LATENIGHT - KOREA

Sunday, April 28, 2002

Today marks another anniversary of sorts. It was exactly 18 months ago that I landed in Korea. I still don't speak Korean so I guess I should study more. For the most part, the change in diet, the reduction in work hours, and increase in spending money has treated me well. It seems less of a vacation to me now though, as it begins to occupy a sizeable chunk of my life. Being a foreigner in a homogenous society is the downside, as is the pollution-- but overall I am better off these days than when I left Canada.

Today was spent spring cleaning and everything in the apartment got a taste of the rag or mop. I am hesitant to let Molly out of her cage so she can make a mess of it again but I guess she needs some exercise. Last night I took a new approach to planning out a short story. This time I made a full 3 pages of notes including Character profiles, a plot synopsis, conflct, climax, and resolution. I even resurrected the phrase "D?ouement" from my high school days. Surely to goodness I will be able to write and finish it this time. *sigh*

Friday, April 26, 2002

Your faithful and fateful blogger takes a trip to the mountains- Seorak San

New photos from Seorak Mountain are in!

What with the extra time off I have been having this week, I was able to finish off my film and drop by the local photography shop. On this film are my remaining pictures from my trip to Kangwon-Do.

You'll notice that I am changing spellings a bit and it seems rather arbitrary... and for the most part I think it is. Remember my posting about the plan to make English more uniform? There is an official 'romanization of hangol' policy but I think it's fairly new. Many signs feature different spellings. I am going to try to stick to the phonetics as best I can but many of you may already recognize-- this is also a blatant attempt to generate words which will register on a search engine. Ergo, where in the past I said Gangwon Do, today I am going to say Kangwon Do (both with and without the hyphen as I decree fit) since 'G' and 'K' are almost interchangeable in Korean. Also, I am labelling these pictures as being from SeorakSan (Seorak Mountain). Again, I had seen signs that read Seorak and Seoruk and Sorak ( I think Suhrak is a better fit). Some websites have more than one spelling on the same page. One of the pictures below shows the spelling in Korean which is 설악산. To break that down, 설 is 'S' (normal English pronounciation), followed by a very full and robust short U sound ('uh') and ended with an 'r' which is rather soft and has a touch of 'l' to it. Next, 악 is made up of another very full sounding vowel: short 'a', which when pronounced almost sounds like a short 'o'. That character ends with the semi-arbitrary 'g'/'k' sound but bottom characters are usually pretty hard sounding so I will stick to writing 'k'. (When 's', 'j', or 'ch' is on the bottom, they are usually pronounced like a 't'). Finally we have 산 which is 'S' + the 'a' that sounds like short 'o' + an 'n' on the bottom. "San" means mountain.

As a last note, I am still hanging on to a few extra pics that were on this roll. I will publish them once every day or so until I run out. I am eager to get these pictures up though so I will group them together in the same post. There's not much commentary to go with them that has not already been said. Seorak Mountain is beautiful and speaks for itself. Seoraksan was declared a UNESCO conservation park in 1982.

Looking through the trees and cherry blossoms to the path ahead.

On the road leading up to the main entrance, this is what your first glimpse of the mountain looks like. Looking through the trees and spring cherry blossoms, you can see the mountain across a rocky, mostly dried-up riverbed.

Welcome to Seorak National Park. Don't feed the bears.

"Welcome to Seoraksan !!! GRRrrrr"

Cherry blossoms near the main park entrance

Once you get past the bear, these cherry blossoms are there to greet you (as are lots of concession stands), before you cross the bridge to begin your climb of the mountain.

This bridge, leads across the riverbed to the start of the path up the mountain. At one time, I assume there was more water flowing. Visiting during the rainy season in summer would likely see the river spring to life again though.

Once on the trail up the mountain, you get to glance back one more time at the bridge before beginning your long hike up. I wasn't lucky enough to score a good shot, but it is from this vantage point, when you are already on the path, that you can get an excellent view of the cable car that also runs to the top. I assume they also get a great view of you.

