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Sep. 28th, 2009 @ 02:18 am
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Viet Nam was pretty decent.
Back in Korea now. Did all of you get my postcards?
Thinking about MAYBE moving to Indonesia in the new year. But that depends on a lot of things that will probably not pan out. Will probably stay here for another twelve months and THEN cast off to a new country.
But maybe, maybe, maybe Jakarta will be home starting around March of next year. We shall see.
Bigger update here on the ol' LJ later... |
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Jun. 11th, 2009 @ 03:20 pm
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Holly Golightly: What if we are traveling together and there is some place I want to go, but you wouldn't enjoy?
Michael: Like where?
Holly Golighty: Like under the sea... |
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May. 31st, 2009 @ 10:10 pm
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I think I might go to Viet Nam in August.
I had plans to go to Palau with Holly Golightly, but she will be tied up with school stuff.
I think I might save a few extra vacation days for use in the Winter, and just go to Viet Nam for a week and a half. I can possibly fly into the middle of the country and visit Danang, Hoi An, Hue and My Son, which are all very close to each other. |
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May. 10th, 2009 @ 08:11 pm
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My lappy's on-board video MELTED. Fucking Hewlett-Packard. |
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Feb. 7th, 2009 @ 07:46 pm
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Killing time at the Singapore airport, now.
I was able to go through customs, however, and take a trip downtown on the subway. I went to what used to be Bugis street. It USED to be full of prostitutes and whatnot (presumably the subject of Leonard Cohen's "Thousand Kisses Deep") but now is home to a big old shopping mall.
But it's not all bad... the shopping mall has a really, really nice comic book shop. I bought the big hardcover of "Local."
Flight leaves to take me back to Korea in a couple hours.
Vacation was nice overall. Things picked up after I posted the last message here. I went to the very remote town of Bario up in the Kelabit Highlands. Accessable only by flying in on a 19 seat Twin Otter, it is a real nice place to get away from all the hub-ub that is all Asian cities. And I had some fun in Kuching, Sarawak's capital, too.
Next trip? Probably Philipeans. Holly Golightly wants to go diving around those parts. I might hang out on the beach for two weeks.
Okay. Over and out. |
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Malaysia, now.
I think I'm just about done with this sort of traveling. No more hot and humid dirty old developing countries in Asia for me! I think that next time I travel I will go to Europe, Japan or into central Asia. Malaysia is seeming to blend in with India and Nepal and Indonesia and Timor and... well, you get the point. I think I will go to the Philipeans with Holly Golightly in the winter, but I think I will scratch Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Viet Nam, etc. off of my list.
Yeah. I'm a little bit bored here. Who woulda thunk it? Maybe I need a new hobby?
Going to see some Orang-utans tomorrow morning. I'll be in Brunei sometime next week.
My malaria pills are giving me strange dreams.
I sent some postcards, but I don't really know where anyone lives anymore. If you haven't recieved a postcard in a year, it's because I don't know where you are.
Over and out!
Jan. 26th, 2009 @ 04:26 pm
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Hey, so things are still going pretty well over here.
I moved into a new apartment. The new one is much nicer than the old one. About twice as big, and much quieter and much cleaner and so on. I really dig it. It's nicer than the old flop I stayed at in Dartmouth at the beginning of the year.
Since moving into the new place I have stopped taking so many weekend trips around the country. The new place is nice enough that I feel happy staying home on the weekend.
Went hiking this past weekend, however, and had a nice time. The trees are such a pretty shade of orange at this time of year. I think I might be sad when I find myself living in a place without mountains sometime in the future. Mountains are very soothing.
I'm trying to make a getaway plan for my winter vacation. I get about one month off, starting around the second week of January. I might go to Malaysia and Brunei (an old plan) or I might go to Swaziland and Mozambique (a new plan). But this economic collapse and the fluxating values of the American dollar and the Korean won make world travel difficult. Shit is more expensive now... and my salary isn't quite as valuable (in US bucks) as it was six months ago.
So yeah. That's the latest. I'm not sure anyone reads LiveJournal anymore, but I just thought I'd throw that out.
Nov. 10th, 2008 @ 03:18 pm
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I'm on vacation. I'm on an island called Ulleung, deep in the sea of Japan. Half-way to that country, actually... the ferry ride out here takes about three hours. I spent today and yesterday going on punishing hikes up and down the mountain here (the whole island is actually just one big volcanic erruption). Now I cannot move my aching muscles and all I can do it sit in this air-conned internet cafe. Thank God that internet cafes are super cheap in this country (buck an hour). I will take the ferry back tomorrow evening and then do a bit of exploration in teh Korean country side until Friday before heading back to Incheon and the beginning of the new school term.
