Without the Japanese, who knows. We might still have a royal family to speak of. 

Followed by a dismal sigh of melancholy from the woeful guide in the traditional hanbok.

Hard to blame the Koreans for feeling that way since it seems like the merciless occupying forces left a swath of wanton destruction each time they attacked. Which seems like every couple hundred years! Rather than the more amiable sort of visitors armed with DSLRs and guidebooks breaching the walls of the palaces now, the barbarous louts that invaded back then came armed to the teeth with swords and axes to pillage and plunder.

So yes, it's no wonder that bits of their beautiful wooden palaces are held in place with modern concrete cement!




Doesn't take away any of their lovely charm though. Compared to the massive palace complexes in Beijing, the palaces here seem almost quaintly provincial. Decidedly smaller, certainly much easier to get around in a day.

S.E.O.U.L.

Glad that my one wish this month - that the unpredictable North Korean potentate Kim Jong-un would keep his fat trigger-happy fingers off the volatile missile controls at his command - actually did come true. Which is how I managed to make it out of Seoul alive - thankfully sans radioactive poisoning - despite vaguely threatening headlines about growing North Korean belligerence.

Didn't stop us from continually looking up into the clear skies for approaching missiles.

Gotta say the first morning was an exhausted blur of planes, trains and automobiles since we had an overnight flight - and I've always been notorious for remaining painfully awake on moving planes. The tiring all-nighter left me in a sleepy daze on arrival, trudging around the airport like a brain-dead zombie. Glamorous jet-set traveller I'm definitely not!

Though my flagging energy levels didn't stop me from nagging the sluggish Charming Calvin to get unpacked as quick as humanly possible the moment we dropped our bags off at the guesthouse somewhere in the vicinity of Bukchon district. Evidently metropolitan traffic jams and city madness does help wake me up.

And come on, we didn't have much time to waste in Seoul after all! We needed to get moving!

Paul : What are you doing?
Calvin : Resting.
Paul : What resting! You slept all the way - only to get up for meals!
Calvin : I need more rest.
Paul : Rest back home. We need to get moving!
Calvin : But my lovely bed! My pretty butterfly-embroidered comforter! My heated floors!
Paul : They aren't going anywhere. Move it!

A regular wake-up call that was repeated almost every other day we were there. Had to hold him at gunpoint to get our indolent hero moving.

Sometimes you really have to take drastic measures. 

A pity we were always in such a rush - well at least I was! - since our guesthouse had to be the most charming little traditional hanok homestead ever! Super steep uphill climbs - which explains how astonishingly fit the elderly here are - but the wooden house and the spectacular view is definitely worth the climb. Hanok here refers to the traditional Korean architecture style with various roof types including thatches, shingles and tiles - though with far less thatch and shingle these days, it is generally understood to mean tile-roofed house today. 


Not forgetting the unforgettable heated ondol floors - brilliant Korean innovation if any! Which we would have enjoyed a bit more of if the indecisive weather hadn't grown unseasonably warm in spring.




Take a walk into the village!

Gay's The Word

Despite hysterical headlines giving daily warning of the infectious homosexual plague beginning to corrupt the susceptible masses, the general public remains utterly oblivious of the fact. Thankfully! Hell, most of them don't even have gay in their vocabulary.

Yes, even at work. Though the more savvy nurses might have some inkling when the pink parade sashays down the main street, the rest remain blissfully unaware of its very existence. After all rampant homosexuality remains largely an unfamiliar illness infecting larger, more cosmopolitan conurbations, surely not in their pleasant little town where everyone's straight and married with 2.5 kids! Hard to blame them for feeling that way since most of my local gay brethren remain adamantly buried in their moth-eaten closets.

So being steadfastly gay remains something altogether foreign to the locals here.

Miranda : Now everyone's talking about us!
Paul : Ooh what are they saying?
Miranda : That we're fooling around.
Paul : Damn, I'm good.

Which is why my randy heterosexual cocksman's reputation remains intact despite my nurse Miranda Merry's fervent protests. Hard not to give rise to a bit of gossip when a nurse starts going out with a doctor - ah the stuff of generic M&B romances.

Nurse : We hear you have been out on dates with Dr Paul. Heard he's a real ladies' man. 
Miranda : You wouldn't call it dates at all. 
Nurse : When a man and a woman step out for an evening together... then what do you call it?
Miranda : I call it a friendly platonic outing.
Nurse : Surely there's a spark somewhere. 
Miranda : There's nothing.
Nurse : No need to lie, you're amongst friends here. 
Miranda : Trust me, even if I were to strip naked and lie down wantonly on the bed, he wouldn't make a move at all. Probably move to cover me with a blanket.
Nurse : Wow. You mean Dr Paul is that picky with the ladies? 
Miranda : OMFG.

Poor Miranda. No doubt she wanted very badly to start screaming 'Gay Gay Gay' though she stopped short of outing me then.

To the other nurses though, they think the lady doth protest too much.

Selective Blind Spot

Remember when I once said Fabulous Felix has a Shield of Obliviousness to deal with unpleasant situations? Turns out that isn't the only weapon in his extensive armoury.

Perhaps more of an extension of his obliviousness since he also has the oddly misogynistic power of the Blind Spot. Never so blindingly obvious till the other day when a hottie came up to the gym counter with fan girls in tow.

Felix : Wow the boy is cute.
Paul : Yes, he is. Though I am wondering what he's doing!
Felix : Muay Thai class? Certainly has the legs for it.
Paul : With the gaggle of little girls around him? They can't be more than sixteen. Wow! Those girls are so Kick-Ass!
Felix : What little girls?
Paul : The girls he came with.
Felix : He came with girls?
Paul : There were four girls surrounding him.
Felix : OMG, there was?!
Paul : This explains a lot about you.

Has to be the equivalent of straight guys ignoring everything else when a pretty girl walks by. Been stuck in that particular situation often enough as a high school boy when all my horny heterosexual classmates would practically swivel around 180 degrees and crane their necks just to drool over a girl sauntering by in six-inch heels several hundred feet away.

No doubt Felix would miss it but there's a rose amongst the thorns! I'm partial to the boys myself but I wouldn't miss her!

Don't get me wrong, I notice hot guys plenty. Nothing like a tight pair of curvaceous male ass in a skinny pair of jeans to instantly pull my lustful gaze. But I certainly don't stop and stare unabashedly till I am utterly oblivious to everything else around that gorgeous ass.







Yes, I'd drool. But I'd still keep an eye on my laundry.