Fear not intrepid explorer! As it turns out, we didn't walk all the way to the top. Instead, we found this little rest area where we were able to have a snack and drink several bowls of makalay(a kind of rice wine).

Seoraksan is truly gorgeous. We were very lucky to have fine weather and overall, the trip was fabulous. On the way out (or way in depending) we saw the following pagoda as it stood nobly against the oncoming tide of traffic approaching the slope, beckoning us to someday return (but for the time being it beckoned us to get the heck out while there was still any room left on the road for us to travel).

-THE END-

Wednesday, April 24, 2002

My backlog of photos has almost run out. I have 6 shots left on my next film but I haven't been venturing far enough from home to find subjects suitable of photographing. This is a picture I took while coming back from the Immigration Office in Mokdong (itself likely to be tomorrow's picture). I was surprised not just that the school had such a large piece of English signage-- but also that I have never seen a Western school allow its students to tag it in such a massive way. I thought it was pretty cool so I snapped the shot.

The City of Seoul is seeking to standardize its English in time for the World Cup. They have established a website to this end and if you're a Korean who is reading this, by all means, lend a hand. If you are a native English speaker, who probably has the greatest chance to pick up errors, forget it-- you're out of luck-- the website's only in Korean, but at least this posting to a local message board can give a further background.

Monday, April 22, 2002

Today was hot. It was the first genuine hot day of the season. The sun was shining, everyone was out, everything seemed beautiful The sun setting behind the mountains was also a treat since at most places in Seoul, you are always in view of a mountain. Class was easy today. Most of the middle school students are writing exams this week so one of my classes was even cancelled. I took the opportunity to sit back and do some reading. All in all it was a pleasant day.

The picture of the stiltwalker above was taken near Hyehwa, not far from the giant octopus.

Sunday, April 21, 2002

This Day in History...

Captain Roy Brown, of Canada, shoots down Germany's Red Baron- April 21st, 1918.

Colin reminded me of this anniversary and asked if I was going to post some information it.

It was on this day, in 1918, that one of the most famous incidents in the airwar of World War I took place. Rittmeister Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron of Germany with 80 confirmed kills, was flying with planes from Jagdstaffel 11 (known as Richthofen's Flying Circus), returning from an engagement with Australian RE8s. Capt. Roy Brown's squadron, including Wilfred May of Carberry, Manitoba, flying Sopwith F1 Camels, were also flying back after engaging German Aviatiks.

Brown spotted the Fokkers and motioned to May to stay clear while he dived on them. Two Fokkers almost immediately pulled up on Brown's tail. He outmaneuvered both and turned to see that May had engaged also. May's guns jammed after his first past and he disengaged, heading back for allied lines. The Red Baron however, spotted the rookie, May, and pursued. The Baron was unable to score an quick kill due to May's erratic flying (which May later attributed to his lack of experience) and the two planes flew deep into Allied territory. Brown, spotting his friend in trouble, managed to close the distance and pulled out of a dive in time to fire 40 rounds into the Baron's Fokker. He watched Richthofen whose back straightened and tightened in the cockpit, before slumping over-- his plane slowly descending until it crashed. One of Brown's bullets had pierced his chest. While the plane was descending, the Fokker came under fire by Australian guns on the ground and some controversy has arisen of late as to whose bullet actually ended the life of the Red Baron.

Roy Brown eventually retired from the front, with a total of 10 kills, to teach tactics at flight training school. After the war, he became an accountant, and eventually went on to found a small airline in Quebec and Ontario. It failed in 1939. Brown tried unsuccessfully to join the RCAF in World War II and also was unsuccessful in a run for Parliament. He died of a heart attack, age 50, in Stouffville, Ontario, 9 March 1944.

Wilfred 'Wop' May went on to score 13 kills and become a famous Canadian bush pilot.

