Spring is in the air!
Flowers are blooming, including cherry trees, which are insanely
beautiful. The last two weeks have been
solidly in the mid-60’s, but of course the weekends and the rare holiday (two
Wednesdays ago was an election day and thus national holiday) have been getting
showers. Part of my long writing absence
has been due to the cold weather – it was too cold to do anything fun, and the
cold weather kept me confined to Busan as I feared all the northern destinations
would be far colder. Due to my sedentary
lifestyle my days and weekends seemed to just run together, and as such I felt
like I had little to write about. But
I’d be kidding myself if I blamed everything on the weather; I’ve also just
been lazy. So, in the next few pages
I’ll try my best to recap activities, girls, and funnies over the last month
and change. Keep in mind I’m writing
this on a Friday afternoon, so my mind is a bit fried and my editing is a bit
lazy.
Let’s start with activities.
I went to two KT Sonic Boom playoff games. The first was a Game 5 elimination game. Gah Yeong, Murtaugh’s girlfriend, got us
tickets in like the 3rd row center court. They cost $12.50. Plus you can bring in your own beer. I went to the game with Nick, Yoon,
Taughskerooski, Gah Yeong, Doug, and Adam.
The game was unbelievable. Busan
started the game shooting lights out and were ahead by 20 in the middle of the
2nd quarter. By halftime the
lead was down to 15 or so. After the 3rd
quarter it was in the single digits.
With maybe 15 seconds left, Busan, now down by 2, scored to tie the
game, and needed a final stop to force OT.
Thankfully the D clamped down, and we headed to OT.
The OT mostly consisted of the other team (I forget their
name) scoring and Busan answering. In
the final seconds, Busan was down by 2 and playing for the
win/continuation. Their point guard
threw up a 3 for the game, but it bounced out.
No fear, Chal-su Ro-du to the rescue!
Charles Rhodes is Busan’s enormous black center (each team is allowed
one foreigner, so all of the teams have a big black dude. What a coincidence!), got the board and
tipped it in at the buzzer to force a second OT. Busan dominated the second OT and won
comfortably by 6 or so. Great ballgame,
aided by beer, rowdy fans, and smoking hot cheerleaders. I have an excellent picture of everyone who
went in their seats, but Adam is staring at the court because he was distracted
by the cheerleaders. I don’t blame him.
The second KT Sonic Boom experience didn’t end as happily,
sadly. Busan, down 2-1, was facing
elimination in the second round. Though
the game was tied after the first half, Busan crumbled in the second and lost
by more than 20. It was pretty brutal.
The following weekend Doug, Adam, and I went on a hike
starting from Beomosa Temple. We’d been
to the temple a few weeks previously, and a sign for a 19km hike which looked
amazing. As the sign described it, the
hike took place on a mountain ridge from which you could enjoy “panoramic views
of Busan” for the duration of the hike.
It turns out that sign was a liar.
We went along the ridge for probably 10km and actually ended up in the
Sasang Black Goat Village. Apparently
the hike continued through there, but we were utterly confused and just took a
bus back to the subway. But for the 10km
on the ridge there were no such panoramic views. Our view was entirely obscured by tall
trees. So that was a bummer. Luckily, we decided to take a 2km detour up a
very steep trail early in the hike, which had a phenomenal view of the city and
even of other, smaller mountains surrounding the urban landscape. So at least that part was cool.
The last couple weekends have been dedicated to seeing
cherry blossoms. Two weekends ago,
cherry blossoms bloomed in Busan. I’d
never seem them before, and they are absolutely magnificent. They come in four different varieties, as far
as I can tell: pearl-white flowers, white flowers with a slightly pink hue,
bright pink flowers, and white flowers with several green leaves, which gives
the tree a greenish white appearance.
Nick, Yoon, and I went to a park area in Busan that had a lot of trees,
which were quite a sight to take in.
Sadly, the planning on this park was abysmal. The city was in the middle of constructing
several basketball courts, so there was lots of noise and unsightly
construction vehicles. According to
Yoon, the project only started recently and isn’t supposed to be completed
until the end of summer. Also according
to Yoon, spring (especially) and summer are the times of the year when this
park is most popular. SO WHY NOT START
THE PROJECT IN THE FALL AND FINISH IN THE WINTER??
