Random pictures

I'm in the middle of a three day weekend and enjoying it. Tomorrow we will go to Gyeongju. Today I thought I'd add some random pictures.



There was definitely something big burning down over there, but I don't understand the local news so I have no idea what it was.












The ABSOLUTE BEST staff that Carroll library has EVER had (I speak objectively, of course). This picture is minus the ABSOLUTE BEST intern and volunteer, Mr's Kim and Kim. And, to shake things up a bit, the man on the right is also Mr. Kim.








See the yellow on the mountain? I took several shots trying to capture this. Our best guess is some kind of flowering tree that grows on Palgongsan but not Apsan.












Campaign ajummas. They bow to passing cars for their candidate, who is apparently #1. The candidate pictures all have numbers on them, but I have no idea what they mean.









The party wagon. The campaign ajummas ride inside and wave to people while music and slogans blare over the loudspeakers.

Happenings in Daegu

Friday was Buddha’s Birthday. Paper lanterns have been going up all over Daegu for awhile. I worked through the festivities, but I did get caught in some wicked traffic on the Apsan bypass. There were tons of people hanging out on the mountain, which conforms to my idea that mountains are much more sacred in Korea than they are in the U.S. There was music and food under rows of tents and lots and lots of people.

There is an election in Korea on June 6 (how do I know about all of these holidays, you ask? My Korean employees get holiday pay for them). Yesterday we got stuck behind a pedicab with a giant picture of someone smiling on the back. Later, we saw a convoy of cars filled with people in identical suits playing “if you’re happy and you know it” through a megaphone with Korean lyrics. My favorite is the flatbed truck that has a pavilion on the back with pictures of a smiling man plastered all over it. There are around 10 people on this pavilion waving and singing along with the campaign song, which is blasting from some speakers. Bobby says the truck passes by our house every morning. Elections seem like more of a party than Buddha’s birthday!

Friday night we broke out our new barbecue and grilled some burgers on the roof. Our view of the city after night fall is worth a million dollars, and coupled with deck chairs and beer it was a night to remember.

*No pictures, mea culpa. If it ever stops raining I'll get some of these campaign vehicles at least.

Woobang Tower land

We can see this amusement park from our window, and we have been wanting to go for awhile. Yesterday the weather was good and we were both off work, so we decided to seize the day. The entire park is situated on one of Daegu's hills, with the tower on top. We parked at the tower and rode the sky lift down to the bottom of the hill. The entrance to the park looks like a castle, and there are a lot of European looking buildings by the entrance. What we saw was pretty much standard amusement park fare—game booths, rides, fun houses, and lots and lots of food—with a few Korean twists. You know those mechanical dog toys that walk around and bark? There were giant versions of these walking around that kids could ride. There were a lot of harassed looking parents pulling inflatable animals on rollers. The park mascot is this cocker spaniel in Mickey Mouse Fantasia getup that I dubbed “Ricky Rouse.” A lot of the rides were straight from the county fair, like the himalaya and the pirate ship, though there were some coasters. One ride involved pedaling your own car around an elevated track. Bobby's not a fan of coasters and the lines were long, so I confess we didn't ride any. We did visit the petting zoo, where I tried to win a bobble head that wore a kimono but had a piece of sushi for a head. Tragically, I ended up giving the machine a lot of money for nothing.

There were families sitting on picnic blankets spread all over the park; something I don't think American amusement parks allow. These families often brought picnics, making amusement parks a much more affordable outing. I seem to recall American parks frowning on such thriftiness. The prices in general were better: about $1 for an ice cream, less than $1 for a ride.

We saw a few performances. There was a brass band and some guys on stilts. We saw Elec Bolshoi, who were these awesome chicks who played string concertas with electric beats in the background. We made sure to be at the “Legend of the Stars” stage in time for the show. The posters promised Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Elvis, and Michael Jackson, though it turned out to be Elec Bolshoi again, but with lights and fog machines. There probably was an announcement in Korean that the headliners wouldn't be there. We noted that almost all of the performers were westerners (looking for your next job, La?)