Most of the information in this posting came from Miles Constable's war history site and I encourage to read the full story. He has included much more information than I could ever paraphrase here.

Stupid White Men... and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation

I can't believe it... my book from Amazon.com came in yesterday's mail. It took exactly 7 days. I hope I am not going to pay through the teeth for shipping. I chose the 10 to 16 day option. That makes three parcels last week. I'm a lucky guy.

Went out last night with Aaron to Wa-Bar in DoonChonDong. It's not a big bar but they seem to be one of, if not the only, place that sells Guinness by the pitcher. I also picked up Brian's old 17" monitor which I am going to use as soon as I feel expeditious enough to set it up and find a place to stash my old monitor.

Saturday, April 20, 2002

I've decided that people should be able to have paranoia threat indicators also. This may be more accurate than suggesting there is an overtly organized, multi-global organization of terrorists (not currently affiliated with the U.S. Government). As nature would recommend, the base level of this graph is 'blue' and then rises through green to yellow, orange, and red.

If you see this level posted... I am probably already hiding in a cave without internet access.

A definite threat has been noted and may be closing in.

Threats are probably insignificant so I'll worry later.

The U.S. Office of Homeland Security has released it's new Homeland Security Advisory System, similar to UV Warnings and Forest Fire Advisories. They have a "Current Nationwide Threat Level" indicator, similar to the mood indicator I have but after checking the source code in hopes I could add it to my website and remote load it to keep it current, I found out that it only loads the 'Yellow - Elevated' button and would have to be changed manually. Maybe they don't expect it to change. The colours for threat levels range from GREEN through BLUE, YELLOW, and ORANGE, to RED. Why this does not follow the natural colour spectrum, I don't know. I guess their office is made up of the only individuals in history to fail Art class in high school.

Current Nationwide Threat Level:

Blogiversary
One hour and one minute after my last post, at 4:06am, the Kyungnam to Kyunggi Journal became a year old-- having surpassed 8000 visitors in its first year!
Let me know what changes you'd like to see for the future and what you think my plans should be for the next year.

Thought I'd take a break from my computer for a while and make use of my other desk for a change. I just received my second package in the mail from Canada this week. The first was from Kim and this one was from Donna. She dutifully sent me my CKDU fridge magnets for the pledge I made to the station a couple months ago, while Kim sent Easter chocolates. Thanks to both of you. Along with the magnets, Donna enclosed a book of political cartoons, so I was inspired to give another one of my own a go. Don't expect too many in the future, though My recent aggravation over world events has made me decide to take a pass on cable news networks for the time being-- in an effort to regain my sanity. I tried to take a break today and read a few good history sites on pre-Columbian voyages to the New World, but in the end I only became frustrated at Ivory Tower Academia for it's refusal to accept any alternate views to history.

With luck, I will be able to get Afghanistan, Israel, the U.S.A. and all other global hotspots and travesties out of my head long enough to go back to concentrating on things like local corruption and the lack of good foreign food restaurants in Korea. I tried ordering kimbap tonight and they didn't even show up.

Friday, April 19, 2002

A tasty snack treat?... Na.

I picked up a box of these at the local LG25 and wanted to scan in the box. Maybe it's negative reinforcement but I actually found them quite delicious... if a bit crumbly (but it does say soft cookie). Manufactured by Orion, who has quite an ominous website fore a company that mostly makes snackfoods. Check out some of their other products and descriptions, including:

Digest : "Classical biscuit which is both tasteful and healthful, it contains eatable fiber, especially good for weight control."

Choco Chip Cookie: "Crispy cookie meets sweet chocolate. Sweet choco chips are imbedded in cookies. Moist Choco Chip: Tender Cocoa cookie contains 20% of real choco chip. "

O'kie : "No more cookie, now we want O'kie! 8% of coconut contained in soft cookie strengthens the taste of O'kie. It tastes as home-made cookie would."

