Room With a View

Just a few pics from the window of my apartment, you can clearly see the door that leads to the tiny closet containing my air conditioner in the night shots.

First Night Shot

Second Night Shot

First Day Shot
One of the other buildings in my complex is clearly visible on the left
Rather happy about the fact that I have a corner room

Second Day Shot

Incheon Chinatown

Decided to spend the day in Incheon's Chinatown. It's not hard to get to, just take the number one to Incheon station and cross the street. All in all, I wasn't too impressed with Chinatown so I didn't end up taking many pictures. You've seen one shop selling cheap stuff you've seen 'em all right? That and Chinese restaurants was about all there was, did have a few cool old colonial buildings but the streets were too narrow to get good shots.

First set of shots was all taken in Jayu (Freedom) Park.


Here we have the famous bronze statue of General Douglas MacArthur.


The plaque dedicating the statue uses words like incalculable genus. Based on what I've read, I believe that MacArthur would have liked it, though he may have criticised that it didn't give him the proper credit or that it was overly modest.

More of the monument to MacArthur.

Monument to the U.S. Navy in the Korean War.

Below we have a view of the Port of Incheon taken from Jayu Park.

On the other side of the park from the MacArthur statue is a large monument commemorating a century of relations between Korea and the United States of America.











I'm kinda disappointed that I wasn't able to get the whole thing in one shot but there were trees in the way, ah well.

Cool stone stairs leading out of the park.

Statue of Confucius. This is near but not in Jayu Park.

And just for fun, how about a couple shots of the creative use of English?

Is your Beer really safe?

No longer without a name.

Friday's Dinner Plus a Couple Other Things

First up, we have a bowl of Juk which is a type of Rice Porridge. Good stuff, savory and filling. About six to seven dollars US gets the bowl and a couple side dishes.




Next up we have another batch of kalbee, which is something I talked about earlier. Slightly different then the kind I had last time but just as good.



View of some random buildings from Young-San which is where I bought my camera.

Mmm, Dried Fishes for Present.

Rather unique name for a bar in my opinion.

More Photos

Decided to post a couple more pics. No exciting landmarks this time, just part of last night's dinner and one of my apartment.





First we have a bottle of Soju. Normally about twenty percent alcohol, it can be found everywhere and I see people downing one or two of these with every meal. Taste is a bit sweet to me though several people have described it as tasting like rubbing alcohol. It can be drunk straight or mixed with any one of a number of flavors, most of which taste a lot like koolaid to me.




Above we have something that looks a bit like a bowl full of polystyrene packing peanuts. Most bars seem to have them out for patrons to munch on while they drink. The taste is a bit like polystyrene mixed with sugar.




Here's my apartment, gotta love hardwood floors and vaulted ceilings. It's a studio and the bathroom and kitchen area are behind me. A bit small for the US but not for Korea, I've got a family of six living next to me in an apartment that't the same size.

More Photos

First picture is the 'Big Brother is Watching YOU' mascot. You mostly see this little guy outside banks and such, though I have seen him in a few other places.



















On the left, you see some of the creepiest underwear manikins that I've ever seen. This is from 'Grandmart' a local department store about two blocks from my apartment.

















On the right is my dinner today, Kalbi is frigging great. I've been all about the Sam Gyeop Sar before today, every day I've tried to order this stuff it's turned out that I've wandered into a place that sells everything but this, finally had the beef. Lesson learned is that I really need to learn to read Korean.










Rub a dub dub, three guys in a tub. Not quite sure what this add is all about.

Finally Got a Camera

Had time to go into Seoul today and did a bit of shopping at Yong San station. It's two stops away from Seoul Station on the Number 1 line going towards Incheon.

Haven't taken many pics yet, but here are the ones that I've got so far.






Here we have Seoul Station, or rather the old Seoul Station. The new one looks a bit like a shopping mall, old one has a lot more class in my opinion.














And on the right is a red statue, no idea what this is supposed to represent or why. It's in front of Seoul Station.

Well, I'm Gonna Have Nightmares Tonight

This is just wrong, just evil and wrong.



And will haunt my dreams forever.


This is how I remember my Drill Sergeants




Thanks for the memories Drill Sergeant, heh.

Dedicated to the woman who shoved me out of the way to get a seat on the subway

What is an Ajumma?




Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

Long Weekend

Four days off, not really sure what I'm going to do except not go to work. In other news, the Reprap machine is just cool. A fabber that can replicate itself, hadn't realized that they were this far along with rapid prototype technology. Best thing about it is that the plans are free, how cool is that?

This Weekend

I started off the day by going to Itaewon since it was the only place that I knew I'd be able to find a bookstore that had books in English. I purchasing a phrasebook and a dictionary from a place called What The Book, if you don't speak the language then bring a phrasebook is a lesson I'd forgotten since it'd been so long since I've been somewhere that I couldn't make myself understood. Visited the National Museum of Korea after that. All in all the place isn't bad, kinda small but it has it's point.

Ran into a friend after I got back to Incheon and we decided to check out a place called Goose Goose which is supposed to be THE ex-pat bar in Incheon, neither of us were impressed.

Well, I've gotten through my first week of classes. Highlights include one kid putting a shoe through a window, another challenging me to an arm wrestling match (which of course I won), and several students getting 'physical punishment.' For those of you that don't already know, 'physical punishment' is forcing the students to exercise or hold out their arms etc.

Biggest difficulty I've experienced so far is getting the students to speak, they all just stare at me and getting a response is like pulling teeth. Come to think of it, pulling out their teeth might get a response so I think I'm going to pencil that into next week's lesson plan.

Yes, I still need a camera. Thinking about getting one over the weekend.