The most disturbing thing I saw today was hundreds of people waiting in line outside of the Children's Hospital. There seemed to be an entire micro-economy that had developed around the sidewalk waiting area: water & juice stands, street food vendors, etc. The irony was that the garbage strewn shoulder of the road was right next to the impeccably ( Read more... )

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Sara & Sveta doing their belt test


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Haesindang Park is also known as Penis Park and Gochu (Pepper) Park due to the phallic nature of most of the sculptures (see my previous entry for historical explanation). The setting is on a cliff overlooking the sea. My friends and I arrived right before dusk and I was lucky to get a lot of beautiful and a lot of amusing pictures. The subject ( Read more... )

"Once upon a time, in a coastal village there lived a beautiful girl who used to gather seaweed. In the distance there was a rock called Aebawi where plenty of seaweed grew. Once day, this young girl was taken out to the rock by a man in a boat. The man, who had a pact to marry her, promised to return to the rock to pick her up after she had ( Read more... )

On the weekend on October 20th I headed with friends southeast of Seoul to visit Samcheok city. We left early Saturday morning (a little too early for me, I almost missed the bus due to my tardiness) and the bus ride took us a little over 3 hours. It was great to get out into the countryside. Even though I have traveled outside of Seoul before ( ( Read more... )

There are two things with regards to social interaction that unnerve me here.

Situation 1

INT. SEOUL SUBWAY TRAIN -- ANYTIME

REBECCA sits in the subway car, listening to her iPod or reading a magazine, minding her own business.
Across the train sits ANONYMOUS KOREAN, a middle-aged Seoulite.

ANONYMOUS KOREAN stares at REBECCA.

REBECCA makes eye contact ( Read more... )

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