well, my friends had planned to go stay in a pension in cheolwon and they invited me. as usual, i didnt have plans for anything else so i went along. we met up at the club/bar they hang out in and headed up from there. i didnt know at the time, but the group was at least 20 people. i knew maybe 3 or 4 and had briefly met a fair amount of the others. so that was kinda strange. after a pretty long, entertaining trip we made it. looking back at it, that trip was a good thing. helped me to kinda get aquainted with some of the people i hadnt met. and those guys also turned out to be the people i hang with most now. crazy how that works, eh?
once we got there we did a little bbqing and drinking. exchanging 'little' for 'a lot' would probably be a little more appropriate, but whatever. the owners even had a karaoke thing. im not much for the karaoke. usually i just stick to loud, off-key singing with rock band in my own home. but even i jumped in there. it was a good time.
staying in the house for the 3days/2 nights wasnt something anybody wanted to do so we had to get out a bit to kill time. we also had to get out for food. some of us have strict/special diets and the food available wasnt going to do it. during the time up there i found myself rafting, taking a trip to the dmz, the peace observatory, and a few other random places. when they first brought up the rafting, naturally, i was against it. the black guy stereotypes are hit and miss with me, but thats one of them i have. no on the water. ironically our boat ended up being headed by myself and another black guy. every time i got wet part of me was like 'dammit!'
overall though, i had an awesome time. minus the extra-cold shower...it was a nice change from the normal pace. sitting in my room waiting on the weekend to be over sucks. its about as exciting as it sounds. and it sounds pretty terrible. finally korea is starting to not be fully terrible. overall though i still say this place isnt for me, but having some pretty all right people around is pretty all right.
here are some pics
originally, the blog was going to stop here, but because i waited so long i have stuff to add. in addition to a handful of good times, ive had some that werent so good. sleeping outside behind buildings, not knowing how to use the heat in the winter, stuff like that...well two weekends ago was another one of those times. so i went out to hang with my new friends from pension weekend and things were a bit sketchy. the plan was simple: meet at some subway station at 6, go to a party nearby, be there, go home eventually. youve probably picked up by now that this plan didnt go so smoothly.
earlier in the day i went up to where some friends of mine live to hang out with one of them. there was a bit of miscommunication so things didnt work, but i was already there. no big deal figured id meet up with my other friends.
after waiting for the mexican, who was late, we got on our way to the meeting spot. once we got there, it was dropped on us that the party wasnt there and was in some place up north. the thing about this is that we traveled for like an hour south to get to the meeting spot. and the place we were going was north of the place we came from. make sense? no, it doesnt. but thats how it worked. so we eventually get to the place and had to find food. i hate finding food in korea. its quite the hassle for me.
so we do that which resulted in me walking around the city to find somewhere that suited me. so did that. re-met up and walked to the party which was going to be a 'cafe party'. what is that? we didnt know...and we didnt find out. we got there and it turned out to be a 'casino party'. still strange to me. basically it was a party with some casino game tables setup and stuff. i guess its a korean thing? or maybe i just dont get out enough. neither is very far-fetched.
the party was a bit...different. i met a korean girl there which was a bit unexpected. so we'll see how that goes...im sure itll take the normal route for me. anyways, it started to get late and we kinda needed to get going so we could all catch subways home. but we ended up staying because the point of the party (we didnt know this) was for the guy to propose to his chickfriend. it was a pretty terrible event and they spelled marry with an e. why they didnt do it in korean is beyond me. how they had so many people involved and still didnt get it right...thats beyond me too.
around this time i started to realize i wasnt going to make it back. not by any normal means anyway. so i decided to go off to itawon with a friend of mine and hang out. i assumed i would get a room at yongsan army post and leave in the morning. again, a simple plan that just didnt work.
we ended up staying out until 4 and got hungry. we told our friends we needed to grab food and would be right back. so we go get the food, eat, come back and of course theyre gone. the club was also closed. yeah. take that all in...
so here it is 4:15am we're in itawon with nowhere to go and nothing to do. the subways stopped around 12. taxi's were out of the question. getting on post wasnt an option either. so basically we had to kill time until 530 when the subways started again. so we went off to a place where you use the internet and whatever. kinda like an internet cafe with (pc) games and stuff too. the internet is pretty boring usually. even more so with no one to talk to...either way, eventually it was go time and we headed out. and just when i thought the light at the end of the tunnel was near, it was taken away. the stop i needed was coming up next, so i stand up and get ready to put the night/morning behind me. well, the subway didnt stop. for some reason the stop i needed wasnt a stop it was going to make. so it passes by and i get off and wait for a subway to go back and hope that one stops. usually its like a 5-10 minute wait...not today. of course, not today. this was like 20-30...so yeah, i did eventually make it back and then when i did, i didnt even get straight to sleep. i talked to mike about the fagging i just too in. then i helped team us chris garcia of team us with getting his sampler out. he needed some techish stuff to happen so thats where i come in. theres a link to the sampler down below.
so yeah, a good is often balanced out with a bad. usually its not a 1:1 ratio. its like 1:5 or something. but one down, four to go...
-_-
http://videos.teamus.us/team us/preinjury.divx
