Korea Day 3 (Sept 19)

Don't get me wrong, I like having these jam packed vacations where I'm going around everywhere, but well, a vacation is a vacation. Sometimes you just gotta sleep in a little… today.. Busan!

Briefly before heading out, we watched a short documentary on North Korea. Being so close to such a place when you're in an area like South Korea is absolutely mind blowing. The complete and utter dedication (slavery) that the north korean people follow for their glorious leader is absurd and really one of the saddest things in the modern world today. The contrast between the two is staggering. We had talked about checking out the DMZ, but we didn't really want to dedicate an entire day to crossing the border. I also really HATE the idea at all that North Korean dictatorship would profit off of my petty curiosity.

The four of us set out once again shortly after waking up to the beautiful city of Busan. Upon arrival mark gave us the ropes about where to go, the bus station and all sorts of other goodies. The reason being is that both of us would be spending the night here while Mark and Keziah went back since they had to work the next day. I am pretty stoked.

After our tutorial we went once again to some authentic Korean cuisine… KFC! We had some Tower Burgers, and cold tasteless fries , but it was quick and we were absolutely starving.

look! even the drink is in a bag, haha

Afterwords we decided to go shoppin and check out all of the local stores. I am one for hating knickknacks, but… technological knickknacks? count me in!

USB drive transformer! hell yeah!

Amy picked up some goodies for friends, and I proceeded to selfishly shop for myself and get some neat clothes/stuff.

I picked up a shirt and they hand tailored it for me on the spot, very nice :D.

After some shopping we decided we'd go check out the local bookmarked.. which was closed. However, it was kind of fortuitous because when all the shops shutters are down, it displayed one of the most badass graffiti galleries ever! Once again many, many pictures were taken.


showing on a Jesse Weaver desktop wallpaper near you!


The book street



I don't really have much of a reason to put this one up, other than I think it's pretty great =).

About this time it was getting lunchy/dinnery so we needed to find some kickass cuisine to feast upon. Korean barbecue? Hell yeah! Once again another amazing setup, with a billion sides (which, by the way, koreans LOVE their sides, you get more sides than main dishes: picture). We were able to cook our own meal and then promptly eat it. We ate a bunch… even Dajong got some.








Already it was getting kind of late, so Mark led us over to the beach to help us find a hotel. He got us one he had rented in the past , which has an absolutely gorgeous view. After getting accommodations we said our goobyes, they headed out and we walked the beach for a bit. Tommorrow, Busan day 2! Amy/Jesse only!


Beach outside of the hotel

Korea Day 2 (Sept 18)

Whew, I'm getting behind already! More to follow at some point.. XD
---------heeere we go

Man, I sure can't sleep in when my time zones are totally hosed . Much to Amy and Mark's sorrow, I woke everyone up at about 6:30 in the morning… then we headed out to some breakfast. Shortly afterwords we picked up Mark's girlfriend Keziah and proceeded to go out to Tongyeon to go check out Yokji Island.

After a couple of hours driving down the Korean highways.. we arrived! After checking the times for the ferry, we headed out to get some food, where we stopped to get some quite mediocre pork stew from a nearby shop. One of the interesting things about Korea is many small restaurants exist right next to each other, a lot of them serving the exactly same menu and each just owned by a particular family that lives in the same building.

Breaking back to the Ferry, we boarded the boat for about an hour ride to Yokji island. The views along the way were spectacular:






Upon arrival we didn't have a whole lot of time, as the last ferry left a couple hours later, but we did get the chance to ride some go-carts around the mountain. This was amazing and fun, but sadly my tallness stabbed me in the back again and no matter how I maneuvered my gangly legs I couldn't drive without pressing them against the steering wheel and drastically impeding my ability to avoid cars, so I became the photo guy.

The views while driving on the island



Riding it up


After the drive we headed back to the ferry where Marks dog got loads attention from the locals (par usual). Really though, everyone LOVES marks dog, Dajong. The 4 of us get constant stares from the natives but marks dog really takes the spotlight (some of the first Korean words we learned were dog, and cute).

Quite a ferocious creature.

When we got back we decided we'd go check out this entire street covered with murals. After navigating through a gigantic local fish market, we headed up a hill to where every single wall on the street was just completely covered in artwork, an Amy's paradise! Needless to say our progress was slow as the girls (Keziah loves taking photos as well) took copious amounts of pictures (luckily for you readers, since I'm a complete slacker). We watched a beautiful sunset on the top of the hill and then headed back to the car for our journey back to Masan.




