Posts Tagged ‘beer’

i’ve had a cold since about tuesday. the usual symptoms began with a sore throat followed by a shitty head cold. i’m felling a bit better today, but i’ve still got a cough and my nose feels like an open tap. i will probably have a runny nose for a few days, then i should be fine. i rarely get a cold and i always hate it when i do get one.

today i need to go out, reluctantly, and get some film developed. i also need to catch up with matt from the korean herald. i’ll probably stop by and have a beer, pick up my business cards, and head home. i’m not keen to stay out too long today. i’d rather come home where it’s warm. and i can be miserable in peace.

i’ve also started moving sites over to the new server. i’ve decided to switch server companies and i’ve bought a 10 year plan. holy shit, that’s a long time. super-dave.com is already moved, as is nerfy.com and most other minor sites. i still have a few sites to shift … which i’ll leave until next weekend. the problem is that sites with databases are a pain in the arse to move, so i’ve been moving stuff slowly, for fear of fucking it up. super-dave.com has a database, so i’m pleased with myself for moving it over successfully. but i don’t want to get too confident, or shit will probably start to go awry in a big hurry.

next saturday i’ll move craig’s sites too. the new server company has sub-uer accounts, so craig will be able to have all his own login details … pretty sweet.

big weekends are coming thick and fast. i’ve been quite busy lately, but the upside is that i’m doing lots of photography. i’ve already shot over 400 shots this month (and today is only the 10th).

yesterday ryan came into town. he wanted to see the magnum exhibition so we headed there first. the exhibition had a few good photos, but generally i didn’t think the quality was very high. it was definitely good inspiration though, so we headed out to brave the fierce summer weather.

we headed to cheungmuro, i printed my film and we drank coffee at a cool little second hand store. we ate kimchi mandoo for lunch, met up with the leica club members (we spent some time drooling over a $30,000 collector’s camera). then we headed off to dongjak station to get some photos of the sunset.

we arrived early, but had some beer and set up while we waited for the sun to get lower. originally we were off to the left side, but moved closer to the middle of the bridge later, to get a better position. i got a bunch of great photos, partly in thanks to my new cokin flw filter … it’s designed as a fluorescent correction filter, but the upshot is that it produces amazing colours during sunsets. it’s a very nice little investment.

the photography went well, and we were forced to give up thanks to a sudden downpour of rain. we drank some beer at the local pub and headed home to argue about focal lengths. LOL

this morning we got up at the ridiculous hour of 6am to head to chenonan. we wanted to take advantage of the weather and photograph the buddha. however, the sun was behind it and the photos didn’t come out very well. i have one or two usable shots.

this afternoon i came home, feeling tired from a long weekend, had a small sleep and have been editing photos.

back to work tomorrow, but i’m not feeling too worried about the long day, because tuesday i start my holidays. i still need to go to the office in the afternoon. but for a whole week i can sleep in!

got a hella busy weekend coming up … tonight i’m trying to finish angie’s photos (which i’m 3 weeks behind on) and update natalya’s site (which i’m months behind on)

ryan gets here in the morning. we’re gonna check out the magnum photography exhibition, go to cheungmuro and look around, then head to dongjak and do some photography on the bridge. the plan is to photograph the han river at sunset (here’s hoping for clear weather). the view from the bridge is probably the best location in korea. we can see the sunset, the han river, lots of buildings and a motorway on the right, and the 63 building on the left.

however, tonight’s work is progressing well. i’ve upgraded my site and fixed the permalink error. i’m running wordpress 2.6.1 which has a few error fixes from the wordpress 2.6 release. i also fixed some small cosmetic issues and uploaded a different smilie pack

i’m a bit hungry, so i might head out soon and get some food. actually, i’ve been a good boy lately. my diet has consisted of kimbab (lots), bibimbab, ramyeon, neng myon and dongass. it’s been a 95% korean diet … with the occasional sandwich thrown in … usually on the way to work.

but, i have beer … so i’ll grab a snack and have a few drinks while i do some editing.

oh, i almost forgot, i’ve started listening to last.fm. these days my regular music has been getting a bit dull, and i’m tired of changing playlists. so i figured it’s time to explore and find some new music … it’s working out well.

i decided i need to change things up a bit. i haven’t been photographing much lately and i want to get myself back into it.

so i did two things today. first, i bought a new lens, the tokina 11-16mm f2.8, which replaces my tokina 12-24 f4. the lens is very nice. it’s faster and sharper than the 12-24mm lens. i enjoyed playing with it this afternoon. i traded the 12-24 lens, even though i had actually planned on giving it to craig. the reason i didn’t is because tokina lenses have motor driven focus, which the rubber chicken’s D40 can’t do, because the camera doesn’t have the motor pin. however, i’ll make it up to craig in another way!

