Blogs from Busan, South Korea, Asia - page 34

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Asia » South Korea » Busan August 6th 2005

Power Outage So I finally broke down and turned on the A/C (which the Koreans call "AirCon") on Thursday. It has been brutally hot and humid the past few days. Like my father before me, I am of the opinion that air conditioning should only be used in the extremest of conditions. Anyone in Seattle, for instance, who has air conditioning in their house, will not get it. We can all live together in this world in peace, but only if everyone agrees that I am right about air conditioning. Anyway, I am further convinced of the evil of AC by what happened. I left for work on Thursday with the air conditioner running (maybe I've become soft, but it's not comfortable to wake up drenched in sweat when the fan is on high and all ... read more
Portrait
Not the Death Star
Also Not the Death Star

Asia » South Korea » Busan July 30th 2005

Finally got pictures up in this piece - I've taken 99 pictures in three days. I will spare you most of the horrible arty shots. I am the walrus... In the past couple of days, I have spent a lot of time walking and taking photos. I have gone from here to there and back again. My feet have grown hair on the tops, hobbit-like, and I have started to crave Lambas bread. And my new camera has become "my precious." She's an Olympus C-55 Zoom. She's a tough mistress, but fair. There are more functions than I will ever possibly need, but I've tried to use as many of them as I can in the past few days. For 500 bucks, I got a 5-megapixel, 5x zoom, point-and-shoot style camera with full manual operation, shutter ... read more
Meet Mary and Matilda...
Oh, yeah.
Juxtaposition

Asia » South Korea » Busan July 26th 2005

In reply to the comments on the previous posting, no, I'm not "ronrey," as far as I know; I've never seen Team America, though I've heard it was hilarious. Something about puppet porn...Anyway, "Anonymous," if that is your real name, thanks for the out-of-context missive. Nothing beats candor, even from someone I'm not sure I know. "Cooler than you'll ever be?" I don't know. I sort of doubt it. As long as I've inspired you to rejoice in the pleasures of breaking shit, my work is done. And dad, thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed the board-breaking section. I agree, blowing shit up is one of the only things that beats breaking shit where funness is concerned. One 4th of July some friends and I tried to blow up a 5-gallon bucket of sour cream. Don't ask ... read more

Asia » South Korea » Busan July 15th 2005

The THX train is Korea's poor rival to Japan's Shinkansen (bullet trains). Nonetheless I took it from Seoul to Busan for kicks, since it's also much cheaper than the Shinkansen. I sat next to a fellow Asian backpacker (origins unknown, but probably native Korean), but he slept the whole time so we did not speak. At this point I was weary of sightseeing and foreign cultures (for someone who loves traveling, I get culture shock and homesickness quite easily), so I skipped downtown Busan and the largely dismantled fortress (I am sure the Koreans can find a way to blame this on the Japanese as well) and headed straight to Haeundae, Busan's tourist beach/foreigner enclave. Right away I liked Busan for the traditional food market. Busan is known for its raw fish (Koreans claim sushi and ... read more

Asia » South Korea » Busan May 29th 2005

Delivery Order Gone Awry Today, armed with a basic knowledge of hanegul and a few rote phrases I attempted to order some food from a local takeout place. I went over the phrases, given to me by my associate and friend Eric, I translated my address into phonetics, and finally, after saying a little prayer, I made the call. This is where I went wrong. The guy started out speaking rapidly, which was not a good sign. I’m not sure what he said as a greeting, but thinking clearly out of the heat of the moment, it was probably something like, “Hello, , take out or delivery?” I immediately took this as an insult. How dare he greet me in such a manner? “An-nyoeng ha se yo,” I said, once I realized he wanted a response. ... read more

Asia » South Korea » Busan May 28th 2005

5/28/05: The Longest Day Aeolus Lives in My Stomach (Read Your Homer To Find Out the Meaning) How many winds does one man have? Shit, I don’t know. I’ve got at least four in me, and I know this because I am on my fourth or fifth wind right now. I’m totally wiped - squeegeed, in fact - but it’s the good kind of tired, the kind of tired that only comes from a day full of work. Mania versus Fascism versus Fashion It started with an unplanned hike around the central area of Pusan: I really didn’t know what I was getting into when I decided it would be a good idea for me to, instead of taking a meditative stroll, blaze a trail through the wilds untamed of Shin Choen (the area of town ... read more

Asia » South Korea » Busan May 26th 2005

Busan: The city is waking up and going to sleep at about 6 am. The bleary-eyed, red-faced guy who asked me for a cigarette, then another one, assures me that this is the case. He looked like a man in the throes of the Thursday morning coming down, so I obliged and gave him two of my precious American Spirit Ultra-Lights, which one cannot only not get here, but which are perhaps the only ultra-light cigarettes in the entire city. I don’t know; I couldn’t even figure out how to get the store clerk to tell how to say “lighter” in Korean, as in “Those fascists from the airport don’t allow lighters on the plane, but they allow matches. And rum.” Rum is perhaps more dangerous than any butane lighter, at least in the hands of ... read more

Asia » South Korea » Busan May 12th 2005

hmmm....yes, i am here in the home country, finally out of seoul for the first time! i just came down to busan for a couple of days to have a look-see what the southern part of korea looks like. despite my inability to understand the korean down here- it's the southern twang!- it's been fun to explore a bit and challenge my brain a bit with figuring out what these people are saying to me :) this morning i went up mt. bae, which was a former fortress site before the shilla dynasty, turned into an outdoor gym! probably because these people eat a lot! i've never seen food consumed in such large quantities by a vast majority of the population as here. and much of it is very red- spicy and pickled. there is food ... read more
dragon helping celebrate buddah's birthday
after dinner with our lovely red polka-dotted aprons donned
lotus lanturn parade

Asia » South Korea » Busan December 6th 2004

Jeremy: We arrived back in Busan from Singapore around 8 AM and didn’t do much because of sheer exhaustion. One of our fellow teachers had been kind enough to offer up her apartment for us and she planned on staying with another teacher. We found out that she altered her plan and had decided to stay in our old apartment even though there was no electricity. She moved some of her bags down to our old place and went to work. Late that night, she frantically knocked on the door. She was semi-panicked and said the code to our old apartment had been changed. Jen and I went down to try it and sure enough, in the space of a few hours, someone had changed the code. It seemed as if our old nemesis, Herr Director, ... read more

Asia » South Korea » Busan November 19th 2004

Leaving Korea Part 2 Jeremy: Immediately after we put in our 30 days notice, we headed for the old Silla capital of Gyeongju. (Jen: Getting there was in itself quite an adventure. We had called the English tourist line to find out the best way to get there. We were told we could take the express bus to Nopo-dong where we would catch the next bus to the capital. This would save us about 40 minutes time and we were in need of all the extra time we could get. We stood waiting in front of the line for the 2002 bus. Everyone around us was hopping on buses, but the one we needed didn’t seem to come. We spent over an hour waiting for it and it was supposed to run every 20 minutes. Finally ... read more




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