Random stuff...a video, some pictures and some musings...

Woohoo...yesterday I finally picked up a sleeping bag...managed to grab a very decent one (simple and not too thick, but not too thin either, seems to be made of fairly high quality materials) for 30,000 won! (or about $25...from my favourite place, Home Plus). I really can't complain about that. I'm going camping this weekend (going to the Jindo sea parting) and then next weekend (Geoje, I think?), so now I'm all prepared! Not only is this a much, much nicer setup than the stupid blanket I was lugging around the last time I went camping, it also weighs about 2lbs less which, when you have the backpack on you all night, makes a big differnce! (Also, it looks much less ghetto having this strapped to the bottom of my backpack than some old flower-print blanket that has seen god knows how many people do who knows what on it, under it, etc.)

Also...I finally got around to uploading a video I took with Mark in our cheap little motel (yes, I realize how bad that sounds). The motel was very cheap ($25 a night) in Gyeongju, but it was clean and surprisingly spacious, so we really couldn't complain...but we couldn't believe the pillows they gave us. They could have been used as a murder weapon (by way of blunt force trauma)...providing you've been working out for the past 6 months and you had the strength to swing the thing around...check it...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tamasv/5840923278/in/photostream

Moving on...saw this guy at the Cheomseongdae Observatory (Asia's oldest observatory)...just brilliant...he was using one cellphone as a light the second one to take a picture of himself and his girlfriend...

Random observation...everything in Korea has to make a beeping sound. I swear. You turn on the air conditioner, it plays a little jingle. You turn it off it plays a DIFFERENT little jingle. So does my door lock. And the TV in a motel I stayed at. And the humidifier. When the bell goes in my school, it's not a buzzer, it sounds like an ice cream truck is driving by. It's like living in an early 1990s video game. One of my friends here described the air conditioner (I guess he has the same one in his classroom as I do) as making a sound like Mario collecting gold coins every time you change the temperature setting. It's EXACTLY the same sound. I'll make a recording of all these and put them together into a video one day when I'm really bored (likely the week after next). Anyways...today I heard the most awesome one. You know how trucks have those beep-beep-beep things when they back up? Well, this morning I saw a truck that was backing up and playing Fur Elise haha...because that's definitely a great warning tune that you're about to be hit by a truck. Love this place.

Also...Vancouver. What. The. Hell??? Seriously? It's just a stupid effing hockey game!!! And they go around looting stores, setting cars on fire and stabbing each other?? I couldn't believe the crap I've been seeing/reading yesterday and today about the Stanley Cup fallout. I mean this sort of action is usually reserved for larger issues like trying to overthrow an oppressive government. But these idiots turned a beautiful city into a war zone because their overpaid spoiled brat of a hockey team can't play?? Now, I know this is only a very, very small core of people...but it still reflects badly on Vancouver, on B.C. and on Canada (I've been reading stuff here about it and yes, people will lump all Canadians into what happened). Thankfully we live in an age when you can't pick your nose in a cave six miles underground without 14 people taking pictures of you with their iPhones and posting it to Facebook, so there is footage up the ying-yang of what happened. Here's hoping that those responsible for the violence and destruction will be held accountable.

Okay, that's all for today...tonight I'm heading into Changwon with my new friend Alice (a fellow Canadian!) and bumming around, then tomorrow I'm taking off early in the morning for the Jindo sea parting with Dawni and Michelle and meeting a few people I've been talking to for months for the first time! Should be an awesome weekend again!

Have a great one, everyone...keep smiling :)

T