With cherry blossoms comes beautiful spring weather. So, while Nick, Yoon, and I spent our Sunday
admiring the flowers, the day before Doug, Nick, and I spent Saturday enjoying
the beach weather. We set off around
lunch time, and had a couple beers at Haeudnae soaking in the sights and
sounds. We then went the Busan aquarium,
which is just off the beach. It was
quite the aquarium, featuring lots of beautiful and exotic marine life, both
fish and plants. The highlight was an
enormous tank with several sharks and sting ray, which had an underwater tunnel
similar to the Monterey Bay aquarium.
The only bummer was that the aquarium had two porpoises, and they had a
super small enclosure that they were constantly trying to escape. That was really sad. But I enjoyed the aquarium so much that I am
now inspired to become scuba certified, which I will likely do while I’m still
in Asia because it is far cheaper to do here than at home. That night we got Indian food with Taugh and
the lady to celebrate Gah Yeong’s birthday.
It was really fun, and the Dirty Murty surprised us all with a cake from
Baskin Robins. Delicioso.
On the topics of beaches, I suppose it’s worth noting that
I’ve been going to Gwangalli and Haeundae every chance I can get. Both beaches are gorgeous, and honestly the
beaches are why I chose Busan. Last
visit to Haeundae I noticed that the beach has small soccer goals set up for
public use, which I’ve never seen before at any beach. It’s also awesome. I’ll be buying a ball in the near future.
Last weekend, Nick, Max, Gah Yeong, Yoon, and I went to
Gyeongju, in search of more cherry blossoms.
Gyeongju is arguably Korea’s premiere cherry blossom destinations (the
competition is Jinhae, a city further south).
Yoon rented a car and drove, which was super clutch because the bus
scene would have undoubtedly been a shit-show.
Gyeongju also has several spread-out sites, so having transportation in
the city was essential. In addition to
cherry blossoms, Gyeongju is famous for being the ancient capital of Korea
during Silla dynasty, and thus has several noteworthy cultural sites.
We left around 7am to beat traffic, which sucked waking up
but was a phenomenal decision in hindsight.
We arrived early before traffic, and walked around a beautiful lake in
the middle of the city that was surrounded by cherry blossoms. After a breakfast/lunch of Korean-style
Chinese food, we went to Anapji pond, which was sort of cool. The grounds were pretty vast, and there a few
rebuilt ancient-style buildings. There
was a small wooden model of an awesome palace that used to be, and then a scale
model of what the grounds used to look like.
As Nick aptly described it, “This place is all about ‘just imagine how
cool this shit used to look.’” The
coolest part was the plant life, as apparently an emperor had used the area to
plant several rare flowers and trees. I
believe it.
By the time we left the pond, the city had become overrun
with tourists. We tried to see a few
more sites in Gyeongju, but traffic had become unbearable. Thank goodness we chose Anapji pond first;
it’s supposedly the best. So, due to
traffic, we headed to the Bulguksa Temple, which was about a 20 minute drive
from Gyeongju itself. Bulguksa is the
most famous temple in Korea, and my favorite part was that it hasn’t been
overly preserved. Seeing the faded paint
gave the temple character. It’s hard to
buy “This temple is 800 years old!” when the paint is brand new. There were also lots of impressive stone
buildings and shrines, and cool sculptures.
After the temple we went to the Seokguram Grotto, which was
really awesome. The grotto is an
incredible detailed room, featuring an immaculate Buddha statue in the
center. What brings the Grotto to the
“Awesome” level is that supposedly the entire room, including everything in it,
was initially just a giant piece of granite.
The room was apparently hollowed out, aside from the cool decorations
they left up (the pillars, Buddha, etc).
However, it was also said that the work was all done by one guy, which,
as Yoon said, is “bullshit.” It makes me
question if it was all a giant granite slab to begin with. But it was beautiful nonetheless. The only thing that pissed me off about it
was a “no pictures” rule.
After seeing Anapji pond, Bulguksa Temple, and the Seokguram
Grotto, we headed back to Busan. We were
absolutely astounded by the traffic. I’d
say a 5 mile stretch heading into Gyeongju was bumper-to-bumper. The scariest thing was that Gyeongju was
already packed; these cars had no place to go.
