The Seventeen Hour Turn Around

Pretty cool eh! Well we were all at the rock show, the past weekend and saw these little orange balls of light way way up in the sky......besides my first thought of North Korea attacking and my second thought of UFO's I realized what they were we had to get one!

Ms D and I went for a walk to find the mini hot air balloon vendor....he was not hard to find and after spending ten bucks (thanks T) we came back with a hot pink mini balloon. It is basically a cross between very light cloth and a paper material, shaped into a balloon with a metal coat hanger like ring around the bottom. Two wires form a cross in the ring, it comes with a 2 inch by 2 inch chunk of parafin wax witch you fasten to the wires...hold the balloon up, light the wax on fire, watch for drips and as it burns you can feel the air inside the balloon warm up till it floats away! They actually go pretty high in the sky! A very nice Korean lady took these photo's and asked if she could email them to me...She did obviously and it was very nice of her! Ms D took a video of the same event maybe she'll post it!

After all that excitement and a very long day at the concert, we (8 of us) were on our way to find a hotel, as the pentaport rock festival is about an hour outside of Bundang. The only way back at that time of night is by taxi. The cost is about $100 and they won't crowd all of us in one car, so hotel it was followed by a $3 bus ride in the morning......Surprise there was a cabbie standing by the main road, said he would do it for $60, we were like well there is eight of us can you get another cab in on it for the same deal? Sure as shit we rounded up two cabs and made it back home. Oh ya by the way we were home in 23minutes as the cabbie did between 140kmh and 175 kmh the whole way back! Ms D asked me at one point, Sean how fast are we going? I was like 155 LOL The other cabbie with the rest of our group was actually a little bit ahead of us.

True story! Speaking of true stories, you can read this guys blog !!

Must Be The Kimchi

We went to a rock'n'roll show this past weekend out near the airport(more pics of that later)
Two things I encountered surprised me, and maybe even irritated me. First I know the picture quality is not that good but what the sign basically says is they are concerned about the spread of the swine flu here in Korea. I was thinking well that's good they are trying to prevent it from spreading......so I get in line, ticket in hand and the little Korean comes up takes my ticket and my temperature.....cool I passed I think to myself....then I notice they are only checkin the white folks as they come in, not ONE Korean got his/her temp taken. As the sign clearly says "health workers will be checking all visitors" So this other guy in our group and myself go ask why they are not checkin Koreans too.......He looked at us and pointed away from there and said "entrance" In other words he did NOT want to talk about it and was pissed we even questioned him about it. There are several schools here in Korea closed down because of swine flu cases and I heard one schools cause was because some Korean kids brought it back from the US on their recent vacation. Also if they are so concerned how come NONE of the bathrooms provide soap for handwashing? not just at the concert I mean almost every public washroom everywhere here!
For a country where the statistic in 89% of Korean males smoke as of 23 years old. I was very surprised to see an anti smoking campaign set up in the subway! I think I'm the only male who doesn't smoke here!

Deeper Shade Of Seoul

We went to see the Seoul fish market in the suburb of Noryangjin. It is about a kilometer long under a covered roof full of nothing but stuff from the ocean. You can pick what you want and they will cook it up right there for ya! Well we were a little overwhelmed with the millions of living items for sale, wondering if there was any left in the ocean, it was seriously disturbing seeing all of that so we never bought a thing! Anyway they also don't let you take pics so I turned my flash off and tried to be sneaky about it....Some are not the best quality but you'll get the idea.
Koreans will eat anything as your about to see.......


I believe these are dried fish for making broth

A picture of Gangnam's giant street computers available for public use. I took this after we left the market

See the black towers down the whole street! All computers

Street vendor

The two barbershop poles on the roof together,spinning opposite directions is a sign for a rub and tug or a place where men go NOT to get their haircut

random street sign see any accident potential?

Street vendors close to the market!

Green bowls of garlic

I actually bought that bag of peanuts!

See I told ya Koreans eat anything!

Fish that didn't make the market!

Kimchi pots

All the umbrella's in the back ground are little old lady's (Ajuma's) selling stuff!

