Spring in February?

Last year's winter was miserable. Bitterly cold for weeks on end, where being outside hurt your face and temperatures rarely got above 5 degrees, with nights WELL below freezing.

I was miserable and dreading this winter.

So I have been happy that it has been relatively mild. Sure January had a few days where going outside was a chore, but from Christmas until now there have only been 5-6 days of bitterly cold, -10 and windy type weather. Now, on February 24th I have my window open. Last year at this time it was snowing.

Granted it is still getting down to freezing overnight, but daytime highs this week are expected to hit 12-16. That is almost a month ahead of schedule. While spring in Korea is up and down (I have argued it doesn't really exist) I doubt there will be many more nights of -10, if any at all.

In fact, this has been the most mild winter I have ever had in Korea. Given that it may be my last (certainly 2nd to last), I am very happy with it. Bring on spring.

Bye Will

On Thursday night I went up to give Will a small sendoff. His company, which sounds like just about the worst company one could imagine working for, had him moving out of his place BEFORE his last day of work and flying out 12 hours after finishing (finish at 9pm, 9am flight to Atlanta). Thus he was in his coworker Sean's place, having a last Cass. Sean is also a good guy and is leaving two weeks after Will, so both were talking about how happy they will be to be away from their job and manager, who does sound insane. Their stories really do make me appreciate the job I have now.

Anyway, around midnight we got his stuff down to a cab and sent him off to Dong Daegu and Atlanta.

He is home for a few months, doing his CELTA before returning to Asia in Vietnam. With Ange in Cambodia a visit to SE Asia this year or early next suddenly seems like a real possibility. For now though, I will miss having a good friend in the neighbourhood.

My Favourite Beer Mart Closed for a Month

I was at Beer Tunnel, my local beer mart, last night when the old guy who runs it told us they will be closing for a month. Apparently there were minors in there one night and the police found out about it and that is the fine. I was actually a bit surprised as

1- Korean police did something.

2- The old guy wasn't checking ID's.

3- Anyone cares that they were underage.

He is actually a really cool older guy and in Korea underage drinking is not common (kids aren't given the freedom to stay out like that) so my guess is it didn't occur to him or the staff to check ID's at all.......the legal age is 19 though so it could be they were college kids as well, with someone who showed ID (that would work here).

Also, bar rules are often lax, bouncers are unheard of except at GI bars, and I am sure the 18 year old's just walked in and opened a beer (which you can take yourself from the fridge). He was honest and seemed genuinely embarrassed about it. I do wonder what it will look like when he reopens.

I feel bad for him as he really is a nice guy, and a month of no income must hurt, but I guess he'll have to adapt to a quickly changing Korea or be left behind.

Also means no Beer Tunnel til April..........

Seoul For Will's Last Weekend

This past weekend I went up to Seoul to meet with Andrew, my academic adviser, and give Will a last weekend in Seoul.

I went up with Will in the morning and then left to meet Mike, Jon and Andrew for our discussion/school stuff. Productive and interesting. Later we met with Will and others for dinner and drinks in Hongdae, the more student oriented version of Gangnam. I ducked out with Bobby around 230, as we had both been up since seven and were not really drinking hard or planning to stay out til dawn.

We got up early the next day and went around the Yonsei University Campus, a neat university with a relatively long history. I then jumped a cab and took the KTX home.

I have been to Hongdae previously and always enjoy it. Less upscale and trendy than Gangnam and less of a gutter than Itaewon (though these days Itaewon is more touristy and a shadow of its former self, as great or horrible as it may have been). I think everyone else had a good time too. I know Will works for a less than amazing company so we all thought it was important to have a great last weekend in Korea before a LONG last week with his company, which it has certainly turned out to be. But I'll save that for a later blog.

On the whole another great 24 hours in Seoul, I hope to head back again towards the end of March.

Getting Old

Well today is my 32nd birthday. Not a big year, nor an old year really. In fact I had completely forgotten about it until Friday when I got an email from my Mom. My actual birthday is being spent skyping and having a large Filipino birthday feast cooked for me. Perfect.

