On the way

Getting out of the hole

2011-11-18T13:04:00.001-02:00

It has been a long while since I wrote my last proper blog entry.. mainly because I've been too busy experimenting new stuff around.

So I'm on this trip... in South America.. so far I've been in 6 different countries and only god knows where I will be next week!; the hardest thing I've been through is not the food, nor the cultures shock nor the language... it was actually getting out my home town Medellin.. I say so because once you're there it sucks you and keeps you down.... coz the only thing you can think of is the money and shit like that.

Is sad when I think about it coz I've met so many people from all around the world saying that not only my country but my city is one of their favorite places in South America and sometimes in the whole world... well, I guess once you're in a place for more than few months it becomes boring and small (sort of the same thing happened to me when I lived in Seoul, SK.. but that's a different story).

So... I took the bus from Medellin to Ipiales (about 20hrs ride in hell)... I paid $86.000COP .. usually they charge between $90 and $ 100 thousand but for some weird reason the lady at the terminal smiled at me and charged me with some special deal. hahaha you can't imagine how often that happens to me. The bus stopped a few times for bathroom and food, which at that time I thought it was nice but then I found out it wasn't because almost all buses in S.A. have bathroom and serve food.

Arrived in Ipiales (Southern Colombia) in the afternoon of the next day, there I met Michele from Czech Republic... she was volunteering in Manizales, teaching english to kids, she was actually traveling with me the whole way down from Medellin and we never saw each on the way.

Once in Ipiales we took a cab (sort of minivan) for $1.500COP all the way to the border with Ecuador, there things got a little bit confusing coz first you gotta get your exit stamp, then cross the Rumichaca's bridge and get your entry stamp in Ecuador (we crossed it walking which by that time I thought it was pretty funny and not really safe.. btw .. I heard this border called Rumichaca is the oldest in S.A. .. established between two indigenous tribes, the Incas from the south and the Pastos from the north)...

So alright... that's how I physically got out the hole but it took me more than that... it took some decision, some fights with myself and loads of "balls" to quit almost all I had .. (not really but still I had to left some things behind)...

Ecuador is another story which I will tell you when I gather enough energy to sit and think.

Travel

2011-10-13T14:08:00.002-03:00

Oi!!

I must say sorry for not being writing about my big South American tour but life is more important that just writing things down... I havent got much time to sit on a computer and post something... Im almost done with my trip.. probably going home in a couple of months or so... (hope more) and as soon as I settle again I promise to write everything from each country Ive been..!

Hope you can understand... and well... here is a pic of where Im living right now :)

Barra da Lagoa, Florianopolis - Brazil

Who said Riga?

2011-04-22T03:37:00.003-03:00

It was January of 2010, a freezing breeze went through my bones the whole trip! but off course, it was -25C!!.

This is a post I own to myself, I said a long time ago I was gonna write about this trip but never did it... I'm part lazy part dumb! anyhow, here is the story...

Deimante my ex and I planned to go to Riga (Latvia) while I was in Vilnius (Lithuania), I was gonna stay in Europe just for about a month and Riga seemed both cheap and fun (despite the horrible winter)!.. I'm not sure what was the exact day we arrived there but lots of things happened on the way and the trip itself...

We took a bus from Vilnius directly to Riga (if you want to know how much ask Deimante, I have a link to her blog on my page). it took around 6 hours I'm guessing... the bus was not full but not empty, not a lot of fellow travelers in this time of year so most of the people with us in the bus were just normal families and people who worked at one city and lived in the other.. Baltics are/were going through rough economic times.

In the Latvian/Lithuanian border, some Latvian soldiers stopped the bus checking for visas, ID's and such... as a Colombian, it was not a surprise to see the soldiers checking my passport over and over... it was quite frustrating since neither my ex and I spoke Latvian, and to be honest, we weren't expecting a fluent English from them; at one point I got a bit nervous, I thought I wasn't allowed in Latvia (dunno why since I had the Schengen visa)... after a short awkward moment, soldiers left the bus and let us continue with the trip.

Deima @ the hostel room

Arrived in Riga's bus station, not really gorgeous tho, but the city behind it was like taken from a movie scene!!!!! stunning old buildings, streets made out of stones, an old tram on the streets, snow everywhere, cloudless sky.... huh!!.. our hostel was not to far from the bus station (Riga backpackers), so we wen't down town walking, after let say... 20mn walking, we found it... the guy in the reception somehow made a mistake with the reservation and gave us a huge room for just the two of us, it had its own bathroom and like 4 beds in it, so it was more like a hotel.. the hostel itself was cold, reaaalllyyyy cold, even inside the room! but well, we managed to keep our selfs warm during nights.

View from St. Peter's church
frozen Daugava river

Riga's old town arquitecture

We went down to an old big church in old town (St. Peter church), well, actually we went to a few churches, including a beautiful Russian church (Orthodox) where I had the chance to practice my rusty Russian hahahah!!

The old town itself isn't thaaat big, so in a couple of days we were done with most of the sightseeing there, I gotta name a few places that you just can't miss if you go there, like the Opera house, the churches I said before, the freedom monument with the parks surrounding it, Daugava river and the house of the blackheads!

@ the Finnish metal concert

At night, Riga is on!! loads of restaurants, pubs and bars are open for the people who's not afraid of the cold (could be down to -30C), in our case, we went one night to an "underground" metal event! haha yep, as weird as it sounds, tho I like the music, it was so surreal to be in Riga at a basement listening to Finnish metal bands! I know you wouldn't believe me so there's a picture of the club ;)

@ the Korean restaurant

Not sure if it was the same day or whatever, Deima tracked down a Korean restaurant in Riga, so we went there to try to revive the tastes in our tongues... hmmm, hard to describe, it wasn't bad at all, chef was Korean, the restaurant looked Korean and all but... it just wasn't right.. :/ for sure we enjoyed it!.. was great and I have no complains about it, it brought good old memories to us.

