The boy who cried spring

"We won't see any more snow this winter" -Tom, Yongpyeong ski resort, 12:15pm, Saturday

It then proceeded to snow on and off for much of Saturday evening and Sunday morning. To be fair, the previous day it had been about 10 degrees in Bundang, so I wasn't entirely talking out of my arse.

However, sometimes you're not just wrong, but spectacularly so. This was the scene I found when I emerged from the office on Monday evening.

My bicycle was an icicle.

A floodlit stream near Yatap.

My apartment building. Very arty pic.

Today, the snow's mostly gone again, but one should never count one's chickens 'til they've defrosted, or something like that.

The family that plays together, stays together

David and Kath taking their dogs for a walk, Nintendo style.

Oh (Danny) Boy!

An mhaith! An mhaith!

Lovely to see you

A picture says a thousand words... or sometimes just one.

Yes? ..No!

The Korean obsession with all things coupley knows no bounds.I've previously expressed my disdain for kitsch couple T shirts, but that merely scratches the surface.

The sign above is for Yes, a chain store specializing in matching couple underwear, which you'll hopefully agree is several steps  past "too far" and rapidly approaching the point where you can smell a strong whiff of bunny-boiling in the air. I don't know the origins of this but I'm inclined to blame the Beckhams'. I'm not sure what's scarier- the couple underwear or the notion that someone, somewhere would actually have a discussion like the one above with their significant other.

I've actually been meaning to take this photo for awhile now, but didn't want to be seen photographing a lingerie store in Bundang's busiest shopping district so I had to wait 'til Ruth was along to provide cover and social acceptability for the shot. Remember, 2 people = cute tourist couple. 1 lone white guy  = a guest spot on the next KBS shock-umentary on evil depraved foreigners here to take our money/deflower our women/corrupt out social fabric.

Saturday Seoul stroll

 

 

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If you're gonna build a branch of your local generic-brand beauty shop, why not stick it right next to the one you're blatantly ripping off modeling it on.

Dressed to Kill - Eddie Izzard reigns supreme, even in Myeongdong.

 

 

The charred remains of Sungnyemun (Namdaemun) gate, now mostly surrounded by a protective hoarding as workers begin the long and intricate process of restoration. There was quite the crowd of onlookers gathered round to mourn the loss of one of Seoul's great treasures.

Speaking of fire, just how many of these bears do you reckon are less flammable than a truckload of Chinese cigarette lighters?

 

 

Finally, here's a pic of the newly finished Post office tower, which has been built to resemble either a massive V or the world's biggest zipper. Very, very cool.

Killer Queen

The Queen musical We Will Rock You is currently showing at the Seongnam arts center, so Ruth and I went along on Saturday night to see it.

I'll admit that it could have been disastrous - musicals for me fall into two distinct categories- brilliant, and absolute tosh. Thankfully, We Will Rock You  fell under the former of the two. It  never took itself too seriously - kind of a Rocky Horror with less raunch- and used every opportunity to poke fun. The cast managed to throw in a few localized jokes, a nice touch considering that some of the English word plays probably went over the heads of the Korean audience, even with subtitles. Unsurprising really- I scratch my head to think how they could have translated "Shagalayo magnifico" (as the lead character Figaro is referred to in one scene).

The music itself.. well, it was Queen - nuff said! There was a live band providing the rock, riffs and rhythms, and the crowd even got in on the hand-clapping and arm-waving during We are the Champions and We Will Rock You.

Due south

I found this documentary on Due South while looking around Youtube:

The adventures of the mild-mannered, terminally polite  Mountie, Benton  Fraser ("Thank you kindly!"); wise-cracking Chicago cop Ray Vecchio; and Fraser's deaf, lip-reading wolf, Diefenbaker, were a firm favorite in our household and I spent many happy Saturday evenings watching this show with my da.

 

This is a very memorable song from one of my favorite episodes, itself an implausible mix of Leslie Nielsen, Canadian nuclear terrorists and a carriage full of country-singing Mounties.

 

"I first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father, and for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture I've remained, attached as liaison with the Canadian Consulate." - Fraser

"He's so polite."
"He's Canadian."
"Oh, I thought he was sick." -- Mrs. Vecchio and Ray

 

You let a wolf save your life, and then you pay and pay and pay and pay. -- Fraser.

Fire and ice

One of our students got a telling-off on Tuesday for setting fire to  some sheets of paper with a pistol-shaped cigarette lighter he'd apparently won from the grabber game outside the nearby kwik-e-mart. [Incidentally, what kind of mental defective goes and puts novelty cigarette lighters in the same machine as kids toys and teddy bears?]

Then yesterday, I walked into the classroom to discover that one of MY kids had set off the fire extinguisher, leaving a blanket of powder all over the floor. I was, of course, a wee bit pissed off, but the first random thought that sprung to mind was  "Now, if only the  little buggers could have misbehaved at the same time..."

My Bloody Valentine

I watched "There Will be Blood" last night. Some cheeky sod had snipped out a few minutes here and there,(I think about 10 minutes in total) but it was intact enough for evaluation purposes.

Daniel Day Lewis is, as ever, brilliant. His characters are just so damn believable and, in this case, eerily psychotic.

