Monday, December 25, 2006

Merry Christmas

I woke up this morning feeling good. It is my first Christmas here in Pusan, and I feel very positive. I had a light breakfast and watched a bad Christmas movie on TV (they do that here too). Then I got out of the apartment and went down to Gwangali Beach. If you aren't going to have a white Christmas (and god knows I got used to that in Australia) then you might as well have a beautiful sunny day. Its 2 in the afternoon as I write this and outside it is a warm 17c. It feels like one of those perfect Fall days, where the air is clean and crisp, the sun is shining and the world seems full of possibilities.



I sat on the patio at my favorite Gwangali coffee place, looking out onto the sunlit ocean and the picturesque Gwangan Bridge.



I had an onion bagel and a cappuccino (yes they also have those here!) and felt very good about where I was. Then I came back home and started writing this entry. All in all, it was a great start to Christmas. Dave should be here in a couple hours so we can get started on the cooking, but I wanted to make the most of having a working computer and share my Christmas morning with whoever visits my blog.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

The end of a good trip

This post is coming very late, but better late than never as the saying goes. Our trip ended well. We spent a lot of time hanging out with our friend Rosy, whom we met our first day on Koh Samui. She was with us when we went to the waterfall, temples and various beaches I have posted pictures of. We also met some a couple of interesting guys from London. They were both Bobbies (London cops) on Holiday, and we arranged to meet up with them the night of the party.
The big event was the Full Moon Party. The FMP is the biggest beach party in the world. During the height of the season here, the party attract as many as 15ooo people. The FMP we saw didn't reach those numbers, but it was still a cool experience. We had another great Thai dinner, and a couple of drinks and then we headed to the beach around 10:30 or 11. When we got there the party wasn't yet in full swing. We bought a couple of the buckets which Had Rin beach and the Full moon party are famous for. They consist of a plastic bucket filled with a bottle of whisky, vodka or rum, plus a mixer and a bottle of the REAL Red Bull. The vendor mixes your selection over ice and the while thing costs about $6-$10. We walked the full length of the beach to take in all the possibilities. There were about half a dozen DJ's playing a variety of music ranging from House, to Latin to Rock. We settled in front of a fireworks display for a while. After the fireworks had fired off they left the shape of a flaming elephant floating on the fireworks platform. We finished our first buckets while we watched the display. We then wandered up to the other end of the beach where there were fire dancers doing some really incredible juggling and spinning. They used staffs which were lit at both ends and when they span and tossed them in the air it was an amazing sight. I will post some pics when I get them off my friends. After we watched the fire show we were all lubed up enough to start some serious dancing. We settled near one of the DJ's playing dance music and got into the groove. By that time the beach had really filled up. During one of my runs to go to the bathroom and find another bucket I lost my friends. By that time I was drunk enough I didn't really care. I looked for them for about 15 minutes, then I headed down to check out some of the other DJ's. The last thing I remember from the evening is zoning out to some really good house music. I think I got one of the bike taxis to take me back to the resort around 4am, but I'm honestly not sure. I woke up the next day feeling a little worse for wear, but a lot better than Teal, who got in far earlier in the morning. I spent my last day in Thailand traveling around on my scooter taking a last look at nearby parts of the island, shopping for souvenirs, and enjoying my last of the amazing Thai food.
The next day was the predictably dull and frustrating 20 hours of travel back to Korea. In the end the highlights of my trip were the trips around the island on a scooter, amazing meals and some truly beautiful sights. The FMP was cool, but a little too spring break for my tastes. The areas we visited were a little too touristy for my tastes. I like to get into the culture and food more on a trip. But it was a good holiday, and it was a very welcome change from my routine in Busan.

I am dedicating this post to my friend Dave. A great friend I have found here in Busan. We are having Christmas dinner together with our girlfriends and I wouldn't have made this post if he hadn't lent me his laptop for the night.

I am posting this at 1 am Christmas morning, so to everyone out there, Merry Christmas! I hope you all have a wonderful time with your family and friends.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Why I haven't updated my blog

Thursday last week my laptop's A/C adaptor died. I have scoured Pusan for the last few days looking for a replacement. But so far I have had no luck. So I no longer have computer access at home. If I can't get a replacement I will have to get Dell to ship one out here. But that could take weeks. In the meantime I won't be updating my blog much. Although I will be checking my email when I am at work. The real downside here (apart from the fact that enormous parts of my free time are centered around my computer and the internet) is that it is the Xmas season and I can't contact people without my computer. If you want to get in touch you can call my cell phone. Incoming calls are free here (010 9168 0639). If you want to send letters or Xmas packages my work address here is:

J&K Bldg. 4F
Nam-Cheon 1-dong 17-2
Suyeong-Gu, Busan
South Korea, ㅜ 613-011
Unium College
Ian Koslow

If you note the little ㅜ sign next to the 613-011 (which is the postal code). You need to put a second horizontal dash hovering above the symbol. Make it slightly shorter than the horizontal dash that is already there. I can't figure out how to make the keyboard make the correct symbol at the moment.

Its better to send things to my work.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

A good day and a bad day

Yesterday we took off on the scooters we rented and drove across the island. We stopped half way and climbed a small waterfall. It was a small 200 meter climb which finished at a really nice pool.



We took a swim and washed the sweat off and them climbed to a look out point which gave us a view of a third of the island.