@ Havana in Riga's old town

Next night, we went down to hunt some pubs and bars, at first, we went to a random pub, we drank a couple of beers but it was too "chill" for our moods... so we rolled a 'lil bit into town and found a club called "Havana"... and oooh boy! that was the place my friend, good vibes, good drinks, good music, nice people (despite the drunk Russian talking to Deima - ~~my fault~~-)... we drank "a few" cocktails there, had a nice chat and went to the hostel pretty late if I'm not wrong.

Freedom monument at the back

On the trip to Riga is included a trip to Jurmala, a city pretty close to Riga but this one is by the sea... I'll make another post about that one later... (hope not too later)...

So that's pretty much what I experienced there... was great, I would make it a thousand times if I could, no matter the weather... it's a beautiful place, impossible to get bored, I spent just like 4 days and It wasn't enough! can't picture it in summer! oh well...

That's all folks, hope it was thrilling for you all!...

btw, if you want to check out more pics from this and more trips, dig into my flickr photostream (bottom of this page)... pics from Havana and Finnish metal concert were taken by Deima.

Dedicated

2011-02-17T14:05:00.001-02:00

Despite the title... this is dedicated to a very nice person who shortly made her self important to me!

Lovedub - Acoustic Refix

BackBeat SoundSystem

Download Share

Found myself

2011-01-22T16:58:00.002-02:00

According to the Holstee Manifesto, getting lost will help you find yourself...

I started out this year in the best possible way ever... making an awesome trip to the Caribbean coast of Colombia!. I've been quite a few times since my family owns a cabin there... but the coast itself is bast, diverse and full of surprises.. in the past I was limited by my ignorance to visit few towns, touristic ones; this time was different.. my friend Pablo and I decided to make a totally different trip this time... go backpacking to the most northerly possible point on the map!; out of nowhere, Nelson and Macris, two friends, decided to join us! now, this was looking even better...

Pablo, Nelson and I decided to go by truck (not really legal) but it had two advantages.. cheaper and it was an adventure itself... so on January the 4th the three of us were sicking for a truck at 6am... we departed at 10am, heading north along with 8 other fellow travelers, all of them going to different parts of the coast.. it was a good time the one we had there.. it took about 40 hours for us to reach what normally takes 14 hours (Macris went by plane.. yeah, wealthy people hahaha)... the truck had 11 people, a dog, a chicken, a rooster, a turkey, two freezers and lots of wood! haha yeah yeah, enough space for all.

After spending the night in the truck, we kept heading north on two local buses, going to Sta. Marta for us, was about $70.000 pesos (us$35), normally it would cost the double!; we finally arrived to one of the three destinations on our plans.. Taganga!!! we were tired, hungry, sleepy and all things you can think of... but what the fuck! we made it, we were in the fucking Caribbean, walking on white sand, wearing sunglasses and drinking beer. We planned to stay one night at Taganga, just to recover some energy, eat, sleep and plan the big real trip... Tayrona park!!!

Getting ready for Tayrona
Marcis, Pablo, Nelson

Next day we were ready for it.. we headed back to Sta. Marta again, there we took a bus to Tayrona Park... the trip was about 1 hour long... we were there, finally! the real deal was on now! 4 hours hiking deep in the jungle... the reward.. paradise on hearth! we started the hike with our heavy bags.. each one weighting no less than 20Kg! yeah, it was fucking hard but totally worth it.. after the hike in the jungle, a 20mn walk on the beach and there we were... on the camping site, $13.000 (us$6) per night, per person; fair enough to stay for four nights, probably the best nights ever spent in my life.. hmmm perhaps the best nights along with a few korean ones ;)

Paradise

I must talk about the second night there.... we gathered around with some guys and girls that were traveling as well, one guy from Bogota, one from Pasto (COL) and a bunch of French! we made a fire on the beach (not legal, they say turtles get lost) hahaha... Julian, the guy from Pasto who lives in Switzerland started playing the Kena... I never really liked traditional Colombian music, but that night it sounded out of this world... more people came to the fire... I can remember talking to one girl from Spain and his husband from Bogota... it was great, the night went by pretty fast, mixed with a couple of drinks and some shooting stars... I was living inside a book! the landscape, the people, the situation itself was so surreal!! so out of my imagination... ahh.. perfect night!

Conquering Tayrona
Macris, Nelson

The crew

A lot of things happened that week at Tayrona Park, like the stories on the nudist beach! hahaha sorry, but if you want more info on that.. just ask me personally!

So alright, we were done with Tayrona... next stop.. Cabo de la vela, Guajira...

We took a bus from Tayrona to Rioacha, last "biggest" city up north... it took like 6 hours and $15.000 (us$7) to go there, we spent the night at the "Tropical Hotel" .. a huge room for the 4 of us.. not to mention the fucking winter inside the room! the manager took the AC control with her and let us "sleep" there with hypothermia! anyhow.. first thing in the morning (5am).. a pickup truck riding us to -4 vias- ... the intersection between two highways in the middle of fucking nowhere... literally like 3 hours aways from any real civilzation... there, we took another pickup truck that drove us to Uribia, a city in the middle of the desert, just like Las Vegas but with less casinos, hookers, lights and hmm how to call it... civilization? yeah... a fucked up place in the middle of nowhere... looking just like a resident evil scenery! dogs with red eyes, white foam coming out of their mouth, goats being killed and sold on the streets... picture it!!

Uribia

From there, we had to wait like 2 hours to take another!!! pickup truck (this post should be called, the pickup truck adventure)... this time, it was for the final destination! Cabo de la vela!! we jumped inside with 3 Wayuu indigenous and a couple of Belgium tourist... 4 hours driving through the desert under an unbearable heat!! I literally felt like a Mexican trying to jump across the border! I don't mean to hurt any feelings, but damn, it just looked like some Arizona desert and the indigenous looked sooo Mexican.~

!!!!

