Taipei in 10.

I'd felt some genuine anxiety about going to Taipei for a number of weeks.  Part of it had to do with wanting it to go well, since my last year in mainland China had been such an exercise in frustration in so many ways. I'd sworn off the idea of going to Taiwan while living in Shandong province because my main objective each holiday period was to get away from 'the china' as much as possible.  Was I wrong to discount erstwhile Formosa?

The trip to Taiwan was, in a word, great.   The entire nation, seemingly, is made up of the better-heeled parents of the students from CZSS; quiet, respectable folk with modern sensibilities.  It was palpably obvious when mainlanders were nearby (on subways, at attractions...) due to the sheer volume of obnoxious sound they tend to emit en masse.  At least they were helped to be quiet by the attendants at the Palace museum, pictured above, who walked around with signs in a number of languages reminding people to be respectfully quiet in the museum.  The museum itself was top-notch, containing thousands of pieces prudently stored away during turmoil in the mainland.  Apparently they can only ever exhibit 1% of the pieces they have in total.

There were innumerable interesting pieces, but this screen from the jade exhibition hall is something I found immediately arresting. More details in woodwork and the carving of the jade emerge the more one looks at it; it seems like approximately the least affordable dressing-screen in the world.

People wax poetic about the night markets and the variety of delicious foods you can get at them.  This photo, from NingXia market, looks at the food corridor from behind one side of it.  I like it because it shows the vendors relaxing between tides of customers sweeping through.  I would have been in better stead at the market if I could read Chinese, but I had good food nonetheless.

One of the things I was excited for was seeing a bit of the landscape of Taiwan, and the closest place to do that is in YangMingShan national park.  This is how green the place is as you climb through the forest; consistent rainfall is clearly a feature.

As you get nearer to the top of QiXing mountain, the main volcano of the park, the trees drop off due to the prevailing winds and the landscape becomes dominated by long grass and a tenacious bamboo-ish cane plant.  The wind was consistent all day, which was nice because the heat was significantly more than that offered by Seoul these days (though it is warming up here).

The next day we followed a subway line to the end and then boarded a scenic gondola (part of the transit system...pretty neat) to visit a more agricultural area called MaoKong which is famous for tea cultivation.  As the pretty amazing gondola ride continued up and down hillsides and over ravines, you'd see little pockets of water amongst the jungly terrain.  I imagine it'd be exceeding nice to jump in there after you hiked up the ravine to get to it.

 This is the view back towards Taipei from MaoKong, chosen to highlight the plants.  Curiously absent from the photo are butterflies, which live in the area innumerably.

 This is the main attraction - TieGuanYin oolong tea.  White butterflies flit amongst the rows as they slowly cook in the low altitude mountainous region.  Apparently the drainage offered by the soil is in a perfect harmony to the frequent rainfall, leading to flavourful tea which we enjoyed in (allegedly) the oldest teahouse in the area.

 Less traditional and old-fashioned was the area we stayed in Taipei - XiMenDing.  It was a largely pedestrian zone clearly influenced by Japan and mainland shopping culture, with all manner of luxurious shops to buy whatever you might want.  The sum total of my shopping was food, a pair of shorts, and treats for my workmates - most of my time was simply walking about enjoying different street scenes in the evenings.

The last picture I'm putting up here shows the food stall scene in XiMen, which was significantly more spacious than NingXia but no less crowded.  The bubble teas and pork-intestine noodles were tasty, the temperatures warm, and the people quite helpful in a non-hassling kind of way.  I'd probably choose a different neighbourhood if I returned, just to be in a bit of a quieter/darker place, but not for lack of enjoyment of XiMen.

I wish I had gone to Taiwan earlier than I did, honestly.  It shows how things could be if the thugs weren't ruining things in the mainland - everything about it felt Chinese but in a positive way, where people like the place they live and want things to remain nice.  If you want to experience Chinese culture/cities, but don't want to experience large difficulties at every turn, I can heartily recommend Taipei/Taiwan.  I might even go back again before I leave Asia - who knows?

It's been a long time.

Since the last time I wrote:

Ice covered the land.
I left the ice covered land.
I returned to and interacted with the ice covered land.
I got a new job, of sorts.


