Where’s a dog supposed to learn thus stuff?

The past couple of times she’s been in heat, I never allowed her to, shall we say, consummate the deal?  There we’re a couple of dogs around, but they had already been cleaved of their  ability to breed. Instinct runs deep and despite their willingness and apparent know-how, their um…fortitude was lacking. So, I let them “play” for a bit and then we’d go inside.

Now that we’re ready for her to make a family, I’m willing to let her mate with a male dog. Two weeks in and we’re not having much luck. The one dog that remains able to do more than fog his figurative glasses seems a little old.  He can’t quite make the connection. SaTang for all her wanton lust just isn’t comfortable with penetration and so jumps away just at the crucial moment. The male dog, frustrated at playing coitus interruptus is unable to do more and simply stands by, panting heavily. SaTang, still playful and wants  more and is willing to take matters into her own hands.  She just doesn’t understand how to make things work.

After several more attempts at trying to force the issue, she gives up. He’s spent. She looks like she’s looking for her next victim.

CAUTION – Don’t Look too close.

No, not me, I am married already.  I just want my dog to have babies.

But saying all that in Korean well enough for the vet to understand is difficult. SaTang is almost 3 years old and we haven’t fixed her yet. We have a number of friends who like the dog and would want a pup should she have a litter.  I’d like to keep one, too, but MyeongHee isn’t so sure.  Let her play with a few cute little puppies and she’ll change her mind.

In the meanwhile, SaTang is in heat and it’s time to do the deed. A lot of the dogs around here are pocket dogs – constantly held and not allowed to run free in the park. The dogs that do roam the neighborhood are scruffy mutts that live on the nearby farms. They live on the wrong side of the tracks, according to MH.  So, I ventured to the vet to see if he knows of any un-neutered male dogs in the area.  That was not an easy conversation. I know some Korean, but asking for a date for my dog is not something I studied much on.

He checked SaTang’s privates and then popped the question, in English: “Martin, you want married?” I didn’t try to correct him. I just went with the flow.

MyeongHee thinks he’ll charge bug bucks for a hook-up with one of his other “patients.”  Sounds like a pimp deal to me. I’m not convinced he’d charge too much, but I’d expect a small fee. We’re supposed to call back in a day or two on what he’s found. We’ll see.

I love the new door to the park that got installed last week.  It even has a lock on it to keep out the undesirables, whatever or whoever they might be. Two years ago, I wrote about this park and how just after they completed refurbishing it, the kids in the neighborhood did their level best to destroy it.  The door, I think, failed due to shitty workmanship. The metal hinges just broke. Cheap metal. Lots of other things have fallen victim to the ruthless destructiveness of Korean children, bored by a place that has little or nothing to offer in the way energetic, constructive behavior.  In the two years since I wrote that piece, I’ve watched the two picnic tables get slowly torn apart and are now discarded heaps of wood in an unused corner.  The benches have all lost their arm and back rests. and are nothing but flat boards resembling more cadavers than benches. The fence itself, which now has a bright shiny new door, is riddled with holes torn by children too lazy to walk to that single door. And so now, the door stands as a gleaming reminder of all that once was new while the four walls around it stand in ruin.

The goal areas have their own tears in the fence. Once started, there is little to stop the kids from enlarging them, making that long walk to the door unnecessary.

The nets, having been replaced a few times, are shredded again. Kids continue to climb on them while parents sit idly by, refusing to chastise them.

When I was a kid, almost any adult would have chased us off had we been caught tearing up public property. Here, that doesn’t happen. They don’t want the precious little snowflakes to “lose face.”   There’s lots of things I like about Korea, but this isn’t one of them – that Confuscion tendency to save face and not embarrass others for their behavior.  They don’t need to worry about kids losing face – they need a piece of their asses trimmed off, though.

So now, we have a nice new door – for a room with virtually no walls.

Apparently, anything can be published here. Here’s a nice phrase book in Ehglish.

Makes me wonder how many Koreans have bought or would buy a book that can’t even spell the name of the language they purport to teach you.  Given the number of us teachers over here, I’m guessing quite a few.

p.s. Before anyone thinks “Ehglish” might really be some language other than “English” – I can read the Korean title. They’d like to teach me English.

Another beautiful fall day here in Korea and MyeongHee and I decided to talk a walk along the Taewha river.  This time we started on the western end of the park where the cosmos field is.

A photo of several acres of just cosmos is pretty impressive and but difficult to photograph and remain impressive. We settled for just us. One for her, one for me.

As we walked along the river numerous cranes swooped in and fished.  I tried to catch some artsy pictures but didn’t get many good ones. Its a good thing digital cameras are here as I’d have spent a ton on film and processing for a bunch of junk.  I got one decent photo, though – this 3 foot pteradactyl was coming in for a landing.

Even harder to capture are the numerous fish that jump in the river. Some are small fry, only a few inches. Others we saw were over a foot long  – and fat – jumping up and splashing noisily.  The river park is becoming quite the wildlife spotting zone. It’s a peaceful walk.  Here’s another one of me among the world’s tallest grass species – no kidding – bamboo is really a grass.

Hope all is well in your world.

It’s not often the air is so clear here. Usually its a hazy gray due to a combination of pollution and humidity.  Some of the privates schools were closed on the 20th for a planned protest in Seoul. They aren’t happy about some of the new rules which will make some school close by 10pm from their current time of midnight.  But that’s another story.  I took advantage of the day off and fine weather and went rock climbing with some friends.

From the mountain, sometimes it’s hard to even see the city it’s so hazy. Not today.

Even these pictures don’t do justice to the fabulous weather and views we had while climbing. For being late October, the weather was awesome. The trees are starting to turn, so maybe by next month we’ll start to see some real color. It’s still really green.

Strange bikes abound here. We saw this girl at Ulsan Grand Park on Sunday. There’s plenty of regular bikes around, but no shortage of the off-beat styles.  I like this one, although some of the other styles don’t look very cool to me.

This is far from the craziest, wackiest T-shirt I’ve seen here in Korea. But crazy enough. Apparently, the people at Gaudy and Love Strip Cabaret thought their t-shirts would be big sellers. Everyone would want one. Every guy there would want their best gal wearing a Gaudy and Love shirt.  And every women would be proud to wear one.  What the F^%k  were they thinking?

Well, no worries. T-shirts can always be dumped in Asia. I found several of these on the rack at the local outdoor market.  They weren’t selling like hotcakes here, either.

Gotta love the quality workmanship here in Korea. As long as it gets done, they don’t seem to give a rat’s ass how well it’s done or how long it will last or what other problems might arise because of it.

Take this new sign as a case in point.

Just another private school in the neighborhood, this one for math lessons.  The guys who put up the sign slapped it up within a single day, including the concrete base and wiring. There’s no delay for silly things like inspections like there are in the USA.  Looking closely, you might notice the workers initially measures the electrical wiring a bit short. They had to splice it together with a little electrical tape.

That might last for a while. Or not. They don’t give a shit. They’re long gone when the elements have taken their toll and worn out that tape.

Then they routed the wire straight over to the building, having secured it firmly with a couple of cable ties to the gas lines. That’s quality.

Then it goes straight into the building where it likely runs into a regular plug. The didn’t bother putting a drip loop into it. When it rains, the water is going to drop right down that wire and seep directly into the building through that nice hole they drilled for the wire. In another year or so, when the water has caused untold mildew and water damage inside, those workers won’t be found anywhere. They did their job. They’re perfeshunals.

It’s not terribly surprising, therefore, that there aren’t many modern buildings that wear well here. Once they’re up, they age pretty quickly. Only the really old simple stone buildings seem to do well.

This building is adjacent to the one I live and work in. I don’t know when it was built since it was here before I got here, but nothing in this neighborhood is more than a dozen years old. The crack on the wall shows how quickly things go to hell. This one will get nastier real soon.

Thursday of this week I decided I would take a day off from riding my bicycle and just relax. Maybe read a book or even snooze a bit before I went to school.  It’s not often I do that – the older I get the harder I have to work to keep from getting a large roll of blubber around my middle.  So, book in hand, I settled in on the sofa to catch up on some reading a few of the several books I’m reading now.

No chance. That was the day the kindergarten across the park from me decided to hold a sports day. They had all of the 3-4 year olds out doing various activities while the director blasted cutesy songs and unending directives from a loudspeaker.  No rest for me. I decided I may as well go out and enjoy the little munchkins – they are pretty cute.

Today, was a smaller version of the same thing. This was the 2 year olds turn. Not nearly as big a deal and no cheerleader outfits, but a jillion little ones just the same.  My dog wanted badly to play with them as they had lots of balls and once even ran into the fenced area to chase a ball.  The kids all screamed, some happily, some in fright and we had to vacate the park to calm them down.

Otherwise, it’s been a slow week or so for news.  Hope all is well in your world.

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While visiting the in-laws this Chuseok holiday, I decided I’d bring my bike. Highway 31, which runs parallel to the coast provides some excellent scenery, both to the left and right of the road. On one side, is the ocean – the East Sea the Korean’s call it – the Sea of Japan on everyone else’s map. On the other side of the road, the mountains and forests.