So there it was.. Cabo de la vela, for me it was a legendary place.. always heard about incredible stories, unbelievable views and amazing people... it was all lies!! IT WAS A FUCKING DREAM!! such place is impossible to describe with words.. oh! it has a mystic.. that I never felt before.. as I said, just like living on a Gabriel Garcia Marquez book!. It was like that for me, don't know about the others, maybe just another place.. dunno, I was so far from everything... "no technology, no tourist", just the breeze, the sea, the sun, the indigenous... and a bunch of guys doing kiteboarding! hahaha it added a weird touch to the picture.. somehow I made a connection with the place, everything seemed so familiar after a couple of hours.. is like I was waiting for this, like I dreamed it.. unplugging myself from the world.

The Hostel at Cabo de la vela

The sunset!
Me and Macris

We spent 2 nights on hammocks... $15.000 (us$7) per night, per person... a lovely wood-made house, one of the weirdest things there was the language... just a few locals spoke Spanish, lets say 2 out of 10.. the rest of them just Wayuu (indigenous dialect); the sunset of the second day was idyllic!. The four of us were sitting on a boat in the beach... the sun was perfectly shaped.. with never seen colors.. a clear sky letting the moon be at the same time up there... probably the best sunset my eyes had ever seen! and the night!! OMFG.. I don't wanna sound like a mad man... but the night.. oh~ just like being in outer space.. so many stars that the black of the night was hardly seeing.. so many shooting stars that we had no need to hunt them down! the breeze was so perfect, the water so warm, the sand so white... and not to mention the company! the four of us laughing, telling stories, making jokes about our selfs, or about Pablo! hahaha
damn! a hell of a trip...

So after Cabo de la vela.. we decided to spend a couple of days at Taganga, the first place we went when we arrived to the Caribbean.. since we just spent one night there, it was kinda unfair not to spend a couple more, we had a bit of money and plenty of time...

The circus
Borrete on the right.

Next day we arrived in Taganga, guess what! haha we met with the guys from Tayrona! a hell of a coincidence.. this time it was just two of 'em...
Ronald from Bogota (A.K.A Borrete) and Lula from France... we spent the whole afternoon with them, talking bullshit and looking how they practiced some juggling and circus things (btw.. all the people we met in Tayrona came from different circus around the world), so in Taganga, Borrete and Lula found more artist like them, in the blink of an eye we had a circus playing for us in front of the sunset! an unbelievable scene.. unfortunately for Pablo and I, we had to leave that night, no more money on our pockets.. the lucky one here was Macris, who had her tickets fixed for the day after, so according to her, she spent a hell of a night with the circus crew, drinking and dancing!! .. agrr!

Returning home, back in the city.. was hmm how to say... disappointing! again the same routine, people, places, the chaos, noise, pollution!! but after all, with a good memory on our lives.. unforgettable people, places and situations!!

As Palangos

2010-09-20T18:00:00.002-03:00

So on my winter trip to the Baltics (Lithuania - Latvia) I visited the Lithuanian coast.. specifically, Palanga and klaipeda; two small cities by the Baltic sea.
Palanga is Deima's (ex) home town, her parents, sister and some friends live there; In summer is a very touristic city, crowded by hundreds of Europeans enjoying the beautiful beaches and gorgeous girls there. In winter... well, not so much of a touristic spot, but it still has its magic ;)

The famous Palanga's deck

The small town doesn't offer a wide variaty of things to do, or well, at least I didn't do much thanks to the -12 degrees!! haha just a calm walk to the famous deck and some coffe.

Can't tell much about people there, but since it is located by the sea, I can imagine their will to drink, party and have fun in summer! thats like a law everywhere in the world, if your from the coast, you're likely to have a party spirit!

Alright, so I stayed at Deima's place, really nice, warm and charming! it felt nice to spend some time with a family after about a year spending days just by my self.. or just friends. I'm not a family guy, neither I missed it while in Korea, but you know, there is nothing bad in sharing experiences with locals. I met my ex's friends there... haha it was definitely an awkward situation, not all of them spoke English, so communication wasn't the best, but I do have to mention two girls... Danute and Monika, what a couple of beautiful and nice girls.. we went out several times later on in Vilnius, we went clubbing and drinking together. I must thank Monika and Deima for taking away my "virginity" hahahaha those were the first two girl that I went into a club's bathroom with!!! bwahaha (they know what I'm talking about).

Klaipeda

While in Palanga, we did a one day trip to Klaipeda.. the bus drove us to the station, a 40mn trip more or less... hmm this city was a bit bigger with a nice architecture, we didn't do much there, we drank some coffee and walked around; the same night we took the train back to Vilnius.

Deima's dog -Lora-

As a normal average traveler I would have never thought about a trip to those cities in winter, but It was worth it, not because the tourism or anything, off course my motivations were obvious!! but the places were beautiful, nice people and environment overall.

Oh, and I just forgot to mention the two "~~not very legal~~" wishkey (around 55%) shots that I drank with my father-in-law (at that time) hahaha they cured my pseudo-flu and got me tipsy immediately!

So huge regards to the people mentioned in this post, I'm looking forward to meet them again some other time soon!! I hope they are doing great! hugs from Colombia!

--special greetings to Deima's sister, Monika-- a high quality girl ;)

Memorable winter

2010-09-16T14:28:00.001-03:00

Since this blog is not just about Korea, I will write about the trips I did and the trips I'm doing at the time; this time, about last winter. (2009-2010)

After spending sometime in Korea (around 10 months or so) I packed all my stuff and decided to go to Lithuania! even before getting there, the trip was kinda epic... first, coz of the visa, as Colombian, I need visa for like 95% of the countries on earth, so getting the schengen visa wasn't easy. I issued it at French embassy, lots of paper work and (as always) confusion with documents, language and time. You can imagine, the french embassy in Korea... hahaha (no offense) language was a bit of a problem, they didn't speak any Spanish and just a little bit of English, my korean is not that good and my french... hmm well.

