Bike trip to Namhae - the week that turned into a day

'Town of Health and Welfare'

Old school GPS

Namhae

German Village - truckloads of half-dead tourists

The hills are alive with the sound of kimchi

A book.  Got 100 pages read on the beach waiting for the sun to rise

Hotel owner spraying DDT on everything

Ow, fucking ow.

A sticky tree frog I played with

Meat

The sun's merciful rise

Our beach - my tent is the little yellow sweltering one in the background

A new classic?

This is what getting lost looks like

  So Amadeus had an epic bike trip planned for the summer break, which was to see a bunch of us spending a week driving out to Namhae, Yeosu, and Boseong.  Plans to leave on Saturday were delayed, and I ended up heading out on Monday.  Wisely, I departed on a 2.5 hour drive in 35 degree heat when the sun was at its most brutal, and I payed the price.  My mercilessly burned-up arms and legs look like they were tacked on.  It's silly-looking, I tell you.
  Namhae was pretty cool I guess, but the vaunted 'German Village' there was pretty lame.  The backstory is that Korean women working in Germany in the 60's-80's came back to Korea with their German Herrs, and Korea was kind enough to build them a tacky German-style town so that they'd feel at home, as clots of tourists take pictures of their front doors all day.  Weak!
  Anyhow, we set up at a beach and cooked meat.  Then I climbed into my sweltering tent, meekly cowered from determined mosquitoes, shifted uncomfortably every three seconds because my immolated limbs were itchy from third-degree burn, and proceeded to count down the five hours until dawn, so I could get the fuck out of there.  Don't get me wrong, I used to like camping, but all burned limbs and no sleep make me a cranky boy.  I'm sure Amadeus will lament that 'Pat Moll is lame, he got a sunburn and fucked off home', and maybe he's right.  But the allure of sweet sweet aloe gel, aircon, sleep, and a shower was pretty hard to refuse.  In my defence, my legs are so burned up that I can barely stand, and the need to wear a long-sleeve shirt and pants in 35 degree weather meant I was useless.   Useless I say.
  On the subject of useless, these days I really can't seem to do anything right.  I usually try to keep my head down and sneak under life's radar, but for the last month or so almost everything I touch turns to shit.  Cosmic retribution for the misdeeds of a past life, no doubt.  Time to look into becoming a monk, I suppose.
  The three hour drive back (got lost more than usual) was interesting, as I had to keep biting my lip to avoid from zoning out from lack of sleep.  I love my motorcycle.  She's so good to me.
  Ah, I heard a Scops Owl and a Jungle Nightjar calling all night, but was unable to spot them.  I did get good pics of a Eurasian Jay feeding its young.  Birds!  I'm trying to get excited about them again.

Recycling robots in Korea

Recycled thumb

Why?  Why?  Why was I programmed to feel pain?

  Bottles...bags...toilet seats...robots.  Robots!  In South Korea, we recycle robots.  There are literally dozens of jokes to make here.
  Slow month, innit?  It's about to pick up, been slacking, slack-jawed, plotting, and all the good stuff.  Rants a-boilin.  Expect.

When I Drink - Avett Brothers

-Last weekend I behaved like a dog that doesn't wag its tail.
-I saw a flat little dead mouse drying out after a rain, and it looked like a pathetic little spent teabag.
-Embarrassing admission: Sometimes I drive so fast on the sidewalk that I have to change gears.  
-A fly landed on a urinal I was patronizing the other day and looked at me all sneaky-like, rubbing its little front hands together and rotating its eye-cluster accusingly.  
-I finally solved the mystery of my daily out-of-whack rearview mirrors - clots of middle school girls checking their greasy bangs.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tV8zSsMFSo

THE KOREA OF MAP

  Boing!  I like turtles.

KIDS LOVE BEEF

River- swollen and coffeed

  BEEF!  Yeahhhh beef!
  Rainy season is here, but it feels mega different from last year.  Last year at this time, I was blissfully unemployed on Jeju, hitting up Jungmun Beach with 2 talls and a small when it was sunny, or reading and drinking wine on the roof when it wasn't.  I was taking a little fuzzy dog on grand adventures.  This rainy season here on Geoje feels, I dunno, less magical.  Yeah, I just wrote that.  It just feels rainy and humid.  Period.  People always ask me about Jeju, and I tell them it was 'magical'.  Magic!  The grass in the past, greener I guess.  Always.
  Life though, feels immeasurably more...happy most of the time.  What has become of me?

Expo 2012 Yeosu - Cheesy shitshow for the world!

World Expo...2010?

Korean clustercuss

Crashed-out Koreans

Best band ever

Robot hammerheads from France!  Cool.

Ocean future station thing, from France

Worst robot band ever, from France

Argentinians doing the dirty tango - I doubt if the little Korean kids in the front row were ready to see so much vagina.

Forest of fake trees

Step AWAY from the ocean!

Angry Koreans queuing for four hours to watch Samsung propaganda 

Look look!  I'm shitting in a bag, like a horse!

Drinking too much Pisco in Peru, while people look at a squid

Softcore porn proudly on display at the Nigerian pavilion  

Israel's pavilion was a giant chill room where ravers come down off ecstasy 

Sweet sweet Lithuanian beer

   I recently bussed it into Yeosu to check out the Expo.  "The living ocean and coast" is the theme. In other news, South Korea just announced it will resume commercial 'scientific' whaling.  Korea!
  So in spite of the ocean theme and harbor-front location, we were told by some wiener with a nametag it was fobidden to stand next to the actual ocean.  Too dangerous.  Korea!
  The whole thing was the cheesy shitshow I knew it would be.  But you can make anything fun, with silliness and a pint.  We bounced between international pavilions, sampling a varied array of food and drink.  Mostly drink.  The booths were staffed by actual folks from the various countries, but they all looked drained, dead-eyed, and bitchy.  Except the Lithuanian bar-tendress who winked at me, haha.
  The whole thing cost like 3 billion dollars.  Discuss.

Rice Burger

  Back in the real world, eating convenience store sandwiches used to be a pretty good sign that I was stupid drunk.  In Korea, I wouldn't fucking eat a slimy convenience store sandwich if you put a big gun in my mouth.  Piles of convenience store triangle kimbaps, maybe, but not an asscrack-sando.
  Hey look, here's a hamburger with a bun made out of rice!  How different!  How funny!  How silly!  I dub this treat the 'Shit Burger'.  You call this a HAMBURGER?  Hey hey, listen to this: Killdozer - Hamburger Martyr

Critters, randomly

  Dragonflies...yucky dried fish...swallowtail butterflies (jebinabi)...run-fast small-leg squint-dogs...and lumpy beetle creatures that fuck.  That's the kind of month it's been.
  It's getting hot and humid.  'I want to fucking die and my ballsack is stuck to my leg' hot and humid.  I picked some mint in a park the other day.

Chicken mannnnn, where you gon park yo truck tonight?

Pork slab I split with Cobain way back in Feb...

Spin, you delicious bastards!

  I love the chicken man.  He sells delicious roast chooks at ridiculously low low prices - 5$ for one, or 9$ for two.  Problem is, he parks at random spots every night, so I only end up finding him a few times a month.  Even if I've got food for dinner, I buy a chicken every time I see him.  They're that good.  He does pork slabs as well.  I've started to write a bluegrass song about him.  "Chicken man, chicken mannnnn, where you gon park yo truck tonight?"  It's a good song.