Winter vacation for English teachers in Korea means two weeks of getting the hell out. We teachers get our free time during the window of our school's break which is the entire month of January, plus a week on either side, usually. Last year, I went to the Philippines. Friends of mine went to Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, China, and Japan, among other places. This year, some of my friend are going to Nepal and Spain, among other places. Needless to say, this is a period of time that is much looked-forward to.
My plans are to spend three weeks in Australia with my brother who has never been out of the country before (Canada doesn't count). Three weeks in an English-speaking country in the middle of summer in January - very nice. However, as things often go here in Korea, my plans have been fucked up real good by some dumbass ticket insurance policy and the great Korean bureaucracy.
I must admit I made the initial mistake in buying my plane ticket early, before my winter camp schedule was finalized. English camps are what occupies us English teachers during the school breaks when we are not on our vacations. I figured that since my school finishes on December 18th, I would have the rest of December and the first part of January to work my allotment of camps before I leave the country on January 7th. I also contacted my coodinator at the Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education pretty early to let him know I want to buy my tickets and request camps as early as possible so that I could get them over with. He said it was still far too early to say when camps would be, but I figured I would be okay requesting early camps based on previous winter and summer camps. This leads to Point of Bullshit the First:
Point of Bullshit the First is that the DMOE takes FOREVER to get even the most basic of scheduling done for these winter camps. Teachers are understandably looking to get the hell out of the country to somewhere exotic, and want to make plans as early as possible to save money and hassle. It wasn't until November 24th that we were officially informed of the window of time in which our camps would fall (the first and second weeks of January - precisely when my $1100 ticket says I'm going to be in Australia). And it's not going to be until December 15th that we will know our exact dates and locations - three weeks away from when our camps will likely start. Fortunately I anticipated this terrible delay of vital information and bought cancellation insurance on my ticket in case I had to change my ticket or just scrap it and buy a new one. This leads to Point of Bullshit the Second.
Point of Bullshit the Second is that when I called up Orbitz to figure out exactly how to go about the cancellation refund process, I was informed of the troublesome news that I am only protected from cancellation fees and penalties if there is a serious medical emergency inflicted upon myself, and that simply wanting to cancel because of scheduling difficulties doesn't get me any money back. In fact, the Orbitz representative actually told me if I cancelled my ticket, I would not only lose the money I paid for it, I would actually have to pay an ADDITIONAL $857 worth of penalties to Japan Air. I nearly punched my fucking laptop. I asked what would happen if I just didn't show up. I would lose my money for the ticket and that's it. I don't get how pulling a no-show puts you in a better situation than kindly informing the airline that you won't be able to make the flight so they can sell the seat to someone else, but apparently that's how things work. I think the guy mentioned something about how canceling gives me credit toward other fights in the amount of the difference in penalties or some bullshit like that, but I don't really know because I was busy not punching my computer. At this point, I don't know if I am going to be able to spend my three weeks in the sun. And those three weeks bring me to Point of Bullshit the Third.
Point of Bullshit the Third has to do with just how much time I get for vacation. Officially, we are allowed only ten working days. My ticket includes 17 working days. Before I bought the ticket, I checked, double-checked, and triple-checked with my school that it was okay that I spend extra time out of the country. I wanted to be sure that they were sure that they weren't going to decide to put me to work somehow during my non-camp, non-official vacation days, as schools often do. This would have been no problem, since it's provided for in our contract even though lots of whiney-ass foreign teachers like to complain about how they should be able to do whatever they want just because they don't have classes. Anyway, they said it was fine, I could take the extra time. But all of a sudden, two days ago - at least a month after I bought my ticket - my co-teacher tells me that the principal wants me to teach conversation classes and that I am only supposed to have 10 days of vacation. I pointed out that I asked repeatedly about this very situation a long time ago, and was pretty annoyed about the whole thing, but I was too pissed about possibly losing all the money I spent on my ticket in the first place, and the possibility of me not being able to get to Australia at all to worry about this unwelcome point of bullshit. And here in Korea, what the principal SAID doesn't matter so much as what she now SAYS. The conversation bout this little point of conflict went something like this:
"The principal says you are only supposed to have 10 days vacation."
"But I asked you several times if taking all the time off was okay."
"Yes, but the principal says you are only supposed to have 10 days."
"I made sure to be very clear about this before I bought my ticket. This was a month ago."
"But the principal found out about the vacation yesterday."
"I asked last month."
That's pretty much how it went. I didn't pursue the argument because, as I said, I was trying to ignore the terrible news of possibly losing a lot of money and a trip to somewhere warm.
This has been a summary of the main Points of Bullshit concerning my (possible) upcoming vacation. Please understand that there are many smaller Points of Bullshit that would have been very irritating to explain. However, there is hope for each Point of Bullshit mentioned. Please check back soon for what I hope will be a happy ending to this story of shattered dreams.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Bum Knee
I had been running a lot, training for the Seoul Marathon, but that all came to a sudden end after I decided it would be a good idea to increase the distance of my normal run from around 8 miles to 15 miles. Not exactly the baby step to marathon distance one would naturally assume is a good idea. So on a Sunday, four weeks ago, I set off with Ken on our regular route, which we just planned on doing twice, basically. Here's what it looks like on a map:
As you can see, the path runs right along a river, which makes for pretty nice running, and it's close to my apartment, which makes it doubly nice. If you're confused about all the numbers, they just mark the miles. We basically started from the north end of the line, ran to the bottom, then back up again, and then down and back again. It really sucked, but I was fine besides being totally exhausted that night.
The next evening I decided it was about damn time I buy myself a rice-cooker so I could make myself some proper meals. I had been living in my new apartment for about a month at the time, and hadn't cooked myself a decent meal for pretty much that entire time. I might not have ever even had a problem with my knee if I didn't wind up walking so much that evening. First I walked to what I thought was a Hi-Mart where I was sure I could get a rice-cooker, except it wasn't a Hi-Mart. The huge sign, visible for miles around, which advertised Hi-Mart on top of a tall building turned out just to be a sign, rather than a sign above a Hi-Mart like I assumed. So I had to walk all the way back towards where I came from, and then decided to walk towards my climbing gym on the other side of the river. There's a Samsung Digital Plaza right across the street from my gym and I was almost certain I could get a rice-cooker there, and thus avoid my last-ditch hope, which was the Debec Plaza where I knew I could get one, but it would be expensive.
So to get to the point, I decided to walk along and then across the river, which involved going down a bunch of stairs, and then back up on the other side. My right knee started giving out a little bit, quite painfully as I was going up and down. I kinda hoped it would just go away, but after I picked up the rice-cooker and went back down the stairs, I got the feeling the pain and weakness was here to stay. Sure enough, over the next week, when I wasn't off my feet, my knee felt like it was going to give out and blast pain up and down my leg. I could barely walk to the bank one afternoon. I went to a orthopedic doctor around the corner from my school, and after a X-ray he concluded that it would probably just go away as long as I didn't run or climb on it for awhile.
Unfortunately, my ball hockey league started that Sunday. While I was able to avoid running and climbing, I felt I had to make an appearance for my team on the opening day. I wound up playing defense to minimize my running around, but my knee started to hurt pretty soon so I was limping around to try and keep my weight off it. I played ball hockey as my only form of exercise besides climbing in the gym, which didn't bother my knee at all, for the next two weekends, with my knee holding off the pain for a bit longer each week. This past weekend was off for the ball hockey league, so I'm hoping that my entire lack of knee-intensive activity last week, last weekend, and this week will give my knee enough time to get back to 100% because I want to start running again next week and stop being a lazy gimp.
Some tests will be hiking this Friday with my school, climbing on Saturday, and hockey on Sunday. If my knee can hold up, I'm back on the river path next week, and back to training for the marathon. But much more slowly.
As you can see, the path runs right along a river, which makes for pretty nice running, and it's close to my apartment, which makes it doubly nice. If you're confused about all the numbers, they just mark the miles. We basically started from the north end of the line, ran to the bottom, then back up again, and then down and back again. It really sucked, but I was fine besides being totally exhausted that night.
The next evening I decided it was about damn time I buy myself a rice-cooker so I could make myself some proper meals. I had been living in my new apartment for about a month at the time, and hadn't cooked myself a decent meal for pretty much that entire time. I might not have ever even had a problem with my knee if I didn't wind up walking so much that evening. First I walked to what I thought was a Hi-Mart where I was sure I could get a rice-cooker, except it wasn't a Hi-Mart. The huge sign, visible for miles around, which advertised Hi-Mart on top of a tall building turned out just to be a sign, rather than a sign above a Hi-Mart like I assumed. So I had to walk all the way back towards where I came from, and then decided to walk towards my climbing gym on the other side of the river. There's a Samsung Digital Plaza right across the street from my gym and I was almost certain I could get a rice-cooker there, and thus avoid my last-ditch hope, which was the Debec Plaza where I knew I could get one, but it would be expensive.
So to get to the point, I decided to walk along and then across the river, which involved going down a bunch of stairs, and then back up on the other side. My right knee started giving out a little bit, quite painfully as I was going up and down. I kinda hoped it would just go away, but after I picked up the rice-cooker and went back down the stairs, I got the feeling the pain and weakness was here to stay. Sure enough, over the next week, when I wasn't off my feet, my knee felt like it was going to give out and blast pain up and down my leg. I could barely walk to the bank one afternoon. I went to a orthopedic doctor around the corner from my school, and after a X-ray he concluded that it would probably just go away as long as I didn't run or climb on it for awhile.
Unfortunately, my ball hockey league started that Sunday. While I was able to avoid running and climbing, I felt I had to make an appearance for my team on the opening day. I wound up playing defense to minimize my running around, but my knee started to hurt pretty soon so I was limping around to try and keep my weight off it. I played ball hockey as my only form of exercise besides climbing in the gym, which didn't bother my knee at all, for the next two weekends, with my knee holding off the pain for a bit longer each week. This past weekend was off for the ball hockey league, so I'm hoping that my entire lack of knee-intensive activity last week, last weekend, and this week will give my knee enough time to get back to 100% because I want to start running again next week and stop being a lazy gimp.
Some tests will be hiking this Friday with my school, climbing on Saturday, and hockey on Sunday. If my knee can hold up, I'm back on the river path next week, and back to training for the marathon. But much more slowly.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Chuseok Hike Day 3
Our last day started about 3:30am. I slept great compared to the previous night. Nobody stole my shit, the shelter was much larger and taller so it wasn't as steamy and smelly and crowded, and neither Eric nor the old dude next to me elbowed me or anything like that. I also slept head-end to their feet-end, so maybe that helped with the roominess. At one point during the night when I did wake up, when some people were milling about, I managed to clearly and successfully ask the old dude next to me what time it was, without even having to repeat myself, and I even understood his answer. Successful comprehension of questions and answers involving Koreans and myself are rare. It was 2:30am.
I ate a breakfast nearly identical to the previous night's dinner and got packed up and ready to go. There were plenty of others up, making breakfasts that seemed to be much more elaborate than any meal at 3:30am should be, but when it comes to hiking, among other things, Koreans tend to do things full on. This includes spending all day hiking, dressing head to toe in hiking specific gear and equipment even for casual hikes, hanging banners all around trails, and preparing the above-mentioned unnecessarily large meal even if it means hauling around pounds of cooking gear and side dishes.
Cheonwangbong, South Korea's highest mainland peak, and second highest peak after Hallabong on Jeju Island, is at 1,915 meters (6,284 feet). That's about thiiiiis much shorter than Mount Washington. The peak was a 1.7 kilometer hike from the shelter, up and over one peak, and then up again. Eric and I were one of the first hikers to start up the trail, as we needed to give ourselves as much time to get there as possible. We didn't want to wake up very much on the wrong side of dawn to get to the show late. Nevertheless, we were soon being passed by other hikers, Dan and Dave included, on our way up the first peak. It didn't make it easier that the wind was absolutely tearing at us on the exposed ridge. I really thought for a second that the wind could hold me up if I started to lean into it. It wasn't quite that strong though. I didn't think Eric was gonna get over the first peak a couple times, but he made it, and as the trail went down the east side of the mountain, we got shelter from the wind which was still howling like an angry banshee. A particular group of Korean hikers would pass us, and then we would pass them as they rested, and then they would pass us again, and the process would continue. Even though Eric and I were hiking slowly, at least we were maintaining a consistent pace.
On the way down the first peak, we could see the headlamps of the hikers ahead of us, those farther down the peak we were on, and beyond, those farther up Cheonwangbong. This was actually one of my favorite sights on the hike. I could see the lights bobbing as each hiker took each step, and I could see their lights follow their eyes as they looked from side to side, and up and down. Apart from their lamps, it was still pitch black, but all the hikers were spaced out like a scatter plot so that I could see the line of the trail. It turns out that the two lights in the very front, nearly to the peak as I was watching them, were Dan and Dave. After making our way slowly down, and then once more up, where, from just below the peak, I could see the scatter plot of even more numerous lights behind and below me, we finally met up with Dan and Dave on the top. I could see that the dawn had begun to break on the far side of the peak, but the sun was still yet to be seen due to all the clouds. Dave was in his down sleeping bag, shivering and trying to take shelter from the wind, which was brutal. They had been the first ones on the peak, and had been there a half-hour prior to Eric and mine's arrival.
The peak was rock and jagged and exposed. It began to fill up with hikers like bleachers as the light grew. Still no sign of the sun, but this was common. The day before, Eric and I were talking with a Korean hiker who said he had tried to see a clear sunrise three or four times unsuccessfully before he gave up on it. We could see our breath when we managed to find a protected nook where the wind wouldn't rush it away. I scrambled here and there trying to take a good photo and keep myself warm, but only partly succeeded at both. As the sky continued to lighten, with still no sign of the sun, we decided to pack up and hit the trail. After we managed to get around the crowd, just before we left the peak, the sun showed itself and was welcomed by everyone clapping and cheering, probably because now they knew it actually was coming up and would eventually get the chill out of their bones.
We all started the hike down together. Today we had all day. We passed the time by naming actors and trying to think of ten movies they had been in. Eric and I did this the previous two days, and Moise had come up with this time-killer the previous weekend in Seoul, and it was surprisingly fun. At one bend in the trail there was a piece of paper with an arrow taped to a rock, pointing down a little side trail. A Korean guy said god-knows-what and guided me and Dan down the little trail, but Dave and Eric opted to keep walking. Their loss. It turned out that we were led to an outcrop of smooth rock over a small river valley. The leaves looked to be in prime color, and there was a long, sloping rock that a little waterfall slid down. The colors were much more pronounced and vibrant today than they were just two days ago, on our fist day when Dan pointed out one solitary tree of bright red across a short valley. I don't know if the foliage was different on this eastern side of the park, or if two days is really enough time for a remarkable change in colors, but Dan noticed the difference too. It was a very nice time to be on a mountain.
After our detour to the viewpoint, we met up with Eric and Dave across a bridge. I realized at this point that I wouldn't be able to wait to the end of the hike to take the shit I had been feeling I had to take over the last couple hours. You know you really have to shit when digging a hole behind a fallen tree in the middle of the woods feels like a luxury.
Dan and Dave once again took off at their own pace while Eric and I moseyed on down the trail, which seemed to be unnecessarily difficult, snaking up and down the top of the little stream valley rather than just following the stream down at an even grade. Oh well. I was eventually bored and fed up with seeing candy-bar wrappers and soju bottles here and there on the trail so I attached one of my trash bags to my waist and picked up trash as I went along. This had the dual benefit of making me feel good about myself and matching my pace more closely with Eric's.
We got to the bottom of the trail forty minutes after Dan and Dave. We still had some walking time ahead of us to get to Daewonsa, the official end of the trail, and then beyond, to my motorcycle and the bus stop. When I dropped my bike off at this side of the park three days ago, I considered leaving it right at the trail head so I could leave instantly at the end of the hike. Then I thought that might be kinda cold, to take off and let the others walk on to the bus stop, so the bus stop is where I left it. The topic of conversation between Dan and Dave and I was Gorilla Burger. Gorilla Burger is easily the best burger place in Daegu, and from all I can tell, in Korea. Our mouths were watering at the very thought of it, and I knew I had the sole privilege among us to be able to eat there today. If we got to the bus stop for them to make the 4:30 bus, which I figured we would, I could be home in Daegu within four hours, which meant I could be eating an Oasis Burger by 9:00pm.
