Woo Hoo! Canada's Men's Team won the gold. I have a few minutes before I head off to school and start my round of asking people if they saw the scores so I thought I'd add in a blog note. Both CBC and CTV are carrying lots of stories on the victory. I have to admit, one of the most pleasant stories was on the CNN website however I can't seem to connect to it again to find the direct link. Obviously all the news services have had their servers overtaxed by the games.
All is not yet quiet here in Korea however. Today's Korea Herald carried a rather sour grapes Op Ed piece. Certainly something has been awry in the short track, but it comes across more as an event of near uniform bad sportsmanship. Ohno also received a disqualification yesterday when he reached out to grab the arm of a Japanese skater. The controversy is bound to continue. The video I saw looked like the South Korea cut off Ohno but to admit, it's hard to be sure. Many of the news services only show the top torso so it's hard to see the positioning of their skates. I also admit, Ohno's drawing back in cartoon shock was faked. Even Kim Dong Sung cut him off, there was no physical contact that I could see. The reputation of both the Korean and American skaters in the competition is questionable.
Canada is playing a double role in the media depending on the agenda of the news service. Initially Canada's complaint over figure skating was used here to show that not only Russia and South Korea were complaining. Now that the games are over however, and Canada was the only one of the three to have a judgement overturned, the accusations are that the Olympics favoured the US and Canadian teams together.
But in the end, we got our gold medals... and isn't that what the Olympics are all about?
Monday, February 25, 2002
Sunday, February 24, 2002
Hey out there! Try out my new message board and tell me if it works!
Saturday, February 23, 2002
A brief hiccup in Olympic diplomacy...
I walked into the middle of a fight this week. Poor Kevin is getting the brunt of it, being the American teacher-- but did anyone see the Olympic Short Track competition?
There is a big storm brewing here over the disqualification of Kim Dong Sung and the awarding of the gold medal to Apolo Ohno. Koreans young and old are protesting that decision furiously. Just try mentionning the words "short" and "track" in the same sentence if you're a foreigner-- and you're liable to be lynched.
Basically, the judges ruled that Kim unfairly cut in front of Ohno as they went through the last turn. Koreans have argued against this-- many saying that the camera angles were skewed and that the two skaters' paths did not cross at all, while others have told me that the camera clearly shows Ohno pulling Kim back, causing the two to come perilously close. Kevin, in an act to endanger his own life, firmly sides with his American countrymen and the rule of the judges.
It must be added that Koreans traditionally prize the short track competition as the source of their surest gold medals, and that this incident comes on the heels of Saturday night's tumultuous 1000-metre race in which Ahn Hyun Soo was one 4 out of 5 skaters involved in an embarassing crash that let Australia's Steven Bradbury slip past from last place to gold-- while the silver went to Ohno and bronze to Canada's Mathieu Turcotte, both of whom slid across the finish line to claim their medals. Ahn Hyun Soo, who had also been favoured by his homeland to take home the gold, was left behind, empty-handed, with China's Li JiaJun who started the whole mess in the first place.
Kim Dong Sung's misfortune has sollicited a much more active response from fans. In what I am sure will eventually be called an 'act of terrorism', Koreans jammed the Olympic website servers with over 16,000 threatening emails-- causing the site to go down for 9 hours. JoongAng Ilbo reports that (strangely enough) the Italians have already taken sides with Korea [probably confusing South Korea with it's northern 'Axis' neighbour]. Korea has also already hired a U.S. law firm and filed a lawsuit.
Where does the rest of the world stand on this matter? JoongAng pointed out that in an online poll conducted by NBC (whose site has mysteriously vanished leaving a trail of dust and links), 96% of 340 000 respondents overwhelmingly voted that the judges were wrong in decision for Ohno. Of course the legitimacy of online polls is forever being questionned-- especially when there are 16,000 Koreans already sitting and seething at their computers, presumably with cookies turned off.
CNN has towed their side of things stating, "South Korea said it might boycott Sunday's closing ceremony over a judge's decision that gave a short-track speed skating gold to an American". I know they were trying to sound international but we all know that CNN is US-based so the tone seemed to imply that any American was unacceptable to Korea. Coincidently, CNN is also running an online poll and they may have outwitted those hypothetical Korean net saboteurs:
Q: To what do you attribute the record number of U-S medals? -- Better Athletes, Home field advantage, Newly added sports, or Luck?
** They hyphenated U-S (instead of U.S.). Is it supposed to mean United States medals, or UnServiceable medals?
As you will notice, nowhere in the question does it offer the option to vote en masse for 'Crooked Judges'! In fact, the closest possible answer to judicial corruption is the ambiguous answer of 'Home field advantage'. So at the time I clicked on the results (shortly before writing this sentence) I find that 60, 007 people have voted.. and of those, 95% have voted for... you guessed it-- 'Home field advantage'. Damn the best laid internet security schemes of mice and men (or is that men with mouses?). That's what happens when you lock horns with a country within which 60% of the population have high-speed internet and a hate-on for apple-pie-toting, Yankee short trackers.
