The Road to Cambodia...

This trip, even in its early hours, is shaping up to be one fraught with important and life changing lessons. I use the word “fraught” because it sounds way more dangerous and exotic than “full of,” as in “I’m full of shit.” Staying true to this previous statement, in fact, being the inspiration for this is previous statement is that I’ve learned a couple things before even ever having had putten boots on Cambodian soil (sorry, no lessons about english grammar). For your own sake, please heed the following lessons. Heed them indeed.

Just because Cambodia is a tropical paradise, south of the equator with consistent 80 degree plus weather doesn’t mean that the stops made by airplanes in between are all tropical paradises, south of the equator with consistent 80 degree plus weather. This is important because when luggage is checked through on an international flight with a 12-hour layover in such an instance, its handy to have more than just a light sweatshirt with you. Thank you, Seoul, South Korea for teaching me this valuable lesson. And not only did you teach it, but you taught it with below freezing temperatures, and nice firm set of crosswinds that really drove the point home. Notice the Jackets in the following photo:
Also, I need to put myself out there a little more. You know who taught me that? That’s right, Seoul, South Korea again. And if you want to get a little more specific, and I know you do, it’s whoever is responsible for Seoul’s “English” advertising. I was afraid to even tell people thank you and hello in Korean for fear that I would butcher the language and they would all laugh uncontrollably at the hilarious gai jin (yes, that’s japanese, but I don’t know the Korean word for a white boy). So instead, I just spoke to them in the other language that I’m in the common habit of butchering, Spanish. It was a fear based decision to not use what little Korean I learned from the baggage locker guy at the airport as we both tried to figure out if 8 to 6 was more than 4 hours. And this fear was so unfounded as I was in a country that regularly took courageous leaps with their English in an effort to make me, the English-speaking consumer feel more at home. Apparently, unlike the internet, which has a staunch and efficient fact checking department, Korea doesn’t have a make-sure-our-English-translations-in-widespread-advertising-make-actual-sense-department. Am I being harsh? No. I’m simultaneously pointing out their fearlessness and my cowardice with respect to using foreign languages. If they’re gonna do something, they do it big, with gusto, with commitment. At a pizza place in a mall, for example, the storefront was plastered from floor to ceiling with hearts that contained the words “love for women.” Nothing else. Just that. Not once. Hundreds of times. Amen. And incidentally, there didn’t seem to be a slice of pizza or a woman in the place. Then there was the store appropriately called “Hunt Children.” The only way that could have been a more poignant social message is if they had ended the phrase with an exclamation point. But once again, amen. There were many others, including “Happy Everyday Forever” which appeared to be a childcare facility, perhaps sponsored by Xanax. But my personal favorite, which sort of lends itself as evidence to a Korean obsession with the concept of, not just “happy“, but English language “happy” and “everyday” now that I think about it, is as follows:

Create your most delicious happiness everyday.

That was everywhere. And I couldn’t agree more. Gracias Seoul, South Korea. Gracias very much. I’m a better person for having knew ye.