Flavono: "A functional gum that treats bad breath. Its ingredients of flavonoid and fresh peppermint freshen up the mouth"

Wow: "Fruit chip bubble gum containing flum fruit chips. It appeals to teenagers who uses the exclamation 'wow' when things go well or they feel good."

Go to the English website and run your mouse over where it says "our Brand" at the top. Then select any othe food categories. The above five are only the first five I quoted. There's lots more, each with a great description. although, I am sorry to say, no description of Na! seems to be available in English and the link on the Korean webpage doesn't work.

The Results of the F-X Program...

The results are in on the bids for the Korean F-X program-- at least on CNN. The government hasn't announced it yet but they are expected to do so within the hour apparently.

The winner? We don't need a drum roll for this-- Boeing.

The competition has been controversial. France was competing with the Dassault Rafale but had been accused of trying to bribe Korean officials into siding with them. That's not as bad as it seems. It shows that of the three competitors, Daussault was the only company sensitive and understanding enough to learn how the Korean government works.

The Eurofighter Typhoon was another competitor. By far, they have the superior aircraft since their fighter was designed to be roughly in the same class as the American F-22, probably assuring it a place within the top 3 fighters of the world.

The U.S. wasn't offering the F-22 though, since the cost is too prohibitive. Instead they provided the Boeing-McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle. It has a cheaper purchase price, (but in the long term, with maintenance costs, the Typhoon is actually cheaper).

When the Korean government released its stage 1 test results to say that all the competitors had less than 3% differences according to the initial criteria, largely to do with cost-effectiveness and performance, Eurofighter figured out that the Koreans were playing with loaded dice, accused Bush of pressuring the Korean government and all but packed their bags and went home.

So there you have it. No one is surprised... just angry again. Especially with the rise of Anti-Americanism lately (in the public sphere but never the government), and possibly with the crash of a Boeing jet at Kimhae on Monday, this decision is inevitably going to be unpopular.

Where I spend my days... Eun Haeng Sagori (Banking District) in Nowon

I've been a lot busier the last couple of days with the mothers' meetings taking up my afternoons. That was Wednesday and today. Tomorrow is Friday though and that should make all the difference. The above picture is where I work, by the way, or at least the street where our building is on. I should have a new film developed soon and should be able to continue posting a pic a day for a while longer yet.

Saturday is the blogiversary and as I write this, I am 10 visitors away from reaching 8000 hits for my first year. I have no idea how I will celebrate.

Wednesday, April 17, 2002

which "monty python and the holy grail" character are you?

this quiz was made by colleen

Tuesday, April 16, 2002

Fill'er up with Super Clean Soil for your tank...

Alternate power source or an inadvertant use of English. This chain of service stations always makes me giggle so I took a photo.

Getting ready for school. Tomorrow begins a two-day set of meetings with the mothers of our students so my work will begin at 1pm tomorrow and Thursday. Today is just the regular longish day. I have my full 6 classes with no breaks and most of them are younger classes.

I meant to post this following link yesterday but Blogger was down when I tried. Last night I ended up pushing it aside until I eventually went to bed without blogging it. Korea Digital Networks has begun it's first International Hacking Contest. As of late, the Korean government has allocated 90Billion Won to developing new internet security systems for Korean businesses. Korean Digital Networks was first out the starting gate, having already begun on a system called WOKS which now they want to test with a hacking contest. Starting about two hours ago, they were to release an IP address. Registered competitors have 48 hours to hack into the system, gain root access, and leave their ID number. The winner, if there is one, will get $100,000. Failing to have a winner, 5 individuals or teams will be selected for $10,000 prizes each.

