Poverty seems antithetical to Japanese culture, but after more than two months in country the crew is beginning to find their niche just in time to leave it…

Making this episode sucked.  As you’ll notice, Episode 205 is airing almost a week late.  I think there are 4 separate and almost complete versions of this episode featuring radically different content sitting on my storage array.  The draft I had planned out with the crew a month ago disappeared somewhere around the second revision never to be seen again.  Almost none of the original footage made the episode.

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I must apologize – I will refrain from fully elaborating on what caused my kneecap dislocation.  As is fun, I would usually indulge in some hefty self-mockery, but for now,  I’ll need to postpone that story.  Clearly, it’s not like my reputation is really at stake – ha, as if there were ample video, pictures, and text stories of me making a fool of myself on the internet…

Suffice to say that I wasn’t rescuing an infant out of a blazing building, but nor was I robbing an old lady’s purse.  I promise Part 2 will be written and posted after I’ve coordinated with my travel insurance company.

Also, I’m glad we weren’t all nuked today by our Northern neighbors.  So there is that.

A peri-urban schoolyard in Saigon's low-income District 7.

After two weeks of working on our hands and knees with (literally) hundreds of Korean 4 year-olds, Brian might actually kill me for saying this, but I love kids. That’s because, when it comes down to it and I’m surrounded by screaming, crying and broken glass, one fact remains: kids are the same wherever you go.

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Today I had my MRI and my follow-up consultation, which was rescheduled from next Tuesday.  The MRI was…loud.  I’ve had an MRI before, and it involved me putting on earplugs and headphones and listening to Mozart for 30 minutes.  I thought this would be somewhat similar…instead, I put on headphones, started to drift to a nap, then was jarred awake by the awful beeps and clangs that tore right through the sad excuse for noise reducers that cupped my ears. 

But no matter – the verdict was that I don’t need surgery, in the doctor’s opinion.  A hard cast for 2 weeks, followed by physical therapy, would be enough to restore full range of motion.  100% stability for my knee is, alas, a fiction – the ligaments are simply too worn at this point.  Perhaps if my kneecap strays again, reconstructive surgery will be necessary, but for the moment, exercise and safety are my closest allies.

Matt, version 3, here to stay for 2 more weeks.  I know it looks like I’m attempting a pose, but I’m actually trying to draw attention to the hard cast that now encases my leg.  Also, I’ve installed padding on my crutches, because it hurt to haul myself around by pressing my palms on hard, merciless plastic. Oh, and I’m wearing a Jet Set Zero T-shirt, but don’t let that think the shirt leads to crutches.

If you’re in Seoul and want to sign my cast, shoot me an email: Matt[at]jetsetzero.tv.  This sucker better not be bare white when they remove it in 2 weeks…

More photos from in/around Seoul.  Slowly making it through this week.

As always, more past the cut.

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I’m going to keep this short and simple as I am exhausted from a truly epic week of fucking terrible things.

I am now an English “Teacher” in Korea.  I use quotes because I am not, in fact, a teacher at all.  I am a day care attendant for an endless miserable stream of kindergarteners who have been raised with nothing but spite and malice in their heart for both me and my intentions of teaching them.

Each day I get up at 7:30 AM, I leave my “home” (tiny box, not home), at 8 and then I take a train for about an hour to bum-fuck Egypt where I teach 8 classes over 9 hours.

Most of these classes are 40 minute blocks where I “teach” (once again, in quotes) about a dozen children who punch me in the junk, scream at me, punch each other, cry, shit themselves, scream more, run, break, thrash, bite me and cause general anarchy.  After 40 minutes of me running through pleas for help to a list of gods and spirits that I think might be listening to Asia, the children leave, and I reconsider my life choices while walking to get the next group.  Eventually I make it home at 7:20 PM.

Today was the first day a child bit me.  Also I met a child who only said two things in English: “FUCK YOU”, and “kidneys, kidneys”.  After his second statement he proceeded to punch me in the kidneys.  He is 6. I hate him.

I leave you with this picture of a painting of sunflowers.  They represent hope.