It was close, but we got to the bus stop in time, with Dave scurrying ahead like he didn't give a shit if the rest of us made it or not. Eric was still lagging on the pavement, but he made it on time too. It was annoying that he was so physically unprepared for the hike, but in the end I was proud of him for sticking through it, even though on the top of a mountain you don't have much of a choice but to keep going. I'm sure that he won't be doing something like this again, but I'm also sure he'll remember the trip and the fact that he finished something that he had thought he couldn't. The trip home, as beautiful as on the way there, though I was much more tired, took even less time than I thought it would. I had devoured a plate of chili-cheese fries and an Oasis Burger well before 9:00, after I arrived at home, unloaded my stuff and took a much needed shower.
I ate a breakfast nearly identical to the previous night's dinner and got packed up and ready to go. There were plenty of others up, making breakfasts that seemed to be much more elaborate than any meal at 3:30am should be, but when it comes to hiking, among other things, Koreans tend to do things full on. This includes spending all day hiking, dressing head to toe in hiking specific gear and equipment even for casual hikes, hanging banners all around trails, and preparing the above-mentioned unnecessarily large meal even if it means hauling around pounds of cooking gear and side dishes.
Cheonwangbong, South Korea's highest mainland peak, and second highest peak after Hallabong on Jeju Island, is at 1,915 meters (6,284 feet). That's about thiiiiis much shorter than Mount Washington. The peak was a 1.7 kilometer hike from the shelter, up and over one peak, and then up again. Eric and I were one of the first hikers to start up the trail, as we needed to give ourselves as much time to get there as possible. We didn't want to wake up very much on the wrong side of dawn to get to the show late. Nevertheless, we were soon being passed by other hikers, Dan and Dave included, on our way up the first peak. It didn't make it easier that the wind was absolutely tearing at us on the exposed ridge. I really thought for a second that the wind could hold me up if I started to lean into it. It wasn't quite that strong though. I didn't think Eric was gonna get over the first peak a couple times, but he made it, and as the trail went down the east side of the mountain, we got shelter from the wind which was still howling like an angry banshee. A particular group of Korean hikers would pass us, and then we would pass them as they rested, and then they would pass us again, and the process would continue. Even though Eric and I were hiking slowly, at least we were maintaining a consistent pace.
On the way down the first peak, we could see the headlamps of the hikers ahead of us, those farther down the peak we were on, and beyond, those farther up Cheonwangbong. This was actually one of my favorite sights on the hike. I could see the lights bobbing as each hiker took each step, and I could see their lights follow their eyes as they looked from side to side, and up and down. Apart from their lamps, it was still pitch black, but all the hikers were spaced out like a scatter plot so that I could see the line of the trail. It turns out that the two lights in the very front, nearly to the peak as I was watching them, were Dan and Dave. After making our way slowly down, and then once more up, where, from just below the peak, I could see the scatter plot of even more numerous lights behind and below me, we finally met up with Dan and Dave on the top. I could see that the dawn had begun to break on the far side of the peak, but the sun was still yet to be seen due to all the clouds. Dave was in his down sleeping bag, shivering and trying to take shelter from the wind, which was brutal. They had been the first ones on the peak, and had been there a half-hour prior to Eric and mine's arrival.
The peak was rock and jagged and exposed. It began to fill up with hikers like bleachers as the light grew. Still no sign of the sun, but this was common. The day before, Eric and I were talking with a Korean hiker who said he had tried to see a clear sunrise three or four times unsuccessfully before he gave up on it. We could see our breath when we managed to find a protected nook where the wind wouldn't rush it away. I scrambled here and there trying to take a good photo and keep myself warm, but only partly succeeded at both. As the sky continued to lighten, with still no sign of the sun, we decided to pack up and hit the trail. After we managed to get around the crowd, just before we left the peak, the sun showed itself and was welcomed by everyone clapping and cheering, probably because now they knew it actually was coming up and would eventually get the chill out of their bones.
We all started the hike down together. Today we had all day. We passed the time by naming actors and trying to think of ten movies they had been in. Eric and I did this the previous two days, and Moise had come up with this time-killer the previous weekend in Seoul, and it was surprisingly fun. At one bend in the trail there was a piece of paper with an arrow taped to a rock, pointing down a little side trail. A Korean guy said god-knows-what and guided me and Dan down the little trail, but Dave and Eric opted to keep walking. Their loss. It turned out that we were led to an outcrop of smooth rock over a small river valley. The leaves looked to be in prime color, and there was a long, sloping rock that a little waterfall slid down. The colors were much more pronounced and vibrant today than they were just two days ago, on our fist day when Dan pointed out one solitary tree of bright red across a short valley. I don't know if the foliage was different on this eastern side of the park, or if two days is really enough time for a remarkable change in colors, but Dan noticed the difference too. It was a very nice time to be on a mountain.
After our detour to the viewpoint, we met up with Eric and Dave across a bridge. I realized at this point that I wouldn't be able to wait to the end of the hike to take the shit I had been feeling I had to take over the last couple hours. You know you really have to shit when digging a hole behind a fallen tree in the middle of the woods feels like a luxury.
Dan and Dave once again took off at their own pace while Eric and I moseyed on down the trail, which seemed to be unnecessarily difficult, snaking up and down the top of the little stream valley rather than just following the stream down at an even grade. Oh well. I was eventually bored and fed up with seeing candy-bar wrappers and soju bottles here and there on the trail so I attached one of my trash bags to my waist and picked up trash as I went along. This had the dual benefit of making me feel good about myself and matching my pace more closely with Eric's.
We got to the bottom of the trail forty minutes after Dan and Dave. We still had some walking time ahead of us to get to Daewonsa, the official end of the trail, and then beyond, to my motorcycle and the bus stop. When I dropped my bike off at this side of the park three days ago, I considered leaving it right at the trail head so I could leave instantly at the end of the hike. Then I thought that might be kinda cold, to take off and let the others walk on to the bus stop, so the bus stop is where I left it. The topic of conversation between Dan and Dave and I was Gorilla Burger. Gorilla Burger is easily the best burger place in Daegu, and from all I can tell, in Korea. Our mouths were watering at the very thought of it, and I knew I had the sole privilege among us to be able to eat there today. If we got to the bus stop for them to make the 4:30 bus, which I figured we would, I could be home in Daegu within four hours, which meant I could be eating an Oasis Burger by 9:00pm.
It was close, but we got to the bus stop in time, with Dave scurrying ahead like he didn't give a shit if the rest of us made it or not. Eric was still lagging on the pavement, but he made it on time too. It was annoying that he was so physically unprepared for the hike, but in the end I was proud of him for sticking through it, even though on the top of a mountain you don't have much of a choice but to keep going. I'm sure that he won't be doing something like this again, but I'm also sure he'll remember the trip and the fact that he finished something that he had thought he couldn't. The trip home, as beautiful as on the way there, though I was much more tired, took even less time than I thought it would. I had devoured a plate of chili-cheese fries and an Oasis Burger well before 9:00, after I arrived at home, unloaded my stuff and took a much needed shower.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Chuseok Hike Day 2
I woke up, for the last time that morning, around 7:15. After packing up, and eating breakfast of granola bars, canned fruit, ramyen, and tepid pre-cooked rice, I thought it would be a good idea to have someone take a picture of the four of us on that sunny morning in front of the shelter. I approached the first Korean guy I came across and said something that, generously translated, was something like "Please take a picture." He answered, as occasionally happens, in excellent English, and I just felt like an idiot for using my stumbling Korean, but then again, I would be even more of an idiot to just start speaking English to every Korean I ran into. Here is one of the pictures he took, complete with his buddies photo-bombing us.
We all left around nine, and Dan and Dave took off immediately at their own pace so there would be no chance of us not getting our spots at the shelter that night. Eric and I set off like sloths out of hell, but there was reason enough to take frequent breaks apart from Eric's legs. The sun was shining bright and the skies were clear and, as we were still on the ridge, the views were fantastic. Korea's mountains may not be that tall, but there sure are a shitload of them. At pretty much every bend in the trail that morning, we were treated to views of green mountains marching out into the distance. Not long into the day's hike, we came across a fat monolith of stone just sticking straight up, forcing the trail to bend around it. For a minute I was tempted to free-climb it, but then my sense of reason reminded me that it was about forty feet tall and death would be quite guaranteed should I fall. Instead, I scrambled up the little rock slide between the big tower and a smaller one to the side, where I made faces for Eric to take pictures of, which reminds me, I should really get some of those photos from him.
We had "lunch" not long after, at a shelter we could see from previous lookouts. We sat in the sun and Eric slept and I ate chocopies and other inadequate lunch foods. We moved on at 12:15, and according to the chart at the shelter, it was going to take us five hours to get to Jangteomok Shelter, where we were staying that night. I find that times on charts like that, and times in non-hiking specific guidebooks are always quite generous, but I also knew that Eric was moving at a slow pace, so I thought five hours seemed like a reasonable estimate. Not far from the shelter, Eric started having gut problems on top of his leg problems. We stopped so he could take a shit in the woods, and he reported that he felt much better after that, which was good news. The hike was very pretty, but mostly uneventful for the rest of the day. It wound up taking us longer than the the five hours predicted on the chart at our lunch shelter. It took us about six hours, during which we passed another shelter, several lookouts on and off various peaks, and were treated to seeing the full moon - Chuseok always falls on a full moon - rising on one horizon while the sinking sun set on the other.
It was just getting dark as we got to our shelter. We made it without having to break out our headlamps, which was more than we could say about the previous night. Dan and Dave arrived about two hours earlier and secured our spots in the shelter, which was both larger and nicer than our first shelter. The room we were in had a sleeping platform around three sides of the room, and lofts above us to sleep even more people. Everything was built out of light-colored wood, and was quite attractive and fitting on a mountain. Dan and Dave had one end of the platform to themselves, and Eric and I were across the entrance from them on the other end, which was nice cause we only had one dude on our left who wound up not giving me any problems like stealing my shit or elbowing me. I made a quick dinner of ramyen, tepid rice, jjajang sauce, and more granola bars, before crawling into my sleeping bag and drifting into a much more satisfying sleep.
We all left around nine, and Dan and Dave took off immediately at their own pace so there would be no chance of us not getting our spots at the shelter that night. Eric and I set off like sloths out of hell, but there was reason enough to take frequent breaks apart from Eric's legs. The sun was shining bright and the skies were clear and, as we were still on the ridge, the views were fantastic. Korea's mountains may not be that tall, but there sure are a shitload of them. At pretty much every bend in the trail that morning, we were treated to views of green mountains marching out into the distance. Not long into the day's hike, we came across a fat monolith of stone just sticking straight up, forcing the trail to bend around it. For a minute I was tempted to free-climb it, but then my sense of reason reminded me that it was about forty feet tall and death would be quite guaranteed should I fall. Instead, I scrambled up the little rock slide between the big tower and a smaller one to the side, where I made faces for Eric to take pictures of, which reminds me, I should really get some of those photos from him.
We had "lunch" not long after, at a shelter we could see from previous lookouts. We sat in the sun and Eric slept and I ate chocopies and other inadequate lunch foods. We moved on at 12:15, and according to the chart at the shelter, it was going to take us five hours to get to Jangteomok Shelter, where we were staying that night. I find that times on charts like that, and times in non-hiking specific guidebooks are always quite generous, but I also knew that Eric was moving at a slow pace, so I thought five hours seemed like a reasonable estimate. Not far from the shelter, Eric started having gut problems on top of his leg problems. We stopped so he could take a shit in the woods, and he reported that he felt much better after that, which was good news. The hike was very pretty, but mostly uneventful for the rest of the day. It wound up taking us longer than the the five hours predicted on the chart at our lunch shelter. It took us about six hours, during which we passed another shelter, several lookouts on and off various peaks, and were treated to seeing the full moon - Chuseok always falls on a full moon - rising on one horizon while the sinking sun set on the other.
It was just getting dark as we got to our shelter. We made it without having to break out our headlamps, which was more than we could say about the previous night. Dan and Dave arrived about two hours earlier and secured our spots in the shelter, which was both larger and nicer than our first shelter. The room we were in had a sleeping platform around three sides of the room, and lofts above us to sleep even more people. Everything was built out of light-colored wood, and was quite attractive and fitting on a mountain. Dan and Dave had one end of the platform to themselves, and Eric and I were across the entrance from them on the other end, which was nice cause we only had one dude on our left who wound up not giving me any problems like stealing my shit or elbowing me. I made a quick dinner of ramyen, tepid rice, jjajang sauce, and more granola bars, before crawling into my sleeping bag and drifting into a much more satisfying sleep.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
New Photos
I added a couple new photo albums to my Picasa account. Click the photos on the right, or the link below to check out photos from my bike/hike trip to Jirisan and the 2009 Daegu International Bodypainting Festival.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Chuseok Hike Day 1
I was actually going back and forth on whether or not I should invite Eric on the hike, knowing that it might be a struggle for him. I knew meeting Dan to hike Jirisan wouldn't be a problem as he does a lot of local hikes around Busan. Eric had mentioned he wanted to do something like this for Chuseok though, so I invited him, telling him it was going to be a difficult hike and he should spend the next few weeks training. Hiking around Seoul, buying and breaking in boots, working his legs at the gym, whatever.
The motorcycle drive from Daegu was incredible once I got past the urban fringes of the city. In fact, it reminded me of why I bought the motorcycle in the first place. The roads were empty, small, and scenic. I drove in the sun through through rice fields, and terraces that climbed up mountains, and along lakes and rivers. I went through a few small towns, but most of the places I went though weren't even at town status, they were simply marked as villages.
Within an hour of starting the three-day, 45 kilometer hike, Eric was dragging his feet, having leg cramps and needing rests, and we hadn't even gotten to the steep part yet. I was on the fence between getting angry and being supportive. In the end, being the fantastic guy I am, I was supportive, and slowed way down to shuffle up the mountain with him. The trail was a bit steep, and rugged, and though I was sweating in the heat, I didn't find it particularly difficult. Dan and Dave would hike up at a normal pace and then wait around while we caught up to them. We went though this routine all the way up to the ridge where there was a shelter accessible by bus, where Eric almost decided to give up and just quit. I talked him out of that though, counting on the fact that the hike should be easier along the ridge, at least until the final decent two days later.
From the shelter, we all hiked with each other for awhile, taking in the beautiful scenery. We had perfect weather the whole trip, and could see the mountains rolling off into each other in the distance from the many peaks and lookouts along the trail. We got to one peak called Samdobong, which I realized meant "Three-Province Peak" when I saw the triangular marker representing the point where the three provinces of Gyeongnam, Jeollabuk, and Jeollanam came together. That was pretty cool.
When the afternoon was beginning to get on, Dan and Dave took off to secure our spots at the shelter we had made reservations at. Eric and I kept pushing on, bit by bit, and it got dark and windy and cold. We were in our coats with our headlamps on, pushing through the chilly night over the last two peaks of the night. It had been a long day, and when we finally got to the shelter around 7:30, it felt like we had been walking for so much longer after all the ups and downs and stairs along the trail, which was anything but a nice rolling ridge. We had spots fortunately. Even though Dan had made reservations, we were supposed to have been there by 6 to claim them. Dan and Dave got there at 7 and they were at first told that the spots were gone, but then later told we had them. I don't know if they changed their minds or if other spots became available, but we had a place to sleep indoors, which was good enough for me.
Korean hiking shelters are basically a wooden platform that you sleep on next to other people. This one had two levels, just like the shelter I stayed at the previous Chuseok in Seoraksan, actually. I set up my sleeping pad and bag and pillow, and went out to cook some hot dinner. Dan and Dave packed in veggies and potatoes and all the fixings for curry, so they made enough to share with me and Eric which was very nice of them, and very delicious.
