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I’ve been preparing a packing list today and looking around for items on that list to include in my bags for the upcoming vacation I mentioned in the previous post. While doing this, I’ve been listening to free internet radio site Live365, where you can find all kinds of music. I’ve had the Dominicana Digital station from the Dominican Republic grooving me all afternoon with merengue, salsa, bachata, reggaethon and other hot Latin music. With the cold, blustery weather in Yeosu right now, I sure have a yearning to be sitting in my former Weekend Office, but, alas, it’s too far away and too expensive to get there. No, unfortunately, that’s not where I’m going on winter vacation. Here’s a shot looking toward the Boca Chica lagoon from my old Weekend Office.
And, looking further down the beach . . .
Someday I hope to return for a visit to the Dominican Republic and Boca Chica, but it’ll be in the summer, when the Yankee baseball camp is in full swing. Until then, I’ll have to settle for the warmer climes of . . . Laos and Thailand, next weekend. I won’t be going to any Thai beach areas, but at least it’ll be nice and warm there and in Vientiane. Can’t wait. More later.
Except for quite a bit of haze, it was a beautiful day in Yeosu, so I took the motorbike out for one of my infrequent rides, another one along the coast. I’m extremely careful about riding the ‘bike–I don’t want to emulate my friend Nai in Laos, A.K.A., Mr. Accident-Prone. The back roads along the sea are very wide and have very light traffic, so there’s not a big problem with other vehicles. Also, I’m quite wary of any other obstacles, like potholes, wet spots, and other potential disasters-in-waiting. Here are a few photos of my ride today and I’ll post some more soon.
The first one is of what I call Sindeok Beach East. I posted a couple photos of this area on Sept. 27th from one side of the small peninsula that juts out into the sea. This is a smaller, more beautiful beach (in my opinion) that is just a short scramble over the rocks. Along the left side of the photo, near the top, you can see one of the buildings on the other part of the beach.
East Sindeok Beach
A kilometer or so farther along the coast road is the very small fishing village of Soji, if my memory serves me correctly, and if I read the sign, in Korean, correctly. Very lovely, peaceful area only a few kilometers outside of the city.
Soji Fishing Village
I’ll try to get some more shots posted in the next few days, and I hope to get out to a few other areas, so stay tuned. More later.
P.S. Happy Birthday to my mom. Getting younger every day.
It’s been raining off and on all day, at times somewhat heavily, and there’s a bit of a chill in the air–a good day to stay indoors and read or watch the baseball game. I had planned on going out early in the morning to catch the sun rising on one of Yeosu’s beaches, but I’ll have to wait until next weekend for that. I did get out last Sunday and took a few pictures of Sindeok (shin-duck) Beach, one of three beaches that are somewhat nearby. There are quite a few more on the islands and towards the western end of the city, an area I’ve yet to visit.
This was shot from the road that runs along the coast. As you can see, Sindeok is not all that big. I’ve been told that this is the one that attracts the most foreign teachers in Yeosu.
Here’s a photo from the beach itself, looking toward the mainland to the east.
Finally, this is from the road just before reaching the beach, which is to the right, off the photo.
I’ll try to get some shots of the other two beaches, Manseongni and Mosageum, next weekend. All three of them are fairly close together, almost within walking distance of each other. Now that beach season is over, they are fairly empty.
This weekend will probably be a good time to visit them since it’s Chuseok, Korea’s thanksgiving. It’s a 3-day affair, Friday through Sunday, so, it’s a short teaching week, and my nighttime classes on Thursday will probably have a small (or no) turnout, as most people will want to get started on the holiday early. Many people, especially my out-of-town students, will be leaving for their hometowns, and I expect the roads to be crammed on Thursday evening and Friday morning with people coming into and going out of the city. The dorm where my apartment is located should be relatively quiet during the three days. Nice.
I’ll try leaving the comments turned on for this entry, just to see how much spam I’m deluged with.
With most of the players gone, the camp was unusually quiet this past weekend–no players, office staff or coaches and only a small group of housekeepers and ground crew. Unfortunately, with few people to feed, meals were sparse until Sunday dinner, by which time the players who went home were supposed to return. I looked in on breakfast Saturday morning and, as I suspected, the Blue Plate Special was Mystery-Meat-and-Cheese Sandwiches. I passed on it and didn’t hang around for lunch. Instead, I went to my weekend office and worked on upcoming lessons.
My Weekend Office:
Yes, I did go into Santo Domingo on Friday, but, no, I wasn’t able to change phone companies. I knew of one place in a supermarket close to where my apartment was, but they don’t sell the actual SIM cards, only the recharge cards. I’ll have to go back to the Capital in a few weeks and try to find a larger shop that has the SIM card I need.
I laid off jogging on Friday because the fields were too wet from a late Thursday afternoon rain shower. So, having rested a day, I was able to break my all-time jogging record on Saturday morning–1 hour, 17 minutes. What a Marathon Man I’m becoming.  Too bad none of the remaining players in camp were up to cheer me on, but with the day off, they were all sleeping. Deadbeats. More later.
Again, we had some heavy showers over night and again, for the 5th straight game, the team won’t be playing here today. It looks like the bus is fired up, so perhaps the away game might be played. Now, though, the skies are clear and sunny, so let’s hope good weather is here to stay.
As promised, I finally took some photos of Boca Chica, most of which I’ll post to the Photo Gallery. But, here are some for your perusal.
