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By Marty, July 24, 2011 9:53 pm

Summer is 2/3rds over and we haven’t been out much. Of course, it hasn’t been much of a summer so far. We’ve only had the air-conditioning on one weekend this summer. Today wasn’t much different. It was actually cloudy and overcast with occassional very light sprinkles. We decided we’d brace the weather and head out to our favorite river picnic area in the mountains.

This is near Seoknamsa, a temple for nuns way up in the mountains. We’ve had a decent amount of rain this summer so the river was still flowing well.

Both the dogs followed me around the stream, mostly on the rocks. SaTang really doesn’t like water so she’d go way around to cross over a 2 foot jump. Sparky is a little more brave, and although she doesn’t like the water much either she was having fun jumping from rock to rock and didn’t care to go around.

The water was actually pretty cold. Not Rocky-mountain snow-melt cold, but cold enough that neither of us wanted to get more than our feet wet. Consequently, when the dogs did get wet, they shivered and shook and MyeongHee wanted to dry them off.

Sparky gets a toweling off while SaTang watches all the other people in the river

All three of my girls pose for a picture

While we were there, we spent some time wandering around the hills and letting the dogs run in the forest. With a little steam worked off, we sat down for a Korean picnic: grilled pork with garlic and red bean paste wrapped in lettuce leaves.  Yum.  Washed it down with a few beers and then settled back to relax against the rocks. MyeongHee had heard about “Angry Birds” a mobile phone game that has become very popular and she spent an hour or so wearing out the battery in my phone.

It was a pretty lazy day, actually, which is just what the Dr. ordered.  July has been really busy with 11 hour days for me. I just picked up another class for August, so that will be almost as busy – the first week is vacation at one of my three jobs, so I’ll only have a split day starting at 10 and finishing at 8:30pm with the entire afternoon off.

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By Marty, November 7, 2010 10:27 pm

This weekend the weather was outstanding. We took advantage and visited the arboretum, which prior to this weekend we didn’t even know existed. A friend of mine, Aaron, put together a small get-together at the place and we just followed the map. Turns out the Arboretum is a finely hidden gem tucked into the hills around just off the coast.  The people running it are very friendly and were quite happy to let people touch, pet and even hold the animals.

I turned into a snake handler

The Arboretum is more than just trees and plants, although those are there in abundance. The have a small zoo with a bird area you can walk through (and get pooped on) a reptile area and a small section of rodents such as hamsters, guinea pigs and mice which serve as lunch for the reptiles. In the above picture, I held a medium size Burmese Python.  I’m not a big snake fan, but this one was kind of pretty and the caretaker just handed him over to me.  MyeongHee wouldn’t have anything to do with the snakes – or with me once I’d handled it. She’s got a phobia of snakes. She ran around the corner and I had to get Aaron to takes pictures of me with my camera.

This snake was really calm

Aaron tries on the python while the much much bigger one still sits in the pen behind him. Although its hard to see in this picture, the one behind is as big around as my calf.

Myeonghee was happy with the bird they let her hold. But even that didn’t last long. She held this little thing for a minute and then passed it off to the kid just behind her.

We brought both dogs and initially put them on leashes. They don’t get out to much free and open space much – other than the park across the street – so they were pulling hard to explore. We let them off and let them run around and they loved it. They’re both crashed on the sofa now from so much running today.

Me and my pups. Satang is on the left and Sparky is on the right

MyeongHee held the dogs, too, but they would not hold still and all the pictures are of her not smiling but scowling at the dogs

I cannot resist a waterfall. The fish in this small pond were Jaws size koi.

MyeongHee is a sheep, according to the Asian zodiac. They had statues of all 12. I am a rat and can do without having my picture next to my rat. But the red maples make a nice background

Inside the greenhouse, the tropical plants formed a canopy over us

Aarons son Jamon had lots of fun holding Sparkys leash. Not sure who was leading who really

We only stayed at the arboretum for a couple of hours. Although it was really pretty, it was relatively small – perhaps a mere 10 acres. We left the group and took the dogs to Ulsan Grand Park and let them run a bit more. We had a ball in the car so we went into the overly crowded park. Satang chased the ball while Spark chased SaTang and both dogs drew a crowd of onlookers.  SaTang seems to sense the roar of the crowd and puts on a good show of running and jumping.

Only one of eight paws are on the ground in this high speed action and that one of Sparkys is just barely touching

We played at the park until sunset and then it got cool. We think there aren’t too many more weekends of this caliber before winter sets in here. It’s never terribly cold, but it is more consistently cold than Texas.  We enjoyed the day outdoors and we might have to look back on this one for a nice bit of weather until spring comes next year.

