Maybe we should take the sidewalk?

Spring has set innumerable smiles on my lips and I haven’t felt this happy in a long time. This is a picture i took at Hallim harbor, one day I was checking out the sunset.

The sun is shining, the wind is cool, the earth is awakening, the trees smell fantastic, the birds are singing, flowers are blooming, life is good! Even when it rains, there's a sweet perfume in the air and it makes me blissful.

I actually witnessed quite a few sunsets lately and… what a spectacle! I also try to stop by the horse field on my way home every nite cauz they’re so darn beautiful. Moreover, my friends and I have been cruising around the island and uncovered some hidden paradises and beaches. Stuck in my city life, I had forgotten all about the joys of the countryside.




Sasha and I rode our motorbikes down south yesterday, which was awesome just like that road trip with Lisa last week-end.




While sitting on the beach eating strawberries, we caught the high tide and the "hot-tub-like" in front of us turned into tiny waterwfalls!
We also hung out with the cows and enjoyed some quiet countryside peace, calm and silence. It's funny how you find Korean traditional graves right in the middle of a field. Good fertilizer?

The Cherry Blossom festival was quite nice, but I truly enjoyed the “off-spot” spectacle all over the island. Cherry Blossoms don’t smell anything at all, but they are beautiful as hell and their petals fly all around, just like some cute little snowstorm in winter. Very romantic too.

Danila, Alicia and Kyle got their hand waxed for only 5 bucks, which was totally cool. The whole area surrounding the stadium was quite festive and we spent the afternoon there, completely hungover and happy. I even won a tiny stuffed animal for my skills at arcade shooting (not something to be proud of, I know)






Meanwhile a horrible smell was floating on the streets, some apparently "delicious" Korean snack that repulses most foreigners to their very heart. I don’t know what it’s called, but eeeew!


A few of us were lucky enough to get free tickets to the “Nanta” premiere on Jeju island – a popular Korea show back in Seoul that revolves around making mind-blowing music with kitchen stuff. I was quickly told to turn off my camera, but you should check out the footage of one of their show posted on youtube. Mind-BLOWING.



I believe I've mentionned this before - when a Korean restaurant, show, or whatever, opens, friends send those big flower things with their name on it as a sign of support. The more flowers you get, the more friends you have - hence the more people should trust your product.

We then headed to Troy’s BBQ – he has this great place in the countryside, looks like a palace (check out the hall!) and I felt incredibly heartbroken by the sight of this gorgeous Labrador being stuck in a cage all day. It’s certainly not waiting to become the meat in some “energizing” Korean dog soup; it’s just there for no apparent reason. Why have a dog if you’re going to leave it in a cage all day? Troy takes it for a run once in a while, but the owner really doesn’t give a shit. And that’s sad.







Heading back to Shin-Jeju, we caught this great Korean band playing at Led Zepplin, very mellow music, kinda reminded me of Radiohead. And the bass player is a chick!



A week ago was Laurie’s bday celebration– loads of fun and partying until sunrise, actually 8am!! It was a crazy night (except when Sasha massaged my feet... that was just nice! :) especially that bit at the noreabang (karaoke)...







The night before we had gone out to GP for a few drinks and came across this drunken man completely passed out on a sidewalk. We tried waking him up but he didn’t move. Funny thing is that he wasn’t dressed like a hobo at all – which once again demonstrates how any, ANY, Korean man (except like one of two in the entire country) will get freaking wasted any chance he gets. Sometimes it’s work pressure, or peer pressure, but in this case the man was all alone. No friends in sight. Anyway, it blows my mind.

Any day of the week, in any restaurant, you can expect to find Korean men in work suit being pissed at like 8pm. We've seen it all... the red face drunk-dialing, staggering all over, yelling "i love you" to foreigners, trying to light up a cigarette from the wrong end, even sleeping on the table!


My motorbike finally got fixed and I’m quite relieved. Koreans drive according to their very own "standards"– which is safe as long as everyone does it, but with my bike stalling every 5 sec… I was a hazard! More so than cars parked on sidewalks, buses changing 2 lanes at a time, taxi drivers cutting you off and motorbikes driving on the sidewalk.

Which reminds of something funny my friend said as we were waiting for a red light. He turned to me and said “maybe we should take the sidewalk” and we did and avoided traffic. People would have killed us back home, but here it wasn’t a big deal, especially since we were driving carefully – as opposed to those countless delivery dude almost running over the elderly every single minute of the day!

And the "maybe" part of his question is so Korean! Koreans always say "mmmm, maybe you can have a seat?", "mmmm maybe we can stop here", etc. which is their way of being respectful. But even when they have the plane ticket to go to, say, Tokyo, even when they're flying off the next day, they'll be saying "mmmm, maybe I go to Tokyo tomorrow" hahaha

On my way to work I saw seaweed being dried on the side of the road. I thought it was cute until I realized how much pollution (car exhaust!) must be going into that seaweed, not to mention the pee and spit already laid on the concrete. So much for health standards.


Another week, only 4 months and a half left here, it’s crazy how time flies. I’m turning 25 in less than a month and that’s freaking me out. Gonna keep going to meditation and keep trying that rock climbing thing because I refuse not to be able to pull my own weight after living a quarter of a century on this planet!

Oh yeah, and I got Kyle this wicked "good bush, bad Bush" t-shirt in Bali, check it out hahaha