Tyrone
Tyrone Biggums Joined: July 18th 2006
Logged in: January 28th 2012
Logged in: January 28th 2012
Travel Blog Posts
Life is rough
There’s a word that people use here which means high maintanence/fancy pantsy.<span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span> Unfortunately the word, spelled pupi, is pronounced like a dirty diaper.<span> It makes someone sound quite the opposite of fancy when you say “oh, his wife is really poopy.” I saw Maria blast through the 5 stages of grief.<span> We got trapped for an hour by an arroyo.<span> If you don’t know what an arroyo is, <span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>check url=<span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>&l... read more
Colombia´s Next Top Maid
We´ve decided to turn our search for a maid into a reality show competition, Colombia´s Next Top Maid. We name them all Consuela (or ´Suels for short). It´s a marathon of Lemon Pledge and complying with our every ridiculous demand. "Rinse our dishes in Cambodian breastmilk! Take a picture of a midget holding these balloons! Wash my underwear on a David Hasselhoff´s washboard abs!" We already eliminated Consuela #1 for putting too much oil in the rice and washing her poor clothes with our rich ones. Oh well, call the locksmith and arrange for Consuela #2 to start on Monday. When we dismiss them, we drop a bucket of slime on their head, You Can´t Do That On Television style and tell them “please take your broom and go.” Consuela #2 shakes your hand like she´s ... read more
Interactions With Genitals Safely Packed Away
Koreans love to chat with their genitals exposed. I have no explanation for this. The male teachers at the school generally ignore my existence, they don’t sit with me, they don’t say hello in the hallways, they don’t invite me to the man dinners. I’m not complaining, they don’t speak English and I don’t speak Korean so it makes sense we pretend the other doesn’t exist. However, there is an exception to this rule. They all talk to me when I’m peeing. I don’t know what it is about having your genitals exposed in the same room that makes them so awkwardly talkative, but that might explain the large number of saunas (jimjabangs) here. This picture pretty well sums up how they seem to feel as the clothes come off. If you ever think you are ... read more
Panda-monium
Chinese people love fireworks like Americans love sedentary lifestyles, remote controls and sitting down. We went to Beijing for Chinese New Year (the Koreans call it Lunar New Year) which I had heard was the largest fireworks display on Earth. I love fireworks but at a certain age they do loose a bit of their wonder so I wasn’t too pumped for this part of the trip. We landed on New Year’s Day and were immediately thrown into complete firework madness. This isn’t a professional firework show, this is every single person in the city setting off thousands dollars of fireworks on every street corner in the city for 48 hours, reaching its mind blowing crescendo at midnight. There’s no way to explain it, no video does it justice* and you have to be there to ... read more
From the top of Seorak Mountain
I just wanted to give everyone an end of the year (and most likely my existence) Happy Holidays update. I’m sure my readers are well aware the highly misunderstood senescent ‘Dear Leader’ Kim Jong Il and his chubby faced progeny are soon to be chucking missiles over the 38th parallel and onto my head like my brother Mark and I used to do with rolled up sock grenades over the couch in the mostly misremembered days gone by. I was hit by many a sock then and I’m sure my luck in avoiding launched destructive devices hasn’t changed much since then. But I have no plans of letting my sure death get me down this holiday season and my stocking has just as many candy canes as it does anti-radiation poisoning syringes. Ho Ho Ho. I’m ... read more
Further evidence
I’ll be honest, while Southeast Asia had always been on my list I always kind of associated Thailand with too much tourism and disgusting sketch balls visiting to indulge in their darkest perversions but I’ll have to admit a misconception as it was fantastic. We spent almost our entire trip on Ko Phi Phi Don, one of the destination islands on Earth (where The Beach was filmed) but during monsoon season there are so few tourists that they shut down 3 of the 5 ferries that go to the island. Lodging prices (which range up to 5 grand a night) drop to more than half off. All of this because it rains torrentially all day everyday and who wants to go on vacation in the torrential rain? We did, against all Lonely Planet advice. If you’ve ... read more
The Communism Museum
If you’ve ever wondered if there are actually 1.3 billion Chinese people, pop in for a quick visit and you’ll not only never doubt the veracity of that astronomical number, but will quickly be convinced all of them are in line in front of you. I’ve never waited in line so much in my life. Who knows what’s at the end of the line, by the time you get there you’re dead. I suspect that’s the reward, you die and Chairmen Mao’s ghost give you an eternity high five, which as everyone knows are the best high fives. It was 102 degrees when we landed, and stayed that way pretty much the whole time we were there. When you’re outdoors waiting in line for hours on end, I suggest you wait until it’s at least 102. ... read more
The universe throwing an ajumma at me.
Am I the only one who thinks it's strange that people assume that just because you're home you have clothes on. Wrong. So in the last few weeks I’ve been travelling around a little bit, and more recently saying goodbye to all the people who decided not to sign on for a 2nd year in this paragon of rapid development. I thought moving away from Colombia I was going to get away from people being overly obsessed with their physical appearance but I think that Korea may be worse. Strangely though, this obsession seems to end the day they get married. They instantly begin changing into the standard bearer of all things correct and true in Korea, the elderly mother, the ajumma. Incidentally the universe recently got some revenge for my belligerence with these angry old ... read more
City Hall
There’s no better time to live outside the US than during the World Cup. Sure I didn’t know the rules of the sport before I lived in Colombia, but it’s great to get swept away in the local fervor. That being said, I’ve never met a country that is so, I would call it faithless, but it’s probably better described as realistic, about their chances. Koreans are distinctly lacking in false bravado and rarely make statements professing a positive outcome, much in contrast to the outlandish trash talking I’m prone to. A million people once marched on Washington to protest the generally poor way black people were being treated in America. Alas that was before my time but I finally managed to join almost a million people in the streets as that’s how many people gathered ... read more
Me standing in North Korea
They make you pay to get a cart at the local Walmart type store (Emart). The motivation behind this I’m guessing is that you’ll bother returning the cart where you found it if it gives you your money back. Nine cents ain’t getting that cart pushed back. I’m also more likely to push that bastard home and leave it on the side of my house like Dan Goodrich used to do back in the old neighborhood. Elections suck in the US, tons of commercials on tv and such, but at least they don’t drive up and down your street at eight in the morning on a Sunday with loudspeaker trucks. I wish I was a Korean citizen so I could vote against these devils. Getting fit is easy, ingest less calories than you burn in a ... read more
