I've been here 2 weeks now, and I've noticed a lot of these things around. Usually during the night they are deflated, and then they plug them in in the morning and they fill with air. However, this particular one seems to be inflated all the time. I don't know if it's for a massage parlour or just a regular bar, or what the place is, but I'm sure it's a very classy place, and it's only 30 seconds from my front door.
On an unrelated side note, I was hit by my first Korean car the other day. I go for a jog every morning and I was running across a well-marked crosswalk at the junction of a side street and a main one. Apparently the idiot coming out of the side street either didn't bother to look or just decided that the rules of the road didn't apply to him. Fortunately he decided it would be a good idea to stop rather than have me go completely over his car, and so he only hit me hard enough to go half-way onto his hood. I was able to get my hand down onto the hood to stop my fall, and I cut it on the hood ornament. He then stopped and I continued running to get out from in front of the car. I was furious so I then turned to face the car, and started screaming profanities at him in English. I'm sure he didn't understand the words, but I'll bet he could figure out the tone. The driver, a middle-aged geek with glasses, then got out of the car wearing a stupid smile. I think he was scared and was trying to placate me. I then realized that I had no real injuries and that there was no way we could communicate, so I turned and started my run again.
After having watched how Koreans drive for the last couple of weeks, I'm quite certain that I'll be hit again. Stay tuned.
I just finished my first week of work in South Korea, so after we finished work on Friday night, my director and the other teachers took me out for a dinner to a sit-on-the-floor Korean barbecue type of restaurant. As you can see in the picture, in Korea they like to have a lot of side dishes. This was the first round of several for the four of us at our table (there were 8 of us in total). I made it clear from the time of my arrival in Korea that I don't eat seafood, so we had beef and they kept bringing it. Most of the side dishes were vegetables of one kind or another. Some of the food was not my favourite, but most of it was excellent.
As for my first week of work, it went quite well. I'm still trying to get my head around it all, but I had a pretty good time. My director and the other teachers are great, although I'm the only guy working at the school, so we'll see how that goes.
Most of the kids are pretty good, also. Some of them are a handful, but I'll figure out how to handle those ones soon enough.
The school has all of the kids choose an English name when they start, so fortunately I don't have to learn a ton of Korean names that I can't pronounce. However, this means that some of the kids have rather "interesting" English names. I've got a little girl named Cutie, a boy named Lucifer, and a BOY named Iris. I thought the kids were just joking when I called the name Iris and they pointed to him. But they weren't. It took everything I had not to laugh. I pointed it out to the director and the other teachers that Iris was a girl's name, but apparently he had chosen the name at a previous school. I hope for his sake he never travels abroad using that name.
I came across this ad and thought it was pretty cool. The resolution isn't very good through this blog, but I love the music.
I came across this temple in the park in Hanoi where Ho Chi Minh (a very popular former ruler of Vietnam) was buried.
I spent some time in Varanasi, in northern India, and took this shot down along the Ganges River, the holiest river in India. I think Hindus from all over India come to Varanasi to be cremated when they die, and then have their ashes released into the river.
I spent a day at Angkor Wat (that temple complex you see in lots of movies with trees growing out of the ruins) in Cambodia. I rented a bicycle in town and rode out to the ruins and then rode amongst them all day. It's a huge complex, and in the most famous temple I took this picture of a monk looking out into the sunlight.
I spent New year's Eve in Saigon, the main city in southern Vietnam. It was actually a pretty cool city, and I wandered all over it on foot.
This is a picture of incense coils hanging at a really colourful temple I can't remember the name of.
I haven't posted anything for a really long time, so I'm going to start posting random pics from my recent 4 month trip to China, Southeast Asia and India.
Having lived in Asia for the last 3 years, I've seen more than my share of badly butchered English, but this sign I saw in southern China takes first place. It was at a construction site and from looking at the Chinese characters, I believe it means, "Don't be in the construction site."
