Why sleep when you can smoke Marls and play Starcraft?

Its not just Starcraft being played in this small cyber cafe in Guri-si (a small-ish town of 200,000 on the eastern cusp of Seoul). To the right of me are a pair of men in their early 20s who appear to be grinding for XP in Guildwars (or some Korean counterpart which I cannot identify - I know no Korean) and all around me people are avidly shooting away in a game very similar to counterstrike. Small cups of very sweet coffee and endless streams of cigarettes fuel the endless entertainment, which costs the regular patron \1000/hour ( 1 Canadian dollar exhanges roughly to \865, so thats about $1.20/hour Canadian - not bad). While walking on the street or while visiting the school where I will soon teach (my wife and myself are ESL teachers here) I got quite a few curious glances or giggles. Here, I barely exist. Soon enough I will try my skills against those around me and hopefully turn some heads. The guy to my left just closed downt he CS clone and opened a solo game of SC against 8 computers; he's protoss and he is clicking furiously. Since my arrival here 2 days ago, I have watched about 4 pro matches of Korean star-league on television, and know that I need practice. They do'nt use the BGH maps here either, only well balanced sanctioned maps that require frequent expansion - holding yourself in and building a mass wont do. I hear the ding signaling my time is almost up, I'll have to sign off for now in case I lost my typing. If this guy does anything phenominal I'll be back to post it, otherwise, stay tuned for a post here or there about my expieriences in the ever-wired country of Korea.