Korea Life Blog - Odd Couple



This poor dog lives behind my building. She's an extremely quiet dog and I never knew she was even there until a few months ago. I was outside, feeding the cats when I heard a scratching noise. I looked over and saw the dog's paw scratching under the wood. Over time she managed to push out two slats. Curious as to why she just didn't walk around the backside I decided to have a look. What I discovered broke my heart: her chain is about 2 feet long - so short that she was unable to even walk outside her dog house. Sometimes I really hate people. This was one of those times. Maybe, though...maybe she's only chained up here occasionally, I hoped. Since then I've kept my eye out. Sadly, she is chained up like this 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The owner pops out once a day to dump food in her dish. That's it. No petting, no play time, no affection. I can't imagine how this dog must feel day in and day out fastened to a short chain, barely able to move, no reprieve, no love. The guy that owns her - what a thoughtless asshole.



As I was trying to entertain the dog, trying to make a little excitement in her tortured life, I noticed something there beside her.



What the hell is that? Apparently this dog is living with a chicken. How bizarre.



One of the cats walks by and they both turn to look. Weird. The poor dog lives with a chicken of all things. What is going on in my town?



There used to be a really cute dog that lived in this other dog house. A small dog with long ears, also attached to a short chain (from the blue hook to the dog bed) day in and day out eternally. Somehow though, now that the weather is warm enough, the dog managed to get free. How? - well I'll leave it to you to guess. All I'm going to say is that the dog that lives with the chicken would be free too if she didn't bark so loudly at the wrong time. She gets scared late in the night. Soon, though I'm guessing she'll be free.

written by shawn matthews    -|link

Korea Life Blog - Kwang Kyo San in Suwon

Awhile back Windy recommended I visit Kwang Kyo Mountain in Suwon. There's a bus near my home that goes right to it. With nothing to do last weekend, Julie and I decided to give it a try, not really sure what to expect. Whenever I hear the word "mountain" I envision a real mountain. However, most mountains in Korea are just gigantic hills. There really needs to be a word for something between a hill and a mountain like you'd find in the Rockies.

Turns out Kwang Kyo San is similar in appearance to any mountain anywhere Korea, but it has a nice walking trail that runs through it. The slope never gets to steep and it's easy to traverse and pleasant. The mountain fairly popular but not overly crowded.

It didn't look like much at first especially. We had no idea that the trail would be so long. When we first started to go up, we realized we may need some water. Julie stopped an old man and asked if we could get water in the mountain. "Nae, mul ichi," he replied and walked off. He didn't bother to mention the water was 3 kilometers up the trail!

Anyway it was really nice to get away from society a bit and we had a great time. Here are a few pics:



Within minutes you're on the trail and away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Almost immediately I could smell wood and flowers in the air rather than diesal fuel and/or sewage. A welcome change. They did a nice job with the trail as well.



An ajumma wearing decorative socks scuttles past us. Sure it's a great source of exercise, but isn't the point of hiking also to relax and enjoy the surroundings? So many older people treated it almost as a race. Don't they hurry around enough in their daily lives? Even worse was seeing people a little further up chatting on handphones.



Wow, flowers, trees, water? Where am I? No concrete and metal, garbage, highrise apartments or PC bangs to see for awhile. I remarked later though, McDonald's could make a killing with a restaurant halfway up.



The weather couldn't have been any better. We were worried it would be too crowded. While there were many people, it wasn't that bad. Sometimes we'd come across groups like this.



Other times we wouldn't see anyone around. During these junctures, I'd take the chance to plant a kiss on my lucky baby's cheek. Wow, what a romantic hero.



A sea of apartments in the distance. I wonder if they are visible from the moon...



Further up, less noise from the highways, almost quiet. I feel like I'm back in America in the country side near my hometown. I wonder what it would be like to have lived in a time when the whole world looked like this. In fact, walking through nature brings you in touch with past centuries. I could almost envision Confucian scholars walking the trail.



