Taipei

Last month I took a little trip to Taipei. I had a 4 day weekend at work, so I wanted to take advantage of the little vacation time I have and go visit my friend John who lives there. He used to live in Busan and has now been in Taiwan for several months, learning Chinese at a University.

Anyway it was a 3 hour train to Seoul, 1 hour bus to the airport, and 2 1/2 hour flight, 1 hour time difference. Taiwan is more tropical than Korea. Everyday I was there it was in the high 70s to low 80s and partly cloudy. I went on a Saturday and came back Tuesday. Didn't have much time for sightseeing, unfortunately, so only a few pictures...

The green building is the 101, which is currently the world's tallest building at 508 meters. My only real sightseeing day was Monday, so I went to the tower. Unfortunately it was rainy the whole day, and visibility from the top of the tower was poor and I couldn't go to the top floor, so I just went through the first few floors. Floors 1-4 are filled with top end retailers of clothes, accessories, jewelry, etc; beautiful building.

Taipei reminded me a lot of Japan; similar grid layout of the streets, densely populated. I also found people to be more polite than in Korea. People would wait to give you right of way, in cars and on scooters and bicycles. In Korea, they just go first and don't always look, either expecting you to stop or the idea of "if I don't see you, then you're not there". Actually the driving in Korea is pretty bad; I might have mentioned about this before. Changing lanes with no signal, drifting between lanes at will. The mentality here is expect that everyone on the road is a bad driver and act accordingly.

The subway in Taipei was clean and quiet. Also less staring than in Korea, which was a nice change. It seems in some ways Japan's colonialism had more effect in Taiwan than in South Korea. I didn't get down to too many details with the locals in Taipei, but generally the older Koreans hate Japan because of the colonialist atrocities (comfort women etc) and Japan erased this period from their history books and will not apologize. One one website I read about that talks about hatred against GIs stationed in Seoul, sometimes admitting guilt about something here leads the the accuser to hurl more punishment at the accused; you were wrong and now I hit you more. Totally backwards from the western view.

Overall I found Taipei very nice and enjoyable; would love to visit again. I enquired about the English teaching there, but Korea still pays the best. Four days is only a honeymoon period though; not enough time to get a well-rounded impression.

Cherry Blossoms

Well obviously this post is a month overdue, but anyway here's some pics of the cherry blossoms in Busan near my home. They are lined up all along the main thoroughfare from the center of the city to my area, which is north of the center of Busan. Also running along the subway line, which travels part of its length above the streets, is a river/drainage system below street level. I sometimes go walking or jogging along this path. You can see in one of the pics there is some construction; it seems they are narrowing the river but I haven't found out why. One unfortunate part of the design is that it can smell bad on windless days, or after periods of no rain. Then when it does rain, the sewage all gets washed down. I got caught in a rainstorm once and ended up running through sewage being washed down :-(

Also I have a picture of my building. Its the tallest building around, but my view is from the fourth floor, in the dark brown part of the building. I've included a view from my window, what I get to see everyday. The blossoms are gone, replaced with full green trees. Unfortunately my windows will never be fully clean; the double window design prohibits the self-initiative to secure a clear view. Another post coming soon... I promise!

February

Hey, few new things happening around here. Had to give away the cats, they were eating up the wallpapers, and everytime I came home my apartment smelled like kitty litter. Posted a local ad and found who I hope will be a good new owner :-) Started going back to the gym again, after I take tabs on how big my belly has become. I'm over 200 pounds now; which may not seem like a lot, but I've generally been the skinny one in the family. Work is going well, apartment seems much better now without the cats. Been reading a few good books lately, mainly related to religion. Highly recommend "Under the Banner of Heaven" by John Krakauer and "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. Also read a book called "Ghengis Khan and the Making of the Modern World", forgot the author because my friend is borrowing it. Basically talks about the systems he implemented in his vast kingdom, and how some of his policies are still so effective today, even more effective in some cases.

I think I wanted to talk about a few more things but I forgot :-( Sorry no new pics at this time, not sure what to take pics of...

Holidays

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Birthday (to me)!! Its been a month since I posted last time, so a few things to catch up on... S Korea elected a new president on Dec 19th, and inaugurated him Jan 1st. Name is Ee Myung Park. I was talking to some of my students about him; one girl said that on election day, he was elected (by a vast majority), it was his birthday AND he had a wedding celebration?!?! Talk about an auspicious day...

You may wonder, what's Christmas like in Korea? Well for most people it was just another day off, me included. This year I was really missing home, but later after talking to a few other foreigners about it, they were feeling the same way, so I knew I wasn't alone. Basically its just a day off, with fewer businesses open. No snow here in Busan, and just starting to drop below freezing at night. Even though Christmas was on a Tuesday, I had the work the day before to 10:15, and the day after til 10:15!! Not much vacation there.