I wondered if a pair of girls me and Eric had seen along the trail had made it to the shelter. Just before it got dark, we were at a trail intersection when a girl hauled herself up, and then went down to carry her friends (small)pack up. When they were both up, I asked where they were going, and they said to the same shelter we were. Then Eric and I took off through the quickly falling night. I hope they had headlamps and made it, in fact, I actually thought about going back to find them, cause they seemed really exhausted and unprepared, but I was too tired and went to bed instead.
After dinner, I helped clean up and was going to briefly write in my little notebook about the day when the shelter caretaker came in and said lights out. I had to wake up some Korean dude who had managed to fit himself onto the platform with his two buddies that was only supposed to hold them two. He was on my sleeping pad, hugging my pillow. I couldn't believe it, but I sure as hell wasn't going to let him have those luxuries I had packed in for the whole night. I poked him awake, took them, and went to bed. It was hot as hell in there at night, and I slept poorly, being poked or kicked or jabbed by people trying to get comfy.
The motorcycle drive from Daegu was incredible once I got past the urban fringes of the city. In fact, it reminded me of why I bought the motorcycle in the first place. The roads were empty, small, and scenic. I drove in the sun through through rice fields, and terraces that climbed up mountains, and along lakes and rivers. I went through a few small towns, but most of the places I went though weren't even at town status, they were simply marked as villages.
Within an hour of starting the three-day, 45 kilometer hike, Eric was dragging his feet, having leg cramps and needing rests, and we hadn't even gotten to the steep part yet. I was on the fence between getting angry and being supportive. In the end, being the fantastic guy I am, I was supportive, and slowed way down to shuffle up the mountain with him. The trail was a bit steep, and rugged, and though I was sweating in the heat, I didn't find it particularly difficult. Dan and Dave would hike up at a normal pace and then wait around while we caught up to them. We went though this routine all the way up to the ridge where there was a shelter accessible by bus, where Eric almost decided to give up and just quit. I talked him out of that though, counting on the fact that the hike should be easier along the ridge, at least until the final decent two days later.
From the shelter, we all hiked with each other for awhile, taking in the beautiful scenery. We had perfect weather the whole trip, and could see the mountains rolling off into each other in the distance from the many peaks and lookouts along the trail. We got to one peak called Samdobong, which I realized meant "Three-Province Peak" when I saw the triangular marker representing the point where the three provinces of Gyeongnam, Jeollabuk, and Jeollanam came together. That was pretty cool.
When the afternoon was beginning to get on, Dan and Dave took off to secure our spots at the shelter we had made reservations at. Eric and I kept pushing on, bit by bit, and it got dark and windy and cold. We were in our coats with our headlamps on, pushing through the chilly night over the last two peaks of the night. It had been a long day, and when we finally got to the shelter around 7:30, it felt like we had been walking for so much longer after all the ups and downs and stairs along the trail, which was anything but a nice rolling ridge. We had spots fortunately. Even though Dan had made reservations, we were supposed to have been there by 6 to claim them. Dan and Dave got there at 7 and they were at first told that the spots were gone, but then later told we had them. I don't know if they changed their minds or if other spots became available, but we had a place to sleep indoors, which was good enough for me.
Korean hiking shelters are basically a wooden platform that you sleep on next to other people. This one had two levels, just like the shelter I stayed at the previous Chuseok in Seoraksan, actually. I set up my sleeping pad and bag and pillow, and went out to cook some hot dinner. Dan and Dave packed in veggies and potatoes and all the fixings for curry, so they made enough to share with me and Eric which was very nice of them, and very delicious.
I wondered if a pair of girls me and Eric had seen along the trail had made it to the shelter. Just before it got dark, we were at a trail intersection when a girl hauled herself up, and then went down to carry her friends (small)pack up. When they were both up, I asked where they were going, and they said to the same shelter we were. Then Eric and I took off through the quickly falling night. I hope they had headlamps and made it, in fact, I actually thought about going back to find them, cause they seemed really exhausted and unprepared, but I was too tired and went to bed instead.
After dinner, I helped clean up and was going to briefly write in my little notebook about the day when the shelter caretaker came in and said lights out. I had to wake up some Korean dude who had managed to fit himself onto the platform with his two buddies that was only supposed to hold them two. He was on my sleeping pad, hugging my pillow. I couldn't believe it, but I sure as hell wasn't going to let him have those luxuries I had packed in for the whole night. I poked him awake, took them, and went to bed. It was hot as hell in there at night, and I slept poorly, being poked or kicked or jabbed by people trying to get comfy.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Chuseok Plans
Chuseok is the Korean Thanksgiving. It's in early October, generally. I guess the date changes as it is based on the lunar calendar. Either way, for foreigners in Korea, this means a long weekend to do whatever we want while Koreans are off with their families doing traditional family ceremony stuff. Last year I went to Seoraksan, generally considered to be Korea's most beautiful national park. It was a great weekend of a bit of hiking and climbing, with great weather, and not too many people.
This year I have a five day weekend and I intend to ride my motorcycle to Jirisan, generally regarded as Korea's second most beautiful national park, hike the 45 kilometer ridge line with some friends, and then ride my bike back to Daegu. The descriptions of the hike can be found here (hike number four). We intend to go west to east, from Hwaeomsa to Daewonsa in three days. Dan booked shelters for the four of us. I know I said that usually Koreans are busy doing family stuff on Chuseok, but it seems we won't be the only ones doing this hike, as all the shelters filled up within minutes of the reservations being open. This is pretty standard according to Dan, who's been there before.
Our plan is to start hiking early Friday morning. My plan is to leave Daegu on Thursday morning, ride my bike to the east entrance where we finish our trip, and then somehow get to the west entrance that evening and meet up with the other hikers, allowing me to hopefully just ride away when the hike is finished on Sunday. How I will get from one side of the park to the other, I'm not so sure. If I were to use public transportation, I would have to go way out of my way, so I may end up resorting to hitchhiking. We'll see. And that is also assuming my bike makes it there too. I went on a 70 kilometer ride today, and that is the longest I've been on it at one stretch before, and the trip to Jirisan will probably be at least three times that length. Plus traffic. Chuseok weekend is renowned for traffic. I hope that won't be a huge issue for me as I plan on taking the smaller roads to the mountain - motorcycles are banned on highways.
I bought hiking boots today, which I am currently breaking in. Merrell Switchbacks, size 9.5, half off of 220K. I thought the size would be too small, but my feet seem to fit into them alright, and I'm attributing the tingling in my feet to the fact that they're new boots and I have them tightly laced. This better just be part of the normal break-in process...
This year I have a five day weekend and I intend to ride my motorcycle to Jirisan, generally regarded as Korea's second most beautiful national park, hike the 45 kilometer ridge line with some friends, and then ride my bike back to Daegu. The descriptions of the hike can be found here (hike number four). We intend to go west to east, from Hwaeomsa to Daewonsa in three days. Dan booked shelters for the four of us. I know I said that usually Koreans are busy doing family stuff on Chuseok, but it seems we won't be the only ones doing this hike, as all the shelters filled up within minutes of the reservations being open. This is pretty standard according to Dan, who's been there before.
Our plan is to start hiking early Friday morning. My plan is to leave Daegu on Thursday morning, ride my bike to the east entrance where we finish our trip, and then somehow get to the west entrance that evening and meet up with the other hikers, allowing me to hopefully just ride away when the hike is finished on Sunday. How I will get from one side of the park to the other, I'm not so sure. If I were to use public transportation, I would have to go way out of my way, so I may end up resorting to hitchhiking. We'll see. And that is also assuming my bike makes it there too. I went on a 70 kilometer ride today, and that is the longest I've been on it at one stretch before, and the trip to Jirisan will probably be at least three times that length. Plus traffic. Chuseok weekend is renowned for traffic. I hope that won't be a huge issue for me as I plan on taking the smaller roads to the mountain - motorcycles are banned on highways.
I bought hiking boots today, which I am currently breaking in. Merrell Switchbacks, size 9.5, half off of 220K. I thought the size would be too small, but my feet seem to fit into them alright, and I'm attributing the tingling in my feet to the fact that they're new boots and I have them tightly laced. This better just be part of the normal break-in process...
Buffets
Last Friday night was another EPIK welcoming dinner for the new batch of teachers that arrived. I guess this is my third one as they bring in new teachers every six months. Just like the previous dinners, I met maybe one or two new teachers whom I spoke with briefly before spending the rest of my time hanging out with my friends or catching up with people I hadn't seen before. It was an all you can eat and drink buffet in the brewery at Daegu Hotel and just like every other buffet I've been to in Korea, the food was crap.
That was my second time at Daegu Hotel. I've been to the buffet at Ariana Brewery twice and that one is actually passable. I've been to the buffet at the New Yeongnam Hotel, and that one is bad, and there was the Christmas dinner at the Eldis Regent Hotel. I was at an Italian buffet in a Homeplus in Seoul a couple weeks back, and that was also passable I suppose.
All the buffets are exactly the same. They have some excuse for lettuce and then not enough vegetables to make a proper salad, usually just big ass wedges of tomato which you have to cut up into three or four normal sized bites, and some weird kiwi-flavored dressing that's generally the only available dressing at any given buffet. There's pasta with watery sauce, there's dry slices of pork next to the mystery meat tubes that exist in some category between hotdogs and sausage, and dwengjjang paste that is mistakenly labeled "bbq sauce". There is always a selection of standard Korean food like kimbap and sundae, and there are plates of fruit which is easily the most delicious and reliable selection. There's also always some form of sushi and some seafood dishes, and even though I don't eat seafood, I'm willing to bet its not worth much attention based on the quality of the dishes that I do eat. For dessert there is also a plate of little Korean roll-cake type desserts which aren't too bad, but certainly not something that stands out. If you're lucky there is also a pot of assorted fried potatoes and a bowl of ketchup to go with it. Ariana and the Italian place at the Seoul Homeplus have thin-crust pizza which, again, is no standout, but it does help.
So the buffets in Korea are pretty consistently mediocre. Fortunately, my standards for Western food have gone down significantly as it is no longer feeding me for three meals a day.
That was my second time at Daegu Hotel. I've been to the buffet at Ariana Brewery twice and that one is actually passable. I've been to the buffet at the New Yeongnam Hotel, and that one is bad, and there was the Christmas dinner at the Eldis Regent Hotel. I was at an Italian buffet in a Homeplus in Seoul a couple weeks back, and that was also passable I suppose.
All the buffets are exactly the same. They have some excuse for lettuce and then not enough vegetables to make a proper salad, usually just big ass wedges of tomato which you have to cut up into three or four normal sized bites, and some weird kiwi-flavored dressing that's generally the only available dressing at any given buffet. There's pasta with watery sauce, there's dry slices of pork next to the mystery meat tubes that exist in some category between hotdogs and sausage, and dwengjjang paste that is mistakenly labeled "bbq sauce". There is always a selection of standard Korean food like kimbap and sundae, and there are plates of fruit which is easily the most delicious and reliable selection. There's also always some form of sushi and some seafood dishes, and even though I don't eat seafood, I'm willing to bet its not worth much attention based on the quality of the dishes that I do eat. For dessert there is also a plate of little Korean roll-cake type desserts which aren't too bad, but certainly not something that stands out. If you're lucky there is also a pot of assorted fried potatoes and a bowl of ketchup to go with it. Ariana and the Italian place at the Seoul Homeplus have thin-crust pizza which, again, is no standout, but it does help.
So the buffets in Korea are pretty consistently mediocre. Fortunately, my standards for Western food have gone down significantly as it is no longer feeding me for three meals a day.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Summer Vacation
Summer vacation started with a night in a hotel in Busan, south of the train station where I saw some hookers get hustled into a waiting car. The street seemed much more innocent the next morning when I caught a pre-dawn taxi to the airport. Twenty-something hours later Ben was waiting for me in the baggage claim at Logan and Paul and Maury showed up about five minutes later. We met Adam and Chad at a house party outside of Boston, and I couldn't imagine a better way to start off a visit home than hanging out, as a single group for the first time in god knows how long, with my five best high school homies, most of whom just happened to be in town visiting on plans unrelated to my vacation.
The next day, I got home to see my parents and my brother, also visiting from out of town, and I got to spend the week with my family, the four of us not having been all together in Exeter also for god knows how long.
The first week I spent mostly with my family and Andy's girlfriend Allie, playing mini golf, running with Andy who finally started to exercise for once in his life, getting up into northern NH for Big Dave's wedding, going for a boat ride down the Squamscott into Great Bay, and eating American food unobtainable in Korea including, but not limited to: homemade baked mac and cheese, lasagna, homemade and deli-made sandwiches, decent pizza, strawberry-rhubarb pie, Cuban sandwiches, and barbeque.
The second week included an epic party at Alissa's farm house in scenic Kensington which featured a cornhole (game) driven all nighter and was capped off with probably the most beautiful morning I have ever seen as the darkness cleared and the mist began to rise from the marshland behind the house, two trips to the beach with two beautiful women, tennis, and visits with Ed, Scott, Lee and Stacy and their newborn Ava, swimming in the Lamprey, minor league baseball in Manchester, and was capped off by a visit from my Utah homies and newlyweds Mark and Annie who drove down from their new home in Burlington.
Summer vacation ended with me packing my entire apartment onto the back of a truck with a bed not much larger than a Ranger's, unloading the bed, fridge, washing machine, table, chairs, etc. at my old school, and dragging the remaining items belonging to me into my new apartment downtown, and then spending hours cleaning the ever living shit out of my new place before I could unpack. That took two days. Summer vacation ended on a Tuesday morning, September the 1st, when I went back to work at my new school Samdeok Elementary School.
The next day, I got home to see my parents and my brother, also visiting from out of town, and I got to spend the week with my family, the four of us not having been all together in Exeter also for god knows how long.
The first week I spent mostly with my family and Andy's girlfriend Allie, playing mini golf, running with Andy who finally started to exercise for once in his life, getting up into northern NH for Big Dave's wedding, going for a boat ride down the Squamscott into Great Bay, and eating American food unobtainable in Korea including, but not limited to: homemade baked mac and cheese, lasagna, homemade and deli-made sandwiches, decent pizza, strawberry-rhubarb pie, Cuban sandwiches, and barbeque.
The second week included an epic party at Alissa's farm house in scenic Kensington which featured a cornhole (game) driven all nighter and was capped off with probably the most beautiful morning I have ever seen as the darkness cleared and the mist began to rise from the marshland behind the house, two trips to the beach with two beautiful women, tennis, and visits with Ed, Scott, Lee and Stacy and their newborn Ava, swimming in the Lamprey, minor league baseball in Manchester, and was capped off by a visit from my Utah homies and newlyweds Mark and Annie who drove down from their new home in Burlington.
Summer vacation ended with me packing my entire apartment onto the back of a truck with a bed not much larger than a Ranger's, unloading the bed, fridge, washing machine, table, chairs, etc. at my old school, and dragging the remaining items belonging to me into my new apartment downtown, and then spending hours cleaning the ever living shit out of my new place before I could unpack. That took two days. Summer vacation ended on a Tuesday morning, September the 1st, when I went back to work at my new school Samdeok Elementary School.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
New Photos
I have finally uploaded some new photos, check the slideshow to the right. Now that I have this "real" camera, I take photos in RAW mode which apparently means I can change the original data without losing any quality before I change it into a standard JPG. However, this also means I have obliged myself to go through each photo and tweak it before I upload it or consider it ready for general viewing. Editing 100 photos is just about infinitely longer a process than taking 100 photos. Oh well.
One night I was sitting in Caffe and Stuff with Eric and Paul playing Go/Stop, which means it was a Thursday. Eric was mentioning how he had joined Twitter and I decided to sign up, which was convenient and instantaneous since I had my laptop with me that night, due to the fact that the cafe had just gotten a new computer that wasn't set up yet and Paul wanted to look something up on the Internet.
Also, I figured I would stake my claim to my Internet nickname cyphecks, 'cause if anyone else ever took that I would be pissed. So I am now the owner of aTwitter account. For anyone who doesn't know by now, Twitter is a "micro-blogging" service that people update with short (140 character max) sentences or notes.
