No Call Number

Christmas, etc

2012-01-22T19:21:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile. In fact, it'sprobably been too long for me to recap everything that has happenedin the past month. We took Xander back to NC for the holidays. Itwas wonderful to see family. I think I never fully appreciated myparents until I had my own son. It felt good to introduce him to ourfamilies and to have everyone under one roof for Christmas again. Icame to Korea wanting the adventure of living far from home; twoyears later, I wish I was a little closer. And yes, I still considerNC home. We live in Daegu, but we will always be guests here. It wasalso wonderful to watch American TV, visit Target, Fresh Market,Baby's R' Us, Kohls, and a plethora of American restaurants, drive onless insane streets, and understand the people around us. These areall things I miss ten times more now that I have a baby.

Xander was an excellent travelingcompanion. He slept through most of the flights and gurgled andcooed through the rest. He was excited to be in warmer climates,where he could go outside. I will never get tired of that look ofwonder he gets on his face when introduced to something new, whether the sound of birds or trees with leaves or a cool light fixture(there were some humdingers at Narita Airport).

We stopped in Hawaii on our way backand enjoyed some beach time and some beautiful scenery. All of thisis meant to cushion the impending blow of returning to work. Yes,it's time. I realize how small my world has become when talking toother people who work, or at least leave the house on a regularbasis. Most are not as interested in my Xander narratives as I am.

With that caveat, I have to insert aXander narrative. We've returned to an all new house, as far as he'sconcerned. He gets really excited about his toys, particularly themobile over his changing table. This baby has travelled around theworld, seen the beach, the mountains, the suburbs, and a big city,and stayed in two houses and four hotel rooms, but his old mobilebrings the strongest reaction. Go figure.

Christmas at the Healeys'

Christmas at the Dubuissons'

Xander loves his grandparents

View from our hotel room in Waikiki

Stretching after a day of car rides

Sandy beach park...? I think.

We found a quiet beach

Pali overlook

Week three

2011-12-10T20:27:00.001-08:00

Xander is three weeks old now. I havebeen trying to go outside at least once a day, which can be harderthan it sounds with Xander's feeding schedule. We took him to basefor a stroll earlier this week. It was a pleasant trip until hedecided he was hungry about ½ mile from the car, and we had to rushback with him screaming in the stroller. Another time while we wereon base, I brought him into the library for a diaper change, and hecried for my entire rush through the bathroom, to the DVD section topick up a movie, and through the checkout counter. I was that personwith a crying child in the library. Now we keep outings under anhour, and that works out okay. We have taken some strolls around theneighborhood, but it's gotten cold enough to keep Xander inside.

He's starting to bulk up a little,thanks to all the feeding. Hopefully he'll have cute baby fat rollswhen we take him to NC. He spends more time awake, and likes to lookat his baby toys.

On his playmat

Bobby and his mini me

He's sleeping

Baby's first trip to Seoul

2011-12-04T00:16:00.001-08:00

This past Thursday and Friday we went to Seoul. We had to get Xander a passport quickly so we can leave the country on the 21st. Going to Seoul around Christmas has become something of a tradition, and I was excited to bring the baby. We brought the camera and everything.

As it turns out, transporting a newborn long distances is an all consuming task. Xander eats every 1-2 hours, so I was glad to see that there are nursing rooms on the train and at the stations (as it turns out, the one on the train is a closet). We haven't gotten good enough at breastfeeding to do it discreetly in public. He was good for the entire trip up to Seoul, thanks to the nursing room at Dongdaegu Station and the soothing motion of the train. We stayed the night at the Dragon Hill lodge, where I tried to get him sufficiently fed so that I could go to sleep at a decent time. Bobby and I sleep in shifts, and I go to sleep as soon as he's down at night, around 11 or 12. Bobby feeds him a bottle if he cries for food before 4am, when my shift starts. I made sure to wake him up in the morning early enough to get in two feedings before we had to leave for the Embassy. After we left the Embassy, I fed him at Seoul Station, where he ate for almost an hour but was whimpering for more when I put him in the ergo to get on the train. He slept for the entire train ride, only to wake up squalling ten minutes before our stop. I had time to change him, but not to feed him, and he screamed in his ergo while we stood in the aisle and waited for the train to pull into the station. I rushed him to the nursing room yet again, while Bobby secured a late lunch. After Xander finished eating, I wolfed down a bowl of now-cold Udon and we went to get a taxi. He cried for half of the taxi ride because it was feeding time again. He was up for half of the night, probably because of all of the excitement of the previous two days.

We didn't get any pictures! There was no enjoying the scenery or getting shots of baby next to the Dragon Hill Lodge's decorations. I hope we've settled into a more reasonable feeding schedule when we take our big trip later this month. Until then, we're not leaving the house for longer than two hours.

Eyeing me suspiciously

looking very handsome in his "handsome" onesie

Happy birthday to me, happy due date to Xander

2011-11-26T21:05:00.001-08:00

Today was supposed to be our birthday,but I'm not sorry that I don't share it. The past week has beenbusy. I was not aware that breastfeeding a newborn was a full timejob, but Xander eats for at least eight hours a day. During theperiod of time when we were both trying to get used to breastfeeding,he lost some weight, so I'm happy to feed him whenever he wants. Unfortunately, I also have to eat, go to the bathroom, shower, andoccasionally just spend some time not attached to my barracuda baby. This leaves Bobby trying to calm a hungry baby for mom's ten minutebreak. During these times, he has discovered that Xander likes to beheld upside down (supported, of course), have raspberries blown onhis tummy, and turned over so that he can see the floor. I guess helikes new perspectives.

We had our first outing yesterday. Ittook us almost three hours to get ready. Most of this time was spenteating, though he decided to mess his diaper when we finally got himin his car seat. We cleaned him up, but he messed it again in thedoctor's office. Must be all that eating! I was pleasantly surprised to see that I lost half of my baby weight having Xander. We took him by the PX after our visit—I'mgoing a little stir crazy—and showed him off to some folks. Onelady told me to take him out so she could hold him, but I pretendednot to hear her. Call me overprotective, but no one can hold thebaby just yet. We are looking, not touching, at least not without washing your hands first.

Bobby got me an ihome for my birthday. It's great: now I can listen to music while I'm feeding the baby.

I know they can't smile yet, but what does that look like to you? He gets those red marks on his chin when he's just finished eating.

Looking at mama

On the changing table, but not crying

The thinker

Thanksgiving dinner

Alexander James Healey is here!

2011-11-22T01:01:00.001-08:00

We were going to a doctor's appointmentlast Tuesday when we were halted by a civil defense drill. A sirenwent off, and men wearing yellow armbands shooed everyone off of theroad. They even turned off the traffic lights. We were at a market,so I decided to make use of our time and buy a lot of produce. Thisturned out not to be a serendipitous move.

We got to the doctor's and went throughthe same rigamarole as always. She did an ultrasound, checked hishead size, torso size, and thighbone. The shot of his head showedhim drinking amniotic fluid. I knew he loved to eat! She listenedto his heartbeat. Then she breathed through her teeth. This isKorean for “something is not good.” She told me the baby lookedgood, but she wanted to do a non stress test. I went to a littleroom, and they strapped some sensors around my belly which read thebaby's heartbeat (and, as I later found out, contractions). After 20minutes, we went back to the office and the doctor told us that shewanted to do another test after hydrating me. We went to a deliveryroom and I got an IV. We called the neighbor and told him we wouldbe late coming home and asked him to take the dog out. After abouttwo hours worth of fluid, I got another test. Then Dr. Choi came inand told me that she wanted to induce me because the baby's heartbeatwas a little low.

I was certain that I wanted a naturalbirth and prepared to fight for one, but once the doctor said thebaby may be in danger, I was willing to do anything. This isprobably how some mothers get roped into unnecessary C-sections. Ifelt very bad that Xander would not be able to come on his own terms(and a little sorry that I bought all that produce). Fortunately, Ihad already packed my hospital bag.

We stayed overnight—the hospital hada nice futon for Bobby to sleep on—while they tried a non-invasivemethod for inducing delivery called a vaginal cap. It didn't work,so the next morning they started me on pitocin. I started labor thatafternoon, and by 6pm had only progressed to 3cm. Since I hadn'teaten all day (and had adamantly refused an epidural), the doctordecided to stop the pitocin and start again the next day at a higherdose. I had a big meal, slept a little, and started pitocin at 6 thenext morning. By 6:30, I was in labor again. By 12, I was at 4cm. I was dealing with the pain by walking around, but after 5 ½ hoursof walking, I was exhausted. The contractions were coming on top ofeach other, and then my water broke. There was muconium in it, whichis a sign of fetal distress. The nurses immediately put me onanother non-stress test, which required me to lie on my side. Thepain was unbearable, so I asked for an epidural. Notice hownon-natural my delivery has become?

Throughout my labor, the nurses hadbeen administering non-stress tests. Sometimes the baby's heart ratedropped dangerously low. When this happened, the nurses turned me onmy side, turned off the pitocin, told me to take slow, deep breaths,and gave me oxygen. It made Bobby and me panic, but the doctorassured us that since his heart rate always rose again, it was not anemergency situation. She did ramp up the pitocin to ensure a shorterlabor, since it was obviously hard on the baby.

During the four hours I was on theepidural, my labor progressed quickly. I by 4, I was at 8cm and itwas time to push. The doctor ordered the epidural cut off, much tomy dismay. The nurse made me lie on my back and push while shelocated the baby's head. Everyone knows labor hurts, but I was notprepared for that kind of pain. The nurse told me not to yell, butto concentrate all of my energy on pushing. That wasn't so easy.

They left me alone for awhile to pushon my own, which I sorta did. I needed someone to yell at me to putmy all into it. The doctor came in and did that for me. A nursepressed on my belly and found out when I was contracting, then sheand the doctor told me when to take a deep breath and push. After afew good pushes, she announced that it was time to deliver my baby. A bunch of equipment appeared in the room. They set up stirrups, gotBobby to put on a gown, and brought in three nurses. One got on thetable and pushed on my belly, and two held my legs. I made one finalpush, and Xander emerged at 5:58pm on November 17 (with the help of asuction cup). He screamed like we hoped he would. They laid him onmy belly and told me not to touch him. Bobby cut the cord, and anurse wrapped the baby in a huge pad. They laid him on my chest. Hewas very sticky, screaming and coughing intermittently. The nurseleaned over and sucked mucus out of his nose and mouth. She told usthat she was taking him to the nursery to give him oxygen, since hehad swallowed some amniotic fluid. I still wonder if this was atranslation error, and he had in fact aspirated it, but I'm not sure. I think babies who aspirate amniotic fluid go to the NICU.

I thanked Dr. Choi, and she left. Someone immediately came in with a stretcher to take me to a recoveryroom. After 48 hours, it was finally time to leave the deliveryarea. I shook like crazy, which is something my mom did, too. Itkind of worried the nurses, but after labor, it was nothing to me. The nursery kept the baby overnight to monitor his breathing. I wasnot supposed to get up for 12 hours, but Bobby went to see him in thenursery. He said when the nurses held the baby up for Bobby, theKoreans in the area crowded to the window to see him.

We left the hospital after a day inrecovery, and brought Xander home. After being peed on a couple oftimes, putting a diaper on backwards, and trying to get the hang ofbreastfeeding, I have to say we get a little better at parentingevery day. Xander was born on my sister's wedding day, which is oneof those things I don't even see in fiction. They mentioned him inthe ceremony.

I'm completely in love with him andlearning more about him every day. Since this a blog about living inKorea, I have to give my kudos to the Korean medical system. It wasfrustrating at times to have nurses with limited English, and theyactually sent in a poor candy striper with no English to do mynon-stress test while I was in a pretty painful part of my labor. She wisely brought in a nurse when I started shouting at her. Nonetheless, we had a wonderfully huge delivery room, and lots ofEnglish speaking good care. There was always an English speaker tohelp me, whether in the delivery area, the recovery room, or thenursery. And, of course, the fantastic Dr. Choi, who brought Xanderand me through the process safely and soundly, also speaks fluentEnglish. I was not pushed into a c-section, but was allowed to take48 hours to deliver. When we were discharged, our English speakingcoordinator apologized for the bill, which was approximately $750 forfive days in the hospital. We laughed. We have seen somesubstantial hospital bills during our relationship, and this wasnothing.

He's one day old

With daddy

In his boppy

Recent events

2011-11-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

This happened. The particularlyviolent crimes that our own people have committed against Koreans hasbeen very much in the news here recently. USFK reinstated thecurfew, and I have received information on the legal rights of foreigners in Korea (something that I arguably should have gotten whenI arrived here).

I am ashamed of what my countrymen aredoing, of course. Foreigners here are always on display, and werepresent the United States to all of the locals. Sometimes I pokefun at this by ordering a different dish from my husband at a restaurant or walking in myneighborhood in a tank top with a big pregnant belly, but I am awarethat truly misbehaving stains the United States's already tarnishedreputation. When someone else misbehaves, I hate them for it. Normally this involves glaring at the guy who calls the flightattendant five times before the plane leaves or the people in line atthe supermarket who believe that yelling in English will make thecounter attendant magically understand. When something like theseviolent crimes happen, we all walk with our eyes down for awhile. There have been anti-American protests. I understand their anger.

There has recently been noise aboutdisproportionate sentencing when the defendant is a foreigner. I amsure that this happens. I am also sure that it happens in the UnitedStates, and probably most countries in the world. Foreigners whocommit crimes are just more egregious. We are guests in thiscountry, and we have violated their hospitality. Furthermore, Ithink a ten year sentence for a violent rape on a minor isappropriate. I think that it's ridiculous that the South Koreanlegal system considers intoxication a mitigating circumstance, butthat's really the only thing in the article that made me angry.

On a side note, the victim of the crime had her door unlocked. You see things like this over here because of an insistence that there's no crime in Korea. This, along with gender politics and a fervent, untempered patriotism lead me to call this place "planet 1950." Apparently, many Koreans have become easy targets of bank fraud because they will willingly give their personal information to someone who calls and says they are from the bank. I am not sure where this idea comes from, just like I am not sure why people think that America was crime free in the 1950's, but it causes more harm than good.

Last year around this time there were a bunch of protests following the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. Many Koreans were angry that the government didn't retaliate. As far as I am aware, that incident is now a memory. I hope my fellow Americans can behave, and these incidents will become memory, too.

Ready as we'll ever be

2011-10-29T23:20:00.000-07:00

Today I'm nine months pregnant. To celebrate, I went out and bought our last essential: a baby monitor. It unfortunately does not reach from our villa to the empty lot next door. We were hoping for a way to take the dog out without the baby, but no dice. We've washed most of the clothes and bedding and set up the baby's room. I can't say we're ready, but we're as ready as we'll ever be.

Yesterday, we said goodbye to Uncle Mike, who stopped in for a quick visit. We went to some good restaurants and took some walks around the neighborhood.

I need a week or two to tie things up at work, but after that, he's welcome to come. The sooner the better! We have ambitious travel plans for the holidays that require Xander to make a safe and timely entrance.

The nursery, probably as clean as it will ever be

Me, not in my Sunday best

The autumn leaves caress the trees

Things You Don't See Every Day

2011-10-21T18:08:00.001-07:00

Apparently there were three wild boars wandering around my neighborhood this weekend. One of them sprinted through a gate and made it into Camp Walker, where he ran amok and scared people for awhile. Eventually the fire department, Korean Animal Control, and the MP's captured the boar and put him down, since he was acting aggressively.

They think the boars came from the mountain next to my house (!!). The woods I walk through several times a week are relatively wildlife free. I see a deer once and awhile, and I have seen quail, a squirrel, and a chipmunk. I can't imagine that there are boars in there.

I'm disappointed that I was on Camp Walker on Saturday and I missed all of the excitement. Wild boars at the commissary? Sounds like a show.

Who has culture?

2011-10-15T18:26:00.000-07:00

Last Monday, we saw a performance by the Daum Dance Company. I guess you could say I dragged Bobby to the performance. It turned out to be a strange modern performance without anything visually stunning or technically complicated to interest me. The music was traditional, with this screechy horn accompanying some drums. So Bobby loved it! He said he especially liked the music, but the dancing was interesting too. I was pleasantly surprised.

How in the world did our child end up with a pumpkin head? It's very cute, but we have no idea who it came from. He's 4lbs 11oz and only 1 week ahead of schedule now. We thought he was going to be much bigger this time. I feel like he's huge, and I'm hungry all the time. Xander likes fat, particularly cheese and ice cream. I thought I was putting that food into my rapidly growing baby, but I guess it's just for me.

Baby shower

2011-10-09T18:41:00.000-07:00

We're coming upon the finish line. The doctor says Xander is measuring large, which we had suspected for awhile. He is measuring so large, in fact, that the ultrasound shows him two weeks ahead of schedule. He's welcome to come a little early. This is not a comfortable trimester, though I'm doing very well compared to other hugely pregnant ladies I know.

In other news, I signed a renewal agreement this week.. I promised to stay for another 24 months, though that's not really the plan. We'll see. We are now running around base trying to renew our housing, visas, drivers licenses, ID cards, ration cards, car registration, and whatever else I discover will expire on November 11.

I had a baby shower on Saturday, which was fun. The nice women who threw the party had clearly done some baby showers before. Just check out the decorations in the picture.

The Hilltop club is not conducive to pictures. This is the best one I got of the guests.

Me cutting the cake. Yes, I made Bobby come. His coworkers made up about half of the guests, it was only fair.

Cool cake, huh?

Me with a big bathtub full of presents

Baby clothes hanging from the ceiling

Me from the side after the party is over. Ridiculous, right?