the second thing i did was finally finished the roll of velvia film in my leica. i went to cheungmuro to get it developed. initially i panicked, because most of the stores were shut. there were two shops i planned to visit, and both were shut. however i walked a little further and found a printing shop that was still open. he said it would only take 2 hours for my photos to be developed, so i waited. the slides turned out great … i got about 8 or 9 shots i like.

i’m a happy camper today, even though i’m a tad tired from my racing around town all afternoon.

while i was waiting for the film, i went to sincheon and met matt and a few folks from the korea herald. it was nice to catch up with them for some beers and burgers. the food was free and it was a fantastic way to kill time until my photos were ready.

had myself a good day. taught this morning until 10.30 and had a free lunch, courtesy of my school. i went home, checked email and then headed off to coex for a look around. i decided that my satchel bag wasn’t really cutting it, so i reckoned on buying another bag. i stopped into the adidas store and saw a bag that was just right. i bought it and headed to the office.

after work i picked up my roll of b&w film from the processing store. i am quite happy with the shots, even though this roll of film was much more difficult to use. the higher iso really makes a difference and highlights are blown in a few shots. it’s definitely not very forgiving. however, i got some good shots out of it, so i’m still pleased. the best part is that i had the photos scanned at the processing store, so the scans are much better quality (and also a little scratchy from being handled after printing). i’m still quite pleased though.

tonight i had a final lesson with my one on one student. other committments have meant that she’s not able to continue her lessons. so we went to outback steakhouse for a farewell dinner. i only ordered the aussie cheese chips and a beer, but i’m full as hell … i’m really looking forward to getting to bed.

i’ve just spent the last half hour editing shots, which i’ll post now.

… well, it wasn’t the bestest birthday ever, but i had a good day.

the irony of teaching in an adult hogwan is that i get a lot of leeway regarding my lessons. today, i took two of my classes to paris baguette to celebrate my birthday. the first class bought a cake for me and we had coffee with it. the second class just had coffee, but we had a lot of fun and talked for a long time.

at my office i also had another small party, this time with pizza and coke. then when i retuned to my school, my boss gave me a gift voucher for the local buffet restaurant (enough for 2 people to eat free) and my late class went out with me to enjoy beer and snacks.

so, it was a good day overall. i didn’t work too hard, the weather was fantastic, i had a good time with my students and i had a surprisingly nice day.

another big buddhist weekend … i headed to cheongju to meet ryand and his girlfriend. i got there friday night and headed into town to meet a girl from model mayhem. her name is brittany and she’s going to model for me this month or next month (depending on when we can organise our schedules). i stayed at a motel and next morning i headed out with ryan to check the local temples.

the temples were pretty cool, one had a medium size stone buddha. the other was on top of the huge hill and had a good view of the city. both temples were decorated with lanterns and preparing for another weekend of buddhist birthday festivities. we got lots of photos at both temples … but the best part was when we left the temples we walked a little ways and stopped at a cafe. the cafe was a ‘photo and coffee’ cafe, owned by a guy who studied photography in america. the cafe was freaking huge, it was about 4 stories tall (built on the side of a hill) had a fabulous view of the city, and there were a million rooms and spiral staircases. the owner was great. he gave us a tour of the building and showed us his lecture room, studio and other small rooms used for shooting photos in. it was really quite a find! he even told us that we can rent parts of the building to photograph in … and it’s rather cheap, which is great. i anticipate heading down there in the future and making use of his great rooms and spaces.

saturday night we hung around at ryan’s house. we dranks some beers and felt really lazy. one of ryan’s noisy neighbours came around and brought angju (alcohol) with him. this stuff was incredibly expensive and really potent. it’s basically a big jar of alcohol with fermented mushrooms in it. the stuff is potent as all hell and is more suited to stripping oil off a garage floor, than drinking.

this morning we headed out of town, bearing east, towards beopjusa. i’d already visited the temple once before, but was keen to get back there before my time in korea ends. we arrived at the temple just after 10am and had a good look around. i took a lot of photos and made the most of the great weather (clear blue skies). although, i was kicking myself for forgetting my polarisers (i’ve lived in seoul too long, where i get no chances to use them). however, i still got a lot of good photos.

after we left the temple, ryan and i headed towards the town and got some lunch. then we walked back to the bus stop to get a ticket to cheonan. this is where our awesome plans went horribly wrong! there were no busses to cheonan. we either had to go back to cheongju, seoul or daejon, and get a bus to cheonan from there. we decided that it would take too long and we’d miss the remaining daylight. so we walked back into town, got some pa-jon and kimchi-jon, dong dong ju (rice wine) … we spent the afternoon drinking and talking. at about 5.30 we jumped on a bus back to cheongju, and there i switched busses and came back to seoul.

