Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Chilgok

This was started last June

As most friends and family know, I have come back to Daegu for the spring to cover a shift at my old company Moonkkang. To be honest, I was not especially excited about coming back, as I had hoped that my MA signalled the end of my hagwon life. However, things have ended up working out for the best. I got a job with a Canadian college in Nanning, in China. I also have had an opportunity to help out my old company and see a part of Daegu that I have never been to in all the years I have been to, Chilgok.

Chilgok is in the far northwest of the city, as opposed to Seongseo and Sangin which are both in the southwest, and where I have spent my entire time here in Daegu. Living here has given me a chance to ride the monorail, as it was built to service Chilgok. The neighbourhood is mostly made up of families who work at the factories and refineries in neighbouring Gyeongsan-buk do, but who live in Daegu to take advantage of the education system and amenities the city affords them. It is a nice, if small neighbourhood that is also directly under the main air traffic route from Daegu airport and the air force base to the rest of Korea. Many low flying planes. There is also a nice park, a decent ddokkbokki place, and a couple of nice pubs (hofs), including a makgeolli place just around the corner from my house.

The downside of this area is that it is FAR from virtually everywhere else in Daegu, and will run 15,000 won to get anywhere in the city. Because of that I only go out to see Zeke downtown, or visit Yen's old friends at the best Chicken bar on the planet, Chickn: the Home, or meet to go to Anjirang for gopchang, Daegu's delicacy and the dish I will truly miss come July. Otherwise I play Travian with Paul online and just try to kill time until I head to Manila at the end of July.

I know that within a year of leaving I will be very nostalgic for Daegu, but for now I am just ready for the next phase of my life (Nov 2016 - already get nostalgic regularly).

Anyway, here are a few pictures:

Daegu Chicken.
NOT the greatest Chicken bar in Daegu

Chilgok

park by my apartment

Anjirang.
Greatest BBQ street on earth.

Janggidong

Giant church in Chilgok

the monorail station near my place

the tracks



Getting Back to isteacher

Sorry to be spamming the blogs, but I've been putting these together for a while. I'm trying to get back in to writing this blog. I have about 20 half done blogs going back to my time in Daegu earlier this year.

To be honest, when I was in Daegu I didn't have much interest in writing. I had gone back to my old job to cover a vacancy for four months. I had really thought to be past doing cram schools and was not thrilled to be there. Not that I have anything but good things to say about Moonkkang, but as I have said a few times, it was well past time to move on. I think being somewhere I didn't want to be, and really doing very little while there, left me with very little to write about. I was working on a blog on the neighbourhood I was in in Daegu. It is almost done. I should just finish it and post it. But because of that doing this felt a bit like a chore.

Now in Nanning I am starting to get the urge to start up again. Maybe not the 15 a month I did back in Daegu in 2011. To be honest I am too busy to do that, and I don't do all that much. Mon-Sat I am working either at the university or at home. I may write a bit about my classes, but I want to leave work, the good and the bad, off of here. For the most part it is good, and any issues I have a better discussed somewhere more professional than here. That means that it is mostly weekends, where I explore a bit and do a few things, but really except for big trip such as meeting Will in Macau a couple weeks ago, I don't go far.

I' going to finish up a few I have started this year, so I may just have a huge dump of them for 2016 in Nov-Dec. After that I'll see how busy I am.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Not Seeing Much of China

Admittedly I have only been here three months, but it is looking increasingly like I will not see anything of PR China beyond Nanning this year, and not much next year. It isn't that I don't want to, but right now Shanghai and up is getting cold. Beijing has a daytime high of 1 degree today. I do have a serious winter coat, in storage in the Philippines. I could get it this winter, and I probably will, but even with it going that far north sucks when it is cold.

Also, both of my vacations will be spent at least partially in the Philippines. Yen and I have a bit more paperwork to do before she can get a visa and we can get ready for August. This year has been miserable in that respect, with us getting a total of about 7 weeks together all year. That is not something I want to repeat in 2017, so I will be in Manila as long as it takes to get it done.... and not a second longer.

