Korea Life Blog - Gmail



Certain Blogger users like me were given a first chance at testing Google's new e-mail service known as Gmail. I had been eagerly anticipating getting an account and being one of the first to sign up was a welcome surprise. It made my morning! I was excited. Unfortunately, I was so taken off guard by the chance, I hurriedly chose my full name for a user ID before anyone else could claim it. After a couple of times of logging into the mail account, I realized my name is much too long. I envisioned trying to spell it out for Korean friends, etc. So I decided to make a new account. That's where I messed up again. Instead of checking into it ahead of time, I went ahead and brilliantly deleted my account, thinking I could simply make a new one. Wrong. The invitation link no longer worked and my account was gone. I e-mailed Blogger who referred my e-mail to Gmail support who e-mailed me back this letter today:

Hello Shawn,

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately, there is no way to re-enable a Gmail account that has
been deleted. Each invite link provides a user with the ability to create
one account. Because Gmail is in a limited test period, we periodically
issue a small number of new user invitations. We are not able to reissue an
invitation for you to create another account at this time. We look
forward to announcing a wider release of Gmail, and we thank you for your
patience.

Sincerely,

The Gmail Team


Murphy's Law has gotten ahold of me once again. I have been a fan of Google since they launched their search engine and Google.com has been my homepage for years. I was happy and surprised when they took over Blogger and made a lot of improvements. When they announced Gmail a month ago, I immediately looked into it, frustrated to find out it would likely be 3 months or more before it's open to the public. Of course I would blow the early opportunity. That's me! Now instead of being something like shawn@gmail.com I will likely be something like shawn_102873@gmail.com. Oh well.


Desperation: If any other Blogger users have gotten the invite and don't want the account because of the privacy concerns or any other reason, please! e-mail me. You can sign me up for an account and giveme the password. I'd really appreciate it.

Update: A genuine thank you to Fatman in Seoul for donating his Gmail invitation to me. I am now registered with Gmail with the name I wanted. Make sure to check out Fatman's popular website . He does a wonderful job of making people happy and hungry, though he has been known to disappear from time to time. Unlike me, he has a life. Thanks again, Fatman!


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written by shawn matthews    -|link

Korea Life Blog - Weird Art

While walking back to the bus stop from Kwang Kyo San Julie and I noticed a long wall painted with weird art. There were at least 20-25 paintings like the ones below. I really don't know what to say about them because I have no idea why they are there, what the artist(s) is trying to say and because they are plain bizarre. I'll number them in case anyone has an interesting interpretation of one.


1.



2.



3.



4.



5.



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written by shawn matthews    -|link

Korea Life Blog - Odd Hagwon Names


A long time ago I felt funny telling my friends I was leaving America to work at a school called Wonderland in South Korea. It sounded nuts. Since then however, I've seen far worse names. Here's a just a few:


Yeah, I work at the Tomato Academy. No, it's not a farmers school, it's a language school of course. Out of curiosity I checked the URL and the website doesn't exist. Kind of adds to the lack of credibility, one would think. Next door is the Brain Hagwon. Is it a medical school? Ah, I see - it's the English institute where they use the ever effective Brain English System. Right.



Or is it the Brainy English system? Why is the name different on the sign than on the window? Anyway it's still a weird name for a school.



Either way Brainy Smurf would be proud. "OK class, repeat after me: He smurfs, she smurfs, they smurf. Notice that when they smurf they smurf without s. Now If you open your Quotations of Brainy Smurf Volume 16 to page 452, you will see..."


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written by shawn matthews    -|link

Korea Life Blog - Freedom of the Cats



Unlike the dogs, the cats are free and thriving in this town. Here's my favorite one: Fat Cat, though he seems to have lost weight over the winter so I may have to change his name. He's the friendliest cat out there, always rolling around and happy. As a matter of fact, he's sitting outside my window now.



Here he is rubbing against my leg. Look at those beautiful green eyes. He loves to be pet, the little rascal. If I were to adopt a cat, this would be the one. However, I had to leave my cat behind before and I don't want to have to do it again. Also, it's not fair to an outdoor cat to suddenly pen them up inside, especially with the nice weather. He'd probably just want to go back outside. He seems just fine where he is now, and I kind of like it this way. I pray he doesn't get hit by a car though.



Ah, the life of a cat. Nothing like rolling around in the dirt then a nice nap after getting pet for awhile.



Another one watches jealously. This cat is utterly adorable too, yet she is shy. She's fairly new around this part of the town, but I've seen her everyday for the past couple of weeks. She'll sit by me and meow and meow and rub against some branches. Then she'll come right up to me wanting to be pet, but then flips out and hisses if I try. Obviously she's wrestling with her instincts. It's actually kind of interesting and comical.