More scenery. It's nice that the leaves haven't grown back yet and you can see in the distance, yet I'd like to come back later in the season too. Another reason I'd like to come back, I forgot to take pictures of a couple of things: a few dug out holes lined with stacked tires to serve as bunkers in the event of another war. Also, we were so happy to finally reach the water tap I didn't think to take a photo there. We drank and drank the cold spring water for several minutes before sitting down to enjoy some kimbap and a few donuts. Suddenly a gigantic mosquito landed right on Julie's jelly donut and stuck to the jelly. Julie screamed so loud everyone stared at us. I can't blame her really, that was one huge mogie!

However, I should point out that she gets scared rather easily. Earlier in the day she cut her finger in the bathroom and flipped out in a panic. She thought she should go to the hospital. She swooned, she grew nauseous. I looked at her finger. The cut very small and there was hardly any blood. It took awhile to calm her down long enough to apply a small bandaid...

Well, that's most of the pics I took. I found out later if we kept going we would have gotten to the bottom where there are a lot of traditional noodle restaurants and a bus station. Instead, we turned back the way we came and eventually had spaghetti at a Sorrentos across town. First we stopped at Buy the Way. To my surprise the convenient store carries a decent collection of wines under 30,000 won. We picked up a bottle of California Red and drank it with our dinner. (Actually Julie drank about a teaspoon and I drank the rest.)

If you'd like a nice relaxing climb and have nothing to do on a weeked you may want to try Kwang Kyo San and make a day of it. It's easy to find being located right next to Kyungi University. You can take bus #32 across the street from Suwon Station. Many other busses go there as well.

written by shawn matthews    -|link

Korea Life Blog - A New Poll (9)


There's a new and exciting poll to take. Here are the results of the previously exciting poll:


Where would you rather live?

Korea 68 (30%)
America 38 (17%)
Canada 19 (8%)
New Zealand 20 (9%)
Australia 16 (7%)
England 4 (1%)
Other European Country 17 (7%)
South East Asian Country 10 (4%)
the moon 11 (4%)
other - see comments 19 (8%)

Seems the majority of people would prefer to live here if they aren't already. America comes in a distant second and a close race between Canada and New Zealand and "other" for third. I found it a little disturbing that more people would rather live in Australia or the moon than England.

written by shawn matthews    -|link

Korea Life Blog - Modern Scenery


You ever get a little scared when you look out at the world these days? At the sprawling sea of concrete, metal and air pollution...is this what scientific advancement is doing for us? It's plain ugly and I feel sorry for future generations.

written by shawn matthews    -|link

Korea Life Blog - Subtitle Trauma

In my town there is a single video store with a patherically small, old collection. The guy who runs it, a Star Craft addict, gets a new movie in about once every two months. He charges 1,500 won for "new" and old movies alike, 2000 won for a DVD. (To anyone not living in Korea, that still may sound cheap, but usually old videos are 500-800 won and new movies 1,000, maybe 1,500 on DVD at the most). Every time I've gone there, I've ended up frustrated and usually leave empty handed.

After awhile I got to downloading movies off Overnet. It's illegal, sure, but who cares when you're living in a small town in the middle of nowhere with one lone video store and no selection and a lethargic owner who can barely pause Star Craft long enough to check you out much less take time to order some new videos and increase sales. Also, by downloading, I am able to see movies that never make it to Korea, which are usually the ones I want to see anyway.

The only problem with this is that I want to watch some of these movies with my girlfriend. Julie, as you know, is Korean and speaks English very well - just not enough to follow a movie 100% without subtitles. So I started to look into using subtitles on ripped movies. This is where my story of trauma begins.

Sometimes I think I could never live without a computer and the internet. Between playing games, downloading, surfing the net, updating my website, writing, listening to music and watching movies and porn, etc., I don't have need for much else. Yet other times, when things don't work properly, I feel like throwing the whole thing off a high rise building and moving to Alaska. You know what I mean. Those times you start it up and some error pops up on the screen. You get online and find the solution which requires 35 steps, one of which you completely can't understand inevetibally you create 5 other problems until you end up so frustrated you reinstall the entire operating system while cursing at Bill Gates and at yourself for not having backed up your files.

