I am in Seoul this week, working for the big company that shall remain nameless. Unlike Manila which was freakily scary, Seoul feels a little like a giant picnic in the sun.

Seriously, I have heard it is very conservative, sexist etc.. and certainly no-one has a good goddamn clue what I am saying when I try to pay for a tube of spicy guacamole pringles. But it doesn't feel like the quasi police state that I'd been led to imagine by one of my co-workers.

I mean maybe if I ran down the street yammering about my amazing feminist principals while wearing a shirt that said; "Ask me about being an unmarried gaylord professional who wants desperately to raise anti-establishment children in an open and permissive environment" - okay but again, no-one would understand me, or very minimally.

So conservative maybe, pleasant and green with lovely food-stalls selling hand rolls and spicy fried white things (didn't try them yet - couldn't get a clear picture of what the white tubes were, only spicy) definitely.

On the way back to the hotel I stopped at a Starbucks rip-off and the guy behind the counter gave me a novelty coaster that lit up and vibrated and hummed across my table for no reason that I could determine. He then laughed and took it back again, as I stared at my latte - thinking that it looked almost as non-plussed as I did. Perhaps that is why it feels so safe and pastoral here, everything seems like it was designed to amuse, especially the titles of things. I could have had lunch at "Pizza-school" for example and then gone to the "Book-garden", nothing here is boring, threatening or utilitarian, even cars get the "happy auto service". Which yes, makes Canada seem at the very least boring and utilitarian, if not vaguely threatening. Why don't we get malls called "LOTTE-WORLD"? What does it mean? I don't even know, but I'd sure rather go there than, "Alexis Nihon". Lastly, there are anime figures next to EVERYTHING. Luckily I have no idea what some signs say, because I'd freak if there was a day surgery clinic with a smiling alligator doctor holding a dripping knife, I'd pee and laugh and then die of shame.

Oddly this does not spell decadence. Just a strangely naive sense of cheerfulness. I wonder if Koreans get to write angst-y poetry when they feel blue? Is there a goth bar anywhere in this city probably, but goths here would be a lot more angry and unamused than the wimpy goths in montreal. If I were a goth, Seoul's general ambiance would drive me batty.

So yeah, compared to Manila, Seoul is paradise, only the hotel is a paradise that costs a ridiculous amount of money so I will have to make these trips into town and stock up on Pringles for 3000won (3.28 canadian) because chez nous (Sheraton Walkerhill Casino) the potato chips cost 10 dollars.

Okay off to take a walk in the casino park before supper, let's hope I don't succumb to a rain of golfballs.

In an unrelated note: I just added 300 + greatest hits of the 80's to my itunes and am slowly weeding out the bad from the good. So "The time of My Life" by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes just came on. #1 I did in fact own a cassette copy of the dirty dancings soundtrack, and I did #2/ practice the dance that Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey do to this song at lunch time with Cassie and Ashleigh etc.. But one would think that by this time I would have the good sense to pitch that little ditty in the garbage where it belongs but oh no, I am hanging on tight and not only that, I actually just enjoyed listening to it. Weird.