So where is Canada in all this? Just like I am trying to do at my school, our nation seems to be keeping it's mouth shut. For starters, we just got a favourable reconsideration from the Olympic Committee after corruption was uncovered in the pairs figure skating event-- a change in outcomes that landed us with a gold medal. This time we are being quiet, because unlike Italy's Fabio Carta, who only moved up to fourth place after Kim's disqualification-- our boy, Marc Gagnon, moved up to third place and another medal for the Great White North.
Congrats go out to the Girl's Hockey team also who beat the USA last night and best wishes to the Men's team who are getting ready to play Belarus in the semi-finals in about an hour. With a good showing in that match, we can be off to play either of our arch hockey rivals, the USA or Russia... provided Russia doesn't pack up it's hemoglobin and go home sulking.
Friday, February 22, 2002
Okay. I really shouldn't have stayed up so late coding as I am significantly under the weather but... I wanted to get the first of my sites up tonight. It has no content whatsoever BUT all of the pages are in place. Folksongs .Canada is now ready to accept submissions so this is my request: Would every Canadian, expat Canadian, or Canadiophile who reads this try to send me at least one folksong from their home town? (Other than Farewell to Nova Scotia since I know that's what everybody would send in). Check out the site for ideas. I have broken up the listings into the categories of The Sea, The Land, Labour, People, Disasters, Faith, First Nations, and War. That should just about cover it. I was going to include a section on Traditional Folk Love Songs but I couldn't rip any suitable graphics off any of the provincial or federal archives sites. If you can, include the guitar chords. You can send them directly in an email or in the form of a .txt file with Notepad. I'd like to have at least 50 songs up by the end of the month. Thank you to everybody who reads this.
I'm off to get some sleep.
Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Blogger was down so now I don't have as much time for a post. I have to get ready for class within the next five minutes. President George W. Bush is in Korea right now chewing the kimchee with Kim Dae Jung. I haven't seen him but Brian claims he saw Air Force One fly overhead on Sunday. To coincide with the visit, Time magazine has run a couple of stories on south Korea. One was an editorial piece but the other was an interesting story about one of Kim Il Sung's body guards who defected.
Sunday, February 17, 2002
I had another great meal tonight. For the second time in just over a week, I found a restaurant that served lamb. Tonight, after I got home from work (more on that later), we decided to take a trip to Itaewon, where most of the foreign shops and bars are located, to see what we could uncover in the way of unconventional fare. It cost about 10 bucks each way in the cab, but it was worth it, since we ended up finding a very decently priced Middle Eastern restaurant, called Ali-Baba's. The food was excellent. The exterior, like most buildings in Itaewon, was questionable but inside it was nicely decorated, without an overpowering interior, and played a sort of Top 40's collection of Egyptian pop music. We had humus and fattwa's followed by the lamb for me a chicken for my date. After that we took a walk to see what else was there for next time we decided to go on an evening excursion.
I had to work today. It turns out that they scheduled classes today (Sunday) to help make up for the classes students missed over Seolnal. Our school, like most other hagwons, doesn't want to miss out on the revenue that they would normally have gotten had it not been for a stupid holiday... so they bill the students anyway and expect their teachers to give up a weekend. This was complicated by the fact I was unaware they were doing this. Again today, for the second time in the month or so that I have been here, I got a call 5 minutes before the scheduled class, to wake me up out of bed and ask me if I was coming. Today I said no but was convinced later to come in and teach two of the four classes they wanted me to take. Next time I want the schedule in writing. Apparently there was a schedule that they passed out before hand but it was in Korean, and when I tried to use it today after coming in, I found it was full of errors anyway. Little good that was.
I'll try to make this a bit of a good news sandwich. I started out on a positive note and maybe I can end on one too. I found a new mouse today-- an optical mouse-- for only 25000 Won. I plugged it in and it even worked without a hitch or without needing any drivers or anything. I wanted to change mouses since I need to free up one of my USB ports for my printer when I hook it up. This new mouse uses one of the PS/2 ports so now I'm all set. I'm off to work on those web pages. Tonight's plan is to at least get under construction pages on all of them.
I've been busy with Photoshop tonight. While I was waiting for the DNS entries on my new domains to register across the internet, I decided I would take the preliminary steps to branding them. You have no idea how long it takes to draw a fiddle by hand when your mouse doesn't work properly.
If you follow the links below, you will most likely find little or even nothing-- but in the days ahead, I will be undertaking these projects, I hope, rather extensively. Please leave some comments if you have ideas or if you are interested in getting involved. I can't actually pay anyone anything... nor can I afford to run these as businesses since any advertising I get would be a drop in the bucket compared to the taxation I would suddenly be struck with from back home. I can offer you a nifty email address though. Here they are, separated into multiple postings so that you can add comments directly here.
