Old Addictions: Zelda

Posted on November 19, 2011 by ryguy

Insignia of Hyrule

So Jake recently bought a Wii and along with the unit came Zelda: Twilight Princess and needless to say I’m hooked. Bring back the old days where I spend hours most of my free time playing a game. I’m fucking loving it! Oh how I missed the days of blazing through dungeons and trying to find every little collectable item in the game. Looks like I’m doing this just in time to, because this week we see the release of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Looks like December for me is going to be all Link-tastic.

Also I don’t know who created this art piece, but I love it. You’ll have to click this link to see it because it’s gigantic. The artist made a mural depicting most of the major characters of the Zelda Universe. Good stuff.

Cuckoo Road Treasure

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Walking down the street by my new apartment I found this Cuckoo Clock sitting int rubble by a construction site. Road Treasure!

Cuckoo Road Treasure

Fixing Bengay’s Drain

Posted on September 24, 2011 by ryguy

Perhaps one of the best things said about me recently…

Ryan is a genius, a man among men, a philosopher, and thanks to him there is no longer a toilet brush stuck in Ben’s shower drain. Welcome back to Busan dude! ♥

As too why Ben thought shoving a toilet brush into his drain was a good idea, I am not sure. But luckily I arrived boozed up enough from going to the Lotte Giants baseball game to achieve retard strength. Thanks Megan for the lovely quote.

Put Backup Plan K Into Effect!

Posted on September 19, 2011 by ryguy

I love Taiwan and I am totally planning to come back. But it seems that it wasn’t correct timing for my landing here. Basically it comes down to financial things. After traveling the world for the past half year, I just don’t enough to setup in Taiwan. I know it’s cheap here, but there are some basic costs that I could not float. Like the cost of apartment deposits, making more visa runs, and a whole host of other things. The only way this would have worked was to tap into Yeye’s money that she was going to use to pay for school here. That isn’t really a good option since she wouldn’t be able to go to school then. So I have to effect Plan K…go back to Korea and get financially secure.

Luckily in Korea, a school will set you up pretty well right off the bat. They will give you an apartment, give you some aid, and help you get the ball rolling. Where as Taiwan is a little more in the real world in that all that stuff is handled by you. I came knowing this but just didn’t have to cash flow to support it. Spent a little too much on my USA travels this summer. Oh well, I’ll do better next round. I guess the moral of this story is, don’t try winging moving to a new country unless you have some cash. If you do, you can pull it off with luck and totally being okay with just scratching by. I didn’t want to trust my luck so I’m back to the lands I know.

Wish me luck anyways…

Struggling in Taiwan

Posted on September 13, 2011 by ryguy

So I’m struggling to stay motivated here in Taiwan. I absolutely love the place, but it seems that I’m having trouble securely setting up things here. Looking for work is a pain in the ass because lots of companies are slow at responding. Although they aren’t being terribly slow. It is probably just because I feel the pressure of needing a job stat and that is making the time it takes for them to respond seem so much longer in duration. I might have some job lined up on Thursday but it may not be enough to get by on…although I’m not sure yet, have to wait till Thursday.

The biggest problem I’m running into is that I’m losing motivation. I think I may have been spoiled by Korea which as Danny so articulately put it “they handjob you into Korea.” Where as in Taiwan it’s a more usual job hunting experience. Including going to lots of interviews, in places that I don’t know, for something that falls short of exactly what I need. To compound the “places I don’t know” problem is a healthy language barrier which makes navigating streets and asking direction much more difficult.

I’m going with the “fighting” motto that Koreans love to use so much. But things are wearing me out here. I like it here but the winds of fate aren’t being that favorable at the moment. Let’s hope for Thursday.

