off for summer break to ulleung island

leave a cold one in the icebox for me...

off to the east sea to see what the furor over independence island between korean and japan is about.

or, could it be that i'm going to research rumours that these (ulleung island (울릉도} and independence island {독도}) possess the type of water critical to a can of cass beer's claim that it "provides ultimate refreshment" with a "fizzy and crisp taste"?

be back next week, when the calendar has dropped its julius guise for the guise of the more daft of the caesars--augustus...

p.s. just after writing this, i learned that the "dok" (독) in "dok do" (독도) does not mean independence, but means, instead, isolated or remote. something to do with how it is written in chinese characters. so, instead of going to independence island, we'll be going to solitary isle (as its really too small to be considered a full-fledged island)...

odd weather, typical abuse of authority

another weekend at anmok...

part of the conditioning of the DNA of one's having spent so much of his or her life at the beach is that one appreciates the beach and will go to the beach in all sorts of weather: sunny, cloudy, clear, stormy, hot, cool, humid, snowy, freezing. it's the beach, for fuck's sakes. having marveled at how so many in our circle of friends either didn’t make it to last weekend’s south-seas-esque beauty fest--or made it only at late hours of the afternoon--we didn’t expect to see many people this past weekend at anmok beach.

as you can see above, this past weekend’s water was not as spectacular-looking compared to last weekend, but that doesn’t mean that the water wasn’t any less clear. it was, in fact, clear enough to see more than two meters below the water surface; however, from out of the water, up on the beach, without the sun to illuminate the water in such tourist-guide types of hues, the sea looks rather dreary and dully coloured. furthermore, the water temperature was, as a result of last weekend's desultory heat, noticeably warmer.

and we were right: not many showed up at this past weekend’s edition of anmok beach. however, i’m beginning to believe the reason they don’t show up is not because they’re not beachgoers like me (well, they really aren’t, in all reality), but because they allow such things as tiredness, drunkenness from the night before, or the steady jackhammer of all things hungover from said night before to interfere with their analysis of that which is beautiful and natural. i mean, think about it—in which locale would you like to nurse your hangover and/or leftover drunkenness: the muggy confines of your flat, tucked cowardly under the covers or in the glory of sun, sand, and surf? unless you hail from the north of siberia, greenland, or the middle of the world’s deserts, it should be an easy choice.

nonetheless, i’m not here to offend those who can’t mix their hangovers and their time at the beach nursing said hangovers back to drunkenness; i’m here to pass along another in the long line of abuses of authority for their lack of nothing better to do.

the weekend previous, the one with the beautifully-coloured scenes, saw the temps hovering around 35 degrees Celsius with a good degree of humidity. this past weekend, however, was odd: the temps were only in the high 20s, though the humidity was akin to that inside a gorilla’s vagina. such humidity isn’t odd in korea, though perhaps in a gorilla (and i've no concrete proof of that) but july daytime temps of only the high 20s are as unusual as a conciliatory apology from an american president.

a peculiar thing about korean beaches—at the same time as infuriating as it is comical—is the fact that beachgoers have to pay (around US$10) for the privilege of placing their common asses on the sand to see what it is that nature intended for living creatures to appreciate (to the degree that they are capable). it is a source of embarrassment for a country like korea to have to believe that this is necessary, and it places them in the top 10 of nations deemed laughingstocks of the world. at anmok, there is a 50-meter space where the common citizen doesn’t have to pay homage to the powers that be, but that’s it: on the rest of the beach, one must pay or be hassled and often forced to move.

after having sat in one of the pay-per-sit places during the already numerously-referenced weekend of pulchritude (though we didn’t have to pay, as all of us, including my wife, just feigned ignorance at the obvious urgings by the beach authorities for us either to pay or leave), we decided to sit in our familiar spot from the summer of ’04. so, there we sat, my wife reading a humour magazine and I trying to find meaning in the bottom of a 9-pack of CASS. we marveled at the clarity of the water in the breaking waves regardless of the hues in this week's water, ate some processed sandwiches from the local convenience store, and wondered incredulously at how a trio of middle school vixens, with a whole beach in which to place their gawky asses, decided that mere centimeters to the right of me and my heavily-guarded icebox was the best spot on the beach. soon enough, after negotiating my way through maze of increasingly-empty beer cans, i was able to tune them out and focus my attention to a group of men, at a more respectable distance to our left, who were in the midst of an amazing act of clam-digging.