Ice has a way of covering the land in Seoul.  It stays improbably warm for significantly longer than you think - I vividly remember walking around Osan air force base (where I'd gone to play volleyball with my club) in November wearing shorts and a golf shirt - and then it's over.  The air starts moving out of Russia and you break out the scarf and gloves.  This winter the weather has taken the unusual step of snowing a number of times in a couple of weeks which, combined with various sun-blocking buildings/trees/hills/etc has led to indomitable pockets of snowy/icy death that periodically deposit you horizontally as you go about your business outside of the house.  At least my apartment this year is cheaper energy-wise, so I'm not experiencing pain at home as well as when out and about.

We all limped to the finish of December classes secure in the knowledge that we were going to get out of the Siberian aura permeating the land of morning calm.  I chose my holiday spot about 8 months in advance, based on the possibility of it being my final year in Asia; the inner 8 year old Indiana Jones wanted to go to see monumental ruins, the inner 32 year old Nathan Drake wanted to clamber about looking for secret passageways, and the inner 16 year old punk wanted to go where they get things done. I went for a holiday in Cambodia.

I elected to spend the maximum time out of country this year, after returning early last year from Vietnam to a blizzard of bills, cold, and comprehensive annoyance.  Cambodia was warm in a way that Seoul never approaches...there was almost always some moisture in the air, which changes the way you experience heat.  Sweating became the new normal, with a side dish of marvelling at the Khmer guys' abilities to not sweat while wearing tailored and often intriguingly embroidered shirts.

The temples of Angkor completely deliver on the premise, continually pulling you back to contemplation of the amount of labour required to pile them up.  We visited there for 3 consecutive days, taking in various sights and acquiring a rhythm - leave early, wrap up by 11:30am, return to lower temperature in pool, siesta, then head to town to look at curios and be impressed by Khmer food.  Siem Reap is one of the most tourism-based cities I've ever been, but the presence of Angkor demands tourists.  It's on the flag for a reason.

Getting back to work in January had everyone in a bit of a rut, I think, as we muscled towards the end of the first semester and the New Year break I'm currently watching fade away. I went straight from overseeing exams/collecting depressingly large stacks of paper I need to mark, however, to escaping the city entirely, yet again.

High 1 resort was the destination for a few of my volleyball/teacher friends from Seoul and myself for a chance to hit the slopes.  The resort itself was uncrowded due to a savvy choice - attending on a holiday most Koreans are homeward bound to spend time with family. We had as many runs as we wanted, never waiting more than a couple of minutes for a lift.

It's a curious place for a resort because, as you can see from the photos, it doesn't really snow there that much.  It relies almost entirely on snowmaking, the products of which stick around because it never stops being cold (see: Siberian air). We were all able to get in all the turns we wanted, more or less avoid the local novices on the slopes, and generally exhaust ourselves without depleting our wallets to an undue degree.  Then, we went to our accommodation.

We stayed in a pension which, while comfortable enough in a rustic, water only occasionally stops working, kind of way, wasn't set up for 6 North American men.  I called dibs early on a spot on the lone bed, hoping against home that the others would rather sleep on the heated floor and/or drink enough beer to forget about the bed, but was disappointed to find myself with hulking company between the sheets.  Resigned to a lack of leg-sprawling room I turned in, ready to sleep with a vengeance after the day's sporting activities/bbq-feasting.

It quickly became apparent this was unlikely to happen, as almost every one of the guys snored in a different, incredible way.  Some were laudable in their inconsistency - rising to remarkable decibels one moment while falling precipitously into silence the next - while some continually emitted chortling idles ranging from low, kakapo-esque hoots to ascending revs that topped out sounding like unanswerable questions.  It was amusing for a number of minutes to my bunkmate and I, before he dropped off to add his own chorale to the mix, complete with occasional jolting and a tendency to fling an arm over so a meaty hand would come to rest on top of my head.  The second night was the same, but with occasional salvos of flatulence punctuating the cacophony like improvisational saxophones at irregular intervals.

I got back to Seoul a tired man, and embraced not having to do much for a week while our school holiday whiled on.  I return on Monday to continue my new post as Vice-Principal, necessitated by the sudden departure of my school's old Principal and an immediate need for somebody to attend meetings and listen to Koreans speak to other Koreans in Korean.  It should be a wonderful return from holidays, complete with PTA meetings, kids unbelieving of their exam results, and increasing amounts of sunlight.

Given the relative infrequency with which I write about life outside of Canada it's likely to be t-shirt and shorts weather before I pen again (i.e. mid March), which will mark an emotional turn (I hope) for me back to a version of the land that irritated me beyond any other.  I've got an island to visit, and I better start dusting off that Mandarin.

