Gangneung-si, Gangwon-do, South Korea

Planning The Journey

So 11:40pm and monitor eye strain...I'm up in arms with the planning of the first leg of my journey...it seems every fricken website that could give me useful information is in a foreign language or every boat and train I want to take doesn't leave when I need it to.

South Korea to China
I was hoping to take a ferry. The best bet would be for me to travel to Tianjin, China from Incheon, South Korea and then take a train to Beijing. Unfortunately, the time table says something like this:
"Fri 19:00" and then "4 day intervals"
What the hell does that mean? Useless! I was really hoping to catch the ferry on a Sunday, Nov 28 and then get to Beijing within a day or two. If I'm still into this boat trip, which I think would be really amazing, I'm going to have to stop working a day earlier on Thursday, Nov 25, head to Seoul that day or Friday morning and take the ferry that night. It fucks up some plans and will mean I'll spend a day less working (yeah) but won't have the proper mourning time for my Gangneung life...I guess the Warehouse is open on Thursday nights...
We'll see...
(and Tianjin to Beijing by train, good luck planning that shit on the internet, I know it exists though, if it doesn't maybe I can just start up a new life in Tianjin)

Beijing to Hong Kong
I'm going to take the train for this...I can't really figure out how long it takes because they don't have any dates next to the times on the schedule. It'll save me about $300CAN, if I go with the cheapest, hard sleeper berth, which I will do. I emailed them, to see if they could send me more information. Fortunately, this train does leave on December 3 from Beijing, just as I was hoping...

Hong Kong to Bangkok
Well for this I'll have to fork out the cash and fly. I'd like to arrive in Thailand on Dec 6th. I guess I'll just book the flight in Hong Kong and it shouldn't be a problem, except for the fact that I read that I need a confirmed airline ticket in and out of Thailand to get my VISA...damnit! I'm planning on going overland to Laos or Cambodia and flying on to Nepal from Phnom Penh...

Bangkok to Laos to Vietnam to Cambodia
God...overland this is going to be hellish...I think I'll just wait to Bangkok to plan all this stuff. Mandatory hotel bookings and statements of bank balances, sponsorships from citizens....yikes!

Phnom Penh to Kathmandu
Are you kidding me? I haven't even fathomed what the hell language and VISA requirements, I'll need for this...

And my further adventures....long, long, long nights in the PC Room before I know anything more...

Beers with Raswon

Raswon has been texting me the last couple of days with his beach report. An update from Gyeongpo, just as I'm into breaking up my fifth or sixth kidergarten fight, or rubbing my temples and wishing it would all just go away..."Beach Report Day 1 - Hot day, water's beautiful, beer is cold, girls in bikinis to left and the right..." (not verbatim, but close enough)
I respond back with "Kindy Report Day 280 - Fucking nightmare..."
Anyways, after getting a Dojang name stamp made with Misty downtown on Wednesday night, I met Ras for a few beers outside Family Mart near DrugBar. After my feeble attempts at learning some Korean from him, we headed to Black Classic Bar just down the alleyway. Met some bartenders and had some more beers and then it was time for me to run.

I've been exhausted. This heat is killing me. It's like 36C every damn day...even at night. It wouldn't be such a big problem if I wasn't working through it all, but the lack of air conditioners in our school hallways, really does a number on me, this in addition to the fact that I've been recovering from a hellish bout of mild flu and walking around dripping sweat and snot...I sleep in a pool of sweat, I can't exscape it...the second I'm out of the shower, there it goes again...

Though, hopefully it'll be like this on the weekend when I can actually enjoy it at the beach...

Ken and Captain

Here's a short story about two students in my class. First, there's Captain (yes, you read right, Captain), he's the spawn of the devil and he talks just like I would imagine Donald Duck would if he were a Korean child trying to speak English, spittle included. Captain is the shit-disturber of the class, he's very phsyical and starts something with someone almost everyday. This day, in particular, he had been bothering Ken, a wonderful student, very smart, polite and well behaved. Captain made Ken cry for a reason unbeknownst to me.

Captain puts up his hand and this is what comes out:
"Teacher and Kiran Teacher and Ken and eye and raining..."
Right away, I knew that Ken was crying, but am still amazed that Captain still doesn't know this word and instead used rain as a metaphor...

I asked Ken what had happened and he couldn't really elaborate, then when Captain wasn't looking, he said to me through teary eyes:
"Teacher, Captain *blech* and hittting please and knife and *blech* and bleeding..."
He was making a stabbing motion in the air with his hand as he said this...I just had to laugh...using wonderful vocabulary like knife and bleeding...I had no idea he knew that verb...
Anyways, this is what I deal with every day...petty disputes, five year olds angry enough to murder over who has the longest pencil...

