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Rurea posted:I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. The suit is actually just a prop; I don’t have to work today, and I have nowhere in particular that I need to be, other than outside of my house. I’ve got a large paper Starbucks cup filled to the top with a mixture of approximately 70% rum and 30% Coke. I have a nagging suspicion that the aged Korean pensioner sitting next to me has caught on to my act. I think he can smell the rum, so I turn away each time I take a swig and make every effort not to breath in his direction. It wasn’t always this way. It used to be more Coke than rum, but I suppose that is a different story. Perhaps the pensioner is staring at me because my hair is a mess. This day was particularly windy here in Seoul. That’s one of the things I miss actually; the sound of wind. There are lots of old oak trees in my home town, and during the autumn months you could hear the wind ripping through the oak trees –it sounded almost like running water passing over round stones in a shallow river bed. You could smell oak and cedar in the air, and touches of salt water. The smell of freshly cut grass, summer barbeques, and chimney smoke (remember those?). In downtown Seoul, the wind rips through the concrete office buildings, and the smell in the late evening? Well, I wouldn’t exactly describe it as ‘oak’ or ‘cedar’. I check my reflection in the glass screen of my cell phone, the battery having long since died. I’d get up and check my appearance in the restroom mirror, but there are groups of roving pensioners circling the plush benches like vultures. The instant I got up, a pensioner would snatch my spot on the bench. For many of Seoul’s elderly, the plush benches in an air-conditioned department store represent a pleasant change from what they would otherwise be doing on any given weekday afternoon. So no, I won’t be giving up my seat on the plush bench. At least not until I’ve finished my rum and Coke. This particular bench is in high demand due almost entirely to its positioning on the ground floor of the department store. It is from this bench that one has a clear, unobstructed view of women coming down the escalator. Imagine a conveyor belt that deposits women right at your feet every few seconds. I used to walk around whenever I wanted to people-watch, but now I’ve got it all figured out. No need to move at all, the escalator does all the moving –technology. The pensioner sitting next to me continues to glance over in my direction, without making any attempt to disguise his glances. Wait a minute; perhaps he is staring at me because he’s seen me here before. Perhaps we shared this bench last week as well. Perhaps we are former bench mates. I’ve become somewhat of a regular here, you see. I’ve always struggled to remember things that are not important, like the faces of the people I share department store benches with. Perhaps when I’m older, and nothing else matters, and life is winding down towards its eventual end-point, I’ll have a sharper memory for the inconsequential things that I currently ignore. Perhaps I’ll remember the faces of strangers. As the time passes, my pensioner benchmate and I watch as streams of women are delivered at our feet by the magical mechanical moving stairs. As a result of Korea’s plastic surgery epidemic, watching women come down the escalator gets a bit monotonous, as it feels like I’m seeing the same women come down time after time, only in different outfits. Wait, there’s one! She looks natural! I look up from my coffee cup. Paper-white skin, tall, cheek bones higher than her eyes, arms like long wet noodles. Sweet Mary mother of Joseph, she’s like an angel descending down the second floor escalator. And here I was, about to get up and leave. My interest has suddenly been renewed. I’m thinking I should call someone and share this brilliant experience, but my phone battery is dead, and all of my friends are at work anyway (sucks being an adult). I look over at my pensioner benchmate, but he is busy looking at the woman who just came down the elevator. She is probably several centimeters taller than he is, due to dietary differences between the older and younger generations. He looks at her, and then looks at me, and then says nothing. I have often wondered if people get quieter as they age because they have been disappointed by the human race so many times. And for most of us, not too many people show up at our death bed. All those years, all of that emotion, all of those hopes and dreams, all the reaching out; and no one shows up. It makes reaching out to others look like a fairly poor investment. You are unlikely to get much back. Maybe that is why it is so rare to find people who can be selflessly kind to strangers without any sort of hidden motivation. It represents risk-taking without any obvious payback. After staring at me for a moment, the pensioner slaps me on the knee and says “예쁘다!” (beautiful). He may not be a player anymore, but he knows quality when he sees it. He’s no longer a player, but he’ll always be an enthusiast. Our bodies, and energy and stamina wane with time, but enthusiasm is something we can all maintain until the end.
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May 1, 2015 01:40
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garthoneeye posted:I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. The suit is actually just a prop; I don’t have to work today, and I have nowhere in particular that I need to be, other than outside of my house. I’ve got a large paper Starbucks cup filled to the top with a mixture of approximately 70% rum and 30% Coke. I have a nagging suspicion that the aged Korean pensioner sitting next to me has caught on to my act. I think he can smell the rum, so I turn away each time I take a swig and make every effort not to breath in his direction. It wasn’t always this way. It used to be more Coke than rum, but I suppose that is a different story. Perhaps the pensioner is staring at me because my hair is a mess. This day was particularly windy here in Seoul. That’s one of the things I miss actually; the sound of wind. There are lots of old oak trees in my home town, and during the autumn months you could hear the wind ripping through the oak trees –it sounded almost like running water passing over round stones in a shallow river bed. You could smell oak and cedar in the air, and touches of salt water. The smell of freshly cut grass, summer barbeques, and chimney smoke (remember those?). In downtown Seoul, the wind rips through the concrete office buildings, and the smell in the late evening? Well, I wouldn’t exactly describe it as ‘oak’ or ‘cedar’. I check my reflection in the glass screen of my cell phone, the battery having long since died. I’d get up and check my appearance in the restroom mirror, but there are groups of roving pensioners circling the plush benches like vultures. The instant I got up, a pensioner would snatch my spot on the bench. For many of Seoul’s elderly, the plush benches in an air-conditioned department store represent a pleasant change from what they would otherwise be doing on any given weekday afternoon. So no, I won’t be giving up my seat on the plush bench. At least not until I’ve finished my rum and Coke. This particular bench is in high demand due almost entirely to its positioning on the ground floor of the department store. It is from this bench that one has a clear, unobstructed view of women coming down the escalator. Imagine a conveyor belt that deposits women right at your feet every few seconds. I used to walk around whenever I wanted to people-watch, but now I’ve got it all figured out. No need to move at all, the escalator does all the moving –technology. The pensioner sitting next to me continues to glance over in my direction, without making any attempt to disguise his glances. Wait a minute; perhaps he is staring at me because he’s seen me here before. Perhaps we shared this bench last week as well. Perhaps we are former bench mates. I’ve become somewhat of a regular here, you see. I’ve always struggled to remember things that are not important, like the faces of the people I share department store benches with. Perhaps when I’m older, and nothing else matters, and life is winding down towards its eventual end-point, I’ll have a sharper memory for the inconsequential things that I currently ignore. Perhaps I’ll remember the faces of strangers. As the time passes, my pensioner benchmate and I watch as streams of women are delivered at our feet by the magical mechanical moving stairs. As a result of Korea’s plastic surgery epidemic, watching women come down the escalator gets a bit monotonous, as it feels like I’m seeing the same women come down time after time, only in different outfits. Wait, there’s one! She looks natural! I look up from my coffee cup. Paper-white skin, tall, cheek bones higher than her eyes, arms like long wet noodles. Sweet Mary mother of Joseph, she’s like an angel descending down the second floor escalator. And here I was, about to get up and leave. My interest has suddenly been renewed. I’m thinking I should call someone and share this brilliant experience, but my phone battery is dead, and all of my friends are at work anyway (sucks being an adult). I look over at my pensioner benchmate, but he is busy looking at the woman who just came down the elevator. She is probably several centimeters taller than he is, due to dietary differences between the older and younger generations. He looks at her, and then looks at me, and then says nothing. I have often wondered if people get quieter as they age because they have been disappointed by the human race so many times. And for most of us, not too many people show up at our death bed. All those years, all of that emotion, all of those hopes and dreams, all the reaching out; and no one shows up. It makes reaching out to others look like a fairly poor investment. You are unlikely to get much back. Maybe that is why it is so rare to find people who can be selflessly kind to strangers without any sort of hidden motivation. It represents risk-taking without any obvious payback. After staring at me for a moment, the pensioner slaps me on the knee and says “예쁘다!” (beautiful). He may not be a player anymore, but he knows quality when he sees it. He’s no longer a player, but he’ll always be an enthusiast. Our bodies, and energy and stamina wane with time, but enthusiasm is something we can all maintain until the end. Perhaps he’s got a cranky old wife at home, 할머니 tits hanging past her belt, who gets on his case about money, and soju, and cleaning the house, and smoking, and “Why do I always have to wash the goddamned dishes?” He and I are not players, but we are actors on the same stage, at the same point in time.