Living further up HBC.

As the break for Chuseok (Korean thanksgiving, in essence) continues on I've been afforded a lot of free time.  The holiday fell after only a week of school this year, leaving me without appreciable marking to do, thus I've been sprucing up the new apartment (post forthcoming) and generally living like a retiree.

My main source of mild recreation this week has been going for walks whenever:
A. The air is clear, the weather is nice, and I get the urge to photo-journalize.
B. It gets so hot and breathless in my apartment, with multiple open windows letting in air only slightly more than if they were closed, that I'm compelled to go out and get hit by any breezes that might come by.

I used to live at the bottom of Haebangchon, in a charmless 8-story apartment whose main benefit was proximity to the craft beer street and the bus stop to head to work.  After a remarkable fiasco during the summer where the school snuck a summer school teacher into the place (oddly enough, I found out about it 2 days after it happened...oops!) I was due to find a new place for the new year.

There it is, the dark door at the top of the stairs on the right.  In Korea it's pretty common to find an apartment via a realtor, and so it was with me (in absentia no less, remotely from Canada).  It's only about a 4 minute walk further up into the Haebangchon neighbourhood, but it feels worlds apart.

For a start, it's quiet.  My last apartment was an unenviable wedge between a huge arterial road and a narrow, often congested road which serves as a tributary.  Thus it was always cars, motorbikes, and drunks broadcasting their status loudly enough to be heard from the 8th floor.  The new place is just far enough up a slight hill that people are usually a bit puffed by the time they reach my place, so the chatter is dialled right down.  It's thoroughly residential, so it's fairly rare to even hear a car go up the lane after about 7-8pm.  I no longer get to hear the morning choral practice floating up from the military base on the weekends, but it's about the only sound I miss.

I get home about 4:30-5pm after work, invariably sweaty because we still have daytime highs in the high 20's in Seoul until about the end of September, more or less.  It's starting to drop off week by week, but for the moment the ritual is to take off sweaty work shirt, grab a cold water/tea/beer and go sit on my low-walled brick deck (visible in first picture-wraps around whole front of building) to cool off.  When it gets dark Namsan tower, which is easily visible from the deck, lights up in a variety of colours; beats looking out at a highway, essentially, from the last place.

As you walk you can tell HBC is old - it was a slum after the war that took in North Korean refugees as well as people whose villages were gone - through the prevalent twisting road system that winds through the area.

The hodgepodge development approach has led to an area wildly out of step with the uniform development of other areas of Seoul - the dominant building type would be a 2-4 story house of the type called a 'villa' here, almost inevitably made of brick.  It's the kind of place where you can easily find a street/lane you haven't walked down before, with a chaotic yet organized profusion of vegetation stopping just short of blocking delivery van traffic.

In all but the most built up areas in Seoul there is an industrious approach to gardening suggesting an agricultural past not too distant, as the climate throws plants up out of the soil.  Almost every villa has a series of pots in front of the gate or lining the walls, with hot peppers as a dominant feature.

It stands to reason, as the peppers find their way into so much of Korean food, and it brings a rustic appeal to the lanes as you walk, half-lost.  Vacant lots are put into order, with clusters of pepper plants ringed by  softball-sized green squash burgeoning on the vine.  Soon it'll be time for the ajummas (middle-aged ladies) to uproot the plants and sit around plastic colanders sociably grading the peppers for their various uses.

The old Korean gals certainly like a bit of a sit and chat, and can usually be found outside in the late afternoon after the sun's rays move off the favela's byways. There's a slight tendency towards subtly-purple hair amongst a certain set, but the ladies usually have a fairly uniform appearance (including what my friend called "ajumma pants", which I realized to be super-accurate).

There's a bit of a disconnect between the older population and the newer ex-pats in HBC, not least of which is based on size.  I'd imagine nutrition played its role for a generation, and I definitely have a single doorframe in my apartment designed for much shorter folk, but in general the seniors seem to be the ones who own all the villas that we all pay to live in; the cars are fairly nice around here.

As you walk you'll inevitably find market streets lined with neat shops, salons, and small hardware shops with an old man laying on his side, perhaps listening to a ballgame.  There's also a surprising amount of small workshops making clothing of some sort or other that leave doors partially open to the street for fresh air.  The new wave, however, is clearly a gentrification via cute cafes, craft shops, and the occasional upmarket, though understated, bar/restaurant.

