Florida

Posted by landoman - 26/04/09 at 01:04:39 am

Been a couple weeks since my last post. After I got home, all my fun traveling came to a dead stop for about a week. I spent some time catching up with relatives and friends and then decided that WV sucked and that I needed to leave again. So where else do you go when you’re in such a depressing place? Florida!

Stephen’s family lives just outside of Tallahassee so I took off down this way and spent a few days with them. The weather was much nicer down this way with temperatures in the high 70s and 80s (25-28C). It was a nice change. And I definitely hadn’t re-acclimated to cold weather because I was walking around in long sleeves when it was anything less than 70 (25C). Still do, too. And I somehow sprained a tendon in my foot while running one morning. Go figure, another non-fighting injury. I’m doing something wrong… But a couple nice days with the Adams’ before I met up with my parents who were passing through Tallahassee. They had just come from Texas and through New Orleans as part of Pianafiddle’s tour.

We headed to Orlando and hit Universal Studios. Islands of Adventure opened the year after we were last there so it was a whole new park to explore. With actual roller coasters, too! The Hulk was especially fun. The coaster is almost immediately accelerated out of a tube that launches you over the edge and into a corkscrew. None of that boring clink-clink-clink up a hill. And no time to get that lovely nervous feeling; just straight into terror! After a bit we headed over to the old Universal side. That side of that park is fun, but the nostalgia was shattered after going through the Jaws ride. I remember it so clearly from my younger days…but this time it was such a scripted ride. I guess that’s the downside of being old enough to know what’s going on.

After Orlando we moved on to Juno Beach, just a few minutes above West Palm Beach. The first night there was actually pretty cold (by my standards). We were just a block from the ocean and a front was pushing through that evening. Between the cooler evening temperatures and the cold ocean wind I was definitely feeling out of place. But things warmed up and cleared up for the rest of the week so I was back to normal. Pianafiddle played great concerts in Boca Raton and later in Palm Beach Gardens. And I was able to meet up with a few old work friends on my last night there. A nice time, all in all.

Now I’m back in Tallahasee for a few days, relaxing and trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. It warmed up a lot over the past week and is in the 90s (33C) this weekend! I gave my friend Patrick a call but as luck would have it he was in the process of packing his car and heading home for a couple weeks. Bastard. But I’ve at least had time to think about my future career. Though it hasn’t helped much. I’ve no desire to go back to IT and I’ve been rolling around the idea of journalism, geology, and microbiology (not all at once, of course). I hear Umeå University in Sweden is a pretty fantastic uni. Who knows!

Home

Posted by landoman - 03/04/09 at 12:04:56 pm

Well, I’m home. Back to fast internet again, at least. It feels so surreal being back; like I haven’t been here in years. The flights back were uneventful enough. Nobody interesting sat near me. To make matters worse, my flight from Seoul to Dallas was on an antiquated Boeing 777 that hailed from the days when people could still smoke in their seats (ash trays built in) and therefore was too old to have interactive in-flight entertainment. Flight from hell…

But the icing on the cake? Phuket, Suvarnabhumi (Bangkok), and Dallas are all airports without a drop of free wifi. Apparently these places missed the memo about the 21st century. Pretty disappointing. And quite annoying.

So I’m home and…well, what now?

Coming Home

Posted by landoman - 02/04/09 at 07:04:05 am

So I left for home a few hours ago. Phuket Int’l doesn’t have free wifi and as big and nice as the airport in Bangkok is there isn’t free wifi there either. I’m in Seoul now.

I sat next to a pretty cool Swede named Fredrick on the way to Bangkok. He had been in Phuket for a couple weeks on vacation. We stumbled around the airport for a bit before we each found out where we needed to be and then decided to go to find out gates and meet back for a drink. But my gate ended up being about 2km away behind two security checks. So Fredrick, if by some freak chance you find this blog, sorry dude!

It’s 5C in Seoul and I’m freezing my ass off. Going from 90F to 38F is a huge change. It sucks. No doubt that WV holds certain misery for me…

Hurray!

Posted by landoman - 13/03/09 at 08:03:05 pm

This past week has been pretty fun. We went to the Green Man last Thursday and Jazz won a 1000B ($30) voucher to be spent there in the next week.  He won that by correctly answering 6/30 questions about British Prime Ministers.  Yeah…

Watchmen came out last week so on Sunday evening me, Jazz, and Inge went to see it at the VIP theater.  The movie itself was awesome.  Three hours of bliss.  Add unlimited caramel popcorn to that and you’ve got yourself a recipe for success.  On top of that we ate at a little place called the Sizzler before the movie.  I had the best burger of the trip.  All in all a good evening.