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May 1, 2015 01:41
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DoggPickle posted:I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. The suit is actually just a prop; I don’t have to work today, and I have nowhere in particular that I need to be, other than outside of my house. I’ve got a large paper Starbucks cup filled to the top with a mixture of approximately 70% rum and 30% Coke. I have a nagging suspicion that the aged Korean pensioner sitting next to me has caught on to my act. I think he can smell the rum, so I turn away each time I take a swig and make every effort not to breath in his direction. It wasn’t always this way. It used to be more Coke than rum, but I suppose that is a different story. Perhaps the pensioner is staring at me because my hair is a mess. This day was particularly windy here in Seoul. That’s one of the things I miss actually; the sound of wind. There are lots of old oak trees in my home town, and during the autumn months you could hear the wind ripping through the oak trees –it sounded almost like running water passing over round stones in a shallow river bed. You could smell oak and cedar in the air, and touches of salt water. The smell of freshly cut grass, summer barbeques, and chimney smoke (remember those?). In downtown Seoul, the wind rips through the concrete office buildings, and the smell in the late evening? Well, I wouldn’t exactly describe it as ‘oak’ or ‘cedar’. I check my reflection in the glass screen of my cell phone, the battery having long since died. I’d get up and check my appearance in the restroom mirror, but there are groups of roving pensioners circling the plush benches like vultures. The instant I got up, a pensioner would snatch my spot on the bench. For many of Seoul’s elderly, the plush benches in an air-conditioned department store represent a pleasant change from what they would otherwise be doing on any given weekday afternoon. So no, I won’t be giving up my seat on the plush bench. At least not until I’ve finished my rum and Coke. This particular bench is in high demand due almost entirely to its positioning on the ground floor of the department store. It is from this bench that one has a clear, unobstructed view of women coming down the escalator. Imagine a conveyor belt that deposits women right at your feet every few seconds. I used to walk around whenever I wanted to people-watch, but now I’ve got it all figured out. No need to move at all, the escalator does all the moving –technology. The pensioner sitting next to me continues to glance over in my direction, without making any attempt to disguise his glances. Wait a minute; perhaps he is staring at me because he’s seen me here before. Perhaps we shared this bench last week as well. Perhaps we are former bench mates. I’ve become somewhat of a regular here, you see. I’ve always struggled to remember things that are not important, like the faces of the people I share department store benches with. Perhaps when I’m older, and nothing else matters, and life is winding down towards its eventual end-point, I’ll have a sharper memory for the inconsequential things that I currently ignore. Perhaps I’ll remember the faces of strangers. As the time passes, my pensioner benchmate and I watch as streams of women are delivered at our feet by the magical mechanical moving stairs. As a result of Korea’s plastic surgery epidemic, watching women come down the escalator gets a bit monotonous, as it feels like I’m seeing the same women come down time after time, only in different outfits. Wait, there’s one! She looks natural! I look up from my coffee cup. Paper-white skin, tall, cheek bones higher than her eyes, arms like long wet noodles. Sweet Mary mother of Joseph, she’s like an angel descending down the second floor escalator. And here I was, about to get up and leave. My interest has suddenly been renewed. I’m thinking I should call someone and share this brilliant experience, but my phone battery is dead, and all of my friends are at work anyway (sucks being an adult). I look over at my pensioner benchmate, but he is busy looking at the woman who just came down the elevator. She is probably several centimeters taller than he is, due to dietary differences between the older and younger generations. He looks at her, and then looks at me, and then says nothing. I have often wondered if people get quieter as they age because they have been disappointed by the human race so many times. And for most of us, not too many people show up at our death bed. All those years, all of that emotion, all of those hopes and dreams, all the reaching out; and no one shows up. It makes reaching out to others look like a fairly poor investment. You are unlikely to get much back. Maybe that is why it is so rare to find people who can be selflessly kind to strangers without any sort of hidden motivation. It represents risk-taking without any obvious payback. After staring at me for a moment, the pensioner slaps me on the knee and says “예쁘다!” (beautiful). He may not be a player anymore, but he knows quality when he sees it. He’s no longer a player, but he’ll always be an enthusiast. Our bodies, and energy and stamina wane with time, but enthusiasm is something we can all maintain until the end. Perhaps he’s got a cranky old wife at home, 할머니 tits hanging past her belt, who gets on his case about money, and soju, and cleaning the house, and smoking, and “Why do I always have to wash the goddamned dishes?” He and I are not players, but we are actors on the same stage, at the same point in time. Many, many years ago, before I set foot in Korea, I had a beautiful girlfriend just like the one who came down the escalator. She never really had much to say, but she was gorgeous. I assumed that she was quiet and reserved because she was ‘deep’.
