Blogs from Jung-gu, Daegu, South Korea, Asia

Date Wednesday 25th August 2010 City Daegu Climate Low 21c - high 24c Fine and sunny then a thunderstorm The day dawned a bit cooler with an overcast day today. We can always tell what the weathers doing without even getting out of bed due to the fact that we always have our Chinese laundry strung between the open curtains of our room! Today was orienteering, with Shaun “The Navman” DC trying his hand at it for the first time. He was going to go in the team event but his partner didn’t show, so he was going to have to get lost on his own! Good turnout for the event with approx 15 in the novice category. It wasn’t until the briefing that the organisers revealed that it was a ‘sprint’ race over a short ... read more

Today was a “free day” for us and so we decided to use our free pass to Woobang Land - a theme park in Daegu. We caught a cab there mid-morning and entered the almost empty park. The park has roller coasters, an animal petting farm and other typical attractions found at parks like these. Our first adventure was the water ride - very tame but still enjoyable acting like kids again. We also took a ride on the carousel, dallied with dodgems, rode the rollers and wandered through the Ghost House. Shaun tried to scare us but ended up frightening and making a young Korean girl cry! Poor thing - we gave her a small kiwi soft toy to say sorry”. The roller coasters were enjoyed, but some of the other rides were too tame ... read more

City Daegu Language Korean Currency Korean Won - 850 = NZ$1 Climate Low 26c - high 36c Fine and sunny When we woke we went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast and ran into Tomas from Germany. We also saw Shane and Kala from NZ along with Steve McSweeney, Joachim, Andrea and Alex from Germany, among others. Breakfast was a big spread of all sorts of foods including Korean fare as well - e.g. dumplings, fish, unusually shaped mushrooms and other unrecognisable items. After breakfast we met up with the group to head off to EXCO - the main registration and meeting point for the Firefighter Games. We got there by local bus - about half an hour away for 1100W approx NZ$1.50. After registration we went through the Fire and Rescue Expo where many ... read more

Hello world, I am back again. Instead of summarizing my life, I figured it's about time to tackle some Korean stereotypes. Hope this clears things up for you, or reaffirms what you know, or maybe even makes you chuckle. 1.) Height Yes, Korea is an Asian country. Yes, Asian people are notorious for being of short stature. HOWEVER things are a changin'. Korea is known for having the highest average height in all of Asia (at 1.739 m across 19-year-olds in 2006). For those of you who don't understand that, in the United States, the average height for 20-29 year old is 1.776 m (5 ft 10 in). What this means pretty much is that I am frequently dwarved by the my Korean peers, and that a shit-ton of Korean guys make my friend Andy (6'6") ... read more

Okay. Now that all my blathering about classes is out of the way (sort of), I can tell you all about the wonders of KCulture which I've experienced here. I suppose I should start with coffee. If any of you at home had hope coming to Korea would stop me from drinking coffee and coffee beverages-- THINK AGAIN. Coffee shops are MADD prevalent around here. And not only that, but many of them are cheaper and more freshly made than at home. Stop right there. Are you thinking, "Woah, woah, woah! Did this girl seriously just diss her old M-town Starbucks hang-out where she spent upwards of 5 hours a day in the month before leaving for Korea?" The answer: not quite. But what I am trying to say is that coffee is effing everywhere. You ... read more