Hahoe Folk Village

2011-10-02T00:43:00.000-07:00

We went to Hahoe Folk village yesterday. We have meant to visit since we got to Korea, and this weekend was the Andong Maskdance Festival. We got started late, so we didn't see any actual maskdancing. We did see a farmer's dance.

The village is 600 years old. It was established by a wealthy administrator, and his descendants still inhabit it. There were a bunch of inns and restaurants in traditional houses. We didn't go to any. I'm not so good at sitting on the floor any more. We took our neighbor with us, who takes much better pictures than me.

Rice paddies

Dirty statues!

The Farmer's Dance

A house with a pumpkin vine on the roof

The entrance to an inn. Love the pumpkins.

A traditional house that someone lives in.

This is where the rich folk brought pleasure boats and read poetry. Also known as the Nakdong River.

Bobby ties my shoe. Jin thought this was fantastic. I'm glad he wasn't laughing.

Zucchini at the entrance to a restaurant.

Long time no see (오래간만에요)

2011-09-23T20:49:00.000-07:00

Since we came back from Japan, I havebeen dividing my time between working, working my way through therefrigerator, scandalizing old ladies by walking around with my dogand large belly, and mincing to the bathroom every thirty minutes.

I have learned some new things aboutKorean birth traditions. Apparently, we are supposed to stay in thehouse for three weeks. To discourage people from coming in, we markour door with charcoal. Charcoal also means it's a boy. This is allmeant to discourage germ-bringers from endangering our newborn,something I support. Since we don't plan to keep the baby inside,we're going to have to learn how to be rude quickly. You see, oldKorean ladies are fascinated with babies. I have spoken to Americanmoms who have come to the terrifying realization that their childrenare no longer with them in a public place, only to discover that someolder Korean lady has picked them up out of the stroller. Iswallowed my horror when my sweet, well meaning intern told me thathe can't wait to hug my baby, demonstrating a very wrong way to holda newborn. Our mantra during those first few weeks will be, “it'sour right to tell people not to touch the baby!” And by the way,it's rude to touch someone else's baby without asking. I don't carewhat culture or background you come from.

We went to a spectacularly bad babycare class. It was run by a scolding social worker, whose demeanorwas probably not improved by jet lag. She taught us not to shake thebaby, not to put the baby in the shower, and not to use diaper wipesin the house because they are not economical. I guess she didn'tbother to look at her audience, since we were all late 20's-early30's and of decent enough rank to afford diaper wipes, as well as oldenough have a basic understanding of the difference between a newbornand, say, a doll. She had us all look at our different coloredpractice dolls and ruminate about where they came from, sinceAmerican babies can be all different colors. She told us thatswaddling was out of style and we should cover the baby with a looseblanket (!) instead. If you don't understand why that's horrid,google SIDs. One of my favorite quotes was, “Don't sleep with yourbaby because you could roll over and suffocate her. Then you will beaccused of child abuse.” The threat of criminal charges are, ofcourse, far more of a deterrent than the prospect of killing ourchildren. I couldn't help thinking that this was a baby classdesigned for juvenile delinquents.

Never to worry, though, since we livein the year 2011. There is a wealth of authoritative how-to videoson the web for those of us who have never changed a diaper or batheda newborn. We will be practicing on our new baby doll, purchased sothat we can introduce the dog to the idea of a baby. Yes, we'retotal flakes.

Us on the roof with chicken dog. She spends a lot of time cowering because of the wind.

Tokyo and Kyoto

2011-09-09T23:55:00.000-07:00

We had a fantastic time on vacation, aswe generally do. Traveling while pregnant was easier thanexpected. I always got a seat on the subway, and we got to sit inthe front of the plane. Looking at our pictures, I understand why Igot special treatment. I look huge! I'm lucky they let me get onthe plane.

Japan is China and Korea's refinedcousin. There were no smells, no open markets with strange animalparts on display, and the people were all very polite and distant. No one tried to engage us in random conversation. We are in thehabit of ordering food to share, but Japanese food all comes onindividual trays. We were shocked to see many people eating alone,which I guess more than anything else indicates that we have beenliving in Korea for too long. Japanese people displayed creativityand individualism in their clothing. We saw people in costume andpeople with dyed hair and piercings, both of which are noticeableabsent from Korea. Some people wore kimonos. I often felt like Iwasn't cool enough to be seen in public.

Japanese food is wonderful, and we ateit for every meal. I had a lot of noodles; Bobby had a lot of sushi. There is no tipping in Japan, as is the case in China and Korea. There were service charges added to all of our bills, which strikesme as a more polite way to do things. We ate one meal at a vendingmachine restaurant, which involved us selecting a food item, payingfor it in a vending machine, and bringing the ticket inside to beredeemed. There were vending machines for just about everything,including movies in the hotel.

I was disappointed to see that we werescheduled to arrive during a typhoon that was supposed to hit theKansai region south of Tokyo, but it provided minimal trouble. Itrained every day, but never for longer than ten minutes. It was veryhumid for the rest of the time, so we welcomed the showers. When wewere traveling to Kyoto, our train was delayed due to heavy rain. When we got to Kyoto, however, the typhoon had passed and we dealtwith the same sporadic showers that we saw in Tokyo.

This blog is enhanced by the new camera that Bobby bought me. It takes night pictures! We took plenty.

Shinjuku

2011-09-09T23:53:00.000-07:00

It took us awhile to get to Tokyo fromDaegu. We took a bus to Busan, a train to Narita airport, andanother train into the city. We wandered around looking for ourhotel until a nice man pointed us in the right direction. We werepleasantly surprised to discover that Japanese addresses actuallymake sense, and we found our hotel by counting to the right number. We settled in and headed out for Shinjuku, Tokyo's business district. We were headed for the Tokyo Metropolitan Tower, which providesviews of the city. Bobby loves to visit towers, and as an addedbonus, this one was free. We had gelato (for me) and beer (forBobby) in the observation lounge. Afterwards, we wandered out tofind dinner. We were disappointed to find a lot of stool or standingrestaurants, but eventually we found a sit down place with just abouteverything on the menu. It was like Japanese tapas. We indulged.

Tokyo from the Metropolitan towers

Another view

Toy vending machines! One has a nintendo DS pet.

Seriously, don't squat on the toilet seat

at night

Shinjuku

Asakusa, Ginza, and Shibuya

2011-09-09T23:47:00.000-07:00

We headed for Asakusa in the morning,which was close to our hotel. I was determined to get a decent mapfrom the tourist information center. Asakusa has Tokyo's most famousshrine, but since we were going to Kyoto, we skipped this one,instead opting to wander around the market. As it turns out, I'm atotal sucker for Japanese souvenirs. They are all so cute, and manyhave cats on them! The maneki neko, or lucky cat, was ubiquitous. There were also a lot of rabbits, since this is the year of therabbit.

From Asakusa, we went to Ginza tosee—well, eat from—the Tsukiji fish market. My doctor told me Icould eat sushi from reputable places, so we went to a famousrestaurant that provides sushi from the fish market. Japanese sushiis, of course, amazing, and has ruined all other sushi for me. Theproprietor, probably pleased that we ordered the expensive stuffinstead of the lunch special, which was only written in Japanese,gave me a stuffed bear for the baby. We walked past the massivemarket, stopping to see a turtle in the dirty river. I guess he eatsthe leftovers from the market. We enjoyed a peaceful walk throughthe park, which used to be a pleasure garden for Japanese nobles. Itwas right on Tokyo bay. Afterwards, we walked to the Sony Museum,where we played with the latest electronics. It was a littleunderwhelming, but I did find a camera that turned photos into anime. We visited a Japanese toy store and marveled at the robot toys. Ibought a bizarre looking stuffed toy for the baby.

We spent the evening in Shibuya, whichlooked like the center of Japanese nightlife. The subway station waspacked with people. We shoved our way towards the Hachiko statue,which honors a loyal dog who waited for his owner at the trainstation every day, even after the man died. Hachiko is nowapparently a popular meeting place. We pushed our way out of thecrowd and crossed the famous crossing. We managed to find a place ina nearby mall where we could watch the tide of humanity that floodedthe crossing every couple of minutes. We had dinner in themall—always a good place to find a meal—and headed home.

A food joint outside of our hotel

Vending machine restaurants. Select a food item, pay, and bring the ticket inside for food.

Asakusa

Subway station

Me in the park

Bobby barely clears the torii gates

Ginza

An arcade full of claw cranes

Hachiko, surrounded by bored looking young people

Shibuya crossing

Ueno, the Imperial Palace, and Akibahara

2011-09-09T23:16:00.000-07:00

We breakfasted at a Denny's. I had asalad and pancakes, which, as it turns out, makes a wonderfulbreakfast. Afterwards, on the advice of the tourism office, we wentto Ueno to see the museums. We visited the Tokyo National Museum,where we saw silk paintings, samurai costumes, and some photographsfrom 100 years ago. We walked through the park in search of thestatue of the samurai with his dog, which we eventually found. Thesamurai publicly disemboweled himself in protest of the Meijigovernment, but we were more interested in his dog. We had lunch ata vending machine restaurant. Afterwards, Bobby discovered a grapemountain dew in another vending machine. We headed for the imperialpalace, where we found out that the subway machines ate our ticketsif we transferred to another company's line. A woman in the ticketbooth helped us get them back.

The imperial palace gardens werenondescript, though the huge walls that surrounded them wereinteresting. Bobby liked the koi ponds. I was upset to discoverthat my new maneki neko camera case had fallen out of my bagsomewhere. We stopped by the 7-11 for a red bean ice cream to easethe loss. There were several people standing around reading the manga on the shelves. I wondered why the shopkeeper didn't tell them to buy something or leave.

That night, we went to Akibahara, whichwas not far from our hotel. I had been pestering Bobby to read theguidebook and pick a place in Tokyo where he wanted to go, and heselected Akibahara, which is Tokyo's nerd central. Besides being acenter for buying discount electronics, it had a lot of anime andgame shops. It turned out to be one of my favorite spots in Tokyo,with lots of people in costume. We explored a six story Segabuilding, where Bobby won me a new camera case from one of the clawcranes. The building had two stories full of claw cranes, and theother four were various types of video games. I wanted to get apicture, but there were no photo signs plastered everywhere. We wentto a mazelike restaurant for dinner which was full of privateroom/booths. We were dismayed to discover that we were supposed toorder food from a computer screen in Japanese, but an Englishspeaking waiter helped us.

a shrine in Ueno park

The samurai and his dog

Imperial palace gardens

Akibahara

How do we order from this thing?

Gion

2011-09-09T23:00:00.000-07:00

We spent an inordinate amount of timegetting to Kyoto, since the train was delayed due to heavy rain. Bythe time we arrived, it was the afternoon. We wandered through whatturned out to be the biggest train station I have ever visitedlooking for food. We went to “ramen street” on the tenth floor,but the lines dissuaded us, so we headed for the hotel. When we gotthere, it was after three, and since most historic attractions inKyoto close at four or five and we still hadn't eaten, I consideredthe day a loss. Fortunately, I was wrong! We walked around ourneighborhood looking for a restaurant, and we ended up in a beautifulglass walled place that was surrounded by a zen garden. We wereserved by women in kimonos. It had a ten page menu, so we ended upgetting noodles, sushi, and shabu shabu, which is meat cooked in ahot pot on the table. I finished it off with some fancy Japanesetea, which was refreshing. Thoroughly satiated, we walked down toGion.

Gion is the historic geisha district,and I was excited to see it. The neighborhood sports historicarchitecture, but it is still functioning, so it became moreinteresting as the sun went down. We could peer inside the teahouseswhere geisha entertained, but we couldn't afford to go in. Wewandered down the cobblestone streets for awhile, then went back.

canal outside of our hotel

she was an actress

Gion

Bobby liked this picture

Eastern Kyoto

2011-09-09T22:53:00.000-07:00

I had planned to spend our only wholeday in Kyoto in the temple and shrine district, which is the “mustsee” part of Tokyo. I suspected that we would get temple andshrine fatigue after awhile, but we held up pretty well. First onthe list was Ginkaguji, which had the loveliest zen garden I haveever seen. We walked down the “path of philosophy,” a peacefultrail bordered by a stream on one side and some old style houses onthe other. We wandered into a shrine that was in some disrepair, buthad a lot of animal statues. While headed towards Heian Shrine, westumbled across a shrine that was said to promote easy childbirth. We bumbled around the structure like the clueless foreigners we are and ended up dumping money in the money box in the hopes that thatwould be enough to get me some good childbirth juju. I think we weresupposed to ring a bell, clap, or tie something on a tree, but wewere not sure which. Heian shrine was massive, as promised, and hadsome nice gardens. While walking towards some more temples, we cameacross a cafe and had lunch. The nondescript looking place made asurprisingly good vegetable curry and honey ginger iced tea. Wewalked up a hill, stopping periodically to look at temples. We endedwith Chion-in, another massive structure with “nightingale floors,”which deliberately creak so that occupants can hear intruders. Weheaded back, but not until after I bought and consumed ice cream froma vending machine.

Zen garden

People in kimonos!

On the side of the path of philosophy

Overgrown shrine

Rabbits at the childbirth shrine. Rabbits are symbols of childbirth.

The childbirth shrine

Massive torii gates outside of Heian shrine

The garden with the stepping stones

Paper trees. I think the papers are prayers..?

Chion-in

Beer vending machine

The gardens at Ginkaguji

Nijo-jo

2011-09-09T22:06:00.000-07:00

Our plane wasn't scheduled to leaveuntil evening, so we decided to see one more thing before we leftKyoto. We settled on Nijo castle, which once housed aTokugawa shogun. Bobby read that it was a castle designed to makeyour guests fell imprisoned. It had a lot of nightingale floors, aswell as elaborately painted wall panels, all of which we were notallowed to photograph. We had to leave our shoes at the door, whichis normal at temples, but this was the first shoes-off castle Ivisited. The gardens included a neat pond with concrete steppingstones. After we left the castle, we went to a ramen restaurant. Ihad eaten ramen previously, but we had not been to a ramenrestaurant. The food was wonderful; a nice goodbye Japan.

The gate to Nijo castle

The main structure

A heron in the gardens

I guess they serve crab

the IAAF championships

2011-08-29T03:09:00.001-07:00

They're finally here! Daegu was preparing for these games when we moved here, so we were pretty excited to go to some events. We had fantastic seats. Stadium security was making people throw away their food before they went in the door, which perplexed my Korean coworker. I had to laugh! Koreans get to bring food into amusement parks and concerts, so I guess they're not used to being forced to pay stadium prices for food and drinks. Not that they were really stadium prices. A bottle of water was still less than a dollar.

The highlight of the night was the men's 100 meter finals, when we were supposed to see Usain Bolt show his stuff. Instead, Bolt false started and was disqualified. The other runners were visibly excited about this, but the other Jamaican guy took the gold.

The USA did well. We took the decathalon, the women's long jump, and the 200 meter semifinals. Winning athletes paraded around the stadium wearing their country's flags, and it was nice to see so many American flags. The single Korean athlete competing that day placed 17th in his event, but still walked around the stadium draped in a Korean flag and was met with wild cheers. I was charmed. Everything I know about Koreans tells me that they consider anything less than success mortifying, but this failed with style and was encouraged for it.

A Korean drum performance

Not the most PC thing to ask...

See the robot that carries the javelin back to the athletes?

Men's 400M

I really liked her. US long jumper.

Women's 200M

My long jumper doing her victory lap

The star of the evening..shame about the ending!

DAM

2011-08-21T02:04:00.000-07:00

The weather was exceptional today--80 degrees and no rain. We decided to check out the brand new Daegu Art Museum.

They wouldn't allow photos in the museum, but I took some nice shots from outside. The art was all Korean, with some nice old scrolls. The most beautiful part was the museum itself, which had walkways with panoramic views of Daegu.

DAM: Daegu Art Museum

The neat thing about fountains in Korea is that kids can play in them.

Families having a Sunday outing at the fountain

We end the outing with an ice cream and waffle

Doesn't he look nice? He's lost weight. I am actually making him break his diet with this sinful concoction

Birth Hotels

2011-08-13T17:38:00.000-07:00

Summer is the busiest time of the year for the public librarian (I'm essentially a public librarian for the base community). When the kids are out of school, they tend to come to us. To capitalize on this, most libraries host some kind of summer reading program. Ours involves giving out incentives to kids (and adults) for reading a certain number of hours, as well as weekly craft programs. This year, the program did really well. It felt like every kid in the community was involved, or at least everyone who came into the library. Needless to say, it was wonderful for us to have so much of the community participating in a library event. Many parents told me how much they loved the program. It was also very stressful. I imagine retailers feel the same way about Christmas. So after we capped off the program with a big party last Saturday, I found myself remembering that there are other things going on in my life, like the little person who stubbornly reminds me of his presence at all hours. This person that Bobby and I will be responsible for for eighteen years. He won't show up for a good twelve to fifteen weeks, but I've started researching babies during most of my free time. Like many librarians, I like to research every aspect of something before I do it.

I have discovered some interesting things about Korean babies. Birth, like many other things, is a family affair here. That doesn't mean the entire family packs into the birthing room. It does mean that women rely on their mothers and mothers in law to take care of their newborns. New Korean mothers leave their babies in the nursery most of the time. Rooming in with the baby was my hospital's "western" option. When they get out of the hospital, the women go to the adjacent "birth hotel," where they rest, exercise, and generally recuperate. They tend to stay for 21 days, while mother or mother in law helps with the baby. After they go home, it's full speed ahead. Men who cook and clean are anathema here. I see a lot of younger men toting babies, so I think that men have assumed a larger role in child rearing than they used to have. My middle aged male staff, despite having children, seem to know little about them. My younger staff member watches his kids on his days off while his wife works.