Ahh...ESL in Korea...

Summer Vacation

Mine starts next Thursday and goes until the first Wednesday in August, all in all it's five days off work, plus a Saturday and Sunday. I'm heading down south to Busan for four days and then spending the rest drinking and sleeping back here in Gangneung...I don't really know what to expect from Busan, I haven't really been looking into it much...I'm just gonna wing it...

 

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Gangneung-si, Gangwon-do, South Korea

Suwa Looks Jealous of Ras Kissing Kiran

Here's a photo that Soutthida just sent me of our recent rafting excursion in Yeongwol...it was a sexy day... 
 

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Gangneung-si, Gangwon-do, South Korea
 
It's way too fricken hot in this country these days. We just finished having almost two weeks of rain and then suddenly Monday, it's 31C....though with the humidity it felt a hell of a lot higher. Just the two minute walk from my apartment to work leaves me dripping with sweat. My apartment isn't much cooler, as soon as I'm out of the shower, I might as well have another one. Damn!
 
And the ants have returned. I had an ant infestation which started about a week after I moved into my apartment and took me a good four months to get rid of. Then Sunday night, talking on the phone I saw another one, Monday it was three and today I've already counted five...I just hope they don't get too much worse, as I'm not going to put as much effort into getting rid of them this time. I'm leaving in four months anyways. They're just really annoying, and now I'm paranoid that every little black spot is an ant. It was really bad before, I had a loaf of bread which was swarming with them...and there were little black trails snaking across my apartment, I didn't actually think that was real until I saw it with my own eyes...little bastards. I really don't know where they could have come from as my walls are solid concrete...I guess they're small enough to fit through the tiniest crack...
 

 

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Gangneung-si, Gangwon-do, South Korea

The Flairs

As emailed to me by Ryan Hanna of The Flairs fame:

You heard it here!! THE FLAIRS very 1st video for "Ready to Roll" just got added to Much Music on Light Rotation!
Since it is our first video and our album is coming out independently this fall, we need YOUR support!! If you want to see our cute little fannies on the big screen, please request the crap out of our video that we are oh so proud of!
You can email your requests to dedications@muchmusic.com so please PLEASE email as much as you can and forward this message to everyone in your addy book!
It will be added this Friday and will appear on the Much Music website here www.muchmusic.com/music/highrotation/
Thank you all for your continuing support! We will continue to provide you with a healthy dose of Rock 'n' Roll.
Check out the website: www.theflairs.com

Camping With The Kids

Well, I've got a camping trip with my hagwon tomorrow night. We're leaving at 5:30 right after a full day of teaching from 10am and spending the night at a the HyoSan Leisuretel at Gyeongpo Beach. It'll be interesting seeing these kids like this, I'll definitely be out of my element. We're gonna play some games and talk around a campfire. The Korean teachers will be serving samgyeopsal for dinner and gimchi chigae for breakfast o Saturday morning. Then we're supposed to go swimming in the ocean, but the forecast says scattered thundershowers over Gangneung. I'm kind of feeling weird about revealing the tattoos as they already draw much attention when the kids get a sneak-peak up my sleeve. From what I've heard having a tattoo here in Korea, is basically like brandishing a swastika back home. Only bad people do it. It's really frowned upon, my students even asked me if I got sick. They're perception of getting a tattoo is in some seedy back alley basement with a sewing needle and India Ink...I couldn't really explain the cleanliness of the tattoo parlors I've visited back home (www.nextbody.com) so I just told them that I had it done at the hospital. That seemed to satisfy their curiosity and relieve the confusion as to why I wasn't dying in a ditch somewhere...

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Gangneung-si, Gangwon-do, South Korea

Greenwater Rafting in Yeongweol

I went rafting in Yeongweol city yesterday and as the title suggests it wasn't quite the whitewater we were expecting. It started out early enough with everyone meeting up at 8am at the Bus Terminal in Gangneung. We took an 8:30 bus after everybody arrived for the two and a half to three hour trip. The road was windy through the mountains and the driver was going pretty fast. There were a lot of stops, maybe eight or nine, so there was no problem getting out for beers, snacks or the bathroom along the way. It was beautiful through the mountains, a nice sunny day and lots of little rice fields and small towns, cementing the Korean experience.