*All images are copyright: Ian Ross, 2002.
www.folksongs.ca : I hope Folksongs.CA will serve as a musical counterpart to Folktales.CA-- if not a soundtrack. A lot of these are already available on the web but I'd like to start my own collection. I'd especially be interested in some of those foul-mouthed ol' sea shanties that I love to sing but no one ever seems to want to publish. Please try to include a melody if you can submit anything here. Even WAV files and MP3s are not out of the question since diskspace is not too hard to come by yet. Just avoid modern songs since they are all copyright. I'd like to follow the Canadian copyright rules of publishing things that are as old as 50 years past the death of the composer.
www.folktales.ca : I know this is destined to be my favourite site. My goal here is simply to amass stories, especially from the small town Maritimes where I grew up. To that end, I already have a couple of writers that should be putting pen to paper and fingers to keyboard as we speak. This is to be an open ended collection of stories, yarns, and anecdotes which someday, if I cross my fingers, could land me a Canada Council grant. Call up your grandparents, record the conversation, transcribe it, and send it to me.
www.mysteries.ca : Mysteries Canada will attempt to concentrate on the more modern mysteries that don't fit as well into the class of stories covered by Folklore. Such contemporary tales could or would involve UFO's, Big Foot, the Eastern Cougar, conspiracies, or even unsolved treasure tales such as Oak Island. If you want to read or write about a ghost that hasn't been witnessed in the last 70 years, channel that into Folktales.CA for now. [Note: I have already put in a request for www.ghosts.ca but have not heard back yet. Currently that domain is suspended but should come available later this month on a first come-first served basis.] Email for submissions to Mysteries.CA is here.
www.sci-fi.ca : Currently, I don't know how far I am willing to go with this or how much time I want to devote. It's really up in the air. What I could conservatively propose now is that it would serve as an e-zine to feature amateur writers. In that case, I would be 100% dependent on submissions, minus what I in my vanity could write myself. I'm not holding my breath on my own work however-- so if you know anyone that wants to get a sci-fi story published, forward them my email address and they can find out more.
www.ianross.ca : My personal website for whatever projects I wish to put online that dont' fit into any one specific theme-- such as my gallery. I guess you could say I am using this as my main data dump since all of my blog pictures are now being hosted there and remotely loading onto Blogspot. Eventually I will include more artwork however, and I am tossing about the idea of including a few MP3s of songs I wrote and recorded here at home.
Saturday, February 16, 2002
Photos from my Trip to Osaka
I finally managed to get my pictures from Japan developed. I had to go to the photographer's today for some pictures to use on my new Alien Registration Card, as demanded by the Immigration department, so I also finished off my disposeable camera that I had taken to Osaka, and dropped it off to be developed too. Now if Blogger stops crashing so that I can publish a few, I have decided to go all out and throw in close to a dozen shots. I'll keep the text brief since I already belaboured you with much of the description of the trip. Let's begin at the beginning...
Kansai International Airport is where air travellers to Osaka land. This shot is from one of the walkways between the arrivals area and the rail terminal. I lied actually since this picture was taken on the way home instead of when I was freshly off the plane.
Here is the terminal for the Nankai railway in Namba. The train ride from Kansai takes about 35 minutes and from here you can catch subways to destinations all over Osaka and probably Japan.
Walking out the north exit of the railway station, here is the scene of what I am led to believe is the main downtown area of Osaka. At least, that's what the tourist brochures for Namba say. I have no idea what the cool, traditional style building is-- I think it was at least partially a restaurant.
This canal is actually across the street from where the first photo (of me) was taken. I know it's beautiful but really I was just interested in getting a picture of the giant red octopus. On the other side of the building is another giant red octopus but since I took the shot here, I guess I was being a bit artsy. What I missed, however, was the giant red crab on a building a few blocks over. In the distance I could see it as I walked, but unfortunately it wouldn't translate so well to film since it's most impressive feature was that all 8 of it's enormous legs were moving mechanically.
Here are the two foreigners I met at the embassy, doing a visa run the same as I was. On the left is Eric from South Africa and on the right is Joe from Colorado.
This is just an overpass for the train or subway or something big and far reaching. It actually curves around the Nankai building, on the north side.
A simultaneous, five-way intersection. We stood there on the way back from the embassy (a little bit intimidated). hoping that we had picked the spot for the crosswalk that would light up first. To our surprise, they all lit up at the same time and a huge throng appeared out of nowhere and crossed the street in all directions, gaggle style, for about 30 seconds before the cars took over again. Once again you see the overpass here. If you look straight ahead, underneath it, you will see an area of bars and restaurants which thrive in the darkness. Unfortunately, cameras don't thrive in darkness and therefore I only have the two following pictures from there. This view would be looking south, off the west side of the Nankai building. If you ever go to Osaka looking for the Korean embassy, and you see this scene-- YOU ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY.
Caution: Do not eat these. They look good but they are only plastic and for display purposes only... but they do look good... delicious... savoury even... maybe just a nibble...
