It's 5 o'clock in the morning, and I am awake. It's not by choice. I was getting the best sleep I have had in a while, to be awoken by a loud screeching sound. The fire alarm was going off. I got up and look in the hall, some of my neighbors are headed down stairs so I do the same. Going down 13 flights of stairs. To get outside to find out there was no fire. What a pain in the ass. If you are going to wake me up at this time in the morning, at least have a fire.
Oh and I found out I get to move. I have to move the same day I am leaving for Mongolia. There is one slight problem with it though. The apartment that I am moving to is occupied. It will be occupied for 3 days after I move in. EPIK fucked up with the housing. So I am going to store most of my stuff at work or in my co-workers apartment. But on the plus side, when I get back, I will have an apartment that is twice the size of the one I have now.
Well I am off to try to get back to sleep.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
Feeding the hare
So I have had a house guest for the past week. A friend came down from the mainland and crashed at my apartment and I got to play tour guide. Yeah me. I'm not a good tour guide, so on my weekend off I just took to being the driver on their little adventures. It all started on Tuesday when I picked up Beney and her friend Karen from the airport and took them back to my place to drop off their stuff before heading out again. Yeah I am a fast mover. Need to get things done. Actually it was bowling night and I needed to get my frames in. Needed to get my aggression out by lobbing an 11 lb. ball down the lane. Bowling went pretty much the same way as it always does. Bowling followed by galbi (fried meat) and soju.
Wednesday I left them to go to work and they did their little tourist things, followed by dinner. I chose to nap instead of going out. Dinner followed up by drinks at La Vie. We didn't stay out that late, even though it was Beney's birthday. There was really no one out. Thursday was more of me working followed by dinner of black pig and a trip to Loveland. Yeah that is my third time there. They had a few different things there this time. Little scenes of people having sex. Pretty funny actually. Followed by a nice night in of sleep, ah that precious sleep.
I had Friday off. It was Constitution Day!! So this is when my tour guiding really came in. Or more of my knowing the roads of Jeju. We started off going to the Lava Tubes. The tubes are about a 13 km long tube of lava, or would it be magma since it is under ground. Hmmm, I think they need to rename it. Well anyway it is a tube where magma used to flow and there is a hollow tube that we walked down. We got out of the tubes just in time for it to be pissing down rain. It was coming down hard. We waited the heavy stuff out for a little while to hit a break in the clouds to run to the car. Start the drive out and BAM!!!! the rain starts again. I can't see shit. Too much rain. Wipers going at full blast and me driving like an old man trying to see. My windows are fogging up, as they do when it rains. So I am driving and wiping the fog off of the window as I am driving and we decided to head to the Haneyo (women divers) museum. It was actually pretty cool. We got to learn more about the women divers that make Jeju famous. Checked that out for a while and then headed off again.
The next stop was Illchibong (Sunrise Peak). Which is very close to my work and I see it every day, just haven't climbed up it. My adult teachers told me it takes about 15-20 minutes to climb up. It was all stairs. It was hot and I was walking dripping sweat. I left the girls behind as I needed to get my climb on. Actually I was just a little faster than them and wanted to see the top thinking I would rest then. The view from the top was nice. I got to see where I worked from up on high. Then the waiting started. I just ended up helping people take photos while I waited for Beney and Karen to summit. Which took another 15-20 min. The walk down we saw a hare, which apparently they saw on the way up. I took some orange peels and tried to get it to eat from my hand. It did. I rock, animals love me. Then I decided to make it do some tricks for it's food. Which was begging. It is the only trick that I think I could get it to do. After a while he just got lazy though and put his front paws on my leg and ate that way.
We followed that up by going out to a couple of the local watering holes. There wasn't a huge crowd out. Actually it was hard to find people, Korean or foreign. Most of the islanders were on vacation for the long weekend and this is then end of the summer season for most Koreans. So they were all gone for one last shebang before the new school year starts. We did end up at the blues bar and did some karaoke. I told them that I can not sing and they forced me up there anyways. Followed by shortly getting me off the stage. People were covering their ears and just didn't like my singing. Serves them right. They should have listened to me.
Saturday I dropped Karen off at the airport followed by a day at the beach. Nice weather for it. Not too hot and a little overcast. Less sunburn for me. We took it easy after that. We were supposed to go diving Sunday morning. But that didn't pan out as Beney was tired and I was short on funds so we went down and hit the beach and met up with some of my other friends who were visiting the island from the mainland. Ended up playing darts at a bar down there and catching up. Monday was more work for me with dinner with friends at the local Indian restaurant. That is my life up to day.
Wednesday I left them to go to work and they did their little tourist things, followed by dinner. I chose to nap instead of going out. Dinner followed up by drinks at La Vie. We didn't stay out that late, even though it was Beney's birthday. There was really no one out. Thursday was more of me working followed by dinner of black pig and a trip to Loveland. Yeah that is my third time there. They had a few different things there this time. Little scenes of people having sex. Pretty funny actually. Followed by a nice night in of sleep, ah that precious sleep.
