A picture is worth a thousand words…which is why I love this Picture Korea series by WSJ’s Korea Realtime blog:
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I’m not big on new year resolutions, in fact, I can’t remember the last time I actually made or tried to keep one…but when I awoke to 2012, I suddenly felt the urge to partake in this ritual that millions embark on each year. Why? I don’t know…but I’ve learned to follow my instincts and not ask too many questions, and my instincts told me these were going to be my new year resolutions:
- 1. Quit Facebook
- 2. Study Korean
Yep, that’s right. Quit Facebook.
Why? Well, I’ve come to the realization that I spend entirely too much time on Facebook everyday. In the morning, I’d wake up and check what my FB friends on the other side of the Pacific have been up to; during the day, I keep FB on a tab and check in whenever I’m bored; after dinner, I’d fire up the app frequently as we watch TV… aren’t there better things I can do with my time? Sure, it’s a good way to stay in touch and share ones life with friends, but who really needs/wants to know what I had for dinner on my vacation anyway? And with all the time saved from facebooking everyday, I could be doing something more constructive, like…study Korean! Truth to be told, after 9 months in Korea, I’m embarrased to say my Korean has not improved much since I took the FSI test. In fact, it’s safe to say it’s gotten worse if you don’t count the vocabulary related to food and drinks. Even if I just learned one word a day, this time next year, I’d have 365 more words…
11 days into the new year, it’s going well — I haven’t facebooked once and studied Korean everyday(granted, I set the bar pretty low). Only 354 days to go! 화이팅!!!
Family Heirloom
Posted: December 28, 2011 in KoreaTags: Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, Lincoln Continental
Eariler, while watching clips of Kim Jong Il’s funeral, something caught the attention of this car geek:
Is that a 1975 Linclon Continental Mark V carrying the dear leader’s coffin?
And…could that possbily be the same Lincoln that carried his father, Kim Il Sung’s coffin in 1994???
A quick Google search confirmed my suspicion:
2 generations of Kim’s being carried away in the same Lincoln Continental, and better yet, the same 70′s American-built Lincoln outlasted both Kim’s. You can’t make this stuff up.
Death of the Dear Leader(s)
Posted: December 19, 2011 in KoreaTags: Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, Mao Ze Dong
Today, North Korea announced that Kim Jong Il had passed away over the weekend. While most people I talked to today were undoubtedly surprised by this sudden turn of events, nobody really displayed much emotion…yes, one person was genuinely concerned with how the markets are reacting, but most people’s reaction were more or less “Yay, he’s dead. It’s about time…”
However, in North Korea, as you can imagine, the mood could not be more different:
And a quick Google search turns up an eerily similar scene 17 years ago when his father, Kim Il Sung died:
And going back another 18 years, on the other side of the Yalu river, you have the mass hysteria from Mao’s death:
Yes, history repeats itself.
After a few great days in Kuala Lumpur, we flew off to the resort island Langkawi. This was the part of the trip I really looked forward to — lazy afternoons on the beach, Corona’s, swimming in the Andaman Sea, kayaking, hiking in the rain forest, beach-side massages…just what the doctor ordered. And best of all, Ting Ting gets to have fun all day in the hotel’s kids club while we get to spend some time in peace and quiet.
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It was all pretty much perfect until I forgot to reapply sunscreen and fell asleep under the shade and woke up to a paintful sunburn…note to self: Wear Sunscreen.
It’s hard to believe that I haven’t had a real vacation ever since A-100 began some 18 months ago, and with the long winter knocking on our doors, we decided to get away to somewhere warm. After much deliberation, we chose Malaysia. The plan was to spend a few days in Kuala Lumpur, hang out with our friend who’s working there, check out my future workplace and housing to get a sense of what our life might be like in about year and half, and oh ya, eat some good food. In every respect, KL did not fail to impress. We thoroughly enjoyed spending time with our friend and some of my future colleagues, got a rare opportunity to see in person the various excellent housing options and of course, ate a lot of really really good food. The food, in particular, got us very excited about our eventual move to KL. Being “Truly Asia“, there is literally every kind of Asian food here, and all are of great quality and extremely cheap — our average meal costed us about $3! Overall, KL stuck us as a very livable city and we came away even more excited about what’s waiting for us after Korea. Oh and did I mention you can fly to pretty much all the SE Asian destinations from KL for about $50 round-trip?
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Novemeber 11th is an important day in both the U.S. and Korea. In the U.S., of course, it’s Veteran’s Day. In Korea, it’s known as “Pepero Day“, the Korean equivalent of Valentines Day. This year, we celebrated both in style by attending the Marine Ball — a celebration of the 236th birthday of the U.S. Marine Corp. It was our first Marine Ball and it certainly did not disappoint — great food, moving presentations, and even spontaneous line dances…but for me, perhaps the most interesting event of the night was when a couple approached our table, identified themselves as someone whom I recently issued visas to and then promptly asked to have a photo taken with me. Small world.
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Few years ago when we first caught onto Hallyu (Korean Wave), Dae Jang Geum was one of the dramas we watched almost religiously. So when I heard the news that Dae Jang Geum Theme Park will be closing permanently at the end of this year, we decided to pay it a visit:
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Halloween is, without a doubt, the biggest event of the year for the embassy/military community families. EVERYBODY comes out trick-o-treating. And I mean EVERYBODY. While shopping for candy, we kept hearing tales of people running out of candy in 30 minutes last year even with half of a dozen large bags stock…and they were not kidding. 15min before the event was supposed to start, as I was still putting the finishing touches on our pumpkin, our door bell began to rang, and from then on it was a steady stream of little monsters for the next 2 hours! There must have been a thousand kids roaming around the embassy housing compound…The highlight of my night came when I hid behind my bamboo trees, with ski mask on and scary soundtrack playing, managed to send a little girl running back to her mother…muhahahaha…Happy Halloween ;)
Earlier in the week, weather turned early-winter-like cold around Seoul for a few days — reminding us to get out and enjoy the beautiful fall weather before winter sets in. Thanks to David Hasenick’s helpful 단풍 map and chart, I found our first 단풍 destination: Chiaksan. This being a spontaneous decision made on Saturday morning, we weren’t exactly prepared for the 3 hour drive in traffic, and even forgot to charge our camera (something I would really kick myself for later). But despite arriving at the mountain when serious hikers are already heading back down, we got to enjoy a few hours of hiking in the forest, breathe in the fresh air and take in the picturesque scenery. While the pictures certainly don’t do it justice and the premature death of my camera battery left many more off the camera, here are a few from our Chiaksan hike:
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