Before I’d been gone too long, I was getting into fairly hilly country. Sometimes the road would wind around a fishing village and up into the foothills of the mountains and I rode through cool pine forests laced with homes sporting rooms for rent At others, it would drift right up to the beach and give me spectacular views of crashing waves. Sometimes, I’d end up on an overlook where the vista of rocky shores seemed endless.

I rode almost 55km that day. Far longer than my usual daily rides, but far more interesting, too. I rode 27km from my mother-in-law’s house near Gampo to Goryongpo, a fishing and crabbing town on the Pohang Peninsula. In Goryongpo, scads of restaurants offered “hwey” (Korean-style sushi) or crab.

In some places, fishermen brought in their catch and passed it over to waiting salt-water trucks. I watched as the fish, a mess of flounder, went from boat to truck to restaurants within minutes – it doesn’t get much fresher than that. Along the way, several batches of fish were drying in the warm October sun. Fish jerky is popular here. I’m a fan myself.

As I started my ride home around 5:30pm, the hostesses came to the door of the crab restaurants to await the evening dinner rush. They bowed to anyone who caught their eye – me included – as they passed. The evening sun was just right for photos of the women smiling and bowing.

I still had a long way to go, and the sun was setting fast. Fortunately, I have both rear and front lights on the bike so darkness wasn’t really a worry. But as the sun set and the moon rose, I got several more pictures. My camera is only fair and I’m sure a pro could have gotten better shots. If these had come out even close to what I saw with my eyes they’d be wondrous.

This one is my favorite

The ride around grandma’s place is nice. I wish it were closer. Riding in town is great, but has little of the scenery available on the coast. I can’t wait to get out there again and explore some more.

Another weekend in Pohang with MyeongHee’s family is over and I’m happy to be sitting in a real chair again. I had a good time up there the past two days. It’s really peaceful on the coast and the weather was gorgeous. Since this was one of the two biggest holidays here, it was a family affair. The newest baby, GaEun, is getting cute and silly. She got the most of my photos.

The kids are all getting serious. DongHyun’s cousin, MinGyung wants to set up weekly phone calls so she can practice her English. She does really well with grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure, but she has to think about it a bit and she speaks slowly. I’m looking forward to helping her out. She, like DongHyun is in her junior year of high school and they’re both thinking about college. She wants to be an English teacher.

,

Last year this time, MyeongHee’s mom wasn’t doing well.  She was hospitalized with TB but has since recovered well and has lots of energy. She’s very spry and is up early preparing food each day for her family. She’s enjoying her newest grandbaby.

There are plenty of western style strollers in Korea. Sometimes the streets are full of mommys strolling through with their babies. But a traditional baby papoose is common as well. This just a blanket with two long straps to able a woman to tie her baby on her back. MyeongHee models the traditional Korean style of carrying an infant.

I had decided earlier this year that I was going to bring my bicycle with me to Pohang. Since the mother-in-law lives right on the ocean and there’s a nice road that run adjacent to it, it was a perfect opportunity to get some quality miles on the bike. I did indeed do that, of which I will write more about later. But I also did some teaching other than English. DongHyun has never been able to ride a bike. Just never learned and never needed one. I lowered the seat on my bike and taught him how. It only took about 10-15 minutes of running alongside, holding the seat while he practised balancing and pushing off. He was well on his way and riding around the little fishing village his grandma lives in. I had to kick him off to get my bike back and get my miles in.

While my brothers-in-law went fishing in the afternoon, I took the bike up the coast. I ended up riding 55km on Saturday on a pretty hill coast road. I rode from just north of Gampo-eup to Goryongpo-eup near the tip of Pohang peninsula. Check out the satellite and map views to follow highway 31 to see where I went.

View Larger Map

I like maps. GoogleMaps is cool. In this extreme closeup, one can see the mother-in-laws house. Just near image center, there is a large brownish-orange roofed building. To the southeast is a small green roof house, adjacent to a yellow roof. The green roof is grandmas.

View Larger Map
I’ll write more on that fabulous bike ride later.

My bike needed a little maintenance this week. I’d put more than 3500 kilometers on it since I bought last year and it was time to replace some of the moving parts.

I bought a chain, a rear 8-speed cassette and a knobby mountain bike tire and I had the bike shop do the labor. Total cost: US$66

You could barely buy a chain for that much in America, let alone add in the tire and cassette/sprocket set and labor. I checked Richardson BIke Mart’s online site for prices and I came up with about $80 just for the tire and chain. No sprocket, no labor.

Suck it, America.

Its Thanksgiving here in Korea. They call it ?? (Chuseok to you folks back home.)

I’m off on both Friday and Monday so I’ll have a four day weekend. Korea doesn’t make any distinction between holidays that fall on a weekday or weekend, and this one is officially a three day weekend from Friday thru Sunday. Monday is not an official holiday but my school is closing. This year, many of the holidays have fallen on the weekend and we didn’t get any extra days off.
Last year, they all seemed to fall on either Friday or Monday so we had a lot of three day weekends. This year we got the shaft and have gone months sometimes without a holiday break. Next year I think its back to something liveable.

Anyway, we’ll head off to Pohang for the weekend on Friday evening and probably come back on Sunday evening. Another weekend on the floor. Woo hoo. This year, I’m bringing my bicycle so during those long afternoons of watching Korean TV I plan on getting some miles on the bike.
MyeongHee’s mom lives on the coast and the road adjacent to the sea is a fabulous twisty turny thing. If the weather holds I hope to get some nice coastline/mountain photos.

I love it when it goes down.  It’s been up for way too long.  Check out this graph of US Dollars to Korean Won.

Especially since I’ll be coming back to the US in December. I’ve already paid for my plane ticket, but bringing cash is always a hit-or-miss when it comes to gaining or losing purchasing power.  Last May I lost about $250 just walking out of the bank.  I hope the exchange rate stays down long enough to   keep from getting a haircut again.

Of course, there’s more than just market pressures at work on this. The major Korean exporters, like Hyundai cars or Samsung Electronics are all government supported industries – jaebols – a strictly Korean form of business. When the won is down against the dollar, they lose money when they sell overseas. When its high, like it has been this year, they roll in the profits.  Hyundai says that for every 10 won downward, they lose 1% profit.  That’s a lot of dough for a major car manufacturer.  The Korean government won’t let it stay down too long or go too far. Even though a lower won is good for domestic consumption its bad for the major players.

I hope they let it ride at least until Christmas when I’ll want to exchange some.

Dong Hyun’s birthday fell on the equinox this year. Many Koreans, like MyeongHee and her son, follow the Lunar calendar when it comes to special events like birthday and anniversaries of deaths. It’s now wonder that she forgot his birthday last year.

So, this year, she made plenty of myeok-guk – a seaweed soup that is traditional on birthday. Last year he got his soup the day after.

We also bought him a mp3/mp4 players so he can listen to music or watch videos during the long school-enforced self-studyperiods after classes are over.  He liked that. Electronic gizmos are status symbols here in Korea and he had only a small hand phone. Now he’s shooting from both hips and is a happy camper.

I can’t remember how old he is. Like I’ve mentioned before, Koreans are one year old at birth and change on New Years Day. So, he’s either 17 (American age) or 18 but won’t change the number until January, which is not the Lunar New Year they all celebrate heavily. It’s hard to keep track of dates here. I think he’ll be 20 (Korean age) in January.

Yesterday, MyeongHee and SaTang and I went for a walk along the river. In the past year, the city has made major improvements to the area and is transforming what was a scummy river into a really nice city park.  This week, there’s an Eco-Art festival with about 40 or so pieces of art on display. Most of them look like recycled material re-purposed into “art.” Art is such a subjective thing. Some still looked like trash to me.

Having a dog has changed my social profile in the comunity dramatically. Where once I’d go out only if I needed to buy something, go somewhere or just exercise, I now go out just to be a part of the community. My dog SaTang is housebroken and needs to go outside. I used to think that was a chore, but I look forward to it as people, especially kids, tend to like the dog.

Over the past few months, I’ve snapped lots of pictures with the little ones and SaTang. I thought I’d share them. Sometimes, they like to pet the dog, sometimes they simply like to stare at the foreigner (there aren’t many of us in this neighborhood.)

I got my first royalty payment from the sale of single a copy of my novel, Internal Strife, this month.  Amazon sold the first and I’m sure it will be a virtual avalanche of sales once word gets out of its awesomeness.

You’d better head to Amazon and pick one up, too, before they’re all gone. Never mind that its digital and therefore inexhaustible, just hurry over and buy one and make me rich.  You need a Kindle to read it though. Don’t have a kindle?  You can buy a generic PDF from me directly here.

[wpaudio url=”http://martypants.us/Korea/IllBeHomeForChristmas.mp3″ text=”I’ll Be Home for Christmas – Bing Crosby”]
It’s perhaps a little too early for singing Christmas tunes, but the thought of coming home for the holidays put me in the mood. Click the link above if you want to get in the mood, too.

I was skimming over the calendar a few weeks ago and realized my school holidays coincide nicely with the weekends this Christmas. I mulled it over in my mind and with a few people back home and then talked to my director. She’s ok with me taking off on Thursday the 24th of December and I won’t have to be back until the 4th of January.

It’s expensive as hell, but as my daughter, Jessica, reminded me, I was fond of saying “it’s only money; I’ll make more.” So true.

