the love shack, baby

I'd really like to blog about the amazing weekend I had this past weekend on a small, remote, and incredibly beautiful island named Big-eum-do, but I'm going to have to save my stories of bunnies and ice cream and the bag of lettuce that fell from the sky; the ferries getting cancelled on account of the approaching typhoon and the private boat we had to charter to get off the island and that sort of thing. Instead, I am feeling compelled to blog about the love shack we are currently staying in...

There are vending machines on nearly every floor in which a person can procure the following: condoms, love lube, dildos, and fake vaginas (no joke! only 20,000 won-- get yours while supplies last!). Pretty sweet, yes? Also, there are two free channels of Korean porn (some of which is decidedly unsexy) that some televisions have been programmed to spontaneously turn on (no pun intended) in the middle of the night. Since there are no driers in most of Korea and laundry all is hung to air dry, it is very comforting to see the hotel bath towels (each the size of a standard bath mat or smaller) are hung on the hallway handrails to dry (consider again what's sold in the vending machines for a second). But best of all, was walking up to the seventh floor to deal with the laundry situation only to overhear a woman having sex... which would have been fine (most of us, since we aren't getting any ourselves, would be pleased that at least somebody is getting some) except that it sounded like she was having the shit beaten out of her and her screaming was punctuated with sobs. The hotel host was in the hallway too... You try miming "hey, is that normal Korean sex? is that a hooker putting on a show? seriously, should we be intervening and killing some abusive man? just curious."

So, as you might have surmised, we are in a no-tell motel type of deal. I'm not sure they rent the rooms by the hour, but I do know that I feel as if we are stuck in 1982 and I'm a little tired of it. What we overheard was certainly no husband and wife honeymooning; most likely it was a prostitute we heard screaming and I hope it was simply an act. But, given that women aren't treated as much more than chattel here anyway, you can imagine that a prostitute is probably treated like a dog here, and considering how I've seen those treated (not to mention that they are food items as well) it is easy to see why I am a bit disturbed. Also, for those of you who remember the West Hall incident not so long ago, I'm fucking tired of this sort of thing.

Anyway, my next blog post will be about the amazing, serendipitous, wonderful weekend I had. Until then, sleep well and know that I am avoiding three starches at each meal, flip flops that smell like, as Wim put it, a homeless person's sleeping bag (though he was referring to his, not mine, but all of us who went to Big-eum-do have shoes that qualify for this, um, ranking), and drying off with any hotel towels... wish me luck.