When we arrived we picked up Keziah's roommate Chris, and then headed to one of their local favorite restaurants, . It was pretty neat, just threw a bunch of veggies and meat into a big pot, cooked it in front of us and threw it all on rice and dug in. Yummah.



Bellies full, we decided to waltz around the town until we decided on something to do, which turned into movie rooms. Holy crap. Movie rooms are freaking amazing. Imagine a theatre, but without all the shitty people, slightly cheaper, and your own private room with a projector and some of the comfiest seating around. If movie theaters back home rocked this style, I would be watching movies daily instead of declining every single invitation I get and generally looking upon the movie scene with absolute distain. Not to mention there were a lot of pretty good Korean movies available. They can be pretty silly, but even the most comedic film seems to end brutally, which is pretty interesting. We watched a war comedy where at the end all of the main characters died horribly to machine-gun fire and bombs. "Welcome to Dongmakgol"
Video room seating... other side was projector screen + wall. Very nice!

Post viewing we briefly pondered the option of going out for drinks, but we were all a bit tuckered out. After dropping Keziah off, we went back to Mark's and passed right out, no waking up early tomorrow for me.

Korea Day 1 (Sept 16/17)

Well, here I am again. Traveling. Due to the raving reviews and demands from my ravenous fans (hi Mom & Dad!) I have decided to once again continue to journal my epic exploits across the globe. 2/2 years for leaving the country, so far so good.

Sadly, my journey this time begins with a day of flights which includes little to no legroom, body parts falling asleep, poor movie choices and the company of an occasional fart from a nearby flightee. On the bright , I've got an Amy Brown following me around this time full of good cheer ("JESSE, my side hurts GRRR JESSE MY CHEST HURTS, JESSE MY FOOT IS ASLEEP"). I'm sitting here typing this in the airplane of the Narita airport in Tokyo, waiting to take off our flight to Busan. Right before entering the plane however, I had a horrifying encounter with one of my old foes, a bidet.


thanks, but no thanks...also note the obscene amount of controls.

Upon arrival we went through pointless security (they scanned our bags, but anyone who walked through the detector and went off were just ignored) then searched for a payphone to call up Mark. After some fumbled attempts at communication with the locals, I finally managed to get some change so I could use a payphone.

Mark picked us up at airport without too much difficulty and we headed to his place. His apartment is actually pretty nice, although it's kinda small..

His place is small, but Amy's having a blast!

After stopping at Mark's we headed out to the nightlife of Masan. Across the street we took an elevator up to a small restaurant/bar on the rooftop and had my first taste of Korean beer which wasn't the most amazing thing ever... however, these were: (button picture... i don't have one yet, caption: service buttons! If only bars in America had these.... seriously)

After getting reasonably intoxicated we decided to call it an evening.. it was about 2am in Korea and about 1PM back home ;).

April ??????? A whole connection of Reflection. Linguistic Mystic.

Time and time again I would hear the phrase " what an eye opener the experience can be, what a perception change". I came to kind tire of it, I mean, I "know" in the sense of accepting other peoples statements, computing them in my mind and figuring "yes, this must indeed be true, I mean, I'm going across the world". But yeah, it really is, what a trip.

Even this plane ride back seems an insignificant price, despite my severe amounts of travel anxiety that I've had my whole life. These past couple years I've really pushed my limits and not only overcome a fear, but breath it in, accept it and allow it to completely pass through me and watch it as it leaves.

Being in a different country(s) was amazing. Despite my loathing of some, I don't regret a single event, occasion, other than the fact that I wish I did even MORE. The trip itself wasn't the kind of relaxing sensation that one usually invokes in their mind then they brood over the word "vacation". In fact, it was probably a much more stressful experience than my normal, somewhat mundane, everyday life. But in the end, it allowed me to grow into more of a person, and I'm grateful for it. Gosh, just by rereading this paragraph, and despite how much I used to resent it, I'm starting to sound like my parents. Luckily, they can take it.

So now I'm amusing the mind by watching a variety of films, that the plane has willingly thrown at the customers, to placate them. Normally I wouldn't convert to such witchery, but it was the new james bond movie, which I had not had a chance to see. For a gun blasting, hot babe loving spy flick, it was quite enjoyable.