Anyways... after several visits I was told by them that in a week I was gonna receive a call to pick up my passport, they never said whether I was gonna have the visa or not, so the whole time I was on my knees hoping for the best. they never called... morons!! after two weeks I decided to go there and see what was going on with my passport... I imagined the worst. but nop, I had a visa for European Union!! bwahaha

Bangkok airport

So there I was, at incheon airport, waiting for one of the best trips ever! leaving korea was fucking sad! I must admit that at the biginning, I didn't like korea that much... everything was so different from home, the people, the food and culture overall, thanks to Deima my time there became on of the best in my life. so yeah, incheon... boarded my flight heading to Taiwan, then to Bangkok where I spent one night (gorgeous airport)... after Bangkok I went to Singapour where I spent another night, then I headed to Paris where I spent another night!! hahaha yep, I spent like a week between flights and airport seats.. it happened like that coz when I was booking my flights, I did it like one week before departing and did it on christmas time.. so all the good flights were taken, and I got the crappy ones, but whatever, my motivation was damn high, I was gonna be able to see my girlfriend (at that time) and I didn't care sleeping in airports at all.

When in Paris, things got fucked up a little bit, first, there was no cheap flight to Vilnius (Lithuania's capital city) and there was no flight that day, so yep, I had to wait even more.. other thing was the niggas at the terminal, bunch of beggers and thiefs wandering around, waiting for tired travelers to fall asleep; my night there wasn't the best.

OH, Lithuaniaaaaa!!! finally, after going around half globe!! agrr I was there... Deima waited for me with Vaiga, a very cool and nice girl; so when I saw her she was standing there seeking me on the crowd, I went through the people and kissed her like tasting a candy you don't eat since you were seven years old, it tasted like glory! hahaha

Sauletekis

I spent a bit more than a month in Lithuania, dont know exactly how long but it doesn't matter anyway, it was a hell of experience. didn't like the weather that much but is something you have to live at least once! (-20 degrees) brrrrr

I stayed at Deima's place, Sauletekis, bunch of buildings built for students (dorms), it wasn't the most comfortable but it felt nice, familiar and chill, in the room we were 4 people, 3 girls and my self (lucky huh?) there was Vaiga and Aura, another high quality girl!

Clubbing with Deima and her friends

I don't want to go much into details (basically xxx stuff) hahaha kidding, I must say Vilnius is a wonderful place, with wonderful people, all of them or well, at least the people I met were nice and open, streets are alive on weekends even with a harsh winter on... clubbing there wasn't the big shit but I admit they have a good musical taste. city is not too expensive... just average tending to be cheap... food is fucking great! I had the opportunity to taste several tradicional dishes and I liked all of them.

Alright, I gotta go for lunch... soon there will be more posts about the trip to Riga (Latvia), trip to Jurmala (Latvia) and trip to Palanga (Lithuania); I hope you folks had enjoyed the post, I know is not much of info and stuff, but I'm in a hurry, gotta go and hunt for food.

DMZ (demilitarize zone)

2009-12-21T12:06:00.000-02:00

hmmm, there is nothing much I can say about this trip, it was the day of Buddha’s Birthday (I tell U later the story); so I went there with some exchange students, we were like 5 or 6, don’t remember exactly, so we paid for a tour trip, unfortunately the place with the blue houses with the north Koreans soldiers was closed, so we went to a tunnel built by north Koreans, supposedly to invade the south, we also visited an observatory, kinda check point where U can see north Korean people, U can see a huge north Korean flag in front of the one of south Korea, there is also a north Korean city in the border, but it has a story as well, it is suppose that this city was built by the north coz the people there wanted to show to the south how powerful they were, so U can see kinda big buildings, huge highways and stuff, but there is no body living there actually, is a ghost city, just to show off.

we spent there the whole morning and afternoon, between those places, the bus and some museums; we came to Seoul around 5 I guess, so the tour bus dropped us in the middle of the city, after walking few minutes we found a Buddhist temple and inside it, a beautiful ceremony for Buddha's Birthday, we were a bit surprised coz we didn’t expect that on that day, so we decided to stay there and see what was going on, the half of the group was too tired so just three of us stayed, Tom, Evan and myself.

it was a really beautiful ceremony, a lot of people there, 90% over 50 years old tho, they were singing some things, ringing the bell, playing a huge drum and making noises with some wood things.

After the ceremony, we went to city hall (시청), just to find out that there was RIOT going on!!! In the park located in Seoul city hall there was a kind off party, paid by the president, it was nice, with parades, singers, lights, music, blah blah blah…. So at the same time, the opposition was taking the stage over!!!! They disconnected the music, mics and lights!!! Wow! (In a peaceful way), but the police came over and fought with them for a while, I saw some police guys hitting some guys not only from the opposition but also from the press!! Damn Koreans!! It was all chaos, police everywhere, ask Tom if U don’t believe me, it was horrible, I hate police, doesn’t matter where they are from, I just hate them so much, and then try to imagine a lethal combination between Korean and police!!! Boom! U just wanna play some Rage Against the Machine on Ur MP3 and kill some of them, if not all!! Anyways, it was good to see this, something U can’t find in the tourist books nor in the Internet, so we where kinda lucky to found ourselves into this RIOT… hahaha it started all with the DMZ trip but well, it finished all with some political and physical action, coincidence ???

btw, I stole the pics from some friends, at that time my camera was broken!