Training continued like normal the rest of this week but we went out to the Green Man again on Wednesday so Jazz could spend his voucher.  I discovered that they’ve got some of the best pasta on the island.  A new favorite for me, I think.

And again last night Tommy, Inge, and I went out again to Green Man.  Somehow I managed to win a deep sea fishing trip for two by answering a question about the first railroad accident in America.  I still don’t quite know how I managed to win that but I won’t ask questions.  The trip  ncludes fishing of course, swimming and snorkeling at some of the islands we stop at along the way, and meals throughout the day.  It should be pretty sweet.

Oops

Posted by landoman - 27/01/09 at 11:01:56 am

I was planning a VISA run for early next week to extend the default 30-day VISA that foreigners get upon passing through customs. There are tons of different VISA runs you can go on so I was checking out all of the different options and checking out various flights/trips for the run. I couldn’t remember exactly which day I got here but Jazz recommended I simply open my passport and check the stamp. “Too easy” I said. But as it turns out I was given a 90-day VISA then I landed earlier this month. Boy was my face red!

Back to waiting

Posted by landoman - 05/01/09 at 12:01:05 pm

Seoul turned out to be a lot of fun.  Especially when I got into the art street of the Anguk district.  This particular street had dozens of tiny stores selling Korean cultural gifts.  Most of it was tourist bait, but there were definitely a handful of store that had legitimately unique stuff — mainly the art stores.  There are quite a few galleries scattered about the district so I enjoyed getting to walk through all of those.  And then there were two or three shops that sold wall scrolls, some being drawn right there in the middle of the street.

I went in a 7-Eleven at one point and got a little tea drink.  At least I think it was tea.  It kinda tasted like it but I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m way off on that guess.  If I had been on the ball I would’ve taken a picture of it.  I’m sure it was probably to Koreans what Lipton is to Americans but the bottle was in Korean and therefore cooler.  But after walking around in freezing air for four hours I was frozen numb.  It’s a shame I packed only clothing appropriate for a tropical island.  Thanks to that I eventually had to hop back on the 6011 bus and ride back to the airport.  On that note, Koreans drive like maniacs; not quite to the same capacity as Dominican drivers but they’re definitely up there.

Seoul

Posted by landoman - 05/01/09 at 09:01:55 am

I’m wandering around the Anguk district of Seoul right now. I just ate at a neat little cafe called A Twosome Place. It’s one of the many ultra-modern buildings that has sprung up in the midst of a cold war era city. Seoul is quite remarkable, actually. The city somehow mixed old and new and comes off ahead of most U.S. cities I’ve been too. And the clockwork mechanics of this place are particularly interesting. I need more time here!

South Korea

Posted by landoman - 04/01/09 at 03:01:42 pm

GREETINGS FROM THE FUTURE!!

So I’m in South Korea at 8:00 a.m. on this Monday morning.  I ended up getting the last seat on the flight to Seoul yesterday so I’ve got 12 hours to kill here rather than LA!  Apart from being long and painful, the flight wasn’t bad at all.  I sat beside two Koreans, a guy that didn’t speak much English at all and a woman that was coming home for a business job.  The dude and I didn’t understand each other, but sarcasm is definitely the universal language.  It was actually pretty funny sitting beside him.  And I found out all about the woman’s life (which was actually highly entertaining).  Her husband is usually always on business trips and her children had graduated college and were working in LA and NY.  Her daughter had gone to Europe to teach English for a few years so I enjoyed talking to her.

Anyway, I’ve already gone through customs and I’m sitting in the entrance lobby of the airport now.  I exchanged a bit of money so now I have all day to go bombing around the city.  This place is phenomenally clean and is much more efficient than any of the airports I’ve been through so far.  This might…actually be enjoyable to travel through Incheon Int’l!

I’m Getting Impatient

Posted by landoman - 04/01/09 at 01:01:30 pm

Throughout the past few months I had prepared myself for every possible scenario that this trip might present to me. Now I realize that I overlooked one crucial area — my patience. It turns out that, while being rerouted, I was placed on a flight to Seoul that leaves tomorrow at noon instead of the one that leaves tonight at midnight. WTF? So now I’m on standby to fly out tonight. Not that it matters at all because my new connecting flight to Phuket now arrives on the 6th — 24 hours later than me and my luggage.

My only hope of salvaging this monstrous disaster of a trip is being stuck in Seoul for twelve hours instead of LA.

50%?!

Posted by landoman - 03/01/09 at 07:01:03 pm

In Phoenix finally. This airport is small and crowded. I’d almost say that Atlanta was more comfortable. But I hate Atlanta, so I won’t say that.

But regardless, I’m a couple thousand miles closer to my final destination. 24 hours to go…

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