This week I start a new part time job. I scored a corporate gig at Samsung Fine Chemicals out near the petrochemical section of town. A group of 15-20 engineers  wants to improve their English as well as learn the western ways of rapport building since they do quite a bit of travel to other places.  It’s only one hour a day and only three times per week but its about $70 per hour. That should add a decent bit of beer money to my budget. I teach from 11:30am to 12:30pm, which gives me just enough time to scurry back to the west end of town, take the dogs out for a quick pee and poop and then off to school for another seven hours of teaching munchkins.

This weekend, by the way, marks four months from the end of my contract at the school. Unless I get a job at the university, which Aaron says he’ll try and help with, I’ll be back in Texas in four months. I need to get out my countdown script and polish it off and put it in the sidebar of this website.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Cheers and hope everyone is well.

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By Marty, October 2, 2010 8:59 pm

It’s been a while since I took SaTang out for a run. Summer is just too hot for her to run as far as I usually go. Now that fall is here and she won’t overheat, I decided to take her out with me on the bike. Sparky doesn”t go to the hairshop like she’d been going – I think MyeongHee has decided it’s too much trouble to keep a pup at her shop – so I took her with us. This was a first for her. The basket I bought to hold SaTang is only good for 10kg. We just barely made that limit but I wanted to make sure both dogs physically fit in the basket before we attach it to the bike.

Well, they both fit as evidenced by the above picture. Sparkey isn’t so sure what the hell we’re about to do, but being all puppy she’s ready for just about anything.

So, basket firmly attached, we’re ready to ride. SaTang isn’t so sure why she has to share the basket with Sparky. She’s usually pretty psyched about getting to go but she seems little put out – even peeved. Ears down is a sign of not entirely happy.

But, a little distraction with a ‘hey look at me’ shout from MyeongHee and the ears are up and ready.  We only ride a short way with the dogs in the basket. Just far enough to get out of the neighborhood and away from the cars. We rode around the corner and up the hill to the farms behind Cheonsang. The farmers have paved quite a few one-lane roads in and around their patches of rice, bell-flower, sesame, and squash. There’s a few ponds back there, too.  Once out of the way of cars, both dogs had great fun running around and smelling anything and everything. Lots of flowers, trees and hills and it’s beautiful farm land.

The next day, I took them to the playground across the street from our apartment. Normally we have this place to ourselves in the mornings since all the kids are in school. But we were attacked by a pre-school mob of kids who came to the playground .

SaTang is well used to the kiddos and is usually very calm, even tolerant of the little turds as they do some heavy petting. Sparky, though, hasn’t gotten the hang of the kid thing and hangs back, sometimes cowering under me.

Here’s she hiding behind SaTang (the playground fence is out of view on her right) and stays just far enough away to keep from getting petted.

Poor Sparky. That’s a classic ‘help me’ look as the kids encroach on her space.

Don’t tell anyone, but I ended up smacking one of these little shits. He thought it would be fun to jump on the dog with both knees. SaTang jumped with a little yelp and I reacted with a backhand across his temple. No way he’d understand my angry English anyway. The smack was probably the only thing that would have worked. And it did. He went off crying to the teacher who brought the kids to the park. I don’t blame him – I blame the parents.  Still lots of fear and ignorance regarding dogs. Just today we came out of our apartment and a teenage girl dropped her book bag with a screech and hopped into a nearby truck bed to escape from my marauding hounds from hell, both of whom were probably wondering what the fuss was all about.

Anyway, enough of the dogs.

Tonight being Saturday I’m off to the closing night of the last foreigner bar in this city. This bar, Benchwarmers, has been in business for 6 years and the owners are tired of fighting each other for who is going to work what night, split what cost, give discounts to whom – oh! The Drama!

When I first came to Korea, the Korean owned bars and nightclubs operated differently than they do now. It was nearly impossible to buy a drink by the glass – one had to have a table and a single tab, which was paid at the end of the evening. Moreover, whisky or vodka was purchased by the bottle – a prohibitive expense at $125 a bottle or more. That was no problem for a group of people who arrive and leave together as Koreans often do. Koreans rarely go dutch, by the way. It may be his turn at this place but your turn at that place. A single tab was no issue.

For the come-and-go pub crawl crowd of foreigners who want to check out a bar, buy a drink, see who’s there and then move on to another bar that model doesn’t work.   Splitting a tab at the end of a night would be a headache, if not impossible.  There were only a few foreigner owned or foreigner friendly bars in town. These days, many Koreans have gotten smart and figured that the rigidity they imposed is the “old way” and many Korean owned bars offer drinks by the glass. Consequently, the bars have become a better mix of Koreans and foreigners instead of the either/or bar.

