let it rain

Can't hardly believe I've been back from England over a month now, nor that I've been home from Korea for over a year. I returned just about this time last July, remember...fresh off a sightseeing sojourn in the Jeju and Jeollanam Provinces. Man, I was riding high. I thought things were finally starting to work out. I figured I'd rest up at home, grin over the respectable wad of money I'd socked away, and then jet off for Alaska in a month or so.

Well, it didn't quite work out like that. I convinced myself that sticking around home, working and living cheap off my parents was a good idea. I could save up a stupendous nest egg. I could get all sorts of stuff done, like finishing that damn novel and the remainder of my flight training. Well, I did both those things. A year's gone by, an entire year, and my money (and my pride) has gone down the tubes. But I got some stuff done. The novel's finished. It's in the hands of my beta readers. My flight training's done. I just need seven hundred bucks, that's all. Three hundred for a three-hour review session with JM1 and $400 for the test proper. Then I'll be free and clear: free to hightail it to a forgotten corner of this mysterious world, and live like I mean it.

Unfortunately there's some things I need to before that. It was a real scramble this month trying to save up enough cabbage to pay off my car insurance. I just got that taken care of this morning. Now (besides paying the bills next month) I've got to worry about my Jeep. The tires are getting bald and the shock absorbers have taken a real beating from the dirt roads I live on. I'd like to replace the entire suspension before I do anything else, and that'll take some real money. Then I can worry about flight training. And even after that's done, I must concern myself with saving up something like $1500-$2000, enough to pay for a ticket to Spain or Japan or Australia or Antarctica and find a job.

I don't imagine I'm going to escape this hellish desert much before spring of 2011.

And speaking of "hellish," that's exactly what it's been. The days are uniformly in the 95-105 degree range. Such conditions are agonizing in the stifling cockpit of a Mooney, without the benefit of air conditioning or even active ventilation (we just have vents we can open to the outside, which is fine if you're at 10,000 feet and it's 60 degrees, but if you're sitting on the runway or flying low you're "sweating your balls off" as JM1 says).

It's been windy, too ("feels like you're standing in a hairdryer," JM1 says...JM1 is a very observant man). I wish it would rain. No, I take that back. If it rains, it won't get cooler. It'll just get humid. And our flying will probably get canceled, too, which is one hit I literally can't afford to take. The job is going well, by the way. JM1 and JM2, our new pilots, have got the program down now and are flying regularly. I haven't seen Dawg, Spud, or Mr. Mooney in weeks. Mr. Mooney and Spud are in Hawaii right now, flying L-29 Delfin jets for the Navy; and Dawg is in Colombia trying to strike up a new contract. All of them are quite happy that JMs 1 & 2 are working out so well. I've been a big help, too, they say, ushering the two of them through the routine. I didn't realize it until someone told me, but I'm actually the most experienced guy in the company now as far as UAV chases are concerned: I've done more than anybody else. I've done almost all of them, in fact, whereas the pilots keep rotating and taking turns. So I'm just helping everybody to get broken in. JM1 got the program down like a flash (he's a very experienced pilot himself, thousands of hours in everything from jets to puddle-jumpers). JM2 was a bit shaky at first, but now that he's over his nerves and has done it a few times, he's feelin' fine. As I may have mentioned, I'm doing all the radio work now, and have become proficient real fast.

I still can't find a second job, though. I've been all over town. Nobody's hiring bartenders around here. Looks like it's Wal-Mart for me. I wouldn't mind learning how to drive a forklift, that's for sure.
So, in short, work's going well, even if I'm not doing it enough; the weather has been blasphemously hot, but I'm coping somehow (drinking a lot of water and going swimming with bikini-clad girls helps; I'm doing both regularly). Flying is on hold until I get some more money; traveling is on hold until I get some more money; and the novel's on hold until I hear back from my readers (and get some more money for copyright applications). Noticing a pattern here? I'm a pauper. This is déjà vu all over again. I'm living exactly like I was a few months back, after I'd purchased my insanely expensive tickets to England, trying desperately to save up enough for the trip itself. I thought I was done with that rot. But no, car repairs and insurance payments blindsided me. So here I am again, scrimping, saving, hardly socializing, putting off all the lovely Led Zeppelin albums and graphic novels I'd like to buy, forgoing the enticing bottles of booze on the shelves (except when the folks take pity on me and buy me some; they brought back some Mount Gay from BevMo the other day, sah-WEET!). It's a hard, hard life, let me tell you. But I could be breaking rocks in the Sahara. That'd be worse. At least I have an air-conditioned home and a soft bed to come back to every night.

