Best vehicle yet

Look at this beast! LOOK AT IT!! I wish life was like this vehicle. I'll call it a 'trucktor'. There are tons on the southwest coast near Mosulpo, but I spotted this one on the east coast. I can't express how cool this thing is. Here's what I can pick out: tractor engine, old US jeep chassis, Bongo truck bed, old shed for a cab, and bus window for a windshield. Held together with awesomeness.

The Fabulous Shit-Eating Wall

"...famine was so severe that soldiers who were mobilized for the construction ate human excrement."
Cool! I imagine morale on that job site was quite low. 'Hey wake up! We have to eat breakfast and build that wall some more!'

Bringing the scoot home the long way III - Bird Supplement

Temminck's Cormorant, Little Ringed Plover, Siberian Stonechat in a field of Rapeseed flowers. I knew the trip would go well, because a Blue Rock Thrush outside the bike shop told me it would. A Blue Rock Thrush in the middle of a big city is unlikely. It was my spirit guide. He sang me a little song that placed a magic charm on my bike.

Bringing the scoot home the long way II

Bringing the scoot home the long way

Woke up early and bussed it up to JC to bring home my scoot. The tank was bone dry when I picked up, thanks a lot scooter store. The gas station guy seemed concerned that it took me 2 minutes to find the gas hole. I drove from Jeju City to Seogwipo along the eastern coastal road. It took about 5 hours, but that includes stopping frequently to run after birds. Got 2 lifers on this trip, high five. The best stuff was at Hado and Seogsan, big bird hotspots on the east coast. At Hado, I dumped the bike like an idiot. I was pulling up to this bird blind thing onto what looked at a glance to be hard dirt. It was not hard dirt, it was deep mooshy sand. The front wheel went one way, the bike went the other, and suddenly I was doing slow-motion stuntman rolls in the sand and bushes. Thankfully no one saw me do it. I was going slow - a few scratches to the bike, and the left mirror will never be the same, but overall it could have been worse.
Drove past a surreal old fishing town with a wind farm on the outskirts. Eery. My knees were frozen by the end, and it started to rain for the last hour, but all in all, it felt awesome to cruise for the whole day. Heavy metal thunder. Look at me, a 5 hour trip and I think I'm Ted Simon.

Scoot Beaut Riot

So I FINALLY bought a scooter yesterday. Went up into JC early in the morn with J-dogz. Got a little 125CC Daelim white jobby. A real beaut scoot. The helmet is terrible-riffic. I hope it's a case of 'it's so bad it's good', because it's so bad, but it was the only one that fit. It might lead my fellow scooter gang members to give me the biker nickname of 'Speed Racer', or 'Cosmonaut'.
I started a scooter gang. The rule of biker names is that the name should be influenced by your bike, and you can't name yourself. J-dogz is 'Optimus', owing to the flat red grill on his new ride, coupled with his metallic blue full helmet. M-dizzles is 'Basketz', due to the large ugly basket on his little yellow bike. We were originally gonna call ourselves 'The Jeju Soggies Motorcycle Club', but I've just discovered another gang in our area calling themselves 'The Soggy Pirates', so we've got to find a new name. Our arch rivals are 'The Jeju Nass-t's'. We will solve all disputes with choreographed 1950's-style gang fights in back alleys. There will be plenty of synchonized finger snapping.
The reason that I don't have a pic of the bike itself yet is that I was too excited to take a pic yesterday, and the bike itself is still up in JC. I didn't have time to drive it back to the south side, so I'm gonna pick it up on Sunday. I'll take it on a nice long cruise down the scenic east coast. Should take a few hours, as I plan on stopping at the infamous 'Shit-Eating Wall' to take some pictures. Can't wait.

Shake & Slush

What a perfect 'lil cup. Who designed the graphics on this cup? What were they they trying to express? What is the giant mouse doing to that little car? What is the mouse pointing at? Is the cup really small, or do I have really big mitts? What a great cup.

Pig spine, and horse

Are good to eat. The pig spine soup was tasty tasty, and there is a surprising amount of meat on a spine. The horse was gamey, but decent. I've had horse before, by accident, in Belgium. 'Bicky Burger', who knew. Unfortunately, the horse meal, how shall I say this...was at a full gallop on the way out.

Duck & Pork Story

Once upon a time, there was a little duck, and a little pig. I ate them both, they were delicious, the end.

The Screaming truck

I first heard a truck like this on my first morning in Korea, all those dizzying years ago. I had been drifting in and out of a jet-lag opiated sleep, too nervous and excited to really sleep, it having been my first night in exotic Asia and all. Then I heard this sound, and it scared the hell out of me. I ran to window, and saw a truck like this doing circles in the parking lot, its tinny megaphone voice repeating a phrase over and over. I only knew 2 words in Korean, but this is what I could make out: "The red hordes of North Korean shock troops are 3 km away, we are surrounded on 3 sides, swallow your jewelry and bury your kimchi, mass panic, the A bombs are coming.'' It turns out it's a truck selling produce. That bastard used to drive through my parking lot at 6am almost every morning, especially Saturday. Thankfully, I don't have a parking lot on Jeju.