Bobby is stressed out about the slipper situation. In the birthing area, you have to surrender your shoes for the hospital's slippers. Like all Korean slippers, these go about halfway down Bobby's feet. I told him to be sure and put on clean socks when we go to the hospital, but he's planning to buy a pair of slippers and autoclave them. He thinks this will be enough to convince hospital staff to let him bring them into the birthing area. We'll see!

23 weeks

2011-08-05T19:20:00.000-07:00

The weather here has been, well, a little like home. It's really hot and humid during the day, then at night there are thunderstorms. I don't tolerate the heat well with my extra baggage, and I spend a lot of my time in front of our air conditioner or sweating profusely. This Saturday, I got on the subway to travel downtown. The subway is somewhat air conditioned, but it's still hot. I'm uncomfortable enough to toss out my cultural sensitivity, which tells me that pregnant women don't wear shorts and tank tops in public around here. I got on the subway, and the car was full. I scowled at some 12 year old boys, but no one got up to offer me a seat. Honestly, I think subway etiquette is almost nonexistent anywhere in the world, but I became increasingly irked at the Daegu population as the seated people refused to meet my gaze. At one stop, I saw a handicapped boy approach the door. His knees were bent and pointed in towards each other, and clearly standing on the subway would have been an extreme effort for him. No one offered him their seat. Unfazed, the handicapped boy sat on one of the 12 year olds' laps. Why didn't I think of that? I couldn't suppress a smile as the 12 year old boy got up.

We went out and bought a crib and changing table yesterday. We had selected a beautiful cherry combination from the PX a few months ago, and I wondered if they were still available. Of course, they weren't, and we couldn't even order them. I guess the model was discontinued when the new crib standards came out. Having learned our lesson, we bought a nice chocolate colored set. When buying furniture from our tiny PX, it's a good idea to go ahead and get something while it's in stock. Chocolate goes better with our house, anyways.

Me at 23 weeks (taken last Sunday). It's not the best shot since you can't see my face, but that's not really what you were looking for anyways, right?

Let the Games Begin!

2011-07-30T19:33:00.000-07:00

Final preparations for the 2011 World Athletic Games are underway. When we moved here, Daegu as already advertising the games on billboards and taxis. I believe the spate of new restaurant signs we saw a few months ago was another brush up for the games, along with the new flower beds, public trash cans, and general maintenance we have seen in the past couple of months. Last week, a bunch of international flags sprung up on our street. We haven't found the U.S yet, but China and Britian are right outside of our house. I talked Bobby into buying us tickets to one of the events. We don't follow track and field events, but how many chances do you have to see the world's fastest people compete?

In other news, Seoul and northern Korea (I think this includes North Korea) has been hit by some devastating floods. It has been raining a lot here, and people up north are losing their houses. Many have died in mudslides and flooding. We saw construction workers upgrading the drainage on our street last week, so I guess we're prepared.

My bad luck with air travel

2011-07-17T22:13:00.000-07:00

I'm at Incheon airport again, awaiting a flight to Daegu. The trip back from Massachusetts has been thankfully uneventful. The trip there was another story. I got a call from Korean airlines on Saturday night telling me that my flight from Daegu to Seoul was cancelled due to weather. It had been raining nonstop. I was frankly relieved. It's quite easy to get from Daegu to Incheon, especially one that there's an express train from the airport to Seoul station. My travel office is rigid about me flying to and from Daegu for some reason, so I always end up getting up early so that I can it around Incheon airport for four hours. There are worse places to be, but I'd rather sleep a little longer. Right now I am waiting four hours for a flight when I could be home in three on the train.

So I took the train to Incheon, trying out the new air express for the first time. It was spotless and efficient, with several smiling attendants to help me. I always want to ask these nice, English speaking customer service reps to come work for me. The Korean customer service I see in the travel industry hasn't made it to the Korean army civilians yet.

So I flew from Incheon to Narita, Japan with no problems. When I got to the gate at Narita, there was a plane at the gate. Always a good sign. Well, after our boarding time came and went, the captain got on the intercom and told us that there was an undiagnosed electrical problem with the plane, which would be delayed for some period of time. It turned out to be an hour delay, which put me in trouble for my connector. Shortly after we took off, I discovered that the screen on my aisle seat didn't work, and reluctantly moved to the back middle seat. I was next to a basketball-player-sized guy whose elbows wouldn't fit inside of his own seat area. Sigh.

When we landed in Chicago, attendants rushed me through customs and to the baggage rechecking area. Someone spent a long time scanning my bag, then sent me to the counter, where they told me my flight was cancelled due to equipment failure. There were a few more flights to Boston that day, so I decided to go on standby for one of them.

As it turned out, there were three flights cancelled for equipment problems, all United. Standby was a free-for-all, with people going from gate to gate hoping to catch a flight. I was number 38 on the standby list for an overbooked flight. I decided to cut my losses and take my confirmed flight for the following day, complete with free hotel room.

The next day, I went to the gate early to reconfirm my seat. There was no plane at the gate! I know that means trouble. Sure enough, the plane was late. A severe thunderstorm passed through and shut down air traffic for awhile. After an hour delay, we boarded. The captain told us we were twentieth in line to take off. After awhile, the engines shut off. The captain told us that a central air traffic control station was evacuated due to the weather, which had gone east, and that we were on the tarmac until further notice. About an hour later, we left.

I got to the conference in time for dinner, which was fine with me. The conference was fun, as far as conferences go. I met some fantastic people and learned a lot from them. We were in session all day, and would have had no time to see Boston if we were there instead of an hour away in Southbridge. We suggested to the bigwigs that we at least get a half day off to do some library related touring in the city next time. Library bigwigs tend not to be like other bigwigs, so perhaps they listened.

On my flight from San Francisco to Boston, the electronics in my window seat didn't work. I decided to suffer through a twelve hour flight with no movies rather than give up my seat. United really needs to overhaul their fleet.

2011-07-09T23:13:00.000-07:00

Koreans warned us about monsoon season when we moved here. Last year, it was very mild and I wondered what the big deal was. It would rain, but only part of the day.

This year, Korea has decided to prove to me that monsoon season is no joke. It rains for days in a row. I know I have spoken of this before, but I can't let it go. This weather is perhaps literally driving me crazy. My insides feel soggy. The dog won't go outside in the rain, so we clean up a lot of messes. The rain gets into the house, and patters in a constant refrain on the roof. I lived in Wales for awhile, where it rained every day in the winter, but not this incessantly or with this volume of water. It's a good thing we live on the side of a mountain.

There have been an inordinate amount of cranes. I don't know if the rain and the cranes are related, but I often see them flying over the city from my window. I saw a gathering of them on a mountain in Waegwan earlier this week. Jin, our neighbor, says cranes are good luck. I'll take it! They're also lovely to watch.

Me at 18 weeks

Haeundae Again

2011-07-08T23:13:00.000-07:00

Bobby and I went back to Haeundae Beach for fourth of July weekend. The idea was that I could go swimming in the water if we had a place to stay and shower. (There are showers at the beach, but they don't have doors on them.) I had qualms about spending a weekend at Haeundae. It is Korea's most crowded beach, and can get unmanageable during the summer. Fortunately, the guidebooks say that beach season starts in mid-July.

Monsoon season has hit Daegu with a vengeance, and it was raining on Sunday when we left. Thankfully, when we got close to Busan, the rain stopped. When we arrived at the beach, it was very foggy, but mild. I kicked off my shoes and walked down to the water, only to discover that it was frigid! No wonder beach season starts in mid-July! It was so cold that the bones in my feet started to ache.

With no swimming on the horizon, we decided to walk to the mermaid statue that was near our hotel. The path meandered along the cliffs over the water, and the flowers on the mountain were in bloom. It was worth the walk. We proceeded to the lighthouse, which was underwhelming for a North Carolinian. As we later discovered, it didn't even light up at night. We met a banjo player from England who traveled the world. He explained that he trusted God to take care of him. It's not a lifestyle for everyone, but I admire his spirit.

We have never seen the beach after sundown, so we were excited to watch the shoreline light up. Korea is a land of lights, and Haeundae was no exception. I have vowed to go see a different beach next time, but Haeundae never disappoints.

Bobby in front of our hotel

Me trying to wade in the ocean

Mermaid statue

Cliffside path, complete with suspension bridge

The rocky shoreline

The beach at night

Tropical Storm Maeri

2011-06-26T01:09:00.000-07:00

Monsoon season is upon us. This is the third day of nonstop rain from tropical storm Maeri. Bobby loves that the storm has my name. It's finally dying down a bit from the high drama of Friday and Saturday. The wind can get pretty fierce on the side of the mountain, and it will rattle all of our windows. Earlier this year, the wind blew signs from three restaurants in front of our house.

Monsoon season is tough to deal with for a number of reasons. The dog refuses to go to the bathroom in the rain. Bobby finally discovered that she will consider going if he puts a jacket on her and it's not raining hard. If it is raining hard, she will cry and whine to go outside, we will take her down three flights of stairs, and she'll balk at the door. She's not smart enough to deduce that it's raining from our villa, apparently.

This is hard to believe because during monsoon season, it rains in our villa. There are two or three spots that drip onto the floor when there's heavy rain. The landlord isn't too concerned about it, and we aren't either. One spot is in a room with a tile floor and a drain, and another is in the kitchen.

Summers are unfortunately short here. There's a brief honeymoon period from late May to late June that is sunny and warm. The monsoons hit in July and August, and September is nice but mosquito laden. That's the other reason monsoon season is a drag. It's great for bugs.

My maternity leave prospects

2011-06-18T02:33:00.001-07:00

When I got my job, I felt like I had won the golden ticket. There is a nice benefits package, a lot of holidays, good pay, and talk about job security! Okay, I still thank my lucky stars on most days. We live in a fabulous house overseas, and I'm a librarian. People do not do this for the money.

That being said, I'm floored by the maternity leave policy. While forward thinking employers are giving their staff paid maternity leave, I not only don't get that, I have some pretty draconian policies on how I can take leave.

Basically, there's no way to have twelve paid weeks. If I were a longtime employee (either I got the job right out of college or I had children relatively late in life), I would probably have accrued some annual and sick leave. Let's say I've been working her for five years and have never taken any annual leave—that's about 80 days of annual leave. Hot dog! I was careful and saved for my future. But wait! I can only carry 30 days over from one year to the next. Darn.

But wait, I have sick leave! Sick leave doesn't ever expire, and I can accrue as much as I can carry. Unfortunately, according to the literature, I can only take sick leave if a doctor certifies that I am incapacitated. The site suggests that most doctors, being more softhearted than my employer, will allow that it takes six weeks to recover from childbirth.

So if you do the math, if I save my all of my leave days, I can take about 2 ½ months of paid leave. If I'm me, and I have taken some annual leave to see the amazing area I have moved to (and see my family when I go back to the U.S), I'll have about 3 weeks of annual leave saved up when the baby is born. Add the six weeks of sick leave, and that gives me nine paid weeks off. This is assuming that I don't have issues with my HR requiring certification and my doctor saying that I don't need six weeks.

Yes, I can take leave without pay. Clearly this system was designed for women with well off spouses, not sole breadwinners or even vital halves of a two income household. I can save up some money for a rainy day, but I don't know if I can save enough to cover my insurance premiums during this time, which is also required of employees who are on leave without pay. Not getting paid doesn't seem like much of an option.

Korean women are expected to take a year off for childbirth and caring for a baby. (If they're lucky, that is. A lot of them are not welcomed back.) Korean employees in my organization get that year in paid leave. I know my employees will be more than uncomfortable when I work until I pop, and come back when the baby is two months old. Actually, my most conservative one asked me when I would stop working, and I said the second or third week in November. He replied, "November first! That's too late!" Yeeahhh. This one also requested that I not hire a woman with a child under one, so I think nothing I can do (short of growing a penis) will make this guy happy. But they'll all have to deal with it. I have a feeling it won't be the first time I have pushed them outside of their comfort zones.

Agent Orange

2011-06-14T01:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was leaving Camp Carroll and I noticed that the fence outside the gate is plastered with signs. Most of them are in Korean, but one says, “US Army, come clean!” This is because of the big news here: some U.S. veterans claim to have buried Agent Orange on base. The Army says they buried some chemicals in 1978, but removed them two years later. Currently, they’re investigating the area along with the Korean government for traces of Agent Orange.

And the locals are making sure they do. There are demonstrations outside of the gate that cause it to close once and awhile. We always receive warnings to avoid demonstrations, and I do, but I’m not entirely sure why. I have never seen anything approaching violence at one of them. Actually, demonstrators have to warn the Army in advance that they will have a protest at a certain place and time. The Korean police show up in full riot gear, which looks pretty comical next to the Koreans waving signs and talking on bullhorns. No one even throws a tomato.

The Army and the Korean government have not found any Agent Orange or traces of it, but the investigation continues. The outrage caused by this incident brings to light a deeper issue. There are more and more Koreans who believe that the U.S. military has overstayed its welcome. It took me awhile to realize this, since Koreans are, for the most part, very polite to us. There is a pretty large disconnect between what the Korean establishment says and what the people on the ground believe. More so, I think, than in other countries, since you can know a Korean person for a long time without knowing his or her political opinions. They are just not expressed in mixed company. In my experience, when a Korean person speaks to a foreigner, Korea and everything Korean are sacrosanct, including the pro-U.S. rhetoric of the government. It takes an incident like this to bring all that hidden animosity to the surface, and it comes out in a pretty spectacular—albeit nonviolent—way.

More miscellanea

2011-06-11T22:02:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been about two weeks since I've written anything. A few things have happened. We bought a new couch from the PX, we went back to Haeundae Beach for another sand festival, we had an ultrasound and discovered that the baby is a boy... I have been trying to tell people about the baby, since it's starting to show. One of my more traditionally minded staff members told me that Korean women don't tell anyone they are pregnant. That doesn't surprise me given the subtlety of the culture, but I'm starting to tire of hearing about these fictitious Korean women. Apparently, Korean women also prefer to stay home and take care of their families. I haven't met any of these women. I think they exist mainly in the mind of my employee. He's not the sharpest tack, and I'm sure his wife and daughter have him convinced that they are these “Korean women” while conducting their own lives as they please. Not that this is an original strategy—I'm sure women everywhere have been doing it for centuries. Now, given the tendency of Koreans to inform a person that they have gained too much weight, I wonder how pregnant Korean women deal with that (along with morning sickness, mood swings, exhaustion, etc) without telling the concerned individual that they are pregnant. Maybe they sock him or her in the jaw.

At any rate, I got pretty burned at the beach, but it was nice to go back. I forgot the camera, of course, but I think the sculptures were actually better this year. Bobby has gotten into cooking, and he cooked us a nice meal last night. He also baked a loaf of challah bread. I guess that's it for now.

Asiana Wins!

2011-05-28T22:05:00.000-07:00

I have a new least favorite airline. I guess that means I can start flying Delta again. Asiana takes the cake for meanest airline. This comes as a surprise to me, since Korea supposedly sets the standard for airline service.

I guess I'll start by mentioning that I am still in Los Angeles. It's Saturday. I was supposed to leave on Thursday, if anyone is counting. On Thursday, the Continental agent who booked my flight called Asiana to confirm my seat, since his coworker mentioned that they were quirky. Later on, Bobby called Asiana to find my baggage, and said that my baggage was set to fly with me on Friday, the 27^th.

Fast forward to Friday. I waited in the check in line, only to discover that my reservation had been cancelled. The shift manager put me on standby. I waited patiently. I watched other people get kicked off the flight. One group of young adults showed up at 12:15 and were booted. I was not aware of this, but Asiana will kick people off a flight if they show up less than one hour before the flight leaves, which in this case was 12:10. Had I known LAX well and rushed to my gate, I probably still would not have made my flight on Thursday. In a normal airport, 1.5 hours is plenty of time to make a transfer, but LAX sets the bar.

Anyways, someone came to me at 12:20 and told me that they were not accepting standby passengers. I got a little belligerent. I said, “but you cancelled my flight!” The manager came out and proceeded to yell at me: “we did not cancel your flight! We waited for you!” Perplexing, considering that I tried to check in on time, but I guess he was talking about Thursday. I hope he loses his job.

I went back to Continental, at which point the customer service rep got peeved on my behalf. She said that Asiana has been canceling reservations all week. I saw a woman who had her reservation canceled on Thursday, so I guess it was my turn. She also mentioned that she saw space on the flight I had just been denied, so I'm not sure why they wouldn't let me on. Maybe they didn't like the way I looked. (Pregnant woman, flying alone...where's her husband? I may not have mentioned this yet, but if I had no husband, I would have been denied treatment at most Korean hospitals) . Continental put me up in yet another airport hotel and confirmed me on a flight for Saturday. When I got to my room, I called Asiana to ensure that I was actually on a flight for Saturday. The agent told me that there had been no ticket number attached to my reservation—a technicality that was not noticed by either of the Asiana people I spoke to on Thursday, and absolutely Asiana's fault—and confirmed that I had a ticket number for Saturday. Apparently, if there is no ticket number attached, a reservation will be cancelled.

Since I saw people kicked off the flight I was waiting for, I can only assume that Asiana was again overbooked. It looks like they overbooked all their flights for the weekend, and were looking for a reason to boot some people. If someone had apologized profusely to me and offered me something nice, like an upgrade, perhaps I wouldn't feel so abused. As it is, I hope Asiana gets bought out and everyone who works that counter is fired.

Who's a bigger villain, LAX or Asiana?

2011-05-27T08:39:00.000-07:00

My journey home has been extended by 24 hours. As I sit here in the airport Radisson after a full night's sleep, I find it hard to get too agitated about the whole thing. Traveling is tiring, doubly so since I've been getting over a cold, so the break isn't entirely bad.

