Everland... an epic battle of courage and cowardice.

Let's just say I will never use metaphors like "I felt a rollercoaster of emotions" or "Life is a rollercoaster" lightly again...






So this is the last of the unforeseen holidays, a Wednesday sneaking up right out of nowhere, on the coattails of Chuseok.

After much persuasion, including being handed "The Bryson Ultimatum", I decided to join Betsy, Steph, Jackie, Erik and Matt on a trip to Everland, the biggest amusement park in Korea and my kids' favorite vacation spot.

Everland is a short subway trip to Suwon and then a hefty bus ride out of the city and into the mountains. It's a beautiful part of the country, with the leaves starting to change color. However, it was the man-made marvels that were on our agenda for the day.

Everland was decorated in Halloween theme with pumpkins and bats galore. It's a massive labyrinth and has even been rated as the 4th most visited amusement park in the world. So despite being a Disneyland knock-off, its certainly not second rate.

Now for a culture note about Americans. They get out of the womb and straight into a rollercoaster chair. These adrenalin-hungry thrill-seekers have long out-screamed the natural terror one could be expected to feel on death-defying rides. They are quite blase about it. I've seen pulses racing faster in a sleep clinic.

The Koreans aspire to American entertainment standards, but us Africans are a different breed. We don't really like for our feet to leave the ground. We get our natural fixes from things like muggings, high-jackings, murder and violence. So amusement parks haven't caught on in a big way, and I've never felt the need to get high on anything other than life. But that was all about to change.

We approached a low-key rotating ride called "Championship Rodeo." It starts off quite calmly, a gentle introduction. Jenni was happy. Then it picks up speed.

All of a sudden it is trying to throw its passengers from their carriages in a dangerous, psychopathic fashion. My friends throw their arms up and scream excitedly. I tried to join in, but only a slow dying moan escaped from my mouth.

As I curled up in a fetal position, I heard Matt commentating happily beside me "Oh, this ride is messing up my hair" or "The ticket lady isn't dancing very well." as if he expected me to be able to respond when i was trying to stop myself from gagging or passing out, or jumping from the cart.

My introduction to the land of the brave was not at all flattering.

Undaunted, we went on the "Eagle's Fortress", a seriously impressive rollercoaster with all the necessary turns and falls. During this ride, I managed to let out a few proper screams, which definitely helped. At least it lets you know you are still alive. But I still couldn't quite whistle a happy tune or simply remember my favorite things... I still felt pretty wretched.

The next ride was the "Columbus' which is a huge Viking-type swing ride. This one definitely leaves your stomach in the air while the rest of your body is rapidly descending. Erik kindly said "It helps to open your eyes"and I was naive enough to believe him and thus got a crushing view of us screeching towards terra firma at a 45 degree angle with a truckload of Koreans. Surely Columbus had it much easier than this.

So with adrenalin coursing in my veins and a glazed-over expression in my eyes, I went to explore the rest of Everland. I discovered all kinds of innocent, peaceful rides which of course none of my hard-core friends had wanted to go on. I really liked Aesop's village - it's very child-friendly and magical, with lots of nooks and crannies for kids to explore and non-traumatic games and adventures. I was still waiting for my own PTSD to wear off.

We went to a perfectly un-scary "Haunted House" ride where you shoot ghosts with laser guns. Another room in the haunted vein lifts up entirely and turns around 360 degrees, very "Harry Potter", and pretty cool in a mind-bending sort of way.

Everland also had this crazy Abba-style band, which performed Western songs in a mildly embarrassed manner. Although the singer was Russian, this is a good career option for Westerners who don't get into the English teaching business. Everland likes its performers as blond and Caucasian as possible. In a big auditorium they had all kinds of dancing - Spanish and Irish tap and acrobatics.

As night fell over Everland, we got swept up in an incredible light parade. Different floats represented various fairytale, and I could not help but wave at the characters on top of them. For me, it's quite easy to be as mesmerized as a child in a land of costumes and make-believe. Kudos also for the people I was with, who had a healthy store of child-like enthusiasm for Everland. Consequently we could all merrily regress together.

After the light show, we went on a calm, classic merry-go-round ride and then did some souvenir shopping. I bought a bat Alice-band which my students think is very "cutie", and take turns wearing at the hagwon. On the late-night trip back we tried to come up with titles for my creative writing proposal. Topics ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime..but unfortunately never reached the sublime. But it certainly made the trip go a lot quicker. Everland was another novel experience for me, a quick lesson in introspective psychotherapy and in every way unforgettable.

All Hope Abandon - Ye who Enter here!

Ahoy!

The Jolly Roger is flying 'neath a strong wind and there be the taste of salt and rum on my lips. Goin' to class, I took me eyepatch and pegleg and threatened misbehavin' students with my cutlass and hook (although not simultaneously.) I shouted "Avaste ye bilge rat!" to a boy who confused his verbs. I measured the gangplank for those landlubbers who hadn't completed their homework. What is the meaning of all this? This hearty wench is celebrating International Talk Like a Pirate Day today.

So why don't you join in the chantey and encourage a draught? Savvy ?

Each year on September 19th, thousands of buccaneer-wannabes and gentlemen/women of fortune gather together to use the lingo that immortalised literary pirates like Long John Silver and Jack Sparrow. TLAPD is a parody holiday created to celebrate the incomprehensible language of our romanticized and much-maligned sea-thieves. So my lilly-livered lads and lasses had to work smartly today, and much a yo-ho-ho was shared by all, although we were low on grog.

