We are Cool guy!

Here's the cover of another English diary. And below is another diary entry that cracked me up (from a different diary, unedited, the subject was "Summer"):

And summer's foods are nice too.
Chicken soup, dog soup and ice cream..!!
Many Koreans eat a dog soup.
but I can't eat a dog soup.
Because I think those dogs is so poor...

On a completely unrelated note, I was in a department store yesterday and went into the bathroom. As soon as I walked in I could smell cigarette smoke. Most bathrooms have No Smoking signs, but for some bizarre reason Korean men love sitting on toilets in foul-smelling bathrooms and smoking (although to be fair to Korean men, Japanese men do it frequently also).
With public bathrooms, my goal is to get in and get out as quickly as possible, but I guess we're all different. Anyways, as I was using a urinal, one of the stall doors opened behind me and a boy of about 13 or 14 came out. He looked way too young to be smoking, but then another boy came out of the same stall, then another and another. There were four of them crammed into that stall (I have no idea how they fit). I guess it's one place where they can try smoking without anyone seeing them. I wanted to smack them in the head to smarten them up, but I figured a foreigner assaulting a bunch of Korean kids probably wouldn't be viewed too well by the cops.

Construction

Some workers came in yesterday and tore down the garden in the lot beside my apartment. Then an excavator came in this morning and started scraping the earth. After it finished, these people (I don't know any of them, but I assume the owners and their friends) came and prepared some kind of feast.
You can see on the white table a pig's head and what looks like some kind of fish. I assume they are part of some Korean tradition meant to be lucky, but to me it just makes me think of Lord of the Flies. If anarchy breaks out, I'll let you know.
I went out a little later in the day to get some groceries, and only a few of the workers were remaining when I got back. One of the guys kept trying to give me some of their leftover food that had been sitting out in 30 degree heat for a few hours (mmmmm, food poisoning from tainted pig's head). I declined, and he seemed puzzled why I wouldn't want it.

Geomundo Lighthouse

I had a few hours before catching the ferry back to the mainland so I decided to go for a hike to the Lighthouse on the south coast of the island. It was nice because I had the whole trail to myself.
The lighthouse was actually a pretty big complex. There was housing for probably 15 to 20 people. They can't need that many people just to have a light go around in a circle, so I assume they've got some kind of research station there.
On the trail I saw the biggest spider I've ever seen, on a web that I almost walked into. Its body was huge, almost as big as a tarantula, however none of the pictures turned out.

Geomundo

I just had my 3 day summer vacation, which combined with the weekend gave me a 5 day break. I decided to head down to Yeosu, on the south coast, and took a ferry from there to Geomun Island. The ferry was supposed to be around 2 hours, but we made about 4 stops on other islands, so it ended up taking about 3 hours and 40 minutes. I was somewhat concerned about getting seasick, as I spent a 1 hour trip to Koh Tao in Thailand in January puking my guts out, but I felt fine most of the time. I saw many of the South Koreans were wearing a patch that looked like a bandaid behind their ears. I don't know if they're effective or just a scam, but I'm going to look into them anyways for my next trip.
The first picture is of the main harbour area, taken from across the bridge. The town is quite small, and I think there's probably no more than 1,000 people living on the island, so most of the people work in either fishing or tourism.
As I arrived at the island around 5:30 in the afternoon and didn't have a reservation, my first job was to find a hotel. My Korean is still really low, and English is not used very often (I was the only foreigner on the island at that time), so there was a bit of a communication barrier, but I ended up finding a hotel for $40 for the night. I wanted the room for 2 nights, but he told me in English, "Tomorrow, bye bye," and with a bit more awkward communication I discovered that I could only stay for 1 night, as he was fully booked for the next night. Below is a picture of the room, including the bedding, and yeah, it was as comfortable as it looks. I spent the night having to shift positions every 10 minutes to ease the pain.