It was a quiet, peaceful day.......

As you can tell, I love to use song quotes and movie quotes, this one is from a Rage Against the Machine song. If you don't know them, check 'em out. IF you like loud, funk, metal screaming in your ear. If not, move along.

Stella was here.
I was showing her as much as the city as I could, without running. We must have walked 100 kilometers in 4 days. That's A LOT Gramma Pat.
Yongsan. Namdaemun. Eujiro. Insadong. Tapgol Park. Singuemho. Olympic Stadium. The Korean War Museum. Namsan Tower. A palace or two. And Dongdaemun. We hit a couple of these places a few times, because it takes more than once, even in a whirlwind tour of a megalopolis.
I wore her out.
We were threatened by the US Army Corps of Engineers.
Interviewed by thousands of college and high school students, who were in need of an English interview.
We saw a 'Lennonesque' guitar player wearing leotards.
We saw Drunk on Soju guy dancing with him.
A Buddhist 'wedding'.
We walked from the base of Namsan Tower through Yaksu, to Eujiro, to Jongno to Dongdaemnun.
Stella was T-I-R-E-D.
So was I.
Dongdaemun, Saturday night. Korean music show. A metal band, with a decent guitar player. People wearing matching outfits. Corndog covered with potatoes on a stick. MUCH better than alligator on a stick, Dave, IF you're still reading this. (Firsttraxx, call him and tell him to read this). Crowds of people standing, a grampa with his granddaughter, laughing.
Then.
We saw it.
The best Knock-Down-Drag-out-Cat-Fight in the history of Knock-Down-Drag-out-Cat-Fights.
Adjumas.
You have read about my fear of them.
However, they love me.
At least the ones in my neighborhood. Stella thinks they wait outside the gate to say, 'Hello!!!" to me.
Maybe. They are just like the 'Hens' at home. CONSTANTLY gossiping and there isn't ANYTHING in the neighborhood they do not know about.
THIS time was different.
You have read about the 'Brooksider' type fights. Swinging. Missing. Yelling.
Not this time.
We are pushing through the crowd. Stella has learned not to say excuse me, because she would be saying it to everyone on the street. She's gotten damned good at dropping her shoulder. She laid out a couple of people and did a dance around them.
Usually screaming something like, "HUSKER NATION!!!!!!!"
I'm glad she's on MY side.
We are holding hands, using our ams to clothesline people, giggling like junior high school kids. Bloody noses are abound, Adjoshis back away when Stella glares. She's become an Adjuma. Now you know why I am SOOOOO IN LOVE WITH HER.
Birds of a feather, I tell ya.
We have left The Music Show. Stella wants a 'Ramones' t-shirt, she counted 2,673,812 while she was hear and wanted to fit in.
We are on a quest. She rips one off of a kid, but ruined it the process, she wiped her arms with it and threw it back in his face.
HOT, I tell ya!!!
Thud.
Screaming.
Crowd moving.
We run with the crowd. Maybe Kim Dung-joo (my favorite KBO player is here!!!!!)
Nope.
Drunk Adjuma.
Street cafe working smock wearing Adjuma.
We know this, because one can barely stand up and the other is wearing a smock.
Face-to-face.
THEY stare in the eyes, NO FEAR.
Pushing.
Crowd grows.
Stella egging them on. I think I heard her pop her knuckles, ready to join the fray
Slap to the face.
Drunk Adjuma takes a few steps back.
She attacks.
Just like on the Serengeti.
Smock Adjuma reels. Attacks back.
Just like two Rams, butting horns.
Drunk Adjuma goes down.
"Down goes Frazier, Down goes Frazier!!!!!!"
Smock Adjuma with a kick to the stomach.
Then.
The dragging of the hair as she removes her from the area.
Drunk Adjuma cannot take the hint.
Subtle as it was......
She's back on her feet. Shoe missing.
Then, she runs like Jim Brown.
BAM!!!!!
Smock Adjuma goes flying and Drunk Adjuma jumps on top.
Hair in the grasp of both of these Succubi.
Down on the ground, rolling through all of this stagnant water and spillage from the tables they have bumped into.
Then.
A Pride of Adjumas who were watching step in.
They surround Drunk Adjuma like a downed Zebra. They wrestle the Smock Adjuma's hair away from the grip of Drunk Adjuma.
Smock gets up. Kick to the face. Queen Adjuma, a robust 'Lady', the size of Will Shields, attacks Drunk with a fury of a customer at Jalapenos diving into the chips and salsa.
Queen Adjuma and her court are kicking and screaming at Drunk Adjuma and leave her on the ground.
Men are seen laughing, smoking their thin cigarettes and wanting more.
Women have covered their eyes, with enough room between fingers to still watch.
Drunk Adjuma is in a pool of water, whimpering, unable to stand.
Her shoes and coat are thrown on to the ground while she lays there.
Fight over.
Stella finds compassion.
"I don't like to watch people wallow. It's time to go."
Shocked, I comply.
Stella can be VERY convincing.
The crowd disperses, aside from the guy in the front row, he stays to watch the wallowing.
I was jealous.
WOW.
That fight was the best I have seen in about 20 years.
I may exaggerate on here from time-to-time, but folks, this wasn't an exaggeration.
THAT'S how it went down, in ALL it's glory.