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May 1, 2015 01:41
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Rurea posted:I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. The suit is actually just a prop; I don’t have to work today, and I have nowhere in particular that I need to be, other than outside of my house. I’ve got a large paper Starbucks cup filled to the top with a mixture of approximately 70% rum and 30% Coke. I have a nagging suspicion that the aged Korean pensioner sitting next to me has caught on to my act. I think he can smell the rum, so I turn away each time I take a swig and make every effort not to breath in his direction. It wasn’t always this way. It used to be more Coke than rum, but I suppose that is a different story. Perhaps the pensioner is staring at me because my hair is a mess. This day was particularly windy here in Seoul. That’s one of the things I miss actually; the sound of wind. There are lots of old oak trees in my home town, and during the autumn months you could hear the wind ripping through the oak trees –it sounded almost like running water passing over round stones in a shallow river bed. You could smell oak and cedar in the air, and touches of salt water. The smell of freshly cut grass, summer barbeques, and chimney smoke (remember those?). In downtown Seoul, the wind rips through the concrete office buildings, and the smell in the late evening? Well, I wouldn’t exactly describe it as ‘oak’ or ‘cedar’. I check my reflection in the glass screen of my cell phone, the battery having long since died. I’d get up and check my appearance in the restroom mirror, but there are groups of roving pensioners circling the plush benches like vultures. The instant I got up, a pensioner would snatch my spot on the bench. For many of Seoul’s elderly, the plush benches in an air-conditioned department store represent a pleasant change from what they would otherwise be doing on any given weekday afternoon. So no, I won’t be giving up my seat on the plush bench. At least not until I’ve finished my rum and Coke. This particular bench is in high demand due almost entirely to its positioning on the ground floor of the department store. It is from this bench that one has a clear, unobstructed view of women coming down the escalator. Imagine a conveyor belt that deposits women right at your feet every few seconds. I used to walk around whenever I wanted to people-watch, but now I’ve got it all figured out. No need to move at all, the escalator does all the moving –technology. The pensioner sitting next to me continues to glance over in my direction, without making any attempt to disguise his glances. Wait a minute; perhaps he is staring at me because he’s seen me here before. Perhaps we shared this bench last week as well. Perhaps we are former bench mates. I’ve become somewhat of a regular here, you see. I’ve always struggled to remember things that are not important, like the faces of the people I share department store benches with. Perhaps when I’m older, and nothing else matters, and life is winding down towards its eventual end-point, I’ll have a sharper memory for the inconsequential things that I currently ignore. Perhaps I’ll remember the faces of strangers. As the time passes, my pensioner benchmate and I watch as streams of women are delivered at our feet by the magical mechanical moving stairs. As a result of Korea’s plastic surgery epidemic, watching women come down the escalator gets a bit monotonous, as it feels like I’m seeing the same women come down time after time, only in different outfits. Wait, there’s one! She looks natural! I look up from my coffee cup. Paper-white skin, tall, cheek bones higher than her eyes, arms like long wet noodles. Sweet Mary mother of Joseph, she’s like an angel descending down the second floor escalator. And here I was, about to get up and leave. My interest has suddenly been renewed. I’m thinking I should call someone and share this brilliant experience, but my phone battery is dead, and all of my friends are at work anyway (sucks being an adult). I look over at my pensioner benchmate, but he is busy looking at the woman who just came down the elevator. She is probably several centimeters taller than he is, due to dietary differences between the older and younger generations. He looks at her, and then looks at me, and then says nothing. I have often wondered if people get quieter as they age because they have been disappointed by the human race so many times. And for most of us, not too many people show up at our death bed. All those years, all of that emotion, all of those hopes and dreams, all the reaching out; and no one shows up. It makes reaching out to others look like a fairly poor investment. You are unlikely to get much back. Maybe that is why it is so rare to find people who can be selflessly kind to strangers without any sort of hidden motivation. It represents risk-taking without any obvious payback. After staring at me for a moment, the pensioner slaps me on the knee and says “예쁘다!” (beautiful). He may not be a player anymore, but he knows quality when he sees it. He’s no longer a player, but he’ll always be an enthusiast. Our bodies, and energy and stamina wane with time, but enthusiasm is something we can all maintain until the end. Perhaps he’s got a cranky old wife at home, 할머니 tits hanging past her belt, who gets on his case about money, and soju, and cleaning the house, and smoking, and “Why do I always have to wash the goddamned dishes?” He and I are not players, but we are actors on the same stage, at the same point in time. Many, many years ago, before I set foot in Korea, I had a beautiful girlfriend just like the one who came down the escalator. She never really had much to say, but she was gorgeous. I assumed that she was quiet and reserved because she was ‘deep’. Perhaps there was character there, somewhere. Maybe she was the ‘one’. After time, I realized that she was not ‘deep’ – she was just a stupid, vapid, aimless drifter with hardly any brain activity at all.
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May 1, 2015 01:41
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garthoneeye posted:I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. The suit is actually just a prop; I don’t have to work today, and I have nowhere in particular that I need to be, other than outside of my house. I’ve got a large paper Starbucks cup filled to the top with a mixture of approximately 70% rum and 30% Coke. I have a nagging suspicion that the aged Korean pensioner sitting next to me has caught on to my act. I think he can smell the rum, so I turn away each time I take a swig and make every effort not to breath in his direction. It wasn’t always this way. It used to be more Coke than rum, but I suppose that is a different story. Perhaps the pensioner is staring at me because my hair is a mess. This day was particularly windy here in Seoul. That’s one of the things I miss actually; the sound of wind. There are lots of old oak trees in my home town, and during the autumn months you could hear the wind ripping through the oak trees –it sounded almost like running water passing over round stones in a shallow river bed. You could smell oak and cedar in the air, and touches of salt water. The smell of freshly cut grass, summer barbeques, and chimney smoke (remember those?). In downtown Seoul, the wind rips through the concrete office buildings, and the smell in the late evening? Well, I wouldn’t exactly describe it as ‘oak’ or ‘cedar’. I check my reflection in the glass screen of my cell phone, the battery having long since died. I’d get up and check my appearance in the restroom mirror, but there are groups of roving pensioners circling the plush benches like vultures. The instant I got up, a pensioner would snatch my spot on the bench. For many of Seoul’s elderly, the plush benches in an air-conditioned department store represent a pleasant change from what they would otherwise be doing on any given weekday afternoon. So no, I won’t be giving up my seat on the plush bench. At least not until I’ve finished my rum and Coke. This particular bench is in high demand due almost entirely to its positioning on the ground floor of the department store. It is from this bench that one has a clear, unobstructed view of women coming down the escalator. Imagine a conveyor belt that deposits women right at your feet every few seconds. I used to walk around whenever I wanted to people-watch, but now I’ve got it all figured out. No need to move at all, the escalator does all the moving –technology. The pensioner sitting next to me continues to glance over in my direction, without making any attempt to disguise his glances. Wait a minute; perhaps he is staring at me because he’s seen me here before. Perhaps we shared this bench last week as well. Perhaps we are former bench mates. I’ve become somewhat of a regular here, you see. I’ve always struggled to remember things that are not important, like the faces of the people I share department store benches with. Perhaps when I’m older, and nothing else matters, and life is winding down towards its eventual end-point, I’ll have a sharper memory for the inconsequential