Filed under: Uncategorized
Caught a costumed kpop dance in front of one of the million phone stores.
Filed under: home life
I’m still in the middle of unpacking. Really, I’ve mostly been focusing on moving the rest of my stuff here (via bus. ooh, so much fun) and cleaning the old place to get it ready for my replacement (also hella fun, as I’m sure you can guess). As a result, the new place looks like a disaster zone. However, I did find some pictures of what it should look like sans furniture, so you can use your imagination and pretend you can see my giant cat and a slate blue couch and a million boxes half-full of yarn.
Things I love about the new apartment:
- The bathroom has a shower stall in it. That’s right, people, no more handheld-nozzle-over-the-sink. There are some glass doors and everything so there isn’t even a shower curtain, just a lot of Windex surfaces. YEAH.
- Something people who haven’t lived in Korean apartments may not appreciate so much: the handheld shower thing actually turns itself off when you turn off the shower, so when you turn the water on expecting the faucet to run, you don’t get accidentally blasted in the ear with cold water.
- The kitchen has two fridges. Seriously. There’s a second fridge above the sink that has several different chilling settings and is intended for things that are on plates that need to be kept cool, like leftovers, or salads, or kimchi. Currently it’s off and storing my glassware because there’s nowhere else for the glassware to go, but if I have a fancy party, I can chill all my glasses at the touch of a button.
this is my kitchen! and bed loft! except, you know, mirrored. and full of boxes.
- The bed. It’s queen-sized. HOORAY! After only two years, I get to graduate from the twin.
- The loft. The cat loves it, I love it. I did have to cover the railings in sticky-side-up tape to keep Atticus from doing Cirque du Soleil stunts on the railing at night and causing me cardiac events.
- The window. The light. The view. The idea that plants may not actually wither and die within a week if I bring them home.
strategically shot picture of the window end so that the apartment looks fifty feet long. actually from the edge of the kitchen to the window is maybe twelve feet.
Now if only it weren’t full of half-empty boxes of junk.
Mr. Kang has outdone himself with the photos for last week’s camp, so I will let the pictures speak for themselves, aside from saying that I designed the camp to be fun and more “cultural” than Englishy, because the students can barely understand simple directions and are still learning to read. Most of the typical North American camp things like tag and bubbles and smores are new to them.
Filed under: dispatches from the field
It’s been a little while since we caught up, internet. Actually, it’s been a long while – and if you check out the last few posts, you can kind of guess why. In April, Mr. Antipodal returned from Canada for the summer; a couple of weeks ago, he left again to get ready for his last semester. I’m not terribly thrilled about being on my own, but there’s lots to keep busy with. Rather than dump everything into one brief post, I’m going to catch up a little more gradually.
Today I’m going to start slow: in May, we went to Seoul with some friends and spent an afternoon in Insa-dong, or Art Street. Seoul people take it for granted, but for us country bumpkins it was full of things to see and Mr. Antipodal snapped a lot of pictures.
Insa-dong: quite busy.
Korean girls love their cameraphones.
A monk plays a flute in the street.
Schoolgirls prowled up and down the street all day, waving signs about Dokdo and occasionally gathering to sing songs about. I'm pretty sure this is part of their curriculum.
(What’s a Dokdo?)
A daily performance of traditional entertainment, featuring dancers and drums.
A flower shop hidden in a narrow alley.