So, the last bar in Ulsan owned by a foreigner is closing tonight.  Should be a good party and lots of people will be there to help celebrate and/or commiserate. It will feel like old home week.  There are lots of places where foreigners go now.  It’s  nice, by the way, to walk in to any of them and find someone I know – that almost never happened back in Texas – being part of a small minority makes it easy to meet people in the same situation.  Don’t wait for pictures of this event. I don’t do pictures in bars often.

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By Marty, May 23, 2010 5:37 pm

SaTang and Sparky.

Sparky, by virtue of spending her days at the hairshop with MyeognHee gets the “beauty treatment” and has had her nails painted. SaTang, meanwhile, still prefers the rugged look and a cowboy scarf.

I’ve got some video of the dogs playing at the park but have yet to edit it and make it viewable. In the meantime, a single picture is all I have the time for.

Hope everyone is well. Ta ta for now.

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By Marty, April 25, 2010 2:17 pm

Yesterday I went rock climbing with my usual friends and a few new ones. There’s always people coming and going here.  One of the new ones is Vanessa – a native of North Texas, former resident of Dallas and an alumni of my alma mater, University of North Texas. Als0 being a climber, she was a somewhat frequent climber at Stoneworks climbing gym at I-35 and Beltline in Carollton.  What are the odds.  Half way around the world but from the same place. She’ll probably climb with us again.

Another reunion of sorts was with my dogs. They got to play with one of the litter. We called her “GaMyeon” or “Mask”, but her new name is “Corker.”  Good friend and frequent climbing partner Dee is the new mommy to Corker. The pups and their mom, SaTang, played on the mountain while we climbed.

Dee holds her pup Corker while Sparky and Satang pose.

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By Marty, April 17, 2010 10:53 am

Since having bought the scooter, it’s gotten much easier to get up to the mountain to do some rock climbing. I’ve been up there the last several Saturdays and gotten some great climbing in.  I haven’t taken many pictures – seems like I have lots of pictures of people who asses from down below I can no longer recognize.

Getting there, however, is half the fun. In the car, SaTang just sat and watched the world go by, sometimes even sleeping as I drove. No more. Those days are over, baby.  She still likes going to the mountain and running around, chasing ground squirrels, barking at birds and begging for handouts from the Koreans who bring their entire kitchen when they climb.  If you want to get out and play, you’ve gotta make an effort. And she does extremely well sitting on the floorboard of the scooter.

SaTang rides in style up to Munsu Mountain

In case anyone is worried about safety, she’s wearing a harness and is attached to the bike via leash. If she falls off, I can yank her right back on without choking her. No worries about that, as she’s content just to sit between my feet and lean against my calves.

Sparky, one pup we decided to keep is too little (and too jumpy) to go up on Munsu. She’s cute as hell, but so far hasn’t proven quite as smart as her mama. Our climbing areas have a few meters of walking area between the cliff faces and the next drop-off, but I’m afraid she would just be too curious.  We might wait until she’s a little less puppy before taking her out and turning her into a full blown crag dog. In the meanwhile, she goes to MyeongHee’s hairshop where she’s fawned over by MH and her customers.

Sparky, still mostly furball, models her scarf

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By Marty, March 24, 2010 12:10 pm

A last minute cancellation by one of MyeongHee’s friends almost left us holding four dogs. She was going to take two pups and at 9 weeks they were more than ready to go.  I had been holding off on serious training as that’s really the new owner’s prerogative. But they needed training or they needed to go. I spent a lot of time over the weekend posting messages and photos on facebook and on UlsanOnline.com’s classifieds trying to get one or more of my many foreigner friends to adopt a dog.

On their last weekend together, the dogs sack out on the sofa together. From left are SaTang, Sparky, SaRang, and GaMyeon.

I found one friend, Dee, who was willing to take on a pup. Dee is a frequent rock climbing partner and serious doggie person. She is also sister to Fin, my partner on UlsanOnline.com.  She decided to take GaMyeon, who upon first introductions gave her lots of love and affection – she was supposed to -  I trained the pups hard on the “endear” command, just like other owners might teach their dog to “fetch” or “rollover.” It worked great and Dee and she hesitated only a little before calling back and taking her.

GaMyeon takes one last snooze in her bed before I carted her off to Dee’s house.

I had done some hard selling to my students, too, and SaRang is slated to go to set of brother and sister on Thursday or Friday this week. The kids’ mom came to see the pup Monday and will pick her up later after getting all the supplies and puppy-proofing their house.