The weekend before, we had gone clam digging ourselves, but we had done it the old-fashioned way: diving down and scooping up handfuls of seafloor silt and then filtering through it until we were left with nothing but clams in our palms. The four of us (penny, seung-hee, ryan, and i) probably latched on to upwards of 150 of the little suckers, which we will get around to eating at a later date. These men, however, were engaged in a different manner of digging up the clams, though I’m not sure it was altogether more efficient.

They had, attached to a rope, a device that resembled the mouth of a robot, should a robot have a mouth built specifically for being dragged across the seafloor in order to pick up clams. The contraption was cubically rectangular, had wire mesh that acted to filter out the sand while retaining the booty, and had a gaping mouth on one end to which both the lower and upper jaw had a row of jutting teeth in which to dig itself deeper into the seafloor. One of the gentlemen would hurl the robot’s mouth as far out as the rope would allow, perhaps 20 meters, and then a group of as few as two but as many as four—depending on the size of said mouth, and they had two: a small one and a large one—would work together to pull the sucker in. if it sounds like overkill to have so many men pulling on a small apparatus like this, one must consider that pulling through 20 meters of silt while battling currents and waves isn’t as easy as being a dumbass is.

Once the guys had pulled in the gadget, they would take it over an icebox better served to house cold beverages and dumped their booty in. seeing as how they had an additional icebox in which they had such aforementioned refreshment, I admiringly forgave them their trespass.

It wasn’t a particularly crowded day at the beach, as I’ve mentioned earlier and to which the photos above could attest, so there was no interference by these clamsmen onto any of the swimmers. I was really beginning to enjoy watching them, as was seung-hee, when we realized something--and it wasn't good:

apparently, we weren't the only ones watching with interest...

the sign above, on the orange covered-tent, written in purple korean script, translates into english as, "the place to rent boats," meaning that it was a place to hire a boat to speed around on the surf while you hang onto some ridiculous floating object trailing behind it.

what the translation really means, we found out, is this, "the place that takes away all of your beach fun, unless it is regulated by us and you are given permission by us to have fun in the way we see fit."

only a mung employed by the local authorities would have come over to ruin the fun

sure enough, after a time of all having fun and sundry, over walks a cretan in a speedo and leather for skin to tell the guys that they’re endangering the lives of beachgoers throughout the entirety of korea and that they must stop all operations right there and then at that place and move somewhere else, which we at the time of the cretan’s candy-assed protestations thought was a secluded area or another beach altogether.

fucking panty-waisted dumbass...

well, despite some good-natured swearing from the guys, they accepted the cretan’s edict and pulled up stakes, as you can see above. as seung-hee and i watched them pack and saunter morosely off—though, truth be known, seung-hee and I might’ve been the more melancholy because of the principle of the matter, not to mention the interesting scenes we had been privileged to watch on a good day at the beach--we wondered how far it was they were going or, indeed, if they were just going to call it day and take leave of the beach.

we watched them walk, and walk, and…

stop no more than 50 meters away and put down stakes in a place that was more crowded than where they had just been.

my wife summed it up best when she said, “only the authorities would have the single-minded stupidity to stop people from having harmless fun”—or something to that effect.

ah, such is korea—and today’s modern world of interfering government and authority…

fuck a duck

with bovine apologies, the title of today's post, while crass, is more poetic, relatively speaking, than "plow a cow"...

it's barely 10:00 on a wednesday morning, and already the temperature is 34.7 degrees. so much for the forecast of 34 that the weather folks STILL insist is going to be the high...

for those of you caught in the heat today, beware of and don't forget to duck low-flying and lascivious waterfowl...

what the rainy season leaves behind is...

...the searing, stuffy, vexatious heat that every resident of korea awaits with dread and lethargy.

the above photos were, indeed, taken at anmok beach, the less-crowded and much more beautiful little sister of the more popular kyungpo beach. the color of the water this past weekend was akin to something i've seen in southeast asia, mediterranean europe, or caribbean north and central america. it was hard to believe we were in korea, as none of us could remember the sea's looking like this last year. it was so clear, so clean, and vibrating in so many shades of green and blue that we wondered why there weren't more of our friends--or other people, for that matter--out enjoying the cool, refreshing waters on such a hot (36.5 degrees), sticky (85% humidity) day.

after all the bitching and moaning we'd heard from people about having not been able to enjoy the sea theretofore, almost no one we (ryan, penny, seung-hee, and i) knew was at the beach on arguably the best day any of us had experienced in all the time we've lived in gangneung.