It started when I landed at LAX. I flew Continental from Houston (from Kansas City, from Charlotte). When I landed in the terminal, I tried to find my flight to Seoul on the screen. No luck. Though my boarding pass said Continental—no gate assigned—the screens had only Continental flights, and none to Seoul. I wandered around for a bit and tried to find someone who could help me, with no luck. All of the counters with people behind them had long lines of boarding passengers. I searched the signs and tried to find a more general area, or directions to another terminal, with no luck. There are a couple of areas ironically marked “information,” with no people, no maps, no general “departures” screens, and only a few paltry markers that say things like “restaurants” and “restrooms.” I finally made it to the United area, where I found what I assumed was my flight on the screen. It had a different number, but the same departure time. As it turns out, the Continental flight became a United flight that was actually operated by Asiana. Under gate, it said “TBID.” TBD? I thought maybe it didn't have a gate. I searched around the boards for some kind of key that would decipher the letters—no luck. I wandered around the United area for awhile. I tried to find a map of the airport—no luck. There was a map of the terminal that said that United and Continental flights left from there, so I figured I could hang around the terminal. I sat down for a minute, then headed for the international part of the United terminal. I searched the gates for awhile. I tried to find an agent to help me—no luck. Finally, I found a person behind a counter who wasn't boarding passengers. I asked, “what's TBID?” She told me that it was the Tom Bradley International Terminal. She told me to follow the signs that said “ground transportation”--who would have guessed?--and catch bus A to the terminal. I was rushing at this point, and I followed a sign to a dead end. I got on the elevator, since the lady told me to go to the ground level, and pushed 1. The elevator wouldn't go. After some frantic mashing, I pushed 2 and ended up on the right floor. I rushed out the door and searched for the A bus. I found it, travelled to the International Terminal. My flight left while I was waiting in the security line.

I went to the Asiana counter pretty visibly upset, and told the lady I had missed my flight. There was another lady at the counter who had been on my connector and missed the same flight. Thanks, LAX. The Asiana lady asked me why I had missed my flight, and I told her I couldn't figure out where to go. She told me that this was my fault, and to come back at 7:40 (it was a little after 1) and get on standby for the next one. Then, just to kick me a little, she said that I would owe whatever the price difference was. I asked if I could find another flight through Continental, since that's who I booked the flight through. She told me to come back at 7:40, then left.

After a few false starts, I found my way to the Continental counter. A nice gentleman there put me on the same flight the following day, and even got me back on a flight to Daegu. This was not without some toiling, and I was very grateful to him. There was no discussion of fault and no extra charge. As it turns out, the nighttime Asiana flight that I was supposed to go on standby for was overbooked. I could have waited around the airport for 8 or 9 hours, only to get the same result. I found a Traveler's Aid desk in the arrivals area, where a very kind lady found me a room at the Radisson. I am showing a bit, so people tend to be nice to me. The Asiana dragon lady's coldness stood out against the kindness of everyone else I dealt with, especially since I went to the Asiana counter after having run around the airport with bags.

So I'm not share who gets the lions share of my wrath: LAX or Asiana. It's a toss up. Los Angeles, congratulations on having the least traveler friendly airport in the world. I'll try not to be here again. Asiana, well, I wrote a complaint. You need to give your people customer service training.

(where I got this: http://www.zazzle.co.nz/i+hate+lax+cards)

Fun in Kansas

2011-05-27T07:53:00.000-07:00

*Okay, I am posting this now, but I wrote it a week ago. NC was wonderful, and I realized how much I miss it and my family. Here's Kansas:

I'm back at the airport after an eventful two weeks in Kansas. I had actually planned to catch up on my writing during my training, but I spent most of my time in class, recovering from the time difference or out. Yes, out. In Leavenworth, Kansas. I met a fun an interesting group of people in training, and we spent a lot of time exploring Leavenworth. There are some fun restaurants around town, and I spent some time designated driving people around. Fort Leavenworth is actually an interesting place. It's got a lot of history, complete with monuments and plaques. It's also got the big military prison, or USDB, which we didn't even get close to, and a big federal penitentiary. The old USDB is now a bunch of offices and a pretty good restaurant.

So, as usual, I got much more out of the people I met in training than the actual training. There were several young US civilians, like myself, with less than five years of experience under their belts. At work, I am the youngest person by about fifteen years, so it was wonderful to share ideas with people from my generation.

Over the weekend, I went to Kansas City with my closest friend who just got engaged, where I again found myself designated driving. We saw an art museum, a zoo, and went to a fantastic restaurant called Beer Kitchen. I am told that Beer Kitchen has wonderful beer cocktails. I spent a lot of time wishing I was a man, so I could both drink and have children. Oh well! I guess I was making up for all those times that I wasn't the designated driver.

And now I'm off to Charlotte for a short stint with my parents.

Cheers!

Happy (late) Mother's Day

2011-05-08T08:41:00.000-07:00

I'm at the tail end of a four hour layover in Incheon Airport, one of the best airports I have been to. Case in point: at the moment I am in the free wifi lounge. Wifi in airports is a common amenity, free wifi is not. I would also like to take a moment to thank Korean airlines. I have had some crummy experiences with airlines, and none of them were with Korean air. I have never had a flight delay the entire time I have been here, which is remarkable. In my last two years in the states, I had one flight cancelled because the plane was elsewhere, another cancelled because the plane was grounded by the FAA, delays for broken plane parts, delays because we were “waiting on the plane,” if you can think of an error in airline service that would cause a delay or cancellation, I have probably had it. As I was flying into Incheon today, I noticed that there are quite a few Korean Air planes in a plane parking lot. Viola! Korean air has enough planes in its fleet to pull planes out of rotation, give them proper maintenance, not fly one plane 8 times a day, and probably even provide a substitute if one plane doesn't arrive. Just a suggestion, US Airways: be more like Korean Air!

Alas, far more and better lines of text have been devoted to failures in United States air service than I can write. I wanted to mention Korean Air, and Asian air service in general, to note that it doesn't have to be that way. When I book trips here, I assume that the plane will be on time and I can make my connection. I can never assume that in the states.

In other news, happy Mother's Day! I can't top my post from last year. Or can I? Okay, full disclosure just shy of the recommended 12 weeks—I'm pregnant. 11 weeks so, to be exact. My mother lost her mother this year, and she will gain a grandchild in November. And so the world turns. I am wondering how flying long distance will mesh with the almost-gone morning sickness that I struggled with weeks five through nine. Don't worry, I won't tell. Wish me luck!

Happy Zoo Busking

2011-05-07T19:21:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, we went to the Seoul Zoo. We were pretty unhappy with the gulag-like Daegu Zoo, and we haven't visited an Asian zoo since. I did my research, and the Seoul Zoo looked legit, so we have been meaning to go.

The weather has finally warmed up a bit, and we decided to take advantage of it. We were not disappointed. A KTX ride to Seoul Station and subway ride to the Seoul National Park took about 2 hours and 15 minutes, and we got to the zoo a little after noon. On the walk between the subway station and the park entrance, here were ajummas selling rice cakes, gimbap, and bugs. There were about six of them at intervals on the walk up, and they all sold the same things. This lack of product diversity is a Korea thing that I can't understand. I don't know why the first one on the walkway didn't get all the profit. Most street fairs I have been to are much like this. There are about four different types of booths, and they all sell identical products.--the toy booth the same toys, the snack booth the same snacks, etc. If you walk 100 yards into the fair, you have seen everything.

The zoo was a kilometer away from the subway stop, and for lazy people there were a tram and a sky lift to choose from. We took the tram in. We strove to see the entire zoo, and we were successful. People gathered around the elephant and lion habitats, but we had a more interesting time at the less visited side exhibits. Bobby made a few friends. He has an inexplicable way with animals, and he actually called some of them to him. A three toed night monkey came right up to the glass opposite Bobby and peered at him. Another monkey played games with him, moving his head around and stamping his feet. Going to the zoo is never boring when Bobby is around.

Like every zoo, the Seoul Zoo had some great exhibits and some depressing ones. There was a lemur habitat in which the lemurs ran between two cages on ladders that hung over public walkways. We speculated that the lemurs must poop on several people a day. There were majestic silver wolves anxiously pacing in too small cages. Overall, we had a good time, and dang it, we saw the whole thing. The trip ended, as they always do, with Bobby wishing he worked in a zoo. Someday...

Tiger statue at the entrance

I love meercats

Usually I can tell what the English signs are trying to say, but this time I have no idea

One of Bobby's friends. Once Bobby pulled out the camera, he lost interest.

A peacock gives us a show

Sky lift out of the zoo

Radioactive Rain

2011-04-09T20:32:00.000-07:00

We had dinner with our neighbor Jin the other night. His English is passable but not awesome, and my Korean is not even passable, but he tried to explain to us something about Japan. The next morning, there was a bottle of something on our doorstep with a note, which explained that the kelp-seaweed mix in the bottle was to ward off radiation. Now, I work on a military base, which obsessively tests radiation levels on a regular basis as a matter of national security, so I know there's no harmful radiation here. Nonetheless, the next day it rained and Mr. Pan came in and told me it was radioactive rain from Japan. When we went out for dinner with some friends that night, we did not take out the umbrella because it was only spritzing. A Korean guy told us to use our umbrella because the rain was radioactive. The Americans we were with thought that was hilarious.

I guess sensationalist news exists all over the world. I'm sure that if there were some way to say that Arab nations were sending radioactive rain towards America, Fox News would be the first to run the story, and probably not the last.

In other news, the cherry blossoms are here! We took a walk down our street this morning, and Maya mostly behaved herself. She had a “conversation” with a Jindo that had the people around us scattering, which is why I don't walk her down the road without Bobby. He had to lift her up and carry her for a few blocks.

Outside of our house

Are you f'ing kidding me?

2011-04-02T20:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm finally going to go there. Maybe it's because I believe I have been here long enough to make a fair assessment in context, or maybe it's just because it's Sunday, it's raining, and we haven't really done anything blog worthy this week. When I was a younger woman, I used to complain about how appearance obsessed my contemporaries were. Well, I had not seen anything yet.

Awhile back, a friend pointed out the plastic surgery billboards downtown, and once I noticed them, I noticed how many there were. Asian women are renowned for their beauty, but Korean women--in particular, as I noticed after visiting China and Japan--have a noticeably airbrushed look. Well, there's a reason for this.

Did you notice the BMI index in Korea, which is vastly different from ours? Also, that the plastic surgeon was counseling an underweight woman to get liposuction because she is "bigger than most of the women her age?" Perhaps you caught the part about job interviews. Koreans actually have to attach a picture of themselves to their resumes!

I know Americans have our own issues with body image. It seems like we have a hard time doing anything in moderation. We're either too large or way too small, and either way we're completely obsessed with food and dieting. But over here, it's institutionalized. I should also point out that the people on treadmills are all over 40. This is because muscles are not considered sexy, so young women prefer starvation diets to the diet-and-exercise combo that doctors recommend.

I could also touch on how Korea is miles behind the rest of the industrialized world in women's employment, women's involvement in politics, and the women to men's salary ratio (60 cents to the dollar!) Sometimes I think I'm surrounded by Henrick Ibsen's A Doll's House writ large. I guess that's all I'll say on that.

The Patterson Problem

2011-03-27T00:35:00.000-07:00

I have been aggressively weeding the adult fiction collection at Walker Library. Weeding is one of the more misunderstood tasks of my profession. It involves removing perfectly good books from our collection, which causes book lovers to squeal in horror. I do it to make space for new books, and in this case, to make space to move our young adult collection out of the children's room where it is withering. Young adults do not consider themselves children, and spend a lot of time trying to convince us of that. Entering the children's room to retrieve a copy of Twilight is capitulation, and they prefer not to do it.

Anyways, I have a few criteria for what books I will remove. If it has been checked out in the past year, it gets to stay. Today I did the M-P shelves, which unfortunately put me face to face with James Patterson. I probably spend 1/10 of my book budget on this man. He writes at least a book a month, and they all make it to the bestseller list. I quail to think of what will happen when he decides to write kid's picture books as well. We'll have to rename it James Patterson library. Needless to say, Mr. Patterson has a couple of shelves to himself. When I got to his section, I got a little excited about how many books I would be able to remove, but to my dismay, almost every Patterson book has been checked out in the past year!!

I strongly believe that "whatever gets you through the night, it's alright" (thanks, John Lennon). I have learned that people believe all sorts of things, and that there's not really one way to think about anything. I especially believe this about reading. If you read, you're cool to me. I don't care if it's Danielle Steele or Thomas Pynchon. That being said, come on! I can't believe this guy can crank out books like a factory and people devour them! And now the Walker collection will be an even bigger percent Patterson because, while other authors who perhaps don't use ghostwriters are banished from the shelves, Jamie moneybags keeps his shelf space. Sometimes life isn't fair.

Jeju-do

2011-03-18T20:56:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday, my closest friend came to Daegu with her boyfriend. We showed them around the paltry sights of Daegu, the highlight of which was a gyrating Minnie mouse in the middle of an underground shopping mall. Melissa and Joe thought this was hilarious, while Bobby and I discovered that we don't even notice these things any more.

The following day, we headed for Jeju island, which is Korea's premier vacation spot. Fortunately, it was the off season, so there weren't too many people there. Unfortunately, it was cold. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the beautiful scenery, particularly at the Hyatt where we stayed. Jeju is a volcanic island, and has lush vegetation and lots of volcanic rock formations, not to mention the clear blue sea.

We ate lots of black pig, which is Jeju's specialty. We eventually saw the toilets in the traditional folk villages, which emptied into the pigsties. This did not lessen our enjoyment of the dish. We visited a wide variety of restaurants, from a hole in the wall barbecue (delicious) to a “fusion cafe” decorated like a crazy old lady's bedroom, which charged a fee for hanging around and enjoying the decor (creepy). We ended up at many of these places because the GPS in our rental car had a hard time finding restaurants.

We did a lot of sightseeing, covering the island in our white Sonata (for some reason, all of the rental cars were white.) We saw lava caves, a picturesque waterfall, the largest temple Bobby and I have ever seen, a huge caldera, an erotic sculpture garden (hey, how often do you have a chance to see one of those?), and two folk villages, each one claiming more authenticity than the other. We walked on the beach by our hotel, and gawked at all the couples in matching outfits. Matching outfits are huge right now, and Jeju is Korea's honeymoon destination.

Jeju is kind of far from mainland Korea, and prides itself in being independent. They have their own heritage, which is just as much Mongolian as Han Chinese, which is what mainland Koreans are. They were originally their own kingdom, and were only conquered by mainland Korea a little over 1,000 years ago. As a result, they are fiercely proud of their unique heritage. There were lots of “traditional” statues—at this point it's hard to tell which ones are old. All of the attractions had the label, “Jeju self-governing province” on them.

Bobby and I got a kick out of being allowed in and on the architecture. Normally, we have to stop at the door when we see historic buildings or temples. In Jeju, we were free to walk around traditional houses and wander the cathedral like temple taking pictures, without our shoes of course. In the temple, we were encouraged to buy three bags of rice, which we offered up to the three Buddhas. I guess someone has to pay for all that upkeep.

Like most vacations, it was too short. Jeju is one of those places in Korea we have been meaning to visit, and it lived up to its reputation. I'm hoping to go back for a weekend sometime when we can go swimming.

The beach outside of our hotel

The only shot I have of the lava caves. My camera takes shoddy dark pictures

The "authentic" folk village. Many people still live in these houses--well, the ones with plate glass and cars parked out front

The Jeju Statues. The one with his right hand higher than his left is a professor, and the one with his left hand higher is a soldier

Huge caldera

Awesome bathroom sign

Cheonjeyeon falls

Melissa and me on a bridge overlooking the ocean

Huge temple

The three Buddhas. See the rice bags in front of them?

A traditional Jeju woman. She's carrying water on her back. This perhaps explains all the hunchbacked old ladies in Korea.

The main room of the house. The other two rooms don't have a floor.

My best attempt at capturing the toilet. On the right side is an outhouse structure. The hole empties into this pen, where the pigs would live.

Bobby in the middle of some statues.

Hwaseong Fortress

2011-02-25T16:53:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we went to Suwon to see Korea's most celebrated fortress, Hwaseong. It was a three hour train ride from Daegu on the slow train—there was no KTX route available. When we got there, we were surprised to see a pretty large city. There was a model of the fortress in the train station. It's really a long wall that encircles the center of the city. It was King Jeonjo's construction; he planned to move the capital from Seoul to Suwon following the Japanese invasion of Korea (I suppose I should say a Japanese invasion of Korea; there were several throughout history). As you can see, Jeonjo's plans were never brought to fruition. Nonetheless, there is an impressive structure at Suwon that attracts plenty of tourists, though it is mainly reconstructed after being demolished during the Korean War.

We started out at Hwaseong Haengung, which was the palace. It looked very similar to all of the other palaces we have seen, and we breezed through until we came to the tableaux. Several rooms were set up to look like they had during the Jeoson Dynasty, complete with mannequins going through the motions of daily life. This was a nice touch, bringing the history to life. We also saw an interactive display of rice chests. King Jeonjo's grandfather knew his son Sado was crazy and unfit to rule, so he locked the guy in a rice chest for days, where he died. Along with this story, there were rice chests lining the walls, and visitors were encouraged to get into the rice chests to experience Sado's fear. We passed.

The wall was up a mountain, to Bobby's chagrin. We walked along the wall and saw various guard posts, a pavilion, and a giant bell that you could ring for 1,000 won. Korean men lined up to ring the bell.

When we bought our tickets back home, there was a KTX route. Go figure!