Monday, April 15, 2002

Pusan at Night

I decided to dig back through my files for a shot from Pusan that I had yet to publish. In my archives you can find a shot taken in daytime but this picture pretty much looks the way Pusan would look as I am writing this. There is more news now from the Air China crash at Kimhae. Apparently they crashed into the side of a mountain during bad weather. Why they did not divert, I don't know; Seoul has had beautiful, hot, sunny weather all day. About a third of the passengers, mostly who were in the rear section, survived.

***BREAKING NEWS*** from South Korea is the crash of a Chinese 767at Kimhae, the airport just outside of Busan-- approximately 11:50am. I was watching CNN at the time when it was reported. They claimed that Korean cabel news was covering it but I am just starting to see the pictures on the other Korean stations now (I don't have YTN). The link I gave however is for CBC who were the first to get English coverage up on the web. There is also BBC coverage online too. I'm sorry but all my Korean English news sources update daily and not by the minute. Time to hunt a few more down. I have one regularly updated Korean site
but they are quoting stories from The Toronto Star and CNN Europe.

Sunday, April 14, 2002

Another stay at home day with a bit of time to play with Photoshop. The above picture originally came from a free, area phone book of the sort that is made up primarily of business advertising. There are a few different issues that show up every couple weeks or so, and they usually have the phone numbers for some good restaurants in them-- indispensable for apartment life.

Saturday, April 13, 2002

PUCCA -- 'Funny Love'

Here is one of the Korean characters that I have noticed recently. Specifically, I noticed it on a new alarm clock in my bathroom. (If anyone is counting, I am now on alarm clock number #6 since I came to Korea). The theme for this character is "Funny Love". If you click on the image, it will take you to the main page of the Korean company, Vooz, which speciallizes in marketing these quirky little animations. Pucca is a tomboy who grew up in her parents Chinese food restaurant and goes crazy over Jajangmyun, a kind of spaghetti-sized noodles in a tasty black bean sauce. She is 'aggressively' trying to win the love of Garu, the descendant of a family of Ninjas. Personally, I like Garu's cat, Mio, the best though. When he gets angry, he can fly. Watch the animations. There are quite a few and they are all funny in a cutesy sort of way. I've also added a permanent link to the side bar to keep Mashimaro from getting lonely. If you understand Korean, or want to try, you can find Pucca email postcards here.

Today has been a quiet Saturday. I have been sorting laundry and watching CNN yet again. Michael Moore was on, talking to Moneyline about his new book, "Stupid White Men... and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation". He scored enough direct hits on the Bush administration on global T.V., just before they ran out of time, that I logged onto Amazon.com and ordered the book. Lou Dobbs looked noticeably distraught as Moore launched into his questions of why the Taliban had visited Texas less than a month before 9-11, why they were discussing the construction of a pipeline with an American company (Unocal which is run by Dick Cheney), and why coincidently, the feasibility study was being conducted by Enron. CNN never reported on that before today. Moore also enouraged Lou Dobbs to watch the BBC more often since they did report on it. All in all, it was a very enjoyable segment.

I'll post another pic from my unpublished gallery. This image is of a bar in the same area as the mushrooms photo I posted yesterday. In fact, you can actually see this sign in the bottom left photo of yesterday's pic. This is a blow up of the Occult Beer Bar sign in Shinchon, also located conveniently close to Seoul's Cure Theme Bar (the owner spent about 7 years in London I was told). With all this goth stuff... why is the giant representation of Cthulu located so far away?

The Occult Cafe... hidden away in Shinchon...

Q: What does a giant, Korean octopus, placed on the side of a bar eat?
A: Giant, Korean mushrooms placed on the sides of bars, of course.

Here's another shot to add to the 'Nightlife of Seoul' collection. This collection of bars is in Shinchon. The lighting in this picture is a bit bad since it was getting late by the time we had moved along on our way-- but if you look in the centre of this photo are a pair of giant, pastel, plexiglass mushrooms that are filled with bubbling water and guard the doors to one of the area's many bars.