Gyeongju 경주

2009-12-21T11:58:00.001-02:00

So, I went there in the beginning of spring if I'm not wrong… I went with a Univ. tour, organized by the office of international affairs of AJOU University (아주대학교), it was quite cold and cloudy those days, we just stayed for the weekend in a really nice hotel, I can’t remember the name, but it was like 4 stars and it was all for free!!!! So it was even better haha.
We visited some monuments there like the tomb of some king which is shaped like a bubby (a really rounded hill) also an astronomical observatory which is like 600 years old or something, nothing spectacular for me, just a weird building shaped like a soju bottle, I think it was at the next day or maybe the first one, but we were in Bulguksa temple (불국사), an awesome place in the middle of the mountains, really nice, maybe not perfect cause of the amount of tourist there, a lot of them… (including us the exchange students), but it was nice after all, maybe for me is like that coz that was the first Buddhist temple I had ever been, well, “real Buddhist temple”, coz U can find some cheap imitations in the western world but those are just blondies playing to be the cool and different one in the family; anyway, my point is that going there, having a direct contact with some monks, with some old Koreans, eating traditional Korean food, going to one of the cultural centers in South Korea is something U can’t miss if U have the chance to go there, I know from others that there are some more places to go, not only those I mentioned before, U can even stay in a temple, make some work with the monks, some meditation and stuff.

Well, there is not much to say about the place since I was there only for couple of days, so if Ur interested, go ahead and take a look in the Internet :)

Busan~~부산

2009-12-09T12:50:00.023-02:00

Busan, the second largest city in South Korea, I went there the las summer (2009), I was attending to a Rock Festival for the weekend; like many of my journeys after spring, I was alone.

I departed some time in the middle of July I think, I don't remember and I'm lazy to check the date, so yeah, I was suppose to go with Anna, a friend from Poland but she had already an appointment with her boyfriend if I remember well, I went by train (the slowest and cheapest one), it took 4 hours of sitting next to an old Korean guy who was sleeping and snoring all the way down to Busan, agrrr, asshole, I was so into one book that I finished already (A brief history of everything), but it was kinda difficult to focus with weird noises coming out of his nose and mouth, maybe the only one good thing about traveling in the slow train is the landscape (and the price of course), it was gorgeous, since it was middle of summer, all mountains were green, huge rice fields in the middle of Korea, small villages just next to the train line, in some parts there were kinda "monuments" in the middle of a mountain, I'm not sure what they are, they look like a family cemetery, or something like that, anyways, the trip by slow train was worthed for the landscapes.

I arrived to Busan Station around 5 or 6 in the afternoon, the firs thing I remember of the city.... hmmm, maybe that there were buses everywhere, Busan is far smaller than Seoul and so it is the subway system, so they have buses going all around the city, also, Busan is kinda limited, in one side U have the sea and in the other side U have big mountains, so I guess is kinda difficult to build subway stations under such conditions.

Ok, I was going to the hostel by subway, and as always, lost >.>
I swear I was following the map as the website said, but nah, it was wrong (I mean, the map), so I was walking and asking around with my kinda heavy bag for like 30mn or something, trying to find the damn hostel; after a while a gave up and I called my host, June (I'll tell U his story later), so after talking and asking again for few minutes, I managed to find the hostel, a very very very nice place, U won't believe it, the place is called, Zen backpackers, its an apartment in the middle of Busan, the owner, June, turned his house into a hostel, its an awesome place, it has play station 3, huge plasma tv, a very nice PC, high speed wi-fi Internet, a very nice lounge to chill out, talk, drink coffee and watch one of the very good Korean movies June has (that was the first and last time I saw a good Korean movie), anyways, I highly recommend the place in case Ur going (is cheap as well).

So June, hahaha, maybe thats the only Korean I know so far with a totally different mentality and point of view about everything, luckily, I had the chance to talk with him several times, I was the first Colombian staying at his place so he was quite interested in talking to me; I said different for few reasons, first, the music, this guy is a reggae lover, he has Bob Marley posters all around the hostel, even his ring tone is a "I shot the sheriff" hahaha, ok ok, we were also talking a bit about politics in Korea, this guy is really into the "make love and not war mood" so he hated the Korean government and some of the Korean traditions in politics, we were also talking about USA, and wow, I was kinda shock coz he knew a lot about USA politics and economy, well, not too much, but it was more than the average Korean person I guess, surprisingly, he was against Obama, I won't go into details but well, I think now U can make a picture of June.

Going back to the main reason why I was in Busan.... oh yeah, the Rock Festival, this festival was sponsored by the government, so it was for free, there were bands from Korea, Japan, Canada, USA and I think one from France but don't remember. I went there just 2 days out of 3, I skipped the first day and skipped also the last band, one metal band from USA, but I as lucky, coz at the end with this metal band, the hole concert was a mess, huge pogo and disorder all around, but guess who was in the concert as well.... the Mayor of Busan hahahaha so this old and conservative guy that was trying to show his juvenile face by promoting rock stopped the American band in the middle of their performance hahaha, I was told this happened by June, I wasn't there when this happened so lucky me!! haha

I was planning to come back to Suwon (ye, I was living in Suwon in summer) on Monday morning, but I decided to stay one more day and make more sightseeing, since I was there already, I didn't see why not to do so, and the weather was really nice, so yeah!
Busan overall was really nice, beautiful city, like almost all cities next to the sea; the people is nice, the city is small so U feel a bit more secure, hmm, I dunno how to explain, is just that U feel that if U get lost there, U can easily find the way back again and there is always a bus going to some subway station. Busan, highly recommended in summer, nice weather, people and food (nice sea food), be careful with famous beaches like Haeundae beach and things like that, they are overcrowded in summer break, and Koreans take pretty seriously the word -OVERCROWDED-, so try to look for some other alternatives :)

I hope I will b able to write something soon, bye

Seoul~~서울

2009-12-04T11:12:00.005-02:00

안녕!~
Wow, it has been a while since I wrote for the last time here, well, I've been pretty busy with presentations, reports, projects, finals... anyway, but here I am now!
The first time I came to Seoul, was I guess in the first month here, I was living my first 6 months in Suwon, a small city close to Seoul, around 40mn by bus; so yeah, it was kinda winter at that time, I guess it was early March... I came with two good friends, Tom from Canada and Gregor from Slovenia, it was suppose to be just from one day to another but we stayed the whole weekend in a very nice place close to Hongdae, in Kim's guest house or something like that, don't remember well.

