Bad eyes and small feet
In my day we used to make our own entertainment- well, we didn’t actually which is probably why I am having such a big problem lasting without a TV. I am sure that I told you that I didn’t have a shower when I first got here and was promised that I would be moving house, no less, in a month to one where the water did actually possess enough pressure to enable me to shower. It being a Korean month it lasted six weeks and I moved. And that was something of a palaver itself. I was told to have everything in the flat downstairs (yes, I was literally moving down from the fifth floor to the second) early so they could clean for the new people. The apartment workmen came at 9.30 to move in my four pieces of furniture and they had achieved this Herculean task a mere 5 hours later. Pretty good going. It only took another two hours to put the curtain rail up. This was a long and tedious job so I had a little lie down on my bed- having been up and moving early as requested- and the cleaning lady was obviously also feeling the pressure too as she lay down next to me and we both had a little nap.
By the time that they finally left- at 4 o’clock- I just wanted to unpack. So I did that without giving too much thought to the whole TV situation. My director had told me that the TV wouldn’t be connected until the afternoon which seemed reasonable enough. Of course, it wasn’t. The next afternoon was Sunday so no chance of anything being done then. So I was promised Monday, then Tuesday and finally they came clean and said that they were too busy to do it and so they couldn’t give me a day. And here I am ten days later no closer what so ever to being able to flick through the channels complaining that nothing is on. And no idea when I will be. By now I am just so angry that I have covered my TV up in an effort to try and forget that such a thing even exists. It is not working though.
But the shower works which is a relief- especially after the weekend that I have just had.
I met my mate at 10 on Friday night and warned him that I had pencilled in ‘getting drunk’ for that evening. But even I hadn’t anticipated that four bars, two restaurants and one nori bang later we would be sitting outside a convenience store supping on a beer and watching the kids go to school. I made it home at around 8.30. It was a good night though it took me a very long time to get my head off the pillow the next day. When I did finally make it out of bed I went downtown to meet up with two mates- one of whom was my hapless companion from the night before looking as blurry eyed as me. We went to the cinema to soothe our battered souls and then went to the pub- for a coke! After the third drink where each one elicited the comment ‘one more and we will go’ we stopped lying to ourselves and started relaxing.
The most popular foreigner bar in Gangneung is Bumpin and the owner, Mr Lee, is the first genuine hippy that I have met here in Korea. And he was kicking it up a notch or two all night- starting with giving everyone in the bar a free shot of whiskey, following this up with a free shot of tequila. Yes, things got silly. There was dancing, there was singing, there was tops being taken off (only the boys though and Mr Lee started it) there was sentimental talk and the only thing that stopped us dancing on the bar is the fact that the ceiling is too low in Bumpin. Mr Lee was having himself a grand old party and so kept the bar open two hours longer than usual. We left shortly after 5 and went to a mate’s house where we all crashed for the night.
The next day was spent sleeping and watching TV- terrible movies! One was so bad that it made me GLAD that I don’t have a TV. This weekend being a long weekend (Monday was a National holiday for Children’s Day) we didn’t want to waste it and so had made plans to go to the hot springs in a nearby National Park. When Eric came round to get Alex he was surprised to find all three of us there though it did become obvious to him straightaway that none of us would be going anywhere. We politely declined his offer of some beer and waved him off.
Monday we went to the beach. I was pleased to discover that I can get a direct bus from here to Gwangju near Mokpo- the things you find out at the beach. It was a quiet Monday and Tuesday will be exactly quiet, I am sure. But Wednesday is our usual drinking night and Thursday is another holiday for Buddha’s Birthday (I am still laughing at Barry’s suggestion last year that we throw a surprise party for Buddha!) so I am not ruling out the possibility of getting drunk then.
This has been my first weekend on the batter in Gangneung (not the first one since I got back to Korea, mind, but the others have been in Seoul) so I really feel that this is home now. Which is good since I am at the start of my eighth weekend already- 44 more to go!
Last week I bought some goldfish so I would have something to watch while waiting for the man to fix my TV. And I did indeed spend quite some time watching them last week. But when I came home on Saturday after my Friday night out one was floating. I scooped him out of the tank and then something just took over me and I threw him out of the window into the flowerbed below. I think that I had some drunken thought of recycling him into cat food or something. And Monday the other one was flagging and by the end of the day he was a goner too. They certainly didn’t have the staying power of my ones down south last year which were still going strong last thing that I heard. I also went to the optician on Saturday which wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be as most of it is done by machine and the only bit that I had to read off the wall were numbers. But I was a little concerned at the optician’s lack of thought- I told him how bad my eyes were before the test and he got me to take out my contact lenses and then asked me to fill in a form which I couldn’t even see! My right eye had got worse (though it could have been the hangover I guess). Then I went and bought some shoes only to discover that my feet have gone down two sizes since last year. All very odd! And a little disturbing- let that be a warning to all of you out there that if you drink too much lemon soju on a Friday night you might well wake up on Saturday with crappy eyes and small feet!