So it's done. Check http://twitter.com/cyphecks occasionally to read about some stuff I don't put in here.
Also, I figured I would stake my claim to my Internet nickname cyphecks, 'cause if anyone else ever took that I would be pissed. So I am now the owner of aTwitter account. For anyone who doesn't know by now, Twitter is a "micro-blogging" service that people update with short (140 character max) sentences or notes.
So it's done. Check http://twitter.com/cyphecks occasionally to read about some stuff I don't put in here.
Phrasal Konglish #2
All of today's specimens are from items in the juice and toast shop right outside of the subway in my neighborhood.
I am in love
you don't know how
I feel when you
smile at me like that
can't you see that you are the on-e
to bring meback to life ahh
I like that
Mother and sister, let us go and live by the river
With golden sands stretched for our limle gerdem
And need -
We are going to the with beans.
My siblings are waiting for me in the forest
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Fight!
Yesterday I was in class blabbing incomprehensibly in English like always, when, from the other side of the classroom, there was an unwelcome clatter of kids yapping and chairs sliding around, like always. I directed my attention to the two third-grade boys who were horsing around, play-fighting, and thought, "Great, more distractions." They were swinging their fists and wailing on each other pretty hard and it it took me a second to realize this was actually a fight.
I don't know really how the other 38 kids in the class were reacting because I was so surprised I had a real fight in my class, something exciting for a change. My co-teacher ran over and was yelling at them and trying to make them stop, but they were evidently too determined to keep wailing on each other so I rushed over and got in between them which proved still inadequate to get them to stop hitting each other, so I pushed them apart, sending one to the ground accidentally. I also had to drop my paper and pencil, dammit.
This seemed to get them to stop trying to kill each other temporarily. My co-teacher led them from the classroom into my office which is connected to the classroom by a door in the rear. I foolishly tried to resume my lesson, which was a fun Scattergories-style vocabulary game since my week's intended lesson had bombed due partly to the fact that it sucked, and partly to the fact that it was the last week of school before summer break and the kids probably cared less than I did. My attempt to regain control of the class failed, needless to say. And furthermore, a moment after the two brawlers were led out of my classroom, we all heard the sounds of scuffling in my office, so I had to go see what they were up to in there.
When I got into my office the kids were separated again, but screaming at each other and cursing their brains off, which I knew because I have made a decent survey of Korean swear words, and I could pick out 'ssi-bal!' at least a dozen times, which is the Korean equivalent of 'fuck'. The co-teacher was by now leading them from my office out of the door and into the hallway, with me trailing behind, but before they could make it to the door their curses turned to blows again and the fists started hitting faces. All in all, this was a much more exciting fight than the only other fight I witnessed in Korea, which was in Bucheon, partway between Seoul and Incheon. That fight happened late at night, after some friends and I got out of a norae-bang with some random English-enthusiast Korean kids. That fight was outside of an arcade or something, and the kids were maybe early twenties and were throwing the most rubbery girl-punches I have ever seen, and kicking people like they didn't even care. It was entertaining for sure, and I give them credit for the duration, since they kept starting and stopping, but it was a pretty sissy display of violence.
So by the time I realized that my two students were pounding each other in the face inside of my office door, they had each landed a few punches, and I pulled them apart yet again. My co-teacher led the one she had control of out of the room to who knows where, and I had the kid that was still with me just sit at the little table in my office and cool down. I went back into my classroom where the kids were chattering about the fight, I'm sure, and put on a movie which I just happened to have lurking on my computer for months, a documentary film about an international breakdancing competition called Planet B-Boy, which is a sick film and features two Korean teams. This got the classes attention after the wild interruption.
The film was on for a bit and my co-teacher had returned and I just let the kids watch the film for the last 25 minutes of class rather than trying to get them to do something productive. Watching Planet B-Boy was a good choice, I probably haven't seen so many kids pay attention to something in my classroom ever, or at least not make any noise.
I had previously noticed a few drops of blood on my sleeve, but it wasn't until after class that I noticed there was a splash on my arm too, I guess from the kid who I had kept in my office. His shirt was also bloody and he had a black eye already and the teacher with whom I shared my office had come back to her desk and told me after class the kid said he was ashamed he got hit so much. I guess you could say he was the loser of the fight. He was also the one I had accidentally pushed to the ground when I was first trying to separate them in the classroom. I asked the reason for the fight, and apparently one of the boys had 'playfully' slapped the other one, who had not taken the slap so playfully. "Maybe it's because of the weather," she said, but I have never punched someone in the face because it was humid and hot. "Boys will fight sometimes," she said, and I asked if there was any punishment for them, or if their parents were informed or anything. "No," she said, "because they are good boys," she said, and I mentally added the obligatory "usually".
After the class, when I had removed my shirt to wash it in the sink in my office to try to get as much of the blood out of it as I could, the two boys came to me to apologize. Their faces were red, not from embarrassment, but from getting punched, and they were cheerful and unaccompanied, and comfortable with each other as they are friends apparently. I said it was no problem, and told them to be nice, and they left and that was the end of that.
I don't know really how the other 38 kids in the class were reacting because I was so surprised I had a real fight in my class, something exciting for a change. My co-teacher ran over and was yelling at them and trying to make them stop, but they were evidently too determined to keep wailing on each other so I rushed over and got in between them which proved still inadequate to get them to stop hitting each other, so I pushed them apart, sending one to the ground accidentally. I also had to drop my paper and pencil, dammit.
This seemed to get them to stop trying to kill each other temporarily. My co-teacher led them from the classroom into my office which is connected to the classroom by a door in the rear. I foolishly tried to resume my lesson, which was a fun Scattergories-style vocabulary game since my week's intended lesson had bombed due partly to the fact that it sucked, and partly to the fact that it was the last week of school before summer break and the kids probably cared less than I did. My attempt to regain control of the class failed, needless to say. And furthermore, a moment after the two brawlers were led out of my classroom, we all heard the sounds of scuffling in my office, so I had to go see what they were up to in there.
When I got into my office the kids were separated again, but screaming at each other and cursing their brains off, which I knew because I have made a decent survey of Korean swear words, and I could pick out 'ssi-bal!' at least a dozen times, which is the Korean equivalent of 'fuck'. The co-teacher was by now leading them from my office out of the door and into the hallway, with me trailing behind, but before they could make it to the door their curses turned to blows again and the fists started hitting faces. All in all, this was a much more exciting fight than the only other fight I witnessed in Korea, which was in Bucheon, partway between Seoul and Incheon. That fight happened late at night, after some friends and I got out of a norae-bang with some random English-enthusiast Korean kids. That fight was outside of an arcade or something, and the kids were maybe early twenties and were throwing the most rubbery girl-punches I have ever seen, and kicking people like they didn't even care. It was entertaining for sure, and I give them credit for the duration, since they kept starting and stopping, but it was a pretty sissy display of violence.
So by the time I realized that my two students were pounding each other in the face inside of my office door, they had each landed a few punches, and I pulled them apart yet again. My co-teacher led the one she had control of out of the room to who knows where, and I had the kid that was still with me just sit at the little table in my office and cool down. I went back into my classroom where the kids were chattering about the fight, I'm sure, and put on a movie which I just happened to have lurking on my computer for months, a documentary film about an international breakdancing competition called Planet B-Boy, which is a sick film and features two Korean teams. This got the classes attention after the wild interruption.
The film was on for a bit and my co-teacher had returned and I just let the kids watch the film for the last 25 minutes of class rather than trying to get them to do something productive. Watching Planet B-Boy was a good choice, I probably haven't seen so many kids pay attention to something in my classroom ever, or at least not make any noise.
I had previously noticed a few drops of blood on my sleeve, but it wasn't until after class that I noticed there was a splash on my arm too, I guess from the kid who I had kept in my office. His shirt was also bloody and he had a black eye already and the teacher with whom I shared my office had come back to her desk and told me after class the kid said he was ashamed he got hit so much. I guess you could say he was the loser of the fight. He was also the one I had accidentally pushed to the ground when I was first trying to separate them in the classroom. I asked the reason for the fight, and apparently one of the boys had 'playfully' slapped the other one, who had not taken the slap so playfully. "Maybe it's because of the weather," she said, but I have never punched someone in the face because it was humid and hot. "Boys will fight sometimes," she said, and I asked if there was any punishment for them, or if their parents were informed or anything. "No," she said, "because they are good boys," she said, and I mentally added the obligatory "usually".
After the class, when I had removed my shirt to wash it in the sink in my office to try to get as much of the blood out of it as I could, the two boys came to me to apologize. Their faces were red, not from embarrassment, but from getting punched, and they were cheerful and unaccompanied, and comfortable with each other as they are friends apparently. I said it was no problem, and told them to be nice, and they left and that was the end of that.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Summer Blitz
Daegu is supposed to be the hottest city in Korea, which will suck when summer is in full swing. It's already been pretty bad, especially with the humidity. My friend Jeff lived here last year and said that he once simply lay on his bed with a block of ice slowly melting on his chest to cool off. That was only because he had no air conditioning in his apartment, and most people do here. I, however, am not most people and am lacking in such a convenience, so come August I may be laying around with ice melting on me. Another option is going to the beach, which I did today. It's officially summer in Korea when the beaches are officially open, which they are since July 1, and so that means people all of a sudden come out in droves, no matter if it was hot beforehand.
Chilling at the beach was just the most recent thing in a very busy string of events going back the past month. Before I went to the beach this weekend, I caught two shows, one in Daegu, one in Busan, both featuring my friend Dan as The Spookfish, Sighborg whom I had seen once previously, and some Korean-American DJ on a world tour. The weekend also featured much Go/Stop which is good because I was able to win enough money off of Eric for him to pay for my drinks and so on after I ran out of cash.
The previous week also saw me resolve to get a motorcycle since I am now committed to staying in Korea beyond the length of my original contract, celebrating Canada Day after I learned it was actually a holiday, and climbing in the gym after a two-week break.
Previous to that was a 5-day trip to Japan with mom. We continued our nonstop tour of tourist hotspots that began when she arrived in Korea and we went to Gyeongju and Seoul on the weekends prior to Japan. Never in two and a half weeks have I before seen so many temples, museums, castles, shrines, or tame deer.
Chilling at the beach was just the most recent thing in a very busy string of events going back the past month. Before I went to the beach this weekend, I caught two shows, one in Daegu, one in Busan, both featuring my friend Dan as The Spookfish, Sighborg whom I had seen once previously, and some Korean-American DJ on a world tour. The weekend also featured much Go/Stop which is good because I was able to win enough money off of Eric for him to pay for my drinks and so on after I ran out of cash.
The previous week also saw me resolve to get a motorcycle since I am now committed to staying in Korea beyond the length of my original contract, celebrating Canada Day after I learned it was actually a holiday, and climbing in the gym after a two-week break.
Previous to that was a 5-day trip to Japan with mom. We continued our nonstop tour of tourist hotspots that began when she arrived in Korea and we went to Gyeongju and Seoul on the weekends prior to Japan. Never in two and a half weeks have I before seen so many temples, museums, castles, shrines, or tame deer.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Go/Stop
Recently, I've been playing a lot of a card game called Go/Stop. It's a Korean game played with a special deck of cards that looks like this:
A Korean friend named Jinju tried to teach me and some friends one night at a bar when I wasn't in a learning mood. That, combined with the fact that her English isn't quite good enough to explain the intricacies of game, which there are many of, didn't really result in me learning anything, or wanting to learn anything.
A few months later a different Korean friend named Amanda taught me successfully because her English is so good that I thought she was Korean-American when I first met her, thus giving her an adequate grasp of the language needed to properly explain the game. Also, it was a rainy weekend day and we had a ton of time downtown because we were on what I think was a date, even though I didn't really want to be on a date, so that doing something as innocuous as sitting in a coffee shop learning how to play a card game seemed like a good idea.
Like I said, I've been playing a lot lately: with my friends Eric and Paul on Thursdays in a cafe in my neighborhood for 200 won per point (which can add up if you have a good night like Eric did two weeks ago, that bastard) or with my girlfriend or with random Korean bartenders who are amused that a foreigner can play a Korean game until I win money off of them to pay for my drinks at their bar.
I've taught a few other foreigners, and have wanted to put together a set of instructions that detail the gameplay and scoring as simply as possible, which is difficult because I am lazy and there are a lot of rules and ins and outs to the game. What I've written so far is pasted below. Please note it is by no means complete. It totally leaves out the explanation behind the part of the game from which it gets its name: Going or Stopping. Also, I just pasted this from a text document I have in which I've added pictures of specific cards or sets of cards to help explain things. There are no pictures down below, as you can see, because those pictures don't copy into this blog's text input boxes. Oh well. Try to figure it out if you can...
A Korean friend named Jinju tried to teach me and some friends one night at a bar when I wasn't in a learning mood. That, combined with the fact that her English isn't quite good enough to explain the intricacies of game, which there are many of, didn't really result in me learning anything, or wanting to learn anything.
A few months later a different Korean friend named Amanda taught me successfully because her English is so good that I thought she was Korean-American when I first met her, thus giving her an adequate grasp of the language needed to properly explain the game. Also, it was a rainy weekend day and we had a ton of time downtown because we were on what I think was a date, even though I didn't really want to be on a date, so that doing something as innocuous as sitting in a coffee shop learning how to play a card game seemed like a good idea.
Like I said, I've been playing a lot lately: with my friends Eric and Paul on Thursdays in a cafe in my neighborhood for 200 won per point (which can add up if you have a good night like Eric did two weeks ago, that bastard) or with my girlfriend or with random Korean bartenders who are amused that a foreigner can play a Korean game until I win money off of them to pay for my drinks at their bar.
I've taught a few other foreigners, and have wanted to put together a set of instructions that detail the gameplay and scoring as simply as possible, which is difficult because I am lazy and there are a lot of rules and ins and outs to the game. What I've written so far is pasted below. Please note it is by no means complete. It totally leaves out the explanation behind the part of the game from which it gets its name: Going or Stopping. Also, I just pasted this from a text document I have in which I've added pictures of specific cards or sets of cards to help explain things. There are no pictures down below, as you can see, because those pictures don't copy into this blog's text input boxes. Oh well. Try to figure it out if you can...
Go/Stop
Objective
The point of the game is to score points. Once you hit a certain number of points (7 in a two-player game, 3 in a 3-player game), you have the option to Go (continue playing the game to accrue more points) or to Stop (end the game and collect your points).
The Deck
A standard Go/Stop deck has 48 cards in it. Unlike a deck of regular playing cards, which has four suits of 13 cards each, a Go/Stop deck has 12 “suits” of four cards each. Each “suit” in a Go/Stop deck corresponds to month of the year. Each month is represented by different flower.
Card Categories
In order to score points, you have to collect cards, which are then organized into one of four categories:
1. Gwang (Cards with a Chinese character in a circle on them, there are a total of 5 – although some Gwang have animals on them, they can NOT be counted in the Animal category.)
2. Animals (Self explanatory, although a couple of them – the one with the blue flower and yellow reeds from May, and the the one with the yellow and red flower and the Chinese character on the red leaf from September – don't exactly look like animals.)
3. Ribbons (There are 10 cards with ribbons on them – three red ribbons with writing, four blank red ribbons, and three blue ribbons.)
4. Pi (Pronounced “pee” - or simply called “Junk” - these cards have no special designs on them beyond their month's flower design. Basically, if there is no ribbon, animal, or Gwang symbol on the card, it is Pi. There are a few “special Pi” which are worth two pi, including the weird, not-so-obvious animals cards listed above.)
Dealing: The games first deal:
Two Player: One player shuffles the deck, and the other player cuts. The dealer places four cards face-down in the middle of the two players. Then the other player gets dealt five cards face down, then the dealer deals him or herself five cards. Four more cards are then dealt face-down in the middle, five more go to the other player, then five more to the dealer. In the end, there should be eight cards face-down in between the two players, and each player should have ten cards in their hands. To determine who goes first, each player flips over a card in the middle, and whoever flips over the card that represents the latest month goes first.
