hurls, shots and mantarays - all in a Busan weekend

Brian and i left our humblest of homes for the bright lights of big city Busan, visiting Dee for a couple of days. left saturday morning, arrived in the southern city via KTX at around 2pm and met Dee at Haeundae beach.


Dee brought her hurling sticks and the Irish pair began teaching me the intricacies of the blessed sport. luckily, there were only a few thousand people at the beach watching us play a sport they were completely bewildered by, so me making a complete munter of myself for a few hours wasn't hard on my self esteem or ego whatsoever. not at all.

i think i hit that one . . . (odds are that i didn't though). during the hurling, i stood on a sharp metal needle thing that stuck into my foot almost an inch. ouchee! while i waited for it to stop bleeding, Dee went on her way finding matchee matchees:


that night, we headed into a bar area via a 7km long suspension bridge and went to a few night spots. i'm not drinking for a few months, and that coupled with a head cold kept me from really getting into the groove of the night. Dee's workmate helped me get home in a taxi and i made it to bed before 230am. by 6am, Brian was asleep on the floor and Dee was screaming at him to stop snoring. at one stage, i thought she'd killed him as the snoring had, in fact, stopped.

next afternoon (there was no morning), we went to hospital for me to get a tetanus shot and all of a sudden my foot had a massive dressing on it. hadn't bled for 20 hours, yet i had the 'wound' washed out (ouchee again) and covered in a massive bandage. quite honestly, a bandaid would've sufficed.

so it was back to the beach for more hurling practice with my adoring fans and then into the aquarium where a manta-ray scared Dee half to death, whereby she shrieked and nearly took a few kids out the same way.

that night, stayed in a mosquito infected room near the KTX and caught an early train back to Seoul and then subwayed back to Shiwha for work in the afternoon. kinda asking myself why it's nearly 4am and i didn't wait until another day to write this blog. i'm knackered.

JungWang 90210

so the past few days have been a little rough.

Andy moved across town and we've had a new guy move into his room, and from there, it's been quite difficult to, well, co-exist.

to make a short story long, i wouldn't normally choose to live with him. our apartment is provided by the school, so no rent to pay and our roommates are other staff. until now, Brian, Andy and i led a blessed existence of careless bliss. for some reason, we all either met eye to eye on issues, or dealt with them in the 20 seconds it took to talk, vote or throw a dart, blindfolded, at a selection of options taped to the wall.

our new friend is not so relaxed, enjoys a certain amount of his own way (that amount being 100%) and has zero tolerance for most things that come out of my mouth that differentiate from his norm.

let's put this in easier speak. i can't offer advice cos whenever i open my mouth, he shuts it. what i see, subsequently, is a dude who has no clue running through our little part of the world knocking over people like dominoes. now, before i go on, i have disregarded many people in this world, and not listened either. maybe i'm getting a healthy dose of humble pie for treating people similarly in the past. maybe it's deeper. but in the meantime, he's struggling with stuff and i'm not helping anymore.

i'm doing a little soul searching as others at work have got through to him with some advice. so maybe i'm not meeting him on common ground and he feels i'm attacking him. the advising was meant to be as a gesture of help, but maybe it doesn't seem that way to him.

i've learned a few things lately, and that is that i can accept anything i want about myself and be okay with it. attacking people verbally is not one of those things i will accept about myself. so, maybe i should delete this entire post and write about the weather.

on May 5th

my computer went kaput last week so i've been without internet and blogging :( but i'm back from outer space and here's an update from last weekend.

the 4 day market was on down the main street so i took a few pics, then i met up with Lauren and went for breakfast at my favourite breakfast, sushi (apparently that's odd, even here)



these are the people at the sushi place, don't know their names but they're great to me whenever i go. the tall guy is learning the english and the boss, at the back knows my name and that's it.


met Heidi and Debbie from work and traveled up to the same palace i visited at lunar new year. still don't know the name of it


then we went to Itaewon for dinner and out to a rave/concert in western Seoul until the wee hours. great great great times.


yes, that's me smoking and yes, i nearly coughed out a lung. i look cool though


i was up hopping and dancing for 80 minutes straight (i won't win any awards, but i enjoy myself) and at one stage realised i hadn't thought about anything for the whole time. it was wonderful. i naturally have a massive smile when i don't think about anything (for those who want to know the warning signs). when i turned around to see what the others were doing, i found out i was being mocked by the group of young Koreans behind us. had a good laugh, then i went back to my hop, shake and whatever routine (patents are currently being processed). when i was chatting with Lauren later, it occurred to me that my self-esteem must've skyrocketed since i was 16 for me to be able to not give a toss about the mocking. anyway, we had a blast then caught the trains back to Shihwa at 530ish. sleep sleep sleeeeee. . .