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written by shawn matthews    -|link

Korea Life Blog - Dilemma


I'm not sure what to do about this remaining dog, the one that lives with a chicken. I went out tonight and checked her food and water dish. There was a clump of something weird in the food dish, no water. I dumped in some dog food and tuna. She took a sniff and jumped around excitedly and then devoured it. When she finished, I took her chain but couldn't see well how to release the lever - too dark outside. She got scared and backed off. Afterward she wouldn't come close enough to me long enough to try again. She hasn't attempted to bite at all but just backs away into her "house". I tried for awhile, but all I could do is leave her there. I'm not about to climb inside and get attacked.

Basically, I just don't know what I'm doing. Maybe I should just not worry about it. I don't know why it bothers me so much. Part of me thinks the dog is better off there. She has a "house" and I guess the owner must be feeding her as she's not too thin and she appears healthy. Maybe he just feeds her in the morning when I'm sleeping and the food and water is gone by evening. Still, it's not right to leave her endlessly every day and night and I feel pity. I can't rescue every dog, but every dog is not in my backyard. I want to help this one if I can. Freeing her may not be the right way, I don't know. There's not many other choices. Yet I have to wonder if it's the right thing.

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written by shawn matthews    -|link

Korea Life Blog - Heavy Weekend


There were a couple of instances this weekend in which I tested the limits of my strength. Let's take a look.



There's nothing quite like drinking Coca Cola out straight out of a glass bottle. I love it. Especially this style which is still available in Korea (not the short fat style from the 80s). You can still by them here because they reuse bottles in Korea (been drinking them like this for almost four years and never got sick!) In America, unfortunately, this system wouldn't go over well. Even though the bottles are sanitized, it wouldn't sit well with your average sanitization obsessed American. There they have a deposit on the bottles and just smash them to pieces upon redemption. Last I knew you could still by these Coca Cola bottles at certain stores, however, but when I was home last time I didn't see them anywhere. Here, they are for sale pretty much everywhere. Unfortunately, mostly restaurants use them and stores won't sell them individually for practical purposes. That means I have to buy them buy the case. The store is about a kilometer from my home. It was a long kilometer but I managed to make it home, sweating, my muscles ready to give out. It was a good work-out and I celebrated by drinking a cold Coke.


Julie and I went to Homeplus this weekend. We were going to eat there but as Murphy's Law would have it, there were having a norae bang (karaoke) show in in the food court. Loud and annoying. We decided to check out the Galleria department store down the street. I'm glad we did. After Popeyes Chicken and ice cold Naeng Myung (chilled noodle soup), we did a little shopping in the grocery store below. Check out what I got:


All wines were 20% off. I got this bottle of Yellow Tail Chardonnay from Australia for a mere 11,000 won. As lucky would have it, they threw in a "service" bottle of French table wine. They also carried four kinds of cheeses including this Danish Brie you see here which cost 6,000 won and is well worth it for a treat. As I was going to check out, I shouted with joy as the site of this big bottle of V-8 juice, my favorite drink. If you don't know it, tomato/vegetable juices in Korea are sweet, not salty. I don't like them sweet much, although they've grown on me somewhat. I'm sure there are other places to buy this, but I haven't seen any lately, and never in Nowhere-dong. It cost 7,000 won - expensive but again, I don't mind splurging on a treat for myself now and again.

The only problem was carrying all this. I put everything in my backpack which already contained Julie's sweatshirt (once again I told her not to bring it, but she insisted and then never wore it), her purse loaded with change, my camera and a book. It wouldn't have been that bad if we just went home. Instead we went to the Libro Book Store in Suwon Station. I wanted to buy Julie a book for "reading time" later. She spent 2 long hours looking while I walked around carrying this bag. To my anguish, she found nothing. Then we went shopping down below for dinner.

We bought shrimp and vegetable, and I picked up a nice piece of steak, something I hadn't eaten in ages. We had a wonderful dinner - fried rice with shrimp and vegetables, and I cooked up the steak with broccoli and mushrooms in wine sauce. Delicious. The Australian Chardonnay tasted wonderful, best wine I've had in Korea. Julie even had a piece of Korean style (terrible) cheesecake for dessert. A little later we had more wine and enjoyed the delicious Brie cheese.

My back hurt from having carried that heavy bag all day. Julie made it up to me with another hour long massage. I have to confess I am very lucky - she gives an amazing massage and her hands never seem to get tired. Unfortunately (or maybe a good thing, depending on how you look at it) she can't handle alcohol. After three small glasses, she was totally drunk fell fast asleep three hours before me.


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written by shawn matthews    -|link