Friday, August 26, 2005
Geography Test
When we went go-karting the other day we stopped at a monument, celebrating something or other. Anyhow they listed all the nations of the world that took part, and I took a couple of shots. My challenge to you is simple - spot the made up countries, or "contrys" as it says!
I'll give you a clue. Jordan's a real country.
If you said Oman, you're wrong.
The organisers of this festival must have been really gullible to think that International Badgers Club was a country. And Radio Scout sounds like a character from some GI Joe cartoon. Another question - I take it that It. Polynesia stands for Italian Polynesia. Does such a place exist? I must have missed that one myself.
Hot tip for the people who erected this fine monument - get your spelling right. You can't change it once it's built. Let's hope that no-one from Liechienstein, Qutar, St. Marino, Newzealand and Srilanka (not to mention Urguray and Ukline and the Untied Arabmirates, which were to be found elsewhere) sees it or they'll be a tad miffed that you didn't care enough to get their countries' names right.
Oh, and for everyone who hasn't visited my pad in Sokcho, here's a view from my window.
2 minute walk...
Told you I lived close to the beach.
I'll give you a clue. Jordan's a real country.
If you said Oman, you're wrong.
The organisers of this festival must have been really gullible to think that International Badgers Club was a country. And Radio Scout sounds like a character from some GI Joe cartoon. Another question - I take it that It. Polynesia stands for Italian Polynesia. Does such a place exist? I must have missed that one myself.
Hot tip for the people who erected this fine monument - get your spelling right. You can't change it once it's built. Let's hope that no-one from Liechienstein, Qutar, St. Marino, Newzealand and Srilanka (not to mention Urguray and Ukline and the Untied Arabmirates, which were to be found elsewhere) sees it or they'll be a tad miffed that you didn't care enough to get their countries' names right.
Oh, and for everyone who hasn't visited my pad in Sokcho, here's a view from my window.
2 minute walk...
Told you I lived close to the beach.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Calmed Down
Right, now that I'm no longer outraged at that wanker who posted spam I'm finally ready to tell you little kids all about my summer thus far.
July was a bit of a non-happening. Everyone got geared up for the break at the end of the month and attempted to save money (i.e. drink soju and tap beer rather than cocktails and bottled beer). The weather got hotter, we started hanging out on the beach, and some of us ate dog as that's what you do in Korea when the weather's hot. So that pretty much takes us up to the end of the July.
A good way to spend your summer
Then the break, which was long overdue. Off with Steve and Lloyd to Deokjeokdo Island near Incheon for a little chilling out on relatively uncrowded beaches. What happened was we got very drunk, discovered Lloyd had a kick-the-chairs-and-tables-out-of-your-path-while-you-run-away-as-if-the-Devil-himself-was-chasing-you fear of... moths, and got distracted by pretty Korean ladies in little bikinis. We found a fun hotel to stay in called "Toothless Granny's Spare Bedroom in a Bungalow." Actually it's unfair to call her toothless as the teeth on her right side were all there and pretty damned prominent in a Chinese rickshaw driver type way. It's just that they were all missing on the left side. The whole effect was something to behold, I can tell you. Steve shagged her.
Only kidding.
We came back midweek as their boss is a dickhead who takes great delight in making sure that his teachers' holidays don't coincide with all the other teachers in Korea. So they returned to work and I decided to chill out on the beach, or stay in and enjoy the fact that I'm one of the only foreigners with a/c in Sokcho.
Then, the end of the week arrived and Terry, an ex-Sokcho lad and a fine fellow if ever there was, walks into the bar I'm in. Completely unexpected as he doesn't live in Sokcho anymore and I lost his number when I left last summer and gave my phone to the weird lad who replaced me. And so drinking commenced and a fine weekend was had by all.
Then back to work on the Monday. By 7pm I needed another one as I forgot how energy-sapping it is to try and control the kids. They're all anarchists at heart, waiting for just a split second's opportunity to start the revolution (which invariably begins with some sort of unidentifiable mucus getting smeared over chairs and tables). All you have to do is leave the room for a minute. Right, that's my work-related rant done with.
