Arrival, Guitars and Ice Cream.

A brief introduction to anyone who does not know me; I am teaching English in Daegu, South Korea for a year. And on the off chance that anyone reading this is from outside of my friends and family, I have no interest in posting my face or name, so imagine me as some sort of monkey (or ape).

Anyway this is all a little out of date, as I have been incredibly lazy and only just got around to blogging, but the first two instalments will deal with my arrival and with the weeks training...so let's being.

I arrive on Sunday May 30th at 8pm to my hotel in Seoul after more than 15 hours of travelling and facing the prospect of starting training the next morning. A weeks training that I had just been told two days earlier was "horrendous" by my recruiter. Excellent.

Needless to say I was not exactly skipping with delight up to my hotel door, and my mild misery turned to a deep despair when I opened the door to be confronted with a long haired, beared man, standing in the middle of the room in boxer shorts whilst playing a guitar. We both stopped dead, and I half mumbled an apology. Somehow I had opened the wrong door and stumbled into the lair of a man who could plausibly pass for Jesus of Nazareth.

But then he spoke and it was neither to bless me or offer me bread and fish. "Oh hey dude." Hmmm...he had been expecting me and he almost certainly wasn't from Nazareth; in fact I was beginning to suspect that he might be American.

It turned out that my suspicions were well founded; he was from California, his name was "Jay" and he enjoyed the words "dude" and "awesome". He also enjoyed strumming out of tune chords on his guitar. The company had decided in their infinite wisdom that a jet lagged employee just arriving would benefit from not having his own hotel room. No. I would be best served to share a room with a total stranger who I have absolutely fucking nothing in common with.

As apes go, I am fairly level headed and easy going; but I would be lying if I said that by 9pm that Sunday, I would not have been a little pleased if he had slipped on the balcony and tragically fallen through the window to plunge to an untimely death.

But of course he didn't. Typical.

Instead he tried to talk to me about guitars.I told him I could play "Ding Dong Bell", and he seemed happy if not wowed.I vaguely recall mentioning Slash and Eric Clapton in the vain hope that he might leap in the air in delight and perhaps brain himself on the cupboard door I had left open. No such luck. Instead, he began an indepth survey into my opinions on a myriad guitar players who nobody other than him has ever heard of.

He showed me a picture of someone who looked as if he probably weaves his own clothes from recycled spider webs and asked me if I liked his music. This called for drastic action, I needed to end this dialogue quickly and ideally without bloodshed.

I told him I liked Coldplay. Job Done.

Feeling rather smug, I began to look through the next days materials for training when Jay asked me if I would like some Ice Cream. I frowned and looked up to see him stood disconcertingly close with an outstretched hand that was clutching a tub of Haagen Daz Ice Cream. The tub appeared to be soft and sure enough as I peered into the pot the lurid green Ice Cream was half melted and of course half eaten.

He beemed at me."It's err Green Tea flavour".I nodded and pretended to look interested "Ah yes, so it is 'Haagen Daz Green Tea Ice Cream'"; I was now feeling pretty confident about the reading comprehension test tomorrow.

He still has his hand outstretched and appered to be thinking of something to add to his sales pitch..."If you errr like Green Tea and you like Ice Cream, it's awesome".

I'm sure it was.

But I don't like green tea, and I don't like ice cream when it's not frozen. Nor do I like eating peoples leftovers. I thanked him and said I might look at it later. And then there came music to my ears and for the first time in over an hour it wasn't coming from Jays guitar. "I'm going to meet up with some buddies so I'll see you later". YES.

And as he left he said "Oh there's beer if you want it, but I put it in the freezer by mistake so it's frozen". Thanks Jay, that sounds about as useful as half a pot of defrosted ice cream.

And that is the end of California Jay. Not literally, but from then on I barely saw his friendly, bristled face and the rest of what was a fairly painful week was dominated by the Wisconsin Kid. But that's for another day.

Until next time, this is Monkey Roberts.