Monday, May 31, 2010

Two Great Weekends.

Ahh, the weather has finally warmed up. While not as awesome as it was last year, this spring it seems has finally taken complete hold. With the weather finally warming up we teachers tend to start doing stupid things outdoors. While most of these things are relatively safe, they are still quite fun. It all began two weeks ago with great beach party. It was organized by yours truly and consisted of about 15 teachers eating and drinking at Mallipo beach.

The day began with everyone loading up into vehicles and driving to Mallipo which is located about 40 kilometers from Seosan. It takes about 45 minutes to drive though because of the speed limit. For the first time I drove my motorcycle out. It was a beautiful day for a ride. The fact that about half the ride was also on a two lane windy road made for a good time. About the only bad thing was the vehicle disinfectant I had to drive through. Korea has been dealing with an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease in cattle recently. One of the preventative measures they are taking is to spray down vehicles when the leave an infected area. Well, I didn't know that I was going to have to drive through one of these "car washes." I guess it also helps that I was behind a delivery truck and couldn't see around it. Needless to say I was not pleased when I realized that I was going to get sprayed.

When we arrived at the beach we checked into our pension (beach house). Our place overlooked two beaches and was quite nice. I quickly set to creating several things that needed some time to cook. The first of those things being 4 pounds of BBQ beef that needed at least 7 hours to cook. The other two things were a selection of drunken watermelon, and drunken pineapple. These needed to soak in alcohol for a few hours to acquire the desired effects. After my cooking prep time we headed down to the beach to bum around for a few hours. We drank, played Frisbee, Wifle Ball, and Football. After that we returned to pension to clean up and eat ourselves merry.

The highlights of the day were honestly the company and the food. The water was too cold to go swimming in. You could only spend about 5 minutes in the water before you were nice and frozen. The food we ate was pretty epic. I attempted, and did a decent job at Salsa Fresca. There was probably about 6 pounds of steak, plenty of corn, grill potatoes, chicken, burgers, cream cheese stuffed peppers, etc. There were also plenty of snacks, and the aforementioned 4 pounds of BBQ beef (I love my crockpot by the way). The company was also wonderful. In general the teachers that I find myself spending time with love this country. We enjoy our time here and while we have frustrations, we wouldn't change much, if anything about our time here. Our conversations were wonderful and the night progressed with people drinking way to much.

The following weekend was another wonderful expedition. However, this time it was not to a beach, but down to Waegwan. David's brother is still stationed with the US Army in Korea. We decided it was about time that 6 of us went down there to visit him. As much as we like Mark (David's brother) and his friends, we really had ulterior motives. We wanted to shot at some army guys. We went down there to paintball. It was also a chance for a roadtrip. We had several people drop out, and those that came from Seosan could all fit into one small vehicle. Given the fact that the two big guys, John and I received the front seats. I drove, only three hours and completely across the country, while the rest talked, napped and had a good time. Upon arrival we sat down for dinner and started drinking. Well let me rephrase that. I started drinking. Everyone else had been drinking the entire time I was driving *quick sidenote, it is completely legal to drink in a vehicle, provided the driver is not drinking*. After dinner we headed out to a few bars to play some pool, darts, and shoot the breeze with people.

The next day, we geared up and headed out to play paintball versus the American soldiers. Well, that was the original. For those that have ever spent time in the military you know what's coming. The paintball was a little bit of a fiasco. While we had reserved the course, the JROTC was using it for most the morning. In typical military fashion, the base, while having a paintball course, all the guns, gear, and paintballs you need, did not have a way to refill the Co2 canisters needed to fire the guns. For that they had to drive 30 minutes to a place in Daegu to fill the canisters. They only had 6 Co2 tanks. The original plan had been to play 6 on 6 teachers versus army. We played several 3 on 3 matches and surprisingly held our own. It helped that guns kept having problems and most the times the problems happened to the army guys. We also did a few one on one matches and a few three on two and two on one matches. In total we made the six canisters last for a few hours of paintballing. Everyone had fun. Everyone got shot, and I even managed to nail Mark between the eyes. It was pretty great.

After paintball we went back to our motels to shower and the headed to Mark's apartment for a BBQ and festivities. The food here was awesome. I had a legitimate home made chilli for the first time in two years. This is something that I've been craving for a while. I would make my own but I don't know if I can get all the beans I need to make it. After eating we drank and had fun for several hours. There was even a cash poker game where I won 70 dollars. I could have had about 200 if I played one hand that I folded out of. Oh well. On Sunday, after a quick shopping spree on base to pick up some essentials, we headed back for Seosan. The drive was just as nice up as it was down and the weekend ended with a contented smile and a few welts from where Frasier lit me up during paintball.

1 comment:

Carissa said...

Sounds like you're having a great time :) I can't believe you're coming up on 2 years...are you headed back to the U.S. this summer, or are you staying on longer?