As usual, the recent scheduling change was uninforming. I arrived at work at 3:15 in order to begin teaching my new class that was supposed to be from 3:20pm to 3:50pm. Our manager actually called me while I was getting out of the cab, with five minutes to spare, to make sure I was going to be there on time. When I arrived, they gave me the classroom number and I walked down the hall to find nothing but empty rooms. I went back out to the lobby, announced the dillema and sat down to watch TV until someone showed up. Since there were 15 students in the class, I assumed they couldn't all be late. This therefore would create quite a mystery, if it wasn't that I have absolutely zero faith in being informed correctly of a scheduling change. Again, my manager seemed as puzzled as I was as to why no students were there.

When students arrived through the door at 3:30, they informed the manager that they were not 10 minutes late, but in fact the class was, in truth, from 3:30pm until 4:50pm. It was no longer a half hour but had suddenly blossomed to an 80 minute class. I hastily had to prepare a lot of material for students while no one seemed to have any idea of their speaking ability. Why the students had to be the ones to tell the manager what time the class was I don't know. Why the manager had to come up to me, play the traditional Korean game of 'Dodge the Blame,' and then utter a stupid excuse like, "I told you yesterday that it was an 80 minute class starting at 3:30," bullsh*t immediately after they told him, I will never know.

Molly has a bit of a problem. Yeji called me over to take a look as soon as I got home. It looks like she hurt her foot somehow and an infection has set in... causing one of her toes to swell up like a purple grape (Canadian-sized grape and not one of the poly-ploidied Korean grapes, thank the gods). Her toenail is intact so it must be a cut. I just spent 10 000 Won on food for her today so she better not die on me yet. Tomorrow I am going solo to a veterinarian to check on her condition.

I am wondering what the chances a foreigner (in a leather jacket, carrying a grumpy rabbit in a cage), has of being able to score a taxi on a Saturday in Korea.

Friday, April 12, 2002

Brian and myself at the Woodstock in Itaewon

I plan on using this photo elsewhere so I might as well milk it here first, by adding it as a blog photo of the day. This photo was taken just before Brian headed back to the Great White North, at one of the Seoul Artists' Network meetings he frequented. We were trying to hammer out "The Giant", by Stan Rogers, but I was mostly just getting hammered. Next time we do this, I hope he gives me more than 24 hours notice to start memorizing chords in obscure guitar tunings *smirk*. He's tried to contact me a couple times since his returned but I was AFK so Brian, if you're reading this, leave a comment and let me know how the homecoming went.

Today was one of my longer days teaching. Tomorrow afternoon I am picking up another class of 15 middle school students who have yet to study with a foreign teacher. The class is only half an hour long but it's at 3:20pm which spoils the only chance I have all week to come into work late. If it wasn't for this class, I would start at 6pm on Fridays as opposed to my usualy 4pm start time.

Not much other news to mention. If you haven't seen it already (I don't think I remembered to post it), I have a page now of Korean MP3s for those of you interested in browsing my CD collection here, hosted on IanRoss.ca.

Thursday, April 11, 2002

"...unscrupulous hosts of the Golden Moloch ...an octopus whose deathly blood sucking feelers are always extended to grasp us down in despair and misery" - William Aberhart

I can't remember exactly where I was when I took this picture. I think it was just off the main drag in Hyewah but I'm not certain of the name of the district, I am going to endeavour to post at least one pic a day from now on... relevancy notwithstanding.

You see, I was checking out the calendar and reviewing the archive-- only to learn that April 20th will be my one year Blogiversary! My goal now, is to get my counter pumped up within the next week and a half. It's standing at 7774 right now which places me two bucks and a quarter from hitting 8000 visitors in my first year, averaging about 20 to 30 hits a day... so letsee... 8 is two thirds of a dozen so... carry the one... that will make an average of 666 visitors a month! *gulp* Maybe I should have quoted H.P. Lovecraft instead of Bible Bill.

