Deadly Quests is Back!

I've taken to walking home from school on these beautiful September afternoons.  The half hour stroll
allows for tranquil reflection that could not be afforded on a Suwon-Si public bus.  Near my school construction has begun to take off and two dozen steel skeleton cranes keep watch over the landscape.  Closer to Tapdong I walk through bountiful rice patties on the verge of harvest.  The vibrant and almost infinite flavors of green cascading through the fields this time of year is magnificent and calming.

So yes, this blog has been offline for a few weeks. Allow me to explain the 22 day hiatus. As you may have read in previous posts I was in the process of taking this little periodical to the next level by launching a full blown website. The idea was that running my own website would allow me to incorporate more sophisticated galleries and host my own video. I was in fact planning to buy a camcorder and start shooting mini webisodes about my adventures in Korea. For nearly three weeks I spent every spare minute teaching myself HTML, CSS, Javascript and supporting software like Dreamweaver and Photoshop. I installed more memory to my MacBook to allow it to handle RAM hungry applications.  I learned everything there is about DIVs, LightBox2 image galleries, archiving, building Flash video players, etc. At this moment I have a very impressive beta-version of the site sitting on my hard drive just waiting to get on the Internet. So why are you still reading about my Deadly Quests on a generic Blogger page? A couple of reasons actually.

The first is that for the life of me I can't seem to get web-hosting. I tried opening an account with three hosts including GoDaddy.com but every time I give them my American credit card number their fraud department freezes my account. I can't figure it out. There doesn't seem to be a problem using the card on any other site or store in Korea but web-hosting services, no matter how I try to explain it to them, won't accept a charge made from the other side of the planet. The frustration stemming from this aspect of the venture alone was enough for me to throw in the towel.

Secondly, when it comes to producing my own videos I have all the hardware I need except for a camcorder, which you'll agree is an essential component for film making. I went shopping in Yongsan for a decent flash-based camera but it ultimately came down to buying an electronic toy I may or may not use frequently or buying plane tickets to Thailand/Laos/Cambodia in January. It turns out that it wasn't that tough of a call.

Lastly, some soul searching led me to the conclusion that while writing is a fun hobby it's probably not what I want to do with the rest of my life. To waste such valuable time and assets here in Korea by maintaining and updating a website while simultaneously producing videos when a simple program like Blogger is adequate to share my stories while allowing me to actually have adventures seems kind of counter productive.

So while I could have been writing first rate blog entries chronicling new friends, faces, and places I was actually using all my time learning skills that I didn't end up using anyway. In the end I'm glad I took the time to develop an interest and base knowledge in web design as I'm sure it will come in handy in the future. Maybe in a few months I'll even take a second crack at getting the beta-version online. For now we'll both have to be content with the efficiency of simplicity as opposed to the morose of the grandiose.

In other news my all-time favorite lady-killin', car-wreckin', trouble-findin' former neighbor Merkle is flying into town with his sister next weekend and I'm sure between the three of us we'll give South Korea a run for it's money.  Also, hoping to check out Global Fair next Sunday.  Check it out here.

Cool Thing About Korea #28: Chuseok is next weekend. Woot!  It's kind of like Thanksgiving and I get a four day weekend out of it.  Read more Here! In addition, mid-terms are next week so pretty much all of my classes for the next 10 days are cancelled while students study/test.  Watching a lot of Battle Star Galactica in the classroom because I'm a big dork.

My brain hurts from learning.

Meet Josh near library. Have a cup of coffee before boarding #13 Bus towards Suwon station. Go to Burger King and get a Bulgogi burger before meeting Brett, Jess, and Matt on the second floor of the station. Head to the platform and board a subway train bound for Seoul. Relish in the light, easy conversation amongst American friends after a long week of slowing down and carefully enunciating my English.

Get off train at Anyang Station. Struggle to find the long distance bus for Ganghwa Island amidst the chaos of the city. Meet some nice police officers that point us in the right direction. Find the bus. The destination is spelled only in Korean. I consider how helpless I’d be if I never took time to learn how to read the language. Make a last minute stop at Family Mart for Cass before boarding the bus and departing the city.

We laugh and joke jovially. Halfway into the trip a man in a black suit boards the bus. He doesn’t appear drunk but he is starting a loud argument with a woman at the front of the bus. We stare interested but don’t interfere. I take out my camera and begin recording video. The argument escalates dramatically and we theorize as to what it’s about. Still we don’t interfere. The man slaps the woman forcefully across the face. Brett and I interfere. The man apologizes and gets off the bus.

The bus arrives at a deserted bus station on Ganghwa Island. We spot a map ten feet tall that is spelled on in Korean. Again I am thankful that my companions and myself have taken the time to learn how to read. We hail a cab and drive to Donmak beach.

It is dark. Nearly ten-o-clock at night. The stretch of ocean property appears to be a place for beach goers but it is deserted save for a random couple here and there. Evidence suggests that peak vacation season for Koreans has come and went. We buy food and drinks, find a place to set up a tent, and pick an open spot in the sand. The first thing we notice is that the ocean is gone. There is a sandy beach that runs down to a noticeable water line but it stops at thick brown mud stretching out as far as the eye can see. It is as if a hole opened far out in the seabed, draining all of the water from the coast.

We build a fire on the beach. No permits. No harassment from police or neighbors. Just starry night, cool breeze, and crackling flames – a priceless moment of freedom rarely afforded in the modern age. We talk and laugh. In time three Korean fellows join us. Their company is entertaining and adds an inimitable dimension to the evening. The conversation is spotty English but the enjoyable moment hardly demands comprehension. We take a cool picture where a trick of the light makes my headlamp appear to be forming a triangle.

Towards three in the morning the ocean comes back quickly but stays only for two hours before drifting back off towards the horizon.

In the light of morning we watch Koreans trekking out into the muddy distance to search for things we could not begin to speculate on. We can also see several large fishing boats lying helpless in the soft earth, their anchor lines cast but unnecessary in their current predicament.

We begin the taxi, bus, train trip back towards home. I leave the group in Anyang station. They head back to Suwon. I head towards Yongsan. In anticipation of editing AVCHD video files in a few weeks I peruse the electronics market for a good deal on computer upgrades. I find 2 gigabytes of DDR2 RAM (the max my laptop will allow) and a 320 gigabyte SATA harddrive for about $80. Both components are sold in a shady back-alley and wrapped in aluminum foil. The nefarious nature of the situation makes me laugh. I might as well be buying methamphetamine from a crack head in an old Monte Carlo parked near a strip club in Atlantic City.

At home I install hardware upgrades without any difficulty. The remainder of my weekend will be dedicated to reinstalling the latest build of OSX Snow Leopard, iLife 09, The Adobe Master Suite, countless other programs I had backed up, writing a blog entry, thinking about Rachael, continuing the on-going pursuit of web design knowledge and applying it to my semi-complete website, listening to the complete works of Rush, and drinking coffee.

Cool Thing About Korea #27: The absolutely best corn-dogs that you’ve ever had in your life. Hands down.