Anyway, it was Friday when we left the dorms, it was kinda unexpected to me, I was just walking on the corridor and Tom just asked me if I wanted to go with them to explore Seoul for one night, so yeah, why not!!

We walked that night from the guest house to Hongdae, one of the clubbing/party areas in Seoul, it was like 30~40mn walk, not that long actually, we were lucky coz that Friday was The club day, a special event in Hongdae, where U just pay 20000 won and U can go inside 20 or more clubs and have a free drink in the first one U go inside, so we went to several places it was fun, after that we just came back to rest a bit.

We were suppose to leave the guest house before 10am, but how we were out until too late we woke up around 11 or something so we decided to stay another night, and make some sightseeing on that Saturday afternoon, we went to Myung dong and Seoul Tower, that night was calm actually, nothing special... the next day on Sunday we left the place quite early in the morning, we walked a little bit more for more sightseeing, we went to Dongdaemun market, after that we came back to Suwon.
Now that I've been more than 3 months living in Seoul the perception is totally different!!!
the first time I was a bit shocked, too many people on the streets, to noisy, crowded, expensive, everything was far away from everything, the subway was really complicated, but at the same time I was amaze, being in one of the biggest cities in the world, skyscrapers everywhere, including the really good clubbing night as well, that was the first time for me to see how Koreans spend their nights on weekends, going to Dongdaemun market and looking at the old granny boiling and selling bugs was not a nice impression... looking at pig's heads hanging out of the restaurants... that was a lot of information for one day I guess, but it was ok, I was kinda expecting that from Koreans.

Seoul now is different from that Seoul 9 months early, is still annoying in so many ways, but now I got used to it somehow, but it doesn't mean that I like it; the people here is always in a rush, running for the subway, fighting for a sit in the bus or train, pushing each other in the red lights, motorcycles driving on the sidewalks, horns, smog, still noisy, things are really far away.
Few good things for example, U can make sightseeing easily, U can visit 2 temples and 1 museum in one day and then just come back in 30mn and chill out, before when I was living in Suwon, I had to take the subway to Sadang station (around 30mn) and then take a bus to Suwon (around 40mn) so it was really tiring.

Things are still more expensive in comparison with Suwon and Colombia, but the difference is not that much when U find the right spot to eat and have a beer; one huge good point of living here is going out on weekends, before, in spring, if I wanted to go to Seoul to some club or something, I had two options, one, stay overnight until 5am (subway opens at that time) and make the rute I said already, or two, stay until 11pm of that same night, take subway (close at 12am) and then take bus (last bus until 1 I think), but now, being here, there is not much trouble, well, if U skip the subway U still can wait until 5am to go by subway or take a cab instead, for me to go from Hongdae to Hoegi (where I live) costs around 15000 won so if U are like 3 or 4 people is not that much.

Seoul is a huge place, full of things to discover, every single day I see something I never saw before and make me feel more curious every time, now that my time here is about to expire I'm thinking that 10 months were not really enough to know this culture and know this people, hopefully Ill b back soon and hopefully I will finish discovering this city with the person I started (not Tom nor Gregor), she knows how she is ;)

So thats all for now, I will have time again to write something next week I guess, be patient.

bye~~

Korean Culture part 3 ~Kimchi~

2009-11-10T13:06:00.000-02:00

This post is gonna be short, its about Kimchi (김치), maybe the most important element in Korean cousin... and one of the korean icons in the world, next to soju, Park Ji-Sung, and dog meat.

When I ate Kimchi for the first time... hmmm well, I was not prepared, didn't know much about it, just that it was made out of some kind of vegetable, and that it was spicy.... most people like it (I don't), Koreans love it, foreigners could have different opinions about it. but in general, people have no complains about it. Kimchi is the base of almost all Korean dishes, its always in the table when you are eating at a restaurant, there could be variations, but Kimchi is Kimchi, no matter what. usually, it is made out of Asian Cabbage, which is slightly different from the one we know, the preparation is not that complicated but I'm too lazy to explain it, just search in youtube for the word Kimchi and watch some interesting videos; there could be Kimchi made out of radish (small cubes), cucumber Kimchi, "onion" Kimchi and so on....

Here, they usually serve Kimchi in a side dish, but you can find it in soups, some kinda salads, and stuff like that, they sell it in the stores like if they were selling water, I mean, you can find huge containers of Kimchi in the super market, the people just put it in the fridge and thats it, they will have like 10 kilos for the week hahaha.
They mix it with almost every food available, could be rice, fish, beef, pork, egg, in the hamburger, pizza... and many more

What else can I say about this wonderful food.... haha..... just try it if you can, no matter if you don't like spicy, or if smells funny, if you have the chance just put it in your mouth and swallow it and make your own opinion, please make sure you have water or something next to you, Koreans use rice or some yellow thing in order to balance the spicy ;)

btw, be aware of Kimchi soup!! that think is like hell on heart hahahaha, I tried it last week and bloody hell!! well, maybe was the recipe of the old lady in the restaurant's kitchen.

anyway, enjoy Kimchi! "they say is healthy" ;)

Korean Culture part 2 ~Soju~!!!!!

2009-11-06T08:27:00.005-02:00

ok, this time my fellas, this post is for the Korean traditional alcoholic drink call soju (소주)!!

some of you might know what it is and how it taste.. well, Im just gonna write about some facts, and traditions here in Korea.