Three Player: Similar to the two player style, but with different amounts of cards. After the deck is cut, the dealer puts three cards face down in the middle, then each player is dealt four cards, then three more go down in the middle, then each player gets an additional three cards. In the end, there should be six cards face down in the middle and each player should have seven cards in their hands. To determine who goes first, each player flips over a card in the middle, and whoever flips over the card that represents the latest month goes first.
Dealing: After the first game:
Dealing after the first game is done by the winner of the previous game. The winner also has the advantage of going first.
Game Play
Once the cards are dealt, the dealer goes first, and play goes counter-clockwise. Two things are always done on each turn. FIRST, the player tries to match a card from his hand to a card that's been dealt face-up in the middle. If there are no matches, he must discard one of his cards into the pile. SECOND, the same player flips one card from the top of the deck. If it matches nothing, the player must leave it in the middle pile. However, if the player matches any cards in the middle from either his hand or from the deck, then he takes those cards and arranges them on the table in front of him. Cards that have been matched are eligible to score points, whereas cards that haven't been matched and are still in the player's hand are not eligible. Basically, you have to match cards in order to score points with them.
However, if a player is taking his turn and he matches a card from his hand to a card in the pile, then flips a card from the deck over which matches the pair he just put together, then those three cards remain on the table until someone plays the fourth card that matches. You can ONLY take cards away in pairs or quads. When someone takes that pile with the fourth card, the other player(s) must give him one Pi card as a bonus. Also, if you have three of the same suit in your hand and the remaining match is in the middle, you can play all three at once, and again, you get a bonus card from the other player(s). If you do manage to play all three cards at once, you can take up to two turns where you don't discard from your hand, you just go straight to the deck and flip a card.
If a player cannot match a card from his hand, then discards one of his cards into the center pile, then flips a card that matches the card he just put down, this is called a Kiss, and the other players must give him one Pi in this situation.
Also, if at any time a player clears all the center cards, either by making two matches or by a Kiss, the player will one Pi from the other players.
Once you match cards and can score with them, you need to arrange them into the four categories listed from above. There are many different ways to score points, so it's important to organize your cards correctly.
Jokers
Each deck comes with six jokers, but games are usually played with only two. A joker is worth two Pi cards. If you are dealt a joker, you can play it, giving you two more Pi, and then you simply draw a card to replace it, and then start your turn over. Jokers can NOT be used to match cards that are on the table, they are simply used to give you another card. Once you play the joker and take your card, you must then play a card from your hand and then flip a card just like a regular turn.
If you flip a joker from the deck, you simply take that joker and flip one more card.
Scoring
Pi – to score with Pi, you must have at least 10 Pi cards. Once you have ten, you receive 1 point. Each additional Pi is worth 1 additional point. REMEMBER: there are four cards that are 'special' Pi cards, and that are worth two Pi each. See above. You might notice that two of them are also in the animal category. These two cards can be EITHER one animal or two Pi. If you collect either of these two cards, you can put them in the animal category first, and then opt to move them to the Pi category afterwards, but you cannot move them the other way.
Animals – to score with animals, you need at least 5. Each additional animal is worth 1 point. There is a special case with birds. You will receive 5 points if you collect the bird cards from February, April, and August.
The other card with a bird on it from December, does NOT count. However, if you collect the three correct bird cards, and two more animals, you will receive 6 points (5 points for the birds + 1 point for having 5 animal cards). Again, each additional animal card is an additional point.
Gwang – You need at least 3 Gwang cards to score points. If you have 3 Gwang cards, then you will have 3 points UNLESS one of the three is the one from December.
If you have three Gwang cards including the one from December, you only get 2 points. However, if you have any four Gwang cards, you get four points. If you get all five Gwang cards, you get 15 points.
Ribbons – Any combination of five ribbons gives you one point, with each additional ribbon giving you an additional point. However, if you can match a set of ribbons (3 blue with writing, 3 red with writing, or 3 red without writing) then you will get 3 points. However, if one of three blank red ribbons is the ribbon from December, you do NOT get points for collecting the set. You may get 4 points for having all four blank red ribbons, or 3 points for having the three blank red ribbons that are NOT from December. So, for example, if you have all three blue ribbons, plus two blank red ribbons, you will have 4 points (3 points for the set + 1 point for having a total of five ribbons).
Friday, April 10, 2009
Phrasal Konglish #1
From wikipedia:
I find the phrases and sentences that are printed on Korean stationary hilarious. Because they are actual phrases and sentences, and not single words, I don't think they quite fit the above definition of Konglish. More often than not, there are few or no technical mistakes in these sentences, but they are hilarious nonetheless. They're often unnecessarily dramatic and sappy and way out of place on stationary.
T-shirts and sweatshirts also sport very strange sayings, and these are far more apt to be riddled with vulgarity and grammatical wormholes. You can understand what they say, you just don't understand how you understand. I'm going to start posting collections of these bizarre and entertaining sentences and phrases here, and for the sake of convenience, I am taking the liberty of creating a name for them - Phrasal Konglish.
I could possibly be responsible for any spelling/grammar mistakes you notice, but more often than not, what I copy down here will be exactly how it's printed (quotation marks [" "] added to set apart the "title" of the notebook/page when applicable).
On my (Barunson brand) notepad:
On a bunch of students' English notebooks:
Konglish (Korean: 콩글리시) is the use of English words (or words derived from English words) in a Korean context. The words, having initially been taken from English language, are either actual English words in Korean context, or are made from a combination of Korean and English words.
I find the phrases and sentences that are printed on Korean stationary hilarious. Because they are actual phrases and sentences, and not single words, I don't think they quite fit the above definition of Konglish. More often than not, there are few or no technical mistakes in these sentences, but they are hilarious nonetheless. They're often unnecessarily dramatic and sappy and way out of place on stationary.
T-shirts and sweatshirts also sport very strange sayings, and these are far more apt to be riddled with vulgarity and grammatical wormholes. You can understand what they say, you just don't understand how you understand. I'm going to start posting collections of these bizarre and entertaining sentences and phrases here, and for the sake of convenience, I am taking the liberty of creating a name for them - Phrasal Konglish.
I could possibly be responsible for any spelling/grammar mistakes you notice, but more often than not, what I copy down here will be exactly how it's printed (quotation marks [" "] added to set apart the "title" of the notebook/page when applicable).
On my (Barunson brand) notepad:
"Haroo's city night"
"TREASURE OF MEMORY"
ALL THE MEMORIES ARE SHINING IN THOSE OLD DAYS.
A happy world is made up of happy hearts.
We invite you to the joyful world of Barunson.
Refresh your happiness with us everyday.
Upgrade your happiness, Barunson.
I always think of the goreous city night
with your wonderful smile.
It was an American dreaming time.
On a bunch of students' English notebooks:
"plain living"
Living leisurely is wonderful.
A simple life makes our mind rich.
You're gonna make yourself proficient step by if you do your best.
"Travel all over Europe"
I'd like to try taking a trip to whatever places my fancy leads me.
"Avenue of memories"
There are few things that are more
important for the happiness of life than to
form a habit of taking a cheerful
view of the circumstances
in which one is placed.
Be of practical use
"Greentea"
TAKE A RESTTIME WITH GREENTEA
"S"
It is only with the heart
that one can see rightly;
what is essential is
invisible to the eye.
SOMETHING THAT IS BLUE IS THE COLOUR OF THE SKY ON A SUNNY DAY.
THERE ARE WERE SWALLOWS IN THE CLOUDLESS BLUE SKY.
"Make a Sketch of the World"
My heart throbbed with joy.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Free Fridge Art Revised
There has been a significant change to the direction in which my proposed free fridge art will take. For awhile now, I have been taking all the flyers that I get stuck on my door, which I have previously just stuck on my fridge, and been stripping them of their magnets and staples, and then cutting the hell out of them until they are in tiny pieces. These pieces I keep in a bag.
I don't really remember what gave me the idea for this, but I plan on taking all of these tiny pieces and making a large colorful mosaic on a piece of white paper I bought and cut to fit exactly underneath my glass kitchen tabletop.
I had to do something similar, though on a much smaller scale, for an art class I took in college when I was studying in Utah. I recreated a picture I had taken of the Sydney Opera House, which I later wound up giving to Alissa for a birthday present since we had gone to said opera house together.
Whatever gave me the idea for this, probably just boredom, once I thought of the idea I knew I would be a total pussy if I didn't at least attempt to do it. So far I have half-filled that bag on my table, and I don't even think I'm half-way through cutting up my flyers. I usually cut them up when I am watching a movie on my computer, or playing poker online or something like that. If I made any point to dedicate time to this, I'm sure I would've finished by now, but I just wind up doing it now and again. I plan to start the actual creation of the mosaic once I am done cutting up the flyers. I may just be setting a goal for myself that I can't reach, but we'll see.
As for the actual design of the mosaic, right now I am leaning towards making a Korean flag, for lack of anything better to do. The design is simple, using only red, white, blue, and black, but having each aspect of the flag made up of tiny pieces of delivery menus will surely add a whole new dimension to the otherwise straightforward flag.
Thinking about what it will be like when it is finished, I realized that pretty much any piece of art that takes a ridiculous amount of time to create, especially when the creation involves hours of a repetitive mind-numbing procedure, is impressive and admirable simply for the fact that some human or group of humans put such effort and time into menial and dull groundwork for the sake of turning mountains worth of that very dull groundwork into something exceptional and remarkable. John Funchion's hollow ball of hundreds of sanded woodscraps comes to mind. All the stuff that Yayoi Kusama made with thousands of dots comes to mind too.
I learned about her from a program I watched on TV in a minbak on Jeju-do during the first night of my cycling trip there. That was during the short time between cycling and and conking out. I'm sure there is an endless amount of other examples to this sort of art. I don't know if there is a term for it. Maybe obsessive, or accumulative, or OCD art. Those all seem like they would fit. I think it's the artistic equivalent of turning lead to gold.
I don't really remember what gave me the idea for this, but I plan on taking all of these tiny pieces and making a large colorful mosaic on a piece of white paper I bought and cut to fit exactly underneath my glass kitchen tabletop.
I had to do something similar, though on a much smaller scale, for an art class I took in college when I was studying in Utah. I recreated a picture I had taken of the Sydney Opera House, which I later wound up giving to Alissa for a birthday present since we had gone to said opera house together.
Whatever gave me the idea for this, probably just boredom, once I thought of the idea I knew I would be a total pussy if I didn't at least attempt to do it. So far I have half-filled that bag on my table, and I don't even think I'm half-way through cutting up my flyers. I usually cut them up when I am watching a movie on my computer, or playing poker online or something like that. If I made any point to dedicate time to this, I'm sure I would've finished by now, but I just wind up doing it now and again. I plan to start the actual creation of the mosaic once I am done cutting up the flyers. I may just be setting a goal for myself that I can't reach, but we'll see.
As for the actual design of the mosaic, right now I am leaning towards making a Korean flag, for lack of anything better to do. The design is simple, using only red, white, blue, and black, but having each aspect of the flag made up of tiny pieces of delivery menus will surely add a whole new dimension to the otherwise straightforward flag.
Thinking about what it will be like when it is finished, I realized that pretty much any piece of art that takes a ridiculous amount of time to create, especially when the creation involves hours of a repetitive mind-numbing procedure, is impressive and admirable simply for the fact that some human or group of humans put such effort and time into menial and dull groundwork for the sake of turning mountains worth of that very dull groundwork into something exceptional and remarkable. John Funchion's hollow ball of hundreds of sanded woodscraps comes to mind. All the stuff that Yayoi Kusama made with thousands of dots comes to mind too.
I learned about her from a program I watched on TV in a minbak on Jeju-do during the first night of my cycling trip there. That was during the short time between cycling and and conking out. I'm sure there is an endless amount of other examples to this sort of art. I don't know if there is a term for it. Maybe obsessive, or accumulative, or OCD art. Those all seem like they would fit. I think it's the artistic equivalent of turning lead to gold.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Yellow Dust
Spring has come early to Daegu. The weather has been super warm, maybe the low 70's. It's unseasonably warm for this time apparently. Along with the warm weather though, the Yellow Dust/Asian Dust has come. Every year in the spring, the prevailing winds in this part of the world shift and Korea gets covered (I've actually been told it can accumulate on the ground, like the dust on top of your TV) with a fine dull yellow dust blown from the Chinese and Mongolian deserts. The 'hwangsa' sometimes can be really bad, devastating air quality and causing serious problems for kids and the elderly. Fortunately I am young and healthy and indestructible. According to a Korean weather website, when the hwangsa density gets too high(400㎛/㎡ for over 2 hours), it's a bad idea to exercise outdoors, and if it goes even higher (800㎛/㎡ for over 2 hours)then
It hasn't been bad yet, in fact it's been very low for Daegu, especially since this weekend was rainy. It reminds of living in Salt Lake City, when the stagnant air would get trapped in the valley from a lack of weather blowing in from the west to clear it out. They called it 'inversion'. I called it disgusting. There would be a phlegm-colored cloud hanging over the city, even completely obscuring the ground if you were up on a mountain looking down on it from above. One day when I was working at Litza's Pizza, making pies while staring out of the plate glass window towards downtown, I couldn't even see the skyscrapers six blocks away. That was gross, I hope this Yellow Dust clears out before it gets that bad here.
The old, the young, and those with respiratory diseases are prohibited from going outside.
· Kindergarden and elementary school students are prohibited from outdoor activities and their class should be dismissed
· Everybody is prohibited from outdoor activities.
· Outdoor sports event should be rescheduled.
It hasn't been bad yet, in fact it's been very low for Daegu, especially since this weekend was rainy. It reminds of living in Salt Lake City, when the stagnant air would get trapped in the valley from a lack of weather blowing in from the west to clear it out. They called it 'inversion'. I called it disgusting. There would be a phlegm-colored cloud hanging over the city, even completely obscuring the ground if you were up on a mountain looking down on it from above. One day when I was working at Litza's Pizza, making pies while staring out of the plate glass window towards downtown, I couldn't even see the skyscrapers six blocks away. That was gross, I hope this Yellow Dust clears out before it gets that bad here.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Spring Break
Winter break ended the day after I got back from the Philippines. I went to school on Monday and taught classes for three days before they had the graduation and school closing ceremonies on Thursday and Friday. The graduation ceremony consisted of the third grade students sitting in their classrooms with parents and family crowded in the backs of the rooms and outside, watching through the open doors while the ceremony itself was broadcast on the class TVs from elsewhere in the school.
The students are usually really shy, beyond shouting "mahTEEN HI" and giggling, but the third grade students were clearly excited to be graduating, and a lot asked me to take their picture when they saw I had my camera. I didn't really know any of them since I taught only the first and second grade students. Easily the funniest part of the day was when I went up to the fifth floor, where there are only third grade classrooms. The smell of egg and vinegar and flour was instantly noticeable. Throwing this concoction on each other is one of their pranks I guess, and I was pretty impressed how the girls covered in it weren't freaking out that they had egg yolk smearing their hair, or fussing over all the flour on their clothes.
I was told that they didn't hold the ceremony communally in the gym because people complained it was too cold last year or something like that, which seemed like a lame reason to put everyone in classrooms, but I guess that's what you get for complaining. The year closing ceremony consisted of a farewell thing for the teachers that were leaving after that semester, about fifteen of them. In Korea, teachers must transfer schools every four years, no exceptions. Both days were really half days with some random cleaning and so forth in addition to the ceremonies.
That's me and most of the other English teachers, two of whom, including my main co-teacher, left. It was a pretty light week to deal with before I got another two weeks free for spring break, before the new school year started up in March. I considered going on another trip abroad, checking out Japan, China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan if I could find a cheap flight, but I only looked into it half-assed. The five day wait for a Chinese visa didn't really entice me to put much effort into it either. I wound up coming up with a plan to fly to Jeju-do for four days during the second week of spring break, the last week of February. The idea was to rent a bike and ride a loop around the island, a distance listed in my guidebook as 250 kilometers, and estimated by my friend Jeff, who moved there specifically to train for triathalons, and thus bikes around the island frequently, as slightly less.