And I'm not bone-idle at home, either. I've been helping the folks tear apart the kitchen in preparation the renovations that are taking place this week. New cabinets, new counters, new appliances, new floors, new everything. The whole shebang is being upgraded. And I got to pick up a sledgehammer and smash every last piece of the old tile counter, raising a cloud of dust that settled on every flat surface in the house. That was nice. But I'm also writing. In the absence of my novel, I'm working on my short stories. I'm trying to break into the fiction market, did you know? I wouldn't mind being a published science fiction writer like some of my idols, Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft and Isaac Asimov and H.G. Wells and Robert Heinlein and L. Sprague de Camp and John W. Campbell, Jr. Those four stories I mentioned earlier are coming along nicely. One of them is finished. I'm handing it off to a friend for proofing and then I'll package it and send it off to Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine. Looks like a likely market, and based on what I read of it, I'm up to the challenge of competing with their published writers. And that's the news. In short, I've got a lot of obstacles in my way, but you know me.

I'll get over 'em somehow.

Day Nine: Jeju to Gwangju

Okay, I made it. I caught the ferry without a hitch, even though I arrived overzealously early, before they'd even started ticketing. I bought a ticket in economy class on the Canary Rainbow for ₩25,800. I was given some serious pause when the bus from the terminal took us out to the quay: the Canary Rainbow was an actual ship, not like those little stubby ferries I'd been riding to and from Busan. It must've been 300 feet long and 100 feet tall, replete with radar masts, a bridge, a pointed bow, multiple decks, and other nautical fixings. It was a daunting sight for a city boy like me. I should explain here that economy class seating aboard a Korean ferry is...not what you and I are used to, most likely. No seats, for starters. It's the ubiquitous linoleum floor, laid down in a big wide room and broken here and there by aisles. You kick off your shoes in these aisles and relax at will upon the floor. Some folk immediately stuck their luggage under their heads and went to sleep. Others just sat around, read books, or talked quietly. Well, they did talk quietly until the college students came in. Then they had to shout. We were just about to pull away from the dock when a veritable army of young and energetic students from the Daejeon Health and Science College (as proclaimed by their purple-and-maroon T-shirts) came trooping in and occupied the entire port side of the room. Then they got to gabbing in earnest, so loudly that a few of the would-be serene elder folk on the starboard side (with me) had to yell at 'em to pipe down. They weren't such a bad lot, though. (Later on, as I lay on my stomach updating my journal, a couple of the guys sat down near me and shared their bread and orange soda; we had a little chat.) After about half an hour or so they'd mostly fallen asleep like the rest of us. We all cat-napped for about an hour or so; the older folks slept all the way through. But us young 'uns got up and started wandering around. First I discovered the snack bar, which was right next to the arcade. That's right, they had not only food but video games on the Canary Rainbow. I even managed to dig enough 100-won coins out of my pocket to make a go of 1945 Strikers, which didn't last long, because I suck. Anyway, then I went out on deck. It was windy and rainy, but the view was excellent: we were out of sight of land frequently, but just as frequently we passed rocky, wooded islands in droves. (Greece has got nothing on Korea; Odysseus could just have easily have had his odyssey here.) I snapped a few shots off the port side, but mostly just stood and breathed and watched. Then I climbed up two levels to the top deck (up the Korean version of the Grand Staircase). There was an awesome space-age viewing compartment there, with wall-height windows looking out upon the rear half of the ship. There was also a door which led out onto a bigger deck with benches, similar to the way things were set up on the car ferries out of Nongso on Geoje-do. I went out, but the wind was fierce. It had to be blowing at forty miles per hour at times, easy. We were in open water now, the Jeju Strait, eighty-five kilometers of ocean separating Jeju Island from the Korean peninsula. The wind was howling out of the southeast, blowing tons of clouds with it, and whipping the ocean into a rolling fun house. On top of that, the engines made a horrendous noise; they roared constantly as they battled the sea. The photos I snapped from this top deck aren't very good; the ship was rolling and pitching about a bit. Don't get me wrong: we were never in any danger. Seriously, it was