The Bizarre Bear, and Other Pictures: Korea Picture Tour pt2

This one is a bit long; no real over-arching theme.

DMZ, cool giant fish market, da bear, another pretty palace, Korean food market (cool), Texas&cool architecture, and a tacky lovers' ritual at Seoul Tower

Sarah and I also went on a tour of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) together. It is really scary if you are rightfully scared of North Korea, which legally (according to them) could come marching it at a moments notice. Very much a worthwhile experience.

Rice fields look different in Korea.

Looking toward the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The white bridge on the middle left is where the South Korean POWs came over when the cease fire began.

This is a graphical representation of a tunnel that the South Koreans discovered in the 70s. Me and Sarah got to walk down there (but no pictures allowed). This tunnel was dug by the North Koreans to invade the South, it is one of four discovered, but there are thought to be hundreds.

Probably the coolest place, but not a cool picture. This is where we actually get to see into North Korea from the South. I believe there is a picture of President Obama looking over this wall.

Afterward I went to a fish market.

Colorful fish market!

It's huge!

I thought this was another cool picture.

I went on a last palace tour the next day. I was pretty tired of Korean palaces.

Can someone explain this to me?

And the actual palace:

Brown. Very...brown.

Green.

Ooo. More brown. And brownish green AND brownish red.

Okay, I do think these pictures are pretty nice. I'm just reminded how bored I was when I was here.

And it was a paid tour. I paid for the boredom.

But at least I got some nice pictures I guess.

My favorite picture from my last palace day.

Back to my comfort zone: a bustling food market after the palace.

gotta love it

I ate this. It wasn't too bad, though not too good. But it cost me 300 baht/$10 US Whhaaaaat???

Everything's bigger in...Korea

I do have a soft spot for architecture:

Cool building, grainy picture.

 Later we went to Seoul Tower. The area around the tower and the tower itself is know as a lovers destination for...Asia apparently.

This bizarre bench is especially made for couples. In the back you can see thousands of padlocks with love notes attached to them.

Here is a closeup. It was impossible to show the sheer scope and breadth of the number of padlocks around.

 These lovers' padlocks had all different languages written on them. Obviously Korean was the most common language, with English there as well.

But the interesting thing was that I think Thai was the second most common language to see.

Just in case you are geographically challenged, Korea and Thailand are NOWHERE NEAR each other, so this is rather bizarre. It is, however, partially for some cultural reasons that I will not comment upon now.

Tacky, no?

Jeff says that Seoul is considered the romantic city of Asia (really???), and Seoul Tower the most romantic place in the most romantic city in Asia.

Honestly, all I thought about it was that Seoul is the ugliest and least exciting metropolis I've been in; and Seoul Tower the least beautiful overlook of a city I've seen. I didn't even put a picture of it here!

That concludes my pictures of Seoul and the surrounding area. Anyway, interesting pictures. Probably should have edited this post shorter, but whatever.

DRAGONTURTLE and Other Stunning Korea pictures (pt1)

There is a lot in Korea that is really beautiful. I blew up pictures that I thought looked especially nice in one way or another. However, it is much more fun to look at the pretty pictures I took while I was there than it is to actually be there.

Unfortunately, Jeff could not show me around Seoul much because he was working and he lives in the nearby city of Incheon. So here are some pictures of me roaming the city the first day.

This is a selection of Korean porridge. Doesn't sound appetizing? It isn't.

I took a path into the North where I read about a cool little temple with people chanting. Here you see a man relaxing in the peace. Here I can hear the chanting of the spiritually inclined. I think it's pretty.

Also pretty. That is Seoul Tower in the middle.

Interesting cultural thing. A bar of soap on a metal bar above the sink.

I hear a theme song coming...

This was from my second day of roaming Seoul. I went around the palaces. They are pretty boring to explore, but the pictures turned out great.

So much more pretty in the picture than in person. Best seen full screen.

Same note as previous.

It was just really easy to take nice pictures, but it was pretty boring there.

Probably my favorite picture at the palaces.

Korean food doesn't taste that good, and it doesn't fill you up either. And it's expensive.

This is a packed Buddhist service. I've never seen anything like it in Thailand.

DRAGONTURTLE!

He's looking at me....

A great picture. Also best seen full screen.

My companion for the day, Sarah from Hong Kong.

Had to blow it up for unknown reasons.

Cool building.

This cool thing is in the middle of the city. People hang out down here. Some young lovers too.

I took a lot of bad pictures here. I'm so happy that one turned out well! Yay!

Da crew. We hung out with Gloria a couple times on the left. In the middle is Jeff (thanks again for housing me Jeff), and on the right is Sarah who was also staying with Jeff.

That's it for now. I will try to post more soon!

fuckiminmy20s and Thai Language

So I definitely have a backlog of at least 3 journal entries that I need to write for this blog, but this one is awesome and quick and easy.


I was reading through the tumblr fuckiminmy20s, which as I understand it got its own article in the NYT. Supercool.

Reading I realized that there are many ideas that I no longer relate to while living here, also it's targeted toward girls. And I'm not sure that I like it. 

Regardless, I got to this entry:

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7c10wEfdy1qjm1zlo1_400.jpg

The reason this was interesting to me is that in this way English, a very precise and rigorous language does have a legitimate hole created by culture that has remained unfilled.

Even more interestingly, Thai does not have the same hole. There is puean, meaning friend; there is fan, meaning girlfriend/boyfriend; and there is geek, meaning someone you are messing around with but is less than a fan. Also similar to American culture, geek is often roughly translated to "secret lover." That is someone you are hooking up with but only a few choice people know about it (if anyone at all).

So I decree, from this day forward we in the States all call hookup buddies "geeks"!

Supercool.


Update:

Upon further reading through her blog, I think that the author may be referring more to someone where there is possible mutual interest but nothing has happened yet. This would make the person in question certainly not a boyfriend or girlfriend, but it might also feel weird to simply call them a friend. This may be partially due to the fact that "friend" in young adult language is a relationship that is doomed to be non-sexual.

This point of view would be supported by this post.

Then again, my original understanding would be supported by this video, which she posted on her blog. I think the video is more representative of her commentary on non-friend non-boyfriends in what I've read in her tumblr so far.

I guess I might suggest that two new words for between-friend-and-boyfriend/girlfriend might be needed for young adult culture in the States. *shrug*