Getting closer

While walking you also have to watch out for motorcycles on the sidewalk!

I told her look a bird, then I snapped the photo!

Ahh smells like.......fish!

Ahh I forgot this is another reason we didn't buy any fish! If you saw the floor of the place you would know what i'm sayin!

Take yer pick!

Crabs!

Octopus! Apparently you can eat it live and it's better tasting than cooked

I tried it cooked but was not to crazy about shoving a just hacked off tentacle in my mouth!

Shrimp prices are cheap! that translated to about $20 a kg

Sea urchins and such

Do ya see the alley at the other end? LOL

Monster tower you can pay $5 and ride to the top to look at the view of the city!

Sunlight + Olive Oil = Don't Hesitate

We took a little trip to a small Korean city of about 3 million called Jeonju, here's a few pics
"A street that is a desire to walk" According to the town map
Random back alley

Big beer and the smallest glass I have ever been given to drink beer from

What can I say!

Artsy shot of Jeonju

Cool traffic lights and a store called kolon sports.....i dunno what goes on in there!

Some king had a fight with a tiger and today this little building is in the spot where it all went on, sorry I can't remember how the story went but you get the point!

I had to go around :(

Bamboo forest

This building is in our neighbourhood about a 10 minute walk from home notice anything weird about it?

Ipid Bummer

Lost my Ipod in a taxi last night, I'm sad my friend away from Ms D is gone
I guess it fell outta my shorts pocket onto the seat.
Had it before I got in and not when i got out!
I did not realize this had happened till I got in the house and of course cabbie was gone.
There is no way to track it because, one I'm in Korea and language barrier issues and two the phone #'s for the cabbies are all different but the cars are all grey and look the same!
My friend's boss put it on a lost and found Korean website for me but I doubt it'll come around
The bonus is there is a pass code to punch in before you can use it
There's a lesson for ya, don't put valuable items in pockets they can fall out of.
That was a $350 dollar lesson for me! I hope it get's returned because there $420 here and I won't be spending that! We do have a trip to China coming up maybe there cheaper than Korea?
Lesson learned folks, lesson learned! That's yet another reason I won't buy expensive sunglasses!

Change Yourself Into something You Love

Went to sit in on a friends school today for two reasons
One to see how she teaches, plans for lessons ect.... Also to pick up one of our boxes we shipped from Canada containing who knows what, took two trains and a bus to get home
It was fun!
It's been crazy hot here everyday, I love it until I have to walk up our street which is at the base of a mountain, Im soaked in sweat and it is about a six min walk up!
There is a park near our house called Youldong park, it's a lake with walking trails and badminton courts super nice to walk around they also offer bungee jumping for $25 bucks off this huge tower in the middle of the lake! Maybe next payday!
There is a four prop bomber plane that fly's in left handed circles around the city for probably 10 hrs out of every 24hr day, I been trying to get a picture of it, because it fly's pretty low. I'm not sure if it is American or Korean but if it keeps flying around there not gonna have any fuel left if the war breaks out!
Gotta run be back soon with pictures I hope!

Sweatin

You find all sorts of stuff in Korea, like floating coolers in the shape of a fishing bobber! You open it up put yer pops in and it floats along with you or your boat!
Then there is always SPAM singles!
For $1.50

The best of the very slim selection of beer here....the last three letters describe the taste best!

City Golf!

Hole #4 ...Par 3....35meters LOL

A random sign I can't read

Average size apartment buildings go for about $200k per unit!

A shitload of fish, two ducks and a swan..

Cool apartment building along the river walk

Lost as usual waiting to cross the street.

Cars coming out of Seoul, into the suburbs....8:30 at night

Same pic below only blurred and bright!

Canadians do it right no matter where we are on Canada Day!

A cow, a rat, a pile of poop, a piano flower bed and some balls.....I'm not really sure what this is about, but I'm open to suggestions!

This was taken after we set the fireworks off in the park that joins the suburbs of Sunae and Seohyeon or the "connector sector" as Ms D likes to call it!