The Second Overseas Reunion of Iwanuma Volunteers

The last week has been somehow crazy. Crazier than usual, I mean. Few days before leaving for Seoul I found a nice spot to have a break on the way home from the nearby village, where I usually go to buy beers. I sat on the rock, the day was beautiful and warm... and when I wanted to go back home I had no more beers and I almost fell from the rock.



The next day I was bragging a lot about my computer hardware skills. And I got two broken PCs, some really good configurations, 3GHz processors, 2GB of DDR3 RAM memory each, Radeon graphic cards, you name it. The challenge was, if I'm really so good at repairing computers I will be able to make a decent one for my teacher (who really needs a new one) with the spare parts. What's actually wrong with them? One doesn't start at all, the other keeps restarting. I knew the second one will give me some headache. And I got also an old monitor, I can't work without it! And my room turned in a workshop.

As I suspected, the first one was easy. Reset the BIOS and turn it on. Works like a wonder. The next step broke my heart. I had to format the hard drive. Previously it was working on Ubuntu. You have to know that Linux users are a rarity in Korea. And when I found a PC running Ubuntu... I had to format it. But it was another challenge - am I able to install and tweak the Korean version of a M$ operating system? Oh, the hell I am able! Well, the installation part was easy, I could do it blindfolded without a keyboard, I've done it so many times I'm sick of it. Tweaking the bastard was easy also, because I cheated. Command lines are the same in all language versions...
I know, the picture sucks, but it's an old monitor...

I finished with the computer the evening before I left for Seoul. Once in Seoul I started drinking. And I drank a little bit more and went to sleep. When I woke up next day I was still drunk and i was almost late at the airport to meet a Japanese friend who was in Europe and on his way home he stopped in Korea. He stopped here with a good reason - to meet me. We worked together in the ruins of Iwanuma. I was shocked when I saw him. I barely recognized him. I know how popular is plastic surgery in Asia but this guy has gone too far. He did so much of surgery that he doesn't look Japanese any more!

I was waiting him with beers. I know I should have been there with some Hite, Cass, Ob or Max beer... I had Sapporo. I know what he likes. And not to mention that Sapporo is... The Legendary biru.


We continued drinking together for two days in Seoul and left for Wonji. Where we bought more beers and froze our asses waiting the bus for Gahoe. From there was easy, I called a friend to pick us and we were home. With absolute delight I saw smoke from my chimney, Yong Ran was obviously informed of our arrival and she was heating the floor in my room. But noone of them was home so we just drank all our beers. They arrived around 10 PM and we started drinking with Sang Pyeong - drinking my brother's homemade poison, a special gift from Sveronia. The shit has some 60% of alcohol, probably more. We emptied the bottle. And that was really really bad because next morning I woke up late. I had Korean lessons that day. So I grabbed the computer and ran like hell. I was still almost 15 minutes late and the worst thing is that I was still drunk. Heavily drunk. I felt like shit and looked much worse - she noticed immediately that something's wrong with me so I just apologized and told her the drinking story. She acknowledged that doing anything in such a state would be a total waste of time. Instead of studying I went to work, there was a heating system to build, the Japanese friend with me. In a way we were happy that we already have some work to do, it means that we will stop drinking and be useful.
Such a nice dream it was... Yes, we indeed were working all the day, but we were drinking all the time, too. Soju, beer, makkoli - you name it. I realized how drunk I am only when I left one hour earlier than the others, I invited everyone for dinner so I went cooking, and Sang Pyeong gave me his car to drive home. Luckily I survived. The dinner was a nightmare of fun. In the end we were in 18 in my miniature room, laughing all the time because even the most skillful yoga master was hitting his neighbor's chopsticks with his knees, I was in pain all the time and everybody was taking pictures of this mess. My camera was in the opposite corner of the room, to reach it - Mission Impossible. The soju, beer and makkoli in daytime wasn't enough - folks that I saw first time brought some sweet raspberry wine, supposed to be the Korean fuck wine. At least so the folklore goes.
Next day I woke up still drunk. Yeah, I know, this post is so boring. But this day we were safe - or so we thought - because the guys finished the heating alone. It was a nice boring day, then evening came. And the invitation for dinner to celebrate the finished work. Dinner? It was a fucking party. Two boxes of soju and two of beer. Barbequed bamboo sticks stuffed with meat and kimchi. A lot of toasts and quaffing. I was done. Next morning Korean lessons were waiting for me.
Ah, more about copmuters. I bought a "wifi booster", a USB antenna to have a better reception here. It works smooth, but I had to install a program to make it work. In Korean, of course. Well, not really. If it was Korean, it would take me some time but everything would be fine. In this case, it wasn't showing the Korean characters. It was the hardest decision in my life...

And I got another computer to fix (or to use for spare parts). Only this was so dirty that I had to disassemble it outside and it was such a funny picture with the cows and hens staring at me that the Japanese just took it.