Here’s a scene along the main road in the town, Avenida Duarte. There’s lots of these places where you can buy a large variety of paintings. I don’t know how much of them are mass produced. I saw a guy painting one once and the canvas had all the outlines of the various elements already drawn in, much like a Paint-by-Number kit. Still, they’re pretty. The canvas rolls up easily for traveling, so if I have enough room in my baggage, I might bring a few back.
Here’s a shot along the beach. It’s unusual in that there are very few people here, even though it’s a Saturday.
Maybe everyone was at the Harley-Davidson festival that day. Here’s one of the bikes–lots of nice looking ones.
Here’s a view from my usual hangout, under the palm trees. This is the best part of the beach, in my opinion. Everything here, food and drink, is a bit expensive, but you’re really paying for the ambience.
Finally, we haven’t had too many good sunrises or sunsets lately, but this one was kind of nice. The white dot in the upper middle of the photo is Venus.
Also, I forgot to mention (and I hope I don’t jinx them) that the Big Club has now won 8 in a row and cut the Red Sox lead to 8 1/2 games.
Breaking News!
Ok, it’s not that breathtaking, but since I started writing this, the Diamondbacks bus came to the camp. At first I thought that they were going to try to play a game here, but, looking out my bathroom window, I see that the Yankee team is boarding the bus. Obviously, the Arizona club, which was supposed to play here today, sent their bus to pick up the Yanks and take them to the Diamondback field, which must have missed all the rain. Our bus, in the meantime, is transporting the Bombers to the regularly scheduled away field (haven’t looked to see who they are playing). Obviously, our camp lay right under the path of the bands of rain clouds that have been passing through the area, but some of the other camps were spared.
We’re into the long haul, now. No breaks, as far as I know, up until my contract finishes on July 11th. There are about 80 players in camp, tuning up for the start of the intense Dominican Summer League, which begins, I think, near the end of May or the beginning of June. The two Yankee teams will play against the other teams in the area, similar to what they did in October-November last year, only this time the games are much more meaningful, with a trophy awarded to the team winning the championship game. The Yanks have taken the top prize the last two years.
Juan Dolio was quite crowded during Semana Santa, as I expected, especially at the hotel. I spent a couple of days walking farther down the beach, where it was a bit quieter (but not by much). Here’s a pretty cool shot I got of some of the players on the beach. There was a camouflaged (army?) helicopter flying very low along the beach, taking videos. It could have been a TV crew. We were lucky enough to be in a good position to capture the shot below.
Top row from left, Julio Rojas and Pedro Marcano, bottom row from left, Andres Varilla and Ronny Calderon. All of them are from Venezuela.
Here’s a shot of the rambunctious bus ride on the way to Juan Dolio. If you don’t think that all the young ladies walking along the highway got an earful, think again.
I’m going into the capital today to buy some textbooks and supplies for my classes. I’m once again teaching 3 hours a day to various levels, in addition to teaching 3 hours a week to the staff. Add in the lesson planning and I have a fairly full schedule. One big delight is that Abel brought back a projector from Tampa, so now I can include Powerpoint presentations, Internet sites, web language games, etc., in my teacher’s toolbox. Should be fun.
Still, I’m counting down the days until I can return to Thailand and Laos, sometime in late July, hopefully. Right now they are celebrating the Songkran Festival, the traditional Thai (and Laos) New Year. Check this website for a sedate, cultural view of the holiday, but check this one for a more realistic (in my opinion) look at the event. It can be great fun, but sometimes the water dousing gets a bit out of hand, especially when administered by rowdy, drunken foreigners (farang). (Not to single out one group, so I suppose there are also more than a few rowdy, drunken Thais who may go overboard.) At any rate, I’d love to be there this time of year to help Nai and his family celebrate. More later.
Well, at least it seems that way as far as the length of time between posts lately, but I have been fairly busy writing lesson plans and teaching the classes. I finally have a few classes where all the students will be staying here throughout the summer, rather than shuttling between here and Tampa. Thus, I can plan a systematic progression of lessons for them. Come the first part of April, whoever is remaining and whoever returns from Tampa of the earlier group will also be staying here for the summer, so I can plan for them also. It’s keeping me busy. But, for the next couple of weeks, most of my classes will contain players who are going to Tampa the first part of April.
Then comes the good part. The first week in April is Semana Santa, or Holy Week, the week before Easter. The Yanks are putting us up again at Juan Dolio, this time for 10 days, so the rumors say. More beach time! As promised, below are some photos from the previous visit to Juan Dolio at the Decameron Resort Hotel.
Here I am piloting our catamaran back from Saona Island, steering my way easily through the calm waters. Nothing to fear, fellow passengers–the captain knew what he was doing when he entrusted your well-being to Cap’n Ron. Hey, where did those rocks come fr. . . .
A shot of the beautiful Saona, which, unfortunately, is no longer as pristine as it once might have been, what with the dozens of tourists (myself included) who visit there every day. A power boat took us out to the island, where we played volleyball or lounged in the sun. Included in the price of the trip ($50) were a barbecue and beverages, but the most fun was partying on the slow catamaran back. A group of American doctors and nurses, most of whom are from the Flint, Michigan area, was doing volunteer work in nearby San Pedro de Macoris. They were staying at the Decameron, so they made the tour also, and were quite prone to whooping it up in their offtime–a lot of fun to be around.
Surprisingly, except for Saturday and Sunday, the beach at hotel was not that crowded. Here’s the view from one of the thatched-roof cabanas.
The lack of crowds also made for good walking down the beach. Here are a couple of “washed up” boats, lonely in their demise, about a mile-long stroll from the Decameron.
Hope you enjoy these; I certainly enjoyed taking them.  I’ll put them in the Photo Gallery, along with a few others I took. More later.
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