I'm a bit sad that I wasn't able to leave the country during this vacation, but they've only given me nine days off and I'm so used to taking looooong trips, that I can't see the point of going somewhere for such a short amount of time. I'll get a month in the winter, and I hope to go to Malaysian Borneo (and Brunei, which is smack dab in the middle of Malaysia).
I guess I will stay in Incheon for a total of two years. Yeah, I know. Whatever. I want to "finish up" with Asia. If I take a few short trips in the next 18 months and then another looooong trip when I leave here for good I will have been to some 90% of the countries on this continent, skipping only the really evil ones like North Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq. After finishing here I can start a new sort of life on a new sort of continent. Maybe Africa. Maybe South America.
Things are going fairly well on the day-to-day. I keep busy. I see my friends way too often. Curiously, the bunch of people I hang out with don't get discouraged when I skip out on trips to the bar or the club on the weekend. So that's nice.
I've got a 50/50 chance of moving out of my current apartment by the end of the month. Glee!!
Aug. 11th, 2008 @ 08:08 pm
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I know that no one reads Live Journal any more (especially not anyone that is on my friends list). But oh well. Here's an update!
I don't think I've really written anything on here since I arrived, other than some complaints about my apartment back in March and some lists of random movies.
Anyhow... things are pretty good here. I like my job and my co-workers. My students are pretty good too. I like the neighbourhood, I like walking around and going to little restaurants that serve mostly just rice and vegetables. East Asia can be loud and gaudy and neon (think "Lost in Translation"), but when one in an outsider, it is easy enough to just allow everything to blend together into an ignorable sort of distortion field. It is easy enough, I guess, to just create one's own world and live in it.
I like to do that.
That said, I'm sorry to say that I've been really damn social over these last few months. Once a week I spent 90 minutes on the subway going south to Suwon, to see a man I know there. I have a girl in Gwangju with whom I spent three weekends each month traveling to different cities around the country. And I've got a couple of Canadian pals whom I see once or twice every week.
And that apartment of mine? Still really sucks. Hoping to move to a better place in August.
Jul. 16th, 2008 @ 01:45 pm
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Random Movies:
Children of Men
Casablanca
10 Items or Less
Office Space
Jun. 8th, 2008 @ 11:11 pm
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Recent movies watched:
High Fidelity
In the Mouth of Madness
Last Night (Don McKellar movie from 1999)
Jun. 4th, 2008 @ 07:19 pm
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I woke up this morning with a brown tongue. I mean... my tongue was brown. Yuck. I got on the internets and discovered that I probably have herpes. And then reality kicked in and I realized that in fact I probably DO NOT have herpes.
Probably just the Pepto Bismol I took before going to bed.
Jun. 2nd, 2008 @ 09:12 am
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Recent films watched: "Hot Fuzz" and "Run Fatboy, Run."
May. 21st, 2008 @ 11:54 pm
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Funny day in Korea. I've got a lunchtime conversation club. It's twenty minutes of "office hours" each day for whomever wants to come by and hang out. I've got a pack of about ten kids who take advantage of the time... about seven of those ten come on any given day. My time belongs to the kids, so I give them whatever they feel like recieving.
Gave them a French lesson today. And damn it, that was the single best class I've taught in Korea in all of my years here. Who would have thought? A French lesson.
May. 20th, 2008 @ 01:58 pm
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I had plans to spend the long weekend hanging out with Holly. She lives in Suwon, a city about an hour south of here. Yeah I sort of love Holly but our moment was a long time ago and I didn't have any expectations for the meeting. I just had expectations... of a meeting.
Holly cancelled on me. Instead of spending three days hanging out, we'll spend two hours together having dinner. And yeah, she's busy for the whole of May so basically we spend two hours together and that's it.
Story of my fucking life.
Holly called and told me that she had to cancel because she has friends who are coming to Seoul that she has to meet. Yeah, I'm a friend and we haven't seen each other for 14 months, but she has to cancel in favour of two other friends.
Story of my fucking life.
I just want some woman somewhere to view me as more than an obligation. More than someone who has to be slotted into an already busy schedule. I want someone to actually cancel plans to be with me... to think of meeting me as a priority... something that might bring cause her to feel some excitement.
And yeah, I know that I'm only pissed off because I used to be in love with this girl. If it was someone else then I would happily reschedule for the following month or something. But fuck it... I've given up on love and passion... I just want the fucking fantasy of someone actually giving a damn... the fantasy that maybe there is a slight possibility of the girl that I like (any girl that I like) actually "coming around" someday. But what have I got? Two hours.
