El Nido

Second day in El Nido, on Palawan island. Arrived here way earlier than expected, in the middle of the night and that doesn't sound like "early morning" to me... so I decided to sleep on the beach and go to the hostel really in the "early morning". I couldn't sleep. No, there were no cops chasing backpackers away, the problem was the noise. All the beach looked like one huge party. So I joined it. And eventually was invited to the loudest place, where the party went on for the longest time - till morning. At one point I was introduced to the umpteth guy who asked me "So you're from Slovenia?" Yeah, I told him, Slovenia, and that is not Slovakia, OK? "Vem, js sm tud iz Slovenije," he replied. I just stared at him, not knowing if I should run away or simply bury him under 2 meters of sand. In the end I just kept my distance. But he was from Slovenia for sure. The friends he made her were a bit worried about him, kept saying that every day he drinks to much, he should take a break abd stuff like that. I laughed at them. Don't worry to much, guys, he's the real deal, if he says give me booze, just give him. Only take care that he doesn't fall in the ocean when he's that drunk. That puzzled them a bit. I mean, why in the world you mention this so specifically? Clearly we won't let nobody fall in the water drunk, in the niddle of the night! I told them the simple truth: he may think that he fell in a pool of rum and in no time you'll have a low tide. They stopped worrying about his drinking.
We met a few hours later (NOT with the Slovenia guy!) - the DJ and some others left before, mumbling something about waking up a dealer to get some pepper so they can survive the night. I'm out of this so I really have no clue what kind of illegal stuff they were looking for. They came back, it was already dawning and they found me with a beer, sitting in the sand. They had only one question: On what am I? They still think I'm a liar because I told the truth. Beer only.
Eventually I made it into my hostel, La Banane, slept almost all day, had few beers and went to sleep again. Wanted to be in shape for today's island hopping.
The kids here sure are clean, start bathing early in the morning

Fashion dog

El Nido from the sea

Lunch time!Eggplants, cucumbers, tomatoes, fish, squid, pork, chicken, rice, bananas, pineapple.

Our boat, the Light Bearer (and I thought that here the folks were more devout christians har har har)

The best part of the tour was Secret Lagoon. I was a bit fed with all the poetry used for the names, Paradise Beach, Secret Beach, Green Lagoon, Blue Lagoon, Polka dot Lagoon (I made up the last three), but in the end I had to admit that in this case nomen est omen.
A small hole in the volcanic cliff. 

On the other side...

With sea water, but the level is at least one meter higher than the sea. Go figure. Last stop on Commando beach. Finally I could buy a co.. co... a co... COLD BEER!

The boat master said we'll stay here for one hour. Whoa, you'll see how much can I drink in an hour! Only that.. chief Norman... don't you think the weather is starting to look bad? Don't worry, maybe just some rain, we had some rain during lunchtime and it was no problem for you, was it?

No chief, I'm not talking about the clouds but about THAT thing that just appeared  from behind that island....

Flowing Through

From the Greek διάρροια, δια dia "through" + ρέω rheo "flow" meaning "flowing through", And quite a lot is "flowing through" me... Ah well...
The Green Mango Inn in Parañaque, Manila. Nice place, cheap and cold beer.

Spending most of the time in the garden, reading books, watching anime and drinking beer.

But not today. Today the restroom is my favorite place.
Yesterday night I went out with Gellow, a Philippino DJ that I met at the hostel. We had a few buckets of beer (yes, buckets!) and after the third bucket he convinced me that I have to try sisig - If you haven't tried sisig, you haven't been in the Philippines! At that point I was ready to try anything, even the Scottish haggis. It turned out quite similar. Pig head, boiled, broiled and fried. With eggs, hot peppers and lime. The strong sour taste of the lime saved my face. So did the hot peppers. I guess today I shouldn't ask why I'm visiting the toilet every few minutes.
And then it was tequila time. Luckily, not in buckets but in reasonably small glass. I have no idea how or when I came back to the hostel - I mean, I know how, in Gellow's car, but I know it only because he told me so. For what I know I could have been flying. In the morning i went to the Mini Stop convinience store at the corner of Aguirre Avenue to buy juice and coffee, still alcohol-confused and for a moment I had the feeling that I tequila-warped myself back to Korea...

The juice was also oishi, so maybe I'm in Japan?

Tomorrow afternoon I go back to the airport, to fly to Palawan and then go to El Nido.