We went up to the tower to check out Daegu aquarium and have dinner. The aquarium was a bit of a bust. Bobby is getting tired of seeing animal gulags. We rode an elevator to the 83rd floor of the tower for drinks. We can see the tower from our window, but I definitely couldn't pick out our house from the tower. Daegu is massive. It looks like a sea of buildings. We went down to the 78th floor for dinner at an American restaurant, where we had steak and shrimp. Annoyingly, there were no non steak options on the menu. Bobby did get the “robster” platter. The restaurant rotated, so we could see all of Daegu over the course of our meal. Daegu is a city of many neon lights, which was one of the first things that struck me about it, so the view from up there was pretty exciting at night. The dinner was to celebrate our 6 month mark. After 6 months, I have to say being an expat is pretty awesome. Our housing allowance is a blessing, but being able to learn so much about another culture is the best part. On a side note, the language barrier works in favor of insular people like Bobby and me. We never have to deal with soliciters, and we can talk about anything we want in public without worrying about being overheard.




Roast butter cuttlefish, anyone? They fry and put these suckers on a stick.














Me at the artificial waterfall.

















These are the mechanical fuzzy animals that children ride. Too wild.












Excellent advice.













Elec Bolshoi. These ladies were awesome.











The Romantic Road illustrates the Koreans' love of the sentimental.














Bobby contemplates 6 months of being a foreigner. A year after going to our first "three fork restaurant" on the Carnival Sensation, we are total pros at fine dining.

Happy Mother's Day

I brag about my mother to most of my acquaintances at some point or another. Depending on whom I am talking to, I will mention that my mother is a PA, that she has a tattoo, and that she likes outdoor concerts—in fact, she attended the same Bonnaroo festival as me. This is because (I am proud to admit) my super hip, adventurous mother has had a large hand in defining the person I am. My mom wasn’t in the PTA. I can’t recall her baking cupcakes for my class, and she wasn’t a room mom for my elementary school classes. As a matter of fact, my mom worked full time for a lot of my childhood. I was a (gasp!) day care child, which, as you can tell, messed me up for life J.

Mom taught me that learning is a journey, not a destination. At the time, I felt very maligned that my mom didn't do my science projects for me or pay me for A's. Instead, with each trip to the library or Sci Works she cultivated a hunger for knowledge that continues to this day. The joy in learning that mom helped me find is something I try very hard to encourage in my young patrons.

Like many kindred spirits, I was not popular in grade school. This is partly because it didn’t occur to me that I was supposed to consider what other kids thought of me, much less care. I never heard, “what will the neighbors think?” or got the impression that I was supposed to do anything solely because the people around me said I was supposed to. Mom encouraged me to be me. A good version of me, one I can be proud of, but never anyone prettier, richer, or more pious.

Mom is a strong, independent woman who has raised three strong, independent women. She taught me to do what I want with my life, regardless of what anyone else tells me to do. She taught me that having a profession that I love is more important than having a lot of stuff, and that a good man respects who I am, not what I look like. In short, she sowed the seeds of happiness in me, and for that I am eternally grateful.

I wrote this because I couldn’t think of a good mother’s day present that will tell mom that I am thinking of her. Mom, this year your daughters are scattered all over the globe while your parents return to the nest. I want to send you peace, happiness, and enlightenment. One day I’ll get you a trip to Bermuda, but for now, this will have to do. This year, I went pretty far away, filled with the self confidence that you helped me find. I can take on the world, but you put wind in my sails.

P.S.--Dad taught me that nothing in life is free and you get out of the world what you put into it. I'll write yours next month!





















Here's my herb garden! Some are ready for using.

