The Good Samaritan

Feeble Humans,

Listen to my words and tremble at their awesome might.

The weekend was most good. On Friday night we had our usual night out with the other expatriates. I tried not to consume too much of the devil’s nectar though. I was incapacitated for most of the previous weekend after having drunk a few too many soju slushies and I have learnt from the error of my heathen ways…

On Saturday the G-man and I journeyed to Tongyeong on the bike. We pottered along the promenade and had a look at the ships and fisherpeople and then continued our stroll beneath an Undersea Tunnel and then onward to the hills. We stayed in Tongyeong overnight and took a ferry early the next morning to one of the nearby islands.

The ferry ride was most amusing. There were no seats above or below deck so everyone just sat around in little groups and had seafood picnics accompanied by beer and soju. We witnessed a rather hilarious showdown over a much coveted octopus that had slipped from the grasp of one of the picnickers on the upper deck. A man on the deck below caught said octopus but when the original owner of the slithery beast demanded his lunch back the man on the deck below acted like he knew nothing of the octopus and indicated that it had fallen into the sea! Then when the pissed-off picnicker withdrew to his party the pilferer who had purloined the prize stuck out his hand and shook his octopus in triumph!  I had never witnessed a battle over a baby octopus before so I was highly entertained by these antics.

When we got to the island we went on a three hour hike in the hills. Atop the hill there was a giant Buddha statue, a smattering of temples and a panoramic view of the rest of the island. The walk was very good but we had great difficulty finding any food that was dead and not a fish when we finished our hike. We therefore had to content ourselves with ice-creams. We were the only foreigners on the whole island so we got a lot of stares as we sat by the pier. There was also some pointing. And some people threw faeces at us. No, I jest they merely raped us with their eyes.

When we got back to the mainland we got on the bike and prepared to take the hour and a half journey back to Jinju. Things started off well: the roads were clear of traffic, the sun was shining in the sky, and the mosquitoes were nipping playfully at my ankles. However, halfway to Jinju disaster struck; the bike met its untimely demise. It started spluttering and gasping, then it took its last breath and was no more. This was a tad inconvenient as it was very hot, we hadn’t eaten anything substantial all day and we were still 33km from Jinju. We were on a highway but the cars just passed us by on perceiving that we were foreign and therefore unworthy of succour. We would have surely perished at the side of the road if it had not been for a kindly Turk by the name of Kemal. He rode over to us on a white stallion with his shirt billowing in the wind and then whisked us away into the sunset to the tune of an uplifting hero-esque soundtrack. By which I mean he drove over to us in his white car and gave us a lift to Jinju. He even put our fallen scooter into his boot and dropped it off at the repair shop. We rewarded this good Samaritan with a steak dinner and promises of undying gratitude. After we had dined together he drove away into the night as the restaurant exploded behind him; but he didn’t stop to look at it because that’s just not what heroes do.

That concludes my story. In other news I am being eaten alive by mosquitoes. Gareth and Eoin appear to be unaffected by the wee vampires but my blood is like heroin to them. Oh how they drain me! My hair has also started to embiggen due to the humidity. I am quite ghastly to behold in my current state.

That is all.