clearly I've caught the fever too ^^
Sea of red in City Hall Plaza on Thursday, when Korea played Argentina. Unfortunately they lost 4-1, but as the Korean newspapers continue to proclaim, the dream is not dead yet!
대한민국 화이팅!!!
~EKG
2010-06-20
2010-06-17
Finalist!
Did you know that Jeju Island is a finalist for the 7 New Wonders of Nature?
http://www.new7wonders.com/community/en/new7wonders/new7wonders_of_nature/finalists
Yay!
2010-06-14
pictures i forgot
Forgot to add this one to the last entry: A few weeks ago, I and a bunch of friends went to a friendly soccer match at World Cup Stadium in Seoul (remember 2002?) between South Korea and Ecuador.
South Korea won!!!!!!
I was very impressed with the cheering section. They were incredibly organized:
After officially introducing the World Cup team, they paraded around the stadium with a giant South Korean flag.
After that there were fireworks and performances. It was awesome, but my pictures came out very blurry.
THE END.
2010-06-13
June, already?
I think that every time I make a post, I marvel at how quickly the time passes. It makes me wonder, what have I been doing with my life?
I guess I've been pretty busy: fielding questions from new grantees, planning the next Forum presentation, writing things for the 60th anniversary and related publications, working on the magazine, finishing up (and not failing! yay!) my Korean class, etc...I decided not to take any more Korean classes for a while, at least until the fall. I want to finish up my Fulbright work well, and I figure I've got time.
Pictures from hiking around the fortress in Suwon.
Children playing with toy guns.
a pagoda.
I went with a few friends to see the Philadelphia Orchestra play Stravinsky: The Firebird and The Rite of Spring.
I visited the Lotus Lantern Festival at Insa-dong, the traditional neighborhood in Seoul.
I visited my friend Colby in Busan, and went to the beach for the first time this spring!
Things are really coming full-circle. Less than a month from now, the new ETAs will arrive, which means I will have been living in Korea for a full two years. Still going strong. I plan to stay on for at least another year. Working out the details on that, though.
Anyway, on to the "point" of my post: recent events and conclusions on the Korean peninsula may have some of my (miniscule) readership concerned. I promise, things are fine.
Yesterday, North Korea announced that it would destroy all weapons of "psychological warfare" (a.k.a. giant speakers blasting pro-South propaganda across the DMZ) and then make Seoul into a "sea of flames!" (불의바다)
What?
Is it just me, or does this sound like the threat of a failed supervillain from some forced parody film? Not surprising that Korean students are laughing about this, and remaining much more focused on the World Cup (sidenote: South Korea gave Greece a sound beating last night, 2-0. Yay!).
Yonhap news published an article citing the fact that this is the first time the North has used the "sea of flames" threat since...1994. I guess we'll have to wait another 16 years before it comes around again. Who knows what creative metaphors they'll come up with in the meantime?
So, dear readers, I'm not sure if this eases your fears at all, but we're doing okay here. Pretty much business as usual.
Happy June!
2010-04-27
Spring
...is taking far too long to make its way to Korea. It is far too cold to be almost May.
There have been promising days, however ~ over this past weekend it was in the 60s in Gyeongju and we were comfortable wandering around being touristy without coats or jackets. I went there with Jen and her parents, who have been visiting Korea for the past week. We saw all the touristy sites, ate delicious food, and just enjoyed the scenery down in the southeastern corner of the country. It was great.
What happened to April? I've been so busy I guess I haven't noticed the days passing by. What's happened this month:
~the Spring Jeju Conference: Jen is awesome and planned an Easter egg hunt for the ETAs, which was a big hit. For the first time, the Researcher and ETA Conference overlapped for a night, and they were able to spend some time together. It was great to give the ETAs some extra time in Jeju too.
~worked on Fulbright publications: self-explanatory. workity work work.
~started a new level of Korean class at Yonsei Korean Language Institute (level 6, evening program): this is hard. Level 6 means no more handy English definitions and explanations in the textbook, and we have to read Korean newspaper articles.
~visited Pohang, Gyeongju and Daegu: I got to help my coworker Vinnie run the drama club at Pohang Middle school - middle school boys are HILARIOUS! Then spent the night at Matthew's place in Gyeongju and went for a hike in Daegu the next morning.
~visited Gyeongju with Jen's family: was a tourist for a few days. It was so beautiful in my old Korean hometown ^^
Things to look forward to:
~Hiking the fortress wall around Suwon this Sunday with Jen and Matthew.
~May 5th is a day off for Children's Day in Korea. Planning a day trip with some friends.
~My Korean newspaper article presentation is next Thursday. Looking forward to being finished with that one...
~the arrival of spring weather? One can always hope....
If you've made it all the way down to the bottom of this entry, I congratulate and thank you for being so interested in my life. This was a boring one. I don't have many thoughts to express right now, except about the future, which would merit a separate entry. Most of those thoughts aren't yet fully formed, so that one will have to wait. ^^
2010-04-01
this definitely merits a blog entry
This is my coworker Vinnie in the aftermath of the best April Fool's prank ever, devised by myself and Jen~
We paid close attention to detail as you can see by the wrapped mouse AND mousepad, phone, and individually wrapped pens and pencils....
...and headphones. Yes.
in case you can't tell, the thing in my hand is a stuffed chicken wrapped up to be a toilet paper ninja.
^^
2010-03-17
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