The wooden rice chest experience

can't remember...possibly an official studying?

a eunuch

a maid

Bobby's favorite weapon: the Hwa-cha. Put a bunch of rockets in the holes, aim, fire!

neat looking lampposts

a supply gate in the wall

the giant bell

me at the overlook

the pavilion on the overlook

a lower part of the wall. It was Sunday, so there were tons of Koreans strolling around.

the South Gate

There are no recliners in Korea

2011-02-22T04:05:00.000-08:00

I will often hear someone complain about a lack of services in Korea. When Americans complain that there are no groceries on Mondays, there's no clothing for 2 year olds, or there are no pediatric dentists, it sounds ridiculous to me. There are four million people living in this city, and somehow they eat, get dental care, and clothe their children even when they don't have access to our on-post services. They don't live in huts and use witch doctors; this is a civilized country with top notch services. I know trying to communicate with sign language and a Korean dictionary can get tiring, but come on. Quit being so xenophobic, I think, and go off base once and awhile! So when Bobby's recliner broke and we were not happy with the single recliner they were selling at the PX, we went down to furniture alley to see what Korea had to offer. Furniture alley, as is typical in Korea, consists of several different furniture stores selling the same chairs and sofas. We discovered very quickly that Korean furniture is not for us. The chairs and sofas are rather hard. They are the kind of furniture you find in a doctor's waiting room, and not at all something I can stretch out on with a book. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, since we knew that about Korean beds. Koreans have been sitting on the floor for centuries, so I guess they like their furniture to be hard. There are also absolutely no recliners.

So, ironically, we are finally financially able to replace our beat up, stained old furniture and there are almost no options for us. Bobby got out the electric drill and some coat hangers and patched his chair back together. We will now wait for the PX to bring in a new recliner, one that we will hopefully like. At least we have access to the PX!

Snowy Valentine's Day

2011-02-18T21:02:00.000-08:00

This past Valentine's Day was my most memorable. Bobby and I have never really celebrated the holiday, aside from our yearly tradition of buying discounted candy the day afterwards. We didn't even do that this year, since Bobby is trying to lose some weight. (Trying to lose weight is not a phrase loaded with positive reinforcement. I'd say Bobby has lost some weight after some dieting and exercise, but he wants to lose some more).

When I got up that morning and headed for the kitchen, I was completely surprised to see a panorama of snowflakes. Snow was not on the forecast. I am beginning to think that snow is so spontaneous and enigmatic that meteorologists often can't predict it. It's just too damn magical. It snowed through the workday, and I begrudgingly scraped my car to go to a meeting, and again when I left. A lot of Koreans did not go to work, as was evident when we went home early. There were about eight inches of powdery snow on the ground, and Koreans were everywhere trying to scrape it from the roads and sidewalks. Some were using shovels, some just had long boards. There was a festival atmosphere, with some young people taking breaks to slide down the hill on shovels. I guess over here scraping side roads is a neighborhood job. Bobby and I furtively watched from our house, feeling too much like outsiders to join. I eventually took the dog to the mountain, but only after I left Bobby with the camera and ordered him to take some pictures. When I got to our untouched path, I was very sorry I didn't have the camera. Deep, powdery snow in the woods has a beauty that I can't describe. Maya was ecstatic, and bounded through the snow like a maniac, pausing to take mouthfuls of it. I marched along behind, chanting, “whose woods these are I think I know, his house is in the village though, he will not see me stopping here, to watch his woods fill up with snow.” Occasionally I slipped and fell, landing in a deep cushion of snow and laughing.

As a working woman who no longer lives in the south, snow has lost some of the magic it once had. Having to slide to work, trudge through half melted sludge, scrape my windshield, and get my feet wet makes snow my frenenemy. It's good to know that deep, powdery snow still holds the appeal to me that it did in my childhood.

Our friendly neighborhood mountain

Diligently scraping the street and parking lot

My first foray into ebook land

2011-02-13T04:03:00.000-08:00

I have been working with books for about ten years now. When I started, people were screaming about how ebooks were going to make paper books obsolete. I remember my not-so-tech-savvy manager asking me if I could find textbooks on ipod back when the ipod only played music. We had dusty ereaders at my old library system that nobody checked out. For a long time, I felt like people were getting needlessly worked up over technology that was no match for an ink-and-paper book.

Ten years later, think we have finally reached the tipping point where ebooks will surpass paper books. Most of my friends have Kindles or Nooks, and they like them as much as their paper counterparts. My old library system, which is broke but very forward thinking, offers several titles in ebook format, most of which are checked out. As usual, the Army toddles behind (I think they switched to online catalogs in the late '90's), offering an embarrassingly small package of unpopular ebooks that are incredibly hard to find.

It's going to be hard to get me to convert before libraries start lending ebooks regularly. It's hard to beat our prices. Today, however, I was faced with an emergency situation. I have my first book club meeting in less than two weeks, and Amazon has still not delivered the book I ordered three weeks ago. Expediency demanded that I order an ebook. Being me, first I checked my old library system (I still have my card number memorized), followed by the Army's paltry selection. All copies were checked out or not there to begin with. I am partial to the Nook because you can read library downloads on it, so I downloaded a Nook app to my ipod and tried to buy the ebook. Barnes and Nobles, may they get what they deserve, does not offer ebooks to anyone with an out-of-US billing address. I finally found success with Amazon, and will begrudgingly read as much of the book as I can manage on my ipod this weekend. I don't think many people think the ipod is an ideal medium for reading.

I think I'll stick to ink and paper a little while longer.

New Beginnings

2011-02-06T01:44:00.000-08:00

This past week, we said goodbye to the year of the metal tiger and hello to the year of the metal rabbit. I confess, I have no idea what the elements mean, but this year we are supposed to relax and focus on family. Last year, I was disappointed that there was no Chinese New Year like fanfare, but this year I noticed that if you pay attention, you can still pick up on the holiday atmosphere. Everything was closed, for starters. The streets were lined with cars, with people walking around in formal or traditional dress every day. Bobby happened upon a huge family gathering at a burial mound and quickly retreated, dog in tow. Maya and I walked through some kind of ceremony the next day (it was at the stream and I didn't notice until Maya was sniffing some ritual object—eek!) We probably would have really seen a festival atmosphere had we ventured to the Home Plus, but we decided to skip out on that.

Americans had Friday off (USFK=lots of holidays). I was supposed to brief my staff on the dangers of driving drunk and heavy lunar new year traffic. I heard a couple of American patrons advising Mr. Pan to stay off the road, apparently oblivious to the fact that he has, in fact, dealt with Lunar New Year every year of his life. Anyways, I don't dream of driving too far on those days, but the traffic isn't really as bad as everyone says it is.

I read that Daegu National Museum had a Lunar New Year demonstration, so we decided to visit on Saturday. We didn't see any rituals, but there were a bunch of traditional Korean games on the grounds with kids playing them. The museum was pretty neat. It was free, for starters, and there was an exhibit with photographs of Seoul during the Japanese invasion. It looks almost agrarian; there were trees and grass! We learned that the stone pagodas we see in temples are supposed to resemble houses, and that Korean women (presumably yangban, or upper class) had “five friends,” which were their embroidery implements. This led Bobby to ask me where my five friends were at regular intervals throughout the weekend.

Tomorrow, I go back to work, but Bobby, whose office is entirely active duty personnel, is off because it's a “training holiday,” which means the soldiers are off. This particular training holiday is for the Superbowl, which airs at 6am here, at which point the on base clubs will be packed to bursting with people drinking beer and eating breakfast.

Daegu National Museum

I think this is a kiln

Human Kindness

2011-01-28T02:35:00.000-08:00

In Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert quotes Ben Sheffield, another author, who says something along the lines of, "it's almost impossible to be a cynic after something bad happens to you because the kindness of your fellow humans will overwhelm you." Sheffield suddenly and unexpectedly lost his wife, which he writes about in Love is a Mix Tape. I bring this up because it's true. I can't believe how many people have made the effort to express sorrow for our loss and wish us well. It would be hard for me to think that the world is a cruel and unforgiving place when I'm surrounded by such love. Bobby and I have had our ups and downs over the years, and I can tell you that the downs make me appreciate the ups that much more. Losing a pregnancy is a tough thing to get over, but I know we will come out stronger for it. Thank you, everyone, for making this easier.

Life Happens

2011-01-22T21:59:00.000-08:00

Three weeks ago, I found out I was pregnant. Four days ago, I lost it. It would make sense for me to leave this out of the blog, but I can't do it. It was a major experience in my life. Furthermore, I don't understand the cult of secrecy surrounding miscarriage. It's a very real, very painful experience that many people go through and no one talks about. If I had gallstones or something, of course I would write about it. It's far past time to lift the aura of shame from the experience.

I guess I'll start with the hospital. I found the staff at Hyosung Women's Hospital to be compassionate and professional. Hyosung is a little more expensive than YUMC, but the facilities are much nicer. I guess you would call it a “boutique” hospital. There were many English speakers. My friends in America who have miscarried have often gone through a “wait and see” period where they wait to miscarry naturally. If this doesn't work, they resort to drugs, and if that doesn't work, they do a D&C. My doctors seemed a little more interested in getting the whole thing over with, which I appreciate. Once the process started, I was given 12 hours to miscarry on my own or I would have a D&C (it turns out I didn't need it).

Not that expelling an embryo is a piece of cake. That's actually one thing I was not prepared for. On television, it tends to happen overnight. In reality, there were about three days of agony which has thankfully diminished. Bobby and I have been watching Battlestar Galactica at a rate of about a season a day. He has been wonderful, making dinner, taking care of the animals, and waiting on me hand and foot. Some people look at us and think Bobby got the better end of the deal. They're wrong.

I don't know how long it will take to get over it. I'm not going to push myself. I know it was nobody's fault, that sometimes life just doesn't happen. There are a lot of rules surrounding pregnant women, and it's easy to think that maybe if we want to carry a healthy child to term, we have to sit around and eat bananas all day, feel absolutely no stress, and avoid breathing too much air because it might contain toxins. One wonders how the human race survived through times of famine, war, and natural disasters.

In the words of president Roslin, “It was nobody's fault. It's bigger than that. It's life.” Here's to better days.

Week of Repairmen

2011-01-14T04:52:00.000-08:00

I've been a poor correspondent these past few weeks, I know. I spent the week after New Year's back at Camp Casey attending training. It was a nondescript week in which I missed Daegu's loveliest snow and ate an honest-to-god bean and chicken burrito. When I got back, our heater was on the fritz. My friends can tell you I am a wimpy southerner at heart, and I despise the cold, so I was less than pleased. The next day, our main kitchen light went out. Much to our chagrin, we can't just buy a new light and replace it over here. We've tried. There's some magical third step that requires a professional light bulb installer. Yes, such a person exists, and he has been to our house twice now. In Korea, there's a job for just about everything. Apparently most gas stations (which are all full service) have a professional tire filler.

Bobby's beloved flat screen went out one year and one week after we bought it (!) It's a Korean brand, so Bobby contacted the company, who said “ship it to us and we'll fix it.” We didn't know how to go about doing this, so at a local TV repair man's behest we drove our set down to his shop. He took one look at it and said, “no big TV! Only small TV!” With a giant TV in our car, we headed down the road to Louis, our genial realtor who has been known to help in a pinch. Louis walked with us to a Korean post office, where they said “too big” but referred us to a shipping company. Louis called the shipping company, arranged for a pickup, and told Bobby to have the delivery address translated into Korean and be prepared with cash payment. Our neighbor, Jin, translated the address and the delivery guys showed up and carted our TV to Seoul for a mere 25,000 won (about 20 bucks).

Four days later, we were getting nervous when Bobby got a call from someone who spoke no English. I did a reverse look up on the number (being married to a former reference librarian has its advantages), and saw that it was the shipping company. Bobby called the TV company, got through to the one guy who spoke English (the president), who said he would call the shipping company and get our TV. Our TV has now been delivered to the company, but it got a little hairy there in the middle.

We decided, since we were at it, to finally get our dryer fixed. We spent the summer happily hanging our clothes on a line on top of our building, but now that it's cold we can't do that. It's been a week of repairmen.

Maya loves balls

The view from our roof

Jin and Maya

The restaurants and the road

Auto Insurance

2010-12-29T03:13:00.001-08:00

Our auto insurance is out of this world. Granted, we haven't had to file a claim yet—knock the wood, as Mr. Yu says—but we have still gotten our money's worth. It's very cheap, $300 for a year. With this comes a full set of benefits. When we lock our keys out of the car, someone comes and lets us in at no extra charge. When we blow a tire, someone comes and replaces it, no charge. If we are bad enough planners to run out of gas, someone will come and give us some gas. It's time to renew our policy, and the insurance agent called me and offered to come visit my office so that I can pay and fill out the paperwork. It's going to be hard to go back to our old “pay a fortune and pray you never have to file a claim” stateside policy.

Melly Clistmas to All

2010-12-26T01:44:00.000-08:00

This week has been hectic, but fun. On Monday, I had a Christmas ornament making party that drew in an unprecedented 35+ people. I crammed as many in as I could, then I started sending people away. Library events normally draw ten to fifteen people, so I was unprepared for the rush but glad to get the attention. Storytime has been well attended recently as well. I think the library is on the up and up.

On Wednesday, I had some kids from the youth center come in for a storytime. We read some of my old favorites, The Polar Express and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. The Polar Express was once a family tradition, and I was glad to read it to the kids, though they did keep making references to the movie! They sang some songs from The Grinch for me, holding hands and swaying like the whos. I think Christmas is far more fun when there are kids involved.

On Christmas Eve I made a chicken pot pie, which is kind of a tradition, and we gave some to our neighbor, Jin. He gave us a bowl of kimchi. I admit, I'm kind of over kimchi, but the homemade stuff is okay. It works wonders for the digestive tract.

On Christmas Day we had reservations at the Novotel, and we went downtown early in order to catch the new Harry Potter movie. Well, despite leaving at 4pm,we couldn't get into a single showing that would let out in time for our 8pm reservation. We tried four theaters, then bought tickets for the next day. We then wandered around for three hours, stopping for coffee.

The Christmas buffet at the Novotel was something. I actually liked the dinner we had last year better, but this one came with a Korean santa (he had clown shoes and made balloon animals), a beautiful view, and rows and rows of dessert tables. The place was packed, and the food was pretty good. Bobby got a robster (I will now always think of them as robsters). Our place card said “Hyarey,” which I guess is our Korean name.

The cats and dog got Christmas meals, despite the cats' sincere effort to wreck our tree. While we were gone last weekend, they managed to destroy the green lights as well as pulling some of my favorite ornaments off and batting them around the living room. Green is my favorite color! Little devils. Bobby got a PSP and I got an external hard drive and a mink robe. Of course, we bought a Christmas cake. This year was Bobby's choice. He went with the chocolate cake.

Puck next to our ravaged tree

Wrapping paper is Loki's favorite thing about Christmas

Us at the Novotel. On my right is half of Korean Santa.

This year's Christmas cake

The Dragon Hill Lodge in Seoul. They really do it up for Christmas

Christmas in Seoul, Reprise

2010-12-19T00:21:00.000-08:00

We went to Seoul this weekend. We saw the Korea National Ballet perform The Nutcracker, had Indian food at that fantastic restaurant in Itaewon where we ate last Christmas, and went ice skating at Seoul Plaza. As you may have guessed, this trip was my Christmas present.

I loved seeing the Nutcracker again, which was very similar to the one I've seen at home, but a little different. There were similar costumes and sets, for example, but the Christmas tree had a fish on it. Not a fish ornament, a giant goldfish. There was also no nutcracker. The orchestra made the nut-cracking noise during the song when Drosselmeyer introduces the doll, but the doll was a kid wearing a lot of makeup and more closely resembled a clown. I guess the choreographers thought Koreans wouldn't know what a nutcracker is, anyway. The little girl who played Clara was amazing. She was doing some complicated stuff en pointe and she couldn't have been older than 13. They added a Christmas song medley at the end, when the dancers took their final curtain call.

The cabdriver who took us to the Seoul Arts Center (a fantastic, three storied opera house) didn't know what ballet was, which didn't surprise me after trying to explain it to my staff. There's a credit card commercial over here starring a famous ballerina, so I had thought it was in the public consciousness but I guess not. And yes, it is called ballet in Korea.

Seoul Plaza was all done up with a lighted Christmas tree and a large snow globe, and there was a skating rink in the center. Bobby preferred to stand on the sidelines and laugh at me as I struggled to remember how to skate. I finally got the hang of it about five minutes before closing time.

We encountered a protest at the train station, which isn't unusual. I see protests about 75% of the time I come to Seoul Station. The man on stage was shouting something very angrily, and I wasn't surprised when our cabdriver told us they were protesting the government's inaction in response to the bombing on Yeonpyeong Island. Many Koreans are upset about this, understandably so. The US is still in a war we entered as retaliation for the September 11 attacks nine years ago. Americans who have been in Korea for awhile are very nonchalant about the incidents this year. They say it has always been like this. I wonder if this fervor is going to die down after awhile.

The Good 'Ol Days

2010-12-16T02:24:00.000-08:00

As I was contemplating several rather dismal homemade ornaments, the most random person popped into my head. I do a lot of craft programs for the library. People seem to like them, though I hate crafting with a passion. I was never very good at it, and these ugly ornaments are proof. I like to do my crafts beforehand so I can work out any kinks, though when I'm demonstrating I always start out with, "now, I know yours will look nicer than mine."