After we got back down the hill we drove the rest of the way across the island. The original plan was to find one of the northern beaches which are well known for good snorkeling and diving. However, when we found a guy renting snorkel gear, he told us that because of the high tides and winds today, the water visibility was too poor. So we ended up just taking a swim and lying on the beach for a couple of hours. At least the beach was beautiful!


The evening was also great. The food on this trip has been great, but last night was really the highlight. For 8 dollars I got a whole Seabass, Panfried Thai style, with "three flavor sauce. Mmmmm!
The bad day is today. It started raining last night at about 2am and it has been raining on and off since then. I am sitting in an internet cafe right now watching monsoon style rain pour down. The Full Moon party is tonight, so the timing couldn't be better. Unlike Teal, the party isn't the highlight of the whole trip for me., but I was still looking forward to seeing one of the world's biggest parties in full swing. This weather will undoubtablymake for a somewhat smaller than usual event.
The real bummer is that I can't get my Korean bank card to work here. It has Cirrus and Maestro written on it, so I had assumed it would work fine. Stupid Korean banks! I should have enough to get me through the rest of the trip. But I will have to be careful and I won't be able to pay my share of the hotel until we get back home. It's not the end of the world, but it adds stress to what should be a relaxing holiday.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Koh Samui to Koh Phangan

Today we got a ferry from Koh Samui to Koh Phangan. We decided to walk from the ferry to our resort, which ended up being quite a trek. On the map it only looked like 2km. But with the hills, twists and turns which the road took it ended up being a hour long uphill hike. Not the worst thing in the world, but not fun when you have a 15kg bag on your back. Anyway, we got to Blue Hills eventually and checked in. The resort is off the main beaches, which means that we don't have to deal with the noise and craziness of the Full Moon Party crowd. The party is in two more days but the town is already filling up and when we visited the beach around midnight there were already a couple of thousand people partying at the bars. It was a real meat market, and I wasn't drunk enough to appreciate it, so I didn't stay long. Besides, I don't really feel the need to party every night I am here. I have traveled a lot but this is the first vacation that I have taken that was all my own and not connected to family somehow. I have discovered that nice beaches, tanning and partying are not enough to keep me interested in my trip. I managed to talk my friends into hiring scooters so we could actually do some exploring. Unfortunately, we only got going in the mid-afternoon. But the scooters are only $6 for 24 hours, so we are going to hang on to them and tomorrow we are going in search of good snorkeling. I like the open-endedness of not planning to much of the trip. But I need more exciting and interesting activities. The best part of today was actually when we watched the sunset from the pool. I will post the pictures I took the next chance I get, but until then you will have to take my word that it was absolutely incredible. The pool virtually sits in the open air, with water filling to the brim and flowing over the edges in a waterfall. It looks out directly over the water and towards Koh Samui in the distance. The sun set over the water while we swam and drank Mango shakes.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

A beautiful day

We arrived on the boat from Surat Thani at a little past 5 am. The boat ride didn't end up being too bad. I always stress out about sea sickness, but I took a motion sickness pill and slept through almost the entire ride. The boat was slow but more enjoyable than I expected. All the passengers were on the upper deck, which had a ceiling that was about 5 feet high. But that was ok because our berths were sleeping mats. We met a few different people and I had a nice chat with a German couple who have been traveling the world for 14 months.
When I woke up the boat was pulling into the dock. There were a number of vehicles which were waiting at the dock. One of them offered to take us to Lemai. Which is one of the more popular areas on Koh Samui. Eight of us got in the pickup truck. Four in the cabin and four in the back, confortably squeezed in with all the backpacks. It was actually a really nice ride, I was in the back with Teal, a Swedish girl and a New Yorker. We all chatted and enjoyed the scenery for the 40 minute ride, which included an island sunrise. The guy dropped us off at a place with cheap beach huts, but we decided to pass since they were nicely situated near some nasty looking standing water. So, instead we walked a kilometer further down the beach until we found a place with better beach huts. It was twice the price of the first place we looked at. But since twice the price only added up to $15 Canadian we didn't feel too hard done by :). I have attached pictures of my private little house on the beach and the view which it gives me.


Since we arrived at 5am, we have traveled across half the island, walked along a beach, checked into a resort, showered (which felt damn good after 27 hours of travel), walked further down the beach to eat breakfast 10 feet from the water, purchased swim short and sat down in and internet cafe. I did all that and it is only 9am as I write this.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

24 Hours to Koh Samui

I am writing this post from a little restaurant on the harbor front of the Thai city of Surat Thani. I just had a dish of chicken curry and a Singha beer. I am sweaty and tired, but I am feeling pretty good. I woke up this morning at 5am. At 5:45 I was out on the street walking towards the airport bus. Our flight from Pusan departed at 8:50 and we arrived in Bangkok 5.5 hours later. Unfortunately we had a 4.5 hour layover in the airport. We arrived in Surat Thani at 6:30pm local time. It turns out that its not much of a city to look at. however, we have decided that instead of getting a hotel room and taking a 2.5 hour ferry ride tommorrow to Koh Samui, we will catch a night ferry at 11pm. Its a sleeper boat which will get us to the island at 5am. I am planning to knock myself out with a couple of sleeping pills and hope that I don't get seasick. Going tonight means we get a full day on Koh Samui.
So, I started my day at 5am and I will arrive at my destination at 5am the next day. Its a 24 hour day of travel (26 with the time difference, but 24 hours has more style!) . Hopefully I will be able to find internet cafe's throughout the trip. So stay posted for frequent updates.