The royal tennis bomb

He told me if I got to the garbage pile I’d gone to far. Only in Seoul. Still, the directions got me there, to a roof top BBQ full of champagne, soju, and twenty-somethings dressed like tennis stars.

To frequent park-goers we’re probably “those people.” Or, as it were, they are. I am not. Every birthday is an occasion for a theme. K-pop, superheroes, the like. That night was Golf hos and tennis pros.

I used my imagination. High khaki shorts, an oxford, and penny loafers? Um, sorry. I don’t golf. Like, my dad’s a pro. He works here…I’m at the club for the bar tab. OK? Ok. Now go away.

Away.

Seodaemun Prison

The perfect day to visit prison is one cloaked in rain. Out the umbrellas came, as our soaked shoes led us to the site of death. Seodaemun Prison was used to hold Korean nationals during Japan's imperial rule.

Activists and leaders fighting for independence were taken there to supress national voices with torture pains. Inside we found images plastered on ID cards of the prison stays.

In the basement a wax statue hangs from its feet. A Japanese guard holds a tea-pot above the body, dripping water on its face. Another room shows a bloody stick used in fingernail torture. A spiked box cage sits near holding lockers curved inwards to prevent standing, sitting, and all other moves.

Outside we walked down the halls of tiny cells as another wax guard looked down from above. In other buildings we learned of the factories prisoners worked 14 hour days in and the wood blocks they'd have to jump naked over on the way to prove they had no weapons hidden up the ass.

Last was the execution room. A little theatre with three rows of seats and curtains to be drawn. The nuse hung from the ceiling, never to be used again. And as we walked past the tunnel the bodies were taken down, our voices rang through it and out across the yard.

At the exit there were not any guards.

Cherry death

Around this time of year all the cherries die. The death march begins on the beaches in the south and works its way north. The blossoms that lined my walk to work this week turned a dark red and finally brown.

But before they winked away for the next eleven months, I made it to Seoul Grand Park. After a morning walk through the dark hall of an art show I disappeared into the trees. Overtop the zoo happy smiles rode down the blue and white striped gondola.

The hippo bus trucked through the canopies, wheels crushing dying pedals on the ground. A motorcycle man sped through the shadows as I lay back down on the sidewalk and took in the site above.

Before the blistering heat of summer breaks, there on the last Sunday of cherry season, I was happy it was spring.