I got into Jeju-si on Tuesday at 9AM after a one-hour flight from Daegu. I was at the bike shop recommended to me by Jeff by 9:30. The sign said it didn't open until 10AM so I sat down to wait as the owner was getting to the shop. He let me in right away and had a bike prepared for me since one of my co-teachers called to inquire about bikes the day before. It was 20K per day, which was more expensive than the places listed in my guidebook as renting bikes for between 5K and 8K per day, but I figured since Jeff takes his shit real seriously, and of all the bike shops on the island, and this was the one he told me to go to, they would hook me up with a good bike. It was a good bike, too. A Cannondale mountain bike frame with road tires put on, as per my request. Turns out it was the owners personal bike even, and he was renting it to me because the other frames would've been too small for me at 17 inches. I packed up the spare tube and whatnot he gave me and took off.
It was a gray day in the morning, but the sun came out for a bit mid-day only to disappear again in the afternoon. It took me some time to work my way out of the city and to find the 1132 (listed as the 12 on the above map). On my way there I tried to take some coastal roads once I got towards the coast, and wound up getting turned around like three times and performing such poor shifting techniques on some hills that my chain came off a couple times, leading me to believe I had some shitty gear at my feet. I eventually got on the right road and was able to detour off the bike path that runs alongside it onto smaller and less-trafficked coastal roads that, as the name implies, hug the coast for the most part. I stopped to eat some kimbap at a beach which turned out to be covered by a tarp above the high tide line. My only guess is that this prevents any of the beautiful white sand from washing away during the off-season.
The strip of sand that wasn't tarped over contrasted nicely with the jet black volcanic rock that the island is made out of, and the light green water. It looked like it could've been a tropical beach despite the fact that the air was chilly and the wind was blowing strong and steady. Probably the coolest local distinction on Jeju are the rock walls that crisscross the farmland and surround the houses. It's all made from chunks of the same black porous volcanic rock that stick out on the beaches, and almost none of the walls use cement. Some are just kinda thrown together leaving holes here and there that you can see through, and others are placed so tightly that they look solid and pretty much have dead flat tops.
I finished the first day around 4:30 at Sungsan Ilchubong, or Sunrise Peak listed above on the map. The owner of the bike shop said it was only a two-hour ride but that estimate must assume that you are in shape and know where you are going. I was pretty beat and had been planning on hunting down a jimjjilbang to stay in for cheap, but as I was rolling through the little town below the little mountain an ajumma kinda pulled me into her minbak, and I took the private room there instead of having to find a jimjjilbang and sleep in an open room with a bunch of strangers. Plus the minbak was right below the mountain and I figured I could do a sunrise hike the next morning since it was called Sunrise Peak. I couldn't even finish a bottle of beer that night I was so beat. I woke up at 5:30 to make sure I caught the sunrise. I hiked through the darkness up to the top of the peak, which isn't really so much a peak as one part of the rim of a raised crater made by volcanic activity about 5,000 years ago. It was misty and windy and there was no visibility whatsoever. I was the first one up there but a few other people came up for the sunrise which was noticeable only due to the mist and fog getting lighter. No beautiful colors creeping over the horizon like I was hoping for but oh well.
Day two I rode from about 9 to 6, with a nice lunch break to gorge myself on pizza and relax in a PC room in Seogwipo in the middle of the southern coast. My ass was killing at this point. When I tested the bike out I didn't realize how uncomfortable the seat would be after extended riding. I felt like my ass was fully bruised and sunburned, and I was sitting on a two by four. I must've made it 80 kilometers that day, from Sunrise Peak in the east to Sanbangsan in the southwest. I made a few stops along the coast to take in some nice views of the rugged coast line, and only got a little lost once trying to follow a coastal road. I wound up having to ride up this steep-ass hill with a switchback or two towards the end of the day when I was pretty beat, and at one point I had to get off and walk the bike up for about ten minutes, which I thought was pretty lame but better than killing myself. The good part about that was just before I got some pretty killer photos of the sun dipping in the sky over some coastal farm land.
I had nearly made it to Jeff's town of Museolpo, in fact I could see it from the temple on Sanbangsan, but I decided to just get another minbak below the temple and meet up with him the next morning. Thanks to my lack of functional Korean, it took me three tries to get a place. It's much easier when ajummas are standing out on the street waiting to give you a room like the night before. Anyway, I found a place, and the owner gave me some mandarin oranges, which are a big crop on Jeju, and I got some dinner and slept a solid eleven hours. In the morning Jeff and I met up by the temple on Sanbangsan and he brought me north up the west coast of the island. It was good to have someone who knows the island show me around because we went on some tiny roads I would've missed on my own. He's pretty much the only foreigner in his little corner of the island and so he just trains all the time so I know he was grateful for having someone to talk to too. He was on his mountain bike, with much bigger tires than I had, and was having a leisurely tour with me as a break from training, but I still had to push myself to keep up with him. I guess that's what happens when you ride bikes every day. Previous to leaving for Jeju, he recommended I tour the island clockwise with hopes of getting a tailwind for the final leg. That didn't happen though. For the first part of the day we were pushing right into the wind which didn't make things easier. Fortunately, my legs were in decent shape. I had been expecting them to be sore as hell after the first day, but they weren't. Then I thought for sure they would be sore after the second day, but they still weren't, so I was pretty happy about that. My knees were a bit achy though, with the cold wet wind on them all day as I was pedaling, but that's a small price to pay I suppose. We made it within a half hour of Jeju-si where Jeff and I parted ways, Jeff going back home, and me going on to the city to see if I could get an earlier flight back home since I had looped the island with one full day to spare. I rode straight to the airport, which turns out to be pretty sketchy on a bike since I was riding on the access and approach roads, but I made it alive and got a flight for the following morning, Friday, instead of my original flight on Saturday morning. Next I had to get out of the airport, which was just as sketchy as getting in, but I made it all right and went back to the bike shop to return everything and get my unused rental fee for Friday back. I went downtown, ate some Mexican food after spending fifteen minutes in a drizzle looking for the restaurant and asking confused Koreans where it was until some foreign girl saw I was clearly clueless and pointed me in the right direction. I threw some darts in an empty bar after eating, and then went to a jimjjilbang for the night. It was great soaking in the hottubs and getting all clean and fresh, but trying to sleep was miserable as there were kids running around and giggling all night long and one room was too cold and another was too smoky, and there were old dudes snoring all over. Should've brought ear plugs.
I got home at 10:30AM Friday, leaving me the whole weekend to relax which was nice since it would've sucked to go to school exhausted on Monday. My legs finally got sore at this point, making walking up and down stairs a dreadful event. My last significant event of spring break was shaving my beard. It was a big decision, since that is one of the only ways my students recognize me from other white people, and because beards are awesome and I had a pretty good one, but I thought it would be fun to mess with them by getting my hair cut (the previous week) and shaving. Also, no Korean girls would dance with me last time I was out at club, probably cause I looked too much like Jesus. Also, it was just time for some change.
I only kept the mustache for a few minutes to take the picture, but it's pretty badass, so maybe I'll grow one for real.
The students are usually really shy, beyond shouting "mahTEEN HI" and giggling, but the third grade students were clearly excited to be graduating, and a lot asked me to take their picture when they saw I had my camera. I didn't really know any of them since I taught only the first and second grade students. Easily the funniest part of the day was when I went up to the fifth floor, where there are only third grade classrooms. The smell of egg and vinegar and flour was instantly noticeable. Throwing this concoction on each other is one of their pranks I guess, and I was pretty impressed how the girls covered in it weren't freaking out that they had egg yolk smearing their hair, or fussing over all the flour on their clothes.
I was told that they didn't hold the ceremony communally in the gym because people complained it was too cold last year or something like that, which seemed like a lame reason to put everyone in classrooms, but I guess that's what you get for complaining. The year closing ceremony consisted of a farewell thing for the teachers that were leaving after that semester, about fifteen of them. In Korea, teachers must transfer schools every four years, no exceptions. Both days were really half days with some random cleaning and so forth in addition to the ceremonies.
That's me and most of the other English teachers, two of whom, including my main co-teacher, left. It was a pretty light week to deal with before I got another two weeks free for spring break, before the new school year started up in March. I considered going on another trip abroad, checking out Japan, China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan if I could find a cheap flight, but I only looked into it half-assed. The five day wait for a Chinese visa didn't really entice me to put much effort into it either. I wound up coming up with a plan to fly to Jeju-do for four days during the second week of spring break, the last week of February. The idea was to rent a bike and ride a loop around the island, a distance listed in my guidebook as 250 kilometers, and estimated by my friend Jeff, who moved there specifically to train for triathalons, and thus bikes around the island frequently, as slightly less.
I got into Jeju-si on Tuesday at 9AM after a one-hour flight from Daegu. I was at the bike shop recommended to me by Jeff by 9:30. The sign said it didn't open until 10AM so I sat down to wait as the owner was getting to the shop. He let me in right away and had a bike prepared for me since one of my co-teachers called to inquire about bikes the day before. It was 20K per day, which was more expensive than the places listed in my guidebook as renting bikes for between 5K and 8K per day, but I figured since Jeff takes his shit real seriously, and of all the bike shops on the island, and this was the one he told me to go to, they would hook me up with a good bike. It was a good bike, too. A Cannondale mountain bike frame with road tires put on, as per my request. Turns out it was the owners personal bike even, and he was renting it to me because the other frames would've been too small for me at 17 inches. I packed up the spare tube and whatnot he gave me and took off.
It was a gray day in the morning, but the sun came out for a bit mid-day only to disappear again in the afternoon. It took me some time to work my way out of the city and to find the 1132 (listed as the 12 on the above map). On my way there I tried to take some coastal roads once I got towards the coast, and wound up getting turned around like three times and performing such poor shifting techniques on some hills that my chain came off a couple times, leading me to believe I had some shitty gear at my feet. I eventually got on the right road and was able to detour off the bike path that runs alongside it onto smaller and less-trafficked coastal roads that, as the name implies, hug the coast for the most part. I stopped to eat some kimbap at a beach which turned out to be covered by a tarp above the high tide line. My only guess is that this prevents any of the beautiful white sand from washing away during the off-season.
The strip of sand that wasn't tarped over contrasted nicely with the jet black volcanic rock that the island is made out of, and the light green water. It looked like it could've been a tropical beach despite the fact that the air was chilly and the wind was blowing strong and steady. Probably the coolest local distinction on Jeju are the rock walls that crisscross the farmland and surround the houses. It's all made from chunks of the same black porous volcanic rock that stick out on the beaches, and almost none of the walls use cement. Some are just kinda thrown together leaving holes here and there that you can see through, and others are placed so tightly that they look solid and pretty much have dead flat tops.
I finished the first day around 4:30 at Sungsan Ilchubong, or Sunrise Peak listed above on the map. The owner of the bike shop said it was only a two-hour ride but that estimate must assume that you are in shape and know where you are going. I was pretty beat and had been planning on hunting down a jimjjilbang to stay in for cheap, but as I was rolling through the little town below the little mountain an ajumma kinda pulled me into her minbak, and I took the private room there instead of having to find a jimjjilbang and sleep in an open room with a bunch of strangers. Plus the minbak was right below the mountain and I figured I could do a sunrise hike the next morning since it was called Sunrise Peak. I couldn't even finish a bottle of beer that night I was so beat. I woke up at 5:30 to make sure I caught the sunrise. I hiked through the darkness up to the top of the peak, which isn't really so much a peak as one part of the rim of a raised crater made by volcanic activity about 5,000 years ago. It was misty and windy and there was no visibility whatsoever. I was the first one up there but a few other people came up for the sunrise which was noticeable only due to the mist and fog getting lighter. No beautiful colors creeping over the horizon like I was hoping for but oh well.
Day two I rode from about 9 to 6, with a nice lunch break to gorge myself on pizza and relax in a PC room in Seogwipo in the middle of the southern coast. My ass was killing at this point. When I tested the bike out I didn't realize how uncomfortable the seat would be after extended riding. I felt like my ass was fully bruised and sunburned, and I was sitting on a two by four. I must've made it 80 kilometers that day, from Sunrise Peak in the east to Sanbangsan in the southwest. I made a few stops along the coast to take in some nice views of the rugged coast line, and only got a little lost once trying to follow a coastal road. I wound up having to ride up this steep-ass hill with a switchback or two towards the end of the day when I was pretty beat, and at one point I had to get off and walk the bike up for about ten minutes, which I thought was pretty lame but better than killing myself. The good part about that was just before I got some pretty killer photos of the sun dipping in the sky over some coastal farm land.
I had nearly made it to Jeff's town of Museolpo, in fact I could see it from the temple on Sanbangsan, but I decided to just get another minbak below the temple and meet up with him the next morning. Thanks to my lack of functional Korean, it took me three tries to get a place. It's much easier when ajummas are standing out on the street waiting to give you a room like the night before. Anyway, I found a place, and the owner gave me some mandarin oranges, which are a big crop on Jeju, and I got some dinner and slept a solid eleven hours. In the morning Jeff and I met up by the temple on Sanbangsan and he brought me north up the west coast of the island. It was good to have someone who knows the island show me around because we went on some tiny roads I would've missed on my own. He's pretty much the only foreigner in his little corner of the island and so he just trains all the time so I know he was grateful for having someone to talk to too. He was on his mountain bike, with much bigger tires than I had, and was having a leisurely tour with me as a break from training, but I still had to push myself to keep up with him. I guess that's what happens when you ride bikes every day. Previous to leaving for Jeju, he recommended I tour the island clockwise with hopes of getting a tailwind for the final leg. That didn't happen though. For the first part of the day we were pushing right into the wind which didn't make things easier. Fortunately, my legs were in decent shape. I had been expecting them to be sore as hell after the first day, but they weren't. Then I thought for sure they would be sore after the second day, but they still weren't, so I was pretty happy about that. My knees were a bit achy though, with the cold wet wind on them all day as I was pedaling, but that's a small price to pay I suppose. We made it within a half hour of Jeju-si where Jeff and I parted ways, Jeff going back home, and me going on to the city to see if I could get an earlier flight back home since I had looped the island with one full day to spare. I rode straight to the airport, which turns out to be pretty sketchy on a bike since I was riding on the access and approach roads, but I made it alive and got a flight for the following morning, Friday, instead of my original flight on Saturday morning. Next I had to get out of the airport, which was just as sketchy as getting in, but I made it all right and went back to the bike shop to return everything and get my unused rental fee for Friday back. I went downtown, ate some Mexican food after spending fifteen minutes in a drizzle looking for the restaurant and asking confused Koreans where it was until some foreign girl saw I was clearly clueless and pointed me in the right direction. I threw some darts in an empty bar after eating, and then went to a jimjjilbang for the night. It was great soaking in the hottubs and getting all clean and fresh, but trying to sleep was miserable as there were kids running around and giggling all night long and one room was too cold and another was too smoky, and there were old dudes snoring all over. Should've brought ear plugs.
I got home at 10:30AM Friday, leaving me the whole weekend to relax which was nice since it would've sucked to go to school exhausted on Monday. My legs finally got sore at this point, making walking up and down stairs a dreadful event. My last significant event of spring break was shaving my beard. It was a big decision, since that is one of the only ways my students recognize me from other white people, and because beards are awesome and I had a pretty good one, but I thought it would be fun to mess with them by getting my hair cut (the previous week) and shaving. Also, no Korean girls would dance with me last time I was out at club, probably cause I looked too much like Jesus. Also, it was just time for some change.