Soju is made out of rice and sometimes out of potato, all brands are Koreans, it has 20% of alcohol, which is not too much, but the taste is horrible. I heard that you can even find soju with 35% of alcohol but no idea where; the color is clear, like vodka, is cheap as hell, for one bottle of 330ml you pay like 1300 won aprox. (US$1); cheap, isn't it? maybe thats why you can see a lot of alcoholics on the streets.

People drink soju here like Coke in America, I mean, they drink it for lunch, dinner, partying, "chilling" in some bar, or whatever, they drink it a lot!!! usually they drink it in shots, small shots, sometimes they mix it with beer (맥주) as well, they call this mix "somec" (소맥), obviously, you get drunk easier.....

they also have some varieties of taste.. well, they sell sweet soju, its more girly, softer, kinda cocktail, the price is a bit higher but still is nothing!.

In some bars they sell soju mixed with soft drinks, like pineapple juice, or strawberry juice or something like that, taste better. :)

Koreans are pretty creative drinking, they have loads of drinking games... they are kinda difficult to explain by this way, but basically it involves numbers, memory, and some brain work, which is tricky coz those are the things you get worse when your drinking alcohol, so there is no way to be out a game without drinking even one shot!

They have a bit of etiquette when drinking soju, like, you can't pour your own glass, you grab the glass with both hands or just the right hand and kinda bowing as well... when you drink it, you have to make sure you are not pointing the face of other person in the table with the bottom of your glass, so they usually take the shot looking to one side of the table, you don't reject a shot, well, you can, but is kinda impolite, sometimes, the table next to you will pay for a round of shots, so you should go to the table with the shot on your hands and drink it there with the people who payed for it; usually you pay one round back for the table; this is a bit dangerous, well, happened to me several times, and Koreans where pretty excited with foreigners in their table so they kept paying and paying for shots hahahaha well, so you should think it twice before accepting Koreans shots, its not that impolite that foreigners reject shots, still impolite but not that much ;)

hmmm....don't know what else to say.... a part that Koreans puke like bastards all weekends, why? well, when they drink, they always eat, ALWAYS!!! so you can imagine the consequences of that. :D

this is a video of some soju fans in Korea :D enjoy!!

Korean Culture Part 1

2009-11-03T11:18:00.003-02:00

Ok, gracias al post de un amigo en Facebook, me dio por escribir algunas generalidades de la cultura coreana, como se hacen algunas cosas por estos lados. Yo se que debería de estar escribiendo sobre otras cosas, es decir, devolviéndome en el tiempo, pero voy a hablar de una vez de la impresión que tienen los extranjeros acá en corea cuando llegan por primera vez, o bueno, al menos de mi impresión cuando yo llegue y cosas que aún parecen raras para mi.

Empiezo por la comida..... en internet, agencias de viaje, en la embajada y otros medios por los cuales uno se entera de Corea, deberían de poner un letrero gigante diciendo, "Advertencia: en Corea la comida es exageradamente picante, absténgase de viajar si no tiene la lengua y el estomago preparado." no toda la comida es picante, es más, hasta algunos platos picantes son buenos, pero por lo general, se pasan!!!
en Corea, hay varios tipos de restaurantes típicos, está el BBQ Coreano (삼겹살, el nombre depende del tipo de carne), los restaurantes normales, los restaurantes de bibimbap (비빔밥) y kimbap (김밥), los de pollo (치킨) y otros variados.....

Mi preferido, Bulgogi (불고기), es carne de res cocinada con salsa soya, cebolla, hongos, algunos vegetales, y hasta noodles, no es picante, viene en sopa o solo la carne cocinada, en fin...

Después diría que el BBQ, lo cosa con el BBQ es que vos mismo lo tenes que cocinar en tu mesa, es por esto que los restaurantes son especiales, las mesas tienen un hueco en la mitad en donde se pone una parrilla y unos carbones debajo, te traen un plato con carne cruda, hongos y vegetales, y vos mismo los pones en la parrilla y los cocinas. es demasiado bueno cuando vas con varia gente, porque vas charlando y comiendo, y ni hablar de los pequeños platos que te traen, son ensaladas, salsas, raíces, hojas.... bueno, eso todo depende del lugar en el que estés comiendo, entre más caro, mas cositas te llevan, aunque no es costoso, por lo general, son como 10.000 pesos por persona.

Ya después hablare de los otros platos que nombre antes.... tengo pereza y extraño a la mujer....
cuando vas un restaurante, siempre te dan agua, gratis, sin ni siquiera preguntar por ella, es lo primero que te llevan, es raro pagar la cuenta por separado aunque se puede, es raro pagar en efectivo pero se puede, es raro pedir gaseosas para pasar la comida pero se puede, es raro comer con tenedor pero se puede.... cuando comes BBQ casi siempre piden "soju" (después hago un post hablando solo de soju jajaja) y cerveza.

Hablando de bares y clubs.... si vas a un bar, es solo a sentarte a beber, acá no bailan a menos que sea un club, en el cual no se puede uno ni sentar... los Coreanos el 90% de las veces que van a tomar, lo hacen con juegos, especialmente diseñados para hacerte emborrachar y vomitar a las dos horas, siempre piden comida... SIEMPRE, mezclan soju con cerveza, o algún jugo natural con soju, pero igual eso es como pal sabor, porque igual todos los coreanos terminan tirados en las aceras vomitando y gritando.

