Island Hopping

Currently staying at a motel in Tongyong, on the southern coast of Korea. It is surprisingly modern, considering its status as a major industrial port, and has a vast over-abundance of fancy coffee shops.

I'm currently enjoying Korea for a few minor quirks. For example, the generosity of the people. I'd completely forgotten what it was like for random strangers to offer me things completely for free. The other day at the museum, which was free incidentally, the girl manning the counter gave us a coin, completely unsolicited, to use in the baggage locker. And staying in the motel here, nothing is nailed down in the way that they are even in relatively fancy hotels in Canada. Are Koreans just more honest, or have people just not figured out how to take advantage of the system? I cannot imagine an employee of a museum freely offering a coin to patrons in the west. Its refreshing.

On the other hand, I'm reminded of what I don't like: old Korean men. They're mostly loud, obnoxious, and imbeciles. I'll be curious to see if the current generation is so rude and obtrusive in their old age. The current crowd can sort of be excused because of the crushing poverty and wars they've lived through.

Now we shall attempt to visit an isolated island ... Saemuldo Island.... Good night.

Onwards and Upwards

Somehow I'm moving again, and I can't quite decide how to feel about it. I have the usual mixture of excitement and anxiety about what awaits me in Brussels. I'm really not sure what to expect there. This will be the first time in my life that I will be living in a primarily "foreign" environment, that is to say without a lot of Canadians in my social circle. Unless I fall in with the embassy community I suppose. In Korea practically everyone was Canadian, and last time I had all the study tour people. But this time, its basically just me and N. We'll see how that goes. And Vancouver/BC continues to grow on me. I really like this area of the city... and I feel at home. It makes me wonder about what the point of traveling around constantly is. Its exciting, and interesting.... but at some point I will have to live somewhere. I guess I'm still young, and I don't have to worry about it too much, and I've always been pretty good at playing it by ear, and so far its treated me well, so I shouldn't stress about it.

TIme Lapse

Scramble from Sam Javanrouh on Vimeo.


Also Kind of Cool. Watch it in HD on the site.

Fred Herzog

I like Fred Herzog, and I never posted it here before. He took a lot of Vancouver pics, mostly in the 50s and 60s. They're awesome pix of the people and places of Vancouver. I like that they seem like they could have been taken yesterday, and their vitality.

politcal stuff

I'm not dogmatically against religion, and I think that Hitchens is a bit too much so, but I think he lays it out pretty well in this video..



and this is a breathtaking interview with an architect of the Iraq War from 2002.

somehow I missed this one back in 94, but I think its pretty amazing.

fun

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.


Ha ha.