Despite how much fun it is to ramble about my life, this will probably be the end of this whole blog experience, other than the random possible thought for my hobbies, such as brewing to keep myself remembering the various techniques I use. I hope people have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed (sometimes not enjoyed, these things can be really a giant chore, but I kept forcing myself to finish it) writing.

Well, by the time this is up, I'll be back in Saint Cloud. So if you feel like hanging out, or just plain old pestering me, feel free. Tchues.

Done. And tired.

Tourism Central - April 18th

Urrg.. must.. wake and make trains. With constant mental reminders of the woes of yesterday Ted and I set out early to make sure we didn't fail quite so horribly.

Even the vending machines in Belgium give you beer. My kind of place!

With the train rides made, we can at last set out to the big city, the numbero uno destination for all travelers throughout the world. Paris. I hope it lives up to the high standards it has (possibly pretentiously) set for itself. Should be an interesting final hurrah.

Well, it would be if we had the foresight to actually write down the directions to our already reserved place of stay. Whoops. Such is life. As a result of this we were forced to wander around aimlessly (In the rain no less, but at least it has been our only rainy day throughout the entire trip) until giving into stopping into another hotel to see if we could purchase an hour or so of wireless. Normally we would have tried to find a McDonald's (they all have wifi usually) or some sort of internet cafe, but the neighborhood was completely barren of these outposts of modern times. At this point we were pretty hungry too, so we took a quick stop at a local bakery and had some true french croissants and chocolate filled ones (not exactly filled, just a tiny bit inside which makes them more of a lunch object than a sugar filled nightmare).

The place we managed to stop in was pretty much the most lavish hotel I have ever seen in my life. It was flocking with elderly and middle aged Americans who were more than happy to part with about seven hundred and fifty euro a night (the big suits were 5k :-O ). Geesh, I don't know how anyone could empathize with that kind of decadence. As there weren't a whole lot of other hotels in the area, we decided to stick here and harass the already busy clerks at their desks.

The pleasant and kind young lady at the desk quickly turned into a sour wench when she discovered we were indeed not staying at this establishment. She tried to look up the location for us, but had no luck. I couldn't understand this at ALL. So many times we have had people search for us, and they have a great deal of difficulty finding anything. We were able to finally get an hour of wireless for 7E (yikes). We were willing to pay it so we didn't spend our only day in the big city wandering around like fools.

At last, we managed to find our hotel ( a mere several blocks away ) and were able to check in and get our room so we could drop off all our baggage.. in 20 minutes. We stopped at a local bakery and had a sandwich and some (french word here). Now we could do things!

And so.. we strode down the Champs el 'eses. The first section of this well known famous road of france was smothered with lavish parks in which the french could salute themselves at how lavish it was. The second area, was basically a gigantic strip mall. Many big names (Mcdonalds, Disney, Adidas) had claimed their own little portion of this highly expensive road to say "look at me!".

At last, we had finally reached the end of this long and busy (12 lanes of busy) stretch to the focal point at the end, the Arc De Triumph. The thing to remember here, is it really isn't the only "Arc De Triumph". Every single battle/war that the French felt was a great victory resulted in the construction of one of these, but this one, just happens to be the biggest and arguably the best. So the parisians have dubbed this monument as THE Arc De Triumph. Anyways, we took a quick look around at it.

Really? They actually won something? :O!


These French guys were trying to play golf, using the tomb of the unknown soldier as the first hole. This old guy was not pleased at all. It's funny how you can tell exactly what someone is saying when they're just THAT angry, regardless of the language.

Don't forget the underside, it's ornate too!

Afterwards we went back down to the river (name?) and checked out one of the most overrated structures in history, the Eiffel Tower. I deemed it worthy to glance at from the other side of the river, but that was as far as I decreed we should go.

pshhh it's not that big..

Our next destination was the big cathedral, the Notre Dam. Well, it is big, but don't let the name mislead you into thinking it is the biggest. It's more of the most famous because of its history (being "gothic" aka "barbaric" and almost destroyed) and the fact that it's the most well rounded (think of 4/5 on all categories, as other cathedrals might have a 5/5 in one, but a 2/5 in another). The lines were long, but they moved quickly. Along the way we were asked "do you speak english" (always say "non" "nyet" "nein" as they just want to strike you up for money) and if we wanted an umbrella for 5E (it was still raining, but just a very very slight drizzle). Ahh the tourist trap hazards. At any rate, we found our way inside, checked around it and then left.