To help facilitate this, I plan on using random but tried and tested words that have helped boost my search engine results before. They include, but are not limited to;

"nude",

"naked pics of me",

"axes of evil" (apparently not enough people bothered to correct George W. Bush and pluralize that one so last time I checked I was number 4 on Yahoo!),

"Mashimaro" (to whom most of my hits are sadly for-- since most of the pages that mention him are in Korean and not English),

"Nude Pics of Miss. Korea's",

"E-Mart Department Store",

"belarus businesses emails + guestbook" (I don't know who searches for random guestbooks from former Soviet states and ends up in Korea, but if you're still reading this-- Welcome!),...

...and of course, "Nude Pictures of Mashimaro, the Yupki Toki"

Speaking of which, I have another picture of Molly. This one looks much better (after I Photoshopped out the rabbit ddong) but dammit, she still looks fuzzy... I might have to get out the electric razor before I take any more pictures.

Soon to be toggi chigae... Molly the abnormally grumpy rabbit.

Wednesday, April 10, 2002

I've been scanning in pictures all night and will do my best to release a few at a time when the situation warrants it. For now however, I wanted to test out a new logo that I concocted by merging a couple of them. Everyone seems to be linking with the www.ianross.ca graphic anyway, but because I changed the title of this blog when I moved to Seoul, the logo for this site has been due for an update ever since. Please tell me what you think, whether you like it or hate it. I didn't want to shrink it down any further since the text requires some space to fit in and no one would be able to recognize the pictures. In case you are wondering, those things off of my left shoulder are real, live PENGUINS from my trip to the 63 Building Aquarium-- but I admit it's pretty hard to tell.

Tuesday, April 09, 2002

Breakers at the East Sea

See the posting from Friday night/Saturday morning to read about this vacation but suffice to say-- here are some pictures and more are on their way. These pictures are only of the ocean. I hope to have some pictures from Soreok Mountain as soon as I finish my film. The above photo was taken in the area where the Hweh restaurant and fishmarket was, where we ate before coming home.

The JuMoonJin Family Hotel

Here is where we stayed (I hesitate to use the word slept). Our room had a balcony which over looked the beach where at night you could watch the bright lights from fishing boats and in the morning, weather permitting, the sunrise.

A safe, secure beach. No lifeguards, but lots of security.

This is the path to the surf. I mentionned the Hueys flying overhead all night. Here you can see the barbed wire fencing that surrounds the coast. It reminded me a lot of China Beach.

The Prep School Staff, sans moi who is holding the camera

It's back... Return of the Killer Duststorm

I've been up for a little while now. Yesterday I took my camera in to be developed so I now have the first of my vacation pictures, which I have been scanning in, cropping, and resizing. The dust is back and the above photo, from CNN.com says it all. Hope they don't mind me using their picture... at least I'm not remote loading it this time. My throat is not so much sore today as it is suffering from a stale aftertaste.

Saturday, April 06, 2002

Oh gods, am I going to do this now? I am soooooooo......... worn out. I just got home from our company 'meeting' on the east coast in the province of Gangwon-Do. Since my IME is not working and I don't have energy now to compensate, please excuse me for not adding in the hangol where appropriate. I'll be lucky right now if I can remember the romanizations.

We finished class last night at around 10pm. Hanging around for a bit to organize, we stopped for some dduk bokki and piled into two vehicles, hitting the road around 11pm. There were eight of us altogether including our director, manager, and assorted teachers. Our first stop on the road was for udong at yahchu where we also picked up an assortment of squid-based snacks. We took a newer route through various tunnels, which apparently was only opened a few months ago. After a couple unplanned detours, we ended up in Kangneung at around 2:30am and went straight to a hotel where we proceeed to engage in snacks and beverages (beer, wine..) and discuss work. Most of us retired around 4:30 but I stayed up with the head Korean teacher until 7am, attempting to watch the sunrise over the East Sea.

