Fookin German, designers. Trying to make it impossible to save money...

But his bike is soooo much bigger than mine...

Just look at those drop outs!!!

National Treasure #!1

Me and Turtle with pillar on Back

Insadong

Monk painting

Nearly November

The newness of blogging has diminished as told by the near silence of this month. Bringing myself to actually sit and add entries, creating interesting recaps of daily moments has lost the flavor of novelty. Easily fixed, but I will have to do some retro blogging to account for nearly all of November. In my defense, I've been constantly on the go for nearly the whole month. One of these days I'm going to get a chance to sleep in, I hope!

As for the latest news. I spent the Thanks Giving weekend in a Southern suburb of Seoul named Suwon (수안). Took a train after work on Friday at 8:00 and arrived nearly 3 hours later. Met my good friend Kevin George at the station and promptly found a local watering hole. After 3 highly priced foreign beers we warmly walked back to his rather new, and quite comfortable apartment talking all the while of my upcoming trip to Germany. Having spent a bit of time in Europe this last year, he offered up many suggestions and a wealth of pamphlets and books to help my journey along. Looks like my school will be giving the week following my return to Korea as our vacation. I'm thinking I might extend my trip 5 or six days. The plan had been to drive the Romantic Road, starting just south of Frankfurt and finishing in Munich. But now I'm thinking of heading straight to Amsterdam for a night or two and then due East to Berlin and South through Dresden on to Munich. And doing the Romantic Road in reverse. All that aside, I'm more interested in waking Christmas morning next to my lady. Who could ask for more?...

Saturday, Kevin and I took the subway for an hour and a half up to Seoul. I was in need of bike parts since I somehow managed to yank the disc brake hose out of the fitting, pissing out all the oil and leaving me, again, with no front brake. Damn Hayes discs!!! This is the second time my front brake has gone down in two weeks. I still have no idea what happened the first time. Never again will I buy a bike with hydraulic brakes. The power is nice but the hassle when things go wrong is simply not worth it. From now on, it's Avid mechanicals for this diehard. Besides, I'm selling my bike in order to pay for my new ride and I needed to replace the parts I am handing off to the lucky recipient of my AC1.

After the bike shop we took a taxi down to the traditional district of Insadong (인사동) so I could finish my Christmas shopping. On this street I saw more x-pats than anywhere else so far. Other than at Route 66 on a Saturday night. Very diverse crowd buying up traditional Korean tinketry. And that was exactly my reason as well. After successfully completing my shopping, Kevin and I were in need of a quick bite before dinner. TGFS... Thank God For Subway.

Sometime right after sunset, we met up with Heather, Kevin's wife and made our way to their friends house. Nothing like a traditional meal to make one thankful for all the blessings in the world. Traditional in a very Easternly way. This will mark my first Halal Thanksgiving. We had curry chicken, cucumber sauce, Nan bread, Indian rice, potato cakes of some kind, and a veg. Dessert was three blends of tea, lightly sweetened but exceptionally potent. A lovely dinner no doubt. We're all getting back together the weekend before I leave for Germany for a tour of the DMZ. I hear it's most interesting. The day following, I'll be stretching the legs of my new ride. Fook ya. Fook me. And since the shuttle bitch (Bee's jeep) is back in transport condition, I won't have to pedal my new tank except to try and keep up with these madmen on the descents. "Nanhamsan, I shall tame you!"

Achasan

Litmus Test

View from the top of Litmus Test. Bee in the near fore ground. Seoul in the distant fog. As close to a sunny day as one gets in the smog of the 11th largest city in the world. Surounding areas included...


Seoul Sunset

Bitch of trail. Think I would have performed better had I not finished that last beer. Excuses aside, this is simply an amazing trail. Super technical sections of pant soiling steepness combined with drops, off camber boulders, and random Korean hikers. Utter madness... Going back for more this weekend.


Bee trying again while Drew checks his line


Second attempt success

What is it?...

Miss my car. Miss my dog. Miss… Too bad the American system can’t last forever. Too bad we fight that reality so strongly. Gradual change now, education for change, attitudes of possibility, and personal sacrifice. But is there really an answer? With world population rising, oil supplies drying, political aggressiveness increasing, the marketing bombardment angling, like lemmings we accept our selfish lives in step, edging towards inevitable freefall. But hey, so be it. People have predicted the end for eons and somehow we manage. Maybe that’s the answer. Somehow we’ll, as humanity, find a way. That, or I'm just making excuses for missing my car.