Back to my story. I'll break it down into steps:

1. I have the movie About Schmidt which I got off Overnet. I love that movie and want to watch it with Julie. We need subtitles.


2. 10:00 PM. I get online and figure out there are in fact such things as subtitle files. Great! Julie calls her brother and he told her some websites where she can find them in Korean. Julie tries, there are subtitles but mostly for big name movies like Lord of the Rings.


3. Now I try. (Then she tries again, then me, then she for a good hour...)

Despite the fact Korean displayed properly on my computer, reading and typing, it wouldn't display on Overnet. All the Korean characters looked like this: $%!%^!??!?. Even so, I was able to find the Korean subtitle file for About Schmidt and downloaded! Unfortunately they too were garbled. Why won't the damn Korean display! I shouted. However, when I opened the file in notepad, I used select all and changed the font, presto: Korean! I danced around joyfully, startled by my own genius. I woke up Julie and started the movie. Unfortunately, now the changed files wouldn't play in the subtitle player. I overwrote the orginals and had to find them again on Overnet. Why won't the original files display in Korean? I shouted again! I searched online for a solution until my face is blue. Julie started to fall asleep again, as you probably are by now.


4. I try installing new Korean fonts. They don't work. I try downloading Hangul Word, nothing changes. Next I engage in a step by step process of deleting Korean from my computer and reinstalling the language packs from the net and off the XP CD. Restart! To my astonishment, it works! Korean displays in Overnet and in the About Schmidt file without changing the font! YES! Excited I wake up Julie again. Unfortunately, for some reason, the subtitles are too small. Julie suggests we just see the movie in a DVD bang the next day in Seoul or something. Forget that, by this time it's become an obsession on my part to get this working properly. Not only for this movie, but for all the other movies I've downloaded.


5. Julie goes back to sleep. I try several more players until I find one that allows you to adjust the size of the subtitles. At last I find one but it won't play the files. After a lot of cursing to myself, I finally figure out the problem: this particular player won't play .smi subtitle files. I need to convert them to .sub. I find a free converter and download it. Success, the file converts. The subtitles work! I'm jumping around again and wake up Julie. "I'm a little tired," she says. It's near 1:00 AM now. No, no, I reply, shaking her awake. Come on! She agrees. I set the computer monitor up on top of TV and get the movie going.


6. Finally now, 2:30 AM everything is working, it seems. I enlarge the font so that she can see better, but the the extra size shrinks the already small, widecreen formatted movie. We give up watching from the bed and lay on the floor now. The movie starts. The subtitles are working - but they lag by 30 seconds. At this point I want to scream but instead we both start laughing and can't stop.

7. Julie convinces me it's OK and watches the movie from start to finish and enjoys it, even though she laughs 30 seconds after every funny part. Sigh...

written by shawn matthews    -|link

Korea Life Blog - Fashion Fraud on the Bus


Now that the weather is getting nice again, been spending less time on the computer. Quite a few updates to come about this past weekend though and will add more to the Geoje-do story as well. For starters get a load of these shots of fashion fraud, live on the bus:



This guy sat down right next to Julie and I. We couldn't believe it. I cursed myself againing for not buying a smaller camera but was able to convince Julie to take his picture by pretending to photograph me. Even though it was extremely obvious, the guy didn't seem to notice. Not a bad pic, though it's a little hard to see his gelled up hair and ultra-groovy sunglasses. Using flash would have been just too obvious. Good work, nonetheless, Julie. Maybe you can be a KLB field reporter.



Oops, you forgot to get a shot of his shoes, try again. Another picture of me. Snap, snap...wow, nice shot of my arm, leg and bag - a true professional. Now that I see this picture again, I wouldn't mind a pair of shoes like that actually, hmm...



It was so funny I had to give it a try. This girl was standing way up front. While pretending to view old pics on the LCD display, I zoomed in and was able to get off this not-so-great shot. I must get a smaller, more secretive camera someday. I guess it's better than no shot though and you can see what I'm talking about as far as fashion this year. Those socks are hideous! Anytime, but especially with those shoes.

written by shawn matthews    -|link