One Angry Monkey

I was flipping through some of my old photos this morning and I came across one, I think it was the only one, I took during my brief visit to Seoul. I loathed the place from the moment I left the airport and spent my entire time there thanking whatever gods may exist that I was only spending two nights there. Now to be fair all I saw was the bit between the airport and my (dodgy) hotel, a few nightclubs and a little CBD so my view is a little narrow but there aren’t words for how much I disliked being there. It was dirty, smelly, crowded… It was pretty much your sterotypical Asian city I suppose. Do I sound racist or judgmental? I suppose I do. In my defense I loved all of my time in Japan. Even the bit where I ran out of money and only had a bag of chocolate somethings to last me the two days it took to get back to my brother’s place. (more…)

Last Wednesday (Yes, that is over a week ago. Yes, I am somewhat slow in getting around to writing posts. Yes, sue me. No, don’t.) I arose at the crack of dawn in order to accompany Brendan to a place I’d never been before. For reasons far too boring to disclose he was going to Port Pirie for the day and I decided, “What the hell, I’ve never been there, I might just tag along!” Bearing in mind this is the exact logic that saw me leaving New Zealand, not passing Go, not collecting two hundred dollars and going directly to jail. (What? This place did start out as a penal colony.) Perhaps I should put in place a rule that states that if my entire reason for going to a place is because I haven’t been there before then I’m not allowed to go anywhere until I’ve come up with a better reason. Why? Well I’m glad you asked. (more…)

When I was increasingly-less-recently admitted to hospital courtesy of the crohn’s my mother came over to help me out around the house. Yes, it was a lovely thing to do. Yes, she’s a wonderful mother. She spent three of the four or five weeks she was here sitting by my bed keeping me company while I waited patiently (hah!) for my doctors to swing by and tell me what exciting new thing would be keeping me there for just a couple more days. Eventually, however, I was released and returned to my home only to discover that “home” is no less boring than “hospital” to spend all day every day.

Still unsure of my newfound health (I’d been released at one point only to have to return a week later) I was hesitant to travel to any place where I wasn’t sure about the location of the toilets so to break the monotony we decided that we’d visit Victor Harbour, a delightful little seaside town only about an hour or so south of Adelaide. I’d been there before and therefore had already scouted out the loos. For the record, taking into account the fact that they’re public toilets at a popular tourist spot they’re surprisingly not bad. Not five star but how picky can you really be about something to which you’re doing what you do to toilets? (Check that, I’m fairly sure you’ll find it’s technically accurate. Don’t, however, say it five times fast or use it as an example of grammatical correctness.) (more…)