The military presence is HUGE in South Korea, especially up toward the North Korean border. I'm far enough south however that I don't see them that often. There's a very small base about a 20 minute walk from my place, but they usually stay there and train in the mountains.
There's a tiny park across the street from our school, and the kids usually play there before and after class (sometimes even during, so I have to go over there and corral the little buggers).
Yesterday, for some reason I can't fathom, the army was holding some kind of military exercise in this tiny park, at the same time as the kids were playing there. I assume that they don't carry live ammunition, but it was still pretty strange to have these little kids running around all these automatic weapons.
In the second picture you can see part of a little bunker they've made out of green sand bags.
I wanted to get closer to take some better pictures, but as South Koreans can be quite xenophobic and paranoid about foreigners, I didn't want them mistaking me for a spy.
While I was taking pictures, some of my students got jealous and insisted I take pictures of them. This first one is Gilbert, one of my more "energetic" boys.
In this picture you can see Gilbert with his sister Amy in the white, and some of the other girls.
I was up in Seoul for the weekend, and I'd heard that White Spot had recently opened their first Korean location. I haven't had a good burger for a long time, so I made it my mission to find it.
It was buried in behind another building, and it wasn't cheap (about $10 for a burger platter, on the high side for Korea) but man was it nice sinking my teeth into a nice BC Burger (bacon and cheddar).
While I was in Singapore I decided to make a day trip to Pulau Ubin (Ubin Island), which lies off the northeast coast of Singapore's main island. After a half hour subway ride, and then another half hour on a bus, you end up at the little "ferry terminal", which is basically just a couple of docks with some small boats called bumboats (I don't know why they call them that).
After waiting about half an hour for enough customers to fill the boat, we made the trip across in a torrential downpour. Although this wasn't a good sign, when we got across I went and found a place where I could rent a bike for the day for about $5.
Because it was raining so hard, the guy who owned the bike shop let me borrow this pretty pink poncho. Fortunately the rain stopped within an hour, so I was able to regain some of my dignity.
Before going to the island, I'd read that there were some hornbills on the island called Oriental Pied Hornbills, though I never expected to see any. However, after biking for about an hour, I came across a whole group of them just hanging out feeding. There must have been about 15 to 20 of them in the flock. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't cooperating, so the shots didn't turn out very well.
Here's a little butterfly I came across. I also saw (and heard) some wild pigs which I've never come across before, but I only managed to get off one shot, and it didn't turn out.
This mosque is located (not surprisingly) in the Muslim area of Singapore, which was only a 10 minute walk from my hostel. Apparently it was designed by an Irishman (seriously).
About 75% of Singaporeans are of Chinese descent, which explains why the unofficial national food was also created by Chinese immigrants. I'd heard that you haven't really been to Singapore unless you've tried Hainanese Chicken Rice, so I decided to track it down. One of the well-recommended places is Tian Tian, which is in a little food court type place near Chinatown. I know that Tian means "heaven", so I'm assuming that Tian Tian means really good stuff.
All the little stalls in the food court specialize in one dish, and the place is popular all day long. I was there on a Wednesday at about 3 in the afternoon, and I still had to wait about 20 minutes.
I got a large portion, and it worked out to just under 3 bucks Canadian. It actually looks pretty bland - just some chicken on top of some white rice - but it was surprisingly good. They marinate the rice in chicken broth, and only use really fresh chicken, although I didn't see any getting slaughtered.
I got some aloe vera drink to go along with it, and that was also really tasty.
It snowed last week so I went up onto the roof to take a few pictures and I got this one of some kid going to school.
I've been told by several Koreans that Canada is "big" (true) and "cold" (partially true). But I'm pretty sure it hasn't snowed in Vancouver yet this year.
The military presence is HUGE in South Korea, especially up toward the North Korean border. I'm far enough south however that I don't see them that often. There's a very small base about a 20 minute walk from my place, but they usually stay there and train in the mountains.
There's a tiny park across the street from our school, and the kids usually play there before and after class (sometimes even during, so I have to go over there and corral the little buggers).
While I was taking pictures, some of my students got jealous and insisted I take pictures of them. This first one is Gilbert, one of my more "energetic" boys.
In this picture you can see Gilbert with his sister Amy in the white, and some of the other girls.