overall, it was a great weekend. i’m a bit tired, to be expected, but i had fun wandering aroundall weekend. ryan and i plan on getting to cheonan one weekend in the next month or two … if the weather is good, we’ll just do an afternoon trip and head out to see the buddha, then have dinner and return home. it’s the only black buddha that i know of in korea, and i’m determined to see it this summer.

had a marvelous weekend with my mate ryan. he arrived in town on saturday afternoon and we immediately headed to namdaemun. he was going to buy a lens, but decided not to. i spent a little bit of money on a flash unit. after that we headed to coex and straight across to bong eun temple. ryan and i spent the late afternoon and evening at the temple, capturing lots of great photographs.

ryan’s lens broke, so he dropped big money on a new lens … then that night we went back to my neighbourhood and drank some really nice dark beer.

sunday we got going early and headed straight to insadong. the buddhist festival began at midday but we wanted to catch the monks before the crowds arrived. we photographed the monks during prayer and even saw the young monks, who only made a brief appearance. i didn’t get any good photos of them though!

we noticed that the lanterns were set out in the shape of a lotus flower, so i had the idea to get a photograph from a higher angle (to capture the roof and lanterns). so ryan and i went into a nearby building, got the elevator to the roof, and took some great shots. the view was pretty sweet, since the blue house (korea’s presidential house), gyoungbok palace and jogye temple were all in view.

we bumped into an american girl who was in seoul for the day, and was lucky enough to have found herself in insadong to catch the festival. we also met another girl who is an israeli journalist doing a month long story on south korea. i caught up with a few other friends and members of my photography club.

ryan and i wandered up and down the street for most of the day, looking for photos … at about 6pm the rain started and we took it as our cue to head home. although we missed the night parade, i wasn’t particularly worried. i saw it last year with steve!

back in my neighbourhood, again, we had samguypsal for dinner and drank more dark beer at the same bar. after the two of us knocked back 5 litres of beer, it was time to wander home and get some rest.

on monday morning ryan headed home. my internet died, so i did some editing and went to a pc room to play warrock all afternoon. i went home, watched golden compass (which isn’t a bad movie) and got some needed sleep.

the last two days are the most active i have been in a long time. it felt good to get out and stretch the legs. i wasn’t as tired as i thought i’d be either. so it gives me hope for my pathetic fitness levels.

i have a bunch of photos. i posted some to flickr and i’ll post some to my blog tonight when i get home.

thanks to gary, i have a bag full of nice clean clothes. today i went to his place and did some washing. gary has a really big house … lucky bastard!! LOL … so while his family is on holidays, we’ve been having some fun. i headed over in the afternoon. we drank coronas and talked about photography, editing, things and stuff. i caught a cab home just before midnight, feeling a bit pissy from all the beer. gary has got a lot of really good shots from the nude shoot yesterday, so we talked about how to edit them. i also spent time transferring my 10 gig of pictures to my umpc. it took over two hours, slow ass computer, but we had plenty of other things to occupy our time.

stupidly, i left my phone behind. so tomorrow i have to go back and pick it up. of course, that may result in a few more beers and a chat before i go home. but i have a promise to make a phone call at midnight tomorrow, so i have to be home by about 11pm.

suddenly, moving into town, i’ve become a lot busier … it almost feels like i have a life! lol

thanks for the clean clothes, dinner and beers mate!!

had a great day today … celebrating sujoung’s birthday, we went out to yongsan and visited the war memorial. we’d arranged to meet about 20 other photographers there. we got a big group shot of the photographers at the memorial, then spent the afternoon wandering around. i had a great chat with some new friends and it was quite a lot of fun … i also managed to get a few good shots.

while we were there we saw a wedding ceremony that we assumed to be set up for tourists. it seemed weird to have a traditional wedding exhibition at a war memorial. however, it turned out to be a real wedding. the wedding, on the memorial grounds, is in the style of the king and queens of former korean dynasties. so the bride and groom get paraded around like royalty. quite a crowd had amassed to see the spectacle and most unusual wedding … to further add to the strangeness, the groom was a foreigner!

after that, sujoung wanted to eat indian food (particularly nan bread) for dinner. so steve joined us and we headed to itaewon. we had some great indian curries at an ugly restaurant. fortunately, the curry was good and the restaurant was bad … and not the other way around. then we scooted up to the aussie shop for a couple of vbs, before waddling home on the subway. as i write this rant it’s only 8.30pm, but it’s been a long day and the time feels much, much later.

all up, a good day out.