Parking Ferris Wheel

Like most Asian cities, parking is at a premium in Seoul. So they've come up with many clever ways of reducing the amount of land required to park cars.

까치 (Gachi)

This is a magpie I saw at a temple in Busan. I don't think I've ever seen one in another country before, but these things are everywhere in Korea. Probably 90% of the birds I see here are black and white magpies. They look like a penguin-coloured crow.

Korean drummers

While wandering around Seoul, I came across this group of traditional drummers. They were pretty cool to watch. As you can see, the woman's outfit is very colourful, and if you look closely at the men, you can see a kind of long tassel hanging from the top of their hats. The drummers would take turns dancing, and would often spin their heads quickly so that the tassel would basically orbit them while they danced. It was pretty impressive.

Seoul Nightlife

A great place to meet a nice Korean girl.

Busan

I had a holiday on Friday, so I headed down to Busan for the long weekend. Busan's in the southeast corner of South Korea, and it's the country's second biggest city, with about 5 million people. It's on the ocean and has a huge port, so they can ship all their Hyundais and Kias to North America.
The city's main beach, Haeundae, was having a sand castle festival this weekend, so I decided to check it out while I was there. This one was probably the best that I saw. There was also one of The Little Prince, and a few others that I don't know what they were.

Korean Yoga

The city has a community centre right near my apartment so I've started taking a yoga class there. I go twice a week for about an hour and fifteen minutes a session. Yeah it's me and about 25 Korean housewives. I'm the only guy and the only foreigner in the class. And it turns out a 6'1", 190 lb. Canadian man is not quite as flexible as a 5'2", 90 lb. Korean woman. This often gives the ladies quite a laugh when I'm unable to bend my body into a pretzel.
The class is about 45 minutes of extreme discomfort and about 30 minutes of death. However, I feel really good once the class is over (probably because the pain has subsided).

Love for Women

Pizza's quite popular her in Korea, with several big Korean pizza chains located all across the country. Four or five of them are within a 3 minute walk of my apartment, so I finally cracked and went to one to check it out.
Mr. Pizza is probably the biggest of the chains, and it is marketed mainly at women, although I'm not sure why that is. In the top left corner of the box, you can see their slogan, "Love for Women," although I can't figure out what they're trying to say. Anyways, Mr. Pizza is the only one I could find an English website for, so I decided to try them first. I went to pick one up and it was about $17 for one large Mr. Pizza special. I waited about 15 minutes and then they finally brought my pizza out. I was really hungry, so I was looking forward to devouring it. Except it wasn't ready yet. Apparently they still had to wrap it with those pretty bows. I didn't know how to tell them that it wasn't necessary, and I don't think they get foreigners in that branch very often, so I didn't want to hurt their feelings.
The verdict: two thumbs up. I had very low expectations for the pizza in Korea, but I was very pleasantly surprised.

Superbank

Banks in Korea have a really bad reputation among the foreign population here. Basically, many services we take for granted back home become much more difficult if you are not Korean. Because of this I don't really want a Korean bank account, but I told my boss I would get one so that she didn't have to go get a big bundle of cash to pay me with every month.
I'd heard that Standard Chartered, which is a Hong Kong-based bank with a Korean subsidiary, was foreigner-friendly so I decided to try there. One of the main things I wanted was an ATM card that I could use to access my money not only in Korea, but also internationally. Most Korean banks, for some reason I can't fathom, will not give these cards to foreigners. That's right, they won't give us an ATM card so that we can withdraw OUR OWN MONEY while abroad. To me, logic suggests that we are more likely to need these cards than Koreans do, but anyways.
So I went downtown to Standard Chartered where the cute teller told me in pretty good English that they can't give international ATM cards to foreigners. However, as I mentioned, she was cute, so I spent about 45 minutes opening an account which I'll probably never use. Even though I showed her my passport, my alien registration card which shows I have a legal work visa for South Korea, and my Japanese VISA card, she could not issue me an ATM card because she couldn't get a hold of my boss to verify I had a job.
So I decided that if none of them were going to give me the ATM card I want, I may as well just get an account at the bank that is most convenient for me.
There's a Nonghyup bank about 1 minute from my apartment and they've got branches everywhere so I went to them.The teller there, who was not as cute, spoke zero English. However, I was still able to get an account and a (domestic) ATM card within 10 minutes. Superbank indeed. The picture is my new bankbook, and in the centre of the bottom, although a little blurry, says in English, "Human Bank, Human Life." Kind of leaves you all warm and fuzzy, doesn't it.