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 🙂