A waste of bits and bandwidth

Tuesday I finally had the interview that I had slept through on Friday. It was really just a test and not an interview as such. I like the company and I think it would be a great place to work. Great location to boot. However, I don’t think I impressed anyone with my test results as it was a difficult test.

They were very re-assuring and told me not to worry about it which made me feel a bit better but I don’t know if I’ll get called back. I hope I do as it would be nice to be working again and I think I would fit in there. I should find out by Friday.

Yesterday, Neal and I met up with Jan and Harvey. They had a room on the 24th floor of the Coast on Denman and I got some nice pictures from the patio. We did some running around and then met up with everyone for dinner in the evening. They’re off to the island today but good to see them even if it was short.

Bryan and Chrissy were there and brought Max who is really growing! I saw him last at six weeks and now he’s about 16 weeks. It was also the first time that Brian had a chance to see him.

Added Day Three to the Trip to Asia pages. It was a busy day so I only have that one up. I added some links at the bottom of the page but you’ll get a 404 if you go beyond day three. Gonna take a while to get all the pages up and I found myself re-doing some of the earlier pages too.

I guess I’ll meet up with Biff who is due in from hogtown today. I hope he’s buying ’cause I’m broke… =)

Talk about your busy days! Fire trucks woke me up at 3AM this morning which annoyed me but the alarm wasn’t going off so I ignored it. Turns out that half the block across from the Safeway had caught on fire,

I got up and thought “Hmmm… looks foggy…” I went out on the patio and the smell told me that it was smoke, not fog. I met Neal for a coffee and we went over to have a look at the damage. It was eight hours later and still smoldering.

Sadly, Sunset Books was caught in the fire. I loved that place as the guys who ran it were great and it was just plain handy for newspapers and stuff. By 3 this afternoon they were already knocking everything down. Needless to say traffic has been ugly. At least it was a beautiful day to be stuck in traffic… 17c and sunny!

Tomorrow I have my interview again. Now I’m pretty sure that if I sleep through this one, that will be it! I’m still amazed that they would allow me to reschedule like that.

Last thing, I have put up the first pages of my trip. It’s under Linkage on the right side or you can click here.

I only have the first two days up but give me a break. It took me forever to resize all the pictures. I’ll be adding additional pages in the days to come. Enjoy.

Ugh… jet lag sucks; it’s way harder to come west than it is to go east. I had a nap yesterday and then tried to sleep around midnight. Nothin’ doing. I was up until almost 6AM.

I did some research for my interview while watching a terrible movie and then hit the sack. Did the alarm go off? Probably. Did I hear it? No. *curses like a sailor* Did I sleep through my interview? Yep.

So now I feel like a zombie and I missed my interview. I don’t know if I’ll hear from them again; if it were me I probably wouldn’t get back to someone who slept through an interview. Shitty but you can only be awake for so long before your body has to sleep. I really understand what Ayako was going through when she would visit; it’s so hard to be tired and unable to sleep.

I’m disappointed but what will be, will be. I’ve gone through this job search crap enough to know that everything seems to happen for a reason even if it’s not apparent at the time.

So it turns out that I got out of Korea in the nick of time as there was a big dump of snow. It had been pretty cool while I was there and getting colder as the days went on but the snow would have been a surprise. At least there was only one night of rain and the rest of the days were sunny and cool.

So tonight I’ll just take it easy and watch some TV. I feel like crap but tomorrow will be better.

Finally back at home after one of the most exciting weeks of my life. This entry will most likely be more disjointed than normal as I’ve been awake for something in the order of 23 hours.

I went from Inchon to Narita on a 777 and it had the little monitor in the head rest. What a great way to fly… you can play games, listen to music and watch TV. It gave you real time flight information and the coolest thing was an exterior camera that pointed forward on the ground and then down to the ground once in the air. No such feature on the Narita to Vancouver flight.

To add to the enjoyment of the Narita to Vancouver flight, I dumped (accidentally) a glass of beer in my lap during dinner. “Great, only six and a half hours to go…”

I noticed some striking differences between Seoul and Vancouver. There was almost no graffiti to be seen and I saw exactly one beggar in Seoul. Just one guy with no legs sitting at a train station.

I was outside of the International Arrivals in Vancouver for about three minutes before I was asked for change. I thought the guy was asking for directions or something as he looked a bit rough but not grimy. I looked like hell and reeked of beer so who was I to judge?

I told him to go to hell and didn’t feel bad about it. It would seem that everyone works in Seoul; everyone is trying to sell something or provide some sort of service. Why not here? Why does everyone expect something for nothing?

Anyway, as much as I loved my time there, I’m happy to be home. I don’t think I could live there as it’s not all that English friendly but I’d visit again in a second. I want to spend some time in Tokyo as well so I guess I need to start saving soon. Maybe I should find a job or something…

I’ll consider that later on. Right now I’m fighting my body which is screaming at me to go to bed. *must stay awake*

Gam Sa Ham Nee Da and An Young Hee Gae Sae Yo

Still having a blast here in Seoul. Hard to think that I’ll be home soon as everyday is so much fun.

We took off to a Traditional Korean village yesterday and then out for dinner in the evening. MiHwa has the greatest friends; and now they’re my friends too! Everyone is so friendly and happy to meet me and I am too.

Today we actually took it a little easy and didn’t leave as early as we have been doing. We took a city bus tour where we could get off the bus when we wanted to. Hacky tourist thing to do but I’m a hacky tourist over here.

We also stopped at the Seoul Tower and I hope that the pictures worked out as the view was amazing. The tower is high on a hill in the center of Seoul and you can see the entire city and more.

We got on the train and came out to have dinner with some more friends and as soon as I’m done, we’ll get on the train and head back downtown. I even like riding the train here!

That’s it for now… Tomorrow we’ll hit the old part of Seoul and then take an evening cruise on the river. Should be great and provide for some great picture taking.

Thursday I’m off for home… I’ll just have to to sleep, study a little and then right into an interview. Should be fun.

It’s all gone so fast but this was the best money I’ve ever spent! I know I’ll be travelling more in the future. This is just too much to take in when you only have a week.

When I get back, I’m going to create some sort of page for it all. I have over 200 pictures and good notes on what I’ve done. My poor brain is a bit too frazzled to remember the proper order of it all!

I’m in this monster mall at the Korean trade center. After dinner we were going to see a movie until we realized that there were no English subtitles… The cafe is inside the biggest Xbox gaming center that I’ve ever seen. After this I’ll go browse the Mac store. It’s all so damn cool!

It’s been great and I hate to leave but it’ll be nice to see Vancouver again. Until then…