Meet and Greet Greatness

Middle of October was the fall Korea On the Rocks Meet and Greet. Climbers from all over Korea get together, climb, drink, and have wild shenanigans.

I opted to not bring Luna because it was supposed to rain and rain with a dog in a small tent...not so much fun. Boy am I glad I didn't bring her.

I got in Friday night and set up my sweet 10,000 won two-man tent. I kinda had a ground mat/beach mat but it didn't cover the entire bottom of the tent, oh well right. Haha, I don't think it would have made much of a difference. So we were told a huge storm was going to be coming through at midnight. At 12:30 am it was still clear skies. Everyone decided on bed time. I don't sleep well outside anyways but the tent was a bit to short for me, even laying cross corner I touched both walls. Rule number one of tents, if you want it dry don't let it touch the walls. Fetal position it was. That's when the wind picked up, the lightning started and the rain fell. Ok so that kinda stunk, but my tent was holding up against the gail force winds. I then realized it was brighter in my tent then it was a second ago... I looked out my screen window (with the rain fly on I can not see outside) and saw everything. The wind had undone my steaks and my fly was hanging on by one steak. Choices: 1)wait it out and hope that it (rain/wind) stops soon 2) get out and put my fly back on and re-steak it so that everything in my tent stays dry 3)wait what will hold my tent down if i'm not in it and there is only one steak still in the ground....my pack (everything went back in my pack and the rain fly for my pack went on and went to the corner of the tent being dominated by the wind) 4) should i put my pants back on, it's cold but then they will be wet?

Whatever... the pants went on but didn't get buttoned so were falling down as I was running around my tent trying to steak the tent down again and untangle the fly to put it back on. Another guy was running around in his underwear ( i should have done that, i would have dry pants) steaking his tent down better and putting rocks on the steaks. Another guy got out and helped me get my fly straightened out and steaked back down. Great times!!!

Woke up in a lake...if you didn't know, down sleeping bags do nothing if wet...no worries, after i wrung it out I got up and had some coffee. It rained most of the morning off and on so everytime it would be blue skies everyone would put all their stuff on the line to dry...as soon as everything was out it would start raining again. My bag ended up in a minbak with heated floors so it dried nicely.

The climbing was amazing, the view amazing, the people amazing, and everything else also. Ganhyeon has been by far my favorite place. After/before dinner the drinking began. We soon moved to a bonfire by the river with a ukulele, singers, and apparently football player wannabes. I was tackled 7 or 8 times by a friend. Got up early the next morning to make sure everyone had followed through on their leave no trace. Nope...you could probably imagine how much waste (bottles, cans, cigarette butts, and other randomness) 25-30 some people can produce.

Finished off Sunday's climbing with some great leads (I don't like lead climbing but the leads here were so much fun and just overall great climbs). Then a large group of us headed out. Jan and I were heading to Busan together. Got some lunch in the station and some dang coffee that just turned out to be a bigger pain that it was worth. Got on the bus just in time.

About 30 minutes down the road...WHAT WAS THAT?!?! (Jan and I looking at each other) I'm going to laugh if it was a tire...haha, sure was but no worries we weren't going to lose any time...the bus driver is going to continue at the same speed (passing people) Korean passenger "ㅣㅏㅓㄴㅇ먀ㅏㄷ김츠ㅜㅊ능롸" Bus driver : " ㅓ추ㅕㅑ랴ㅓㅜ주쳧녀챠ㅕㅑㅊ녀ㅛ쳐" Korean passenger: " ㄷ추ㅡㅜㄷ유운듀ㅜㅠㄴ유ㅏ" I'm pretty sure that it translate to something along the lines of KP "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" BD "DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT...ONLY 3 MORE HOURS" KP: "YOU BETTER PULL THIS BUS OVER NOW OR ELSE..." the bus pulled over and three men got off the bus to look at the damage... got back on and continued...WHAT WAS THAT?!?! (Jan and I looking at eachother laughing from fear) Me: "English? Little English?" Korean woman: "Flat tire"...duh, but why are we still driving

Finally (10 mintues after the first stop and 5 minutes after the second stop) we got to a rest area. Korean woman "We wait for engineer to fix tire" Jan and I "Engineer? Really?" I guess they don't have the word mechanic.

Back on the bus 2 hours later. Offered an older korean woman (adjumma) sitting behind us some crackers. I was expecting her to take like 5 or 6 and then hand the rest back to me, so I waited. After she continued to consume my crackers I turned back around with a straight face. Jan look at me and asked if she took any. I said yeah... she asked me how many...i said "ALL" with a straight face and even tone...Jan looked back at the woman who was still so joyfully eating my crackers, looked at me and we both started laughing.

The people who had left on the a different bus and hour or so later than us got back before us...doesn't always pay to get the earlier bus...haha, still a great weekend

Sorry no pictures, I'll have to get some from people because I left my camera at home :(

Wow

Okay, so I just figured out that I had comments on some of my posts. I never knew how to see if I had any. Now I know and I'll try and reply back. Thanks for the comments!!!

Thailand Part II:4 months later

Thankfully Luna didn't get ahold of the pages in my notebook where I wrote down some notes on my Thailand trip. She did how some ever get ahold of the rest of it. So it's been a while but let's see if I can't make this good.

So the first day back to the mainland was spent traveling from the pier back to Krabi. I got another room at the AoNang Grand Inn, it was a fan room, for a whopping 750 TBH (30 TBH=$1). I booked my next two days adventure: Elephant Trekking and a Speedboat Islands tour.