But the name was the interesting part of this story. For the first time in years, I thought of a somewhat unbalanced former patron with a very distinctive voice whom I'll call DD. DD made calling telephone reference a regular part of his day. He was one of many. It wasn't until I began working in telephone reference that I began to realize how many severely mentally unstable people there were wandering the streets. Anyways, one of DD's tricks was to call every day to ask if a particular person had been released from jail. I believe he was in trouble when this man got out, which didn't happen while I was working there. DD would also call for various phone numbers, and once he asked me to write him a business plan so he could submit it to the government and get his free money (thinking, I believe, of an SBA grant).

He was a handful, but he was easier to deal with than Washington DC lady, by far our most persistent caller. Washington DC lady would call for the numbers to various businesses, some of which no longer existed and some of which had very different names from the ones she gave. She would call for the same number several times. When confronted with the fact that her mind was almost gone, like when we told her some business did not exist, she would become very angry.

She was easier to deal with than Morphine Man, who was trying to get his roommate arrested or fired. When he was done complaining about his roommate and trying to get legal advice from us (we didn't give it), he would try to stump us and then complain about receiving inadequate service. A typical question from Morphine Man was, "so
what's going on these days?" He got his name because we suspected that he was at a methadone clinic.

There was the Reverend BJ, who would sometimes ask me to read her every quote from the Bible with a particular theme, and sometimes thought our answers were too quick or simple, at which point she would say, "don't get smart with me!" Media Man only wanted the numbers to various media outlets, about 3 a day, while HQ man thought that we could find him the direct line to a company's CEO if he just asked the right person (he kept asking for the head librarian). South Carolina man was fascinated with the Romans, and wanted lots of little facts about them. He then wanted to know where we found the answer. He would ask the same question several times, and didn't like it when the answers weren't consistent, so we started photocopying the source material and highlighting the fact. When someone quit paying his phone bill, he tried to call us collect, but we never accepted.

It's easy for me to tell stories about telephone reference with the fond humor that comes with having left a dismal situation. Any one of those names would send a current telephone reference employee's blood pressure skyrocketing. I guess what I'm saying is, crafting isn't really so bad.

Riddle Me This

2010-12-10T03:53:00.000-08:00

Supposedly, the greatest human fear is public speaking.

People illogically differentiate between speaking and typing. It's far easier for me to send out a strongly worded email than to give someone a dressing down, and I think this is true for many people. Nonetheless, the words and the effect of them are the same, whether spoken or written. If anything, it's worse to write something mean or stupid, because the words can sit there in someone's inbox for years, and can be pulled out and dusted off when a spoken argument would be long forgotten.

People remain afraid of public speaking, but not of public typing. One facebook post can reach hundreds of people. How many of us, however, would walk in front of 500 people and report that we had pizza for lunch?

As I read my 100th squabble on the USAG Daegu Facebook page, I have to wonder if there was an evolutionary purpose to our fear of public speaking. Sure, deep down, we don't want to hurt or offend people. Our adrenal glands tell us this. Now, by removing ourselves from the podium, we have bypassed this ingrained impulse to be polite in front of strangers and I, for one, don't like it.

And yes, I originally tried to make this a Facebook post, but couldn't condense it to 160 characters.

Christmas shopping

2010-12-04T17:59:00.000-08:00

We went to Daegu's biggest shopping enclave, Seoumum market, to do our Christmas shopping. There are almost no traditional shopping malls here. There are a lot of shopping streets, and a couple of underground shopping malls. There are also multistory department stores. None of these sounded particularly appealing to me, and the best deals are to be had at the market.

We had been there once before, just a few days after we arrived. I remembered a rather overwhelming experience. We landed in the fish market and got pretty lost. We had not been back.

Seomum market actually turned out to be like a massive flea market, but with nicer things. We found some good deals. We ran across a store with Christmas trees, where most of the business appeared to be people taking pictures of the trees. The shopkeeper was happy to have a westerner there, and she chatted to me a bit.

For dinner, we went to a place that let you design your own pizza. I am proud to announce that, one year after arriving, we have finally found a place that sells real pizza. Their secret? They let you pick all of the ingredients. So while we could have mayonnaise as a sauce or top our pizzas with sweet potatoes, corn, and squid, we were also able to design a normal pizza. Success!

Much to be thankful for

2010-11-25T22:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. Just like last year, we had planned to go to my boss's house for a potluck. Unlike last year, I was able to contribute. I cooked up two batches of Dubuisson sweet potatoes, and Bobby made a Mt. Dew cake. Also different this year: we brought a friend! I am grateful to have made friends over the past year, and it was wonderful to share Thanksgiving with them. Dinner was a nice mishmash of good food, good liquor, conversation, and karaoke, which I'm finding is a fixture at all parties in Korea, American or Korean. Here they call it norebang (karaoke is a Japanese word, which Koreans try to avoid).

My birthday is tomorrow, but I've already received my presents. I got some fabulous boots from my parents, along with some clothing and an autographed copy of Greg Mortenson's book. Greg is a personal hero of mine; he is fighting terrorism in the middle east by building schools. I firmly believe that education is the key to a free democratic society, and Greg is trying to prove that. My dream job is to one day help build libraries where Greg builds schools. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

This morning, Bobby retrieved an Amazon box from base. It was kind of slim, and I opened it to find a bread machine cookbook. Bobby told me he would get me the bread machine for Christmas. I was actually kind of fooled, but then he got the machine from the car.

I have wanted a bread machine for awhile now, and it was astute of Bobby to decide to get me one now. I used to live two doors down from a bakery, and now there is almost no source of good, fresh bread. Sure, Korea is littered with bakeries, but they concentrate on Korean pastries: sweet cakes with bean paste or cheese and sausage laden crusts. There are no baguettes or artisan breads. Now, I can make my own with little effort.

Clearly, I have much to be thankful for. Here's to another year in my fortune filled life.

My bread machine

These boots were not made for wearing in the house, so don't tell my landlord

Pyeongtaek

2010-11-20T19:55:00.000-08:00

Well, I need new work pants. There are a ton of places to buy clothing in Daegu, but many of them have no fitting rooms and I am often too tall and thick for Korean clothes. We decided to skip the hassle and go to Osan Air Base, which has the closest thing to an American shopping mall on the peninsula, or so we hear. There's a free bus that goes from Camp Walker to Osan every day.

It was a four hour bus ride, but once we got to Osan we encountered a store resembling a Target. I have to say, I have missed my big box stores (sorry, small businesses). They had everything, including a large Misses clothing section. I found my pants, and we decided to explore Pyeongtaek while we waited for our bus out.

There is a nice shopping area outside of Osan, though it's very similar to what we have in Daegu. I was able to buy some super cheap socks, mittens, and a pillow. Pyeongtaek has a much higher concentration of Americans, which is no surprise given their proximity to Osan Air Base and Camp Humphries, both of which are larger than USAG Daegu. The stores had American sizes, and everyone gave prices in dollars.

The highlight of our day was when we decided to try a Brazilian steakhouse. It was an experience. I'm not a big meat person, but Bobby is, and he found a lunch right up his alley. We paid a flat fee for “weekend lunch,” and received a couple of plates for the salad bar. When we finished our plates, the waiter brought us steaks. Then veal. Then some kind of flank steak on a stick, chicken and beef bits wrapped in bacon, more flank steak, chicken, sausage, garlic encrusted beef ribs, and more flank steak. I am inclined to believe that there was more meat in our dinner (and the chain's website says something about 15 meats), but I started refusing courses after four and Bobby had to stop after this. The waiter then brought us a pineapple on a stick encrusted with cinnamon, and cut a sliver for each of us. We spend the rest of the afternoon joking about our meat on meat lunch with meat on the side. I don't think I need to try that again, though I suspect that Bobby will want to.

Fortified with meat, we took another four hour bus ride back. A year ago, I would never have imagined myself traveling four hours to visit a more expensive version of Target. I would travel twice that for a good Mexican restaurant!

The Autumn Leaves

2010-11-15T00:22:00.000-08:00

Since we live next to a mountain, I have eagerly anticipated the changing leaves. And then, I missed them. I'm not entirely sure how this happened. It seems like one minute, the leaves were green, and the next they were brown. I have a couple of theories:

The mountains are to the north and south of me, so the light never hit them right.
The leaves don't turn fiery spectacular colors like the ones on base.
I've been working too damn much.

I think it's some combination of the three. I did catch some of the leaves on our street, which were cherry blossoms in the spring. In the fall, they get lovely red leaves. If I ever have a yard, I'll be sure and plant some wild cherry trees in it.

I do work a lot. I have somehow adopted this evil schedule where I work Tuesday through the following Sunday, take Monday off, then work till Friday, and take a three day weekend. Of course, there are often meetings and other hoopla that come up on Mondays, so I'll pop in for them. On paper, it sounds nice to have a three day weekend every other week, but the preceding 10 day stretch is just too much for me. I know, I know, Koreans work 6 days a week. I'm just not cut out for it.

In other news, we've been here a year now! Woohoo! A nice celebratory dinner is somewhere in our less hectic future. The time flies, and I find us facing another Korean winter (inject whatever the opposite of woohoo is here.)

I'd be remiss if I ended this post without mentioning Bob. A good friend died last week. Bob Remsburg was like a grandfather to me, and I feel his loss like I would (did) my grandfather's. I'm sorry I can't go to the funeral, but I am saying goodbye in my own way. Bob Remsburg, thanks for everything.

Bob and Mary Remsburg and Bobby at our wedding

The last time we were all together. That's Bob in the back.

The cherry trees changing color.

That's today. The red comes from the setting sun, I think, 'cause it's pretty much all gray now.

I think she's too big to be a lap dog, but Bobby begs to differ

My Trip to YUMC

2010-11-06T21:22:00.001-07:00

On Thursday, I was reminded that Korea is an easy place to be an English speaking foreigner. I developed this godawful pain in my abdomen very suddenly on Thursday morning. I have never felt anything like it. While I was making a scene, Bobby frantically called Mr. Pan and had him cover for me. I happened to know that Yeungnam University Medical Center is close to our house—well, there's no happen about it. It's, of course, very important to know your closest hospital, and I had this scenario worked out in my mind shortly after we moved in. Anyways, Bobby helped me hobble to the car and we took off. When we got there, I made it to the international reception desk, which has a bevy of translators. A nice lady took me to see a gastroenterologist, and by the time we got into the office the pain was very manageable. I felt silly being in a hospital for it. Nonetheless, they gave me a once over and got an extensive medical history. The doctor actually spoke English as well. I left with medicine for an ulcer and gastritis. I guess they were covering their bases.

The medicines are Korean, but they worked well. The pain has disappeared, and I'm glad it wasn't my appendix. That was my first thought. In the back of my mind, I keep remembering when the Chinese herbalists in Beijing asked me if I had poor circulation and pains in my stomach. I wonder if the two are related. I have been consulting my good friend internet, and poor circulation may also finally explain to me why my legs hurt so badly sometimes. They have done so my entire life, and I'm completely clueless as to what brings it on. I wish I could find an oriental clinic here with an English speaker. I will have to start questing.

Okay, full stop. Going to the hospital was my wake up call about dealing with stress. Since we got back from China, I have been working nonstop. Literally. I did not take a day off until I was forced to. The thing is, I'm still learning this management thing. I have always had the opinion that if you don't like something, you stop complaining and change it. Now that I have some power, I feel obligated to fix all of the problems. I am finding that this is a little beyond my limits as a human being, and I need to learn how to step back a bit and pick my battles. I hope this isn't my first step towards "jaded-bureaucrat-collecting-bloated-salary-for-a-living."

Shouting at the wall

2010-10-29T06:58:00.000-07:00

Reason #550 why it is frustrating to run an English speaking library in Korea: Having to delegate some of my more unpleasant duties

Here's what I mean: This morning, the internet didn't work at our Carroll branch. Our commercial internet is run by an outside company, so I had to ask one of my staff to contact them. After a short conversation, he came back and told me that the company suggested that we restart the router, and if it didn't work they would stop by tomorrow. They do not do work at Camp Carroll on Fridays, they said. As anyone who works in a library with public internet knows, this is not an answer my staff can give to our patrons.

Koreans by and large get exceptional customer service, but they do not demand it. It made one of my employees very uncomfortable to ask for a return on an item I bought in error. At this point in our internet saga, I would normally put on my manager pants and muscle the company into fulfilling their duty. Instead, I had to ask my employee to call back and be pushy for me. I hated putting him outside of his comfort zone to do my job, but he was gracious about it. Lo and behold, a few phone calls later and we got a repairman.

Living in a country where I do not speak the native language makes me feel impotent. Ironic, since I do wear the manager pants for the first time in my life. Much has been written about the power of language; I am not in the mood to wax philosophical nor do I have anything brilliant to add to this conversation. But yes, words are a weapon I wield competently in my own world, and without them, I am disarmed. Rats.

Evil Mosquitoes

2010-10-27T04:23:00.000-07:00

I have to devote a post to Daegu's mosquitoes. Daegu is not a tropical city. The houses are not made of thatch or bamboo. There are no malarial swamps, and the temperature never reaches 100 degrees. In spite of these odds, Daegu is home to the most pesky mosquito population I have ever encountered.

North Carolina is no stranger to humidity. Quite often, in summer, you can almost drink the air. Summers in Charlotte helped me understand why "muggy" is a word. With humidity comes mosquitoes, of course, and there are plenty. Our old house had a wonderful front porch that we couldn't use from Memorial Day to Labor Day because even 5 minutes outside would leave me heartily bitten. Those mosquitoes scoffed at citronella candles, and nothing but a rich smattering of “Off” would keep (most of) them away.

Daegu during the rainy season is somewhat similar, but I was prepared and had a generous supply of “Off.” I never walked the dog without it. Daegu does not have the clouds of mosquitoes that North Carolina had. I deluded myself that I could handle Daegu mosquitoes because damnit, I'm a southerner. I wondered why there are mosquito nets at the Home Plus.

Well, now I know. What Daegu mosquitoes lack in numbers, they make up for in guile. I was dismayed to discover that when temperatures dropped to the 50's at night, the mosquitoes hung around. They survived by moving inside. We have screens over our windows, so I'm still not sure how they get in, but they do. Then they hide, biding their time until we fell asleep. I don't detect mosquitoes during the day, but I wake up with bites all over.

Our temporary solution is to have Bobby conduct regular mosquito patrols, newspaper in hand. He usually kills about 10 a day. I think we're going to check out the mosquito nets the next time we go to Home Plus.

I've always associated mosquito nets with 3rd world countries. I guess the stupid, lethargic mosquitoes of my old home deluded me.

China: The Good, the Bad, and Everything in Between

2010-10-17T05:49:00.000-07:00

I have written a good deal about our trip, but I think it warrants an overview, particularly for those less interested in reading pages of my musings. China: I have been reading books and watching movies about it for years. Our whirlwind tour was surely not enough to give me a comprehensive view of such a large country, but I do leave with some distinct impressions.

First of all, if you have ever been to a big Chinatown, say in New York or Los Angeles, you are already familiar with China. The main tourist areas are full of the same food markets, endless stores full of trinkets, and that distinct fishy smell. China is also similar to Korea with its back alleys full of activity, laundry hanging from windows, bicycle commuters, people wearing face masks, exercise equipment everywhere, and old men playing games on the sidewalk. One new thing was the masses of people dancing in the parks. The first time I saw this, I was thrilled and had to stand and watch through a couple of songs. We saw it again and again throughout our stay. Sometimes there were different dance groups with competing music right next to each other.

The Chinese diaspora is brutally honest about China's past, particularly the crimes of Chairman Mao, so I was kind of surprised to see his picture on all of the money. There is a Mao museum and a large portrait in Tiananmen Square. Many slogans from the cultural revolution have been quietly painted over, but China has not admitted to its ugly past. The presence and absolute power of the Chinese government was intimidatingly evident everywhere. Many major sites had bag scanners. Bobby and I were wanded each time we went to the airport, and there were cameras everywhere. No wonder there hasn't been a terrorist attack in China.

The Chinese people do not have any of the consideration of Korean and Japanese people. They shove each other aside to get on the subway, cut in line, and are constantly trying to bilk tourists out of their money. Both Shanghai and Beijing have distinct big city attitudes, unlike Seoul. Bobby and I were surprised at how many street people spoke excellent English. They would often try to engage us in conversation to try and sell us something. At first, we were happy to talk to them, but after the second day we would just ignore shouts of “Hello! Where are you from?” The Chinese don't have the earnest friendliness of the Koreans. It's like comparing North Carolina with New York. This can be refreshing, as I don't ever know how to end a polite conversation with a Korean, and sometimes their solicitousness can be downright rude (a woman once grabbed money out of my hand to try and show me how to charge my subway card, something I know well how to do.)

China's cities are as diverse in nature as the country, which was a refreshing change. There are people from all over the world. The architecture itself varies from traditional imperial to communist utilitarian to colonial European. We saw mosques and kebab houses, which are not evident anywhere in Korea.

The traffic is a nightmare, and it's not easy to get around. Cars don't move on the roads, and the subways fit an unbelievable amount of people. We walked for miles and miles to see everything, which is really the best way to see a city anyway. We stumbled across some interesting things that were not in guidebooks. The air is very dirty, visibly so.

The food is out of this world. Meals are always shared, like in Korea, but there are far more flavors and textures. Every time we went out we ordered three or four dishes, and we never had a meal we were not happy with.

We had a wonderful time, and were both sorry we could not stay longer. China has much more to offer than can be experienced in a week. I have taken far more pictures than will fit in this blog. You can find the rest here.

China

The Bund

2010-10-17T05:42:00.000-07:00

We spent a lot of time in transit to get here. First we took the KTX to Seoul, then the shuttle to Incheon airport, then a flight to Shanghai, a maglev from the airport to the city, and a cab to our hotel. The maglev is worth mentioning. It goes 440 km per hour and banks to turn, and I found it a slightly terrifying experience. Bobby thought it was cool.