Metallica, 김창완 and 신중현

We - my martial arts sensei Jun and me - arrived in Seoul on Sunday around 2 PM, still a bit hangovered from two bottles of his flower liquor, so the first thing to do was to buy a beer. We were a bit afraid of doing it earlier since we came to Seoul by bus - 3 hours and half with just one stop. The streets to the Olympic Stadium were crowded with concert-goers, Metallica T-shirts sellers and ticket dealers. When asked for the tenth time if he needs a ticket, Jun finally asked the dealer how much are the tickets. I wasn't sure if I heard correct, but when Jun's face turned pale, I knew I got it right. It was three times cheaper than the tickets we bought online a month earlier. After some scouting we found the nearest store to the stadium - it was easy, since it was all the time under siege and they were selling beer in front of the store."Fuckin' cold beer" was shouting the guy and he wasn't lying. And it was half the price compared to the beer at the concert.

After a sixpack it was time to check the stages. We exchanged our tickets for the bracelets and Jun warned me that I need another bracelet as age verification in case I'm going to buy beer during the concert. Yeah, like hell I need it.. but in any case.. and like I need to be told something so obvious...

The main stage.

I forgot how many tons of stuff was loaded on the stage, but I remember that the staff for the event counted 840 people. We were not really intersted in Rocket from the Crypt, so we just took a quick look and ran back out for some more beer. And a smoke. No smoking allowed inside. The dress code was pretty much funny. All in all I saw maybe 15 Koreans which made clear with their image that they are going to attend some event related to rock - any kind of rock. Only one guy with long hair. It was Jun, my friend. Tatoos and piercings to be seen only on foreigners (tons of them - foreigners, not tatoos). For the rest I saw a girl wearing cat ears and another one with the polka dot hair bow of Minnie The Mouse. They were cute, not saying anything, it's just that they didn't belong in a crowd going to a Metallica concert, that's all.
Finally, the first band we were waiting for, 김창완 Band.

Korean old school rock.

김창완밴드 by dagkleva

Sometimes young musicians should give more place to harmless looking old guys. During this gig I noticed a small crowd forming away from the stage and I got curious. It was worth. That's koreans for you, when it comes to the effort to take a good picture! (Luckily it was a Hyundai concert. I really wouldn't like to meet a Samsung drone - combat drones deployed in the DMZ, with a license to kill.)

drone by dagkleva
And again out, more beers, and some more beers and.. no, Dag, please stop.. come on, Jun, just another sixpack, if you really can't more have just one, I will take care of the rest... and soon it was time for 신중현, another legend of Korean rock.

Another picture that sucks... so I found another one on the web and you can see how a living legend looks like...

He was great. I got goosebumps all the time. For the last song he brought on stage a chorus of 60 or so kids... amazing.
Another thing that amazed me was the realization what kind of folk came to the concert. I mean, it really really surprised me to see that Korean metalheads go for champagne...

And then.. and then... it was time for ENNIO MORRICONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY! Why was then four of them on the stage?


metallica by dagkleva
Crap video and even more crap of a sond, but if you're a Metallica fan you can guess the songs.Eventually became so hot, even more hot than under the afternoon sun, that I was quite happy when it all ended. So we could go to buy some more beer. And then some soju with tteokbokki on a street stall. Another beer, but only for me. Jun had already passed out.

Almost literally passed out; when some time later started raining I couldn't wake him. I hit him a few times, every time jumping away to a safe distance - didn't want to get killed by some weird reflex of his. No way. So I just dragged him under the nearest roof and left him lying on the concrete, while I had a nice cardboard bed to sleep in. The same street sweeper woke both of us, cursing and swearing that we're in his way, he just wants to do his job but how are honest workers supposed to work with people like us around blah blah blah blah.. you know it all.
Amazingly, it was time for a coffee! Later some juice, too. And a public bath to relax.. hey, already lunch time! How about a beer? Hell yes, and not only one, I feel thirsty like yesterday I haven't drunk a single drop of liquid! Let's make sure to fight dehydration! Fight! Fight! Fight! Maybe we should lie down a little bit in this park, what you say? Eventually we were picked by two girls and treated to dinner with some fancy liquor that I strongly disliked and said so, too.

To make up the girls brought us to a bar. And, what a coincidence - the left one is an otaku. She loves Myazaki. Finding another otaku is NOT a coincidence. The coincidence was on the other side of the street.

A restaurant called Porco Rosso.
The rest is history. Mostly forgotten. Came back home two days later. In two days I fly for Manila.

From A Farmer's Diary

Hisashiburi.. it's been a really long blogger's break this time! And the excuse is just as usual: I've been too busy or too lazy. Or just dead drunk.
For quite some time the weather was as it should be: wet, wet and wet. There were two weeks in July that I hadn't seen the sun. It was like this at 4 PM every day.