I’m taking an early flight out of Busan into Tokyo on the 24th where I’ll catch another long-ass flight to D/FW. If all goes according to plan, I should arrive in Dallas around 1:30pm on Christmas Eve.  I leave Tokyo around 1pm and get to Dallas at about the same time on the same day. How’s that for flying at the speed of the Earth’s rotation? I fly out again on January 2 for the two virtual days of flying home so I’ll be home in time to work on Monday the 4th.

I haven’t been home for Christmas since 2006 and I’m already getting excited about it.  I hope someone is having a turkey or a ham or something similar – we don’t get that very often here in Korea.

My house is quite full today. MyeongHee’s brother and his wife and baby came last night along with my mother-in-law. Mother-in-law wanted to see the baby and since she live in Pohang and MH’s brother lives in Busan a compromise location was made – our house. No problem, though. Despite have only two bedrooms – one for me and MH and one for her son DongHyun – the rest of the family, including the baby,  is happy sleeping on the floor as they usually do.

Today, MyeongHee and her brother both went off to work. I am still home with the sister-in-law and mother-in-law who apparently find cleaning voraciously to be fun. It’s non-stop action if one is holding or feeding the baby, the other is making ban-chan (various side dishes for meals), cleaning or tidying up. I used to feel bad when I’d sit around and type on the keyboard while the mother-in-law clewans. I’ve since been reassured that that is typical and expected behavior fo males in Korea. So, I try to enjoy it while trying to appear small and staying out of the way.

Such a difference in raising babies, though, between here and in America. At my daughter’s house the place is filled with bright, colorful toys for the girls to look at and play with. It was that way when she was a baby, too. Lots of toys and mind-stimulating items. No so, here. In fact, they’ve brought not a single colorful anything in all the times I’ve seen them and their new baby. Nothing to hang from the baby bassinet or baby carrier to catch the baby’s attention. In fact, no bassinet or baby carrier. Not even a car seat. The baby is too small, they tell me. Although car seats for children are, in fact used in Korea, my experience in seeing them is quite rare. It’s often that I see someone in the car with a small child in the front seat on mommy’s lap, even with the little one’s hands on the dashboard.  When my brother-in-law and his wife travel with the baby, she just gets in the back seat and holds the baby.

The difference in laws regarding personal freedoms here and in the US are interesting, too. Here, you have the freedom to endanger your children without the government telling you how to, although as the adult driver or passenger you must wear a seat belt.

Korea Style.

Lately, I’ve been doing some programming on my other site – UlsanOnline.com. On this site, however, I’ve been fairly lax. I was looking at the front page the other day and decided I needed a makeover.

A lot of traffic just comes to this blog directly and that’s fine. But there are some who start out at the main page and click down into this blog.  If you haven’t seen it, go there now and check it out.

There’s a few things I have worked on with the Ulsan site that I wanted to recreate over here and show off a few flashy and sizzly things.  Nothing terribly extraordinary, and nothing any serious web designer would drool over, but just enough to keep my hands and head in a small technology space.  If the images don’t change to color or the menus don’t fly, you likely don’t have javascript turned on with your browser.

My internet rocks, and yours doesn’t.  Something I’ve known since 2004 when I first came here – Korea’s internet kicks ass and America’s doesn’t.  Bizjournals has a brief article on how behind the US is compared to us here in Korea.

At the bottom of the article it mentioned the universal service payments on your phones. When’s the last time you paid the advertised price for your cell phone or landline? Never – it’s so laden with fees that are supposed to help pay for all that wonderful infrastructure that you don’t get.  My home phone here cost – $5/month.

OK. I’m done sticking my tongue out at you people in the US.  I’m going back to downloading more movies and music.

It’s friggin’ hot.  Of course, it ain’t Texas-hot, but it’s hot. Almost 1pm and it’s 86 with enough humidity to make it feel like 93.  That’s hot enough to give me what my brother John so eloquently called “butt gravy.”

What happens when you’ve got a geek with a lot of time and a large collection of music on his hands? You get this. A short video.  I was just watching my computer run through the screen saver which is a random collection of all my photographs.  Some from way back, some from just this month. Made me curious about putting together a short “me” movie. Just faces. No context. No other people.

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It was just for fun. I’m not an ego-maniac. I was  just having fun with pictures and music around a single theme.  Got a favorite year?

Last year, getting marriage paperwork through the US Embassy in Seoul was easy, if not romantic.

This year, I needed a new passport. I read their website, gathered all the required paperwork and photos and had my current passport delivered.  I figured it would take (like most things in the US Government) weeks to process. Nope.  One week, from sending it via courier to getting the new one and the cancelled old one with entrance stamps still there.

I think they’re are the only governmental organization with whom I’ve ever worked with that did things expediently, efficiently and without trouble.They’re great!

Do you suppose we could put the Seoul Embassy folks in charge of the health care fiasco?

Unless of course you worked on a chicken farm or a chicken processing plant.

MyeongHee and I drove up to downtown PoHang yesterday to visit one of her high school friends, SukHee. She runs a chicken restaurant and so while they talked I feasted on a couple of chicken dishes. We had fried wings and fried legs and the man dish was “Dak jjim,” a spicy soy-based sauce of rice noodles, veggies and chicken. I like this dish, although sometimes it can be monstrously hot and spicy.  SukHee toned it down for me and it was just right – not too spicy, not too dull.

I was busy devouring the stuff while they talked and found a rubbery little piece of chicken. Figuring it for your average gristle, I took it out of my mouth. Upon examination, I discovered it to be one of those myths of Korean dining one hears of but rarely sees.

The above little morsel is “? ??” (Dak ddong jib). Literally translated, this is “chicken shit house.” A nicer way to put it is that this is where the shit lives in the chicken.

So, great, I munched on a chicken’s asshole. Not entirely, though, as I said I only ate part of it. But then I found more pieces. Here’s a better view of something I know you’ve never seen in America – a chicken asshole on a spoon.

Mmmm, good! Makes you wanna run right out and get some of your own, doesn’t it? The entire dish wasn’t all asshole – there were plenty of pieces of tender breast and thigh chunks. I just left the assholes aside.

But if you’re the type that really likes this stuff, you can get all the assholes you want. I glanced at the menu board on the wall and saw this lovely dish.

That’s right, folks! For a mere $11 you can get a whole plate of fried chicken assholes.

Since we were visiting MyeongHee’s friend at her restaurant, I didn’t want to insult her by not eating her assholes which she so lovingly prepared for us ahead of time.  (She knew we were coming and, this dish, which takes a long time to prepare, was piping hot and ready for us when we arrived).  I simply gave the assholes to the dog.

A dog in a restaurant? No problem in Korea. Although some may object they would only do so among themselves. The Confucian style in Korea is to not cause anyone embarassment or  to “lose face.” In other words, they wouldn’t say shit even if they had a mouth full of it – or of assholes.

No, not the rapper. This is MyeongHee’s younger brother’s new baby girl. They adopted her last month. Her name is Kim Ga-Eun (family name is always listed first in Korea.)  We visited MyeongHee’s mom’s house this weekend got to meet her for the first time.

She has to wear the mittens for a while, as she has a tendency to scratch her face. Without seeing the fingers, it always looked like she was giving us a salute when she waved her arms.

For another weekend, the only chair I’ll find is the front seat of the car. We leave tonight to go to MyeongHee’s mother’s home in Pohang.  MH’s younger brother and his wife adopted a baby girl last month, so this will be our first chance to meet her. They have been unable to have kids of their own and finally decided that adoption was the only way out.  Their baby is only the second addition to MyeongHee’s family in 11 years (me being the first last year).

I hope to come back early next week with a few pictures of the newest Kim.

SaTang and I were on the bike today and we stopped at a new field the city was making along the river. A large group of women were weeding the field (why buy chemicals when there’s an army of old women to do it?) and the field was nice and green.  I had the SaTang’s ball and we only threw it a couple of times when a little girl wanted to come play. This happens alot here. SaTang has gotten really adjusted to the little ones and is very gentle. I couldn’t resist snapping a few shots of this little munchkin.

She smiled at her mom first. Then she looked over and realized that I was a foreigner (or at least she realized I didn’t look like most other people) No smile.

SaTang is very gentle with the small ones. The girl threw it a couple of times and then just decided to give it to the dog, who gently took it from her.

The old women (azummas in Korean) are busy weeding the field of all but real grass. It’s a new field they just installed after adding a new bike track along the river. It’s a favorite biking spot for us. SaTang usually barks at the azumma’s hats and covered faces and they usually get a kick out of it.

Meanwhile, an army – seriously – dozens of azummas – are weeding the field as we play.

Why is it that America can’t do this and instead hire illegal aliens from Mexico?

This woman dons her wetsuit, poorly fitting as it is, and dives into the ocean to daily bring back a catch of shellfish, sea cucumbers and water wangs.  Then, still wearing her diving gear, she’ll cut it up for you to take home – or, for the brave of tongue and tummy, eat right there on the spot.

Despite the cloudy and windy weather, we went out to one of the local beaches on Sunday. We found this woman and several other diving azummas selling their catch along the boardwalk.

It was surprising how many people were at the beach given the weather. It was even sometimes sprinkling but that didn’t stop people from swimming in the cold surf.  I walked into it a bit, just to see if getting to this small island was easily accessible.