It's not yet all juice bars and chimaek (fried chicken and beer) houses yet, but the high streets are going in that direction.  You can usually see some angle of Namsan mountain/park from all but the narrowest lanes, which serves as a convenient escape from the closeness of HBC and other similarly-close boroughs.

When it quiets down at dusk the area becomes an agreeable pedestrian haunt, full of little bars and Korean restaurants who attempt to stick out with interesting windows or decor/music.  Signage is about 30-40% English, at a guess, but I don't imagine there'd be any difficulty getting a maekju (beer) from any of these places given just that word and a chuseyo (please).

Then it'd just be a matter of picking the right alleyways leading back to the apartment.  There's a numbering system that goes up from south to north in HBC, but generally it's landmark navigation.

I've been up the hill for about 3 weeks now, and I've got to say it's wildly preferable to my old location, which itself was more desirable than the anonymous high-rise apartments nearer to the school in Seocho-gu.  I'm out a couple dollars a day getting to/from work, but I have to say that the area screams interest in a way only emulated by the bourgeois businesses that pervade the higher-rent districts.

Will it be a chore getting up the hill when it's windy and icy? Of course, but if the local semi-agrarian hobbit-folk (meant endearingly) have been content here for decades I imagine I'll trudge on.  If it seems too daunting, there's only about 40 different places to grab a beer between my old apartment (where the bus lets off) and my new one, after all.

The summer of intentional BC.

I fly back to Seoul in 3 days.  It's back to work in a new building, to live in a new apartment, to be puzzled by new students, and to puzzle over a new subject (History 12). In anticipation of this, I laid out a summer with a focus on BC and various experiences therein.

The first immersion into BC (other than a physical lake and Phillips' beer or three) came in the form of a redux of my West Coast Trail adventuring of years ago.

The West Coast Trail takes 5 nights, which deep introspective analysis has shown is one more than I really enjoy sleeping in a tent and eating dried food for. I actually anticipated this and tried to beg off for a smaller trip, but my masochistic friend who feels the need to escape his real life for the longest time possible overruled me.  The weather was fine more than it wasn't, and all was going smoothly up until the last day.

We got up late and leisurely, leaving camp (Camper bay) at 11:30am in the sunshine.  We'd made a game, being 30-something reasonably strong guys, of how many people we could pass while hiking, while still stopping to enjoy views/take pictures/etc., and today's goal was 10.  As we counted up the passers-by, and enjoyed the food-free nature of our emptied bags, I got a bit ahead of my friend.  As I approached a couple who were standing to the side of the trail I did the late trip analysis - what do their boots look like, how is their hair, do they have mud on their hands/shirts/so on... I reasoned they must have just started and asked them if that was the case. Their non-immediate answer led to my tagging on a "....or are we just catching up to you?" at the end of my query.  This was apparently the case, which I didn't think much of.  Later, I learned that they had camped at the same site more or less the whole trip, and that we had passed them every single day.  My friend said they had left camp more than three hours earlier than us that last day, and we caught up to them in just over an hour.  We were moving.

As inevitably happens I had to wait up for my friend, so I chose a sun-dappled wood bridge over a watery ravine.  I did another round of pointedly observing and enjoying the BC wilderness, listening for the eventual trudging sound that accompanied his arrival.  It was then that he called out that the boat off of the trail, which one must make, was going to leave in about 40 minutes.  After some disbelief on my part, it was clearly time to go and go we did. I arrived at the ferry landing, after seeing the ferryman starting his boat and calling out to him from a bluff or two en route, some 2 minutes late and so he was gone.  It was then that the grand borrowing (temporary theft) scheme was formulated.

The parks Canada trail workers had come over in a canoe complete with paddles, life jackets...all the things one might need, and the river was narrow enough to throw a golf ball over.  The answer was obvious - take the canoe over, drop the things, bring it back to its original location, and swim back over.  We talked about this as we rested, for some 15 minutes, before it was go time.  The canoe was brought down to an area for loading, I went back up the beach and started to undress for swimming...when the ferryman came back.  After some castigating, and accepting a few dollars, we were back in the embrace of 'civilization'.  That this came in the form of watching a drunken midday party involving dogs, swearing, golf cart doughnuts, loud heavy metal, and more dogs didn't matter - it was shower and pub time.  Bliss.