Here's the back of it, i think this shot looks much better than: the low lighted interior "no flashes!" <-- Our country mates took them anyway, of course and the front, coated with a writhing mass of people. Now, I like history, and Museums are pretty fun, but we were running low on time. I really did want to see what was proclaimed "the biggest and best museum in the world" so we went at a brisk pace to the Louvre. Only having about an hour, we set out to look at the various areas with gusto. I was surprised at how much empty space there was, but I suppose it made sense since the building used to be a gigantic palace for the king. It was kind of irritating, as you had to walk all over the place to see something that you would think could have been easily fit into something much smaller. I was also baffled at the fact that a lot of the pieces had no descriptions at all, so everyone was forced to get one of those exceptionally irritating (and expensive) ear devices just to learn the history of an object. At any rate, I got to see a lot of cool art and such in the few hours I was there. I hold the art of the world in the palm of my hand!

I even got a picture of a hot babe, she's not very photogenic though


I can has mummification.. nom nom nom

We set out for my last european meal, to a local (and recommended by our hotel clerk) crepe eatery. What's crepe? Why a "pancake" with anything you well please inside. They're pretty good.

Crepes makes me strong! "The Popeye"

Desert Crepes make me large... mmmm

As I had a day full of traveling on the morrow starting at a very early time, we said our farewells to the big city and let our minds wander into that mental state which allows rest.

Woe betide yee (April 17th)

Overall, we had been pretty train lucky throughout the trip. No real mishaps. This time however, we turned our potential "non train day" into a very much so "train day". Crap.

This pizza in the station was @)(%$&)!@$&)$U TASTY! I mean, it says it!

It all began with a mistake, of course. A mistake on me? A mistake on ted for listening to me? A mistake on the Dutch for the one time we really needed it, failing on their so-called sign zealotry. At any rate, I thought a stop that was indeed our stop, wasn't due to the complete lack of signs that said it was, and a sign that was in the exact same format as other city signs , saying something completely different. Argh.

At any rate, It's given me yet another typing session to get caught up with my blogging shenanigans.

Like I was saying, we're at last finally on our way to Antwerp. From there we'll be staying in the quaint little town of Gent, where I hope will be a place of checking out some of the local colors of red, dark, and light... beer of course! Local breweries ho!... errr..

Well, at least we got in town I suppose. Arriving at 5, we set out into Ghent to find our hotel. After another half an hour or so of wandering "do you have maps?" "NO!". We finally reached our destination... from the opposite end. Finally circling across the block, we managed to finally get into our hotel room, which was very nice.

Apples influence extends everywhere. iphones and macbooks are the rage in Europe.


idk, it looks nice

After a short break, we set out and explored the local area. Deciding it would be a prudent decision to change the train reserve the following morning (which would force us to wake up at 5) the two of us walked down the canals to the larger train station.

"All trains to Paris are FULL. No change!"
"!*@&"

Ghent had its fair share of big churches, a common sign you're in Europe

And big streets

Walking BACK, hunger was immanent. So the need for food was dire. Seeing as how we had to probably sleep very soon (sigh.) we settled for a local restaurant. Alas... we only settled for 1 beer

that is, one liter of beer.. mmmmmm. Never being much of a light beer fan, I had always kind of scoffed at these brighter relatives of the rich dark beers I preferred. Traveling through europe changed my perception as there were actually decent light beers, no linenkugels, miller, budwiser or coronas in sight. Praise be to the gods.

Due to the misfortune of the train time table, there was a rapid scurry back to the hotel, and a swift need for sleep. See you in 5 hours.

Smalltown, Bigtown, Redtown, Bluetown (April 16th)

We woke up blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah breakfast blah blah. Train blah blah... to Den Haag. No, not to your grandmothers; bringing a picnic basket through the woods (kidding.. unless you agree, of course) but to the capital of this fair land.

The city was big, in the kind of sense that it was similar to one of the big skyscraper cities back 'ome. We walked around some big churches, and checked out the queen's palace. It was all quite nice. Alas, we didn't partake in any herring as we were already completely stuffed on a buffet breakfast, but we at least got to see how it was eaten (dangled high above the head, chin raised and chomping daintily).