A small spit of sand stretches toward the island while the surf wraps its arms around it. Waves break on both right and left.  I walked only halfway across and came back. There’s a deep channel near the far shore and I still was carrying my camera and phone. Between the cold and potentially deep water, I gave up in favor of keeping my electronics dry.

Others, more appropriately clad than I, braved the brisk waters to get across. SaTang, meanwhile had a grand time on the beach. She’s not a fan of the water but is very friendly and loved the attention she got from all the strangers. I’d have taken a picture or two of her, but she was flitting around too fast to get a decent shot.  I settled for a picture of my lovely wife.

Korean Politics is serious business. You’d better have your martial arts skills honed if you want to accomplish anything in this land.  Check out the latest fights in the National Assembly on the Korea Times, Gawker.com and Yahoo.

I’d love to see the same kind of passion from US politicians. Instead, they calmly vote their pocket books and vote for the issue depending on who’s donated the most money to their campaign.

If this were just an isolated incident, I’d say “wow, how strange.” and then move on to more interesting things. But this is a regular occurrence here.

A Hot Dog pizza.  Typical Korean cuisine from the bakery. They like to make them fresh in the morning and then let them sit all day and let the cheese (at least I think it’s cheese) congeal. They don’t even bother cutting it up. Just throw the dog on there and bake it.  You can’t get this stuff at home, now can ya?

Yesterday I spent the day on the Taewha River at the Dragon Boat races. I wrote an article for UlsanOnline, the other website I am an editor of. Rather than rewrite it for this blog, I copied directly.

In both heats of the Dragon Boat competition, the UlsanOnline/Benchwarmers team, the “Resident Aliens” did not lose. At least we didn’t lose completely. In the first heat, we were 5th of 6 boats. The 6th team was a no-show. In the 2nd heat, we came in 5th again, shaving an impressive 4 seconds off our time but this time beating an actual 6th place team on the water. We were ecstatic that we didn’t suck as bad as they did!

Things might have turned out better had our entire team showed. We had 18 members on our practice session on July 4th, but nearly 25% of our team failed to show up for the actual races. A number of the Resident Aliens were more than a little miffed at the rudeness and complete lack of consideration of the four who failed to follow through on their commitments.

Upon arrival, our first moment of ignominy came in the form of our team shirts. How a printing company could jack up a JPEG image and misspell a word defies understanding.

We were not the only waygook team in the races. In fact, there were teams from faraway places who had come to Ulsan for the dragon boat races. Japan, Russia and even Hungary fielded crews for this event.

While it was comforting to know that we weren’t last, our best race time of 3:20 was a far cry from the Hungarian team’s 2:09 for the same 500m. We perhaps might practice more should we wish to compete in the masters races rather than the amateur slots we entered.

If I were Korean, I’d be 49 already and turn 50 in January. Koreans are one year old when they’re born and change age on January 1st.. Consequently, they’re at least one, sometimes almost 2 years, older than their real, chronological age. I believe I’ll keep my American style age and stay right were I am – a healthy, happy 49.

MyeongHee bought me a pair of new headphones for my iPod today. My old pair had just worn out. She got me a pair of the fancy noise cancelling Panasonic earbuds. They’re very comfortable. Now, when I ride my bike the noise of the wind doesn’t interfere with my music. The special electronics cut out wind, car and plane noise but they still allow me to hear the screams of agony of the taxi-drivers who make the mistake of endangering me with their shitty driving.

This was a good present, too – a video from Jessica and her lovely babies.

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This player is editable, so you can remix this video if you want to.  Have fun.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I went on a hunomous bike ride today. It was just a tad over 33km with the group, and another 12 for me to get to the starting point and back.

I started on the far left and went to the bike shop, just down the river 6km. This map below, if clicked, will take you to Google maps and you can zoom in and around my fair city. The Hyundai Factory is further down the mouth of the river on the right side. Zoom and see a few thousand cars portside.

First, we went up and down the Taewha river which is a mostly level paved bike path. At the last bridge before the harbor, we headed north across the bridge and towards the airport.  Still mostly level ground and we made good time.

I started on the far left and went to the bike shop, just down the river 6km. This map below, if clicked, will take you to Google maps and you can zoom in and around my fair city. The Hyundai Factory is further down the mouth of the river on the right side. Zoom in and see a few thousand cars portside.

First, we went up and down the Taewha river which is a mostly level paved bike path. At the last bridge before the harbor, we headed north across the bridge and towards the airport.  Still mostly level ground and we made good time. Then we headed west again – into the mountains. They aren’t terribly high – but they’re steep at times.  Two hours into the ride, we stopped in the mountains for “Oli gogi” or duck meat, grilled right at our table. Yum.  Then we didn’t another few ups, downs and arounds in the mountains before hitting the final descent to the bike shop along the Taewha river.

Between yesterday’s dragonboat runs and today’s ride, I’m sore all over.

I did a little boating on Saturday. Ulsan city is having a dragonboat championship this week and a groups of us foreigners entered ourselves in the race.  There was 19 of us in what is essentially a very long canoe.  17 were slaving away on either the right or left side, one was drumming a beat and the last steered the beast. We are scheduled for a 500m run, so we did 4 practice runs today. Our team name is “Resident Aliens.”

The weather held just long enough for us to finish, but it started as a beautiful sunny day.  It’s been raining almost everyday for a week or so, but there’s periods of sunny humid stuff in between.  We just barely finished our 2k and got home when it started to rain in buckets. While we were on the water it was warm and sticky and I got soaked in my own sweat. I didn’t get any pictures today, so click the link and see what kind of boat we’re paddling.

I was considering going to a foreigner beach party this evening, but the intermittent heavy rain made that a no-go. As I write this, it’s 10:30pm, its cleared off again and will likely be a sunny morning. And if it is, another bit of sport.

Tomorrow I’ve got a 30km ride scheduled. We’re going with the owner of a local bicycle shop. He is one of our sponsors on my other endeavor, UlsanOnline.com., and this is part fun, part marketing event. He’s genuinely a very nice guy, speaks English fairly well and looks exactly like Jimmy Smits.  And he runs a top shelf bike shop. I hope to have some pictures from the ride share later.

We went back to Seoknamsa this past weekend. Just a short trip up the river to the mountains where there is this little temple for nuns.   I didn’t notice the doors last time we were there. But this time I saw this magnificent set of richly painted wooden doors. I couldn’t help but imagine how they might look closed rather than propped open in a dimly lit stairwell below the main courtyard.  A short video.  Photoshop and Studio made this easy.

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I’m curious as to how this plays in the US and whether my little server has the horsepower to kick out a decent stream of video. This video below, is from YouTube and I expect will run a little faster in the US. Please do tell.

Pond’s always change with the weather. They change yearly, too, as old plants give way to new. An old water pump gave out recently and I just put in a new one this weekend.

There’s two floating candles in the pond and the fish like nibbling them. The waterfall is just a fuzzy smear as the exposure time was close to 15 seconds in this evening photo.

The last time a Korean taxi-driver wasn’t paying attention and nearly ran me and my bicycle over he went away with a bruised ego and nose.  This time, it’s a different type of body work.

Yesterday, as I cruised through the small city streets a particularly unfocused taxi driver dared to brave the streets in front of me. He had the brilliance to be talking on his cell phone (not hands free) with his left hand holding up the phone, which blocked his view from oncoming traffic – me. Not that looking for oncoming traffic is a specialty of Korean taxi drivers, but this one was particularly ignorant.  Between talking and driving and not paying attention to the road he pulled out of an apartment complex directly in front of me. Luckily there was no oncoming traffic in the left lane for me to dodge for I swerved far out to the left to avoid him.  I cursed him soundly and kicked the shit out of his car.  Naturally, he was quite surprised to see me right next to his window and in his shock stopped the car.  The asshole couldn’t even mutter an apology in Korean he was so surprised.  With his eyes still wide in shock, I loudly told him, in Korean, to next time look before he turns into a street. I suspect that either by the end of his shift, or even the next morning he’ll register even more surprise when he finds the men’s size 12 biking shoe dent in the side of his car.

This is the Unholy Quartet. A fetid combination of animal, vegetable and mineral refuse and remains. I categorize it now as I do so many things that are just “different” here in Korea: “Korea Style.” That’s damn near anything that is just different from my home in the US. It’s been a while since I said things here were “weird” or “strange.”  It’s just “Korea Style.” Admittedly, some of the things they do are better than in the USA and of course, some are not as good. Many are just different. Like this, the unholy quartet.

This is the trash on our back veranda. Nothing new here. Everyone’s got (or should have) the recycling things: Paper and cardboard recycling, plastic and aluminium recyclables, and the non-recycling junk (I have to pay for the purple bag, the proceeds of which pay for the landfill) which has the soiled napkins, greasy foil, etc.  Sure, we’ve all got these.

But not everyone has the 4th and final final member of the unholy quartet. The coup de grace, if you will. The slop bucket:

This is where all of the food scraps go to die. Lettuce refuse, fish bones, carrot peels – anything organic get tossed into this slimy little bucket. When it’s full, I set it outside on the curb for the slop bucket truck to take. It’s costs me $0.10 each time to empty. Quite cheap, but given the vile smell, I’d rather just have a garbage disposal like nearly everyone in America has. Usually, we fill it up in a week. By then, the veggies have begun to liquify and putrify and it’s disgusting even to open the thing to add more.  Once the slop bucket truck empties it, it has to be vigorously cleaned, usually with strong bleach. It’s a real pain in the ass.

