Aquarium

On Buddha's birthday (May 24), we had a holiday. So I headed into Seoul with my Korean friend to do some sightseeing and to see a Buddhist ceremony. Unfortunately it rained buckets all day long, so we couldn't do most of our sightseeing, and the ceremony was also canceled. Bummer! However, I did get to go to Building 63 (the tallest building in Seoul), to the aquarium in the bottom. It was small, but quite interesting.

The English (Engrish? Konglish?) signs around here are always, always wrong. Sometimes they are cute and funny, like this one:

So I guess if you need a romantic guy, you can just head to the aquarium for a fish!

I always feel bad for certain animals in captivity more than others. Birds and other animals that usually roam around hundreds of kilometres in the wild are always top of the list. These penguins made me feel a bit sad.
This crab made me think, "Spider of the Sea."
My friend:
The niftiest starfish ever!


Turtles and alligators...friends I guess!
And yes, I feel bad for snakes too! Not sure if they themselves feel bad or not. Probably not.


So interesting to look into the faces of creatures I, as a human, should not really be able to see, ever.

Car Park Elevator

Ok friends, tell me truthfully: am I just sheltered?? Yesterday I got to see a car parking lot elevator/assembly line thingy for the first time. I was amazed! Does Canada have these things??

You drive your car onto the belt, like so:
Then you leave, a garage door shuts, and you push your license plate number into the panel:


Then the garage door shuts, and away your car goes. When you come back, you push your number in again, and the assembly line rotates. You can look through the little window and see cars slowly going by, and coming down from above (there are 2 levels)! Wow!! Then when your car arrives, the garage door opens and you back out. The room is very small, so you back out onto this circle...get out, push another button, and the circle rotates so your car is now facing the exit and you can drive away!! I'm astonished. LOL

Ritzin it up

Oh friends, take a look at where I had dinner tonight:
Yes, the Ritz Carlton in Seoul! It was definitely the best meal I've had in Korea, maybe ever! One of my Korean friends took me there for the buffet, which included (but was not limited to) Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Western food, along with salad, bread, cheese, and dessert bars. Ah, life is so difficult sometimes.... ;)

(Picture pilfered from Internet)

Noraebong

Literally translated means, "Singing Room." Sometimes called "Karaoke Rooms" by foreigners. There are loads of Noraebongs in this country; on every street corner it seems! You rent them out by the hour and sing karaoke with your friends into the wee hours of the morning. They are a splendid invention in my opinion...SO much fun! No one has to worry about sounding like crap in front of a whole bunch of strangers...instead you sound like crap only to your friends! Who, I might add, also sound terrible...by the end of the night, the "singing" is usually more like hollering.

Friday night saw me and some friends in one such room...right in my building! Very convenient. :D


The screen for karaoke is hilarious...the words to the songs are against the most random backdrops...cows grazing in a field, people driving down the road, or people being melodramatic and weepy as shown here:
I think Canada should jump on the karaoke band wagon! I know it sounds strange, but once you've tried it, you keep coming back for more!

The Scientist

Come up to meet you,
Tell you I'm sorry,
You don't know how lovely you are.

Nobody said it was easy,
It's such a shame for us to part.
Nobody said it was easy,
No one ever said it would be this hard.

From one of my favourite Coldplay songs. It's how I feel about life, and about relationships...beautiful (potentially at the very least), but often difficult. But despite frustrations, apparent futility, and death, I think we can find beauty in each other and in this world.

Time Well Spent?

I've been thinking lately that the current condition of my mind and body reflects what I spend my time doing on a daily basis. I think I forget that it's the activities in the little moments that matter...they accumulate to form the person I am right now.

Korean-style parking

Oh, I forgot!

There are so many vehicles in this country, often the parking lots simply can't accommodate them all. So, if you drive into a full parking lot, all you do is park perpendicular to a row of cars (blocking one or two of them) and leave your car in neutral. Then if the blocked-car owner comes by, he or she simply pushes your car out of the way. Ingenious really. I can't see this working back home though...I'm imagining kids pushing the neutralized vehicles into one another or into the garage walls. Works wonders here though. This country has a very low crime rate in general, and especially for vandalism and theft.

It can get a bit tricky when you have a row of neutral parked cars blocking your car though...you have to go to the front of the line and push them out of the way one by one.

Korean Driving Lesson

There are a few wee differences between driving in Korea and driving in Canada. Here are some examples:

In Canada everyone in the car must wear seatbelts.
In Korea, only those in front are required by law to wear seatbelts. It's not uncommon to see small children hanging out the back window, or people with babies on their laps in the back seat.

In Canada, red lights are short.
In Korea, you have time to make a few phone calls, do some sidewalk shopping, or read a Russian novel at a stoplight.