Choosuck: An Island Adventure 9/24-28

Oh sun, don't hide


Juk-bu, Ulleung Island

Pictures from Choosuck holiday trip to Ulleungdo. More available by request or I'll put them on ofoto.com if I get to it. Had a great time. The weather was fabulous and the squid were abuntant. It was great to meet up with The Georges whom I hadn't seen in over a year. Met Friday night in Pohang and took a three hour ferry out to the island. The ferry was fast, a catamaran style boat designed to carry cars as well, but the ride was discusting. The East sea is not a protected passage way and has the same characteristics as the ocean. I felt like I was trapped in a floating vomit box. The carpet was stained with the vomit of hundreds of sea-unworthy Koreans. I had my moments of queezyness, but I sucked it up and took a nap.
Had a great time with Kevin and Heather. Managed to get excessively drunk, not ones, but twice. Spent one night from about 3am till close to 9 just riding around on my bike. Watched the most amazing sunrise of my young life. Of course I forgot to bring my spare battery for my digi cam so none of you will get to see. Met some friendly faces and came back a day early to rest up for work.

Not just another Saturday at Apsan

Top

Andy lookin the goof, me with cheese eater grin. To our defense, we were pretty drunk. Just having spent three hours at the bottom after our first run drinking our hearts desire. But not to miss the opportunity to ride numb, to the top we go. Could be the best run I've managed on Apsan East 1. This being the first trail Andy ever took me down. Super steep, tight cravasses, sloping rock faces, trees barely a handle bars width apart, and the ever present Korean hikers. Add a heavy dosage of beer and look out Korean hikers cause we aint stopping. Laughed the entire way to the bottom. Twisted my ankle a bit trying to hold a hard right turn at speed, not to worry, it only added to the hilariousness of the situation. The most fun I've had on my bike.

Another Fooked-Up Ride

Sittin' at the Daegu station right now. Have an hour to kill before the train. Just finished another out of control ride with partner in crime, Andy. Both of us were feeling the effects of the early morning start. It's was a long climb out to the trail of choice today. My fitness was with me however, just my balance and sence of judgment were lacking. Feeling rather indestructable, it's the fastest I've been since coming to Korea. Of course that means I was off the trail a good percentage of time. Couple of scarry moments were I thought I'd make a permentant mark on a tree or two. But managed to get down the hill without a bailout. Super fun...

Thick Sauce

Spaghetti Feed


Had the (only going to do it once) pleasure of entertaining seven of my students yesterday. The plan was to meet at the school at 10:45 and ride our bikes back to my apartment. Found the boys a little way down the street from the school and we took off for Hanbit town, my apartment complex. Wish I could have taken a picture of the four boys following in a neat line, with there foreign English teacher in the lead. These kids play way to many vids cause they were wrecked after the ten minute peddal accross town.
Got to the house by 11 and the boys jumped all over the computer and the guitar. Excellent at the comp, but shat at the guitar. They're one up on me...
After about 20 minutes of passing out dougnuts and instructions on not touching the key board with powdered sugar covered fingers, the girls showed up. Much more interested in being social and not at all interested in the cyber world, the girls were way more fun. They came hungry and were eager to get the cooking process in motion. So I produced the produce, and the cutting commenced. The girls really wanted to do all the cutting and the cooking. I was a bit weary of large knives and missing fingers, so I tried my best to teach proper cutting techniques and, probably more luck that anything, there wasn't a drop of blood spilled.
The spaghetti came out fabulous even with the shitty store bought sauce. Would have been better if I had used only tomatoes, boiled and skinned and reduced, but who the hell has time for that. Besides, I don't think the kids would have known the difference.
After lunch it was Spider Man II on the computer while I took a nap. The girls took off about half way through. I can't blame them, the boys, including me, being as boring as we were. After the movie I made the boys head out cause I was wrecked. With only three hours of sleep the night before, I was about to pass out.
It's good to hang out with the kids. It's funny how far they push me in class compared to how well they listen outside of school. I think it's days like these that'll make me a good father someday. I feel fortunate to have this opportunity to understand how kids work before I ever think of having one of my own. Great way to spend a Sunday.

And so rose the sun. October 15th...

9am on Apsan. Another beautiful day behind the kimchi curtain. Cranking up the hill, I'm trying to put the level of pollution out of my mind. I can feel it in every breath. Where I used to ride through Daegu to get to the mountain, I've been riding the subway to and from the train station for no other reason than to avoid sucking on the tail pipes of the morning rushers. Unfortunately the boys and girls at these public transportation entry points are putting up more of a fight about the bike. Yet to be denied, I cross my fingers every time. All hassle aside, the ride today was excellent. Tried a new trail that was certainly worth the climb and I made it home in time to relax a bit before work. Nothing like an early Friday ride to set up the last day of the work week.

Entry one: Welcome..

to my first attempt at Blogging. This is more of an experiment than anything. Feeling like I've been out of the net world loop long enough and this is my feeble attempt to educate myself in some small way. Having just picked up a very cheap computer is helping considerably. Until this point all my computing has been done at work. So either I'm not working very hard or I'm not computing much. From any given day either could be true. However, since getting this piece of plastic and glass and flashing lights, I'm not sleeping as much, riding as much or, on the positive side, watching TV at all. Good with the bad I guess. Tomorrow will be the first time on the trail in over 10 days. Ahh, but weekend is shaping up to a epic full-fledged fat tire extravaganza, with three days on the books. We'll see how it goes...