FTW, I'm going fishing

Good times. I bought a cheap fishing vest as a joke (aimed at Koreans and their habit of over-accessorizing for hobbies), but it actually had some great pockets. I'm not used to having so much netting associated with my clothes though. M-dawg caught 2 fish, and no one else caught a damn thing. The first was an ugly little guy with arms instead of fins. You might want to look into that, Mr. Arms - fish aren't supposed to have arms, get it right. Then M-Dawg caught a real looker. He was dying to grab it with his orange robot hand, but it wasn't too grippy. We ate it raw with some hot pepper sauce, pretty good.

It is my pleasure to accept your waste, sir

This happy fellow can teach us all an important life lesson - when life shits on you, smile. Although I guess life actually shits in this guy, and not on him.

Grey-capped Greenfinch

Pretty neat. Doesn't replace the Blue rock Thrush as my new spirit guide though - maybe apprentice spirit guide.

Fawg

'Twas a foggy eve on the soggy side. I like fog. Lately, I like The Smiths. Not much else to report.

Yellow dust from China

Have I mentioned that I hate it?

Chicken Ass

I think this is a chicken ass restaurant. I passed it while rampaging 'round Jeju City on a raucous St.Paddies Saturday. The chicken looks miffed, but he did have his anus removed for consumption, so can you blame him? Here's another sign put up by a chicken ass monger, this one from The Philippines. I've eaten chicken ass, not bad, if you can get past the sphincteriness.

WE ARE JEJU!

Went to Jeju United's home opener against Gwangju on Sunday. Wicked! As might be gathered from the pictures, it was a great excuse to dress up silly and act like a loud moron in public. There are Koreans everwhere who wonder who the idiot behind them in their pictures is. It's me!
My throat hurts from hurling abuse at the ref and other team. The stadium is awesome, and it was a glorious day. Jeju was looking shaky in the first half, but they perked up after 45 and won with an perfect goal in the second half. Good times.

Hunter S. Thompson faked his own death, and is living on Jeju

True dat.

Found out last night that a young Canadian guy on Jeju just died. I met him briefly at frisbee about a month ago. He had a perma-smile, and was super helpful, taking the time to show me a tricky frisbee throw, and was understanding when I kept mixing his name up. We only had a couple of short conversations, but he managed to tell me about his 2 kids and wife, and I could tell he was so proud of them and geninely happy. He got encephelitis all of a sudden, and died on Friday. I was pretty messed up about this last night, and I still am. I can't think of anything to say about it, and my mind is racing. Life is short. Said often but it's true. Quit your jobs, and go do whatever you want to do. Today. Be happy, and carpe diem. Nice meeting you Nathan. There, I got your name right this time.

The Korean Han Solo

Was frozen in carbonite-uh by Jabba the Hut-uh for an outstanding soju tab. He shot first.
The weather's been rainy as a dog on fire lately, which is ok, because I happen to like rain. Brings back memories of being 9 years old and alone in the green woods in an outsized military rain poncho, sitting on a mossy log a few feet back from a path, listening to rain hit my hood for an hour. I like being alone in the woods. That's not wrong, is it?
Had a disturbing dream the other day. I went and got impaired, then got a face tattoo - it was Buddy Holly's glasses, tattooed onto my face. I woke up (in the dream) and was like 'Oh no! How will I hide this from my boss?!'
Maybe this is repressed 'being stared at constantly' feelings bubbling to the unconscious surface. Whatever, nevermind.
Also a had an equally disturbing dream about watching NorkNukes roll in across the Jeju countryside towards me, like a scene from Dr.Strangelove, or Terminator III. Might have been due to my repeated listening to the song 'I Fuck Mountains' by Pink Mountaintops. Ominous and beautiful. Ok, whatever nevermind.

Like an Iraqi go-kart

That is rotting away in the weeds and snow (from January) in a laneway, in a resort city on an island in Korea. Poor little Iraqi go-kart.

Ghost or senility?

I must finally be losing my mind. I walked into the bathroom this morning, and opened up the medicine cabinet. Inside, a bag of pistachios. When did I take the bag out of my 'kitchen' cabinet, walk into the bathroom, open the medicine cabinet, and put in the nuts? Also, why? I'm convinced someone broke into my hovel and is messing with me. Or a ghost did it. Why would I do that?

Rhymes with diarrhea

So E.T. and Elliot are flying formation with some of Santa's reindeer, on the window of a crappy Korean fast food place, Lotteria, in March. No promotion, no explanation, just 'here it is'. Way to impress me! By the way, never eat anywhere that rhymes with 'diarrhea'.

W.T.F.

Someone thought this was a good idea.