These little business cards are for phone sex lines. They are all over Korea. Almost every night, people drop them off in men's rooms or on the ground. Sometimes they stick them in your car window or under the wiper. In Japan however , they have found an even better use for them-- WALLPAPER! Seriously, I guess you'll never be without a friend to call in Osaka, and I would imagine it lends a better degree of privacy for people making their personal calls from a public booth.
As we prepared to board the train back to Kansai, I snapped a quick picture of the girl whose job it was to dress immaculately in a cute little uniform, smile, bow, and welcome people onto the trains. Behind her, you see the interior of the Nankai station at Namba.
Well there you have it. I hope you enjoyed the shots. I tried to select the better half of the pictures. I also have a few shots from here in Seoul that I will be scanning in the near future for publishing. This is enough photos for now. Let me know what you think. Cheers.
Thursday, February 14, 2002
Just a quick note to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day and make sure I get Feb. 14th on my header. I was back in school today. It's a long day and I am starving so I won't type for long. Some of my students, and my Valentine, gave me Valentine's chocolate. I will have to remember to repay the favour for White Day on March 14th. Off to eat and then feast on some chocolate.
Wednesday, February 13, 2002
In honour of Valentine's Day coming soon, I just had to add in a link which I visited ages ago but is still up and functioning-- not to mention updating. It is designed to be the most elaborate personals ad ever, so it claims, yet regardless of how many new things have been added to the site...
Jesus still has not found that special someone. This has been going on for about two years now and the guy claims he is serious.
For those of you not interested in long term commitments, you can opt to just "shower with Jesus" as long as you are willing to pay your own transportation costs and allow a photograph to be taken for his website.
Tuesday, February 12, 2002
I have one question: Where on T.V. are the guys from Click-B? I'd post a picture but there's too many of them (7 in total). Just about every freakin' day I see about 3 or 4 of the guys from the band on some comedy special somewhere. Now, on the most important television-viewing day in Korea (that was irreverant-- sorry)-- they are nowhere to be found.
Check out their site. I may include more about them in a future post. They are what Koreans call 느끼하다 (Neu-ggi-ha-da) which is a word often used for food which is too rich or greasy to be palatable and is also a word often given to those sort of super cute/sappy boy bands that are also popular in Korea. Their Western equals would be New Kids on the Block. Still, Click-B's music is not all bad and they are a lot of fun when they go on T.V. (a little stupid sometimes but admittedly they are good sports). That's one big difference between famous pop stars in Korea and in the West. Korean stars are accessible. They are always on local T.V. even if it's just a comedy sketch parodying a Korean movie like 친구 (Chingu -- 'Friend') as Psy did last 추석 (Chusok- Korean Thanksgiving) before he was busted for hemp possession-- or whether it's Space-A undergoing hypnosis to trying to initiate an out-of-body experience. Click-B are the kings of gratuitous T.V. appearances, though.
[Note from Yeji: Click B is not 느끼, because they're pretty young and charming. Ususally a guy like Park Chanho( baseball player for the LA Dodgers ) is a REAL 느끼 guy, who has piercing eyes and beard... long hair. OOPS! I didn't mean Ian...:P In Korea, the pretty boys, called 꽃미남(꽃=flower, 미남=handsome guy) are much preferred to masculin guys. Korea is the number one country in the world for plastic surgery and that also goes for men these days.]
새해 복 많이 받으세요 - Happy Lunar New Year !!!
Today is the actual date of 설날 (Seol-(n)lal) - the day of the Lunar New Year and a three-day holiday in Korea. Since it is coinciding with the past weekend, it actually amounts to five days off for me, not including my day in Japan. [I have been asked to clarify that when Seolnal is written, the 'n' is included (ㄴ) but not when it is pronounced.]
Mostly today has been a day spent putting the finally touches on cleaning the apartment. I had some much appreciated help finishing the last of the laundry. Tonight, we will celebrate with a few drinks. I have been working a lot on my websites also on this break and hope to have more up soon. My latest edition is a gallery of my artwork and my short term ideas include a page composed of all the media links I check on a daily basis-- a good reference for any other information junkies like me. I half-fixed the frames on www.sci-fi.ca but am really at a loss for what content I will be able to provide without using up all of my free time for the rest of my life.
Traffic is insane so going out anywhere is not on the agenda (mind you, the Outback Steakhouse up the steet is open where we ate a FABULOUS meal the other night of Rack of Lamb with red wine sauce and mint jelly). The T.V. news reported a fatal accident in 상남동 (Sangnam-dong) in Changwon. For those of you who remember, that was my old neighbourhood where I used to complain about the driving all the time.
Lastly, I want to say thanks again to my school which was nice enough to give me a box of 한과 (Han-gwa, traditional rice cookies). They come in many different varieties and even the box itself is a nice, wooden case that I will want to keep for a long time. My box is different than the one pictured here, but you can get the idea from this image.
야금 야금 ! (Yagum Yagum!, or in English-- Yum Yum!)