After arriving in Yeongweol, a fairly small town with a population of about 30,000, we almost effectively tripled the foreigner population from 5 to 12 in just a few minutes. Allison met us and we went to her apartment to get ready for the day. It was Raswon, Soutthida, Paul, Nanette, Allison, Rachael, some Japanese people who are living in Gangneung and myself. We went out for lunch at a Korean restaurant and stuffed ourselves with bibimbap and gimbap. The restaurant was overwhelmed, we almost filled the place, I don't think they had ever encountered that many foreigners at once.

After lunch, we waited for the bus to pick us up and take us to the rafting area. A small van with sirens on top arrived and we all piled in. From there we drove about thirty minutes along the river, which looked unusually tame, and through some small back roads around the mountains almost being run over twice, once by a giagantic tractor. After arriving, we put on our life vests and helmets and then were subjected to boot camp training by some Korean guy. Jumping jacks and dunking ourselves in the water, in full rafting gear, was a lot harder than it sounds. I'm sure it was a daunting task for our rafting guide, he didn't speak any English and faced a boatload of foreigners, there were 12 on the boat, only three of whom spoke Korean fluently. He kept yelling at us to do stuff and we had no idea what he was talking about. Eventually we got the hang of the hana, deul, set, net paddling motion and were on our way. A few minutes into the trip Allison got pushed off in a hilarious fall and had to be dragged back on. Our guide then got all of us off the boat and into the water by telling us all to stand on one side. We continued downriver through fairly calm waters and stopped at a small beach. The guides set up a sort of slide by turning one raft upside down on two others and people could slide off into the shallow water.

Our guide then got us to throw all of our shoes and paddles off the boat and dragged us out into deeper water where he made us all sit on one side of the boat and then rock it until it tipped. After getting ourselves back together, we continued on through some small rapids and around a bend. There was a photographer on a rock who took our picture for purchase later. He had fishing lines and a small bag strung across the river so he could send the film off.

A few splashing battles with other boats followed and we ended up killing a few gigantic horseflies that loved Paul's life jacket. One rapid we went through, we ended up hitting a big rock just under the water and Paul and one of the Japanese guys went over. The Japanese guy was sucked under the boat and trapped for a few seconds before finally emerging on the other side. After hauling them back aboard, our instructor told us to enact the scene from Titanic where they are standing on the front of the boat. He found a couple and got them to stand up while we snag Celene Dion and then ran at them and pushed them both in. Another raft tipping later, Ras was getting angry and grabbed our guide and threw him in the water. He didn't look to happy but we all found it funny.

The scenery was beautiful, other than the beaches covered in garbage every once in awhile. All in all we went through about three or four areas of decent rapids, but the trip was fairly calm. Everyone was exhausted and soaked by the time we got back to the beach. Another van came and took us to a showering area where we could all change. We paid them, 20,000 each and were driven back to the bus terminal. The ride back was fairly uneventful, I was exhausted and tried to sleep most of the way. I got home around eight, planning to watch a movie and then head to the Warehouse, but I was too exhausted and passed out instead.

I did watch the movie though, The Eye, a Chinese horror movie based in Hong Kong about a blind girl who recieves a cornea transplant from some girl in Bangkok who killed herself. After receiving her corneas and regaining her sight, she begins to see dead people and later learns that the girl she got the transplants from saw them as well. It was well done and had great acting. Vancouver was mentioned a couple times as well, as it seems that a lot of people from Hong Kong want to go there for a better life. My only complaint was that a quarter of the way through the movie, the subtitles fucked up and were ahead by one scene. I had to keep remembering the last lines from the last scene to understand what was going on.

Christa is finally back from her trip to Thailand as well, and we hung out Thursday and Friday night. On Friday, we watched a Korean film that had been recommended to her by some of her students, Oasis. It was about a Korean guy who took the wrap for a hit-and-run commited by one of his older brothers. When he gets out of jail, his family doesn't want anything to do with him. Anyways, he falls on love with a disabled girl and eventually gets accused of raping her when he is caught in the act. It turns out she loved him too and wanted to have sex with him, but in all the confusion and with her lack of communication skills, he gets sent to jail again.

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Happy Second Birthday
Banky Edwards

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Gangneung-si, Gangwon-do, South Korea

Natalie

Last week both my friend and I (he's in Canada) were reading the same book about seasons on the African subcontinent. We both emailed each other to proclaim our extreme disgust on the subject, so I went to ask my friend Natalie about it, and she interrupted:
"That's amazing!.. Fuck you! If I hear another thing about the African subcontinent I'm going to shoot somebody!"

But then when I got to the part about the seasons, Natalie shut up and started grinding her teeth. But later, Natalie's boyfriend told me that the reason Natalie was so freaked out was because she has a fear of seasons from childhood. Sometimes Natalie can be a little unpredictable like that, but all she cares about is my own good...

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