I only kept the mustache for a few minutes to take the picture, but it's pretty badass, so maybe I'll grow one for real.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Winter Break Part 2 - The Philippines
I'll do my best to avoid a chronological play by play of my trip to the Philippines, that would take too long and would get old. The best thing I did in my two weeks was snorkeling with butanding, the local name for whale sharks. They are actually sharks, not whales, and are the largest fish in the world. They aren't dangerous unless you are plankton, but when you jump off the boat into the path of one of these fish that are the size of a city bus, and you are looking around through your goggles to try to see which way it is coming from, and all of a sudden you turn your head the right way and a whale shark is two meters away heading straight at you, you can't help but think: Oh. Shit. I went out on the last boat of the day with my cousin Jesse and his friend and fellow Peace Corp volunteer Sean. At first there were three other boats trolling around the tiny bay that whale sharks frequent during a certain time of year, including some topless Europeans which provided nice sightseeing while above the water, but by early afternoon we had the bay to ourselves. This was good cause we weren't racing any other boats to get in front of a whale shark once their shadow was spotted, but it was also bad cause there were less people on the lookout, so there were a few long spells of just driving around. All in all, I probably swam next to twelve or fifteen sharks, and I was almost always the first one to get out to them, frequently directly in front of their faces, which I think freaked them out and made them dive soon after, which sucked for all the people that were behind me, which were most of the the other seven people on my boat. Sadly I got no photos since my camera is not waterproof, but instead I bought a sweet souvenir T-shirt for $4, a huge rip-off in the Philippines, and I also got a sunburn whose sting and subsequent peeling lasted me a solid two weeks.
All this swimming with whale sharks went down in a tiny town called Donsol, and not even really in the town but outside of it. The whole area would remained untouched if there weren't giant fish swimming around off the shore. There was only one small road, sparsely spotted with tourist resorts and restaurants. These two terms are used lightly here. Most of these resorts are tiny clusters of cement or thatch houses, and the restaurants match. After our boat trip out to see the whale sharks we wandered along the beach until we came across a restaurant and bar called BARacuda, and we got the royal treatment from the chef and owner, a Filipino/German/American who cooked ridiculously good food, was quite hospitable (we were the only guests), and even accepted Jesse's offer to bartend for the evening in exchange for free beer. There weren't many people besides one large dinner she was having for investors, so me and Sean just made Jesse bring us beer and played cards while he was working, and got another meal of fresh-caught fish and prawns and pasta with homemade pesto sauce. Both Jesse and Sean insisted it was the best food they had had in the Philippines, and I believe it, especially after I tried a typical Filipino snack called balut. This is what I looked like after I ate balut:
For those of you fortunate to be ignorant of what balut is, let me ruin your appetite for the next week. To put it simply, balut is a hard-boiled duck abortion. In more detail, you can order this innocent-looking egg by how mature the fetus is; I ate an 18 day-old balut, which I am told is a standard age. Then you break open the end where the fetus' waste juices have accumulated, and you drink them. Then you continue to remove the shell until you hold some standard-looking hard-boiled egg yolk that is topped by a duck fetus the size of your thumb. You can see the little head, and the eyes that will never open, and then you shove the whole thing in your mouth and chew if you can, trying to ignore the random crunchy parts that may be a tiny beak, or maybe underdeveloped bones, or maybe just stray pieces of shell that you didn't notice since you were too busy trying to cope with that fact that you were going to put this abomination in your mouth. As for the taste, I'm not really sure, I think my brain blocked out sensory data from that experience. I do remember that the yolk that the fetus was sitting on tasted like normal egg yolk, and fortunately there was a fair amount of that compared to the fetus itself, but other than that I don't really know. I think most of my revulsion was psychological, but I don't plan on trying it again to be sure. I have Jesse, who refuses to eat one, to thank for this experience, as he ordered it for me.
To be honest though, since hearing about balut on my first night in the Philippines, when I met some of Jesse's friends that were in Manila, I did sort of want to try it just for the experience. "Be careful what you wish for." Yeah yeah yeah. That culinary disaster occurred as we were sitting outside a restaurant, waiting for dinner in a small city called Legaspi on a Sunday evening, where I first met up with Jesse and some of his other friends the previous night. It was a pretty fun little city actually, although I think for too much longer than the two days I spent there, it may get boring. In two days there we: shot each other with pellet guns in some random park while hordes of Filipino kids looked on, went to an Australian Day (?) party, sang videoke at some random bar, at chopped pig face at the same bar, went on a mountain-top zip line, played The Settlers of Catan, the best board game ever, and looked at some ruins of a church below an active, never-before erupted, and perfectly cone-shaped volcano that you can apparently only hike half way up because any further and your shoes would melt to the steaming rock and you would die from the noxious gases. A cool little city, but I think I got the most out of it.
Boracay is a much more famous destination than Legaspi. I guess it's probably the most famous destination outside of Manila. It's a small tourist island with a long white sand beach lined with palm trees and beachside bars and restaurants. You can get hour-long massages for under ten bucks or ice-cold beer for under fifty cents. After my first two days in Manila, I flew here to meet some teacher friends of mine from Korea. I spent about three full days here, and much like Legaspi, I think I got the most out of it, despite much of my initial time being spent running around to various airline offices and tourist centers trying to get a flight off the island to Legaspi. I guess I'm just retarded for leaving my flight plans for two days before I wanted to leave, like I did in Manila getting a flight to Boracay. Pretty much every flight anywhere in the country goes to or from Manila, so I had to fly back to Manila from Boracay in order to get to Legaspi, and after exhausting every option for two days, I finally found an open seat that would get me to Manila, except it was too late to get the connecting flight to Legaspi. It all worked out in the end, and I've already gone into too much detail when I can just say it was a fucking debacle.
Anyway, outside of laying on the beach, getting massages, boat tours, snorkeling, and eating and drinking to your hearts content, there isn't a whole lot to do on Boracay. I thought it was going to be a built up perpetual shit-show like Cancun, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it much much quieter and small scale. There are a lot of smaller secluded beaches that are practically empty and only a short trike ride away. I went to one called Puka Shell beach with Eric, one of my friends from Korea, and apart from a couple boat tours that stopped there, there were only about six other people laying on the beach. That evening, back in the more populated part of the island, we went to a bar that serves a 15 shot challenge. If you can finish all of them, you get your name on a plaque on the wall, and one tally added onto the international scoreboard - Philippines was in first of course, with Korea, USA, and Canada all near the top somewhere too. One group of Western teachers on vacation from Taiwan I was with did this that night, and though I left, apparently they finished, and were drunk enough to think they could do it again. One dude apparently got pretty sick, big surprise. I also knew a hot Taiwanese girl that was on the island whom I met in Manila a couple days before. Being the small place it was, I ran into her a few times, and she was super flirty with me, but after hanging out with her a little, I found out that she had some serious ex-boyfriend issues, namely that she used to date the dude that got really sick doing the shot challenge, and though she would act really interested in me a lot of the time, she would end up running off to hang around him at other times. I felt it a better decision to leave her problems to her.
Jesse had his own problems with women in the town that he lives in. More specifically, he's not married, and there's a woman in his office who is the same age and also not married. This pair of coincidences seem to be the Filipino equivalent of a proposal. The three days I was in Sagnay with Jesse, he was constantly pestered with questions on when he was going to get married, that he was going to be on his "final trip" soon - this is something having to do with the fact that a calendar only has 31 days, and after you turn 32 you're off the calendar or something like that. As a spectator, this was quite fun to watch, but it sure sucks for him, hearing the same jokes and innuendos for the past six months, and presumably into his next 18 in that town. Also during my time in Sagnay I followed Jesse around while he was "working." By that, I mean on the first day, I went into his office, met people, got head-butted by some grizzled 75 year-old Filipino, heard jokes about him being single, left the office, watched a cock fight, and drank some instant coffee before going to a barkada (drinking circle) where we passed around a bottle of cheap brandy with one shot glass until the bottle was gone (an activity known as tagay tagay) and then went to the only bar in the area which just happened to be a stripper/hooker bar run by baklas, or lady boys, or tranvestites, depending on your preference for nomenclature.
The second day consisted of taking a boat out on the local river/bathroom to get to the ocean, then going to a sparsely inhabited island a couple kilometers off the coast where Jesse is working on getting a new fresh water reservoir installed. The settlements here were devastated by a typhoon a few years back and haven't had electricity or much fresh water since. I took a lot of pictures since I was a professional photographer due to my possession of a brand new and impressive-looking camera. A bunch of kids followed us around as I took pictures of the water system they currently have, and some scenic stuff for potential tourism ads. We also tried to find some cave that was on a different part of the island, but that just ended up being a wild goose chase across a jagged swath of wet and ridiculously dangerous rocks alongside the ocean. It was so dangerous that when we finally gave up looking for the cave, Jesse decided to swim back to the shore, and me, a pudgy and jolly man in his late 30's named Noly whose hobbies are sleeping and eating, and a woman in her 50's named Hilaria, both Jesse's coworkers, decided to scale a hill made of mud and take the high road through the jungle back.
We had another barkada that night, but with a videoke machine I had so graciously rented for everyone. It cost only about $10 but seemed to be a rare event. We went through three bottles of Matador brandy between six or seven of us. The song singing went on into the wee hours of the night, ensuring a fun day of work early tomorrow.
Day three at work: Since I was a professional photographer, we were granted the services of a van and a driver to drive around and take more pictures for tourism posters and websites and so forth. Apparently having a driver is big deal since almost no one drives anything larger than a scooter or a trike here. Jesse, Noly, Hilaria, myself, and Ninette (Jesse's single coworker who is the same age) drove south down the coast, in the direction that Jesse is normally not allowed to enter due to the infestation of rebel militants called the NPA hiding in the hills. Our first stop was to check out a waterfall that was a couple kilometers from the road.
"Hey Jesse, we aren't gonna get kidnapped are we?" I joked.
"Nah, not here."
Apparently we hadn't gone south enough to make our hike a bit more exciting. A guide from the local neighborhood brought us up the trail along a stream fed by the waterfall and past some small huts. When we got to the waterfall I had time to take about five pictures before we turned around. We had planned to eat lunch but whatever. On the way back the Filipinos were yakking amongst themselves and walking out of distance as I was stopping to take photos.
"Hey Ethan, they say walk faster and don't stop to take pictures. We need to leave now."
"Okay. Wait, seriously?"
"Yeah."
It turned out that there actually was a chance of getting kidnapped. Our guide had seen someone or something of the NPA around the waterfall. Jesse said that you know it wasn't good if Filipinos canceled their lunch plans. We drove on further down the road that Jesse was never supposed to go down, stopping at a few scenic lookout points, snapping a few photos, and driving past the scorched frame of a box truck that had been firebombed by the NPA within the last week. We went all the way to the next town for some halo-halo at a famous halo-halo place. If you're wondering, its a sort of nasty desert involving ice, fruit, gelatinous blobs, and shredded cheese. I slept on the ride back, so I didn't get a picture of the burned out truck, but I don't think that would've been the best sell to potential tourists anyway. The rest of the day we went to various beach resorts in town and took photos of the thatch open-air huts and rooms they offered for the future Sagnay tourism website. We even graciously took photos of the resort I was supposed to stay at, except they tried to overcharge the hell out of me. I wound up staying with Jesse's host family, and Jesse made sure the people at that resort regretted it after they realized he was giving all the resorts free publicity and threatened to blacklist them. They even went so far as to come to his house to try and apologize and offer him free rooms whenever he wanted them. That was pretty much the end of the third day at work, a day which had been full of marriage jokes due to Ninette's presence with us all day, and Jesse teasing her about being his Valentine's date. This all fueled the gossip around town that was to come in the following days, of course.
Only about an hour away from the gossip-saturated, internet-bereft town of Sagnay is Camsur Watersports Complex. This is a world-class wakeboarding park with artificial lakes with cable systems that pull you around a wakeboarding and waterskiing course. People come from all over the world and stay here for months at a time and just wakeboard all day. It's a pretty rad place, and super cheap. I'm sure an equivalent facility in the states would charge about 10X as much. You can rent a wakeboard and equiptment for like five dollars, and do an hour of wakeboarding for three. This is also where rich Filipinos come to hang out and watch the silly white people either face plant in the case of beginners, or launch like 10 feet in the air and pull all sorts of crazy flips and spins if you're one of the pros or semi-pros that lurk around CWC. I wakeboarded for about two and half or three hours even though I only paid for one. I guess they just don't check. Thanks to my long years of snowboarding, I was able to stick 180s and boardslides pretty consistently by the end of the day.
I paid for it over the next few days though, as I was so sore I couldn't believe it, though I knew it was coming every time the tension on the line jerked me around a corner or off of the start platform, or when I caught an edge or nose-dived off a jump and landed ear first while my body twisted in all sorts of unnatural positions above me. Take, for example, this photo of Jesse to illustrate the level of exertion needed to control the tension of the cables that pulled you around:
CWC also had the nicest accommodations I stayed in during all of my time in the Philippines. Two beds, made up everyday, cable with movie channels, a flush toilet with toilet paper - much better than simply a bowl and a bucket of water to flush/clean yourself with - and hot water and AC. All for around $25 a night, about what a hostel in Europe charges for a flimsy bunk-bed in a dorm room with a bunch of strangers.
I'll end this on the subject of Manila. Nevermind about the the great cover band in Naga, or the questionably oriented Filipino known as Mr. T, the marriage inquiries on a a jeepney or any of the thousands of details that filled in every minute between everything mentioned above. I started and ended my trip in Manila, naturally being the capital city and having the biggest airport. I stuck to one neighborhood called Malate, on the western edge of the city, by the bay. There are a fair amount of tourists around that area, and a ton of Korean restaurants and shops. I guess they come here to learn English. One old white guy I ran into that had been living in the Philippines for ages told me, when I mentioned I was a teacher in Korea, that I should teach them to stop coming to the Philippines since Koreans apparently "buy everything up". He was weird. Anyway, not far from the hostel I stayed at was a mall that's normal by Western standards, but upscale enough by Filipino standards to require armed guards and security checks. This fit with the armed guards in front of banks, travel offices, Seven Elevens, and so on and so on. It's nice knowing that when you take out from a ATM what is a fortune to most Filipinos, you won't be robbed (immediately). There is all sorts of shit going down in Manila. The traffic is hard to believe, and if there are some traffic laws in theory, there are none in practice. Any number of varieties of vehicles get from here to there however they can.
There is a huge sex industry, and I figured it was safe to assume that 95% of all Western guys with a Filipino girl who had the frame of a twelve year-old on his arm was a certifiable dirt bag on a sex holiday. One woman stopped me on a corner to chat me up in English for a good five minutes before delivering the proposition which we both know was coming:
"Are you looking for a woman? I know many."
"No."
"Are you sure? I can get you a good price."
"No." I begin to walk away as she calls after me,
"I can get you very young...!"
I was a little disappointed I only got that one proposition, I guess I'm not as handsome or rich-looking as I think. Although I guess there was Jolie, the bakla on Boracay, and some random hookers hanging around the doors to bars I walked by, so maybe there were a few more, just none that put forth as much effort.
The second day I was in the Philippines I took the train to the Chinese Cemetery on the recommendation of an Austrian guy I met at the hostel. I brought my brand new $500 dollar camera to get some pictures, and as evening was falling, and I was lost, wandering through random neighborhoods looking for the entrance, I thought dangling said camera around my neck wasn't the best idea, but oh well, I had already begun. Some of the neighborhoods were actually really amazing. Poor, certainly, but there were kids playing in the street, and music coming out of the doors and men and women sitting around chatting, and bright colored clothes hung everywhere. They were truly lively, and when a bunch of kids pointed me down some random alley after they correctly guessed I was looking for the Chinese Cemetery, and some old dude even escorted me partway there, I realized they were actually pointing me in the right direction and not even trying to rob me or beg money off of me for their help, which I certainly appreciated.
On my way back from the cemetery, well after dark, I figured I would walk to a different train stop from the one I first got off at since I had to walk a long way away to get to the cemetery and I thought I might be closer to a different one. I was wrong, and I wound up walking maybe two kilometers in the dark down some filthy road getting called "Joe!" and "Hey Joe!" every time I passed groups of shady Filipinos. I thought for sure the robbery bait hanging around my neck was going to get snatched, and maybe I'd get a knife in the stomach for good measure, but I made it back to the neighborhood I was staying in with no problems. When I got back to Korea after my vacation had ended, I did realize I was missing my older, compact, digital camera however. I guess if something had to get stolen from me, it might have well have been that piece of shit. I suspected that the cab driver who brought me to the airport had been a little too friendly, and suspicions had already been cast upon his character thanks to the broken seal on the meter, the attempt to start the meter too high, and his suggestion to take a route alternate to what I knew was a direct way to the airport. Let him have it though, and good luck trying to sell it: the flash doesn't work, the battery doesn't last, the case is coming apart, it's scratched to hell, the memory card is tiny, and half the time the lens doesn't retract automatically. I know that during my time in the Philippines, I overpaid for a fair amount of things that still wound up being cheap to me, but just for the sake of getting even, I'm glad that whoever thinks they got a nice camera off a tourist will find out it's a piece of shit and maybe they'll feel screwed too.