The hotel was of a typical Korean style. There was no furniture save for a kitchen table. Bedspreads were laid out on the floor. The four of us guys stayed in one room while the four ladies stayed in the other. We woke up at 10am suffering from a total lack of sleep and then took a walk to the beach. Kangneung is very close to the DMZ so the beach is surrounded by barbed wire and overnight, huey helicopters flew patrols overhead. (There had also been various checkpoints with two or three bored soldiers at each that we ran across while driving as well.) After visiting the beach, we drove off to Sochun(?) where we went to a tofu restaurant for lunch. We were able to try many different kinds of tofu, including a brownish tofu paste, a soft tofu soup and of course, the regular tofu that is the most common (the white bricks)-- as well as dong dong ju which I blogged about before.

Next was a tour of the area which is tremendously beautiful and relatively sparse in population. The mountains in the northeast of south Korea are a lot bigger and the Pacific Ocean was a brilliant blue as we were having great sunny weather for our trip. I am really suspecting that North Korea must be gorgeous as far as landscape goes. Around 2pm, we arrive at Soreok Mountain. We didn't go all the way up. The cable car that we had planned to take was booked until 7pm so instead we walked halfway until we came to a rest area where we could eat fried mountain roots and potatoe pancakes (I'm sorry I forget the name and I know I am going to be punished later...). We also had a drink of Makalay, a different variation on rice wine from dong dong ju.

We hiked back down the mountain, stopping for more squid snacks, and then drove our way back to sea level, where we got out at a combination of fish market and hweh restaurant complex. We took a walk on the pier to build our appetite up again and then sat down to a great meal of hweh (raw fish) which included shellfish, a big snow crab, flatfish, some sort of red sea creature that no one knew the English name for but they assured me it wasn't a fish, and a big blue fish the size of my thigh which took about 6 whacks to incapacitate, before all was diced up and served with a couple bottles of soju. We finished off with soup and then headed out to a few more of the stalls, where we bought a coffee and some more squid snacks to take home.

That was it for our energy. By now it was almost 7pm so we skipped the trip to the spa and began the drive home, via the old route which instead of running through the mountains like the new route, runs up, over, and around the mountains through some impressively twisting and winding roads. Try to imagine back to back 180 degree hairpin turns for 2 hours. When we got back to the highway, traffic was heavy and it was starting to rain. We got home around 11'ish.

I had a great trip. My coworkers were fun, friendly, and my fear of being alone in a group of people speaking only Korean (of which I had grown to expect from before) was unfounded. With my new coworkers here, I was furnished with lots of translations, a healthy does of English converstaion, polite listening for when I ramble on about grammar or history or politics or whatever... and I even got a few impromptu Korean lessons to break up the monotony of the drive. The northeast, being almost solely a tourist area, must be an awful boring place to live but it certainly is the freshest, cleanest, and most beautiful part of Korea that I have seen yet.

It's closing in on 2am now and I am about to crash. Please excuse any typos-- I'll fix them when I reread this in the morning. Molly's in her cage and my coffee is finished. It's time for bed.

Monday, April 01, 2002

Take a look and tell me what you think. I did a site change last night on www.ianross.ca. Most noteably, I added a section in for audio which contains 7 Korean songs at present, in MP3, ripped from my pile of CDs over here. I am hoping to eventually have at least one song from each CD and review of sorts on the album-- or at least a short blurb.

Her Majesty The Queen Mum (Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon) 1900-2002

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother

The most dear of the Royal family passed away peacefully on Saturday-- Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (born Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon), the widow of King Geroge VI, and mother of our present Monarch, Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II. It is with lament that for the second time in less than two months I am posting a link to the Royal site and to the Queen Mum's memorial site. She was a strength and comfort to her country throughout her years, most notably the darkest days of World War II while London itself came under attack. She was also one of the great women of Scotland, who traced her descent from the Royal Family of Scotland with it's family seat at Glamis.