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.