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Published: December 16th 2008
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Hi Everyone. I've stockpiled a bunch of pictures that I've been meaning to put up for a while. It's been a while since the last update... Hmm, what have I been doing?
I've been travelling around a bit locally. I visited Gyeongju ("key-ONG-joo"), which is a natural park with a lot of old Buddhist temples and such. It's very nice and low-key, mostly untouched by big tourism, with the exception of a few souvenir stands. My friend Kye-Ok ("kay-OH") showed me around there. She works at the shipyard, as well, for Transocean as a document controller. She is one of my small number of English-speaking Korean friends. She has also shown me around Deagu ("DAY-goo"), the third largest city in South Korea. I actually didn't see much there except for the downtown sector, which is just filled with large shopping centers, etc. It was basically a standard city.
It took me a long time to explore and realize how nice it was, but there is a beautiful nature reserve very close to my apartment called Deawangam Park. I walked around there for 45 minutes or so and took a few pics. I've only been there once so far since
it's "somewhat cool" here (usually from 5-10C recently), but it will be a nice place to go for a run from time to time.
Last weekend I went on a snowboarding trip to the "High1" resort. I actually have no idea where it is. I just got in the car with Martin and three other people from his company. It took around 4 hours to drive there, so I imagine we must have been in the Seoul vicinity... The mountain was definitely not up to Canadian Rockies standards, but it was still fun. I was under the impression before I came here that the ski resorts had enough natural snow to run the resort, but the truth is that they manufacture all of it. The size of the hill was surprising considering that they make all the snow. The slopes are really "manufactured" compared to our mountains. The runs are narrow, but long enough. There is no terrain, all the hills are just flat and plain. I would describe it as Rabbit Hill, but about 10 times longer. There are no trees to dodge, but many people to maneuver through. I only ran down
one guy... :P We stayed
at a condo on the hill for one night. I was the only non-Korean, and they made me a great Korean dinner of pork dishes and various types of Kimchi. Kimchi is a Korean staple, as common as rice. I would describe it as "pickled cabbage", I suppose, but that doesn't really do it justice. It's really tasty, usually spicy, and comes in many various forms. After dinner we played a few drinking games and had a bit of soju, the Korean version of sake.
I still can't speak any Korean. It's starting to bother me. No one speaks
fluent English here except for many of the people in the shipyard offices. It makes going out to stores, etc. fairly challenging. I often have to call Martin or Geuk and have them translate over the phone. I will get into a class or something soon, I think, but so far I've just been busy/lazy.
Oh! I forgot the coolest development! I joined a band! They are called H.A.I.L. (acronym for the names of the original four band members, a new name is possibly in development). Anyways, the lead guitarist Alain (Belgian) stopped by the NOV office one day
because he heard through the grapevine about Chris's band and was looking for a new singer. (HAIL's band members often change as large projects in the shipyard start and finish). Chris wasn't really interested since he's busy enough with his old band and is pretty much solely into blues, so I went to a practice instead, and now I'm their lead singer. I would play guitar too, but they already have two, so I don't need to. They are a cover band that plays a wide variety of different songs from Foo Fighters to Maroon 5 to a grungy, rock-a-billy version of "Hit Me Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears. There is an original song too that Alain wrote. We have had two practices so far and we hope to start doing shows by late January if I can learn enough songs in time. I think it should be fine, we already have 7-8 songs in our setlist. The other band members are Hugh on rhythm guitar (from England), Dan on bass (U.S.), and HP (Hans Peter, I think? Norway) on drums.
That's about it for now. Thanks for reading, or should I say
Gahmsahamnida!
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Marie
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snowboarding
This is such a great way for everyone to see the scenery and keep up on your activities. Doug just got back from Panorama. It was -30 plus a windchill and was brutal. Much flesh was frostbitten. I wonder how they can keep up on making all the fake snow. Love, Ma