When we finally got here, we headed for The Bund, which is a picturesque and crowded, area by the river. One side of the river is lined with old European buildings, and the other sports flashy, space age buildings. It was well worth the crowds. There is a lot of history on the Bund, which was where the British set up shop after the Opium Wars. The venerable buildings included a British consulate built in the mid 1800's, an old customs house, and a fusty old club where “Chinese and dogs” were not allowed. It's a wonder that the Chinese let these symbols of British imperialism stand, but they are beautiful now (and all fly Chinese flags). There is a steady flow of barges heading through the canal. It is almost like watching cars on the highway. On the other side of the river, after nightfall, there are twinkling buildings, buildings with candy colors, and two with video shows on their sides. We had a drink at an old signal house, where we sat on the roof and watched the city light up (well worth the overpriced drinks).

We then squeezed into the ferry with tons of Chinese and headed to the other side of the river. The light show intensified: all of the trees lining the boulevard had green or blue lights on them, and some had white “icicles” hanging from them. It sounds garish, but it was tastefully done, probably for the Expo. We went to the observation deck of the World Financial Center, which is the highest observation deck in the world (or was, they weren't very clear). It was 492meters up, and there was a section in the middle with a glass floor so you can see just how high up you are. Bobby loves these things, and we go to one at every city we visit.

On the third floor, we found a dumpling restaurant. This is exactly what I wanted. I have been reading The Last Chinese Chef, and I was very eager to eat some dumplings. They did not disappoint, though I popped a couple in my mouth before they were adequately cool.

Western influence is very obvious in Shanghai. Aside from the buildings, there are Mc Donalds's, Krispy Kremes, KFC's, and Starbucks, everywhere. We even saw a Hardee's and a Best Buy. We have not yet seen a temple or anything resembling one, but we are in the industrialized area of town. Shanghai has long been a commercial center, and there is not much evidence of old China here.

The Bund

It looks like a space needle

I think this is a customs house

You can kind of see the light display

Yuyuan Gardens and the French Concession

2010-10-17T05:29:00.000-07:00

We were going to visit the Expo today, but Bobby pointed out that it's Sunday and there will be less people there tomorrow. We will never be able to avoid crowds; not in Shanghai at this moment. I don't know if it is always this crowded or if people have poured in for the Expo. The event is evident all over Shanghai. There are signs, statues, and topiaries that say Expo 2009, and there are police everywhere. There are bag scanners in the subway, and wherever we go, tons and tons of people.

Anyways, Expo tomorrow. We decided to go to Yuyuan Gardens, which is lovely in the pictures and right in the middle of Old Town. We got there to find a huge crunch of people. “Old Town” doesn't look particularly old, though the traditional architecture is beautiful. It's a cluster of stores that was jam packed with tourists. We found our way to the gardens and paid the entrance fee, which got us away from the overwhelming crunch. The gardens were lovely. There were clusters of pathways, lots of pagodas, pools with koi, and grottoes. The whole thing used to belong to the obviously well heeled Yu family back in the 16^th century. We laughed about what old Yu is thinking now, with his estate packed with gawking commoners and foreigners. Even with all the people, it was peaceful.

We wandered back through the crowds into a temple. It looked like a Korean buddhist temple, but there were no Buddhas. Instead, there were several different structures honoring different gods. China has many gods, most of whom were real people at some point. I was excited to find the temple to the god of literature. There were a lot of people praying, and each of the gods had offerings of dumplings and fruit. Bobby pointed out that at one shrine depicting three gods and a tiger, someone laid out a dumpling for the tiger. There was one temple with three different gods of wealth, and another shrine had a god of war and wealth. It was no surprise that Shanghai, with it's relentless commercialism, has four different gods of wealth in it's town temple. In retrospect, I realize that several of these gods are in Buddhist temples in Korea, though Buddha gets the main slot. Buddhists, I remember, are allowed to worship other gods.

We pushed our way into a three story dumpling shop (“dumplings again? Says Bobby”) but there was absolutely no space. We wandered a bit until a woman lured us into her restaurant, which had dim sum but “expensive” enough so that we didn't have to deal with crowds (our meal was less than $30). We had fabulous dim sum with Chinese businessmen and European tourists.

We noticed some cats outside of the gardens, and more around the city. One was sleeping in the rafters of a temple. Shanghai is a cat city. I bought this kitschy porcelain cat, the kind of tourist fare I normally avoid but I love cats! I have been living in an anti-cat country and was thrilled to see Shanghai's appreciation of their cats. The strays all look very clean and well fed.

We went out again for dinner, but this time to the French Concession. This was a true old town, full of colonial French buildings. One of these was the site of the first meeting of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921, a holy place for Chinese Communists. We found a bunch of restaurants, one of which was German. I told Bobby he could pick where we ate dinner since we had dumplings AGAIN, so this was serendipity for him. We ate on the sidewalk and watched all the tourists trundle by. We noticed a Haagen Dasz, which prompted me to wonder if there's a Haagen Dasz at every tourist spot in the world. I never see them in town, but you go to, say, the Old Church in Amsterdam and there's the Haagen Dasz. We walked among the buildings, which are stunning. I'm glad Shanghai kept them.

Old Town McDonalds

A sea of people

a teahouse

a design on the eaves

one of Yu's halls

grottoes

Shanghai god

Prayer ribbons ??

A magnificent stage

Kitty in the temple

Shanghai Expo ad. That's the mascot

French concession

Shanghai Expo

2010-10-17T05:10:00.000-07:00

Meh. I planned this entire trip around the Expo. I read Devil in the White city a few years ago, and it filled my head with dreams of a World's Fair with dizzying displays of tomorrow's technology. We probably should have visited a technology pavilion. Instead, what we encountered were long lines, pushy people, and bad food. There were some interesting pavilions. My favorite was probably The Netherlands, which was a multilevel display of Holland art, old and new. The bottom level was astroturf and model sheep. Canada had a display on sustainability where you could ride a bike and make a trippy cartoon run, complete with psychedelic music. They also managed to grow grass all over the side of their pavilion. Australia had a rotating set of screens that came out of the floor and retreated into the floor, revealing a new sculpture each time. Indonesia had an indoor waterfall. We waited in line the longest to see the USA pavilion, and it was so lousy we didn't even see the whole thing. It was almost entirely in Mandarin, and while every other pavilion displayed some of the country's contributions to art, history, and/or science, the US was a series of videos. The first showed a bunch of people in New York trying to say “welcome” in Mandarin and Kobe Bryant. I was annoyed. Were we trying to say we have no culture? Also, all the other pavilions had some English, but the US didn't? “Hi, we're America! Most of us look ludicrous trying to speak Mandarin, but we do have Kobe Bryant.” Guh.

It was also one of those places that brought out the worst in people. They shoved in line, like pushing me up against the person in front of me would get them in faster.

The entire event was massive, and there were 3 hour lines for some of the pavilions. The UK had a really long line and a neat looking pavilion. It resembled a giant pincushin.

So, World's Fair—I've seen one, I don't really need to see any more.

You see the sign! No noising!

USA! USA! What a bummer.

Some of the more creative buildings in Africa

This is inside the big Africa building

The UK pincoushin

The Netherlands

Part of the Czech Republic exhibit

Australia exhibit

Thailand

Beijing, Day 1

2010-10-17T04:31:00.000-07:00

Well, we're here, but getting here was not easy. We took a soft sleeper from Shanghai. There were two other people in our car, but they kept to themselves. It wasn't until the man asked Bobby if he could turn off the light that we realized that he spoke excellent English. One thing I like about Chinese (and Japanese) people is their standoffishness. If he were Korean and spoke English, he would not be comfortable with silence.

We arrived at the station at about 8am. We walked around awhile looking for a taxi line, and when we finally found one there was a long line. Several men approached us and offered us a taxi, but I know by now that an unlicensed taxi is a bad idea. Our taxi driver made a genuine effort to get us to our hotel, but there was just too much traffic. He tried two different approaches to our street, but both were at a standstill. Finally, Bobby asked him to let us out and point us in the right direction.

We wandered around for awhile, suitcases in tow, until we found a Hilton. The bellhop there was very solicitous and got us a map. We then ran into our first “art student”. We would meet several more. He spoke excellent English and told us he was preparing to study in the U.S., as, we would discover, was a commons story. He did help us find our hotel, but (in all honesty) it was after we bought a painting from him. It's a beautiful calligraphy, but we probably paid too much—a cardinal sin to the Lonely Planet guide. This art student scam is a long con. They talk to you for awhile, asking questions and behaving like they are studying English. I'm used to Koreans doing this, but the “art students” do eventually ask for money. My dad once said he would offer bums money if they didn't give him the story. I feel the same way about the “students.” In Shanghai, there are tons of people walking around trying to sell watches, but they are straightforward about what they want, as are the unlicensed taxis. Something about the students con rubs me the wrong way (and I love my painting and we were planning to buy one anyways), and by the time I met my fourth student I was telling them to piss off. Anyways, we got to our hotel and the clerk told us the hotel had no power and that he would take us to another hotel. It was a bummer, because the hotel I chose overlooks the forbidden city. He will bring us back in two days, but in the meantime we have a five star Chinese hotel that's close to the shopping district.

When we finally got into our room, it was almost noon and Bobby had no suitcase. The staff had delivered his suitcase to the wrong room. The problem was eventually corrected, but we were not in the mood to deal with it.

We had lunch and set out for Tiananmen Square. It was incredibly imposing. For one thing, it's massive. There are lots of soldiers and metal detectors at each entrance. In the center of the square, there are two giant screens that show propaganda: waving flags, patriotic songs, etc. The buildings surrounding the square are ominous and imposing. To top it all off, every few feet there are light poles with three or four cameras on them pointing in all directions. I was creeped out, and we didn't stay long. Most countries will admit the bloody parts of their history, but China has glossed over the Tiananmen Square massacre and the Cultural Revolution. Officially, Mao is still a hero.

One of the things Bobby and I do best is wander around and find interesting things. Today we found a historic “rice road” that used to be the main thoroughfare for bringing goods into the palace off the left side of the square. It was lined by some old looking walls, and there were some doors in the walls with stores behind them that have probably been there for centuries. We saw a colonial European looking church and some old mansions, where (I imagine) nobles used to live. It was also refreshingly free of tourists and the people who prey on them. We returned down a huge shopping street and saw a 7 story book store.

For dinner, we visited Xiao Wang's Home Restaurant in Ritan Park, a very popular place that was listed in our guidebook. We had Peking duck and a couple other dishes, and we were not disappointed. The restaurant was worth the hype. I have been reading about Chinese haute cuisine, so when I order dishes I can't help but feel we are doing it wrong, but our duck, dumplings, and soup were delicious. We walked around the park afterwards and ran into several dance classes. I have seen dance classes in Central Park. They do it in Beijing, too! We also walked down Embassy Row, though there were no indicators on any Embassy so we couldn't tell which one was ours. We saw another shopping mall with a huge LED billboard for a roof. It lit up the entire street. Beijing has a lot of character. There are ostentatious futuristic buildings right around the corner from buildings which could be 500 years old. For all it's brutishness, I like it a lot.

A street corner

Recognize this?

Giant propaganda screen

Cameras, Cameras

Statues in the square

The Rice Road

Seven story bookstore

The Great Wall at Mutianyu

2010-10-17T03:52:00.000-07:00

Today we went to the Great Wall at Mutianyu. This section of the wall is about 70km outside of Beijing, so we had to sign up for a tour at the tour desk in our hotel. We piled into a bus with 8 other English speakers, only one of whom was American. We have noticed that Americans are in the minority of Western tourists here. There are far more Europeans. The other people on the bus were German and Austrian.

We drove out of the city and into a sprawling countryside filled with courtyard houses, wide roads, and empty space. We headed for some mountains, while our tour guide told us some interesting things about Beijing. There are 1,900 new cars in Beijing every day. To deal with the pollution and traffic congestion, both of which are substantial, people with license plates with certain numbers are not allowed to drive on designated days. Every day, 1/5 of the cars in Beijing are not allowed to drive. She also told us about family planning, which we call the one child policy. It's a little more complex than that, apparently. People in an ethnic minority (not Han Chinese) get to have as many children as they want. Two people who are only children can have 2 children.

We got to the wall, and headed down a gauntlet of shops with increasingly familiar hawkers. We took a cable car up to the top of the mountain, and below us I could see some old walls, I guess meant to keep the path from flooding. We discovered that the wall is basically a giant staircase. Some of the stairs were perilously high and small, but we slogged until we got to the end of the reconditioned wall. There were gatehouses at regular intervals that were pretty big: each had about six or seven rooms. This must have been where people lived. Our guide told us that there were farms all around the wall so the soldiers could feed themselves. There were vendors at regular intervals selling overpriced water, which we bought. Going down the mountain was delightful: we each took a toboggan down a loopy track. It was like a carnival ride.

On the way back we were pushed into a state supported “healing center” where we were offered free foot massage (no one took it) and a palm reading. We were all analyzed by a Chinese doctor and advised to buy expensive traditional medicine. One thing I will say is the guy felt my pulse, looked at my tongue, and pinched my ear, and he was dead on about me. I do have poor circulation and pains in my stomach. I went through a lot of testing a couple of years ago to discover that there's nothing really wrong with me, and the Chinese doctor apparently could have told me what caused it in 10 seconds. I did not buy the medicine.

When we got back, we were hungry, so we hit the Donghuamen Night Market. This is a row of food stalls that sets up in the late afternoon. It was similar to the food stalls in Korea, but with a much wider variety. We had fried banana balls, eel sticks, corn cakes, and some jello like substance. We went out for dinner a few hours later. We headed for a restaurant recommended by Nicole Mones, who wrote The Last Chinese Chef. We actually did not find the place. There was no English on the sign and the address was not readily evident. We went inside a restaurant with a nice English hawker, who helped us select the best meal we have had in China. It was incredible and less than $20. When we got outside, we found the restaurant we were supposed to go to, but it was a happy mistake.

We walked to the bell and drum tower, which are massive structures built by the emperor to tell the time. They were impressive, even at night. We wandered the hutongs for awhile. Hutongs are old streets designed by the Mongols. They are really thin and accessible only by bicycle and small car. These were lined with old structures and very picturesque. I wish I could have gotten a picture, but my camera doesn't do night shots.

This was painted on a wall in a hutong behind our hotel

Cable cars to the wall

An ancient view. Watch out for Mongolians!

Bobby shakes his fist at Mongolians

The wall

A particularly treacherous set of stairs

Here we are!

Night market

Detailing on one of the guardhouse roofs

The Forbidden City

2010-10-17T03:39:00.000-07:00

We devoted today to the Forbidden City, which is right around the corner from our hotel. Well, the East Gate to the city is right around the corner from our hotel. Getting to the front entrance is actually a bit of a slog. This is because the Forbidden City is massive. Only part of it is open to the public, and it took us 6 hours to see that part.

I know a little about China's emperors and the city, a subject I have long been fascinated with. Most Chinese people never saw it, hence the name. The front half is where important people got to enter—ministers, foreign dignitaries, people taking the state examination. The back half is where only the emperor, his family, the servants, and the hundreds of concubines and eunuchs got to go. The eunuchs ran the place. They were tutors, performers, cooks, stewards, etc. The entire city is set up more or less symmetrically, with the important buildings on the central axis and smaller palaces on the east and west sides. This perfect symmetry made visiting all the buildings kind of boring, though the curators spiced it up a bit by putting different exhibits in the different palaces.

We came in through the North Gate, which was the private end of the city. North is the direction for important people. We walked through some peaceful gardens, pavilions, and a tower. At the center was a hall of peace, where the emperor went to pray. At one side was the two story building where an English tutor gave the last emperor, Pu Yi, lessons in English (that's in a movie called The Last Emperor). To be honest, given the crush of people it was hard to imagine it. When we ducked into the side courtyards, we got away from some of the crush. The living quarters of the emperor and empress were more or less preserved behind glass, and we could peer in. There were a couple of houses for imperial concubines that we saw, though there were many more in areas we could not access. The emperor had hundreds of concubines, all of whom were ranked. Concubines had the joy of waiting around all day and night to be summoned. They spent a lot of time dressing themselves, playing games, writing, and (I'm guessing) playing in the cutthroat politics of women who were competing against each other. It must have been a horrid life, and the whole time these women's families on the outside (whom most never saw again) wrote to them about how privileged they were, to quit whining because their neighbors starved to death last winter. I wonder how many of them committed suicide.

In some of the halls were displays of imperial dishware, jade, and pictures. We saw Pu Yi's telephone, the first and only imperial telephone. We saw the concubines dishes, painted according to ranking. We meandered down to the center area. I wanted to come up through the southern route, so we walked around the outside to the south side if the city. When we passed the meridian, the buildings became distinctly more awe inspiring. We saw some displays of weaponry, armor, and imperial gifts in little galleries along the side. When we got to the south gate, we saw a massive and imposing structure. There was an artificial stream in front in the shape of the emperor's bow. We walked through a couple of gates to the hall of supreme harmony, which is the impressive hall where the Emperor made pronouncements and met dignitaries. Behind it is a preparation hall where he got ready to see the outside world, and behind that is a banquet and entertainment hall. They were ornate and majestic, but it was so crowded that it was hard for me to picture the emperor there. We had some dumplings right next to the hall of supreme harmony. We walked through the center gate, which most people passed through only once. Even princes were not allowed into the Emperor, Empress, and concubines' living area. After this, we were pretty tired and the park was closing, so we headed back out to Tiananmen Square. We discovered that behind the massive gate we saw earlier, there are two more gates. It's hard to imagine breaching it.