The second of my two intentional adventures involved going to a concert (Weezer) in Vancouver (where so much marijuana smoke was in the air that the thought of it increasing post-legalization boggled the mind) and driving to visit friends and increase my knowledge of an area previously hazy to me - the 'interior'.

The route was Coquitlam-Kelowna-Nakusp-Salmon Arm-Kelowna-Salt Spring Island.  Driving to Kelowna via the Coquihalla exposed me to midsummer heat in Merritt, a place I stopped for gas and food; in the time it took to eat a couple sushi rolls (clearly, what one must eat while in a blasted semi-desert) it became so hot in the car that my iPod refused to function.  I don't want to live in Merritt.

Kelowna was more comfortable, if no less hot.  The trouble with Kelowna is that it seems replete with young nouveau-riche who want nothing more than to work out, dye their hair, and spend too much on fashionable food and drinks lakeside.  A friend called them "Kelownafornians", an apt if awkward to spell term, and derided them as only a local can.  The rolling dry hills and giant lake of Kelowna appealed to me, but due to the populace I can confidently say I don't want to live in Kelowna.

Nakusp I visited because a fellow Seoul teacher said she lived there and I had no idea what she was talking about.  It really is a town in BC, and it looks like this:

It followed the mountainous template of lake+flat area+elevation=cute town, and was an agreeable place to visit for a couple days.  One could imagine the static nature of the one-street town while listening to tales of rebellious youth staying up late to hang out on the park benches near the Overwaitea and immediately see the quiet appeal.  The main adventure came on the second evening, in the form of a destination at the end of a long, terribly bumpy road into the woods - one gross enough that I saw fancy low-slung cars quitting entirely and turning around.

Nakusp is known as a gateway of sorts to hot springs, and so we drove off interminably slowly into the woods to find them.  After the trip, and some hiking down to the springs area, we found the following:

A happily rushing river right next to a decreasingly-warm series of hot spring pools, all of which were full of...

French Canadians gearing up for Shambhala, complete with mad max-style leather vests, multi-coloured dreadlocks, and an addled sense, in conversation, that Vancouver Island (where I come from) is a 'magical place, man'.  As I relaxed in the muddy hot pool, a young man called out the availability of 5-6 very illegal "party favours" available for anyone interested.  I didn't partake because not only do I not do acid, I didn't want to make the terrible drive back in anything but an attentive state.  As it got darker I left the pool, cleaned the essence of 'la belle province' off in the river, and, after an acrobatic slip where I gouged my ankle on a rock in the said dirty hot spring water (bringing to mind all manner of exciting possible infections) got my friend to head back to the car.  As I looked back over my shoulder at the hot springs one more time, it was apparent that the ladies of the group were delaying their toplessness until our departure.  Apparently my friend and I were drug-selling cool, but not nipple cool.  I bet they had a fine night.

My last morning in the Kootenays I decided to visit the nearby hamlet of New Denver, on Slocan lake, to see the Nikkei Internment centre.  It's a remnant of where Japanese Canadians were sent to while away their time during and after WWII, and provided many scenes like this:

Tagging along were my friend, her mother, and her mother's old pug dog.  I took many pictures with the goal of eventually enlivening SS11 classes, for example with primary documents:

It was an interesting cultural/historical accompaniment to the interior trip, something lacking since the vacuousness of Kelowna was made concrete in my mind.

After leaving Nakusp I visited a friend in Salmon Arm, saw another play an excellent show in Kelowna, and headed back to the coast with a box of Okanagan peaches.  Since then it's been a mishmash of trying to consume the peaches (I'm just fine on the peach front for a while now, thanks), selecting a new apartment in Seoul, and generally trying to relax as hard as possible before the school year starts.  I've had about all the BC-style bbq, beer, fruits, lake fishing, and downtime I could possibly fit into 7 weeks, and I don't regret any of it.  Could probably do with a bit of cardio, though...

It's refreshed my desire to eventually reside in BC, and expanded the lens of possibility when it comes to areas of BC.  The Kootenays seem speckled with cute lake towns that would be fine places to live, and if I could excise 50% of the population Kelowna, too, is a slice of perfection.  Now it's back to Haebangchon, and taking the bus every day.  The Christmas holidays are planned, as are some spring ones, and it's time to return to work.

Remember to sleep.

It's been busy here, as the weather has tipped from strikingly cold (November to early March was just awful) to shorts-friendly mid 20's celsius sun.  The land is replete with flowers, insects have returned, and the ajeossis and ajummas have started tending the hot pepper plants that captivated my interest upon immediate arrival - every residential street is dotted with them.

