The Day of the Sun Is All about Fun

(Clunk. Clunk. That's the sound of this post as it limps along, burdened by a most unelegant title.)

Instead of trying to come up with seven different ways to say "I'm bored" yesterday, I should have told you about my Sunday, the day after the "I Had Sex With Smeagol" party (by the way, I have stickers from that party -- if you want one, let me know).

I woke up around 7:30 or so on Sunday morning, lying next to Curly (who's Canadian, so in some way I'm getting closer to my ultimate goal of becoming a transnational 'ho) (by the way, nothing happened with me and Curly, so I guess that's not quite the step toward transnational ho-ishness that I characterized it to be in the previous parenthetical) (FYI, the phrase "transnational 'ho" is TM by BC) (are this many parenthetical statements in a row allowed?) (who cares? transnational 'hos transcend grammatical and structural rules for mere mortals) (oh. good).

So like I wrote two entries ago, I missed KB all the way home (d'oh! I really was going to try for a whole entry without mentioning that guy), and when I got home, I purged the night out of my system by writing the post for June 20 ("No, I Will NOT Have Sex With You, Smeagol!" Just love that title. Thanks, Cesar, for coming up with the idea of having sex with Smeagol! Did I mention I have stickers with that phrase from the party? Let's take Smeagol Sex international, baby!). Then I went to church.

No, it wasn't an act of atonement for a night of Smeagol sexdom. Two Fridays ago, I had arranged a dinner with Father Peter, with whom I had three classes. Tall, stoop-shouldered, and gap-toothed, he radiates gentleness and warmth, and everyone adores him. Hank (from Taiwan), Etsuko, Mayu, Yoko and her friend, and I went to the far western end of Seoul (it's actually another city, I think) to have chicken and beer with Father Peter. Father Tamlat, from Ethiopia, also joined us, we had a pleasant few hours with the two priests from Africa, who invited us to come to the services for the Day of Consolation.

The Day of Consolation was this Sunday last, and after getting home from a fairly sleepless night in Curly's room, I thought I'd have a couple hours to sleep before traveling the hour and a half to Father Peter's residence, but writing the post that day took up more time than expected. So that might explain why, after arriving late and finding Etsuko, Hank and Liwei (from China) already sitting on mats in the basement of the residence, I quickly zoned out of listening to the sermon, and began getting annoyed.

Why, I wondered, do women here cover their heads with white lace veils before going into a cathedral/church/basement o' sermons? Why can priests drink when nuns can't? Why can't nuns give sermons and bless the wafers and all that? As I understand it, nuns are equivalent to monks, and no, you don't see monks drinking or giving sermons either, but then why aren't there female priests, then? That sort of thing gets me mad, and distracted me from appreciating the fact that the church -- which, incidentally, isn't really a church, I think, but a residence for visiting priests from other countries: as well as Kenya and Ethiopia, Italy, China, and at least one English-speaking nation were also represented among the circle of priests at the altar. (The presence of the African priests explained the painting of a black mother in African garb and her son, in classic Madonna and son pose, next to the Renaissance-style paintings of the Virgin and the Savior.)

However, after the services were done and lunch was served, Father Peter and Father Tamlat spent some time with us, and I forgot about those things, because they are such lovely human beings. Being busy men of the cloth, they could only hang out for 30 minutes or so, to thank us for coming and to chat a bit. Then they went inside to do priest stuff, and we were on our own.

I was tempted to go home and sleep, but more tempted, in the end, to go and play with everyone. We ended up going to Hongdae, a party part of town, and going bowling. I am very bad at all games that include round objects, and bowling is no exception: scored dead last, while Liwei, who had never bowled before, broke 100 points and took first place among us.

After bowling, we went to a Baskin Robbins and ordered four different flavors in a quart-size bucket, and proved ourselves to be Asians by liking the green tea flavor best. I confirmed that in the States, five friends wouldn't think to order a quart-size bucket of four flavors and sharing it. But hey, it wouldn't happen in Japan either!

We then took a vote, and it was decided that we would go to a boardgame cafe. This trend started last year (probably when pet cafes were taking a dive), and it's more fun than it sounds. You pay by the hour, per person, and you can play any number of several dozen games, each of which a cafe employee will explain to you.

We played four games, I think, and liked the last the best -- a stock-market trading-type game in which you try to collect all the cards of a suite as fast as you can, while avoiding the bear card (if you get the bull card in conjunction with all the cards of a suite, though, you double your points). Basically, it's a lot of "Two cards! Two cards! Who has two cards to trade! I need two cards!" and "No, I don't want your one card -- you keep giving me the bear!" and "You can't give me that -- they have to be the same suite!"

We got so loud and excited that when I unwittingly dropped a card on the floor and a cafe employee kneeled to get it, I accidentally whanged her on the head in a heated moment of trying to grab someone else's two cards. Oops. She seemed to forgive me, though, 'cause she took some pictures of us later (which you can see on ofoto.com).

After two hours of playing boardgames, it was nearly 11 pm, which is when I have to get on the subway, lest it turn into a pumpkin (at midnight) before it reaches my home station. I caught the last train, and walked home having had a very varied weekend: shopping with grandma, not having sex with Smeagol, going to a Consolation Day service, losing at bowling, and slipping other people "The Bear" in a boardgame cafe. So if I was a little bored on Monday, it's only because there's a limited amount of Fun, and one person can't hog it all the time.