Fuck.
Apr. 30th, 2008 @ 11:29 pm
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Air Canada Sucks: Part Four
The latest news is that Air Canada will now charge twenty-five bucks for a second checked bag. But they will only charge customers who are paying for the lowest ticket fare. Fuck.
Check out the graph on the right side of that article... Air Canada's share price is in the toilet.
Apr. 26th, 2008 @ 08:49 am
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So I subscribe to the e-mail newsletter of the Dartmouth Heritage Museum (I rock) and the latest issue included the following notice:
"D.A.S.L. Perspectives 2008:
Paintings by Dartmouth Art Students' League
May 6 - June 6, 2008
Admission - $2
Evergreen House - 26 Newcastle Street, Dartmouth
Hours - Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5 (Saturday closed 1-2)
Students from the watercolour, oil & acrylic classes taught by Jane Schlosberg, Susan Vitale & Kay Stanfield display their work in a beautiful Victorian home."
I think that this sounds totally emo and awesome and everyone should go.
Apr. 14th, 2008 @ 09:37 pm
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I think I would rather be on the road. Instead of living in this city, I would rather be on the road. Instead of living in any city, really. I think I will plan an adventure. Perhaps in 11 months when this contract is finished I will take a trip.
I won't go back to Russia, though I'd really like to see Sakhalin Island. though I would rather skip it, I'll probably visit China again since it's so big an unavoidable. I'd like to see central Asia and Iran, now that Canadians are allowed in again.
But there is always that SE Asia thing that I've been avoiding...
Apr. 9th, 2008 @ 10:25 pm
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Air Canada Sucks: Part Three
They lost my bags. Once upon a time I was flying from Halifax to Seoul, with a connection in Toronto. In Toronto, my flight ended up stuck on the runway for three hours. Because of bad weather, passengers were not allowed to disembark, so we spent three painful hours in one of Air Canada's trademark cramped and dirty cabins.
But that's not why Air Canada sucks. The real reason is this:
By the time I got off the plane, I had missed my connection. Since Toronto - Seoul is not a frequent route, I found myself forced to wait for three days in Toronto for the nexr flight. Is that why Air Canada sucks? No, sir! Read on...
The real reason is this:
Speaking to the Air Canada representative at my gate I was assured that my bags would be okay. The lady told me to go to my hotel for the night and then pick them up the next day. "Okay, lady," I said before getting some sleep at the local ComfortInn. But the next day, tragedy struck: my bags were gone!
As I noted in the last entry in this series, Air Canada has no customer service! I had no one to ask about my bags! I called the customer service telephone number and waited for two hours before being transfered to a call centre in India. It goes without saying that the Indian call centre was not particularly helpful.
Eventually I broke several national security laws and just sort of wandered to the "behind the scenes" department of the airport to ask the baggage handlers where my bags could be. I found two guys moving luggage around and asked for help.
"Well," said the first... your bags are most likely not in Toronto. Y'see, things were so hectic last night that we probably didn't check to see if you had missed your connection... we were just putting bags onto any plane that would take them! There was such a mess!"
"Oh," I said. "What plane do you think my bags ended up on?"
"Well," said the second baggage handler, "I can check on the computer if you've got your baggage sticker."
So I gave him the baggage sticker and he told me the result:
"Okay. One bag is in Tokyo... that's almost in Korea."
"And the other one?"
"London."
FUCK. AIR CANADA FUCKING SUCKS.
Apr. 4th, 2008 @ 05:04 pm
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Air Canada Sucks: Part Two
The Star provides another way in which Air Canada sucks: charging extra for customer service.
"Air Canada said passengers who opt to pay an additional $25 one-way on short-haul flights and an extra $35 one-way on long-haul routes within North America will receive "speedy" access to "specially-trained" customer service agents who will help rebook flights on Air Canada or other airlines, as well as pay for hotel stays and meals, if necessary."
Uh.... what the fuck? Yeah... if your flight is cancelled and you want to talk to someone you can. That's an improvement... in the past, if you wanted to talk to someone you had to push to the front of a check-in line. Now you can talk to someone... if you pay a fee.
Fuckers:
"But while Air Canada is touting the program as an industry-first, at least one observer said it was once common for big North American carriers to go out of their way to help inconvenienced or stranded customers – free."
It'll be lots of fun. In my experience whenever Air Canada fucks something up all of the angry passengers just grab hold of the nearest employee and beg for help... it will be fun to see that employee turn away customers who haven't paid the fee.
More reasons why Air Canada sucks after the break.
Apr. 4th, 2008 @ 01:38 am
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