The first semester ended with a flourish of work and stress, followed by the comfortable march through the increasingly warm months to find me here, at the start of May.  Other than work, though, what happened?

Desperate aversion to cold almost had me booking an escape holiday during a week off in February, but in the end I saw the fiscal light and held off on holiday-making until early April, when I returned to Tokyo.

It was Hanami time, which means having beer and street food under trees and contemplating the temerity of your short existence...or something along those lines.  I mostly walked around relaxing during this trip, as I didn't have to catch all of the novelty I could.  Coming from a civilized country to visit Japan takes a touch of the wonder out, but it was nonetheless satisfying.

Since then it was a few weeks of nose acknowledging the existence of grindstone, but more or less opting to work from a sensible distance.  The volleyball club I've been playing with since late January (HBC High Flyers) has been really kicking into gear, culminating in the last couple of weeks.  It's been both weekend days each time of flailing away, trying to play defence for me, plus the novelty of last Wednesday.

We were invited onto a Korean TV show to play a group of celebrities, which was a surprisingly competitive match.  I won't spoil the results, but I did get a lot of playing time due to an injury by another player.

It was a lot of affixing small stickers to the logos on our new jerseys, getting makeup patted onto us, waiting around (5-6 hours to make one hour of TV), and standing around while the hosts chatted in Korean with those who could converse.  I spent most of the rest of my time playing a bit of defence and jumping when appropriate.

The uptick in sporting has me in decent physical shape but I finally had to take a practice day off to try to recover/dispel sickness after playing in a beach tourney yesterday.  I had to remind myself to get more sleep after reflexively waking up early this morning, which felt good when I achieved it.

For now it's stretch drive time with a dusting of domestic trip planning possible for a June jaunt, as well as a visit from Nette's parents.  They've not been to Asia before as far as I know, so I'm sure there will be some bewilderment; as I said, though, civilized country.

Go Wyverns, Go M's, Go High Flyers, Go to bed.

Year in review.

2015 highlights time, in no particular order:

-Hopeless sprint through the tubes and Heathrow to inexplicably make it to my Greek holiday.  I am still so happy that I got to take a first visit to the classical world, as I officially decided to grit out attempting to get to the flight despite my possible making it being illegal by Heathrow’s own policies regarding international flights.

-A good job, finally: after the debacle of my second year in China, in which I suffered under a B-movie style terrible boss, I was a bit shell-shocked.  My decision to return to the profession landed me a bad job to start 2015, in which I dealt with some of the worst behaved students I’m likely to see. Fall 2015 brought a good school, good students, good workmates and a sense of calm I hadn’t felt at work since 2013.

-Catching fish! I had two transcendent episodes of icthycide during the year: catching a champion-sized (for SSI) rainbow with Lynette in the boat (proving I wasn’t just buying them or something beyond all doubt), and catching a decent spring in about 8 feet of water with my Dad using 60+ year-old tactics that people generally don’t know about anymore.  Both were tense affairs that led to exaltation and great meals, and count highly amongst the year’s experiences.

-World travelling: I visited the UK, Greece, Germany, Scotland, Canada, South Korea, and Vietnam during 2015.  7 countries in one year, without cheating by using a cruise or a long train journey… not bad.  Alas that I had to renew my passport halfway through the year.

Track of the year: Ukifune by Go!Go!7188

Meal of the year: stuffed grilled squid in Athens with pitas/hummus and beer.

Biggest personal expense: custom-made suit and shirts in Hoi An!

--- 

In a lot of ways, 2015 was characterized by being cold; I managed to be uncomfortably cold in all seasons but the early fall – late fall being when the Siberian air started to drift into Seoul.  In a lot of ways, it was a cold ‘world tour’:

-UK: bloody freezing, living in a poorly insulated house from January – April with people who (rightly) never wanted to turn the heat on, and who always stood near a door to smoke cigarettes out into the cold…rather than step into the cold, it became both cold and smoky inside.

-Greece: remarkably cold, to the point of snow each morning.  I remember looking at the forecasts from the UK and viscerally looking forward to the highs in the high teens…and arriving to find I had to wear my winter coat to take in the Parthenon, the ancient agora, and all the Mythos beers I could find.

