July 5th 2009 - Bye Scott

July 5th 2009

Tennis and movie club

This week was kicked off when we went to have a last beer with our mate Scott, who was leaving on the Wednesday. Even though it was a normal slow Monday, the Ocean View had live music and in the end even a few locos dancing ! Scott for one !! haha .. he must have had something to celebrate !!!

Tuesday it was time for our movie club. This time it was our time to host and so we (Paula) prepared a feast of burritos and mexi-food. We continued where Gokhan and Mari had started last week, with a "foreign language" film. The Band's visit is an Israeli/Egyptian movie which caused a bit of a discussion at the post-movie rating. Generally it was rated a little below "Departures" from last week, which in comparison was a full-flown action movie! I think the consensus was "a well acted, good but slow moving movie".

Wednesday I was working late, as I was preparing for Thursdays filling of out deck tanks for the upcoming gas trial. Now in plain English: I was getting ready to fill 29 tons of gas into two tanks. In the middle of this (the preparation), I had to return to the yard for a pressure test. Leaving at 8pm I pretty much had to go straight to a restaurant where a few colleagues were waiting with three huuuuge Japanese Crabs. These buggers are really big - I reckon about one meter - legs spread out. But really delicious. And really expensive!!!

Thursday was another long day, filling the tanks, while Paula hooked up with our neighbor, Jade, who had returned from a vacation in France. Friday I had a date with Gokhan at the tennis court. Paula came along to hang out with Mari while the boys played ... that tennis and later in the pool. And then the bar ...

Saturday started with work and then a mtb ride. But as it started to rain, we decided to stay close to home. Unfortunately the singletracks were wet and slippery, so it wasn't as much fun as normal. I guess it could have been very exciting if we had just blown off down the mountain, but I was too chicken for that! In the evening we went to Ilsan beach for a romantic dinner at the Japanese restaurant there - Sushiwa. The company was of course as good as it can get, but the food ..... well, definitely the worst sashimi we have ever tasted .... by far! Wont go there again.

The beach was busy though. Full of English teachers playing beach volley. In the end it didn't rain and the evening was quite good. A shame that we had to go away hungry! We went home early to call Paula's brother on his birthday (Happy Birthday, Hector!) and to watch "the curious case of Benjamin Button"

Sunday morning it was back to the Old Compound where Mari and Gokhan were serving us breakfast. I think the idea was that the girls would watch 3 hours of Sex and the City, while the guys would go to play volleyball. In the end we all watched Sex and ...! While eating a fantastic breakfast! The volley didn't materialize as we at our arrival to the scene of the crime, found out that all the Russians had all gone on vacation (i.e. the gym was empty), so Gokhan and I went to sweat it out on the tennis court instead. Probably not the best idea at noon on a sunny day, but we had fun nonetheless. Just in a much slower motion than two days earlier!