Dave's Summer Holiday.

Holidays are all good, I had a week off starting on the 25th July and back at work last Wednesday 1st August. I had to hang around Gimhae for a few days waiting for my mates to finish their work, every one's holidays were different to each other but a few overlapped. So I had a few nights out on the town.

On Friday my racing buddy had his brother over so we went to the races, I was quite excited about it because I usually work on Fridays and as such never get there during the week. So we went to catch the bus there and it didn't show. That should have been our first warning but we just put it down to our lack of Korean language skills. So we took a cab there, once at the track we were wondering why it was so empty. People still at work I thought and not at the races? Well, wrong again, it turned out that the races had been called off due to the heat! It was bloody hot but who cares? I was on Holiday! So we hung around trying to get another cab home. We got a dude to ring us a cab but he called one from Busan not from Gimhae so it was really expensive and we refused it and managed to catch a lift to the highway where we figured we could flag a taxi or at least a bus. Next thing I know my Pommie mate had stuck out his thumb and a few cars later we were off to Jangyu which is next to Gimhae, better than nothing we thought.

When we got back to Gimhae we went to Home plus where we discovered to our delight that rubber dinghy's were on sale, $20 down from $60. I'll have one of those I thought, but something was missing so we got a fishing rod and some bottles of Red wine as well and wandered down to the river in the middle of Gimhae.

What a sight we made! 3 pissed white fullas in a one man rubber dinghy with a 10ft rod, slurping red wine. I have never had so many toots and cat calls come my way in all my life. We tried to buy some fish as bait but once the lady realised we were going to use it as bait and not eat it she refused to sell it to us. (It was my brilliant charades act that got this point across). Tart. So we bought a can of spam and used that only it was pretty crap and kept falling of the hook so we caught some grass hoppers but they were no good as well. So for a few hours we floated down the way, as twilight struck the dry shore based fishermen came out and they were not to happy when we floated by.

Korea is a cool place, the taxi driver did not even flinch we hopped in dripping wet, half cut and with a semi deflated rubber dinghy.Not even when we payed with wet money did he blink his eyes! Sometimes I really wish I knew what is going through their minds when they see the antics foreigners get up to!

So we then went to the pub and the Norebang and met up with some mates who had completed their contract and were on their way outta here to greener pastures.

Around 5 or 6am we decided to crack out the boat again and sail the vast waters of Yungee Park. This time I was too far gone to set up the rod so we left it behind. On this adventure whilst I was tipping my mates out we broke an oar. Don't worry this is Korea anything goes! So we marched back into Homeplus, still dripping wet, by this time we were all absolutely F!@#$%^ed and managed to convince them that the boat only came with one oar and we needed another to make the pair as we were rowing around in circles. And you know what? It worked! Our language skills are coming along very nicely thank you very much.

I get home sometime after sunup only to be awaken by a few phone calls around 12 reminding me that I had to met a different set off mates to do a wee bit of travelling around Korea. I hate forgetting things like that! So off to met the boys for the start of the travels... Numerous trains a couple of ferries, a floating Christian bookshop, two run ins with the coppers and a swollen foot coming up....