we could see fish swimming at depths of two meters, we could see multi-hued clams at the same depth and more than two meters distance, we could open our eyes and imagine ourselves in a swimming pool with strong chlorine, not the usual darker, dirtier water one sees most of the time at the sea.

it was brilliant and gave us pause at the good fortune we have of living in a place that people pay hundreds and thousands of pounds/dollars and drive hundreds of kilometers to see on their hurried, crowded, oft-unenjoyable holidays. we merely had to roll up in our rig or a taxi from our apartments not too far away.

for those of you gangneungians who slept off your hangovers in bed, or cowed in the stuffiness of your flats to ward off the poisonous fumes of alcohol from the night before, or whinged about the heat of the day or, in previously weeks, the bitter cold of the water, shame on you. you missed an A+ day at the beach that may not come around again, but that we all hope will...

the rainy season (장마) descends

our usual football pitch masquerading as the world's 14th-largest lake

the green hills alive with the sound of rain

the inevitable riveting rivulets signifying the rainy season's presence

in my last addition to this aetherspace, i made mention that i hadn't written for about a week prior to that posting, mentioning some trite tripe about not boring the tens of you who actually read this with our antics that didn't seem to change much from week to week.

well, even a longer period of time passed before i could be bothered to add anything else. the rainy season--something not experienced in the u.s., yet seems to last all year in england--settled into korea the weekend before last. in korea, the rainy season is not like it is in china or southeast asia--that is to say, it's not extreme--there are rarely major floods like you see every year in china, the rain doesn't come at you from all angles (including upside down), and you can see the sun periodically during the rainy season here.

right before it starts, the days are muggy and sticky, like the insides of the jolly green giant's boxers as he scans his favorite porn sites. each day in the buildup to the rainy season's start sees the percentage of humidity ratcheted up from the day before until it literally seems you can make a fist and squeeze water from it--or beer, if you're still drunk from the night before. the sun bakes you in indolent pleasure, grips you in a vise of inflamed, yet wet, distaste and tries to wrestle your will to exist from your very marrow. 36 degrees celsius during the day feels like the inside of satan's rectum, and 27 degrees centigrade at night feels like the inside of a transvestite's scrotum.

in those days leading up to it, the average person feels as energetic as an old dog on valium. walking is laborious, breathing air is like drowning, and any movement above the pace of a snail in winter is likely to make your shirt as damp as a maiden's groin at the sight of brad pitt--or of rory daly. it is with this unlikeliest of descriptions of the buildup to the rainy season that i leave you my excuse for not writing lately: it was too damned hot.

the rains came, however, and save for one full day of sun last saturday and a few patches here and there of sunny cheeriness, it has rarely left us. for the most part, the daily temperatures have been much more bearable, though the mugginess still pervades malevolently and ardently, like an marathon of oprah winfrey reruns. the nights are actually pleasant and are fine for sitting outside and cavorting until sunrise with your best mates and drinks.

i have actually been rejuvenated by the rains, one major reason why i don't mind the rainy season at all. the problem was this: i was still being a lazy git about writing here until carlos, filmed below whilst engaged in some paranormal activities not normally associated with norwich football (usually, these sorts of shenanigans are reserved for sunderland fans), posed this question:

"dave, why haven't you updated your site in so long?"

talented, but also mad from the rain: carlos manages to hold a smoke, feel up rory, and enquire as to why it's taken me so long to update this sorry web site

the fact of the matter is that i don't know why i didn't update this site for so long--nor do i understand this picture, why it was taken, what is happening, what happened after it was taken, or why i hang out with some of these "friends" of mine. as much as i like the rainy season, to which i referred above, it does bring out some strange behaviour in people.

water is the source of life. it nurtures, it buoys, it soothes, it relaxes, it engorges, it throbs, it takes life while replenishing it, it cleans the mind and body, it is the source and essence of our most intense pleasure as human beings (except for those sadists who prefer sand or leather in the orifices to orgasm in, from, and into said orifices), it is disappearing at an alarming rate, "they" say, from our planet, and it occupies nearly 75% of this planet and 80% of your body while wrapping itself in your existentialist conscience. the rainy season is good, it is bountiful, it is sexy, it is sensual, and it is, oh, so fun--changes brown to green, immobility to mobility, lethargy to rejuvenation, apathy to passion, impotence and frigidness to eros and lust, and, if not careful, sanity to insanity.

enjoy, those of you who experience the rainy season, wherever you are.