Summer's Here!

Hi Everyone!

Sorry I've been so lax about posting lately. Not sure I can promise it will get better, what with summer trips coming up, but I'll try!

It's hot here. For example, it's 11am here on a Monday and my apartment is 27 degrees. I've had fans and the air conditioning going on and off all night. Ug! Walk down the street and be covered in sweat. But it's not too unbearable yet. Yesterday my friend and I went for a little walk around my neighbourhood and I took some pictures just for you! Aren't you lucky. My impressions of Korea keep improving the longer I stay. When I first arrived, it was cold and everything was grey and brown. No green, no life. Then spring arrived and all of a sudden there are mini tropical areas all over town! The Koreans also love to grow rose vines on walls and fences. It's quite beautiful.

So here we go. Not far from my house there is a mini river. Here's the stream itself. There are constantly people fishing out of it, which grosses me out...
...because here's the stream scum itself. Yummy!
Along the river there is a little walking trail. You walk on that cushy stuff that race tracks are made of. Great idea. And at one point someone planted these beautiful little gardens of flowers.
On each side of the stream is a mini road (one-way). I take this road frequently for a short-cut:
The above picture doesn't quite do it justice...the road is SO tiny. Whenever I'm driving and someone is walking, I feel like I'm going to push them down the bank and into the water! Also along these roads are shacks that people live in to tend their gardens. Every available space in the cities are used for something...high rises, small windy roads filled with villas and the occasional house, garbage and junk piles, gardens, swamped rice fields, you name it. Here's 2 roosters and a dog beside one of the houses you see in the above picture:
And here are some of the ubiquitous swamped rice fields, complete with ramshackle hut. You can see the highway running along above it:



So there, maybe you now have a better idea of what I look at every day. Take a five minute walk in any direction and you'll see something completely different. Quite interesting, and quite different from Canada.