Hay algo muy famoso en Corea, se volvió popular en el mundo por las películas de acción en donde muestran mafiosos todos tatuados en saunas, generalmente hay balacera y terminan un par de Coreanos tatuados flotando bocabajo en la piscina.... el lugar se llama Jimjilbang (찜질방), es más bien lujoso por dentro pero baraatisisimo, pagas el equivalente a unos 13~14000 pesos y te podes estar todo el día, tiene la zona de mujeres y hombres separada pues tenes que entrar todo empelota y a las piscinas y podes ir al salón común (vestido obviamente) en donde podes dormir, ver TV, comer, jugar, en fin.... la primera vez que fui, estaba con 4 compañeros de la Univ. y mi novia, todos extranjeros, y claro, cuando entramos a la zona de hombres, empezaba uno a ver gente por ahí caminando en pelota, niños, ancianos, señores, jóvenes, eso era normal, como estar en cualquier otro lado... pero claro, los occidentales todos precavidos, caminando muy disimuladamente para la primera piscina que vieron jajajaja... pero ya después de la primera vez es todo como normal, los Coreanos no miran nada, nadie dice nada (a menos que lo digan en coreano, te miren abajo y se rían jajaja nunca me ha pasado); venir a corea, y no ir a este lugar, es como no haber estado, en donde más podes experimentar eso? bueno, a menos de que te devolvas para la antigua Grecia en donde todos filosofaban en pelota en el gimnasio.... o de pronto Japón....
la cosa es que acá hay muchas maneras de hacer las cosas.... cosas raras, diferentes para nosotros en el occidente, en ninguna parte están bien o mal hechas, solo son diferentes puntos de vista.

Ya estoy como cansado, después hablare de más cosas, del licor, de más comida, de más rumba, de la gente, de festivales.... en fin..... hay mucho por decir.

Chao.

Kyung Hee Univ. ~ 경희 대학교

2009-10-31T11:12:00.006-02:00

As I said before, I'm gonna start writing backing on time, so the last "important" and "relevant" thing that happened to me is being in the new Univ. Kyung Hee, its ranked in the top ten of Korean Univs. well, thats what they say.... has two campuses, one in Seoul and another in Suwon, I'm studying at Seoul campus.

here I'm listed in Business Administration school (puke), ye, I know, since high school I was always criticizing this mayor, coz for me its just too easy, well, of course it has tricky things, like all careers, but come on, its nothing compare to engineering or some other mayors, in business you just read, read and read, and from time to time yes, some equations to calculate investment things, but nothing special, hahahaha, its funny to see how the business students suffer with this "numbers" courses, its quite difficult for them, its not easy, but not much complicated, I wonder what would they do with my "numbers" courses hahaha.

in Colombia I'm studying Product Design Engineering, and here at Kyung Hee I'm taking some business lectures that my mayor requires in order to get the fucking diploma; so here I am, with 6 lectures, 5 from business and 1 from political science, that one is I think, the coolest one this semester, is called, Intl. conflict and peace, the teacher is an asshole, typical Korean teacher, "He is always right, he is the law in the class room" but the topics we discus about are really interesting, unfortunately the lecture is on Fridays at 9am (puke) so my brain is half sleep always :)

teachers are good, one from Austria another from Canada and the rest are Koreans, the Austrian teacher is like hmmm, how to say, like the stereotype of an Austrian, you have to be always on time to class, no phone, all strict and square!! agrr he is always complaining about Korea, I don't know why he's here, he should come back to Singapore, where he use to life a long time ago; the Canadian teacher...hmmm well, is like almost all North Americans, always trying to take the attention, making weird noises, stupid comments, putting her point of view above others.... hmmm, she's cool, but nah, too stupid I guess, she should buy some pills to manage her hyperactivity; and Korean teachers, well, they are all the same, no matter if they are teachers or students, or business man, or whatever, here they are all the same, its like living in "matrix" (good movie), everybody dress the same, think the same, do the same, of course there are exceptions, but in a city of 20 million and a country of 40~50 mill, they are like nothing, I just know maybe 5 Koreans that are different from the others, I don't know too many though.

what else should I say about Kyung Hee.... the campus is nice, big, beautiful, nice buildings and "parks" they are more like green spots, mmm, good academic level, nice classmates, good English from Korean teachers.... well, there are tons of things to say about Univ, like Dormitories, food, transportation, neighborhood, and stuff like that, but this is getting too long, and believe it or not, I don't want you to get bored!

so I will post later more details or if you have no patience, just ask me and I'll tell you. :)

ok, enough for today.

chao.

P.S. esposa, aprende español porque el próximo articulo va a ser en español. :)

lets get started

2009-10-30T07:53:00.007-02:00

You might be asking to your self, why is this asshole writing in English, he's Colombian... and, why should you care about me?

well, first of all, welcome, and ye I know, I should be writing in Spanish, is more beautiful than English and I can express better, but you know, I want to practice a bit my basic English skills, and from time to time I will post some stuff in Spanish.

if you really don't care of what this is all about.... just click on the red box with the white "x" on the top right corner of this window :) easy, isn't it?

as you notice it, on the right side of this page, there is a little text explaining the content of this blog, and how I've been in Korea for like 8 months already, there are a lot of things to say and lots of things to remember, so I will make it, like all Colombians, in the easy way, that means, starting from now and then going back on time until I reach my first experiences in this place; sounds like star wars hahaha.

I won't start telling stories and stuff with this post, I might do it with the next one, I don't know when, I've been too lazy these days, too many things to think about, school, money, wife, time, visa, internship, tickets, work permit, weather... and the list go on and on.

como lo prometí, de vez en cuando escribiré en español, esta vez, para despedirme, TIENEN que excusar la ortografía, en ingles y en español, sobre todo en español, hace mucho pero mucho rato que no lo hablo en forma, aun así, tengo amigos latinos y todo, ustedes saben que no es el mismo español que se habla en medellin, hasta creo que ya perdí ese acento que tanto nos caracteriza :/ lo bueno es que no es si no ponerme hablar 1 hora con algún paisa para que vuelva y se me pegue el hablao' :)

bueno, hasta acá llego yo por ahora.

chao.