I honestly could have done without the Elephant Trekking. I must be either really hopeful or didn't ask enough questions. They picked me up and I actually ended up in a van traveling for much more of the day than I would have thought. We went to the Hot Springs first. It was pretty much like a natural hot tub.

Next we went to Emerald pools. I was asked to take a picture with some kids(??) and did some swimming.

This next picture is from the actual elephant trekking that was very short and kinda sad the way they treated the elephants. Take a look at the kid that was riding with me. 12 year-old-boy form China. Check out his shirt...gotta love it!!!

This is where we had an awesome lunch. It's a fishery.

The last place on our tour we went was a Tiger Temple (no tiger) that had a bunch of greedy, thieving monkeys. They were so cute but would only get close if you were offering them food.

On this tour I met a couple from New Zealand. They are also teaching here in South Korea. I met up with them for dinner and some wandering about the beach area.

My second to last day in Thailand I went on an 8 stops powerboat Islands tour. Growing up on a boat made this a blast for me. Fun in the sun on a boat with stops here and there to do some snorkling, shopping, sun-bathing, and some history/stories. I saw so many amazing things that I can't even describe it. I'm just going to let the pictures speak for themselves (even though they don't do the beauty justice).

After a day on a powerboat...a little wind-blown.

The crew and I

Bamboo Island

Have you seen the movie "The Beach" with Leonardo DiCaprio...well this is it.

The last stop on our Island tour we stopped at Bamboo Island. I took a nap on the beach in the sun, did some snorkling, and met an amazing older couple. It was a Hungarian couple that had lived in Australia for the last 50 years. Larry was almost 90 years-old and his wife Kuki (nickname) was early-mid 80s. For about an hour and a half Larry was telling myself and a woman from France (her and I were the only non-coupled/non-family people on the tour) about his life and the war. Wow, he had lived. He got the last train out of Buddapest before the city was taken, made it to another station just for them to say it was going to be destroyed the next day. They ended up pretty much in the middle of no where... the Americans then ended up shooting up the small staion he was at. He was mad because all of his stuff was destroyed in the train. His stories were so amazing. To think that a person could live through all of that. Even though he had lived in Australia for the last 50 years he still had a much stronger Hungarian accent.

When I got back from the tour I did the usual walking around but decided that I wanted to try a scooter. Now, I have never ridden one before and the last time I rode a bicyle was ??? It was something like $15/24 hours. It was perfect, I would have it that evening and all day the next day till it was time to go. He gave me a quick run down on how to turn it on/off, gas, and break. "Have fun!!" ummmm...... ok?!?! In the first 30 minutes I almost hit 3 cars (steering was quite strange) almost ran into the back of parked cars, jumped a curb trying to turn around, forgot to put the kick stand up... oh man, this was too stressful for a vacation...I decided I would try this whole scooter thing when I got back to Korea and bought one. So after 30 minutes I took it back...they laughed, I laughed but then he just took my payment as a taxi to the airport the next evening...he was going to pick me up at 9pm for my flight at 11:55pm...better to be early than late, right?

The last day I was there I spent the day slack-lining on the beach,

laying in the sun, and doing some last minute shopping. I ran into Larry and Kuki again and made dinner arrangements with them at 7 at this open air resturaunt. (I was never disappointed by the food in Thailand or the atmosphere). To kill time till then, I did some more sunbathing to get nice a crispy before my aloe vera massage I was going to get. Went back to the hostel, took a shower, got my massage, went to dinner, got my bag, and got in the taxi.

45 minutes later we arrive at Krabi airport, extremely small, which was completely shut down. I was freaking out knowing there was no way I missed my flight because it wasn't leaving till 11:55 so I pulled out my itenerary to show the security guard... as I was passing it up I noticed that my flight from Bangkok was at 11:55 pm and my flight from Krabi was at 7:15pm... ooops. Luckily the taxi driver was super nice and took care of me. He drove me around to 3 different hotels about 30 minutes away (closet area with cheaper hotels) until we found a cheap one. On the way he stopped off at his cousins taxi service and made arrangement for him to pick me up in the morning and take me to the airport at 6am. I ended up at a concrete bungalow that was a little...um, yeah but it was a cheap place to stay and i had arrangements for the morning so all was good. I had no alarm or anything so I slept in my clothes(I would have anyways...no need to unpack and pack again) but woke up to a knocking at my door at 5:30 am. It was my taxi, I threw my shoes on, my pack on, and grabbed my purse. When I came out I realized I got to ride on the back of a motorbike with my pack (round two). The driver had already gotten my passport from the owner and we were on our way. 30 minutes later I arrive back at the airport that was supposed to be open at 6:30 (it was 6 now). We went through the gate and got dropped off at the front door to wait for it to open... 2 hours later people started showing up for work... apparently it doesn't open until 9:00am. Made arrangements to leave Krabi and spend the day in Bangkok and arrive into Seoul instead of Busan.

In Bangkok I bought some books, ate some food, ate some more food, drank some drinks, met some people, and just had a great day wandering the airport. The first lady and I were sharing snacks and taking turns watching eachothers things while the other went to the restroom. When she left 2 hours later her place was taken by this Swedish guy that had decided he hated dark winters and was moving to Australia. We hung out the rest of the time I was there (the last 8 hours anyways). Barely made my flight to Seoul...they had told me the time on my ticket was the boarding time but it was the departure time...after I got on the plane they shut the doors...whew almost was stuck there again!!!

Thailand was amazing and I will be there again!!!