However, taking them all off my veranda to the curb is not simply the end of things. I wish it were. This week while riding my bike I got stuck behind the slop bucket truck who was making his rounds. The smell around it was a nearly visible cloud of funk. Although I stopped and waited for it to move along, the stench had already permeated my clothes. Yum. Korea Style.

And, of course, the paper/cardboard has it’s own army of cleaners, too.  The cardboard people. Almost always old men and women who gather the paper refuse and take it to points unknown. Korea Style.

Maybe it’s just a bit of my wanting to share this Korean lifestyle that makes me want to write about things like this. Only two visitors from America in 3.5 years and I guess the rest of you have to live it vicariously through this blog.

Well…no news.  At least not news worthy of getting it out of town.  I’ve been writing more on my other space, ulsanonline.com if you’re wondering why my writing has dropped off some in this space.

That’s what Harry Eaddy, my former boss at SGI, used to say. When presented with what would appear to be a stiff challenge, he’d remind me of that little witticism. That’s me. I’m a stepper.

My biggest obstacle to getting Teri’s video uploaded has been time. I get to spend only a few hours dorking around with various solutions. Its lots of time just waiting. Waiting for uploads,  downloads, computer number-crunching as it creates video frames.  Then there’s trying out various incantations of software, each a series of waiting period. Last, there’s some brain power that takes some time, too.

But, as Peggy pointed out in her last comment, I’d figure it out. I nearly always do. I’m a geek. A guru. A computer nerd. And figuring out how to solve the problems become an obsession until it’s done. And now it’s done.

Briefly, for just an instant, I  thought that for all the work I’d put into it  just to get a frickin’ video up…but then I remembered. This is my daughter’s graduation!  This is Teri!  

 And the result is this:

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Congraulations, Teri!

Love,
Dad

I took some pictures and videos from Teri’s TWU graduation on May 15th.

I still don’t have it all put together in a cohesive form I can share.

I had hoped to get this published a little earlier but computer problems stopped me cold. It seems that since I upgraded my computer hardware my video studio software needed some massaging. That took a few days of wrangling.

Once I got it put together and ready to publish I learn that I can’t in Korea. Last summer there was some a-hole here in Korea who was making anonymous predictions about stocks in Korea. He panicked whole sectors of the population. No one said this puke was right, but, like lemmings, they followed his advice causing all sorts of market havoc. Now, one can not post anonymously on the internet in Korea. Therefore, because youtube doesn’t require your real name, they stopped allowing uploads from Korea.

OK, with a little more wrangling, I got it uploaded. Then I learn that the music I inserted in small clips of the video violates copyright law and youtube won’t play the audio. The video is there, but it’s just silent.

I have fun putting together a few bits and pieces and putting it to music – but its so dang laborious. This time it’s hellacious. We’ll see if I can get around this issue and publish my evil, pirated audio content some other way than youtube.

It seems that coming back is just as hard as going. Whenever I cross the international date line it takes me a few days to recover. Luckily, my school director gave me Thursday and Friday off to rest. We got home at 11:30pm after a long journey and I was grateful for the extra rest time. I took some serious naps on Thursday. By Friday I felt pretty good. If could just stop waking up at 6am like I did when we stayed with Jessie and her babies I’d be fine.

MyeongHee wasn’t so fortunate. Her boss is quite harder on her than mine is on me. The self-employed have to be like that, I suppose.  She went right back to her hairshop on Thursday and was quite busy – lots of men complaining that no one else can cut their hair like she does. It’s good to have repeat clientele. She stayed busy for three days and on Sunday she slept all day. She doesn’t feel well, and I hope its just fatigue catching up with her and not something she picked up in transit.

We had a late surprise on our travel costs. We tried to save a little cash and not park our car at the airport for the two weeks while we were in the US. Instead, MyeongHee’s brother and sister-in-law met us at the airport and they kept the car at his office in Busan. He picked us up at the airport and drove us to the office and we drove home. Apparently, however, one only has minimal time to meet someone for a pickup. We got an automated spy camera ticket for $30 in the mail for staying too long in the dropoff section at the airport. Those damn cameras are everywhere in this country. Combine that with the extra 1.5 hours of driving around Busan  and I wonder about cost vs convenience of just parking there. In 2008, it was $140 for two weeks. This time is was $30 and a lot of driving in Busan traffic.

I’ve been trying to make a short video of Teri’s graduation. Seems like my video editing program, Studio 10, is failing. I swapped out hardware a few months ago and am wondering if the change in hardware is causing me problems – the audio is sounding like Alvin and the Chipmunks. I’ll try and get that fixed and get Teri’s vid done soon.

MyeongHee and I and glad to be back in our own beds and she’s very happy to be speaking Korean and eating kimchi. We had a fabulous time in the US and we already miss everyone tons.  I hope the next 12 months until we can come again goes quickly.

I took lots of pictures these past two weeks in America. Not near enough ‘cuz I didn’t get pics of everyone. But I got some good ones. I plan on putting together a short movie clip or two such as for Teri’s graduation but that’s going to take me a few days of editing.

In the meanwhile, I’ll post some random pics. This one was from a family gathering at my sister Susie’s house. Jenna looked interested in what I was drinking and being the good grandfather that I am want to teach her the right stuff early.

We’re home. 26 hours from door step to door step. Tired and going to bed. I met the school director coming up the stairs and he said I could even have Thursday and Friday off since I’ll be tired from all the travel and jet lag. Nice move. I knew I liked this place for a reason. More – much more – later.

We’re about to leave for the Busan airport and make our way east to the US.  We’re both excited (me probably more – she’s more nervous) to get there safely. We’re both wearing masks to help prevent any disease spread while in the airplane. It’s 11am-ish here – which is 9pm Monday where we’re going. That means that by the time we get there – around 3:40pm is all goes as planned – that we’ll have been traveling for 18 hours. Certainly no record, but a huge jet lag pain in the booty nonetheless.

See you in Dallas.

p.s. just realized my server time was not my timezone. I adjusted the zone and now my countdown is correctly listing my arrival time down to the second (as if airlines are ever on time)

Or something like that. As long as it looks like English, no one will know, since most of the parishioners don’t speak English.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall net perish but have etemat life.

That’s the motto on the church bags of the kids hanging around the park near the church on Sunday mornings.

I’m telling you, this country needs an official English editing bureau to keep the product manufacturers from goofing up the language.

I guess there’s not a lot to do in the ‘burbs here in Korea. When I was in high school, we had drugs to keep up occupied. These kids don’t have that, nor do they have nearby movie theaters, or bowling alleys. They do have numerous parks, however, and usually there’s no shortage of kids playing there. Late at night when no one can see them this is what they do there.

OK, maybe not. It’s a little far off on the distance.  Here’s a zoomed in closeup.

There! See that peak?  That’s Munsu Mountain. I live on the far side of it. I rode the bicycle from there down to this lake with my dog and my friend and business partner, Fin. Part of the way, SaTang rode in the basket on my bike. Fin’s dog, Gay Gogi (Korean for “dog meat”) rode in his backpack.  A good portion of the ride runs through Ulsan Grand Park and the ridge line that runs through the middle of it. During that part, the dogs ran along side us.  They both had fun in the mountains running with us but both came back tired. Dog tired, actually. I’m pretty wore out, too. I biked a total of 35km, and a good part of that was serious hills. While we stopped at the lake, Fin talked to another friend and we made plans for a BBQ.

At Fin’s apartment, we made chicken kabobs on the grill. The security dude who lives there didn’t want us to use the grill outside near the apartment.  First, he said it was dangerous. A small, portable gas grill with no charcoal could hardly be dangerous. When we explained that, he said it was because the students that live there wouldn’t like the smell of cooking meat. Then we challenged him on his obvious anti-foreigner stance and accused him of not wanting us to grill because we are foreigners.  After riding that far I was in no mood to take shit from some guy who really couldn’t come up with a reason why we shouldn’t.  I got in his face and accused him of bias and he walked back inside. If you white people who read this have ever wondered what it must be like to be a black person in America, come to Korea sometime. You’ll see how it feels to  be discriminated against.

Despite that small moment of Korea’s ugly side, the day was fabulous. The weather was awesome, the hills wicked and the dogs frisky. But damn, I need a leg massage tonight.

I bicycled past this guy yesterday while I was out on my normal morning ride. I’d seen him before, but this time, since it was a holiday I had plenty of time so I thought I stop and take a picture of him. He was rooting around in some scrap piles under the highway along the river. His bike helmet was the first thing that I noticed when I saw him. He had strategically attached small pieces of foil to it and made it, in my opinion, a little more flashy. His bike I saw next – he had that outfitted with ribbons and bows. But the part that tipped me off that this guy was a little unbalanced was his clothes. It was hot yesterday. I was wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt and while biking I sweated profusely. He had on a large winter coat and what looked like snow pants. Everything he had on except the helmet was filthy.  The tin foil arrows were neatly folded to look a little like Mercury’s wings

The deranged street people back home use bags or shopping carts. I haven’t seen either here in Korea. But I haven’t seen any bicycle homeless people before either – not that I know he’s homeless because I don’t. He just has that “look.”  When I asked him if I could take a picture he was more than willing. He even put on his sunglasses and struck a thoughtful pose of looking into the distance.

