Absentia Explanum

With bigbro being in town, I didn't have much time to update in the past three days or so, but here I am, okay? Ouch! Stop that! Hey, I mean it. Cut it out! Jeez. You MUST chill.

Oof. Hungry. It's 11:40 pm, and I got back from taekwondo about an hour ago. I should have gone to sleep, but I felt all guilty and shite about not updating. I'm reminded of Matthew and Robin, the American pastor couple, who Wendy and I met on our amazing kayak trip in Halong Bay, Vietnam. They were making their way through India, China, SE Asia and parts of Australasia and South Pacific, and kept up extensive journals, separately. They'd go off to update, sometimes for two hours or more each day. Robin showed our group parts of her journal -- she'd draw pictures of things she'd seen, cut and paste photos or parts of adverts, and of course write and write. "Yeah, I'm kind of a slave to my journal," she said in her slight Northwestern drawl, smiling.

(Hey, I'm just telling a story. It doesn't MEAN anything.)

(Heh.)

Anyway. bigbro and J1 arrived on Tuesday, and I met up with them and dad and grandmum at the temple that our grandfather helped set up. We paid our respects to granddad, ate some temple food, and then headed home, where we hung out a bit. Then, after the grannies went to bed, we all went out: me, J1, bigbro, and dad.

We strolled through the alleyway market, keeping an eye out for a pojangmacha (an outdoor food vendor tent where you can sit down), but none were to be found. So we defaulted to a bar with a most promising name: "The Day to Fall into Alcoholism." (No joke.) And drank. And talked. And smoked.

The family that smokes together stays together.

We tottered out, full of beer, soju, peanuts, dried squid, and Korean ring crackers, and went up a block to a karaoke bar, where we belted out various songs in both Korean and English. I provided the contemporary aspect of the evening, with the five relatively recent Korean songs I know. Dad, after an initial hesitancy that I can't decide was genuine or not, busted out some classic Korean songs, the kind that require much heartfelt vibrato and closing of the eyes while standing up at the end of the song due to the overwhelming emotion sweeping over the singer. bigbro and J1, who are damn good singers (who knew?), sang, among others, "Endless Love," complete with Diana Ross-like breathiness and Lionel Ritchie-type smoothness. They had obviously done this before.

The family that sings together stays together.

After an hour and a half, we had two minutes left on the clicker, and I frantically flipped through the English songs, looking for the perfect song to end the evening. And, if I may say, I definitely found it. J1 and I did our best to imitate the inimitable: "Well shake it up baby/ Twist and shout/ Come on, come on, come, come on baby now/ Come on and work it on oooout," while my dad suddenly got up and started boogying. Well, insofar as he boogies. Let's call it a gentle kind of boogying. I wasn't looking that closely anyway.

Was it the soju? The last glass of beer in the karaoke place? That kooky sense of humor? Or maybe just happiness that bigbro and I and J1 and he were all together? Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that bigbro was still sitting on the seats, while the three of us were belting out the tune, and while I didn't see his expression, I'm sure all four of us were feeling and thinking the same thing.

The evening didn't end there; we went home and tried grandmum's pine and berry soju (tasty!) busted out some fancy Scotch that J1's dad had bought for our dad (gross, but I freely admit that I have no appreciation for dark liquors. Unless they're dark with pine and berry extract). bigbro and dad started talking about bigbro's business, and J1 and I, after signalling that we were b-o-r-e-d by the b-i-z-t-a-l-k, slipped out and finished off the cigarettes. We finally went to bed around 3 am.

Ooh, and speaking of late hours, my, it's past midnight. Must to bed -- I took Wednesday afternoon off from work to roam around with the guests, and have to make it up tomorrow morning by going to the office by 9. In the morning!