Visiting the Forbidden City was exhausting, and after a very forgettable dinner we called it a night.

A pagoda in the gardens

Our private courtyard in our hotel

The exterior wall and moat

The North Gate

A tower in the gardens

The hall where Pu Yi was tutored in English

Not sure, but it looks cool

The Hall of Supreme Harmony

An imperial lion

Not sure, but it looks cool

Huge doors

The South Gate

The Temple of Heaven and Behai Park

2010-10-17T03:04:00.000-07:00

Today we wanted to go to the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace, two more “can't miss” sights of Beijing. I think that four days is an impossibly short time to stay here, because as you can see, we didn't make it to the summer palace. I see tour groups powering through the sites; they can see the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven, and the Forbidden City in one day, but they miss all the little side buildings, which are less crowded and a pleasure to visit. We didn't see everything, but I'm glad we took the time to peruse the sites we did visit.

Anyways, we went to the Temple of Heaven in the morning. It's about 5km away, so we took a cab. Beijing has terrible traffic. It took us about 20 minutes to get there. We entered through the South gate and saw the main ceremonial pavilion, which included a giant green oven where they burned shaved calves for ceremonies. All the big structures were on the central axis, just like in the Forbidden City. We walked down this axis from the pavilion to the Imperial Vault of Heaven, where we saw imperial ancestral tablets. The Emperor would walk from this shrine up this ceremonial path to the main temple, where he would perform the ceremony. We decided to let the crowds follow the Emperor, while we ducked out and headed left, towards the Palace of Abstinence. We were not sorry! There was an additional 20 rmb entrance fee (about 3 dollars) for the two of us, and apparently that kept almost everyone out. It was almost our private palace! This is where the Emperor used to fast in preparation for the ceremony. There was a “pillarless hall” that contained portraits of the later emperors and these huge structures that held the tablets. We saw a bell tower which would ring when the emperor entered and left the fasting palace.

We returned to the main axis, where we saw the awe inspiring Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, which was where the Emperor performed this ceremony to heaven. We saw an exhibit on the ceremony, which spelled out the intricate and precise progression of events required to appease the gods. We followed a covered walkway to the kitchen and butchery, where the calf was prepared for the slaughter. At this point, Bobby discovered that we had missed the music hall, which was all the way across the park. Fortified with cream filled saltines (they're actually pretty good), we headed back across the park, which was about 1.5km. It was worth the walk. The music hall was incredible and also not crowded. There were displays of several traditional Chinese instruments, all of which had a large model in the center that we could try. There were also pictures of the ceremonies and dance costumes. The entire compound, which resembles a palace, housed the musicians and dancers who spent their days rehearsing for the ceremony.

We grabbed another cab back to our hotel (cabs are like $2 here), where we ascertained that a trip to the summer palace was unfeasible. Instead, we grabbed some dumplings at a wonderful shop around the corner, where (according to the sign on the wall) the owner's family used to make dumplings for the Emperor. On the way back, we checked out some ruins that turned out to be from the East Wall of Imperial Beijing.

We decided to visit Behai and Jinshan park instead. Behai Park is where Kubla Khan set up his palace. It has a huge lake with an island in the middle made from the earth excavated for the lake. The island had a Temple of Jade Flowers and, further up, a white dagoba that was built for a Dalai Lama's visit. We had a nice view from the temple, but I wanted to see the view from Jinshan park before it got dark. We cut our visit short and walked back across the lily filled lake and out of the gate. Jinshan park was a leisure ground for the imperial family. It has a huge hill in the middle created from the earth excavated from the palace moat, with a couple of pagodas on top. We saw the spot where an emperor hung himself (there was a peasant rebellion, he killed his wife and some of his concubines and sisters, travelled to Jinshan park with a eunuch, and wrote his suicide note in blood before he hung himself). We hoofed it to the top for an unparalleled view of the Forbidden City right at dusk. On the other side of the hill, I could see the old North Gate. The old South Gate is at the bottom of Tiananmen Square. The square is all lit up at night, and we saw some of it from the hill.

We walked back to our hotel, where we had ½ hour before we left for dinner. We had made reservations at a place called Huang Ting, a fancy Cantonese restaurant that was highly recommended. The interior was constructed entirely from bricks from old hutongs. The food was incredible—we had one last taste of Peking Duck and the chef's specialty, crab over asparagus.

I was sorry to leave, but I imagine we'll visit China again in our lifetime. I hope so.

The ceremonial oven where they burned calves

Many imperial structures had three entrances. Only the Emperor could go in the middle door.

The Imperial Vault of Heaven

People dancing in the park

The Hall of Abstinence. The vats are filled with water in case of fires.

The bell tower. They rang this bell when the Emperor entered and left the hall.

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests.

The Hall of Music. The screen on the right side is to keep evil spirits out.

The ceremonial pavilion.

The White Dagoba in Behai Park

The Forbidden City at Dusk

Area 1

2010-10-01T21:06:00.000-07:00

I went to Dongducheon to visit the Area 1 libraries earlier this week. The USAG Red Cloud enclave is a sprawling series of bases that spans 2 cities--Dongducheon and Uijeongbu. It is the northernnost garrison on the peninsula; it's where we keep an eye on our neighborino to the north.

Dongducheon is a lovely area of mountains and rivers. It's not as staggeringly urban as Daegu, Seoul, and Busan, and there are a lot of open spaces with trees and pasture. Well, not a lot for a North Carolina native, but significantly more than I am used to in Daegu. The air is also noticeably cleaner.

It's worth noting that the Seoul subway system goes all the way up to Dongducheon, which is about an hour north of the city. It's a 1.5 hour ride, but most of it is aboveground. The subway turns into a light rail.

Area 1 is transitioning from an unaccompanied to an accompanied location. This means that soldiers can now bring their families to the area, whereas for 50 years or so they have been coming alone. They are slowly building the infrastructure they need. I attended a popular storytime with grateful parents who have been eager to have more children's activities in the area.

It was a nice visit, but definitely overshadowed by our impending trip to China. China has been a long obsession of mine, and I'm so excited to finally see the place. We leave in a week!!

On an unrelated note, two people tried to talk to me on the mountain today and I understood none of it. This isn't from lack of trying. I study Korean every week, and sometimes I benefit from this. Pieces of conversations are comprehensible, and now sometimes I can understand what I read on the signs. If only everyone spoke in Rosetta stone phrases, "the dog wants the meat" or "the grandmother has more juice than the child." Oh well.

The Health Police

2010-09-25T01:55:00.000-07:00

I'm currently contemplating an apple a little smaller than my head. This, along with an even larger pear, is Mr. Pan's Chuseok gift to me. Koreans value health above all else, and their gift baskets contain fruits, nuts, and sometimes ginseng. Bobby and I have been marveling at the W70,000 gift boxes of nuts we have been finding at the grocery store. These gargantuan fruits probably came in a box that cost at least W20,000. Ginseng is the most expensive health treat, running around W100,000 for a gift box.

These massive fruits are items I would sometimes find at the Harris Teeter, and shun because I figure they are a product of hormones and genetic engineering. I wonder how these apples grew. Nonetheless, they are incredibly tasty, and I made a valiant attempt to finish one this morning (I got halfway through). Something this massive was meant to be shared. Sadly, Bobby doesn't like apples. Koreans are always accosting him for his obviously unhealthy eating habits. That's another thing about Koreans—they consider it their duty to let you know when you are doing something unhealthy. Mr. Pan tells me that when he and his wife go to a family dinner, his family tells her not to eat. Mr. Pan's wife is far from obese—I'd actually put her on the high side of normal weight. Sometimes I wonder if Koreans really are “naturally thin” or if what I'm witnessing is institutionalized anorexia and bulimia. Somehow, drinking soju to the point of extreme inebriation is okay, as is weaving a scooter in and out of traffic with no helmet, but that donut will kill you.

I learned last week that the #1 item procured illegally for Koreans from our PX is vitamins. That's right, they bypass the duty free European chocolates and perfumes and the liquor shelf and go straight for the multivitamins. Such things exist over here, but they are massively expensive, just like the fruit. I guess we're witnessing Adam Smith in action here: Koreans value vitamins, thus they have a lot of monetary value here. The country is only a generation or two from widespread extreme, starvation-inducing poverty, so I guess I understand.

I enjoy healthy food, and I like to eat here. I like knowing that there's probably not high fructose corn syrup in anything I consume, and that I am not facing down a small mountain of french fries with every plate I purchase. (Over here, you can buy fries separately at American restaurants, but you will usually share an order). I like knowing that my food is made from actual ingredients instead of things doctored to taste like actual ingredients. I am glad to find that I was right in defending my love of white rice all these years. A billion Asians can't be wrong—white rice will not make anyone fat.

Nonetheless, the relentless obsession with health and resulting evangelism I experience here annoys me. I enjoy donuts, damnit, and don't take kindly to being judged all the time. What's a holiday without carbohydrates? Not that America has it right. We have a similar dieting obsession, but with an expectation to find a shortcut that leads us to gobble absurdities like low fat cheesecake. Americans tend to be too fat or too thin, but rarely in between and always hating ourselves. I want to find a place where people eat unhealthy foods in moderation and delight in doing so. I think I would like to try Europe next.

How do you like them apples? They come in little skirts with ribbons around them.

Happy Chuseok

2010-09-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

Aside from Korean New Year, this is my first big cultural holiday. Chuseok is a major holiday over here. It started as the harvest festival, when Koreans gave thanks for a bountiful harvest. Nowadays far more people live in cities than on farms, but many of the rituals are the same. Everyone goes to visit their families, dress in traditional costumes, eat huge meals, and tend to the graves of their ancestors. Americans here call it "Korean thanksgiving"

Chuseok to foreigners is a day off work (more if you don't work for the U.S. Government), lots and lots of traffic, and avoiding major grocery stores for a week. We didn't follow that last little bit of advice and ended up at a crazily crowded Home Plus with an inflated grocery bill. I guess stores over here jack up their prices for the holidays as well.

It's way too wet to go anywhere today, but as the grave tending starts about a week in advance, I did see some neat stuff. I found a variety of foods on graves, from glasses of makkoli to opened yogurt cups. I imagine the mountain wildlife loves Chuseok. New graves have also materialized in what I thought were patches of wildlife.

We're celebrating our day off by eating and watching House. The big plan was to make a Korean American feast, but I wasn't really in the mood for Korean when I started cooking, though I did add a buchingae (pancake).

Tomorrow, I start conducting interviews for my job opening. I have had more interviews than I can count, but I have always been on the other side of the desk. I'm pretty nervous about it. I have always viewed a job interview as a special form of torture, and now I'm the inquisitor. I know one thing—I won't be judging anyone by his or her clothing. I have always found it particularly asinine that someone interviewing for a $10 an hour shelving job has to shell out $100 bucks for a suit that they will never again wear to work.

Soup, buchingae, yogurt salad, and a chicken

Hey, Ho, the Wind and the Rain

2010-09-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

I was excited that we managed to sign up for the best CAC trip I have seen so far. This was a day trip to Geoje and Oedo islands, two beautiful islands on the south end of Korea. When we left at 6:45 am, it was overcast and a little threatening, but the bottom didn't drop out until we arrived at our destination 3 hours later. I remember that I mentioned monsoon season starting in July. Well, these past couple of weeks, we have seen some serious weather worthy of the moniker. There have been torrential rains, high winds, and lots of flooding. Nonetheless, the weather was lovely for some mandatory staff fun on Friday, so I was hopeful about Saturday. It was not to be! (Of course, the whole time I was thinking, “why couldn't it have rained out the mandatory fun?” Which was, I begrudgingly admit, better than working.)

So we did manage to go to the POW camp, but the rest of the trip was cancelled. Oh well. As many experienced travelers will tell you, you win some, you lose some.

The POW camp was pretty cool. Geoje Island was where UN forces kept North Korean prisoners. It was a huge camp, with thousands of prisoners. The designers made an effort to bring the camp's history alive for us, complete with life sized dioramas with moving pieces, special effects, and video footage. There were a few sentences in bad English for tourists, though I was sorry (like I am at least 5 times a day) that I don't understand Korean better. This was no whitewashed kid-friendly version of history, either. There were bloody prisoners and naked prisoners. (People brought their kids. I'm certainly not implying that kids shouldn't see history as it really happened.) There was an outdoor area with a reconstructed kitchen, lots of tanks, guns, and helicopters, and the ruins of an American PX and chapel. Bobby was especially fond of the machines and explored them all while I stood there and complained. We were soaked to the skin, but we did get a nice Korean lunch afterwards.

I like the statue. I'm sure it means something.

POW latrines

I really like how this was designed. It was a huge camp.

An uprising of communist sympathizers.

Bobby took lots of pictures of the equipment.

Our PX doesn't look like this one.

Me in the kitchen, very wet.

Yeah, it rained pretty hard.

Happy Anniversary to Us

2010-09-04T19:47:00.000-07:00

Our anniversary once again falls on labor day weekend, so we decided to take a day trip. Busan is my favorite city in Korea and it happens to have a much-lauded aquarium, so we decided to head back there. I feel like our anniversary actually started on Friday, since I wanted a night off from cooking so we went to a new Japanese restaurant by Camp Walker. It was fantastic! We had great sushi, our own private dining room, and the whole thing set us back 20,000 Won (about 17 dollars). The chef came out to shake our hands after we finished. We didn't understand what he was trying to say to us, but he gave Bobby a card so it was probably something along the lines of, “please tell your American friends about our good food.” And we will!

The next day, we headed to lovely Busan. We went via KTX, which takes a little over an hour. I have had a love-hate relationship with trains over the years (I hate Amtrak), but I love the KTX. It's really fast and always on time.

The aquarium is right on Haeundae Beach, but underground. It has some really neat stuff that we haven't seen before, like unhatched shark eggs and a shark tank with a variety of toothy sharks. There was also an extensive jellyfish collection. Overall, we decided it was probably the second coolest aquarium we've been to, after Atlanta. Not that it wasn't trying. This aquarium, like Atlanta, had a tunnel through the shark tank as well as an additional two story tank with massive rays.

The aquarium took about 2.5 hours, so when we came out we were looking for something else to do. We took a walk on the beach, which has transformed into full summer mode, with lifeguard stands, rentable floaties, and rows and rows of identical beach umbrellas. Sadly, neither of us had swimsuits. Summer comes a little late here, I think, as it didn't start getting really hot until July, and temperatures remain in the mid 90's. Haeundae Beach is still an enclave for westerners, with western style beach bar-and-grills and tons of foreigners wandering around. We got ice cream and no one pushed us to share it. (This happened in Daegu. We each got an ice cream and the server brought us ANOTHER ice cream with two spoons as “service”. Gee, thanks.)

We saw some tour boats coming out of a dock at the end of the beach. We love boats, so we bought a couple of tickets. It turns out the boat was going to this neat rocky island with a lighthouse on it. There were quite a few fishermen on the rock, though I didn't see any boat docks so I'm not sure how they got there. The tour guide explained everything, but in Korean so we had to make up our own stories.

We had dinner at Gecko's again, which is still a great restaurant, not so much for the food but for the patio overlooking the water. I got to see Haeundae after sunset, and it didn't disappoint. The whole beach lights up like Vegas. I still love Busan, and it was a great anniversary.

A fountain by the train station.

I kid you not! I believe we call this the African penguin

Aquarium car! See the ray on the dashboard?

The lonely lighthouse

I just thought these were pretty

A quiet part of the beach

Haeundae from the boat

One Man Dog

2010-08-22T19:13:00.000-07:00

The craziest thing just happened to me. I was walking down the sidewalk with Maya and a bus stopped next to us. The door opened, and the driver gave me a thumbs up. This is not unusual. A lot of Koreans like Maya. People often stop and ask us about her in limited English or snap pictures on their phones. Bobby said that a boy said, “like tiger” to him once, and I think that explains it. Korean art is full of images of tigers; maybe Maya is fascinating because her brindle patterning resembles tiger stripes.

Anyways, this guy was persistent. He just inched along with the door open. Finally, he stopped the bus, got out, and said, “one man dog!” I smiled, nodded, and said “yeah.” (I used to try so hard to understand people who were trying to communicate with me, but not so much anymore). He pulled out his phone, made a call, and handed it to me. The person on the other end was his daughter. She told me her father wanted to know if I wanted to “exchange” my dog. I thought perhaps something was lost in translation, so I said, “I'm sorry, I don't understand.” She told me that her father had a Jindo dog and wanted to know if I would to exchange!

I have a friend whom I run into on the mountain sometimes. Her name is Min. She is in her forties, unmarried, and has a boy haircut. She tells me that she is unhappy here and wants to move to Europe or America. Given the pressure to conform I see around me, I'm not surprised that she's eager to leave. I can only imagine how friends and family deal with someone who has the nerve to be different. She tells me she had two dogs that she loved dearly, and both died last year. She buried them on the mountain, as many Koreans do with their family members. She says she does not like the way Koreans feel about dogs, and that her dog's grave is constantly being defaced by someone.

The encounter with the bus driver was one of those bizarre occurrences that I am not sure is unusual. It is certainly the most unusual request I have had, and I can see what Min means when she says Koreans treat dogs differently. There is an eight story animal hospital near Camp Walker, so clearly some Koreans see their pets as family members. Others apparently don't! I wonder how many folks around here exchange their dogs.

A final thought, then I'm done speculating. It's an unfortunate but unavoidable truth that every interaction between two people from different cultures takes on an inflated significance. That guy could have been crazy, but to me, he spoke for all Koreans. I can only imagine what it's like when foreigners come into America and run into some of our weirdos. There are probably folks out there who think that all Americans preach from street corners.