2 Sun Byrnes

Hey look! It’s the self-styled Marco Polo’s own mother.  She hopped on a jet plane and made her way to the magical Orient to see what was what and all she got was several mouthfuls of kimchi. Yes, the author’s momma thought it would be worth it to fly for a full day and visit her eldest son here in the war-paused peninsula of Korea. You of course, haven’t done this. So this makes her better than you in all quantitative and qualitative ways possible. She found not only fermented vegetables but sun burns, subways, and stone statues to boot.

So as of today, my mom is safely back in the US and at home. First, thank you mommy for bringing back my winter clothes and things I didn’t need. I’ll pay for that extra-bag fee. Anyway, I hope you had a good trip, especially for your first outside of North America.

I got to flex my skills as tour guide again (first time with my friend Carla who was in town). It’s fun showing someone around Seoul after you’ve been here as long as I have—even if you just make up information a most of the time. I also got to use a bit of my Korean on during her time here and I think I may have almost sounded fluent (to the untrained ear of course)!

So other than taking my mom to the usual haunts and tourist traps around Seoul I also flew her to the mythical island of Jeju-do which Koreans usually only speak of in hushed tones hoping that they can go there soon. It’s Korea’s Hawaii as they tell it and while I haven’t been to actual Hawaii, yet, I don’t think they are too far from the mark. And boy do they have everything there: beaches, oranges, and a sizeable number of statues that are little people but pretty much just look like penises. And furthermore, if you touch the nose of one of these penis-people statues you’re supposed to be in line for a boy child. Sure beats the Chilean troll of unwed mothers: Trauco. He’s pretty neat actually. Ironically, he’s also from an island. What’s up with islanders and weird myths?

On Jeju we took a taxi tour of the island and stopped at two craters, a pretty coastal area, a coastal waterfall, and a strange lived in Korean folk village. At the aforementioned stone hut community we had some not so tasty snacks from some nice old ladies and then their pigs got me all muddy because my mom didn’t like her snack and fed it to the black pigs. Fun fact: black pigs are supposed to be more delicious. Sad fact: black pigs are more expensive to eat.

Anyway, as the title states I did get myself a nice sun burn since I never get to go outside anymore; I just stay indoors, breathing processed air and then breathing it out only to yell and 6 year olds. It’s mostly okay now but let’s say there was a moment where I almost tore the skin off my back.

However it was totally worth it to play in the waves and lay about on a beach. Hotel was a 2 minute walk from the beach with ocean views—livin’ the life of Riley. Hooray for my one vacation of the year! Back to work this week, boo.

Starcraft II. Like a good denizen of this half of the peninsula, I’m playing it. It’s gorgeous, great and glorious. Yeah, I’m sometimes a computer game nerd.

Anyway, that’s all the new fit to print. Eat your kimchi.