In Canada flashers are used in case of emergency and generally signify distress.
In Korea flashers are used to say, "Sorry," or "Thank you," when you cut someone off or cause other near-death experiences. Hazards are also used when you are about hold up traffic by parking legally, or to say, "I'll be back in a jiffy," when parking illegally and causing traffic jams. It is extremely common for the right lane of traffic to be out of commission due to double and triple-parked cars. Smaller streets are often reduced to one-way.

If you park illegally in Canada you get ticketed by a little ticket guy that walks around.
If you park illegally in Korea, a wee little Parking Ticket car comes along and blows a siren, giving you a chance to run out of the store and move your car, thus avoiding a ticket.

In Canada people use blinkers.
In Korea people do not.

In Canada truck deliveries are made in the rear of malls or stores.
In Korea delivery trucks stop in the right hand lane of traffic and put on their hazards while unloading goods.

In Canada restaurant delivery boys drive in cars or trucks.
In Korea delivery boys drive little scooters with boxes on the back (similar to milk crates), like so: Which leads me to more about those millions of Koreans zooming here and there that we call...

Scooter boys!

There are literally hundreds upon hundreds of scooter delivery boys in this country. They ignore all traffic "rules," concerned only with delivering their food on time. Flip flops are the shoe of choice, and hair is meant to be blowing in the wind! They weave in and out of traffic at breakneck speeds, run red lights within a millisecond of their lives, speed around pedestrians crossing the street, squeeze into lanes alongside cars already in the lane, and best of all, drive at speed down the sidewalk when forced to acknowledge a red light. Here is one weaving in and out of traffic, on the wrong side of the road! At least he's wearing a helmet. Sheesh. Incidentally, they do get hurt a lot.


In closing, here's a lovely little photo, a very common windshield view...subway construction. Always fun when 6 lanes of traffic are suddenly forced to merge into two!


Cheers everyone!

Fire Breather

The bartender across the street puts on a nice little show for people's birthdays around here.

First, he sets up this tower of a drink:
Then he does this nifty little acrobatic cocktail dance:
Then he fills his mouth with something, lights a match, and blows fire at everyone!
It's pretty impressive...I definitely felt the heat from that one!

Cow Water and Mutant Foreigners

I get the funniest comments from children in this country! Often their English is fairly good, and with some effort and sometimes an electronic dictionary, they can usually get their point across.

A friend's son was describing his dinner to me tonight, and after a few drawings and hemming and hawing, he came up with, "Cow water;" aka beef broth.

I have been told by children that I have hairy arms (many Koreans have no arm or facial hair), that I'm very tall, that I have gold hair, long eyelashes, a big nose (and asked if all Westerners' noses and eyes are as big?), and that I laugh like a witch (I can't imagine why they would think that...). ;P In fact, my nickname at the restaurant downstairs is, "Ha Ha."

The best, however, was when one little Einstein gave me a quizzical look, plugged away on his dictionary, and then asked me if my hair was a "genetic mutation."

Sushi

Me and my friend enjoying some sushi late last night. :D

Seorak Mountain, Day Two

On Day Two, we woke to yet another glorious morning. Warm and breezy, sunny and clear. How refreshing! Not to mention the fact that the air was clean and there was no noise pollution. Ahhhh.

After breakfast, we went on a walk. No hiking today, just walking along a riverbed trail. Along the way, we passed this temple. The lanterns are for, incidentally, the Festival of Lanterns, held on May 24, Buddha's Birthday. So pretty!

Me, and the 2 Maritime ladies I came with:
This fellow offers clean, fresh water to passersby (and likely also to the monks who live there). Thought he looked comical with the cup on his head all day:
A bit of the trail:
A wee waterfall:
The bigger waterfall that was our destination:


A wonderful weekend. If only I could live there! Well, if I was a monk, I guess I could...

Seorak Mountain, Day One

Oh my...I'm not sure I can describe just what an amazing weekend I had! For one thing, I have not spent enough time outside my city; it is, in my opinion, not one of Korea's best cities. Seoul is full of personality and life, but my city is dull and grey (landscape-wise...the people are lovely). Anyway, on the way to Seorak, we drove through oodles of countryside...it looked SO much like New Brunswick! Very similar to Fundy Park area...farms, hills, forests. I was surprised at how rural and lovely it was. Seorak park is stunning. I've tried to restrain myself from posting ALL my pictures...it was difficult! haha! I wish you could've seen it in real life...pictures never do mountains justice.

In any case, let us begin. Here is a glimpse of the mountain peak from the start of our hike:
Yes, the top is sheer rock-face. The hike up to that part was lovely and forested, and not too difficult. The hike UP the rock was stairs, stairs, and more stairs. Very narrow, metal, crowded, clangy stairs:

And now some views from the ascent and from the top:





The descent was SO steep. Here the stairs look like they just drop off into thin air:
And at the bottom, a giant, serene-looking Buddha:
Day Two coming soon. ;)