Vacation: Booked!

I just thought I should throw an update out to my last post about vacation booking frustrations. The principal came back a day early and confirmed our vacation dates, so we went ahead and booked our trip. We're going with Air Asia again, and flying direct to Phuket. Obviously we're pretty excited about the whole thing. Now we've got trips to Thailand and Japan in the works, who could possibly complain about that?

Busy Busy Busy

Carolyn and I have been on quite a fitness kick for a while. About 2 or 3 weeks ago she decided she wanted to start running and of course I joined in. Then one of her friends from the dog shelter started a running group and we've joined in there too. We've been doing about 4 runs a week in addition to our other workouts. I think I successfully maxed out the value of the Men's Health book of body weight exercises, and  bought a new book. The new workout program comes from Mark Lauren, a former Air Force physical fitness dude, and it's all body weight exercises. I'm surprised that I've never thought about using things like doors and beds and tables and such to increase resistance and provide the right positioning. It's pretty challenging. I'm having to change up one exercise to avoid destroying the dining room table, and the accompanying iPod app won't let you change the workout while it's in progress, so I missed a set today (but damn, I was kind of relieved anyway because my muscles got blasted this week.)

So why are we trying so hard to get into tip top shape? Because it's time to start planning for vacation! This summer we're planning to head down to Phuket in Thailand and get a boat load of beach and ocean time. We ordered a couple of travel guides from The Book Depository a couple weeks ago, and they finally showed up at the end of this week. Looking at the guides makes me really really excited.

There's a huge Korean holiday the last weekend of September/first few days of October, and we're also planning a trip to Japan for those days. Japan is like the promised land of everything that's cool in Asia that's been sitting just out of reach for the whole time we've been here, and I can't wait to visit. Hopefully we'll get in and spend our time mostly in Kyoto to see everything cultural that we can in just a few days. We might book the flights over this weekend to get a decent price. It's gotta be better than last year's trip to the Daegu Art Museum for the long weekend. I can't wait to have sushi, soba, yakitori, takoyaki, and all of that great stuff.

Sunday morning we're planning a little vacation/wedding planning date over at one of our many coffee shops on the block. There could be an update after that.

Self-Serve Bar, and WTF happened here?

This weekend was pretty interesting. We went out for a friend's birthday, and caught up with the party (okay, we beat them there by nearly an hour and a half) at a self-serve beer bar in downtown Daegu. The idea is you go into the bar, pick a table, go over to one of the 6 or 8 refrigerators, pick whatever you want, and drink it. Then at the end of your visit you pick up a little shopping basket, take it all to the cash register, and they scan the bottles and bill you. GENIUS. I love it, you don't have to wait for a bartender to look at you OR leave a tip.

I might have gotten a new favorite beer out of it. I really liked Edelweiss from Austria, and Maisel's Weiß from Germany. Maisel's might have been my favorite between the two but it's hard to tell, so I might just have to go back and give it another shot.

Yesterday I joined a ukulele group. I met them downtown at about 7:30, and we jammed on Iz Kamakawiwo'ole's Somewhere Over the Rainbow and a song from Spongebob Square Pants. It was a lot of fun to meet a couple of new people and make some music. We played right outside the Hyundai Department Store, so afterwards I snuck in and bought a Dr. Pepper (such a treat) and a bag of Peanut M&M's (HELLO).

When I got home from work today I was greeted by two Korean men who said that a pipe had burst underneath our floorboard and rained on the apartment below us. They've been fixing it for about 3.5 hours now. We can't use our shower until tomorrow night. Wonderful. Now they're looking at a problem with the water heater. I can't wait for them to get finished up so I can use the restroom and put on pajama pants.

Anyhow, that's the deal for now. Not a whole lot exciting here. We did decide on a destination for our summer vacation, and I can't wait to get on an Air Asia flight to Kuala Lumpur to connect to our final destination of...wait for it...wait for it...




...let it hang there...




...building suspense...



Phuket!


It's going to be legendary.