Fast forward next week for New Year's, also which Koreans don't really celebrate as much as Chinese New Year. We got the Mon and Tues off at work, but I had a few Saturday classes (overtime pay, not bad). A friend had a party at his house-like apartment, with many people showing up. It was kind of funny, most of the people there were white guys and their Korean girlfriends/wives! Sorry, no pics... The ball drop was rather tame considering, but not as bad as my first year here. I felt rather detached for most of the party because I arrived a bit late, but the rest of the night got better, had good times with friends.

Thursday is my birthday, but no holiday at work :-( Made some plans to get together at one of my friend's house on Saturday, cook up lots of food and some wine, should be a good time. And no more Saturdays!! By the way, the cats are getting big now, getting good at climbing everything too. The other day one of them managed to jump on top of my dresser, where I keep cologne and many other small things. Need to keep a close eye on them, they're outgrowing the apartment; or may need to give away one of them... They're a mood booster, but not when they get me angry with their playing ;-)

New Apartment

Okay, here's some pics of my new apartment. In November I moved to this new place, which is quite far from my old place. The first great thing about it is its almost twice as big as my previous place! I thought I should get some more furniture to fill out the walls, but after living in such small cramped spaces, its kinda nice just to have space with nothing there. So I leave it as it is.

My new school is paying for the place. Originally they had hired a guy who had a wife, so he requested a larger apartment. But after a few weeks he bolted, leaving the school without a teacher and an empty apartment. When I interviewed for the job, they showed me to the apartment. This guy was basically squatting there until something else came along, from what I could tell. The place was a mess, littered with hair all over the floor, smelling like stale smoke and lots of plastic bags and pizza boxes in the storage room. Its teachers like this that give foreigners a bad reputation sometimes, doing the midnight run and such. But there are also schools who get bad reps for not paying their schools as promised (I have a few comments about this later).

So I took the job and the apartment. Thankfully the director of the new school helped me move in his van, only took one trip. The large bed was already supplied, as well as the TV. So you can see all the stuff in my space. In the kitchen, that tall white cabinet is actually the refrigerator, made to blend into the decorum. Looks really good, but overall not enough space for my pots and pans. I have a convenient shoe closet next to the door, and my own washing machine (under the gas range, which is surprisingly common in Korean design). The bathroom is still the open design, but noticeably bigger than my last place, and more light. I don't get quite as much daylight though, due to the smaller windows and the length of this place. But its okay because this place is free :-)

Also, you can notice a few kittens in one of the pictures. In October, one of my friends went hiking and came across a small plastic bag with 4 kittens in it, not able to even feed themselves. Apparently someone just took them into the mountain and dropped them off to die! So he grabbed them, took them to his place and kept them fed and potty trained them. I agreed to take two (kinda wished I only had 1 now though, they go crazy and claw everything!) There's good and bad about owning them, but I suppose its good overall :-)

Long Time...

Hey all, its been a long time since I posted a blog here. I apologize for the absence for those who like to keep tabs on what I've been doing. This is just a short message to let you guys know that I'll put a bit of effort into updating this regularly. Unfortunately my day to day is rather ordinary now, I'm accustomed to the new country in which I live. Recently I moved and plan to stay another year. I'll take some pics soon. Thanks for checking in on me!

view from my window

Also I thought I'd post some pics of what I see every day from my big picture window. Its not glamorous but there are some nice points. Off to the left is a mountain, and you can see all the cherry blossom trees (they bloom for 2-3 weeks) and a church on the hill. Directly across the street from is a women's hospital, the clay and grey building. In the background are tall apartment buildings and a bunch of small houses and apartments shoved in between. The real highlight for me is looking at the blue sky everyday! Haha, seems silly, but after a year in an apartment which barely received indirect daylight, its a welcome change.

Also included a pic of one of the schools I work at, elementary school. This one looks a bit different; I was told it was built when Korea was a colony of Japan, during the period from 1905-1945 if my numbers are correct. Japan also brought over the cherry blossom trees, otherwise there wouldn't be so many here. Unfortunately the warcrimes they committed are not easily forgotten here by the older generation, so many Koreans hate Japan.

Cherry Blossoms

The weather here today is terribly rainy and windy, so I figured I start out the day with a post about the cherry blossom trees. For about 2 weeks they were in full bloom. I was fortunate enough last week to go for a hike and take some nice pictures of the trees, along with the surrounding area. I went hiking on a mountain I'd never been to before, and it felt like I wasn't even in Korea for a few hours. Something about it was different: perhaps the mountaintop covered with long grass,reminded me of wheat fields. And the wide trails is not a common hiking feature here.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the pics. I enjoyed taking them as well :-)