neat. It was the first time I'd ever been on a boat that big which was rocking so drastically...probably about 30 degrees or so. I was thrilled. Plus, I knew the ship would have had to be listing about three times as far to be in any danger of capsizing. Most people probably would've found it spooky, though. A steady, stable journey engenders confidence in human beings. Any deviation from that, no matter how slight, inspires apprehension (and occasionally nausea). I went inside and lurched down the grand central staircase (one level above our huge passenger compartment, one level below the top deck) and staggered down the companionway to the forward lounge. Here there were a few sofas, a few small tables (bolted to the deck) and some comfy chairs, looking out through slit-like windows on the bow of the Canary Rainbow and the waters ahead. The view wasn't that great (rainwater kept mucking up the visibility) but after five hours of trying to sleep, buying snacks, sucking at video games, and wandering around the ship, it was an ideal refuge. Soon we pulled into calmer water, and before long the foggy coast of Jeollanam Province hove into sight on the starboard side. In another hour or so, I determined that we were pulling into Mokpo Harbor, and raced back down to the passenger compartment to grab my stuff. I waited patiently until all the college students had collected their things and moved out (leaving their orange soda cans and bread wrappers everywhere), then hefted my ridiculously heavy duffel bag over my shoulder and disembarked. I got a quick cab to the train station, bought a ticket on the next mugunghwa (the plain, inexpensive train which stops at most small towns but still doesn't take too long to go where it needs to) for 4,000 won, boarded, and was out of Mokpo by 1:40. The ride reaffirmed everything I love about trains: the smoothness of the ride, the quiet, the cheap cost, and the direct route. The ride took only one hour, and during it a young Korean woman from across the aisle got up and bought me some snacks and a bottle of water, and we made some small talk. Man, Koreans were being friendly to me today, especially in regards to food. First that college student on the Canary Rainbow and now this girl on the train to Gwangju! I was honored and humbled...I'll have to treat them if I ever see them again. Outside the secondary Gwangju train station (the ganiyeok), I found a cab with careless ease, rode a surprisingly long way through traffic and greater Gwangju (fare was about ten grand), and checked into the Koreana Tourist Hotel. (Nice: for ₩30,000 you get a spacious, clean room with a TV, a double bed, an excellent city view, and a computer, which I'm writing this entry on.) I briefly sauntered back out again into the drizzle to check train times and procure dinner; I found out there really aren't any trains that suit my needs for Thursday. Looks like I'm taking the intercity bus to get back to Gohyeon (dang). Then I went to the Hyundai Department Store. The food court, specifically. Apocryphally named "The Snack," it's a collection of food outlets arranged side-by-side, as in a typical food court in America. However, you decide what you want, buy it first (from a single counter in front), then take your receipt to the appropriate counter (the one that makes the food you want, as printed over the counter in question) and they whip it up for you there and serve it to you on a tray. When you finish, you give the tray back to them. I had the tangsuyuk, the Korean take on Chinese sweet-and-sour chicken, for ₩7,000. It was simple and pretty tasty. Then I walked out, satiated. Having spotted a Paris Baguette on the way in to the department store, I thought I'd stop by there on the way back to the Koreana and grab some dessert. At this I failed, in a most epic fashion. I grabbed what I thought was a cruller (a frosted, sugary one) and something that looked like a jolly tasty croissant, only with a bit of chocolate on top and cream in the middle. It was called a "conch pastry," after the seashell whose shape it resembled. Blah. They were both terrible. Once you'd eaten the cream and the chocolate, the conch just tasted like salty pastry. And the cruller wasn't even sweet. There was some kind of meat in the middle. A (literally) half-baked meat pie was all it was. I could barely stomach it. The milk I'd purchased to go with these "delights" didn't go down too well. So I stopped off at 7-11 near my hotel and got a couple bottles of water and (more importantly) some ice cream, and sucked on that as compensation. And then I got back to my room and wrote this. Tomorrow I plan to see some of the parks and museums that Gwangju has to offer...and then Thursday I must leave. Bummer, dude. I'd really hoped to have more time to see this gigantic city in this interesting, totally unknown province. But it looks like I'll have to save it for next time.