The next weekend was a bank holiday. It started on the Saturday with a decision with Lloyd and Steve to do drunk go-karting.
View of Ulsanbawi from the Go-kart track
Weirdly enough Lloyd, being the smallest and drunkest of us, was off to a flyer. Indeed, as he lapped Steve he started to become a little cocky, and as he began to gain me he decided to make a quick "you're going down mate" gesture as I was headed the other way. Fatal error when you're drunk, taking your eye off the road. He piled into the tyre wall and went airborne, somersaulting through the air, and the go-kart decided to imitate his acrobatics a second later. Somehow (I think these things can only happen when you're drunk), he landed back in his seat, before bouncing out, rolling spectacularly a few times, and ending miraculously on his feet giving a big thumbs-up to the safety chap. I wish I'd had a camera as that would have made it straight into a "World's Wildest Go-Kart Wipeouts" video. Spec-bloody-tacular.
The only thing hurt was his ego, and every bone in his body
He killed the kart, man!
He needed stitches though, which meant he couldn't go swimming in the lovely sunny weather. But later we went off for a commiserating pint and found that even the Coca-Cola company found it funny...
The Coke can reads "Crazy Racing Kart Rider"
Then on Sunday Morgan came over from Seoul with friends for another Sokcho visit. A fine night out was had - dinner, drinking games at the pub, dancing at Gump, noraebang, beach swim at sunrise followed by breakfast at Popeye's (for the Brits, it's a fast food chain that's a bit like KFC). You know you've had a good night out when it finishes at 11am the next day!
Then another boring work week and a quietish weekend (well, compared to previous ones anyhow).
Which brings you up to date.
There you go.
July was a bit of a non-happening. Everyone got geared up for the break at the end of the month and attempted to save money (i.e. drink soju and tap beer rather than cocktails and bottled beer). The weather got hotter, we started hanging out on the beach, and some of us ate dog as that's what you do in Korea when the weather's hot. So that pretty much takes us up to the end of the July.
A good way to spend your summer
Then the break, which was long overdue. Off with Steve and Lloyd to Deokjeokdo Island near Incheon for a little chilling out on relatively uncrowded beaches. What happened was we got very drunk, discovered Lloyd had a kick-the-chairs-and-tables-out-of-your-path-while-you-run-away-as-if-the-Devil-himself-was-chasing-you fear of... moths, and got distracted by pretty Korean ladies in little bikinis. We found a fun hotel to stay in called "Toothless Granny's Spare Bedroom in a Bungalow." Actually it's unfair to call her toothless as the teeth on her right side were all there and pretty damned prominent in a Chinese rickshaw driver type way. It's just that they were all missing on the left side. The whole effect was something to behold, I can tell you. Steve shagged her.
Only kidding.
We came back midweek as their boss is a dickhead who takes great delight in making sure that his teachers' holidays don't coincide with all the other teachers in Korea. So they returned to work and I decided to chill out on the beach, or stay in and enjoy the fact that I'm one of the only foreigners with a/c in Sokcho.
Then, the end of the week arrived and Terry, an ex-Sokcho lad and a fine fellow if ever there was, walks into the bar I'm in. Completely unexpected as he doesn't live in Sokcho anymore and I lost his number when I left last summer and gave my phone to the weird lad who replaced me. And so drinking commenced and a fine weekend was had by all.
Then back to work on the Monday. By 7pm I needed another one as I forgot how energy-sapping it is to try and control the kids. They're all anarchists at heart, waiting for just a split second's opportunity to start the revolution (which invariably begins with some sort of unidentifiable mucus getting smeared over chairs and tables). All you have to do is leave the room for a minute. Right, that's my work-related rant done with.
The next weekend was a bank holiday. It started on the Saturday with a decision with Lloyd and Steve to do drunk go-karting.