Thank goodness we went early.
Let’s see, the rest of the “things” update is bits and
pieces, not really day trips. So I
suppose I’ll just list them below.
Most exiting, I got a Blue Belt! I passed the test about three weeks ago. Now I have a few more sets of movements to
learn and I have to vastly improve my side-kick (I can’t get it very high at
the moment). Doing the aforementioned
would lead to a brown belt, which leads to a red belt, which leads to a black
belt! It’s cool to know I’m more than
half-way there.
I’ve been going to hockey religiously. My play is improving; I’d say I’m now one of
the better players there. My skill
(skating and stickhandling) is probably only 60th percentile or so, but my
hockey sense makes up for it (both my good hockey sense, probably my best
asset, and the lack of the hockey sense of many of the other players). Nick and Doug have been coming also, which is
really fun. Doug is a pretty good player
and Nick is steadily improving.
Two pretty funny hockey stories/characters worth writing
down. The first is Stefan, who is a
really, really nice dude off the ice.
When I first met the players he was by far my favorite. But then one week I accidentally tripped him
(he just faked me out, so the place where I put my stick, which I anticipated
to be where the puck would be, was in fact where his legs ended up. It was my fault, but certainly unintentional)
and he freaked out. He wouldn’t really
accept my apology and loudly was bitching about it on the bench. A few weeks later he started the game poorly,
and I stole it from him several times, often leading to goals. He started to get really frustrated, and one
play we were both chasing down a puck his anger spilled over. I tied his stick, but not particularly hard
because it is just a casual game. His
response was to push back against my stick violently, I think he thought I was
applying more pressure than I actually was.
Anyway, since he put a lot of force in pushing my stick and didn’t receive
much force back on my end, he lost his balance and went into the boards kinda
hard, and his reaction was to throw his stick, shove me, and try to fight
me. Luckily I kept my cool and didn’t
fight, but that is less a testament to my character than it is due to the fact
that I was just so shocked by his reaction.
The other guy I have to write about is Chad. Chad is such a weirdo. Nick thinks his problem is that he’s older
and self-conscious about it. He often
tries to keep up with “hip” lingo, I’ve heard him say things like “Hey man if
you throw me a beer I’ll hit you back on the fly bro” several times. I think that sort of talk sounds stupid to
begin with, but even more so when you get misuse it slightly, as he tends to
do. The other thing that’s hilarious
about Chad is that he sucks at hockey, but takes himself very seriously. He is an awful skater; in fact it’s pretty
frightening because he swings his stick around very high (especially on the
backhand side) when he tries to skate hard.
But whenever anything goes his way, even when it’s just his team and he
isn’t involved in the play, he’ll let out a loud “YEAAAHHH!!!” Funnier, is when he screws up he’ll go “Aw,
come on Chad!!” Even if it’s a tough
play. Nick and I share many-a knowing
glances/smirks when Chad opens his mouth.
Speaking of sports, I’ve recently taken to playing
basketball on the weekends with Doug.
I’ve actually been better than I expected, both in absolute terms and
relative to competition. In absolute
terms, I’m pretty reliable at making layups, I’m a good passer, good defender,
and decent at grabbing rebounds (my dribbling and shooting remain
atrocious). But the good things are far
better than I expected seeing as I haven’t played in years. In relative terms I’m better than I expected
because, apparently, Koreans suck at basketball. I’ve been slightly above-average in both
games I’ve played in so far, which is mostly due to a height advantage but
notable nonetheless, as I was well below-average in America, and that was when
I was playing.
I’ll close with two funny stories. The first was a great shirt I saw, which read
“Everything you like I liked 5 years ago.”
My first Korean hipster sighting!!
I found it particularly comical since Korea seems to gets its popular
culture from America…on a 5 year delay.
The funnier story though comes from Sun Bin, my awesome
Taekwondo instructor. I was standing in
Ap Goobi, which is when one leg is a large step in front of the other, bent,
and holding 80% of your body weight. So
Sun Bin gently smacks my front leg and says “Should feel like coconut. Instead… feels like… banana.” Ouch.
I should have a bunch more funny stories but I forgot them
because I’m a lazy ahole who doesn’t update his journal/blog.
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