After learning of the cancellation last week, I took drastic action and had MyeongHee take Sparky to the hairshop with her. She could get better training there than I could here since I no longer get a lunch break to take her out to pee.  She’s pretty cute and her hairshop customers all adore her.

Sparky

So this week, it’s been me and SaTang and SaRang. Being the only pup, she’s settled down and I’ve gotten more attached to her. I’ll miss her – but not that much.

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By Marty, March 15, 2010 12:57 am

If it isn’t raining, you have to get outside and enjoy the day here. It will rain soon enough.

Lately, we’ve had just a few days of non-rain sprinkled in among the rainy or snowy days. Friday and Saturday were nice and on Saturday I took advantage of the weather and did some rock climbing. Awesome day, indeed. I got in several good routes and then headed into town to buy a scooter.

We’ve been operating on one set of wheels for three years and I finally decided I want to be more mobile than just the bicycle I’ve been riding. They’ll deliver the scooter today sometime – and it’s raining again. It’s supposed to rain for the next day or two so I likely won’t even get to ride my new toy when I get it. No big deal of a bike, its used and very cheap and only 125cc. But it will get me around without having to first shuttle MyeongHee off to work just to have the car.

As for riding the bicycle, that’s still a good deal. When I was home in December, Jessica bought me a new pair of jeans for Christmas. They fit great. Now, however, they fit like socks on a rooster. They hang on me. I have no idea what I weigh, but my waist is considerably smaller than it was in December.

We’re down to just three pups now. MyeongHee took the other male and gave it to her nephew. We have the three little females left and she’s everyday changing her mind on which she wants to keep. Two will go to a friend from her hairshop when she’s out of the hospital, hopefully this week.

On the left is GaMyeon(mask) and Gumdongi (brownie). Behind is SaRang (love) and then in the rear is Sparky.  I snapped these pictures on a snowy day just last week. Brownie’s feet – all four – are off the ground in a run toward me.  He’s off to the nephew’s house as of last Friday.

They weren’t really impressed with the snow. They sniffed it and gingerly walked around in it a bit, but would rather have been inside.

That’s all for now. Take care, everyone!

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By Marty, March 8, 2010 12:57 am

One puppy went to a new home last night. A couple of English ladies took the biggest male, the one we’d been calling Gulum. They are calling him Davie. He’ll be fine. They’ve been very excited for weeks since they decided they wanted a pup.

MyeongHee cried a little when the puppy left last night. Just for a few minutes. She’s fine today. But the dog that went was her least favorite. We’ll see how it goes with the others she likes much more.

Three more should go this week. The mostly brownish male will go to MyeongHee’s nephew’s girlfriend. And two others will go to one of her hairshop friends. That’ll leave us with just one pup, GaMyeon (mask) the smallest of the puppies. She’ll take her to the hairshop with her and then home every night.

The mother, SaTang, on the other hand has turned into quite a problem. She seems to be having control problems. For 3 years she’s done well about going outside for her potty business. Lately, she’s been scratching at our bedroom door early in the morning to be taken out. But as soon as the bedroom door is opened, she’ll pee. A lot. Last week, it was poo, and I hurried her out to the back veranda rather than downstairs and across the street to the park. She left some poo, but seemed rather upset about it all day.

Today, she scratched at the door and I immediately got up to take her out. She made it outside to the veranda without peeing and I left her there for about 3-4 minutes. When I went to check on her, as soon as I opened the door she came into the hallway. THEN she pee’d – a lot – in the hallway in front of our door. Why she couldn’t have done it when she was outside and she waited until she was semi-inside? Beats me. I’m trying not to beat her.

There’s some dog psychology at work here and I’m not sure what’s going on. Talking to the vet here will not be possible unless I get MyeongHee to do the talking. I still suspect that even a conversation in Korean won’t help – Koreans have a different take on pets than Americans do. They have a different take on psychology, too. It’s subtle, but psychology isn’t among the issues that comes up with pets. No surprise, as psychology isn’t an issue they’ll discuss about people, either. Going to a psychologist is still considered an admission of weakness, or worse, craziness.

Any insight any American readers have on what my dog is dealing with would be appreciated.

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By Marty, February 28, 2010 12:13 pm

They’re six weeks old. A couple of them are ready to go to their new owners. Although it’s possible I might get one more video of them all, this could be the last of them all, and in a sense is already not with Byeol, the little one gone to doggie heaven.  Next weekend we’ll take Gomdungi, the little brown one, to MyeongHee’s nephew. Gulumi, the big white male, will go to his new owners this week.

Having said that enjoy, perhaps the last, of the puppy videos.