So how is 32 shaping up? Well I think it will be a bit of a plateau actually. I am over a year away from finishing my MA and getting my CELTA, which in turn will have me moving on from Korea. It will be a year spent paying for school, paying off debt and saving. Not that those are bad things, but it is a little less exciting than, say, six months in Thailand.

But it is also shaping up to be a great year. I have found a career that I am passionate about and, with the correct training/degrees, will be a profitable and rewarding one as well. Not that my life now is just killing time til 2015. I have a great job now, Moonkkang is hardly a bad place to work and I do plan to work a third year there if they can/are willing to keep me on. In a great relationship (where do you think that feast is coming from), healthy, good friends. Really with a bit more in my savings account I'll be 100%.

However I don't see any big trips or holidays this year, simply because I can't afford school and travel. I was thinking about Vietnam/Cambodia in the fall, but only if the friends I have there are willing to put me up, otherwise it may be a quieter year.  I would also like to get home this year for a while, just a couple weeks to visit friends and family and get a good Pacific Northwest micro brew. We will see how it turns out.

I said to my Mom around Christmas that 2014 is sort of a preparation year for the massive changes in 2015, when I do plan to move on from Korea and graduate from Birmingham. I'll be 33 with an MA and a CELTA and looking for work at Uni's and with the British Council. 32 and 2014 are when I have to do the legwork for that. Still, I am 32 and the best, most adventurous and most rewarding years are still to come. I am actually very excited for the next five years of my life. How many people can say that?

Crazy Weather

The transition from winter to spring in Korea is always strange. Unlike the other seasons, where you wake up one day to find it 10 degrees warmer or colder, spring transition seems so long and is so drawn out that I would go so far as to say that Korea doesn't have a spring at all. From February to April weather fluctuates so much that you may be in a light sweater on Monday and your winter parka by Wednesday. This seems to pan out in May where it is firmly summer weather (though Koreans say that summer begins in June, but 26 and sunny everyday feels like summer to me).

This is especially true this week, where Daegu hit a high of 18 degrees on Saturday, February 1st. By Tuesday, February 4th, it was a high of zero and a low of -10. It is supposed to be around 8-10 by Friday.

Those sorts of changes will continue (while slowly getting warmer) for the next three months until you have a 4-22 range in April.

As to the other seasons?

May-September is 24-38, with July and August being downright tropical (35 and 65% humidity). Then one day in early October you wake up to 15, and it really does happen overnight. Then one day in early December you wake up to zero, again like someone flicked a switch. That usually lasts until February before the temperature slowly starts to rise again (though maybe a bit earlier this year?).

With an especially mild winter this year I am hoping the push to warm weather will begin a bit sooner, but we will see.

Daejeon's O-World

On Friday Yen and I decided to visit O-World, an amusement park/zoo/botanical garden just south of Daejeon. I had been wanting to visit it for sometime, and with the unseasonably warm weather we opted to head up.

The quick KTX ride and a taxi later we were there.

At the Main Entrance

Also at the main Entrance

The only Giraffe we saw

A Meerkat

Those cats get very close to the tourists

 

a good spot to rest

Flower land, with no flowers

the kids area

Penguins!

Daejeon near Jungang no

The main amusement park "Joyland", was mostly rides for kids and we skipped it to head to the zoo.

The zoo, named "Zooland", was actually two parts. One was the part covered in our admission, while the second was a Jungle Safari..... for an extra 17,000 won each. Not that seeing an elephant or giraffe would not have been cool, but I have seen them before, and not at that price.

The rest of the zoo was okay, with some monkeys, wild cats, bears and penguins. It was certainly not to the standards of other zoo's around the world (or even Seoul Zoo) but it was fun for an hour or so. The Penguins were especially cute, as were the monkeys.

"Flowerland" was basically shut down, fair enough given the season.

It was a fun place to see and a check off my ever shrinking Korean bucket list, but I don't think I would ever go back. With KTX and admission it was $40 per person and it isn't exactly easy to get to either, necessitating a $12 cab ride or a LOOOONG bus ride. However I had a great day and I hope to do more daytrips like that as the weather improves.