All this swimming with whale sharks went down in a tiny town called Donsol, and not even really in the town but outside of it. The whole area would remained untouched if there weren't giant fish swimming around off the shore. There was only one small road, sparsely spotted with tourist resorts and restaurants. These two terms are used lightly here. Most of these resorts are tiny clusters of cement or thatch houses, and the restaurants match. After our boat trip out to see the whale sharks we wandered along the beach until we came across a restaurant and bar called BARacuda, and we got the royal treatment from the chef and owner, a Filipino/German/American who cooked ridiculously good food, was quite hospitable (we were the only guests), and even accepted Jesse's offer to bartend for the evening in exchange for free beer. There weren't many people besides one large dinner she was having for investors, so me and Sean just made Jesse bring us beer and played cards while he was working, and got another meal of fresh-caught fish and prawns and pasta with homemade pesto sauce. Both Jesse and Sean insisted it was the best food they had had in the Philippines, and I believe it, especially after I tried a typical Filipino snack called balut. This is what I looked like after I ate balut:
For those of you fortunate to be ignorant of what balut is, let me ruin your appetite for the next week. To put it simply, balut is a hard-boiled duck abortion. In more detail, you can order this innocent-looking egg by how mature the fetus is; I ate an 18 day-old balut, which I am told is a standard age. Then you break open the end where the fetus' waste juices have accumulated, and you drink them. Then you continue to remove the shell until you hold some standard-looking hard-boiled egg yolk that is topped by a duck fetus the size of your thumb. You can see the little head, and the eyes that will never open, and then you shove the whole thing in your mouth and chew if you can, trying to ignore the random crunchy parts that may be a tiny beak, or maybe underdeveloped bones, or maybe just stray pieces of shell that you didn't notice since you were too busy trying to cope with that fact that you were going to put this abomination in your mouth. As for the taste, I'm not really sure, I think my brain blocked out sensory data from that experience. I do remember that the yolk that the fetus was sitting on tasted like normal egg yolk, and fortunately there was a fair amount of that compared to the fetus itself, but other than that I don't really know. I think most of my revulsion was psychological, but I don't plan on trying it again to be sure. I have Jesse, who refuses to eat one, to thank for this experience, as he ordered it for me.
To be honest though, since hearing about balut on my first night in the Philippines, when I met some of Jesse's friends that were in Manila, I did sort of want to try it just for the experience. "Be careful what you wish for." Yeah yeah yeah. That culinary disaster occurred as we were sitting outside a restaurant, waiting for dinner in a small city called Legaspi on a Sunday evening, where I first met up with Jesse and some of his other friends the previous night. It was a pretty fun little city actually, although I think for too much longer than the two days I spent there, it may get boring. In two days there we: shot each other with pellet guns in some random park while hordes of Filipino kids looked on, went to an Australian Day (?) party, sang videoke at some random bar, at chopped pig face at the same bar, went on a mountain-top zip line, played The Settlers of Catan, the best board game ever, and looked at some ruins of a church below an active, never-before erupted, and perfectly cone-shaped volcano that you can apparently only hike half way up because any further and your shoes would melt to the steaming rock and you would die from the noxious gases. A cool little city, but I think I got the most out of it.
Boracay is a much more famous destination than Legaspi. I guess it's probably the most famous destination outside of Manila. It's a small tourist island with a long white sand beach lined with palm trees and beachside bars and restaurants. You can get hour-long massages for under ten bucks or ice-cold beer for under fifty cents. After my first two days in Manila, I flew here to meet some teacher friends of mine from Korea. I spent about three full days here, and much like Legaspi, I think I got the most out of it, despite much of my initial time being spent running around to various airline offices and tourist centers trying to get a flight off the island to Legaspi. I guess I'm just retarded for leaving my flight plans for two days before I wanted to leave, like I did in Manila getting a flight to Boracay. Pretty much every flight anywhere in the country goes to or from Manila, so I had to fly back to Manila from Boracay in order to get to Legaspi, and after exhausting every option for two days, I finally found an open seat that would get me to Manila, except it was too late to get the connecting flight to Legaspi. It all worked out in the end, and I've already gone into too much detail when I can just say it was a fucking debacle.
Anyway, outside of laying on the beach, getting massages, boat tours, snorkeling, and eating and drinking to your hearts content, there isn't a whole lot to do on Boracay. I thought it was going to be a built up perpetual shit-show like Cancun, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it much much quieter and small scale. There are a lot of smaller secluded beaches that are practically empty and only a short trike ride away. I went to one called Puka Shell beach with Eric, one of my friends from Korea, and apart from a couple boat tours that stopped there, there were only about six other people laying on the beach. That evening, back in the more populated part of the island, we went to a bar that serves a 15 shot challenge. If you can finish all of them, you get your name on a plaque on the wall, and one tally added onto the international scoreboard - Philippines was in first of course, with Korea, USA, and Canada all near the top somewhere too. One group of Western teachers on vacation from Taiwan I was with did this that night, and though I left, apparently they finished, and were drunk enough to think they could do it again. One dude apparently got pretty sick, big surprise. I also knew a hot Taiwanese girl that was on the island whom I met in Manila a couple days before. Being the small place it was, I ran into her a few times, and she was super flirty with me, but after hanging out with her a little, I found out that she had some serious ex-boyfriend issues, namely that she used to date the dude that got really sick doing the shot challenge, and though she would act really interested in me a lot of the time, she would end up running off to hang around him at other times. I felt it a better decision to leave her problems to her.
Jesse had his own problems with women in the town that he lives in. More specifically, he's not married, and there's a woman in his office who is the same age and also not married. This pair of coincidences seem to be the Filipino equivalent of a proposal. The three days I was in Sagnay with Jesse, he was constantly pestered with questions on when he was going to get married, that he was going to be on his "final trip" soon - this is something having to do with the fact that a calendar only has 31 days, and after you turn 32 you're off the calendar or something like that. As a spectator, this was quite fun to watch, but it sure sucks for him, hearing the same jokes and innuendos for the past six months, and presumably into his next 18 in that town. Also during my time in Sagnay I followed Jesse around while he was "working." By that, I mean on the first day, I went into his office, met people, got head-butted by some grizzled 75 year-old Filipino, heard jokes about him being single, left the office, watched a cock fight, and drank some instant coffee before going to a barkada (drinking circle) where we passed around a bottle of cheap brandy with one shot glass until the bottle was gone (an activity known as tagay tagay) and then went to the only bar in the area which just happened to be a stripper/hooker bar run by baklas, or lady boys, or tranvestites, depending on your preference for nomenclature.
The second day consisted of taking a boat out on the local river/bathroom to get to the ocean, then going to a sparsely inhabited island a couple kilometers off the coast where Jesse is working on getting a new fresh water reservoir installed. The settlements here were devastated by a typhoon a few years back and haven't had electricity or much fresh water since. I took a lot of pictures since I was a professional photographer due to my possession of a brand new and impressive-looking camera. A bunch of kids followed us around as I took pictures of the water system they currently have, and some scenic stuff for potential tourism ads. We also tried to find some cave that was on a different part of the island, but that just ended up being a wild goose chase across a jagged swath of wet and ridiculously dangerous rocks alongside the ocean. It was so dangerous that when we finally gave up looking for the cave, Jesse decided to swim back to the shore, and me, a pudgy and jolly man in his late 30's named Noly whose hobbies are sleeping and eating, and a woman in her 50's named Hilaria, both Jesse's coworkers, decided to scale a hill made of mud and take the high road through the jungle back.
We had another barkada that night, but with a videoke machine I had so graciously rented for everyone. It cost only about $10 but seemed to be a rare event. We went through three bottles of Matador brandy between six or seven of us. The song singing went on into the wee hours of the night, ensuring a fun day of work early tomorrow.
Day three at work: Since I was a professional photographer, we were granted the services of a van and a driver to drive around and take more pictures for tourism posters and websites and so forth. Apparently having a driver is big deal since almost no one drives anything larger than a scooter or a trike here. Jesse, Noly, Hilaria, myself, and Ninette (Jesse's single coworker who is the same age) drove south down the coast, in the direction that Jesse is normally not allowed to enter due to the infestation of rebel militants called the NPA hiding in the hills. Our first stop was to check out a waterfall that was a couple kilometers from the road.
"Hey Jesse, we aren't gonna get kidnapped are we?" I joked.
"Nah, not here."
Apparently we hadn't gone south enough to make our hike a bit more exciting. A guide from the local neighborhood brought us up the trail along a stream fed by the waterfall and past some small huts. When we got to the waterfall I had time to take about five pictures before we turned around. We had planned to eat lunch but whatever. On the way back the Filipinos were yakking amongst themselves and walking out of distance as I was stopping to take photos.
"Hey Ethan, they say walk faster and don't stop to take pictures. We need to leave now."
"Okay. Wait, seriously?"
"Yeah."
It turned out that there actually was a chance of getting kidnapped. Our guide had seen someone or something of the NPA around the waterfall. Jesse said that you know it wasn't good if Filipinos canceled their lunch plans. We drove on further down the road that Jesse was never supposed to go down, stopping at a few scenic lookout points, snapping a few photos, and driving past the scorched frame of a box truck that had been firebombed by the NPA within the last week. We went all the way to the next town for some halo-halo at a famous halo-halo place. If you're wondering, its a sort of nasty desert involving ice, fruit, gelatinous blobs, and shredded cheese. I slept on the ride back, so I didn't get a picture of the burned out truck, but I don't think that would've been the best sell to potential tourists anyway. The rest of the day we went to various beach resorts in town and took photos of the thatch open-air huts and rooms they offered for the future Sagnay tourism website. We even graciously took photos of the resort I was supposed to stay at, except they tried to overcharge the hell out of me. I wound up staying with Jesse's host family, and Jesse made sure the people at that resort regretted it after they realized he was giving all the resorts free publicity and threatened to blacklist them. They even went so far as to come to his house to try and apologize and offer him free rooms whenever he wanted them. That was pretty much the end of the third day at work, a day which had been full of marriage jokes due to Ninette's presence with us all day, and Jesse teasing her about being his Valentine's date. This all fueled the gossip around town that was to come in the following days, of course.
Only about an hour away from the gossip-saturated, internet-bereft town of Sagnay is Camsur Watersports Complex. This is a world-class wakeboarding park with artificial lakes with cable systems that pull you around a wakeboarding and waterskiing course. People come from all over the world and stay here for months at a time and just wakeboard all day. It's a pretty rad place, and super cheap. I'm sure an equivalent facility in the states would charge about 10X as much. You can rent a wakeboard and equiptment for like five dollars, and do an hour of wakeboarding for three. This is also where rich Filipinos come to hang out and watch the silly white people either face plant in the case of beginners, or launch like 10 feet in the air and pull all sorts of crazy flips and spins if you're one of the pros or semi-pros that lurk around CWC. I wakeboarded for about two and half or three hours even though I only paid for one. I guess they just don't check. Thanks to my long years of snowboarding, I was able to stick 180s and boardslides pretty consistently by the end of the day.
I paid for it over the next few days though, as I was so sore I couldn't believe it, though I knew it was coming every time the tension on the line jerked me around a corner or off of the start platform, or when I caught an edge or nose-dived off a jump and landed ear first while my body twisted in all sorts of unnatural positions above me. Take, for example, this photo of Jesse to illustrate the level of exertion needed to control the tension of the cables that pulled you around:
CWC also had the nicest accommodations I stayed in during all of my time in the Philippines. Two beds, made up everyday, cable with movie channels, a flush toilet with toilet paper - much better than simply a bowl and a bucket of water to flush/clean yourself with - and hot water and AC. All for around $25 a night, about what a hostel in Europe charges for a flimsy bunk-bed in a dorm room with a bunch of strangers.
I'll end this on the subject of Manila. Nevermind about the the great cover band in Naga, or the questionably oriented Filipino known as Mr. T, the marriage inquiries on a a jeepney or any of the thousands of details that filled in every minute between everything mentioned above. I started and ended my trip in Manila, naturally being the capital city and having the biggest airport. I stuck to one neighborhood called Malate, on the western edge of the city, by the bay. There are a fair amount of tourists around that area, and a ton of Korean restaurants and shops. I guess they come here to learn English. One old white guy I ran into that had been living in the Philippines for ages told me, when I mentioned I was a teacher in Korea, that I should teach them to stop coming to the Philippines since Koreans apparently "buy everything up". He was weird. Anyway, not far from the hostel I stayed at was a mall that's normal by Western standards, but upscale enough by Filipino standards to require armed guards and security checks. This fit with the armed guards in front of banks, travel offices, Seven Elevens, and so on and so on. It's nice knowing that when you take out from a ATM what is a fortune to most Filipinos, you won't be robbed (immediately). There is all sorts of shit going down in Manila. The traffic is hard to believe, and if there are some traffic laws in theory, there are none in practice. Any number of varieties of vehicles get from here to there however they can.
There is a huge sex industry, and I figured it was safe to assume that 95% of all Western guys with a Filipino girl who had the frame of a twelve year-old on his arm was a certifiable dirt bag on a sex holiday. One woman stopped me on a corner to chat me up in English for a good five minutes before delivering the proposition which we both know was coming:
"Are you looking for a woman? I know many."
"No."
"Are you sure? I can get you a good price."
"No." I begin to walk away as she calls after me,
"I can get you very young...!"
I was a little disappointed I only got that one proposition, I guess I'm not as handsome or rich-looking as I think. Although I guess there was Jolie, the bakla on Boracay, and some random hookers hanging around the doors to bars I walked by, so maybe there were a few more, just none that put forth as much effort.
The second day I was in the Philippines I took the train to the Chinese Cemetery on the recommendation of an Austrian guy I met at the hostel. I brought my brand new $500 dollar camera to get some pictures, and as evening was falling, and I was lost, wandering through random neighborhoods looking for the entrance, I thought dangling said camera around my neck wasn't the best idea, but oh well, I had already begun. Some of the neighborhoods were actually really amazing. Poor, certainly, but there were kids playing in the street, and music coming out of the doors and men and women sitting around chatting, and bright colored clothes hung everywhere. They were truly lively, and when a bunch of kids pointed me down some random alley after they correctly guessed I was looking for the Chinese Cemetery, and some old dude even escorted me partway there, I realized they were actually pointing me in the right direction and not even trying to rob me or beg money off of me for their help, which I certainly appreciated.
On my way back from the cemetery, well after dark, I figured I would walk to a different train stop from the one I first got off at since I had to walk a long way away to get to the cemetery and I thought I might be closer to a different one. I was wrong, and I wound up walking maybe two kilometers in the dark down some filthy road getting called "Joe!" and "Hey Joe!" every time I passed groups of shady Filipinos. I thought for sure the robbery bait hanging around my neck was going to get snatched, and maybe I'd get a knife in the stomach for good measure, but I made it back to the neighborhood I was staying in with no problems. When I got back to Korea after my vacation had ended, I did realize I was missing my older, compact, digital camera however. I guess if something had to get stolen from me, it might have well have been that piece of shit. I suspected that the cab driver who brought me to the airport had been a little too friendly, and suspicions had already been cast upon his character thanks to the broken seal on the meter, the attempt to start the meter too high, and his suggestion to take a route alternate to what I knew was a direct way to the airport. Let him have it though, and good luck trying to sell it: the flash doesn't work, the battery doesn't last, the case is coming apart, it's scratched to hell, the memory card is tiny, and half the time the lens doesn't retract automatically. I know that during my time in the Philippines, I overpaid for a fair amount of things that still wound up being cheap to me, but just for the sake of getting even, I'm glad that whoever thinks they got a nice camera off a tourist will find out it's a piece of shit and maybe they'll feel screwed too.
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