Life's a Binch

Creepy abandonned school

  2-Gu village has seen better days.  The abandonned school there was by far creepier than anything I've seen in a movie.  I'll try to get better pics next time, as there was a creepy old guy there chopping dirt with an axe that dissuaded me from nosing around properly.  Creepy creepy creepy.

Creepy abandonned house on creepy ghost coast

I swear I heard a baby goat bleating my name from high in the hills, it was creepy.  This coastal valley in 2-Gu was creepy as.  My spidey sense was a'tinglin.  Then I discovered an old house right on the cliff filled with abandonned kid's toys and fur coats.  The floorboards were rotted and barely held my weight.  Insanely creepy.
  In other news there's a stray dog problem on Gageo.  The trick is knowing which dogs to pretend to throw rocks at and unfortunately which ones to actually throw rocks towards before they bite you.

Chillin with the Gageo locals

I estimate to be there to be 100-200 people living on this island, 1/3 of the way to Shanghai.  'Inner depth' is how one person recently described the character of the crusty islanders. 'Rugged individualists' is also apt.  Most locals glared at me for a week as I wandered up and down the one road in town looking for birds(they don't see too many foreigners on this pumpkin seed). 
  But after a week, I guess I'm an islander, because a few days ago my birding buddy Robin (great birder name) and I were 'invited' (kidnapped) over to this big bruiser's house.  I get the feeling he's king shit around here.  So his house was a genuinely old style Korean house, like eating in a museum.  Incidentally I took a picture of his awesone blue and red front door last week.  He watched us eat with this menacing look on his menacing face at first, I guess just making sure that foreigners eat like regular folk.  Then the alcohol came out, and we were best buds.  He dragged out a giant bottle of wood liquor (looks like his wife is trapped in it like a genie in the picture), and I noticed that his teenage son looked mortified that his dad subjected the visiting foreign dignitaries to this.
  Blogging on my phone is weird. Okay I'm exhausted I'm going to bed.  Ten hours a day of birding will do that to you.
  Oh, the oldest man ever gave us makkeolli (chunky fizzy rice wine stuff)the other day as well, it was good.  It was in 2-Gu village, population 7.

Gageo randoms

Gageo eats

Granny makes a decent 'shiksa' platter, can't complain.  In any case, better than my brekkie (granola bar and coffee) or lunch (tuna and crackers with Coke.) That, coupled with chasing birds around in the sun for ten hours a day could be sold as a very effective Gageo diet plan.  There is a fish scale stuck in my teeth.
  Speaking of Coke, I just thought of a new slogan for them: 'Coke: for people that are tired and thirsty at the same time.'
  The granola bars are from a horde I brought from the mainland.
  I'm tired and I like birds.  I'm tired because I like birds.
 

Gageo Island

Is super cool.  More soon. 

It's time...

...to go.

You are square

You are here.  I will be!  I packed last night.  Next stop: Gageo Island, birding jewel of the Yellow Sea.  Via Ottawa.  Then Montreal.  Then Vancouver.  Then Seoul.  Then Jeppuh's couch.  Then Mokpo.  THEN GAGEO!  GAGEO GAGEO GAGEO!
  Then...then...then...

Tons more snow

 

 Personally, I like snow.  I'm tired.