So.
We hop the 2233, "Got you're card ready?" and head back to the neighborhood.
We need to clean up from the day's activities and meet a group of my friends at Mr. Go-Dong's, a local HOF and watering hole.
My friend, Chris, is heading back to the USA and it's his birthday.
We arrive to much fanfare, Stella is a Goddess, from all of my stories, she HAS to be, she puts up with me.
We tell them of the 'Debacle in Dongdaemun' and jaws hit the floor.
Richard informs her she won't see anymore fights, the Koreans are a peaceful people.
Usually.
The group decides to go to another place, 20 minutes from here and we head out.
No sooner than we get outside to hail cabs, ANOTHER fight breaks out.
THIS time, Adjoshi and Adjuma. Man on woman.
Friends defending, trying to break it up.
Slapping.
Of BOTH parties.
However, cabs arrive and we negotiate which ones we will be traveling in and we're off.
Stella turning her head the whole time to get a glimpse of the happenings.
We never got to see the end of that fight.
We start our own fight.
With Zhúyèqīng jiǔ.
Bamboo liquor that tastes like apple cider.
Stella hates Soju, so she was drinking beer, until the Zhúyèqīng jiǔ arrived.
She found her new favorite Korean drink. She liked it more so than Machouli, the rice wine.
She talked Woo-jin, the owner of the HOF into telling her where to buy the decanter. He wouldn't tell her, instead, presented her with one. The decanters are very cool.
Made from bamboo, some have screw tops, others are sold. Woo-jin's were solid and very nice. Stella tells me she displays it prominently in the house.
I will get to see it in November.
After eating everything under the moon, we decide to leave.
At 4:30 in the morning.
Places don't close until the last person leaves, might I remind you.
The place was still busy when we left.
being the cool people we are, Woo-jin flagged down a cab for us, instructed the cabbie where to go and paid for our cab.
WHAT A GUY.
Stella and I stumbled up the hill to my abode and sat outside to watch the sun rise.
Sunday was a lazy day, we were H-U-R-T-I-N-G.

So.
Stella got to see TWO fights.
Drink several types of liquor.
Try different types of food.
See Seoul, by walking.
Hang out with Koreans.
And she got to see me.
A good time was had by all.

Firstraxx will be here in September, I can only hope to show him half of as good of time.
Without the hand holding, of course.

Muggy.
The only way to describe it....
"Oh, it's HOT in Seoul," I was warned, "Are you sure you can handle it?"
Uh, YEAH. I am from the junction of The Kaw and the Missouri, August is hotter than two rats, er, um, mating in a burlap sack (as Ichiro says. well, in not those words, but you get the gist).
It's approaching August and it feels like Possum Trot (Brown Ale is on my mind today......) and your shirt sticks to your back and the 'Vinyl Seat Warnings' are out. How do I know they are 'Vinyl Seat Warnings'? Because in any language, a scream is a scream is a scream.
Then.
I heard it.
The low buzz of a machine.....Was it the North deciding their time was right? I made a dash to the window, expecting a squadron of Bi-Planes--They are up-to-date in the North--flying in V formation.
Nothing.
"Where is My Mind?" by the Pixies is blasting, kind of appropriate. Where is my duffel bag is more like it.....
I rush to the other side of the building, seeing nothing.
It's here, I thought, it's really here.
What do I grab? Um, pictures, um, iPod, you know, stuff that can't be replaced.
It's getting louder.
"WE'RE DOOMED!!!!!!" I scream, in English AND Spanish. Why Spanish? Because I find myself responding to Koreans in Spanish, it's the only other foreign (and NATIVE) language I can speak.
I am shaking like Larry Johnson at the thought of Priest Holmes actually making the team, making his contract demands seem silly.
The Embassy, WHERE'S the Embassy?!?!?!?!?!
I am envisioning the last helicopter out of Saigon.
Yes, I remember, but I am not that old, dangit.
I have my two duffel bags packed, my backpack on, 17 plastic bags full of stuff I have accumulated. Beer mugs, ashtrays, chopsticks, empty beer bottles, my 5,000 tablet bottle of Tums, an empty Tuaca bottle (thanks, Stella), 4 bottles of Soju, and 5 Xanax (left behind by the previous tenant).
I am ready.
I look out the sliding window and there is a cloud of smoke rising from the street, 150 meters below.
ARRRRRRRGH!!
I am not fast enough.
WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!
My neighbors are looking at me like I am a crazy foreigner. No comments, please.
I am sweating like Mike Sweeney at the thought of being in the lineup today.
Out of breathe, I look around.
No one is panicking.
Lemmings!!!!! ALL of YOU!!!!
Then the smoke takes over the building.
Wait.
The buzzing has subsided, but I can still hear it.
EEEEEEEWWWWW!!!!!
The taste. I am ready for the deep breath which will put me out of my misery
What does this taste like???? It's not tear gas----don't ask how I know the taste of that.
Nor is it Mustard Gas. I have read enough Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon to understand the taste of it.
It, it, it, tastes like............BUG SPRAY!!!!
Ortho, to be exact.
You know, when your mom or dad hands you the Ortho bottle and tells you to spray down the yard? AND you happen to stand in the wind and get a mouth full of it? C'MON, you know what I am talking about.
Now I am afraid I might become sterile---NO COMMENTS.
Or that an offspring might have 3 eyes and 14 toes--MY FAULT, Stella.
Or I might lose MORE hair.
Or might become addicted.
Ortho is cheap in the States, isn't it?

OK.
Now the explanation of this all.
At least once a week, a truck goes up and down the streets filling it with bug smoke (as I like to call it) to eradicate the mosquitoes. It only partially works. I spend my nights chasing them around my apartment. They are everywhere and they can get REALLY big and nasty. They hurt. This 'smoke' helps control the population of the the spider's meal. In other neighborhoods, children are seen running directly behind the smoke truck and running through the smoke.
And I'M worried......

So, no invasion, yet and I am safe and, er, sound.
If you care......