Sunday, February 10, 2002
Pulguksa Temple, Kyungju - World Heritage Site
Ian Ross, 2002
Here is the sketch I made last night. I started it around midnight and finished shortly after 5am. I wanted to test out my scanner so I scanned this and since it's Korean in theme, I am going to add it to my blog. The original is, of course, much bigger and in fact, I had to crop a lot of this picture in order to fit it on the scanner which is only for letter-sized papers. In the actual picture, much of the temple to the left, including elevated staging and stonework is included.
The scanner is online. Thanks to Brian for spending the afternoon setting things up for me while I sat back and drank the Irish coffee he brought over (Ah! The life). As promised, here is the first in the collection of wierd Korean treats. This is TP chocolate covered peanuts. I must admit, the content gathering for this project is great as these things are actually quite delicious. The websites declares that TP is a...
"Symbol of chocolate-balls produced with world-level technology. TP! It's not a imitation of other similar products at all. Why don't you feel its unique taste and quality? "
That's right folks, it's NOT an imitation of M&Ms. For starters, there's no blue ones.
Something I forgot to mention about Osaka: we met a couple of New Zealanders who were not aware of the express train. They took a cab. It cost them 14000 Yen or almost $170 CAD. I still don't believe it.
I stayed up almost all night, last night, to work on a sketch of a temple I visted in Kyungju (Pulguksa). After going shopping, I managed to find a good sketchbook and wanted to break it in. I also found a deal on a scanner and printer so, I am fully connected now and will be able to post more of my own pictures to the blog. I might even scan in the sketch to see what you guys think.
Something else, that has given me some inspiration, is a site I found called www.Engrish.com. It was referred to me by Joe from Colorado. The site publishes huge travesties of English as seen on signs, clothing, and advertisements in Japan. I have seen a few here in Korea too and you might get a kick out of them now that I can scan in some photos. The way it was explained to me however, made a little bit of sense. Everyone likes to use English for their business here but since fluency is limited, most people don't understand proper English. They do however understand the meaning when you transpose it with common grammatical errors and vocabulary mistakes/modifications. A good-intentionned example of this is the credit card labelled the, "BC She's card". Only a small percentage of Koreans know their possessive pronouns and especially when it comes to gender (since Korean pronouns are genderless) it becomes much more comprehensible to Korean customers than the correct, "Her Card". A lot of businesses, therefore, do this intentionally. With that said...
Shortly, I will be visited by Brian Bowser, who is in Kangdong. I have sent him to the local soo-puh with a shopping list to see what he can come up with. When he gets here we'll hook up the scanner and with luck, be able to post some images of local products, and eventually place names (which are in an entirely different category). One place I don't have a photo of however, as I left it behind in Changwon, is the bar I mentionned months ago named, "All That Beer," that advertised the "Live Beer and Solid Drink".
A note of news to pass on for Canadians and Commonwealth citizens alike across the globe. Princess Margaret passed away in her sleep, Saturday morning, aged 71. Further information is available at the official royal site, as well as an opportunity to offer condolences.
Saturday, February 09, 2002
Back from Japan...
Let me say this first-- other than the maniacal expensiveness of everything, I didn't really have any problems in Japan. Let me tell you the whole story though.
I woke up at 6am, Friday. The night before, I had worked until 11pm and I didn't manage to fall asleep until close to 2am. Don't ask me what I was doing. I think I recall checking comic values for my old comics back home that I haven't looked at in years and barely remembering the titles (For those of you interested, they're worthless so don't make me any offers). Anway... I did manage to get up, make a sandwich, have some Orange Juidy and get out the door. I was worried about how long it would take to cross the entirety of Seoul by subway, to get to the Inch'on International Airport, so I grabbed a cab. For any of those who ever wish to visit me, I can let you know if costs about $60CAD to get to my house from the airport and takes about an hour with low traffic. I arrived at the airport at 8am-- half an hour earlier than they recommended for those of us on 10:00 flights.
After standing in line at Asiana Air's 'D' counter, I was told by the lady there to proceed to the 20 minute lineup for the 'C' counter. Both the 'C' and 'D' counters perform identical tasks from what I can tell, and in this case, after waiting in line again, I was told I had to pick up my ticket at the 'other' 'C' counter. Yeah, I know. So the 'other C' counter was only a 5 minute wait but they couldn't help me either. I had to pick up my tickets from the travel agency, who operated some booth "around the corner". I had to come back and fetch the 'other C counter' girl to help me because as it turned out, my travel agency's kiosk was a table with a girl holding an envelope and a simple, paper sign (in 24 point font) to advertise their name. Strangely, the travel agency's counter wasn't busy. Around this time, I am starting to get a bit late. I went back and stood in line at the 'first C' counter for another 20 minutes, got my ticket, my boarding pass, and went off to pay the airport tax. That part went smoothly except that I still had not had a coffee at this point and as you can imagine...
So I went through security. They didn't even notice that I had forgotten the Swiss Army Knife I was carrying and passed me right on through-- mind you nowhere on their website does it say you can't take knives on board (boxcutters-- no, but knives I guess are okay). That knife was with me for the entire flight to Japan. In hindsight, it was stupid on my part to forget it, but it was a serious security breach for them.