View of Ulsanbawi from the Go-kart track
Weirdly enough Lloyd, being the smallest and drunkest of us, was off to a flyer. Indeed, as he lapped Steve he started to become a little cocky, and as he began to gain me he decided to make a quick "you're going down mate" gesture as I was headed the other way. Fatal error when you're drunk, taking your eye off the road. He piled into the tyre wall and went airborne, somersaulting through the air, and the go-kart decided to imitate his acrobatics a second later. Somehow (I think these things can only happen when you're drunk), he landed back in his seat, before bouncing out, rolling spectacularly a few times, and ending miraculously on his feet giving a big thumbs-up to the safety chap. I wish I'd had a camera as that would have made it straight into a "World's Wildest Go-Kart Wipeouts" video. Spec-bloody-tacular.
The only thing hurt was his ego, and every bone in his body
He killed the kart, man!
He needed stitches though, which meant he couldn't go swimming in the lovely sunny weather. But later we went off for a commiserating pint and found that even the Coca-Cola company found it funny...
The Coke can reads "Crazy Racing Kart Rider"
Then on Sunday Morgan came over from Seoul with friends for another Sokcho visit. A fine night out was had - dinner, drinking games at the pub, dancing at Gump, noraebang, beach swim at sunrise followed by breakfast at Popeye's (for the Brits, it's a fast food chain that's a bit like KFC). You know you've had a good night out when it finishes at 11am the next day!
Then another boring work week and a quietish weekend (well, compared to previous ones anyhow).
Which brings you up to date.
There you go.
Friday, August 19, 2005
Death to Spam
And I don't mean the lunch meat variety, although I don't particularly like the stuff myself.
I was about to do a long overdue update on the comings and goings of my not-terribly-interesting life when I found a recent comment posted. "Find other singles in your area and you too could be on a hot date tonight! Call 800-GET-BENT now."
By the way that's not the real number, so don't bother trying. In fact do, because you might end up speaking to some mad person in Burkina Faso, which would provide you with much mirth and be the highlight of your day. First of all, if you're so pathetic that you need to kick-start your love life through internet dating then the problem is obvious - you're spending too much time on the bloody internet! And if you do respond, you'll end up meeting... someone who spends too much time on the internet and hasn't got a social life. Switch your computer off and go out and meet people.
Also, since it's an 800 number, we can only assume that it applies to the U.S.A. You fool, I can just picture you sitting in a wheelchair in a dark basement somewhere posting spam onto my blog (hint - the title "Stuck in Korea" could mean that I'm probably not based in the States) and hoping to get some replies. And I'm not implying that people in wheelchairs are spammers, just that in a just world spammers wouldn't be allowed to have the use of their legs, better yet their hands, so they couldn't press the "enter" key and send their spam out to the world.
If there are any mad scientists out there, could you please track these spammers down and infect them with one of those cool flesh-eating bugs? Oh, and anyone who responded to the date ad as well, because they need to be put out of their misery.
I'll do a proper update when I've calmed down.
I was about to do a long overdue update on the comings and goings of my not-terribly-interesting life when I found a recent comment posted. "Find other singles in your area and you too could be on a hot date tonight! Call 800-GET-BENT now."
By the way that's not the real number, so don't bother trying. In fact do, because you might end up speaking to some mad person in Burkina Faso, which would provide you with much mirth and be the highlight of your day. First of all, if you're so pathetic that you need to kick-start your love life through internet dating then the problem is obvious - you're spending too much time on the bloody internet! And if you do respond, you'll end up meeting... someone who spends too much time on the internet and hasn't got a social life. Switch your computer off and go out and meet people.
Also, since it's an 800 number, we can only assume that it applies to the U.S.A. You fool, I can just picture you sitting in a wheelchair in a dark basement somewhere posting spam onto my blog (hint - the title "Stuck in Korea" could mean that I'm probably not based in the States) and hoping to get some replies. And I'm not implying that people in wheelchairs are spammers, just that in a just world spammers wouldn't be allowed to have the use of their legs, better yet their hands, so they couldn't press the "enter" key and send their spam out to the world.
If there are any mad scientists out there, could you please track these spammers down and infect them with one of those cool flesh-eating bugs? Oh, and anyone who responded to the date ad as well, because they need to be put out of their misery.
I'll do a proper update when I've calmed down.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