My money is no good in Kaohsiung markets

Posted on August 31, 2011 by ryguy

So earlier today I was attempting to get myself lost in Kaohsiung and happened upon a street market. This was good because I was starving. First thing I do is wander up to where the street food vendors are frying, steaming, or boiling up deliciousness…I smelt the street before I got there and it was good, until I walked past the stinky tofu stand ughh. Since I am currently linguistically challenged in Taiwan the best I can do is wait for someone else to get food and just pantomime that I want the same thing as they had. So there I was standing with a group of people on their way home from work who all ordered already. I was waiting for food to be handed to them so I can awkwardly point and signal with my hands that I want the same. Instead the old lady brings me a dumpling and just hands it to me. “Cool” I thought to myself, “that was easy.” Then I hold out some random sum of money that I knew was greater than the cost of the dumpling. She starts refusing to take it. So as I’m trying to convince her to take my money a second old lady from the next stand hands me a bowl of noodles. At this point, I’m confused and I turn to her with money in hand and try to give her money. She also refuses. They said something to me in Taiwanese and motioned for me to eat, which I did because I was starving. After that I proceeded to try to give them money again. All they did was laugh, smile, and gently push my hand holding money in it towards my pocket.

I think this is the first time I’ve ever had someone in a market just give me free food. People always told me Taiwanese are generous, friendly people. I just didn’t understand how truly generous they could be. It was a heartwarming experience, if at first bewildering.

Blood Thirsty Chubs

Posted on August 7, 2011 by ryguy

Time to post some pics of my most evil cat, Chubs. Thankfully my sister has decided to take care of that beast. He is hair shedding, needy, demanding, pain in the ass but I absolutely love him.

He will indiscriminately kill any living thing smaller than him (and he is a massive little shit) in his territory and Continue reading →

Reconnected

Posted on August 4, 2011 by ryguy

My Mac is back in my possession! Last week, I was watching a movie on my Mac but I decided to take a break and go get some lunch. Well it seems that while I was out my Mac decided it was bored and to alleviate itself, it promptly self-destructed. I came back to a dead Mac. It wouldn’t turn on and not even the lights would blink. Thankfully I back my stuff up and so I wasn’t too worried about my data. Turns out my Mac decided to be a freak and fry it’s main board. Fortunately though, Macs have a 4 year warranty on the motherboard so all it cost was $40 in labor. And Eddie told me computers almost never just give out…my mac showed you! Happy to have you back Mac!

Welcome back to Busan by a mushroom and food odysseys

Posted on July 25, 2011 by ryguy

So I landed back in Busan on Wedsenday night in Busan time and was immediately tracked down by the Lil’Ye. While she was here she decided to transform herself into a mushroom (I call her mushroom in Korean, boseot). Here she is

and a more zoomed out shot (I love her new hair)

After she found me at the airport, she informed me that we had to take a 5 hour bus ride to Busan…ughh. A 5 hour bus ride after just getting off a 12 hour flight is not an appealing thought. At least we got all the pain dispensed with in one shot. Something nice though is YeYe scored her cousin’s apartment for us to use while we are in Busan, Thanks Anji!

Continue reading →

Road-Trippin’ Tahoe

Posted on July 24, 2011 by ryguy

Road trippin’ with my two favorite allies
Fully loaded we got snacks and supplies
It’s time to leave this town
It’s time to steal away
Let’s go get lost
Anywhere in the U.S.A.

Yeye, Jake, and I decided to take a roadtrip to show Lil’Ye Lake Tahoe while she was visiting California. We were super lucky because of the absolutely superb weather we had (although it was dumping buckets on us the way home). Lake Tahoe has always been one of my favorite places to visit in Northern California with the clearest blue waters imaginable and gorgeous blue skies.

While we were up there at Tahoe we had all kinds of fun, including:

Gambling and drinking free at the casinos
Cruising with the top down up the eastern side of the lake
Taking a swim in what felt like a bucket of ice (where Jake got second-degree sunburns)
A casino buffet with an amazing view
Then playing around Emerald Bay and cruising up the western side of the lake
I didn’t enjoy listening to metal on glass when the windshield wipers with no wipers scraped over the windscreen of Kelsey’s beat up Stella