Immigration was much more mindful however. They noticed that I had overstayed my visa by one week. That's true. My visa actually ran out at the end of January but due to the laxness of my school and of the local immigration office who processed my paperwork for a new visa, I was behind in my sheduled departure of the country. This was a problem I found out. I didn't know if they were going to force me to stay in Korea or what-- maybe they expected me to immigrate. They tossed around the idea of fining me 100,000 Won which I don't think I was carrying at the time, having converted most of my money to Yen already... I was shuffled from office to office by a very fast-walking security agent and soon it became 9:55am. My plane left at 10:00 (did I mention that?). They stamped my embarkation paper and told me to run. They had held up the plane for me and I was the last passenger. The gate was at the other side of the airport (Gate 6 on the map-- I'm serious... stop reading this right now and look at the map to find 'Customs' and 'Gate 6'-- finished? Okay, go on...).
The flight was nice but since I still have a bit of my cold, I spent most of it coughing from the burning sensation my lungs I experienced running to the aircraft. We arrived at Kansai International Airport, Osaka, around 12 noon. Kansai is HUGE! Built on a man-made island, slowly sinking into the sea, Kansai looks like a giant, robotic, tape-worm. I caught a ride on the Nankai railway, aboard the Rapi:t(a) (pronounced: "Rapee-Tah") to Namba. The Korean Embassy is right across the street from the Holiday Inn there. It wasn't hard to find. I just had to look for the hotel logo and walk about three blocks through a very vibrant downtown area, until I saw the Korean flag across the street.
At the embassy, I met a young man from Colorado who had just arrived in Korea three weeks ago, named Joe. Apparently, Joe met a Korean pen pal and chat-partner on the internet. After a quick trip to Korea to meet her and her mom, he returned again as an English teacher and will be getting married in another three weeks. Congratulations! I also met a gentleman, named Eric, who is from South Africa and signing on to do another year of teaching much like I am. Together, we went through the Visa services and headed to McDonald's for lunch, and later a coffee. At around 3:45pm, our visas were processed and we made a leisurely walk back to the train station. The girl at McDonald's gave me my first (of a few)real brushes with Osaka dialect. It was the wierdest thing that I had ever heard. I am sure dogs would have curled over at the pitch in her voice. More than talking, I would say she rapidly chirped. I couldn't hear a single legible phoneme in anything she said. It reminded me of the Flight of the Bumblebees. It was cute though. *smirk*
Back at the airport, there were hardly any line-ups. Things passed smoothely. This time I remembered about my knife when I saw a big picture of it on the wall, and thankfully, I turned it in before I went through security. No problems, by the way. They just put it in an envelope and store it with the stowaway baggage, to be picked up at the desk when you arrive. I have a cool 'Restricted Items' slip that I will scan in when I pick up a scanner in the ever-increasingly near future. In fact, I hope to have a scanner by the time I get my pictures from Osaka back, so I can put a couple online. The flight went well, and I got back to Inch'on around 9:00pm. Immigration also went much better this time. I tracked down my knife at one of the desks and made it out to the bus stops.
I was thinking of catching a bus to Kimpo and then grabbing the subway, but then I realized that there was probably a bus to Nowon I could catch. There was. By the time I found out where it boarded, I was able to watch it drive off. About 20 minutes later in the freezing cold, the next and last bus to Nowon stopped and let me on (only paying 10,000 Won this time or about $13 CAD). Luckily, it had an unlisted stop at Hanshin Koa (Core), almost at my front door. I got home at 11:30 and ordered some fried chicken.
I am... She is...
I added to my CD collection while I was in Japan. I wanted something different to help compare the pop stylings of the two countries. I ended up with great CD by Ayumi Hamasaki, entitled, "I Am...". The first track has an acapello intro in Japanese that is taking me a while to get used to, having already gotten used to Korean. Japanese includes a significantly higher range of intonations. The CD is well produced and her voice is effective. I encourage people to check it out-- especially tracks like "Connected", "evolution", and "Daybreak". I am sorry but I wasn't able to meet, or even find a CD by Shonen Knife. I met a lot of wierd people on the street that I took to be rock stars, but I couldn't be certain. Fashion is much more daring in Japan than in Korea. Hair is greener and pinker, clothes are furrier, heels are spikier, and skirts are all three inches shorter. Korean girls are still prettier, but Japan levels this out by dressing better for a Friday night.
That was my trip. I mentionned Japan is expensive so I want to give you some examples of costs that I incurred that could be compared to Canadian Dollars (CAD).