It’s an everyday thing, as long as the weather is nice. I take the dog out to the park across the street and play ball with her.

Usually, we attract a few kids. Sometimes they’re afraid, but this little guy was anything but. His mother was constantly warning him not to touch the dog, but like a good little boy he did what felt good and played and petted the dog.  Koreans tend to, in my experience, fall into either the “dogs are cute” category or “dogs are dirty/scary avoid them if you can” category. This boy might have to convince his mother to pull an Arlen Specter and switch parties.

Sunday was a noraebang night. Noraebang is the Korean word for Karaoke room and is a national pastime here. Entire TV channels are dedicated to this style of singing.  We hadn’t been to one in a while, so after another veranda picnic with MyeongHee’s friends at our house we all piled in the cars and headed into town.

Noraebangs can be, although not always, a family affair. Sometimes, like yesterday evening, whole families and friends make a night of it. Sometimes, after a night of drinking in the bars and nightclubs adults like to go out and sing. And sometimes, single men go to the underground noraebangs where “helper” girls will sit and sing with the customers and for a few 10k notes let a guy feel them up.

We did the family noraebang. With nine of us, it was a challenge to find one with an empty room big enough to accommodate us all.

I have a few songs I regularly sing when at the noraebangs. They have a smattering of western pop songs in their songbooks, mostly the big hits, including some oldies. I usually sing “Love Potion Number 9” which seems to be in everyone’s book and most Koreans know. I do “Under the Boardwalk” when I can find it, which is not often. The Beatles always get the Koreans dancing while I sing. Joe Cocker’s “The Letter” gives me a change to growl.  I can’t tell if the Koreans like my singing or are just being polite.

Just a side note here – MyeongHee was worried about her hair when we come to America in two weeks. She usually straightens her hair with an iron (similar to a curling iron, but flat) every morning. When I told her she couldn’t bring it (different power/plugs here) she had a mild panic attack. No iron? How will I fix my hair? She solved the problem by giving herself a perm. Just a few waves, but enough not to have to deal with ironing her hair.

It’s raining today. No deluge, but just a soft, gentle, cool rain. We needed it. It’s been rather dry lately. Yesterday, Sunday, was wonderful weather and I wasted it, mostly indoors. I had gone rock climbing on Munsu on Saturday and taxed myself on somne good cliumbs. Fool that I am, I trusted the weatherman that Monday would be a nice day for a bike ride and I could safely relax on Sunday and get my cardio in later. Nope. Looks like today is another inside day, curling up on the sofa with a good book and my dog until time to go to work at 1:30pm.

Tonight, I’m off on a new venture. I’m holding a meeting of English Teachers. While I’m damn happy where and how I teach, not everyone gets the good deal that I get in the business of teaching English here in Korea. There are some shady schools and a new national organization hopes to help with that. I am trying to start a local chapter of ATEK.

This is the hair shop that recently opened across the street from MyeongHee’s hair shop.  She was initially worried about the new competition but since it’s been open the woman has had few customers.  Maybe it’s because it’s not bright and airy and easy to see in side. Maybe it’s because the owner wears the exact same clothes for weeks on end.  Or may it’s simply her ostensible command of the English language.  The name she’s chosen for her salon, “Build Vallum,” make no sense to me. MyeongHee was very curious what those two words meant and for the life of me I can’t figure it out. “Build’ I understand, but “vallum”  is not so easy.  I’ve found a definition for Vallum that is an ancient Roman wall or fortification, and an anatomical wall. I’ve also found vareious things named Valume such as a poetry periodical,  a poetry blog, various pubs and B&Bs and even a software package called Micro-Valum.  I thought she might be trying to make a play on a clothes/hair designer or a shampoo name, but for the life of me I can’t think of one that might be similar. Bill Bellamy, the actor/comedian comes up in a search, but nothing else. If you can think of something the poor woman might be refering to, please post it in the comments. The Korean name for her shop (slightly cutoff in the vertical sign board) is the same – that also makes no sense in Korean.  What the woman was trying to convey escapes me.

Of course, it could possibly be the fine architecture of the adjacent building. This small addition smacks of just so much sophistication with its corrugated tin siding and roof.

Said the long-tailed cat in the room full of rocking chairs.

It’s April 12th. We get on a plane around 2pm on May 12th, just four short weeks away, and fly to America. I’ve already started the countdown on the left side of the page.

I’m pumped. MyeongHee is excited and her friends are all jealous. I can’t wait to see all my family and friends.

Although we had a small false start to spring and then a bitter few days in late March, Spring is finally here.  Not everything is blooming yet, but it seems like the entire world here is ablaze in colors.

It’s a little early yet for the Azaleas, but they’ll be out soon. Right now I’m enjoying the cherry blossoms everywhere and watching SaTang occasionally  chase the flurries of pink petals caught on the wind.

We went down to Busan on Sunday for another wedding. This one was UnZung’s son. UnZung is MyeongHee’s  good friend who nearly everyday comes to the hairshop to chat and share food. I had never met her son, who bears a strong resemblance to Shrek. He and his bride were pleasant enough and the wedding hall was nice.  But the ceremony itself was very disappointing.

This was the fourth wedding I’ve been to here in Korea. Most of them are similar. It was held in a wedding hall (churches don’t seem to be open for this type of business.) A wedding hall is a business just for weddings – anywhere from a half-dozen to a dozen or so large rooms set up for weddings, complete with flowers, be-ribboned and bowed chairs and a staff, including the officiator/priest/parson/judge or whatever his title is,  to help move them along smoothly. These people are important because they have a virtual parade of weddings on a weekend day, one after the other.  Hurry up, hustle people in, hold the service, hustle them out and move in the next wedding party. There are never enough chairs for all the guests but still many remain empty as many prefer to stand in the back of the hall and chat loudly. No one bothers to talk in hushed voices or quiet their children. Consequently, the ceremony and guests each contribute their share to a cacophony of noise.

So far, today’s wedding was the same as above and all the others with a few exceptions. Apparently, Shrek and his bride had big plans for their wedding album and it included DVD sales. Throughout the “service” cameramen swarmed around the couple and the judge (he really didn’t look like a priest) taking video and still pictures. They would lean in and snap photos of the couple, the flash momentarily blinding the guests in the front. Other would walk up and down the aisles filming guests.  Twice a make-up woman inserted herself between the bride and groom to dab sweat from his forehead and tears (of joy?) from her cheeks.  With all that commotion it was no wonder children decided there was nothing sacred to disturb and ran up and down the center aisle. In between bits of the ceremony, the emcee (yes, there is one) would inform the guests of the next phase – bowing to the parents, cutting of the cake, etc.  Interestingly enough, there is no putting on of rings or of kissing the bride.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wedding look less like a wedding and more like a movie production. The only thing missing was a clapboard with the scene number chalked on it and a director yelling “quiet on the set!” To have the photographers inserting themselves so incongruously into the ceremony just made me cringe. There didn’t seem to be any respect for the solemnity of the ceremony performed. It’s all just something to get through for the guests until they can quickly leave and go for the buffet.  And leave they do. Once Mr and Mrs Shrek came down the aisle and a few streamers popped that signalled the stampede for food. I used to think it was rude and inconsiderate to make so much noise during the ceremony. Now, no matter how differently Koreans behave  I just consider it “Korea Style.”  If you think I was the only feeling this way, you’d be surprised. MyeongHee also thought all the background noise was rude and the cameras intrusive. Most of her friends think so, too. But, it’s “Korea style,” and tolerated or accepted as such.

I suppose it was still better than our wedding, which by the way is the only “official” part of anyone’s wedding in Korea – the paperwork. All the other ceremonies are just that. They are superfluous and have no official bearing on the status of the couple.

Bound to happen sooner or later. In my opinion, they’d been hanging on by their finger nails for the past couple of years. But it’s finally come to pass. SiliconGraphics (SGI) is no more. SGI was sold on April 1st – a fitting day if ever there was one – for a mere $25 million. When once it was a nearly $4 Billion computing powerhouse, it shrank over the years like an ailing old woman, forever hobbling to fetch the water and feed the cats until she finally just succumbed to the labor of it all.
I was there for almost five years from 1993 to 1998. It was a wild ride and for part of those years it was some of the company’s best. I’m proud of our accomplishments but at the same time I can only shake my head in an “I knew this would happen” sort of sadness.

In its heyday, SGI was involved in some fantastic technology. They got into so many different areas, it was hard for me as a technologist to keep up and stay current, especially given my role in sales support as a technology cheerleader. It had become harder and harder to understand all the areas they wanted us to sell into and be worth a shit at any of them, much less all of them.  I saw the writing on the wall as early as 1996 when we bought Cray Research. They were already failing and I suspected some arm twisting by the US government to keep their technology afloat. We bought them, cannibalized them and threw away lots of good people. Then sold it years later for a fraction. We got into Nintendo – big deal. Nothing good ever came of that.  We got into telecommunications and sold into Travelocity – that was fun. We made some great deals, lost some great deals and for me personally, it was a tremendous growing experience as I spent the last few year in management.