things that I currently ignore. Perhaps I’ll remember the faces of strangers. As the time passes, my pensioner benchmate and I watch as streams of women are delivered at our feet by the magical mechanical moving stairs. As a result of Korea’s plastic surgery epidemic, watching women come down the escalator gets a bit monotonous, as it feels like I’m seeing the same women come down time after time, only in different outfits. Wait, there’s one! She looks natural! I look up from my coffee cup. Paper-white skin, tall, cheek bones higher than her eyes, arms like long wet noodles. Sweet Mary mother of Joseph, she’s like an angel descending down the second floor escalator. And here I was, about to get up and leave. My interest has suddenly been renewed. I’m thinking I should call someone and share this brilliant experience, but my phone battery is dead, and all of my friends are at work anyway (sucks being an adult). I look over at my pensioner benchmate, but he is busy looking at the woman who just came down the elevator. She is probably several centimeters taller than he is, due to dietary differences between the older and younger generations. He looks at her, and then looks at me, and then says nothing. I have often wondered if people get quieter as they age because they have been disappointed by the human race so many times. And for most of us, not too many people show up at our death bed. All those years, all of that emotion, all of those hopes and dreams, all the reaching out; and no one shows up. It makes reaching out to others look like a fairly poor investment. You are unlikely to get much back. Maybe that is why it is so rare to find people who can be selflessly kind to strangers without any sort of hidden motivation. It represents risk-taking without any obvious payback. After staring at me for a moment, the pensioner slaps me on the knee and says “예쁘다!” (beautiful). He may not be a player anymore, but he knows quality when he sees it. He’s no longer a player, but he’ll always be an enthusiast. Our bodies, and energy and stamina wane with time, but enthusiasm is something we can all maintain until the end. Perhaps he’s got a cranky old wife at home, 할머니 tits hanging past her belt, who gets on his case about money, and soju, and cleaning the house, and smoking, and “Why do I always have to wash the goddamned dishes?” He and I are not players, but we are actors on the same stage, at the same point in time. Many, many years ago, before I set foot in Korea, I had a beautiful girlfriend just like the one who came down the escalator. She never really had much to say, but she was gorgeous. I assumed that she was quiet and reserved because she was ‘deep’. Perhaps there was character there, somewhere. Maybe she was the ‘one’. After time, I realized that she was not ‘deep’ – she was just a stupid, vapid, aimless drifter with hardly any brain activity at all. But I liked her. I’ll never know why.
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May 1, 2015 01:41
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DoggPickle posted:I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. The suit is actually just a prop; I don’t have to work today, and I have nowhere in particular that I need to be, other than outside of my house. I’ve got a large paper Starbucks cup filled to the top with a mixture of approximately 70% rum and 30% Coke. I have a nagging suspicion that the aged Korean pensioner sitting next to me has caught on to my act. I think he can smell the rum, so I turn away each time I take a swig and make every effort not to breath in his direction. It wasn’t always this way. It used to be more Coke than rum, but I suppose that is a different story. Perhaps the pensioner is staring at me because my hair is a mess. This day was particularly windy here in Seoul. That’s one of the things I miss actually; the sound of wind. There are lots of old oak trees in my home town, and during the autumn months you could hear the wind ripping through the oak trees –it sounded almost like running water passing over round stones in a shallow river bed. You could smell oak and cedar in the air, and touches of salt water. The smell of freshly cut grass, summer barbeques, and chimney smoke (remember those?). In downtown Seoul, the wind rips through the concrete office buildings, and the smell in the late evening? Well, I wouldn’t exactly describe it as ‘oak’ or ‘cedar’. I check my reflection in the glass screen of my cell phone, the battery having long since died. I’d get up and check my appearance in the restroom mirror, but there are groups of roving pensioners circling the plush benches like vultures. The instant I got up, a pensioner would snatch my spot on the bench. For many of Seoul’s elderly, the plush benches in an air-conditioned department store represent a pleasant change from what they would otherwise be doing on any given weekday afternoon. So no, I won’t be giving up my seat on the plush bench. At least not until I’ve finished my rum and Coke. This particular bench is in high demand due almost entirely to its positioning on the ground floor of the department store. It is from this bench that one has a clear, unobstructed view of women coming down the escalator. Imagine a conveyor belt that deposits women right at your feet every few seconds. I used to walk around whenever I wanted to people-watch, but now I’ve got it all figured out. No need to move at all, the escalator does all the moving –technology. The pensioner sitting next to me continues to glance over in my direction, without making any attempt to disguise his glances. Wait a minute; perhaps he is staring at me because he’s seen me here before. Perhaps we shared this bench last week as well. Perhaps we are former bench mates. I’ve become somewhat of a regular here, you see. I’ve always struggled to remember things that are not important, like the faces of the people I share department store benches with. Perhaps when I’m older, and nothing else matters, and life is winding down towards its eventual end-point, I’ll have a sharper memory for the inconsequential things that I currently ignore. Perhaps I’ll remember the faces of strangers. As the time passes, my pensioner benchmate and I watch as streams of women are delivered at our feet by the magical mechanical moving stairs. As a result of Korea’s plastic surgery epidemic, watching women come down the escalator gets a bit monotonous, as it feels like I’m seeing the same women come down time after time, only in different outfits. Wait, there’s one! She looks natural! I look up from my coffee cup. Paper-white skin, tall, cheek bones higher than her eyes, arms like long wet noodles. Sweet Mary mother of Joseph, she’s like an angel descending down the second floor escalator. And here I was, about to get up and leave. My interest has suddenly been renewed. I’m thinking I should call someone and share this brilliant experience, but my phone battery is dead, and all of my friends are at work anyway (sucks being an adult). I look over at my pensioner benchmate, but he is busy looking at the woman who just came down the elevator. She is probably several centimeters taller than he is, due to dietary differences between the older and younger generations. He looks at her, and then looks at me, and then says nothing. I have often wondered if people get quieter as they age because they have been disappointed by the human race so many times. And for most of us, not too many people show up at our death bed. All those years, all of that emotion, all of those hopes and dreams, all the reaching out; and no one shows up. It makes reaching out to others look like a fairly poor investment. You are unlikely to get much back. Maybe that is why it is so rare to find people who can be selflessly kind to strangers without any sort of hidden motivation. It represents risk-taking without any obvious payback. After staring at me for a moment, the pensioner slaps me on the knee and says “예쁘다!” (beautiful). He may not be a player anymore, but he knows quality when he sees it. He’s no longer a player, but he’ll always be an enthusiast. Our bodies, and energy and stamina wane with time, but enthusiasm is something we can all maintain until the end. Perhaps he’s got a cranky old wife at home, 할머니 tits hanging past her belt, who gets on his case about money, and soju, and cleaning the house, and smoking, and “Why do I always have to wash the goddamned dishes?” He and I are not players, but we are actors on the same stage, at the same point in time. Many, many years ago, before I set foot in Korea, I had a beautiful girlfriend just like the one who came down the escalator. She never really had much to say, but she was gorgeous. I assumed that she was quiet and reserved because she was ‘deep’. Perhaps there was character there, somewhere. Maybe she was the ‘one’. After time, I realized that she was not ‘deep’ – she was just a stupid, vapid, aimless drifter with hardly any brain activity at all. But I liked her. I’ll never know why. The pensioner sitting next to me probably has several decades of knowledge to impart on a younger person such as myself. From time to time, in situations like this, I wished I'd spoke Korean well.