2000 room house, "pool" included. Call now!


They turn their churches into restaurants :D


Well, not this one, but there's a lot of churches.

We only spent about an hour or so in the city, but once again we were able absorb the culture around us. Dutch is a really confusing language. With its similar background to english and German, I could always pull out random words, swearing that they were speaking one of the two... every time I looked back, they were still just speaking Dutch. It could be compared to communicating to a really inebriated American, who you could hardly understand.

Fortunately, like all countries that are forced to comply to our "primary" language; we hadn't even encountered a single Dutch citizen who couldn't speak English. Of course, it's not exactly nice to just sit there and assume the fact, so every time we invoked a conversation it started with "Hello, do you speak English?". My only hope is that it was recognized as a friendly gesture, rather than a demand (I've just seen so many people expecting English from everyone, which isn't exactly the nicest thing in the world).

Swinging from one vine to another in the Train jungle, we arrived at the smallish town of Delft. This wasn't exactly my first priority of a city, but Ted was quite interested in seeing it, so rather than breaking apart and spending hours trying to track each other down in the midst of the big city of Amsterdam which we would be going to later, we decided to just head through this city quick. Ted checked out a few churches ( they required some $$$, which I didn't really feel like parting with) and a little while later we were back on our way to the most well known city of the Netherlands.

Delfting

I'm not much of an Art museum guy. I'll see one, but it just seems like such a dreadful waste of time unless it's one of the most amazing museums in the world, and I have a ton of days in the location, so I can spend one just slowly wandering about. As a result of this, Ted and myself have been bypassing pretty much every giant museum we've come across.. there was one in Amsterdam however that I really wanted to check out for my own amusement, because really, where else is there one of it?

The Hemp/Marijuana museum was actually pretty interesting. Of course, it primarily was just a bunch of facts that could have just been Googled, but the same could really be said of pretty much any art/sculpture/history museum. It was also pretty neat to see the history behind it, the lack of acceptance and so-on. I'm not really a gigantic druggie advocate or anything, but really, I don't have much of an issue just letting people do what they want provided they don't shoot themselves in the foot, or have a stray bullet glance someone else's.
Pipe types


No... not an episode of Cops... just a legal growing room



Upon exiting, I met Ted waiting outside. As we beseeched the town map, a local netherlander with a camera came up to us. He was curious about what the big deal was with all of the kids coming to europe purely for the netherlands. We ended up talking to him for a while, he was pretty entertaining. Apparently, when he was in the states and mentioned he was indeed a Netherlander, everyone would insist to talk to him about this THC filled wonder, which was something he hadn't ever really thought about back home. So, here he was inquiring to random hashish pilgrims about what the big deal was.

We went to the Anne frank house, and declined paying 20 euro to see a tiny room, but just peeked outside.
This house?

or

This house?




We also just strolled around the canals some more, all the while dodging cars, bikes, mopeds and throngs of people... unfortunately, when we had our map in hand we were approached by the most sketchy looking of characters... It must have been a benevolent fellow, right? I mean look he decided to point out all these interesting things on the map! What an absolute gem! As his wild eyes glanced back and forth at my pockets and he shoved his face into mine, my hands swiftly took burrow inside of them, nestling quite pleasantly next to my wallet. Seeing he'd been foiled, the fellow changed his tune to being a poor "homeless" fellow, just positively stricken by the drastic times. As a reward for his well playted performance, I gave him a whopping .15 euro, Ted, being a bit more of a philanthropist, gave him about .40 . My only regret? That I didn't ask for a picture of him, that would have been a most fun souvenir.

Afterward, we decided to check out some Indonesian to go, which was pretty tasty. It wasn't the most extravagant place, but man, it was good!

I had really wanted to check out one of these fabled "coffee shops" while I was here. Even to just check out a menu, but its not exactly the kind of thing you want to do yourself. Ted, due to medical reasons, didn't want to enter such a place; and I didn't really want to sit around in that kind of situation in a city that was known for pickpockets and cheats (who mark us green tourists as well.. marks) in a potential stupor state where I could be taken advantage of. Sad day.. well, maybe next time I'm in the country I guess... at least I had gotten some sort of "fill" of this interesting tradition at the museum.

With one long parade wave goodbye, we boarded back onto the train, and back into Harrlem blah blah blah sleep blah blah.

This was going on when we got back. Complete with a churro stand of course.