ITEM:................................................Cost in Japan (converted to CAD)....vs....Cost in Korea (converted to CAD)
Juice from a machine.................................170 Yen ($2.02 CAD)............................600 Won ($0.73 CAD)
McDonald's Double Cheeseburger Combo....650 Yen ($7.72 CAD)..........................3300 Won ($4.00 CAD)
Cup of Black Coffee in coffee shop..............400 Yen ($4.75 CAD)...........................3500 Won ($4.25 CAD)
Music CD (Ayumi Hamasaki)....................3950 Yen ($46.86 CAD).......................12000 Won ($14.54 CAD)
A bottle of Kiku Masamune Saki......................................................Priceless
*Converted with XE.Com's Universal Currency Converter
This weekend is the commencement of 설날 (Seol-lal, Chinese New Year). The actual day is Tuesday so that means I don't have to work until Thursday. Yippee! You may also notice that the above picture is hosted at my own website instead of Fortune City. Looks like my first project for the holidays will be converting links over on this weblog to my new home site for permanence and safety.
Wednesday, February 06, 2002
I have a number of tasks ahead of me now. Two of my domain names are now online with single page websites. If any of you had looked at them since the weekend, you would have noticed that my new hosts had put up pages that were almost entirely in Korean. I finally managed to gain FTP access last night and threw an 'under construction' page onto www.sci-fi.ca, while I added a page to www.ianross.ca which contains a link back to this website. For those of you complaining about all the adds you get when you go to www.fareasterner.ca, this should be an easy way to remember my blog address.
Sci-Fi will eventually become my next hobby, once I've decided how much time and effort I can reasonably put into it. The Ian Ross site will provide a test pit for non-Blog things, and also a data dump through which I can be guaranteed of having space for images here. In other words, once I go through all my old links, nobody should ever have to see a Fortune City Logo again.
As for other news, I will be flying to Osaka, this Friday. Maybe I'll get to meet Shonen Knife.
Monday, February 04, 2002
You can tell that I just learned how to do some interesting HTML things tonight. While I am at it, anyone who is not interested in the campaign but does wish to link to the Kyungnam to Kyunggi Journal can copy this code into their website:
<a href="http://fareasterner.blogspot.com"> <img src="http://www.ianross.ca/Images/kjlogo.gif" alt="The Kyungnam (to Kyunggi) Journal" border="1"> </a>
A mini version is also available...
<a href="http://fareasterner.blogspot.com"> <img src="http://www.ianross.ca/Images/blog/kkjsm.jpg" alt="The Kyungnam (to Kyunggi) Journal" border="1"> </a>
The first line of code above will create a link button similar to the one featured on the side bar, that depicts the dragon statue at Yong Du San (Dragon Head) Park in Pusan. The second however, links to a new logo that looks like this...
Let me know if you link me and I will do my best to return the favour.
Addendum: Thanks to the fine folks at PayPal, it's now even easier to donate to myself or the "Grammar on the Internet Campaign". All you have to do is scroll down to the bottom of the side bar on your left and click the fancy 'Donate' button !!!
Interested parties may also feel free to add the following code into their website!
<a><img src="http://www.ianross.ca/Images/blog/engribbon2.gif" alt="This site supports Grammar!" border="0"> </a>
Sunday, February 03, 2002
Here it is... the prototype ribbon emblem for my "Grammar on the Internet Campaign". I want to extend the fight, however, against all major forms of global media with a special emphasis on censoring the words of foot-in-mouth politicians. We seek an open and wellspoken dialogue on the merits of proper English, and freedom from ridicule for poets you maintain the right and preserve the value of iambic pentameter and the enjoyment resulting therefrom.
If you wish to donate or find out more about the crusade, send me an email.
Yipee! I may not be a big soccer fan... or a soccer fan at all really, but with the 2002 World Cup being jointly hosted between Korea and Japan, everyone here goes mental over it. I remember when the U.S. Team beat the Korean team a couple weeks ago. All the students we grumpy and sullen all day. Now, I get to do it to them again. Canada, whom they all know does not have much of a soccer team to speak of... just beat Korea, 2 - 1, in the third place match of the 2002 Gold Cup in Pasadena. Go Team! Click here for USA Today's complete scores.
Further to one of my earlier posts, I am going to initiate a minor section entitled, "Get to Know Your Axes of Evil !!!" North Korea has released it's official response to Pres. Bush, Jr.'s unofficial declaration of the intention to commit war against aggressors with regard to his own personal chronological discretion... while the less vocal of the axes, Iran, seems to be holding an art exhibit in Seoul. No word on if Iraq will soon do the same but for now, you could always browse the Assyrian art available on the web.
*NB I am intentionally using the plural of 'axis' which is 'axes' because I haven't exactly figured out what anybody means by calling a country an 'axis'. Can someone enlighten me? Is it a reference to tipping a global balance of power along an axis line? I know Germany, Italy, and Japan formed an axis but originally, that union had only two points and Japan was an afterthought... heck Italy defected later anyway. Maybe he means that 'evil' and 'the bad people' orbit around such axes. Does that make South Korea evil by nature of it's geographical placement? Hey you philosophers! Figure this out for me. I don't want to see the same travesty befall this word as happened to the word 'terror'. I think I am going to start a blue ribbon campaign in defence of the English language.