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May 1, 2015 01:41
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Rurea posted:I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. The suit is actually just a prop; I don’t have to work today, and I have nowhere in particular that I need to be, other than outside of my house. I’ve got a large paper Starbucks cup filled to the top with a mixture of approximately 70% rum and 30% Coke. I have a nagging suspicion that the aged Korean pensioner sitting next to me has caught on to my act. I think he can smell the rum, so I turn away each time I take a swig and make every effort not to breath in his direction. It wasn’t always this way. It used to be more Coke than rum, but I suppose that is a different story. Perhaps the pensioner is staring at me because my hair is a mess. This day was particularly windy here in Seoul. That’s one of the things I miss actually; the sound of wind. There are lots of old oak trees in my home town, and during the autumn months you could hear the wind ripping through the oak trees –it sounded almost like running water passing over round stones in a shallow river bed. You could smell oak and cedar in the air, and touches of salt water. The smell of freshly cut grass, summer barbeques, and chimney smoke (remember those?). In downtown Seoul, the wind rips through the concrete office buildings, and the smell in the late evening? Well, I wouldn’t exactly describe it as ‘oak’ or ‘cedar’. I check my reflection in the glass screen of my cell phone, the battery having long since died. I’d get up and check my appearance in the restroom mirror, but there are groups of roving pensioners circling the plush benches like vultures. The instant I got up, a pensioner would snatch my spot on the bench. For many of Seoul’s elderly, the plush benches in an air-conditioned department store represent a pleasant change from what they would otherwise be doing on any given weekday afternoon. So no, I won’t be giving up my seat on the plush bench. At least not until I’ve finished my rum and Coke. This particular bench is in high demand due almost entirely to its positioning on the ground floor of the department store. It is from this bench that one has a clear, unobstructed view of women coming down the escalator. Imagine a conveyor belt that deposits women right at your feet every few seconds. I used to walk around whenever I wanted to people-watch, but now I’ve got it all figured out. No need to move at all, the escalator does all the moving –technology. The pensioner sitting next to me continues to glance over in my direction, without making any attempt to disguise his glances. Wait a minute; perhaps he is staring at me because he’s seen me here before. Perhaps we shared this bench last week as well. Perhaps we are former bench mates. I’ve become somewhat of a regular here, you see. I’ve always struggled to remember things that are not important, like the faces of the people I share department store benches with. Perhaps when I’m older, and nothing else matters, and life is winding down towards its eventual end-point, I’ll have a sharper memory for the inconsequential things that I currently ignore. Perhaps I’ll remember the faces of strangers. As the time passes, my pensioner benchmate and I watch as streams of women are delivered at our feet by the magical mechanical moving stairs. As a result of Korea’s plastic surgery epidemic, watching women come down the escalator gets a bit monotonous, as it feels like I’m seeing the same women come down time after time, only in different outfits. Wait, there’s one! She looks natural! I look up from my coffee cup. Paper-white skin, tall, cheek bones higher than her eyes, arms like long wet noodles. Sweet Mary mother of Joseph, she’s like an angel descending down the second floor escalator. And here I was, about to get up and leave. My interest has suddenly been renewed. I’m thinking I should call someone and share this brilliant experience, but my phone battery is dead, and all of my friends are at work anyway (sucks being an adult). I look over at my pensioner benchmate, but he is busy looking at the woman who just came down the elevator. She is probably several centimeters taller than he is, due to dietary differences between the older and younger generations. He looks at her, and then looks at me, and then says nothing. I have often wondered if people get quieter as they age because they have been disappointed by the human race so many times. And for most of us, not too many people show up at our death bed. All those years, all of that emotion, all of those hopes and dreams, all the reaching out; and no one shows up. It makes reaching out to others look like a fairly poor investment. You are unlikely to get much back. Maybe that is why it is so rare to find people who can be selflessly kind to strangers without any sort of hidden motivation. It represents risk-taking without any obvious payback. After staring at me for a moment, the pensioner slaps me on the knee and says “예쁘다!” (beautiful). He may not be a player anymore, but he knows quality when he sees it. He’s no longer a player, but he’ll always be an enthusiast. Our bodies, and energy and stamina wane with time, but enthusiasm is something we can all maintain until the end. Perhaps he’s got a cranky old wife at home, 할머니 tits hanging past her belt, who gets on his case about money, and soju, and cleaning the house, and smoking, and “Why do I always have to wash the goddamned dishes?” He and I are not players, but we are actors on the same stage, at the same point in time. Many, many years ago, before I set foot in Korea, I had a beautiful girlfriend just like the one who came down the escalator. She never really had much to say, but she was gorgeous. I assumed that she was quiet and reserved because she was ‘deep’. Perhaps there was character there, somewhere. Maybe she was the ‘one’. After time, I realized that she was not ‘deep’ – she was just a stupid, vapid, aimless drifter with hardly any brain activity at all. But I liked her. I’ll never know why. The pensioner sitting next to me probably has several decades of knowledge to impart on a younger person such as myself. From time to time, in situations like this, I wished I'd spoke Korean well. We are two men sitting on a department store bench, sharing the sight of a beautiful woman.