The biggest deal for me was when they decided to go after the PC market with a Windows NT system. They wanted us all to learn Windows (we were Unix heads) and become experts. Then they made a custom system that wasn’t even pure Microsoft. They fucked up their one attempt at mainstream computing. When I learned it was going to be a custom “Windows” machine I lost my faith in the company. I bailed before they could lose the rest of their company.

I kept up with several people and followed their careers. I worked with former SGI people at subsequent companies, too. We knew that SGI was a tough company to work for and if you could make it there, you’d do well anywhere. We trusted each other. I went to work for Platform after SGI – huge numbers of Canadian SGI people had already gone there. When that petered out, I went to newScale, another place where SGI people drew me in. I stayed there un September of 2001 when the bottom dropped out of the tech market.

My last business contact with anyone in SGI was with Harry Eaddy, the first sales manager I worked with in 1993. In July of 2006, I heard he was looking for another engineer to help sell.  We had lunch, we talked and I researched SGI carefully.  I was excited about getting back into the company I loved so much in the 90s, but after a careful reading of their story, hardware, software and plans I decided to bail. They were down to selling Linux systems and a handful of graphics beasts to the core market they originally sold to in the early 90’s – engineering firms. That’s when I made the decision to come back to Korea. 

And the rest, as they say, in history.

On a side note, the old SGI campus in Moutain View, CA is now the home of Google.

This is a relatively new addition in the neighborhood.  I don’t know how I could have missed the construction phase of this fashion department store. It must’ve taken enormous amounts of manpower to find just the right busted-ass concrete blocks and boards to level out and correctly place in this parking lot. Hoards of workers scoured the area for additional busted-ass blocks to cordon off the parking “area” in front of it. They spared no expense in making it the newest fashion centrepiece of our fine community.

This “building,” which apparently spent a previous life as a shipping container, is now the home of “Cool Cat.” At least that’s how I would translate it. The first two syllables, “Naeng Dong,” mean freezing or refrigeration and the last three syllables mean “goyeongi” or cat. It’s not terribly uncommon for boxes to be re-appropriated as places of business here in Korea. Usually, however, they end up as shoe or clothing repair places where function not fashion is the order of the day. Sometimes they end up as a side-walk food vendor’s hovel, which is particular appetizing. This one is the first that tries make a purse from a sow’s ear.

I can just imagine the conversation women in town might have:

“Where ever did you find that lovely blouse, Mrs. Han?”

“Why, thank you, Mrs. Jin, I got it at that new store in town, Cool Cat. Only the coolest cats shop there.”

“You mean that bright yellow box trailer with the chrome window frame? Why that looks just like the dumpster that was behind our apartment hive. And now its Cool Cat! Where do you find these little jems?”

Personal style here in Korea is very big (unless you’re talking about the ajumma’s). A home’s cleanliness and fastidiousness is very important.  Even a store must be clean and tidy to attract customers. But it still amazes me that once outside the door of a home or business the care stops. Trash or just plain trashiness, much like the cinder blocks haphazardly placed for the leveling are everyday occurrences. Such juxtapositions of inside spotlessness and personal style next to outside rubbish and jerry-rigging still amazes me.

But that white and lavender shirt in the window does look fetching.

Although there are a lot of trails around the house for me to ride, most of them are mountainous and extremely arduous. There are numerous, easier trails along the river where a guy can get up a good head of steam.  Those trails, however, are not so accessible for dogs unless you pack up the bike and dog in the car. There’s just too much traffic between the house and the river for us both if she runs.

Now, it’s no problem to take SaTang running along the river. I bought a nice rack this weekend and the grocery store we frequent gave me a shopping basket which I strapped on with a multitude of cable ties. She was a little scared at first, but once we got a few blocks she decided it wasn’t so scary. Then, once we got to some places along the river where she could run along side me she was really happy.

So, now I can ride to our favorite spots and she can run when we get there, too.

This was a sweet spot for pictures, right along the river where I usually ride my bike. On Saturday, Fin and I rode almost 30km around town. Although I’ve seen this house and the horse before, it somehow didn’t stand out as well when the cherry blossoms were still tucked in their little buds. Now that spring is in full swing here, flowers are everywhere and seemed to frame this beaufitful horse. The house has rounded doors and windows which gave it a Hobbit-ty feel. Having just read Lord of the Rings that’s what imagery it recalled for me.

The horse was actually quite a poser. I whistled while he munched his lunch and he obliged me a nice picture.

While out on a long ride on Saturday with my partner-in-website, Fin, we stopped at a local mountain bike shop. The owner has agreed to advertise on our site (and pay us $.)  While we talked about his ads, placement, duration, etc., I had his service department give my bike the once over. The previous few weeks I’d been rather hard on it and the gears were badly misbehaving.  Last week’s  run along the river to avoid the streets really took a toll.

Anyway, his service boys did a complete breakdown of the front sprocket set and realigned them, pulled out and reset the gear cables, adjusted the brakes and just generally did a complete system check. About 30 minutes worth of work while we talked advertising.

Total price: $5.

Oh, and the website – ulsanonline.com – has gone into the black. Expensives have all been paid and everything we make now is pure profit. Not bad for a part time gig that, for me,  is just enjoyable to write, edit, program, etc.

The exchange rate that is. It’s been ridiculously high for months and it finally coming back to the merely aggravating range.  The Korean won has been in a slump for a while but yesterday dropped below 1400 won to the dollar. It was nearly 1600 earlier this month.

While I am happy it’s down, I’m not holding my breath – or changing all my won for dollars just yet. One quick look at the exchange rate graph will show that this, too, may be a temporary thing. It could be, as Wall Street folks are wont to say, a deat cat bounce.

I’m only hoping it continues to go down, hopefully below 1000, before I head back to the States in May. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I still ride my bicycle frequently. It’s done wonders to take off and keep off the weight I gained in 2007/8.  I ride, depending on the weather, 3-6 days a week, anywhere from 40 minutes to 1.5 hours and usually at a pretty good pace.

In an effort to avoid the bad drivers that are common on the roadways, I tried a new route along the river.  The biking/walking paths the city has created along the Taewha River extend for miles. It reminds me of the path around San Francisco Bay. When I worked at Silicon Graphics in the 90s, visits to the corporate offices in Mt View would often mean a chance to rollerblade a few miles along the bay.  The Taewha River paths are similar, although not near so grand. With the recent addition of the pedestrian bridge across the river, one can ride all the way from down in the harbor where the Hyundai cars are loaded on ships up to Seonbawi, or Standing Rock, just across the river from my neighborhood.

With one exception. A small gap in the path from Guyeong to Daundong. For about a mile, I have to deal with a major roadway and the bad drivers. I hate that part. It’s got good shoulders to ride on, but going past the bus stops, gas stations and schools is a real hazard as drivers don’t always look going in or out of these places.  I often watch them pull out and then look to see if traffic (me) is coming.

I thought I would try this new path that appeared along the small farms and gardens along the river bottom. I have a mountain bike. I could do it. No problem. It turns out though that it’s more mountain than biking.

Parts of the path are nice and wide. More than enough room to maneuver along the rocks without plunging down into the river.

Other parts of the trail are sheer madness. Barely enough room for the handle bars and the path itself slopes precariously down the hill.

I tried several of these areas on the bike before deciding that I suck at extreme biking. I did a couple of endos (end over end crash) and slid several times down the right side into the trees. I walked several parts of the path afterward. Even on the flat bottoms, the going isn’t easy. The trail is strewn with small, baby-head sized rocks that will cause an endo. The small farms present their own hazard with stakes and small fences delineating the various plots, sometimes only enough room between for a pair of legs.

When I finaly made it to the next portion of a viable path, I did damage assessment.

The south side of the river is no better. Paths exist but all terminate at the edge of a feral bamboo forest. Of course I tried this, but never again

I suspect I’ll be dealing with the bastard drivers until the city finishes the path on this section of the river.

It’s no wonder sometimes that the kids I teach have difficulty mastering English. Although some have been studying English for 3 or 4 years, a chance meeting on the street with a student won’t produce much more than “I’m fine, how are you?”

There areT-shirts here in Korea that have terrible language. Some are terrible grammar, but some have terrible words that would get a child sent home back in the US. Many of those T-shirts are cast-offs from western markets; they either didn’t sell or never made it to the store shelf. Many of those T-shirts find their way to Asian markets where the imprinted English is secondary to the fact that its a cheap shirt.

In the classroom, however, materials with poor English abound and are not western market cast-offs. Most are produced here in Korea. Apparently, having English on the product makes it more saleable. Also, apparently, having someone on the manufacturer’s graphic arts staff who knows, understands or has more than a passing knowledge of English is a rarity.

Poor English shows up on pencil cases, pencils, pens, notebooks, bags – everywhere one could put text on a product. They range from the profoundly poor English to the profane to simple misspellings. I took a few snapshots this week of some pencil cases my students possessed.

Sometimes, it’s funny to read the stuff on the school paraphernalia the kids come in with. Sometimes, they wonder what it is I laugh about – which is really sad because they don’t understand the English or don’t understand why its not good grammar. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that some pencil cases I looked at this week at were just fine. Many T-shirts, notebooks and pencils are fine, too. The problem is that there are so many products with English and the kids and (most of) the parents cannot discern good from bad English. It bothers me that this country wants so badly for their citizens to learn English but does little to ensure they don’t learn improper English.

