Hillier than you

One of the best parts of living here are the hills, close by and good for hiking. This past weekend we went up the closest one and walked along the crest of the hill for quite a ways, looking over one side into the country, and the other into the city. Koreans are all enthusiastic hikers and really go in for the proper gear, sticks, clothes, and shoes.

Student

I met a Korean student yesterday on my trip downtown. He was a friendly guy and I think he wanted to learn English so he struck up a conversation. Fortunately he was much less bizarre than some of that kind I have met, who seem far too forward about it, which makes me very suspicious, like that Burger King guy that we met on our trip to EXCO. Anyway, it was intersting to actually talk to a Korean for a while. He told me about his time in the army, which all korean men go into for 13 months to two years. I wonder if having a draft changes the nature of society.

Other than that, the weather has been far far crummier lately, warm, but overcast. Today though the weather is nice, and I may go out to the country again. See how the colours have progressed.

Ramblings

The weather is so beautiful these days that I have taken to walking in the countryside near here a lot. The small and windy road gradually becomes more and more isolated as it moves farther from the city. All along are the small farm plots of diverse farmers. Some appear more serious than others. I think that some of them are just hobbyists with high power jobs in the city who like the countryside.

Others, elderly and hunched must be doing what they do. Today I got to an isolated village where they were building a temple or something. The village was quite charming to my tourist eyes. They appeared to be bee keepers as a day job, and the bees were certainly busy. An old lady even said hello, or annyong haseyo, which was nice. In the city people usually don't say hello, except for little kids yelling "hello" to amuse their friends. It seems as though there was an air raid drill while I was in the country, as I could hear the whining siren echoing through the valleys. Then the airforce became very active and flew around busily for the rest of the evening, really the only disturbance out in the shielded countryside.

I have been working on my visa, Mr. Kim promises to send me to Japan either next week or the monday after. Yesterday I had lunch with Gene Kim, my recruiter and he told me that Wonderland changed names in order to attract more older kids. We had sushi, of all sorts of kinds. It was the first time I've really enjoyed sushi.

Spiders

Creepy looking spider eh?

Downtown

I finally got downtown to the main shopping district on Sunday. Corie bought some new pants, which she had worried would be difficult due to Korean women being usually on the slim side, but she found a really nice pair that she quite likes. The shopping is pretty high end compared to Ottawa or Halifax. The area around Migliore reminds me of Strøget. Sunday was beautiful, and its now noticably warmer than it would be in Canada at this time of year. Its about 20-25 degrees during the day and down to 12-15 at night. Tree colours are changing though, subtly.

I spoke to Mr. Kim today and he agreed to start processing my visa, and to pay me for my ticket from Canada, which is a huge bonus. Now I'm suddenly going to have tonnes of money.

Culture

We went to the Salvador Dali exhibit at Exco with Joy today. Its an impressive building on the northside of the city. The exhibit was surprisingly popular and interesting. Salvadore was an interesting guy. They put in all of his famous quotes, like "you cannot make anything without copying something" and other such profundities. The best one was,

"When he fell into the circle of mostly Marxist surrealists who denounced as enemies the monarchists on one hand and the anarchists on the other, Dalí explained to them that he personally was an anarcho-monarchist."

Last night we went out to see the last show of a rock group made up of foreigners here, some of whom are going home. The place pretty much only had foreigners, including a number of people from Ottawa, and many from Canada. I'm becoming more and more surprised by how many Canadians there are here. It seems basically 3 out of 4 are Canucks. Some Irish, soms scots, a few americans, a few kiwis, but all in all its us northmen dominating the scene. Later we went to dancing, which was thrilling as always. Everyone else seems to love it, so there yougo. Commune, the first bar, really is vastly over-rated...

Also we went to a western restaurant with Joy this evening. Chicken quesedillas all the way. Kind of feels like cheating, but sometimes you need a rest.

Apples and Oranges

We've been getting better at food collection. By now I know where the multitude of food stores are, and between them all are so many street vendors that you can barely keep track. We can find most things that we want, but not everything. Certain random vegetable are not available, replaced by strange creatures we don't know. Avocadoes, beans, peas, and anything frozen are unavailable.

Some things such as peppers are available, but are much much smaller than in Canada. Everything is very variable in price and you really have to shop around. Sometimes you can get unbelievable deals. We got about 4000 little cherry tomatoes, very tasty, the other day for a little more than a 1.50! They are so good that we eat them constantly now. Most veggies cost roughly the same as in Canada, except that you often have to buy them in much larger quantities. Chicken and pork are a bit cheaper, but beef is much more expensive. The main grocery stores have imported food sections with many western products, such as salsa, various spices, crackers, candy, etc... Also, the Daegu apples actually are quite good, they are now in season, and fairly tart. Different in texture from most I've seen in Canada, but quite good. The markets are also sufficiently exotic with all sorts of live fish floppign out of their pots whenever they can.

I'm still cruising around whenever possible, I went to the arboretum yesterday, agains confirming my need for reading korean. I took several very circuitous bus routes on my way home, and really would rather not have. I wish we lived nearer a subway stop. The subway is easy and cheap (c. 60 cents for a ride!)