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May 1, 2015 01:42
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garthoneeye posted:I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. The suit is actually just a prop; I don’t have to work today, and I have nowhere in particular that I need to be, other than outside of my house. I’ve got a large paper Starbucks cup filled to the top with a mixture of approximately 70% rum and 30% Coke. I have a nagging suspicion that the aged Korean pensioner sitting next to me has caught on to my act. I think he can smell the rum, so I turn away each time I take a swig and make every effort not to breath in his direction. It wasn’t always this way. It used to be more Coke than rum, but I suppose that is a different story. Perhaps the pensioner is staring at me because my hair is a mess. This day was particularly windy here in Seoul. That’s one of the things I miss actually; the sound of wind. There are lots of old oak trees in my home town, and during the autumn months you could hear the wind ripping through the oak trees –it sounded almost like running water passing over round stones in a shallow river bed. You could smell oak and cedar in the air, and touches of salt water. The smell of freshly cut grass, summer barbeques, and chimney smoke (remember those?). In downtown Seoul, the wind rips through the concrete office buildings, and the smell in the late evening? Well, I wouldn’t exactly describe it as ‘oak’ or ‘cedar’. I check my reflection in the glass screen of my cell phone, the battery having long since died. I’d get up and check my appearance in the restroom mirror, but there are groups of roving pensioners circling the plush benches like vultures. The instant I got up, a pensioner would snatch my spot on the bench. For many of Seoul’s elderly, the plush benches in an air-conditioned department store represent a pleasant change from what they would otherwise be doing on any given weekday afternoon. So no, I won’t be giving up my seat on the plush bench. At least not until I’ve finished my rum and Coke. This particular bench is in high demand due almost entirely to its positioning on the ground floor of the department store. It is from this bench that one has a clear, unobstructed view of women coming down the escalator. Imagine a conveyor belt that deposits women right at your feet every few seconds. I used to walk around whenever I wanted to people-watch, but now I’ve got it all figured out. No need to move at all, the escalator does all the moving –technology. The pensioner sitting next to me continues to glance over in my direction, without making any attempt to disguise his glances. Wait a minute; perhaps he is staring at me because he’s seen me here before. Perhaps we shared this bench last week as well. Perhaps we are former bench mates. I’ve become somewhat of a regular here, you see. I’ve always struggled to remember things that are not important, like the faces of the people I share department store benches with. Perhaps when I’m older, and nothing else matters, and life is winding down towards its eventual end-point, I’ll have a sharper memory for the inconsequential things that I currently ignore. Perhaps I’ll remember the faces of strangers. As the time passes, my pensioner benchmate and I watch as streams of women are delivered at our feet by the magical mechanical moving stairs. As a result of Korea’s plastic surgery epidemic, watching women come down the escalator gets a bit monotonous, as it feels like I’m seeing the same women come down time after time, only in different outfits. Wait, there’s one! She looks natural! I look up from my coffee cup. Paper-white skin, tall, cheek bones higher than her eyes, arms like long wet noodles. Sweet Mary mother of Joseph, she’s like an angel descending down the second floor escalator. And here I was, about to get up and leave. My interest has suddenly been renewed. I’m thinking I should call someone and share this brilliant experience, but my phone battery is dead, and all of my friends are at work anyway (sucks being an adult). I look over at my pensioner benchmate, but he is busy looking at the woman who just came down the elevator. She is probably several centimeters taller than he is, due to dietary differences between the older and younger generations. He looks at her, and then looks at me, and then says nothing. I have often wondered if people get quieter as they age because they have been disappointed by the human race so many times. And for most of us, not too many people show up at our death bed. All those years, all of that emotion, all of those hopes and dreams, all the reaching out; and no one shows up. It makes reaching out to others look like a fairly poor investment. You are unlikely to get much back. Maybe that is why it is so rare to find people who can be selflessly kind to strangers without any sort of hidden motivation. It represents risk-taking without any obvious payback. After staring at me for a moment, the pensioner slaps me on the knee and says “예쁘다!” (beautiful). He may not be a player anymore, but he knows quality when he sees it. He’s no longer a player, but he’ll always be an enthusiast. Our bodies, and energy and stamina wane with time, but enthusiasm is something we can all maintain until the end. Perhaps he’s got a cranky old wife at home, 할머니 tits hanging past her belt, who gets on his case about money, and soju, and cleaning the house, and smoking, and “Why do I always have to wash the goddamned dishes?” He and I are not players, but we are actors on the same stage, at the same point in time. Many, many years ago, before I set foot in Korea, I had a beautiful girlfriend just like the one who came down the escalator. She never really had much to say, but she was gorgeous. I assumed that she was quiet and reserved because she was ‘deep’. Perhaps there was character there, somewhere. Maybe she was the ‘one’. After time, I realized that she was not ‘deep’ – she was just a stupid, vapid, aimless drifter with hardly any brain activity at all. But I liked her. I’ll never know why. The pensioner sitting next to me probably has several decades of knowledge to impart on a younger person such as myself. From time to time, in situations like this, I wished I'd spoke Korean well. We are two men sitting on a department store bench, sharing the sight of a beautiful woman. We are like two old fishermen staring at the night lights of a luxury oceanliner as it passes us by. The pensioner has stories to tell, and I have stories to tell, but neither of us can communicate with the other. What a shame.
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May 1, 2015 01:42
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DoggPickle posted:I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. The suit is actually just a prop; I don’t have to work today, and I have nowhere in particular that I need to be, other than outside of my house. I’ve got a large paper Starbucks cup filled to the top with a mixture of approximately 70% rum and 30% Coke. I have a nagging suspicion that the aged Korean pensioner sitting next to me has caught on to my act. I think he can smell the rum, so I turn away each time I take a swig and make every effort not to breath in his direction. It wasn’t always this way. It used to be more Coke than rum, but I suppose that is a different story. Perhaps the pensioner is staring at me because my hair is a mess. This day was particularly windy here in Seoul. That’s one of the things I miss actually; the sound of wind. There are lots of old oak trees in my home town, and during the autumn months you could hear the wind ripping through the oak trees –it sounded almost like running water passing over round stones in a shallow river bed. You could smell oak and cedar in the air, and touches of salt water. The smell of freshly cut grass, summer barbeques, and chimney smoke (remember those?). In downtown Seoul, the wind rips through the concrete office buildings, and the smell in the late evening? Well, I wouldn’t exactly describe it as ‘oak’ or ‘cedar’. I check my reflection in the glass screen of my cell phone, the battery having long since died. I’d get up and check my appearance in the restroom mirror, but there are groups of roving pensioners circling the plush benches like vultures. The instant I got up, a pensioner would snatch my spot on the bench. For many of Seoul’s elderly, the plush benches in an air-conditioned department store represent a pleasant change from what they would otherwise be doing on any given weekday afternoon. So no, I won’t be giving up my seat on the plush bench. At least not until I’ve finished my rum and Coke. This particular bench is in high demand due almost entirely to its positioning on the ground floor of the department store. It is from this bench that one has a clear, unobstructed view of women coming down the escalator. Imagine a conveyor belt that deposits women right at your feet every few seconds. I used to walk around whenever I wanted to people-watch, but now I’ve got it all figured out. No need to move at all, the escalator does all the moving –technology. The pensioner sitting next to me continues to glance over in my direction, without making any attempt to disguise his glances. Wait a minute; perhaps he is staring at me because he’s seen me here before. Perhaps we shared this bench last week as well. Perhaps we are former bench mates. I’ve become somewhat of a regular here, you see. I’ve always struggled to remember things that are not important, like the faces of the people I share department store benches with. Perhaps when I’m older, and nothing else matters, and life is winding down towards its eventual end-point, I’ll have a sharper memory for the inconsequential things that I currently ignore. Perhaps I’ll remember the faces of strangers. As the time passes, my pensioner benchmate and I watch as streams of women are delivered at our feet by the magical mechanical moving stairs. As a result of Korea’s plastic surgery epidemic, watching women come down the escalator gets a bit monotonous, as it feels like I’m seeing the same women come down time after time, only in different outfits. Wait, there’s one! She looks natural! I look up from my coffee cup. Paper-white skin, tall, cheek bones higher than her eyes, arms like long wet noodles. Sweet Mary mother of Joseph, she’s like an angel descending down the second