I had Friday off. It was Constitution Day!! So this is when my tour guiding really came in. Or more of my knowing the roads of Jeju. We started off going to the Lava Tubes. The tubes are about a 13 km long tube of lava, or would it be magma since it is under ground. Hmmm, I think they need to rename it. Well anyway it is a tube where magma used to flow and there is a hollow tube that we walked down. We got out of the tubes just in time for it to be pissing down rain. It was coming down hard. We waited the heavy stuff out for a little while to hit a break in the clouds to run to the car. Start the drive out and BAM!!!! the rain starts again. I can't see shit. Too much rain. Wipers going at full blast and me driving like an old man trying to see. My windows are fogging up, as they do when it rains. So I am driving and wiping the fog off of the window as I am driving and we decided to head to the Haneyo (women divers) museum. It was actually pretty cool. We got to learn more about the women divers that make Jeju famous. Checked that out for a while and then headed off again.
The next stop was Illchibong (Sunrise Peak). Which is very close to my work and I see it every day, just haven't climbed up it. My adult teachers told me it takes about 15-20 minutes to climb up. It was all stairs. It was hot and I was walking dripping sweat. I left the girls behind as I needed to get my climb on. Actually I was just a little faster than them and wanted to see the top thinking I would rest then. The view from the top was nice. I got to see where I worked from up on high. Then the waiting started. I just ended up helping people take photos while I waited for Beney and Karen to summit. Which took another 15-20 min. The walk down we saw a hare, which apparently they saw on the way up. I took some orange peels and tried to get it to eat from my hand. It did. I rock, animals love me. Then I decided to make it do some tricks for it's food. Which was begging. It is the only trick that I think I could get it to do. After a while he just got lazy though and put his front paws on my leg and ate that way.
We followed that up by going out to a couple of the local watering holes. There wasn't a huge crowd out. Actually it was hard to find people, Korean or foreign. Most of the islanders were on vacation for the long weekend and this is then end of the summer season for most Koreans. So they were all gone for one last shebang before the new school year starts. We did end up at the blues bar and did some karaoke. I told them that I can not sing and they forced me up there anyways. Followed by shortly getting me off the stage. People were covering their ears and just didn't like my singing. Serves them right. They should have listened to me.
Saturday I dropped Karen off at the airport followed by a day at the beach. Nice weather for it. Not too hot and a little overcast. Less sunburn for me. We took it easy after that. We were supposed to go diving Sunday morning. But that didn't pan out as Beney was tired and I was short on funds so we went down and hit the beach and met up with some of my other friends who were visiting the island from the mainland. Ended up playing darts at a bar down there and catching up. Monday was more work for me with dinner with friends at the local Indian restaurant. That is my life up to day.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Swimming with the fishes
Last weekend I completed my Scuba training. I am now a certified open water scuba diver. Which basically means I can buy and rent scuba gear and dive to 18 meters in depth. I was surprised on how enjoyable it is. The worst part of it is putting on that damn wet suit.
I had to complete 4 dives last weekend to become certified. They were more fun dives than class type dives the first two were to 12 meters. I saw some cool looking fish and coral. The colors were amazing. I would take pictures, but alas I don't have an underwater camera. So if anyone wants to buy me one, I'll take some pictures. We did some basic skills on the second dive, putting on the weight belt and scuba tank while in the water as well as flooding the mask and unflooding it. We did some compass orientation stuff. Though I think I would still get lost. I am hopeless when it comes to finding things.
It took me a little while to get down to depth, I was having trouble equalizing my ears. As you dive the air spaces in you ears gets smaller causing ear pain if you don't equalize. You can even blow your eardrums, though the pain gets to be a bit intense. But I finally got equalized and was enjoying my dive doing skills and checking out my surroundings. So cool. We get out of the water and Paul, my instructor tells me that I have a bloody nose. I farmer blow it and low and behold, blood, blood, bloody snot. Not runny bloody, but blood in my sinuses. It freaks me out a little bit. I've never had a bloody nose before. Well I have had the bloody booger from the random pick, but nothing like this. We wait an hour before the next dive. We have to let the nitrous levels in our blood die down, before we can dive again, then gear up and jump back in. Go through the dive and having problems equalizing again, but I make it to depth and go about the dive. Come up an bloody nose. Little freaked out, but think I just burst a blood vessel from trying to equalize. Went out for a bit after diving and still had a bloody nose every time I blew it. Sleep it off and figure I'll check on it the next day.
Sunday morning rolls around and I blow my nose and still bloody. So I tell my scuba instructor and the dive shop owner and they aren't concerned, so I am not concerned. It's all good.
The next two dives we did the next day on Sunday. I was a bit burned from the sun on Saturday, so the wet suit was particularly annoying to put on. These dives I got to go deeper, equalizing was still a problem, but I am getting used to it. The second dive went much much better and was able to equalize with minimal stopping. I was some bigger colourful fish and I even saw a lion fish. Really cool looking. Big floaty fins and all. The first dive we tried to do a free descent, but were unable to due to a hell of a current. It took us and pulled us quite a way. It took a lot of energy to swim back to the ropes and descent. The last dive to tide switched and I was able to do the descent with out any difficulties. It was good times and now I am certified!!!!
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