Running a U.S. Library abroad

I'm in a fairly unique situation. I'll admit, it's nice to be both in the U.S. And Korea. I get the adventure of living in a foreign country, but a lot of the little comforts of home that the folks outside the base miss. Butter, for example. There's also ibuprofen, Sunday brunch, clothing in American sizes, and a large supply of books and DVD's in English to borrow.

Which leads me to the other side of things. Supplying American library services in Korea involves a lot of annoyances that I never anticipated. Unless I have a lot of foresight, books have fallen off the bestseller list by the time I receive them. Actually, even if I do have a lot of foresight, publishers won't ship a book until, say, the day before it comes out, at which point it has a six week journey across the ocean. Six weeks, by the way, is a good travel time. It takes some items three months.

Previous Daegu librarians have paved the way with some suppliers. Others scoff at my unique situation when I register for an online account. My billing address is in the U.S., but my shipping address is in Korea. My phone number is Korean, but my APO is American, and I would like the English language website, please. Many companies haven't recognized that APO can go in the “city” box, and “Armed Forces Pacific” works a state (I'm talking to you, United Airlines!)

My staff are the most hardworking and dedicated people I could hope for, but they don't understand the items they manage. Even avid readers read books in their native languages. This has strange consequences. Biographies and fiction get confused a lot because B and F are similar. If an item is a bestseller, it has to have a red sticker or it will go on the regular shelves (bestsellers are superstars in regular American libraries, and everyone recognizes them). I made the mistake early on of finding bestsellers in the stacks and putting them on the display without the stickers. An hour later, they were back on the regular shelves (remember, diligent staff!) and I was livid. Book displays are not an option unless I put them together and keep them stocked, and ditto with reading suggestions. Alphabetical order is second nature to me and hard work for my Koreans.

The central office for Army libraries as well as my ILS is run out of the United States. That means contacting someone by phone is nearly impossible unless I want to do business at 11pm. Resolving issues involves many days worth of email conversations, and if the ILS is down, we have to wait until the following day for it to come up. I also have no access to webinars or remote meetings because of the time difference.

Oh, and my favorite little helper stubbornly refuses to give me search results in English. Google is so “smart” it won't give me the option of going to google.com, returning me to google.kr when I try. My home computer has come around somehow, but I can't do anything with the one at work. Et tu, Google?

And yet, I would much rather have these wonderful services than not, even if I am the one dealing with the inconvenience of providing them. As a matter of fact, I feel like Santa Claus a lot of the time. It's not like I'm competing with Blockbuster or Barnes and Noble's (okay, B&N ships to APO's, but still). I'm not just the president, I'm a customer, and an avid one at that.

Yangyeongsi Herb Medicine Festival

Daegu has the most famous medicinal herb market in Korea, and I'm ashamed to admit I had never visited it until yesterday. I happened to be downtown for Sunday Yoga and I decided to finally check out Yangnyeongsi. To my surprise, they were having their annual festival! I wanted to learn more about traditional medicine, but unfortunately none of it was in English. There were several tables with different dried mushrooms, pieces of bark, and some kind of grain. There were accupressure demonstrations (I had seen one earlier at Chinhae but not realized what it was). Korean traditional medicine is somewhat less shocking than Chinese medicine, and I didn't see any organs in jars or dried pieces of monkey or anything. If that stuff is a part of Korean medicine, it's not out on the street. And, of course, there was ginseng.

Asians are obsessed with ginseng, which is supposed to be a bit of a cure all. I can attest that it does make you feel better, though it's definitely an acquired taste. The market had ginseng tea, ginseng candies, really expensive ginseng roots preserved in a jar, and even ginseng twigim, or deep fried ginseng.

I was sorry I didn't understand anything, but it was still worth seeing. Korean traditional medicine shops have massive versions of the korean traditional medicine chest, which is a beautiful wooden chest with several drawers, each of which has a symbol on it. I picked up an English language brochure on my way out and saw that I had walked through a “healthy rain drops from the sky” tunnel, passed something called the “human organ experience,” and missed out on the “Nintendo health experience.”