floor escalator. And here I was, about to get up and leave. My interest has suddenly been renewed. I’m thinking I should call someone and share this brilliant experience, but my phone battery is dead, and all of my friends are at work anyway (sucks being an adult). I look over at my pensioner benchmate, but he is busy looking at the woman who just came down the elevator. She is probably several centimeters taller than he is, due to dietary differences between the older and younger generations. He looks at her, and then looks at me, and then says nothing. I have often wondered if people get quieter as they age because they have been disappointed by the human race so many times. And for most of us, not too many people show up at our death bed. All those years, all of that emotion, all of those hopes and dreams, all the reaching out; and no one shows up. It makes reaching out to others look like a fairly poor investment. You are unlikely to get much back. Maybe that is why it is so rare to find people who can be selflessly kind to strangers without any sort of hidden motivation. It represents risk-taking without any obvious payback. After staring at me for a moment, the pensioner slaps me on the knee and says “예쁘다!” (beautiful). He may not be a player anymore, but he knows quality when he sees it. He’s no longer a player, but he’ll always be an enthusiast. Our bodies, and energy and stamina wane with time, but enthusiasm is something we can all maintain until the end. Perhaps he’s got a cranky old wife at home, 할머니 tits hanging past her belt, who gets on his case about money, and soju, and cleaning the house, and smoking, and “Why do I always have to wash the goddamned dishes?” He and I are not players, but we are actors on the same stage, at the same point in time. Many, many years ago, before I set foot in Korea, I had a beautiful girlfriend just like the one who came down the escalator. She never really had much to say, but she was gorgeous. I assumed that she was quiet and reserved because she was ‘deep’. Perhaps there was character there, somewhere. Maybe she was the ‘one’. After time, I realized that she was not ‘deep’ – she was just a stupid, vapid, aimless drifter with hardly any brain activity at all. But I liked her. I’ll never know why. The pensioner sitting next to me probably has several decades of knowledge to impart on a younger person such as myself. From time to time, in situations like this, I wished I'd spoke Korean well. We are two men sitting on a department store bench, sharing the sight of a beautiful woman. We are like two old fishermen staring at the night lights of a luxury oceanliner as it passes us by. The pensioner has stories to tell, and I have stories to tell, but neither of us can communicate with the other. What a shame. A decade from now, I’ll probably still be coming here, to this same bench. My benchmate having long since passed away, the rum and coke having been replaced by straight soju, and the tailored suit no longer fitting like it used to. In life, it’s important to realize what makes you happy, and to chase it.
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May 1, 2015 01:42
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Rurea posted:I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. I’m sitting on the bench across from the escalators in the Shinsegae department store on a weekday afternoon. I’m wearing a dark navy, tailored two button suit with notched lapels. I’m wearing a dark blue tie with subtle, diagonal white stripes against a fine grid checked navy blue and white shirt. The suit is actually just a prop; I don’t have to work today, and I have nowhere in particular that I need to be, other than outside of my house. I’ve got a large paper Starbucks cup filled to the top with a mixture of approximately 70% rum and 30% Coke. I have a nagging suspicion that the aged Korean pensioner sitting next to me has caught on to my act. I think he can smell the rum, so I turn away each time I take a swig and make every effort not to breath in his direction. It wasn’t always this way. It used to be more Coke than rum, but I suppose that is a different story. Perhaps the pensioner is staring at me because my hair is a mess. This day was particularly windy here in Seoul. That’s one of the things I miss actually; the sound of wind. There are lots of old oak trees in my home town, and during the autumn months you could hear the wind ripping through the oak trees –it sounded almost like running water passing over round stones in a shallow river bed. You could smell oak and cedar in the air, and touches of salt water. The smell of freshly cut grass, summer barbeques, and chimney smoke (remember those?). In downtown Seoul, the wind rips through the concrete office buildings, and the smell in the late evening? Well, I wouldn’t exactly describe it as ‘oak’ or ‘cedar’. I check my reflection in the glass screen of my cell phone, the battery having long since died. I’d get up and check my appearance in the restroom mirror, but there are groups of roving pensioners circling the plush benches like vultures. The instant I got up, a pensioner would snatch my spot on the bench. For many of Seoul’s elderly, the plush benches in an air-conditioned department store represent a pleasant change from what they would otherwise be doing on any given weekday afternoon. So no, I won’t be giving up my seat on the plush bench. At least not until I’ve finished my rum and Coke. This particular bench is in high demand due almost entirely to its positioning on the ground floor of the department store. It is from this bench that one has a clear, unobstructed view of women coming down the escalator. Imagine a conveyor belt that deposits women right at your feet every few seconds. I used to walk around whenever I wanted to people-watch, but now I’ve got it all figured out. No need to move at all, the escalator does all the moving –technology. The pensioner sitting next to me continues to glance over in my direction, without making any attempt to disguise his glances. Wait a minute; perhaps he is staring at me because he’s seen me here before. Perhaps we shared this bench last week as well. Perhaps we are former bench mates. I’ve become somewhat of a regular here, you see. I’ve always struggled to remember things that are not important, like the faces of the people I share department store benches with. Perhaps when I’m older, and nothing else matters, and life is winding down towards its eventual end-point, I’ll have a sharper memory for the inconsequential things that I currently ignore. Perhaps I’ll remember the faces of strangers. As the time passes, my pensioner benchmate and I watch as streams of women are delivered at our feet by the magical mechanical moving stairs. As a result of Korea’s plastic surgery epidemic, watching women come down the escalator gets a bit monotonous, as it feels like I’m seeing the same women come down time after time, only in different outfits. Wait, there’s one! She looks natural! I look up from my coffee cup. Paper-white skin, tall, cheek bones higher than her eyes, arms like long wet noodles. Sweet Mary mother of Joseph, she’s like an angel descending down the second floor escalator. And here I was, about to get up and leave. My interest has suddenly been renewed. I’m thinking I should call someone and share this brilliant experience, but my phone battery is dead, and all of my friends are at work anyway (sucks being an adult). I look over at my pensioner benchmate, but he is busy looking at the woman who just came down the elevator. She is probably several centimeters taller than he is, due to dietary differences between the older and younger generations. He looks at her, and then looks at me, and then says nothing. I have often wondered if people get quieter as they age because they have been disappointed by the human race so many times. And for most of us, not too many people show up at our death bed. All those years, all of that emotion, all of those hopes and dreams, all the reaching out; and no one shows up. It makes reaching out to others look like a fairly poor investment. You are unlikely to get much back. Maybe that is why it is so rare to find people who can be selflessly kind to strangers without any sort of hidden motivation. It represents risk-taking without any obvious payback. After staring at me for a moment, the pensioner slaps me on the knee and says “예쁘다!” (beautiful). He may not be a player anymore, but he knows quality when he sees it. He’s no longer a player, but he’ll always be an enthusiast. Our bodies, and energy and stamina wane with time, but enthusiasm is something we can all maintain until the end. Perhaps he’s got a cranky old wife at home, 할머니 tits hanging past her belt, who gets on his case about money, and soju, and cleaning the house, and smoking, and “Why do I always have to wash the goddamned dishes?” He and I are not players, but we are actors on the same stage, at the same point in time. Many, many years ago, before I set foot in Korea, I had a beautiful girlfriend just like the one who came down the escalator. She never really had much to say, but she was gorgeous. I assumed that she was quiet and reserved because she was ‘deep’. Perhaps there was character there, somewhere. Maybe she was the ‘one’. After time, I realized that she was not ‘deep’ – she was just a stupid, vapid, aimless drifter with hardly any brain activity at all. But I liked her. I’ll never know why. The pensioner sitting next to me probably has several decades of knowledge to impart on a younger person such as myself. From time to time, in situations like this, I wished I'd spoke Korean well. We are two men sitting on a department store bench, sharing the sight of a beautiful woman. We are like two old fishermen staring at the night lights of a luxury oceanliner as it passes us by. The pensioner has stories to tell, and I have stories to tell, but neither of us can communicate with the other. What a shame. A decade from now, I’ll probably still be coming here, to this same bench. My benchmate having long since passed away, the rum and coke having been replaced by straight soju, and the tailored suit no longer fitting like it used to. In life, it’s important to realize what makes you happy, and to chase it. And if you can’t chase it, you can always sit at the bottom of the escalator in the Shinsegae Department Store and be an enthusiast, like me.
