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.
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.