In August we will be back in Cebu, which I was previously in last October. This time however we are going there to get married. We are hammering out details, but should be first week of August, after my academic year is finished.

While that is all exciting, it does mean that, Guangzhou aside, I will not see any of the PRC for at least the first year I am here. I mean being the size of the US it isn't like Korea where I can slip off to Busan for the weekend. Beijing is a 4 hour flight. But there are still a few places I would really like to see here, obviously. I would also like to do it with Yen, so when we are settled in here that will be a better time to go anyway.

For now it is busy days in Nanning.

Nanning Weather

So I have been here since September, and with the exception of a few days around the beginning of November the weather has been consistently tropical. 22-33 and humid. However, I have been told again and again that there is a winter of sorts this far north. Indeed, today I woke up to 15 degrees, with a high of 17 this afternoon. I am sure people back in Vancouver or Daegu would laugh at the idea of that being cold, but I have not felt anything under 20 since last April. It will get down to the low teens during the day in December and January, and apparently last year it got below 10 degrees overnight, but apparently that is not normal. However, the humidity makes it seem colder than it is. But being from Vancouver, a relatively warm but humid winter is not that unusual. It actually reminds me a lot of Hanoi last Christmas, and I guess we are on a similar latitude so..........

In any event, may have to drag my hoodie out of storage.


Sunday, November 13, 2016

Macau

Last weekend I decided to take a weekend trip out of Nanning to visit my buddy Will, who was in Macau for the weekend before going on to Hong Kong and Taiwan for a 3 week "non-PRC China" trip. We had talked about where he was going a few months ago, and I said that if he did the non PRC China idea I'd try to meet him in HK or Macau. Well it turns out that HK is about 5.5 hours away on the train or a surprisingly expensive flight, but Macau is a VERY cheap flight and direct from Nanning. Leave Fri at 7, get home Sunday at 8. Perfect. Will and I met back in Daegu and hung out on his last night in Korea as a teacher. We've always stayed in touch, actually catching up on his return visit to Daegu in 2015 and again when I was in Vietnam doing my CELTA and spent NYE together with Yen and a few other friends.

We do skype, but it is always good to actually hang out in person, so I decided to head to Macau and hang out. Will had booked a place on airbnb with an extra bed, so that was perfect. I had previously been to Macau in 2013 but was only there for the day and only got a glimpse of it. So it was great to spend more time there.

I got the airport shuttle bus from Nanning train station and got to WuXu airport..... very early. After killing some time I checked in to air Macau and was on my way. I told Will to meet in front of the Hotel Lisboa, so we met there around 930 pm and quickly went to go eat.

meet me under this thing.

across from this thing.

Being that it was relatively late, we opted to head in to the Hotel Lisboa, which looks like something out of an old Roger Moore James Bond film, to grab a Macau beer and catch up. We then went to a Cantonese place for some of the best Sweet and sour pork I've ever had. Then it was off to bed.

The next day we got up early and headed out for coffee and breakfast across from the ruins of St. Paul.

view with morning coffee

The area around it has retained a lot of the old Portuguese buildings and even the cobblestone streets. It is like a bit of the Mediterranean in southeast Asia. After a look at the ruins we headed to the lighthouse park in the central part of the peninsula. It was a hot day despite it supposedly being winter, so we stopped to enjoy the view and breeze. After a full day of walking we managed to cover most of the peninsula and the old Portuguese sights and decided to head to Macau Tower for sunset, and have a couple of Asahi's. I had been up the Macau tower before, but forgot that the best views were on the second floor, so we wasted a bit too much time on the first one, but it was still fun. 

late in the day

after the sun goes down

We then headed out near the peninsula casinos for Chinese food, including the spiciest dish I have ever had, and a few Macau beers.

The next day we decided to head south to the Venetian and the Coloane area. I had never actually been to this area, and if certainly had more of a Las Vegas feel than the area around the Lisboa did. Inside we found an Irish pub owned and operated entirely by Filipinos who were showing the Pacquiao fight. We had burgers and ciders there before I had to run to get my flight back to Nanning.

It was great to learn that Macau is just a short hop from Nanning, and a cheap one too. It is a very cool city, and being so small it is easy to explore.