And that ends the lesson today.
Take care
Love
H
By the time that they finally left- at 4 o’clock- I just wanted to unpack. So I did that without giving too much thought to the whole TV situation. My director had told me that the TV wouldn’t be connected until the afternoon which seemed reasonable enough. Of course, it wasn’t. The next afternoon was Sunday so no chance of anything being done then. So I was promised Monday, then Tuesday and finally they came clean and said that they were too busy to do it and so they couldn’t give me a day. And here I am ten days later no closer what so ever to being able to flick through the channels complaining that nothing is on. And no idea when I will be. By now I am just so angry that I have covered my TV up in an effort to try and forget that such a thing even exists. It is not working though.
But the shower works which is a relief- especially after the weekend that I have just had.
I met my mate at 10 on Friday night and warned him that I had pencilled in ‘getting drunk’ for that evening. But even I hadn’t anticipated that four bars, two restaurants and one nori bang later we would be sitting outside a convenience store supping on a beer and watching the kids go to school. I made it home at around 8.30. It was a good night though it took me a very long time to get my head off the pillow the next day. When I did finally make it out of bed I went downtown to meet up with two mates- one of whom was my hapless companion from the night before looking as blurry eyed as me. We went to the cinema to soothe our battered souls and then went to the pub- for a coke! After the third drink where each one elicited the comment ‘one more and we will go’ we stopped lying to ourselves and started relaxing.
The most popular foreigner bar in Gangneung is Bumpin and the owner, Mr Lee, is the first genuine hippy that I have met here in Korea. And he was kicking it up a notch or two all night- starting with giving everyone in the bar a free shot of whiskey, following this up with a free shot of tequila. Yes, things got silly. There was dancing, there was singing, there was tops being taken off (only the boys though and Mr Lee started it) there was sentimental talk and the only thing that stopped us dancing on the bar is the fact that the ceiling is too low in Bumpin. Mr Lee was having himself a grand old party and so kept the bar open two hours longer than usual. We left shortly after 5 and went to a mate’s house where we all crashed for the night.
The next day was spent sleeping and watching TV- terrible movies! One was so bad that it made me GLAD that I don’t have a TV. This weekend being a long weekend (Monday was a National holiday for Children’s Day) we didn’t want to waste it and so had made plans to go to the hot springs in a nearby National Park. When Eric came round to get Alex he was surprised to find all three of us there though it did become obvious to him straightaway that none of us would be going anywhere. We politely declined his offer of some beer and waved him off.
Monday we went to the beach. I was pleased to discover that I can get a direct bus from here to Gwangju near Mokpo- the things you find out at the beach. It was a quiet Monday and Tuesday will be exactly quiet, I am sure. But Wednesday is our usual drinking night and Thursday is another holiday for Buddha’s Birthday (I am still laughing at Barry’s suggestion last year that we throw a surprise party for Buddha!) so I am not ruling out the possibility of getting drunk then.
This has been my first weekend on the batter in Gangneung (not the first one since I got back to Korea, mind, but the others have been in Seoul) so I really feel that this is home now. Which is good since I am at the start of my eighth weekend already- 44 more to go!
Last week I bought some goldfish so I would have something to watch while waiting for the man to fix my TV. And I did indeed spend quite some time watching them last week. But when I came home on Saturday after my Friday night out one was floating. I scooped him out of the tank and then something just took over me and I threw him out of the window into the flowerbed below. I think that I had some drunken thought of recycling him into cat food or something. And Monday the other one was flagging and by the end of the day he was a goner too. They certainly didn’t have the staying power of my ones down south last year which were still going strong last thing that I heard. I also went to the optician on Saturday which wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be as most of it is done by machine and the only bit that I had to read off the wall were numbers. But I was a little concerned at the optician’s lack of thought- I told him how bad my eyes were before the test and he got me to take out my contact lenses and then asked me to fill in a form which I couldn’t even see! My right eye had got worse (though it could have been the hangover I guess). Then I went and bought some shoes only to discover that my feet have gone down two sizes since last year. All very odd! And a little disturbing- let that be a warning to all of you out there that if you drink too much lemon soju on a Friday night you might well wake up on Saturday with crappy eyes and small feet!
And that ends the lesson today.
Take care
Love
H
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