Benny Bigggs: Asian Invasion ‘06

Well we’ve landed safely in China and it looks like I can access this blog even from China. There’s a lot to say about China but I want to fill yous in on our days in S Korea. There’s no better place for the invasion to go then a US military base and we were greeted like heros there by Liza and one Daniel Elden White (better known as Dewey). They took us around the base, they gave us a place to shower, they did our laundry and most importantly they introduced us to Soju a potent Korean drink.

We spent our first day in Korea hanging out at the Oson base and the town around the base. I have never seen so many bars in my entire life. We got into town the day before 15 straight days of hardcore training began so pretty much the entire base was on a mission to get shit faced that day and Benny Bigggs was going to help the troops any way he could.

The town surrounding the base was absolutely insane. Charles will be sad to know there was only one sighting of an asian prostitute (a pleasant creature named “the road warrior” who would grab you when you walked by and say, “wanna go??”) because the military cracks down on prostitution there. However there are the Juicy girls. Juicy girls are Phillapeano girls that sign 1 year contracts to “mama pimps” to work in their clubs. They work 7 days a week have strict curfews and only get one night a week off (and I thought Lockheed was bad). You can only buy conversation from a Juicy girl and it costs you 10 bucks which goes to a drink for the girl and she only stays as long as it takes for her to finish the drink. Some guys can buy a girl for the whole night but the girl is then free to go home or hang out with the guy if she wants (sucks for that loser).

Dewey thought it’d be a great way to support the invasion by buying me 1 drink worth of a Juicy girl. She tried to show me how to line dance to hip hop music and told me all about how one day she wanted to be an x-ray technition. Benny Bigggs was of course a perfect gentleman to her which maybe why she didn’t leave even a half hour after I told her I wasn’t going to by her another drink. She finally left when Dewey got her attention and told her it was time to go. Next came lots of beer, ammo shots, soju and about 8 kettle shots (whatever those are) and this boy from south phillywas learning how to 2 step. I don’t remember if I was any good but I don’t remember falling. All in all Benny Bigggs tried to show the men in uniform a good time.

For those still interested is the cultural piece of the invasion I should let you know that the Korean people in general are pretty rude and Seoul is not the friendliest place we’ve been. The older Koreans will push you out of the way if you are in front of the in the street or even if you are in the middle of paying in line. The younger Koreans are much friendlier and a little more westernized but they still respect the older Koreans and put up with their ways. As far as Seoul goes, it had it’s moments but I didn’t see a lot to that really separated it from any other big city I’ve seen with the exception of one bar district that beat anything I’ve seen in the US. My pictures should be posted soon.

Well thats all for now…we are back in a hostel that has easy internet access so hopefully I’ll be on soon to talk about China. I think China has officially sent Regina and I into culture shock so don’t forget to leave some love…

B