On Saturday, I went for another run/weights thingie and headed into Changwon to hang out with Dawni and Des. We decided to just bum around downtown and see what we could find. We found a bunch of cool stuff, including the "real" downtown (so far I have only been in the area of the big roundabout, which is fun, but not nearly as lively and awesome as what they showed me on Saturday). We found a bunch of cool stuff, including a store that sells a lot of odd stuff, from pens and stickers to wooden models of traditional Korean buildings. I'm definitely going to be back when I feel less cheap. (I did all of last week, including food, trip to Busan, some bills, buying a UV filter, etc on 95,000 won - or about $85). Since I'm budgeting 200,000 won per week for myself, this means that 105,000 won has gone into savings for trips while I'm in Korea! :)
Anyhoo, we hung around for hours and hours just walking around and chatting...it was very relaxing, just what I needed. It was pretty funny, I found a bunch of brochures for some sort of an English exchange program in Sooke, BC. Now, Sooke is a great place, and we go camping with my friends in that area all the time, but man, oh man would I be disappointed if I was a Korean teen and ended up in Sooke for an exchange. In some of the brochures they had the Parliament buildings on the cover too...bit of false advertising. But, hey...they told me I'd be in Changwon when I signed on to come to Korea, so saying Sooke is Victoria is no bigger lie haha.
When we arrived in the early afternoon they were just getting ready for the Buddha's Birthday celebrations (the official day is tomorrow, on Tuesday...day off for me!). And this is what they had going on in the middle of the roundabout downtown:
Also, disclaimer: The pics today suck, I apologize. I haven't had time to go through them and find the good ones or edit them in any way. Today's my busy day at school (6 classes), and tomorrow is a holiday, so it might be a while 'till I get around to them.
While out and about, we stopped by a convenience store and bought some drinks (it was in the mid-20s and humid all weekend) and drank it at a little outside patio. Then, a drunken Korean man came up to us, shook our hands and said hi, then kissed Dawni's hand. And then he came up to me and hugged me and, before anyone know what was going on, the bastard kissed me on the cheek. It was disgusting and disturbing...thankfully, after that he deemed his mission complete and left.
At night, Dawni and I decided to randomly go back to the roundabout quickly before catching the bus home just to see if anything new is happening there...well, we lucked out. (And I got my two favourite pictures of the day) First, it was fireworks:
And then a lantern parade (I was pretty happy, I managed to manual focus this while they were moving in almost no light at f1.8...yay):
After that, we went home and I watched some Office. (I'll be very sad when I finish the series haha).
On Sunday, I finally got around to organizing my external hard drive and deleting the redundant stuff (freed up about 40 gigs of space) and putting the rest into something resembling order. On a personal note, I also began to weed pictures of a certain someone. It's been nearly 2 years since the break up and, while I never looked at the pictures, I never got around to deleting them either. Well, on Sunday, any pictures of her went straight into the trash bin. It felt good. It was long overdue :)
After that (just as I was about to leave) my landlady came over to get rid of the mold-infested wallpaper in my room (and I found out that these fools threw wallpaper on the bare concrete walls...brilliant idea in a humid climate). So, she's getting rid of that, and I guess re-wallpapering that part of the place...it's a hassle, but at least she's doing it. Mold is a problem in 99% of the apartments here, and some are less lucky than I am in that their landlords do nothing about it. If I understood her correctly (she doesn't speak a word of English and I speak 3 words of Korean, yet somehow we manage to communicate) it should be done by the time I get home today.
Anyway...after she left, I got on the 762 express bus and took it as far as it goes (the far end of Jinhae). Since I've only been in Jinhae once, I was pretty curious to see what was there. It's a much smaller place than Masan/Changwon, but it's pretty and much more quiet.
While walking around, I bumped into a nice Aussie (Blair), who walked and talked with me for a few hours. We walked along the waterfront (it was pretty nice, even on a crummy dusty/hazy day) and full of life, thanks to a boat show/boat festival. They had some wicked boats racing too, which was an unexpected bit of entertainment...unfortunately, I didn't have my telephoto with me, so I just have a crappy snapshot with the 50...(Nick, if you're reading this, I'm sure you'll like the boat's main sponsor :))...
I headed home relatively early on Sunday (around 7) and just took it easy for the rest of the night. It was great to have a weekend around home and relax a little bit. On Tuesday, I might go to Gosung (the dinosaur city!) with a few friends...w00t...if not, I think I might just relax a little.
I'm starting to get tired...I'm always out and about doing stuff and, worst of all, they are doing construction on an apartment across the street from me and they start before 7 a.m. regardless of the day...Saturday, Sunday, holiday...doesn't matter. They're hammering away before 7. Starting to get annoying haha. On the other hand, Koreans are famously quick with construction stuff, so I'm hoping that they'll be done soon :)
Okay, well, no blog tomorrow, so I hope those of you in Korea have an awesome holiday tomorrow and those of you back home have a great Monday! Talk to you soon,
T
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