On my other website, Ulsanonline.com, we got the interest of a new Korean/English tabloid paper. We listed it on our partner page, but I want little to do with it. Just reading their introduction is painful. Their goal is to introduce English to their Korean readers. But they, too, have grammar problems. They want us to share some of our articles for their paper. I have no problem with that. They wanted some editing of their own English, too, but they want to pay next to nothing. Our goal on ulsanonline.com is to be a knowledge base for other foreigners. A place to learn about the country we live and work in and a place to showcase some writing, programming or photography talent. Our goal is not to help people learn English. I get paid to do that, so for a newspaper to want editing for free just doesn’t fly.

Sorry, there’s no free runch.

It took forever, but I finally got my book published. I finished my first draft of the book in June of 2005 shortly after I returned from Korea the first time. I let it marinate for a while and then went back in and made a second draft while I contacted God knows how many prospective agents.  I got tired of waiting for someone to bite and went on with the next book, which is still (slowly) being written.

In the past few years, a number of things have changed. The newspaper industry has taken a beating;  several big ones such as the Rocky Mountain News  have recently folded. The two foreigner publications, the Ulsan Pear and the Korea Sun, both of which I worked on, folded. That’s part of the reason I now write, edit and program for the online, UlsanOnline.com. The book industry, while not in exactly the same boat, I predict will be soon enough. NY Magazine has already made similar predictions. Printing and distribution costs are rising while electronic publishing costs are shrinking.

Amazon has come out with the Kindle 2.0 electronic book reader and by all accounts they’ve fixed all the poor ergonomics on the 1.0 version. That got me really interested in e-publishing. Even while I was preparing to e-publish, Amazon announced that Apple’s iTouch and iPhone products would be able to read their e-books.  I could no longer wait.  I had to jump on this train.

Well, now you wait no longer. I’m published. Amazon.com has a copy of my book.  It’s only Kindle-capable, which means you need a Kindle to read it. Soon, an iPhone or iTouch will suffice. I still have my own website with the PDF version for sale, too.

Go ahead, get yourself a copy. You know you want to.

I’m going to go back to gloating now. And, if enough people buy my book,it will give me enough incentive to finish the second book, “At the End of the Road.“

With one tire flat and another on a mini-spare, I couldn’t help but be amused by the advertising for “Special Wheels”

We went down to Gangeolgot this past weekend. Its a nice, breezy little spot on the south end of the city. Sunday was very sunny, but out on the coast it was just a bit too cold and windy for comfort. While we liked the view and crashing of the surf, we didn’t stay long and headed back to the warm car.

I try to strike a pose, too, but I come off looking a bit too “cool.”  My dog isn’t all as adoring as this picture might lead you to believe. I have her ball in my pocket and she’s just a tad OCD about playing with it.

Along the coast there are plenty of boardwalk vendors hawking their wares. Several were trying to sell their impressive strings of kites. They really were beautiful, but their usefulness back in the city would be limited with all the wires strung everywhere.

I went down on Saturday while MyeongHee was working and did a little exploring along the river. The city has made vast improvements in the parks over the past year or so and it was worth the extra effort to view it. I climbed one of the hills along the river where they’d built a small picnic pagoda overlooking the valley. Beautiful scenery, really. I snapped several photos to capture the wide expanse and had trouble putting anything of that size on this blog. Luckily, I have another website I author on, and I have more freedom to experiment. I put together some simple javascript code to show the panoramas of the river. I also, for the benefit of the other foreigners here in Ulsan, put some additional things in it that didn’t necessarily make sense to write here. A link to it never hurts, though. Check out my panoramic vistas on UlsanOnline.com (make sure you have javascript enabled to see this)

Both my wife and step-son love the dog. She gets lots of attention here at our house. I snapped these two photos a few days ago and thought I’d share.

There are so many people on facebook these days it just makes sense.  I just included some code to connect my online newspaper’s restaurant guide with facebook to make it easier for people to interact with our reviews.  Seems like a nice little tool. With all the websites running around these days, each one requiring usernames and passwords to interact with, that reducing things just a little makes sense.

Therefore, if you have a facebook account, you can connect to my blog here quite easily. No more trying to remember your username and password if you can at least remember your facebook set, which should be slightly higher in importance in your internet world than just this simple blog.

See you online

Time to go to Pohang again for another night on the floor. Only a short visit, this time.

It’s the anniversary of MyeongHee’s father’s death in 2005. Custom is for a “Je Sa” or ancestor service, to be performed for a number of years after a death. The Je Sa is performed at every major holiday as well, which means we just did one in January for New Years. They must be worried about appeasing the spirits of the dead to do it so often.  That’s Asian ancenstor worship for you.

So anyway, we’ll drive to Pohang late tonight and hopefully be back in the morning so MyeongHee can scoot off to work.

Today, Febuary 18th, marks one year since I’ve been in Korea from a visit back to the US. It also marks one since MyeongHee and I have lived together – she moved into the apartment while I was in the US. Its also another year end contract with the school. I just signed another contract for a year.

May seems a long time off until I can get home again. I hope it passes quickly.

Not uncommon in Korea is to just spread a bunch of newspapers on the floor, fire up a small grill and cook up a boatload of dead animal. We had one last Saturday and MyeongHee’s friends, all older broads, partied down on our veranda.

Oni is the Korean word for “older sister” whether you’re related or not. Dul (the ‘u’ is pronounced the same as in ‘put’) is the plural form, hence oni dul is MyeongHee’s way of saying her older sisters.

Kickin’ it, Korea Style

On the right you’ll now see a link to my granddaughters website, as written by their mom, my daughter Jessica. Ain’t they cute?

My big brother Johnny took an IQ test and scored well. I did, too.  What can you do?

Free-IQTest.net – IQ Test

My Mother-in-law is with us again. I don’t mind her being here. She cleans like a fiend and since she doesn’t speak more than a word of English she doesn’t gripe, nag or bitch. If she does, I wouldn’t know it.

I have noticed some peculiarities, however. She’s 71 years old, which puts her in her teens during the Korean War in the early 1950s. There were periods in which food was scarce then and the older generation is apparently quite keen not to repeat that. That may explain why there are so many vegetable gardens here, crammed into whatever space they can find. It may explain why most of the people tending the gardens are the old ones.I rarely see middle aged or younger tending the veggies.

Although we don’t have a garden here, mother-in-law does her part. Not a scrap of food goes to waste. Any rice not eaten goes back into the rice-cooker for the next meal. Any meat not eaten will sit until someone eats it. For two days this week I watched a big bowl of fried squid, leftover from almost two weeks ago at Lunar New Years, sit by the microwave. It started looking like it would soon throw itself out if no one ate it. I won’t eat Korean squid. It bears no resemblance to the calamari I’d sometimes eat in an Italian restaurant back home. Korean squid reminds me more of a bicycle inner-tube than seafood. Today, the squid was gone and I didn’t really want to ask where it went. I was just happy it disappeared.  Another bowl had strips of leftover pork. That stayed only a day; long enough for the grease to congeal.  But that, too, never got refrigerated. Mother-in-law (no names for relatives here, only titles) doesn’t refrigerate meat or soups and they’ll sit on the stove or countertop growing God knows how many colonies of funk. Scary. Terrifying, actually.  We’ve got a dozen or so bowls of unnamed, unknowable Korean side dishes in the fridge, some of which smelled like hell before they were leftovers (mother-in-law’s cooking style is very old school) and they’re beyond funky now. I like Korean food, I just never said I eat everything made. Fortunately, I am an able cook and they understand when I make my own breakfast/lunch before work. Dinner preparation is MyeongHee’s realm and I like her cooking a lot better.

I drooled when I read this article on Internet speed increase planned in Korea. Until I saw the planned date for completion.  I’m not sure I’ll still be here then, but I that’s a decent draw. Getting 1 Gigabit/sec is blazing fast. Most people in the US get close to 1/1000 of that and far less if you consider dialup (that doesn’t even exist anymore here)

A full 120 minute movie would come down the pipe in about 12 seconds. Who needs satellite or Tivo? Just hook up your TV to your computer.

Today the elementary schools are back in session. For the last 5 weeks or so the playground and streets have been filled with munchkins playing. Now that winter vacation is over its quiet again in the morning. I have been taking SaTang out to play at the park in the mornings and there’s always been kids around who want to play, too. She’ll miss that. She loves kids.

Although the elementary schools have been out, most private schools like mine have been in. Kids still go to their piano, English or Taewkondo classes during breaks. Although Koreans are big on Education, it has the added benefit of knowing your kids aren’t running around misbehaving. It’s almost as if they are in day care as they’ll go from one private school to the next throughout the day.

This week will be tough in our school. This kids will be worn out and not wanting to do much. I’ll have to bark a few times to get their attention.  There are times when they zone out  that I need to throw an eraser at them to get them to pay attention. I can’t do that, so I’ve decided to bring a small, high-powered LED flashlight. Just a quick flash in the eyes to wake ’em up. Should be good for a few laughs, too. No one ever said Martin Teacher’s classes were boring 🙂