-Germany: confusingly cold, with one form or another of ice falling from the sky each time I left the apartment.  My brother and sister-in-law were both shaking their heads at the litany of unseasonable hailstorms, rain, snow, sleet, etc etc that accompanied my visit.  I still gamely went out, but with the incredulity of someone who hadn’t really been warm in four months.

-Scotland: atypically wonderful, warm and sunny.  Don’t think the weather gods knew I was there.

-Canada: made the foolish mistake of going camping in the summer.  Struggled up into an unremarkable mountainous area (Golden Ears park – skip it) only to be walloped by a huge 2-day rainstorm that defeated my tent’s waterproofing and soaked my friend’s sleeping bag.  After some deliberation we legged it back to the parking lot to get sushi.  Cold fatigue setting thoroughly in.

-South Korea: blisteringly hot in the early fall, changing to lip-crackingly cold after about a two week goldilocks-zone of habitability.  Siberian air is no joke.

That’s 3 continents of cold (apologies Africa/South America…absolutely not, Antarctica) covered in one year, with the antidote forced at the end: Vietnam.

Vietnam was warm, inexpensive, and an altogether nice place to give a meteorological middle finger to the rest of the year.  The food was fantastic, the people were great, and the sun was out more than the forecast had dictated.

We spent days wandering around the old town, eating huge lunches, siesta-ing when appropriate, and questing for the best bahn mi the town could offer.  It was cheap, warm, and easy: an oppositional end to a year’s worth of difficult, cold living.  I write now from a chilly New Year’s day, hoping 2016 is a warmer year.  If I had a resolution, it would be to not be freezing cold as a throughline for my years’ travels and travails.

Snow falling on hagwons

I write as I watch the infinitesimal drifting snow descend, just beginning to make a checkerboard pattern on the flat roof of the bank building across the street.  It's cold enough to think of making waffles as my common cold makes its common exit - lengthy, episodic, and just present enough to abrade my face.

The hardest events of the year are over now (soon to be replaced by the new hardest moments of the year), those being the return to work rhythm, offshore inspection, open house, observation, and the dreaded parents' night.  The parents' night, as it always does, ended up being much ado about nothing, and a source of free oddly-bottled dutch style coffee and macarons. I got 30+ years into life without having a macaron, incidentally: I could think of worse ways to get diabetes.

The apartment has been improved since I arrived on a sweltering Saturday evening in August. The multitudinous legions of long dark hairs left by the previous occupants have been given a solid thrashing, an entire floor has been torn up and replaced, doors painted, a new giant bed delivered, the dryer demystified, and the toilet/vanity replaced.  The only cost here was my sanity as I swept and swept, only to find the hairs had made another feint out into the exact middle of the kitchen.

This ignores the other improvements, such as the mountain of houseware-type things that became immediately necessary after Lynette arrived but that I had somehow survived without before.  Ignored, also, would be the products of scavenging - my neighbourhood is a pretty ex-patty one, and so there is turnover and thus stuff put out for free regularly.  Yesterday I collected two nice bedside tables, to go with my earlier free 27 inch TV and $250 super-vacuum that had, bless its heart, a plastic spoon stuck in the hose (thus, thrown out...fixed in 3 minutes).  This comprehensively beats buying such things, in my opinion.

I've hosted large dinners at my house, but think I'm out of that business for a while; the disadvantage is that nobody else has the facilities (or seemingly, the desire) to hold dinners I could cruise into and escape from as a fatter person.  It's just as well, in a way, that I'll be tropically away for the Christmas season, as I can dodge playing chef/butler/scullion boy.

It'll be interesting to be in Vietnam for Christmas, as I imagine there won't be ice falling from the sky.  I think I'll celebrate with a mai-tai, preferably in a coconut, inevitably in shorts.

I have my first confirmed visitors to South Korea, following in the footsteps of Tangle and Tyler who visited darkest China (respect) - Lynette's mother and father.  They've arranged moderately comfortable flights and a nice looking airbnb not too far away, and cherry-picked the warm start of May to drop by.  It will be interesting to see them here, as their recent travels seem to have been limited to shuttling back/forth to Amsterdam.  Seoul is a place where things can be as comfortably western as you can possibly expect in Asia, I'd imagine, but that can get fairly exotic if you turn down a side street; I really recommend anyone come visit, but I understand the cost being a barrier to most.

I'm off to loudly blow my nose and make waffles, because I have to and because I can.  It can keep on snowing all day for all I care; I loaded up on food at the Costco already.  Because, you know, Asia.