By the powers, my hagwon captain didn't spy me engaging in any mutineering or I might have received the black spot, forfeited my pieces of eight and be
sent directly to Davey Jones locker.

Let me end this TLAPD post with a quote from the immortal Guybrush Threepwood, nerdy, ineffectual pirate who sings:

"You say you're nasty pirates, scheming, thieving bad bushwhackers?

From what I've seen I tell you, you're not pirates - you're just slackers!

A pirate I was meant to be - trim the sails and roam the sea!"

Birthday weekend in Cheonan...

On Friday night, we went out to the Red Rooster in Cheonan to celebrate the last embers of my birthday. This pub is very "rustic cafe" for those of you from Stellenbosch...and they serve watery Korean beer in big green bottles. Well after arriving with Cara and Matt, and scaring the Koreans off from a big corner table (sometimes it helps being a foreigner), I wondered if anyone else was going to turn up.

Luckily, I was wrong. Most of my foreigner friends from KNU church put in a showing... cool kids like Betsy, Jackie, Jo, Martie, Tina, Cor, Steph, Kim, Erik, Jason, Byron, Adam and Elisa, Gordon, Alfred and a couple more made the table burst at its seams. I got a good dose of red wine and interesting conversation, and I stayed over at Cara's place. Saturday morning was MacDonald's breakfast with a side order of real Americans, the hairdresser for some non-traumatic highlights... "eye-shopping" at Yawoori, and pasta for lunch with Betsy and Kim. I watched "Stardust" with Cara at the movies and then we went to Jo's place for girl's night with delcious salady-type food and some dancing in Jo's sweltering lounge.

I think I've milked this birthday for all its worth. But it was good while it lasted.

Initial thoughts on the Harry Potter series.

What a ride it has been for those of us who have "stuck with Harry Potter until the very end"! I feel quite stunned, having just cast aside Deathly Hallows, to see how a children's book a decade ago has grown into something so emotionally powerful and complex.

I think it took a mother like J.K Rowling to write a story that hinges on Lily dying for her son. So Harry Potter is not so much about the power of dark magic, or white magic or as many have claimed - "the devil", as it is about the power of love to sacrifice and to sustain.

The whole series is driven by its convincing characters. I love how Hagrid tries to find the best in everyone ( monsters, dragons and giants included) and how we discover in Book 7 that Albus Dumbledore, far from being a flawless advisor to the hero, has his own dark history and issues. But characters have a habit of getting a life of their own, getting bigger than their authors intended. (Witness the famous example of Athur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.)

As the series draws to a close, the star of the show, is not Harry, who lives happily ever after. It is maligned and misunderstood Severus Snape, who left me spending most of the series wondering "is-he-good? is-he-bad?" and desperately hoping he would be redeemed. Each time Harry appeared popular or confident, Snape was crushingly reminded of Harry's father, James, who bullied Snape at school and who obtained the one thing that Snape cared about: Lily. The most difficult evil to conquer is the evil that resides inside yourself: Snape does this by protecting Harry, by the unrequited love he held for Lily that quenched his malice. His Patronus was a doe, like Lily's. She was his happiest memory and his protector too.

When Snape whispers "Look...at...me..." He sees Lily's gentleness in Harry's identical green eyes. Harry reciprocates this silent acknowledgment when he tells his kid, Albus Severus... "You were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts, one of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew." Harry had more in common with Snape than he ever knew. And perhaps I identify more with the Severus Snape's of the world than the dazzling Harry Potter's of this world.

The Harry Potter series is finished. It was magic, in every sense of the word.

A pirate I was meant to be!

En Garde! Touche!

Oh, that is so cliche.

So, one of the most normal things I did in Korea was watch "Pirates of the Caribbean 3" at Yawoori, our downtown cinema last Wednesday. With the lights dimmed and the sound blaring gloriously in English, I almost forgot I was in Korea. (You don't notice the Korean subtitles after a while..) Of course, after the movie, I had to fight my way through the droning Korean masses, and the illusion was shattered.

Now, I love pirates. I enjoyed the terror of reading "Treasure Island" as a child. I grew up playing Monkey Island. I even wrote a killer paper on "The Discourse of Piracy" in which I deconstructed pirate culture using Foucault and Derrida and other convoluted theorists.

I love Betsy's endless string of pirate jokes.

"What's a pirates favorite food?"

"B...arrr...beque" etc.

I love pirate insult sword fighting and pirate songs. When someone says to you: "You're as repulsive as a monkey in a negligee!", what bliss is there in quickly retorting: "I look that much like your fiancee?" I love talking like a pirate on "International Talk Like a Pirate Day." (remember - Sept 19!)

So I quite naturally embraced Captain Jack Sparrow and the rest of the undead pirates from the first two Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

So what was this one like? The consensus seems to be that it was written for someone with Attention Deficit Disorder: the plot changes every five minutes. After a while it doesn't matter who they are fighting, you just sit back and watch the pretty graphics and wait for the next punchline from Jack Sparrow. (Remember when Elizabeth says: "There will come a moment when you will have a chance to do the right thing." Sparrow responds: "I love those moment. I love to wave at them as they pass by.") But the script writers were remarkably inept, considering how much money and material they had at their disposal. Perhaps they just got a little carried away. (More fighting! More monsters! More twists in the plot!)

But was a soothing two and a half hours all the same. All the escapism I could wish for.

Hey, it was Pirates. There was no way it was going to be bad.