Saturday, February 02, 2002
Currently in my CD player is "Magic to Go to My Star"-- a release that I picked up a month or more ago, but didn't have time to listen to in its entirety. Still, Lee Jung Hyun has been on T.V. constantly lately with her single, 반 (Ban or 'Half') where she hypnotically and hyperactively bounces circa 1920's style in a blue, shag, tank-top. I liked the CD the first few times- but I'm starting to get a bit tired of it. There's a nice mix between cutesy vocals, a bit of a techno rythm, and catchy melodies. She is also doing her best to cover as many languages as she can by including catch phrases in Korean, English, Arabic, and an older Asian language 알타이 (Altai, a form of Mongolian from which both Korean and Japanese came to be derived from). She lists as her hobbies; looking at stars and collecting Barbie dolls. Her inspirations (and life's aspirations?) come from the Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen and from the French fairy tale, The Little Prince.
For those of you interested, her birthday is on Thursday (she turns 22 in Western Age or 23 in Korea)... what can I get her?
Ironically right now, I am watching a TV show on Euthanasia in Asia...
I know it's not summer yet but I just found this site and thought I'd share. It's about the Korean myth of Fan Death. I have to admit that I've heard it a few times myself since I had a nasty habit of leaving the fan in my room on over long periods of time when I lived in Changwon. The apartment was a bit stuffy and there wasn't much of a breeze that blew in through the window, so I needed something to keep the air circulating. Also my air con was in the other room (out of necessity) and I needed to create a breeze to draw the cold air into my bedroom. Needless to say, a couple concerned Korean friends were worried about the grave danger to my health that this electric fan cause.
Minor triumphs...
I had a couple of successes today that are almost noteworthy. Pretending instead that they are completely noteworthy, I am going to note them.
For starters, Pizza Hut was amazing tonight! Not only were they only a half hour late but we gave them a complex order that involved Mountain Dew-- and they actually brought it this time. To top things off, I even enjoyed the usually pasty and flavourless, ham and white sauce pasta. I know... I know... why do you still order from them? Answer: It's the only place you can guarantee getting a fresh salad, and all the Chinese food restaurants were closed.
My second and most important discovery is with my waistline. Foreigners generally have to shop near U.S. Military bases or else find a factory outlet that sells clothes originally manufactured for export to the West. I gambled and bought some clothes at E-Mart (a division of Shinsegae Department Stores) the other day. I bought a couple of sweaters and a pair of nice black pants. The pants were marked the size I used to wear in university, but I suspected that may have been an overestimate. Tonight I put them on and I fit into them comfortably. Not only am I officially back to my old size, but more importantly-- I can now buy clothes in Korea OFF THE RACK! The potentials are limitless.
*NOTE* I normally don't like flashy web animations and things that soak up my time or bandwidth or whatever... But anyone who has a professional interest should take a look at the English section of the Department Store link above. It loads an online pamphlet that is remarkably stylish and if you have the patience to let it run through, you will eventually come to a map where you can select the store and see a photo of it slide into view. I bought my clothes at the E-Mart in Chang Dong which is right up there at number one on the list of E-Mart.
Friday, February 01, 2002
As a slight improvement(?), the domain name www.fareasterner.ca now points to this site. It's easier to remember but the downside is that you get stuck with one or more tacky banners. Of course, the Blogspot address still works and those of you who spend the extra second and a half typing it in will get the original, clean browser window you've come to expect (except for the Blogger banner ad which I may see about getting rid of). I may also be adding www.ianross.ca to the list of URLs that forward here, but I haven't decided on that yet either. I am trying to get a couple hosting sites set up by the end of this weekend. One will be for www.sci-fi.ca and the other will either be for this blog or for a collection of wholly different projects. Any ideas for projects, you could leave via the comments link below.
An axis is generally considered to be a line, upon which you can graph coordinates. Alternatively, it is something that you can rotate around. North Korea recently topped President Bush's list as the number one "axis of evil". However, in today's news, the American end of this line has been putting on a spin that has recently assured the world that he plans no 'imminent' action military action. How long he is going to wait was not something he mentionned. My calculus skills are mediocre, as is my ability to graph... but I think this sickness I am feeling is a result of centripetal force.
In related news, I have a new web poll on the subject. And related to that, as in other weblog news, Solid07 seems to be dead so I will attempt to find another replacement to bring you K-Pop news.
I know that the last few postings have been rather short. This week has been a bit taxing. I have at least 2 classes of high level (and highly sarcastic) middle-school students each day-- that number around 27 kids. For a short time, they found it funny when I joked that we could have 3 baseball teams... but the short time eventually passed. There is no way I can conduct a 'conversation' with that many kids at the same time. I suggested leaving them in the lobby and sending one in every minute and a half but I don't think the school is going to do that. I feel more like a comedian than a teacher, trying to keep their attention while not being able to interest them through a real dialogue.
Today is better however. Since one of my scheduled classes has yet to be filled with students, I only have two. The first class is at 7pm and the last class is at 8pm. So would somebody tell me why I woke up at 10am!?