 Too bad that the rain started a bit too early - or the onions were a bit late - but for more than a week I was hired for the onion harvest and we did it almost all in the rain. It was hard to carry the onion bags from the muddy fields and I was swearing all the time, but, in retrospective, I'm glad I wasn't doing it under the blazing sun. And the wage was more than fair. Seriously. If you know an European country where seasonals can get 100 euros for an 8 hours working day with lots of alcohol and too much food (and two of the guys who hired me bought me also cigarettes), call me, I might go for a holiday to Europe. Yes, there were days when the work had to be done and we worked 12 hours, but in the evening (very late evening) the envelope with money was way thicker and it's customary to end such day with a big feast at some restaurant with streams of soju. The hell I will complain!
Anyway, two months ago I had to go to Japan again and I finally remembered to take a picture of this sign!

I always thought it was 300 C, but Japanese should know it. I trust it without checking the web. And, like every time, I took a picture as a proof I was in Japan. So I can brag about it. I've lost the count of how many times I went to Japan.

Few weeks ago I took a break and went to Seoul for five days. I was sick of working drunk every day, so I wanted to be drunk just doing drinking. It was a good idea.

By luck I came to Seoul for the weekend when a friend from France had his DJ gig and it was really refreshing to do some clubbing after a very long time. I also liked the club itself, they offer a challenge that if you can drink 10 shots of various spirits (ranging from vodka through curacao to whiskey) in flat 30 seconds, you don't have to pay for it. Don't ask me if I didn't try it.

I lost miserably. It took me 38 seconds, while the record is 24. I could say that I was drinking without sleeping or much eating the previous three days, but it would be another lame excuse. I'm a failure, that's what it is. Most important, I didn't drop dead after loosing my 20 000 won, I'm not that a sore looser, i ordered another beer and hit the floor for the next  four hours or so and I fell asleep on a chair only late in the morning. I know the pictures do like awful, but hey, it;s really how I saw the club! After the challenge.

And this is what I really saw (or, to put it better, what I was looking at at 6AM when I was going to sleep back to Gangnam).

The same day I went back home and was just a farmer again. Fight with pest... no, I'm a looser even at this. There's no way I can get rid of the buggers that keep eating my Vienna Blue rutabaga. Tried some natural repellents, like garlic, hot peppers, tobacco.. no use. It's like last year. Like this.

And to think that yesterday I saw a Blue Vienna the size of a volleyball - I just don;t want to know what or how many chemicals are used on that field. Be aware of Asian products, here farmers are still proud of how many industrial pesticides, fertilizers and weedkillers they use. As for me, I;m still the stubborn gaijin. That's why my tomatoes look like this.

And today I picked my first ones. Not good, not good.

The one on the left is a Cuore di bue cultivar, the others are Marmande. Same shit for the buggers who eat them. The cucumbers are doing well, I should plant more of them next year.

Just as a joke I planted some sugarcane I brought from Tokunoshima.It's far from being like there now, but it's alive and kicking. I don't hope for a sugarcane harvest, but if I can have enough sprouts for next year, who knows!

 The hot peppers and eggplants are way retarded, even if the pictures are one month old.

 Don't be fooled by the name, wintermelon is not a melon that grows in wintertime. It's just a sort of melon, Cucumis melo inodorus, the Korean cultivar. For now it looks nice, hope for some fruits.

Weeds grow faster than I can pull them out. Or maybe I'm just slower than the weeds. That's carrots somewhere between them.

But the origano and basil and rosemary are doing well. I eat a lot of spaghetti with pesto in these days.

Zynnia flowers also seem to like my field and I like them, so I plant them everywhere. I love flowers.

 I love every flower, even sunflowers. I don't grow them for the seeds. And I'm proud of this mutant with 40 flowers. It's not a Monsanto modified shit. It's from my seeds from last year. yes, 39 lateral flowers plus the big one on top.

But the best of my life now are Saturdays. I'm thrilled every time when we go to the church to see all of them little buggers. Their hapkido teacher told me that even the kids are really looking forward for Saturdays to have some fun with the weird teacher. On that line.. two weeks ago I was invited to their dojo where the kids (MY kids) were taking their belt exams. It was a mistake. Most of the time I felt like I was watching a fighting game. Drop kicks, fly kicks, jump kicks, hi jump kicks..you name it, they did it. Kicking up to 2 meters high. With a vault. Now just tell me how can I make fun of or bully these kids?