so much for that

Well games are hard to play if you can't log on and you can't log on if you can't read korean, it seems. So I didn't manage to play any fun games at all yesterday. What I did manage to do was order a meal and have a relaxing afternoon nap. I also cooked noodles and went for an evening walk to Beomeo park, which would have proably been more exciting had it not been so frikkn dark. Looks like I'm still making great decisions here.
Anyway, I managed to get those shoes changed today so now I have a pair of loafers I can slip off when entering someone's home. I hope they are comfortable. The cost about 50000won which pretty much equates to $70NZ. I figured out the exchange thing is basically just divide by 700. It turns out that many things I have bought are not as cheap as previously thought. I will need be more cautious in future, as it's quite seductive to just do the american thing and divide by 1000 to find a dollar value. No more I say! Fortunately something, like I-cafes for instance, are remarkably cheap. This right here is just 500won/hour which is pretty much 75c. Sweet!
Also, DVDs. DVDs get as low as 4000w, but more usually 9900 (divide by 700 that's about... um.... $12 or so at the top end. Why are they so cheap here? You can figure it out)

So, it's 3:30, what am I going to do with the rest of my day? Well, I'm going to eat some food and go see if I can't prepare a lesson plan for the rest of my week. My scehdule is pretty interesting. I start at 10am and teach til 12, then there's a massive split until 7pm when I begin teaching again until 10. I think I'm going to be pretty wiped out. maybe I will start sleep[ing twice a day. Then again, maybe I can't even sleep at all, did you ever think of that? I had that thing last night where i my desire to sleep kept me from sleeping. Sad.

had dinner at harvey and yung-un's last night. pizza. they told me about DVD rooms. They're these places you can go and watch a dvd on a pretty big screen with some friends or a date. They have a "reputation". If you invite a korean girl to a dvd room there is a large chance that she will say no. Particularly in Daegu. I think when I get back to NZ I will take this idea and try and hook up with maybe Arovid so people can come and rent a DVD and sit and watch the thing with silver service, liquor and the works.. Won't that be nice.
OK. That will do

ok it works

in that case, here we are at day 5 in korea.
it is hot. surprise! and I am sporting a hangover from last night's session with the teachers.
a word on korean liquor: do not drink it. the beer is sweet and while it may look just like piss... it is.
OK i was going to write something cool but there are mad cool games here and I want to play. Constructive stuff can come later

trying again

I wrote a big missive earlier this week for my blog here bt unfortunately a;; the buttons on the editing page are in korean and I can't figure out how to post.

whoever gets my desk will have MAD stationery

Damn straight, sucka! I be leavin my desk all pimped out fo sho'. It's got hole punch, stapler (green) and 2 removers, sticky-tape dispenser, perm markers and nice writing pens; it's got highliters and pencils, mechanical and regular; twink pen and soft erasers; even a candle, dawg! Not to mention all the labels in the drawer, day plan pad, Who called while you were out? pad, paper clips like you wouldn't believe, and enough other little clippies to handle any job comes along that's too big fo the stapler. Not to labour the point but there's also post-its of various sizes, other little post-it taggies and sign-here taggies, a good pair of sharp (i cut myself at least twice this year on em) pair of orange-handled scissors, a calc, a doc holder and a calendar holder.

Now tell me that the person at my desk will EVER have to go to the stationery room for anything but paper! You can't can you?

It's my last day and I can be as eccentric as I want. Not to the degree of photocopying my nuts, perhaps but there's an undeniable element of license given to a guy with nothing to lose. Still, I'd rather not be a pariah, so I gotta keep the tone tight. Still, there's bubbles and other wines coming up at the drinks and there'll be speeches and props and all that. Hope I can handle that shiznit. I don't think I've ever really had any kind of leaving do before cos I tend to slip quietly out the back door kinda stylie. A new experience, whahey!

So after this it's into town for a sneaky little meal just to keep the guts satisfied, maybe a couple plates at Catch, before sliding up to Vanita's with a couple bottles of nice beer. Then down to the Bodge for a mad phat boogie and a mean as hangover tomorrow. Won't be getting nothin done that day. But then again.....

Anyway.... off we go! Probably won't be putting anything into this for a while as Pete takes his box off tomorrow and I'll be flying out for Korea next Saturday and don't know when I'll be near a computer again with the urge to drivel. Good thing about this place is it's always here.

G-out!

my big weekend away

So this Queen’s birthday weekend was a big road-trip kind of weekend. A couple weeks ago Todd tested the waters of my interest for going up to spin firepoi at a rugby game up in Rotorua and I said yes. This weekend (queen’s birthday) was the weekend so off we went with Griff from Cosmic Corner and Griff’s girlfriend Jess.
I took Thursday and Friday off so we could have a nice long trip and a bit of relaxing and prep time before the actual event. Thursday was a gorgeous sunny day and T popped the top straight away by chuffin on the greens and was joined by G and J. I can’t drive high anymore since all the kerfuffle I had a couple years’ back with the pigs and now I get all paranoid when I’m in a car. I don’t know how they managed it this weekend, but whenever someone looked like sparking up, sure and you now it a cop car would from out of nowhere be right behind/beside/in font of us. Enough to make a nigga maranoid, I tells ya!
But anyway we got up to the Mount nice a safe as houses about 8pm or so and got to meet our poi friends, Huia and Tim. They have this nice house right on the beach and Tim runs a surf school so that’s pretty cool. Anyway, Tim was quite curious to find out which of us twirled staff and who blew fire. This pout us out somewhat as all any of us (me G and T, that is) can do is twirl poi. G and T both refused to have anything to do with staff, let alone breathing so I stepped up and threw down that I would be the other breather. Huia relented and agreed to staff. So the next couple days was spent alternately reading, smoking, drinking, and spraying salt water over these guys’ lawn in practice for the big night. I used salt water so as to practice not swallowing after a blow.
I expected to be quite worried about the whole thing, but it really only concerned me when I was stoned and dwelling on it too much. Straight I had the attitude like it was just this thing to do and it was going to happen and I was going to do it and nothing bad could ever happen to me because nothing bad ever does.
Turns out, everything wsa fine. Saturday night we all went out there with the AK Samba crew and some latino dancers in front of 32000 rugby fans. They twirled while me and Tim blew fire in the middle of the field, then we went off the field, grabbed some beers and found a place to watch the game.
The others all wanted to go to this AK Samba party at Lake Rotoiti after but I was well over the brass monkey chills by then and caught a ride back to the Mount with Rocky, Tim and Huia’s flatmate, who was a safety dude for us at the gig. So while the guys were out doing whatever (meeting people and having fun I suspect) I stayed up playing Halo2 and drinking coke. They eventually stumbled in at around 3ish all high as kites from the goodies that G hooked up from Cosmic – some Bliss and some Jump.
Of course, they were all drug-fucked the next day so I was the driver for the big trip back to Welly. I wouldn’t have let any of them drive anyway. We didn’t leave the Mount until after lunch and with half the journey in darkness….. no way was I letting anyone else behind the wheel. Control freak, maybe, but … hey it was fun.
So at the end of it all, I had a pretty decent weekend and did some stuff I’d never even normally consider and met some pretty cool cats in the process.