Typhoon Sanba blows through Korea...

Yesterday we had the first real typhoon blow through South Korea since I've been here. Others have tried, but until now they had all been downgraded to tropical storms or tropical depressions before they made landfall in Korea.

However, this one started out as a Category 5 (highest possible...winds around 300 km/h) a couple of days before it reached Korea and, while it decreased to a Cat 1 (winds of around 150 km/h) by the time it go to Korea, Typhoon Sanba managed to hit us square on as a real storm.

According to forecasters, parts of Korea were looking at 400 mm (that's about 13 inches for those of you still stuck in the Middle Ages) of rain due to the storm, about 100 mm of it falling within 2 hours. For comparison, New York City (picked a city at random) gets a total of around 1,200 mm of rain in A YEAR.

While all students and some teachers got the day off work, others had to go in to "protect the school," an idea that's utterly insane. I'm not sure how a few dozen people are supposed to protect a massive building from 150+ km/h winds, but forcing employees to commute through a typhoon, then hang around an empty school only to commute back in a city where streets, etc were flooding is one of the dumbest ideas I've heard in a long time...especially since even the official government line was to advise people to stay indoors and stay put.

Anyhoo, I was one of the lucky ones who got to spend Monday at home...like the nerd I am, I was well prepared...I taped/cardboarded my windows. The cardboard helps prevent small debris from cracking/chipping the window and the tape helps hold the window together and prevents large chunks of glass from exploding into your apartment in case it gets smashed.

Typhoon Sanba hit us at around mid-morning on September 17, and peaked at roughly 11:30 a.m., when I took this video out of my apartment building's window:

Thankfully, I have not heard any reports of major damage and during my post-typhoon walk and motorbike ride through Masan, I didn't see anything more serious than stuff that was thrown around and branches down. For a while, though, parts of Masan did flood..this is in the old downtown (Dekkori) area...I'm not sure who took the photo, it's been circulating in local foreigner circles:

The canal near my house usually looks like this:

However, yesterday I realized that the canals around here were not designed only for monsoons (as I had believed for a year and a half), but rather for typhoons as well...yesterday it came dangerously close to flooding! (Thanks to Simon for the photos):

and

It takes an unbelievably immense amount of water to fill that canal!!!

This morning, however, the canal is back down to its normal size, and herons are once again fishing happily in its shallow depths!

One awesome thing about the typhoon was that the water it brought with it made for some truly wicked temporary waterfalls. So, as soon as the weather cleared, I headed for the Bongam reservoir and shot some pictures...

And:

I'm not a fan of bugs, but I like shooting anything interesting...so I had to take a couple pics of this massive Praying Mantis devouring some other bug...nasty...but cool.

In other news...I passed the 18 month mark in Korea last week and I have to say, it filled me with happiness. It's been a great year and a half in Korea, I've accomplished a lot (debt free, work experience), travelled a ton, met a huge number of amazing people, etc. I'm hoping to be here for another year and a half, then likely off to Europe for a year or back to Canada for a bit.

Anyways...I should go...my school managed to escape major damage, but upon entering my classroom this morning (it's on the top floor), I noticed a sizable lake in the middle of the floor...this should be fun!

Cheers,
T

Korea Burn a.k.a. Burning Man in Korea ...

Sorry for not blogging lately, but I was on vacation for a month (more on that later), and I try and not bore you guys by writing about stuff I've already done in Korea.

However, this weekend, I did something truly awesome and unique. I hit up Korea Burn 2012, which is basically the local version of Burning Man.

For those who don't know, Burning Man is basically a massive gathering of people wanting to enjoy sunshine and a very hippie-like community of selfless giving, unique expression of self and and an overall atmosphere of love-everybody-and-everything.

We boarded the bus at just after 7 p.m. on Friday (20 kilos of food, clothing, and camping equipment on my back) in Changwon and headed to Taean Haean National Park on the east coast of the country. We were going to stop in a few cities to pick up other Burners, which gave our bus driver the perfect opportunity to get lost. About a dozen times. I swear at times we pulled so many U-turns I felt like I was on a carnival ride, not a commuter bus.

No matter, we arrived at the wonderful hour of 3 a.m. in the middle of nowhere. Upon disembarking from the bus we noticed two things. Wind. Crazy wind that made me thankful I had my massive backpack to anchor me down. The other thing was people frantically recruiting anyone and everyone to help keep the tents that were already set up from becoming airborne.

Once we finished that, we set to work on getting our tents up, and finally hit the hay at around 5 a.m. Shortly after, the entire campground was woken up by some guy giving his girlfriend what must have been the most amazing orgasm anyone has had in Korea in years. To this mysterious Romeo I say kudos. Well done, sir, you were the topic of many an admiration-filled conversation throughout the weekend.

By the way...just a small portion of the camp, my tent is the blue one on the far left under the clear tarp!! :)

After a restful 90 minutes of sleep I was up and at it again.

The day is pretty much a blur of meeting one awesome, friendly, generous person after another. It was the biggest gathering of just straight up happy people I have ever seen. It was awesome...I just walked around all day with my friends or without and everywhere I went I struck up conversations with random people (or they struck one up with me), we shared food, drinks, laughs, stories, histories. It was truly magnificent. For an outgoing, talkative, overly friendly dude like me, this place was magical!

On the beach people were doing everything from juggling to teaching each other to dance, to group yoga at sunset, all with the background of a gorgeous Korean beach and surprisingly gorgeous weather!

There were tents for all sorts of cool stuff from body painting to the unique bacon-for-poetry put on by a bunch of Oregonians. Pretty much anything went except for money exchanging hands and bad attitudes. I have never seen 1,000 or so (we're trying to get a relatively accurate count right now) people instantly come together as a happy community. It was like The Smurfs...in fact, there were a couple of dudes dressed up as Smurfs. Yup, it was that kind of a party.

To cap off a day of wandering and befriending randoms, we were treated to a magnificent sunset:

Once night fell, it was time to do the deed everyone had come to see. Burn the little wooden dudes. After a prelude performance by a bunch of nifty fire dancers, the fires were lit, the cheers went up, and the sparks flew.

At night the atmosphere changed a little from a hippie love-in to a full on party mood with DJs spinning dubstep and people dancing both in front of the DJ booth and around the Burning Man.

I ended up hanging out with people, dancing, flirting, etc 'till a little around 4:30 a.m., when I I finally packed it in and called it a night.

Sadly, the next time everyone had to leave, so most of Sunday was spent packing, taking down tents and socializing (and, in my case, bugging hungover people with my over-the-top chipperness). I also wanted a bit of "me time," so both mornings I found some nice abandoned stretches of the beach and had me a quiet breakfast, doing nothing but enjoying the sound of the ocean, the sunshine and the calmness of it all...oh and cheeeeeeese!!!

The ride home on Sunday was pretty uneventful, just some good chats with friends and a bit of a nap here and there to catch up.

All I have to say is that this was the kind of weekend where I slept a total of roughly 5 hours and still walked away feeling utterly energized and full of good vibes...that says a lot.

T