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May 1, 2015 01:42
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Both tribes have finished! The Vista and I have observed your work, and... No errors have been spotted. Sexy tribe finished first!  Sexy tribe! Wins! Immunity!
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May 1, 2015 01:44
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That was really quick all around!
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May 1, 2015 01:45
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ᕦ ( o_O ) ᕤ
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May 1, 2015 01:45
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ᕦ ( o_O ) ᕤ
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May 1, 2015 01:45
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ᕦ ( O_o ) ᕤ
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May 1, 2015 01:45
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ᕦ ( o_O ) ᕤ You guys can have the old emoticon back, we found a new one
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May 1, 2015 01:45
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ᕦ ( o_O ) ᕤ
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May 1, 2015 01:45
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what, was that emoticon not good enough for you? ╰(°□°)╯
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May 1, 2015 01:46
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Good work all around. Swole tribe, you played hard here tonight, and you played well. Unfortunately, Sexy tribe was just more prepared. People were looking for some time off from the game. I think you'll get some time now, because I'm planning to see you for Tribal Council on Monday. Monday an OK day for everyone? As usual I can set the time window to your convenience.
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May 1, 2015 01:46
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Chic Trombone posted:what, was that emoticon not good enough for you? ╰(°□°)╯  We translated it. But also, we just wanted to give it back
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May 1, 2015 01:47
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Oh by the way I have a night final next wednesday, during when the Challenge would theoretically take place.
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May 1, 2015 01:49
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I demand that sexy tribe be tested for substance abuse. Nobody can copy paste that fast! THEY ARE JUICING!
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May 1, 2015 01:50
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My nemesis was "SCROLLING". Stupid scrolling 
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May 1, 2015 01:52
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Remember that "LAG!" hunts those who do not expect it... There are few things more crippling and frightening than being cornered in a dark internet alley with "LAG!"
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May 1, 2015 01:57
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Way to go Sexy tribe! Phone posting during my break.
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May 1, 2015 01:59
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AnAnonymousIdiot posted:Remember that "LAG!" hunts those who do not expect it... There are few things more crippling and frightening than being cornered in a dark internet alley with "LAG!" It was truly terrible when I was hit with the lag on my first post in this challenge
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May 1, 2015 02:05
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Awesome! Good job guys!
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May 1, 2015 02:10
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Just showed my mom the naked pictures of Jeff Probst. Her reactions, in order. "That's not real. Is he uncircumsized? I'm mesmerized, I can't look away. I need to show everyone at work!"
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May 1, 2015 02:36
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Hey guys just wanted to share my vampire erotica based practice quotation hell thread. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3716979&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1
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May 1, 2015 03:34
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I hope you guys on Ultra Swole are doing ok. I'd be fine having less game events next week if it's too busy for you guys!
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May 1, 2015 03:34
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I blew the challenge off to go play card games with my boss and some other nerds. It's a terrible game and I got totally skunked, but seeing what I missed, I'm still glad I chose not to take part.
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May 1, 2015 04:14
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Survivor Edit: Even if I get sent home. v v
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May 1, 2015 04:14
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imgay posted:Hey guys just wanted to share my vampire erotica based practice quotation hell thread. lmao
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May 1, 2015 16:08
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Ahhh if we had done a practice run I might have been faster. IDK though because my problem was finding the post that I had to quote. So if we weren't practicing against another team, that fact would not have been so apparent. At first it was because you guys were passing us up by a couple posts, and later because WALL OF TEXT, and my scrolling was kind of jumpy. If I had to do it again, I think I'd put my predecessor's name in Cntr-F and hit next next to jump right to the correct post. I'm sad I was the weak link, but at least I tried. Chic would have played too if we had decided to go with 4. I think you guys proved that a fast 4 is faster than a fast 3, by beating us by enough that it surpasses my individual slowness. All that said, I swear to god that felt like 30 seconds while I was doing it 
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May 1, 2015 16:27
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Don't be so hard on yourself. In the last season, the fastest team took 25 minutes to do the challenge (text was big), in the season before that, 15 minutes (similar sized text) You guys did it in 8 minutes, that's a good time!
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May 1, 2015 17:06
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People have gotten way better at that challenge over the seasons. I think in the older seasons nobody was ever in a Skype voice call, for example. And folks have come up with other tricks as well.
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May 1, 2015 17:08
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Monday works for me, I think.
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May 1, 2015 17:48
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Okay, so what I'm looking at is a TC on Monday, a challenge on Wednesday, and another TC on Thursday. That would make it a one challenge week, unless we also hold a challenge on Friday, which is up to you all. If you have any feedback about that schedule/potential schedule send it to me by PM. I'm hoping to get some responses so don't let me down!!  I think that way people can be honest without worrying about alienating anyone or jeopardizing their place in the game.
Fast Luck fucked around with this message at 18:18 on May 1, 2015 |
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May 1, 2015 18:12
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DoggPickle posted:I'm sad I was the weak link, but at least I tried. Chic would have played too if we had decided to go with 4. I think you guys proved that a fast 4 is faster than a fast 3, by beating us by enough that it surpasses my individual slowness.  what you need is a fast five. with vin diesel leading your team.
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May 1, 2015 18:38
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| # ? May 13, 2024 23:29 |
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Adus posted:
Hahaha! I don't know. Might be better if you just left Paul Walker on the curb. 
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May 1, 2015 18:49
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