______________________

Time magazine ran the obligatory Valentine's article yesterday. It was pretty standard fare, but the the closing argument stood out from the dross:

There's nothing wrong, of course, with delighting in love and honoring friendship and stopping in the bleak midwinter to tickle the people we love. But it's also a good sign of psychosocial health if the day just saunters by and winks, and you feel no need to pay attention. The minute it feels like a duty, it has lost its purpose. "Love sought is good," Shakespeare observed, "but given unsought is better."

The Firestarter

In San Antonio, Texas, there's an armed Texas Ranger on duty 24/7 outside the Alamo, and that's just because Ozzie Osborne once tried to use the front gate as a urinal. So why is the Korean government seemingly unable to offer a similar, or indeed any,  level of protection to its most prized national monuments.  There are certainly enough poor conscript cops on riot duty on an average Saturday. Surely it wouldn't take a great deal of effort to stick one of the bespectacled bobbies near some of the more pyro-friendly artifacts and structures around Seoul.

Sunday night's arson attack on Sungnyemun (Namdaemun) gate is just the latest in a long line of incidents involving disgruntled old ajosshis with a grudge against society and/or serious mental problems.

it emerged today that the self-confessed suspect has a previous arson conviction, having received a suspended sentence for trying to torch a building at Changgyeonggung Palace in 2006. Apparently the vendetta stems from a land deal in which he believed he was unfairly compensated by the government.

See here for the full story: Suspected Namdaemun Arsonist Held

Maybe they can let the guy off again and see what he burns down next time. Might the Blue House look nicer in a charcoal shade?

A rose by any other name..

The Daily Show interviewed 'blissologist' Eric Weiner (I'm not even going to bother with  a joke for that) a few weeks back to discuss his new book on the happiest and most miserable places on the planet.

During the interview, he used the term "bracketed indulgence" to refer to the Icelandic practice of working solidly all week and then getting rat-arsed drunk on the weekend.  The phrase kinda stuck in my head. It has a much nicer ring to it than "binge drinking", don't you think?

For anyone interested in the book, here's a link to his website:

The Geography of Bliss

JT in da house

Definitely one of this year's best Super Bowl TV ads. I laughed my ass off... and also winced a little after the mailbox bit. 

An Armalite in one hand and an English textbook in the other

Leather gloves  and a balaclava:
In Korea - a nice way to keep warm during snowstorms.
At home - "Possession of paramilitary paraphernalia" and a free trip to Castlereagh Holding Centre .

 

I've actually lost my balaclava since taking this picture, a fact which I'm raging about. That thing cost me W2,000 (an entire quid!) and was great for biking to work on the snowy mornings we had in January.

 

(photo: Jan 11, 2008)

Galaxy quest

LA Galaxy are coming to Seoul for a match-up with FC Seoul on March 1st, hopefully bringing Dear David along with them.

The look lock of love?

 

I saw this at Namsan Tower; hundreds of pairs of initialed padlocks secured to the chain-link fence by Korean couples professing their undying love.  some were regular, others were custom purchased heart-shaped ones; I even saw a pair of bicycle locks with pictures of the happy couple. The cynic in me wonders if they keep the keys or chuck them over the side, or if there's a locksmith on call with bolt-cutters for emergency break-ups.

“It is impossible to walk rapidly and be unhappy.” - Mother Theresa of Calcutta

 

Street murals like this one are yet another reason why I like strolling around Hongdae. I took this pic on the evening of Kat Moore's wig party.

Jan 12th, 2008

"The eyes are the windows to the soul"

December 26th, 2007

On Christmas day in the morning

 

December 25th 2007

Ken and Katie helping to get emergency supplies of eggs and Bailey's from Homever.

"You know, with that goatee, you kinda look like Satan." - Joey, Friends

I  was feeling a bit bored and in need of a project at the beginning of December; so bored, in fact, that I jumped at the chance to take part in Ben's moustache-growing contest, despite having hitherto been only able to produce a patchy collection of ginger face-pubes with about as much density as a  piece of candy floss.

I put up with the itching and staring for almost 3 weeks and shaved it off the morning after the party. A day or two before this, one of my elementary students approached me and delivered the following assessment:

"Teacher...today you look ...like man."

This was delivered with  a degree of surprise and puzzlement which seemed to convey the impression that he had, until this moment, been under the impression that I was either a female or some sort of androgynous leprechaun.

Hitting the 'bong

Daechongbong, December 22nd.

Jared drove us over to Osaek on Friday night so we could summit Seorkasan's highest peak, Daechongbong, which clocks in at a none-too-shabby 1708m-tall . We booked up and down the mountain in exactly 5 hours 59 minutes, including lunch. None too shabby, or so I thought so until I heard about all the kiwi-based hiking craziness of Jared & Katie's vacation.

A picture says a thousand words

The idea of these 365 challenges is pretty neat. While I'd probably forget to update on a daily basis, the though of a short, frequently updated posting system is very enticing. I'm going to start with  a few of my favorite pics from the winter

New blog layout

Well, I've seen a few friends using this layout and have decided to give it a whirl. Minimalist, clean and crisp. Me like-ee!