Eating Spaghetti in The Rain

The night before "A Jeju Morning", Jamie and I were exhausted from the train ride to Daegu, the flight to Jeju City, and the bus ride to Seogwipo. Transit time didn't last more than five hours, all be told, but the constant starting and stopping, the waiting, and, of course, baggage check drained the spirit right out of us. By the time we made it Seogwipo, Korea's Southern most subtropical city, we were ready to relax in our Spanish-styple pension, The Lime Orange Ville pension to be exact, just enjoying its pearl white walls, wood floors, deep bathtub, small TV and Internet.

After we showered, and got bored of the usual in different surroundings, we strolled a bit, talking about what food we wanted to eat that night. Jamie thought we should try the penion's restaurant, and since I was still a bit sore from carrying the bags, and since the restaurant looked rather impressive from the outside, I agreed. She suggested that we could eat Korean food, but I responded that we had four nights to eat it, let's enjoy the pension scene while it's fresh.

As we were led to our table, the restaurant's ambience soon had me believing it was surrounded by white sandy beaches, like those I had enjoyed during my travels in Australia. Waiters smiled as they passed us between white tropical walls, almost stolling on their way to their next order, like they were on vacation. Jamie and I didn't know then, but the Lime Orange Ville's beach was about as different a beach could from a white sandy bliss. Its rocky granite and lava beach kept most explorers on the road. Only day-fishers and beachcombers explored it at their own risk, its jagged dark gray or jet black rocks jutting up, begging someone to fall on top of them.


As we were seated in our seats, our picnic table seats - yes, a picnic table in the restaurant - Jamie and I sighed with relief, both intent on just enjoying whatever we were served, regardless of its quality, to exhausted to complain, our tired body and hungry tastbuds ready to enjoy even the worst prepared food. After complaining that the unmovable picnic table chairs were too far from from the picnic table itself, causing us to have to lean forward to reach our food, we ordered. I decided expensively for good luck's sake by ordering the steak and lobster platter, a weird combination to say the least. Jamie had a different idea. She ordered cheapest meal on the menu, her favorite Western food: a plate full of spaghetti.

Waiting for the food could have been a very frustrating wait for us. We were both tired and hungry and just wanted the cook to quickly prepare our food. Time seems to pass so slowly while waiting for food while hungry. Its almost as if our stomachs grab its wheels and shake its casing until satisfied.

This is when I looked up. I had noticed the weird looking plant in the middle of the room, and of course the pinic tables inside, I was sitting on one :), but I hadn't looked up yet. I hadn't seen the score of golden balls dangling from the ceiling or the umbrellas keeping us dry.

It wasn't raining outside.

Jeju is famous for its subtropical beaches and extinct volcanoes. Hundreds of thousands of Koreans visit the island every year just to enjoy these natural wonders. But Jeju is also famous for its cultural independence from the mainland and for its historical status as a haven for political exiles. I bring this up, because the umbrella art I found in that small, insignificant penion restaurant reminded/s me of the art of the revolunionary era. Conceptual art, impressionist art, performance, cubist. They were all rooted in a leftwing outlook, a rebellion against unyielding rules of what art necessarily entailed/s.



So how are the two linked? Jeju was a stronghold of communist/leftwing resistance before the Korean war. Just two years before, in 1948, the commnunists staged an uprising to take control of the island, with North Korean backing. The Americans responded swiftly by supporting an mainland invasion of the island. This invasion, which quashed any and all resistance, killed between 14,000 and 30,000 people, communists and sympathizers, including leftwing artists. The freest ideology usually attracts the freest artists.

As I sat there taking out my new EF 24-70mm lens to take a panorama of the umbrellas and golden balls, I wondered how much of that uprising's influence influenced the restaurant art I was now enjoying. *Snap* *Snap* *Snap*. Most people didn't even notice me snapping away, which was interesting in-itself, and a testament to the power of umbrellas glued to a ceiling, because my big camera with its big lens usually turns heads where ever I go. I realize now that they were too consumed by the playful atmosphere and good food to take notice of a slightly-fat foreigner taking pictures (I lost another couple of pounds last week, mwhaha!).

Finally, our food was being served. To my surprise, and this was the second time I was surprised after ordering lobster in Korea, but the first time pleasantly surprised, the lobster was sliced in half and covered in mozzarella cheese. Yum! In Korea, almost all the mozzarella you can buy is imported from the West. Buying mozzarella for a normal meal is therefore like buying lobster - it's super expensive, saved only for special occasions. Incidentally, this is why pizza doesn't taste as good here. Cheap Korean cheese and pepperoni (horrible) just doesn't taste as good!

Sometimes, expensive does not mean better. It's a maxim of economics that tends to be pleasant when it is true. My lobster, for example, was tasty. Not scrumptious... just tasty. My steak was subpar. Not suprising, though. All three of the times I've had the chance to eat steak prepared by Koreans, I have given them the thumbs down. When I bite into a good steak, I expect to taste the meat first and the seasoning second. With Korean prepared steak I always taste the seasoning first and the meat second, which often tastes like watery hamburger, - *shrug*, maybe they don't know how to seal steaks while they cook em. Either way, it always makes for a very disappointing experience.



Jamie's spaghetti, on the other hand, is/was the result of Korean ingenuity and Korea's genuine love of spaghetti. No, Jamie, I don't think Koreans genuinely love steak. I think most times it is on the menu mainly as a curiosity, something Koreans try just to feel modern. Sphaghetti here in the land of the morning calm, is - and I won't say better, because I still remember the tastiness of my Aunts' meatballs - a welcome expansion of the tradition of spaghetti. Jamie's dish that night was tasty, because it reminded me of Heinz canned spaghetti made with higher quality tomato sauce. Cheap, tasty, hunger satisfying.... 21 dollars cheaper than my lobster and steak. I ate 40% of her spaghetti; she ate 50% of my lobster, and 10% of my steak. I guess I wasted 7 bucks, yuck-yum.

I like to think I know how to handle my camera. I've owned my $800 Samsung Pro815 for three years, and never dropped it or banged it against anything. I recognized early on that $800 is too much money to spend to replace a non-essential object like a camera. So I was careful. I gripped it with both hand or gripped the shoulder strap with both hands and put it over my head - always. But then it happened, that night in the Lime Orange Ville pension restaurant. As Jamie and I finished eating our spaghetti and lobster meal, I put on my winter coat, picked up my camera with both hands and waited for Jamie to do the same. Being full of food and satified apparently limited my ability to think at that moment, because I forgot that I had eaten some of Jamie's spaghetti with my fingers, joking to her that they were the orginal chopsticks. Look Jamie, I had said, "Look at my fingers! They're the original chopsticks!" An old joke between us, but a joke I loved nonetheless. I often imagined the first fork or spoon, an ancient Westerner using four fingers to jab a piece of potato to put it in his or her mouth, an ancient Westerner quickly sipping soup with a cupped hand, all the time saying, "Oh, it's so hot!" Ha. Ha. It was at that point that I heard the pitter-patter of happy feet and the universal, pack-mentality of a child's voice say, "Hey, comeback! I'll get you!" When I turned around, he bumped into me. My camera slipped out of my hands and thumped on the floor with a lens cracking bang. The restaurant went silent as everyone turned to look at the slightly fat foreigner who had dropped his expensive camera... after eating spaghetti in the rain.