Weekend perfection!

Well, these past few days have been unexpectedly amazing without even leaving Daejeon!

Korea is mostly mountains which leaves only about 30% of the total land available for buildings to accomodate the more than 50 million residents. And it's only half the size of Minnesota to begin with. To put it into perspective; picture cutting Minnesota in half; then, take away 70% of the land and make it too mountainous to do much with. Finally, then; multiply the population of the state by 10! Yeah, 50 million people in an useable area about the size of New Jersey.

I'm sure you get the idea... there's not a lot of space that goes to waste here! Businesses stacked on top of eachother for 8 or more stories, generically identical skyscrapper apartment building complexes as far as you can see, elevators to move your car up and down in the parking ramp because they didn't have room for an exit when they built it, cars parked on the street, sidewalk, driveways and alleys 3 or more deep with no way out. It's crazy here! it seems that most cars leave a contact cell phone number in driverside window of their car so that they could be reached if one of the dozens of cars they just parked in needs to leave (imagine that??). The streets are narrow, the buildings tall and the people in a hurry! keeps things interesting!!

So with all the crowding, i'm sure you can imagine that there is little to no room left for golf-courses. Korea's solution? Screen golf!!

It's not unheard of back home, i know. But these things are impressively accurate from driving to putting! as with almost everywhere, you are free to bring a backpack full of beer, snacks and soju and enjoy as you please! golf for a couple hours or as long as you make it take to get through 9 holes for about 14 dollars each!

This has become our new Thursday night tradition recently! picture above to prove how terrible my stroke still is despite increasing the practice! :)

Saturday morning allowed me to find some incredible running trails along the Han river about a half mile from my house! As I got further away from the downtown area, paved river path turned into shoddy bricks, turned into dirt trails, turned into full-fledged mountain hiking/running/mnt biking trails!! i ended up on top of a mountain before i ever could bring myself to turn around and got waaaay more of a workout that day than i had bargained for when i set out. good thing too because i've recently registered for a half marathon in Seoul at the end of this month! :)

After that, Outback steakhouse with my babe and lots of darts and beer to follow!

Sunday was sent from Heaven as i met up with some climbing folk i had met at the bars here and they took me to the Daejeon climbing wall!!!! a more than 60-foot wall put up by the city, totally free and open every day about 4 subway stops from me! SWEET GLORY!!!

ISN'T IT LOVELY???? :)

We got Sarah back in the action too! she hadn't climbed for a couple years since college but jumped right back in and looked like a natural after getting her feet off the ground!! very excited to have met a dozen AWESOME new climber folks here in my city just as the summer is starting up!!!

Then off to the Daejeon Hanwa Eagles basball stadium for some 'triple-A' equivalent baseball with Sarah, muc and company! picture the St Paul Saints prices and sized ball-park paired with Viking-serious fans! These people are NUTS about their semi-pro baseball. The game went to extra innings and the crowd was insanely into the action the whole time so of course we had a blast.... oh did I mention; once again FEEL FREE TO BRING YOUR OWN BEER!! that's right, byob (or snacks or a whole meal - anything) to beautiful summer baseball!

Some St Paul schwennies reppin' the Twinks in S.K.

A quote came over me while I was running on Saturday morning that I thought i might share: "It's better to die living than to live a whole life like you're already dead!"

Cheers, thanks for checking in!! :)