It's wet here. The ground is wet, the trees are wet, the walls are wet, the air is wet, and I am wet. It's the rainy season and the rain has been coming for the last 10 days or so. And it's not letting up yet. Today was a little reprieve and the ownerless cats (a mother and four 3-month-old kittens) came out to sun themselves on the roof in front of our apartment; they looked so content as they worked on their tans. But tonight another load of rain is coming and they will be forced back into whatever sanctuary they came out of.
The Han River is up too. Korea is a bumpy country so the rain that falls flows down the hills and into the streams that become rivers and the newly formed rivers around Seoul dump into the Han and the Han fills and turns a muddy brown as it flows west. This morning as I biked over the river I thought it looked a lot like chocolate milk.
Two miles east and I came upon sticks and empty bottles and leaves and mud on the bike trail, a sign that overnight the river had come up to the trail (it normally flows about 2-3 meters below the trail). It had receded by the time I got there, but not by much and I wondered if the rains started again while I was at work would it come back up and force me to find an alternate route home. It didn't, but now I wonder about tomorrow's rides to and from work; of course, if it's pouring I'll take the bus--something I'd rather not do as I prefer to fight the elements than the other commuters, but there is a line and if the elements cross it, I'll suck it up and deal with the people.
I've not seen rain like this in quite a while. I do remember about 4-5 years ago in California a February-March season in which San Jose got something like 45 days of rain out of the 60 or so, but California is dry otherwise, so the rain would fall and the ground would get wet but in the minutes/hours between rainfalls, things would dry out. Here there is no such drying period. Things get wet and stay wet. I like to take two showers a day during this time of year and my towel struggles to dry in between. I've taken to setting up a fan and keeping it on so that our towels and laundry dry in a decent amount of time; and even then it's still a struggle. Humidity is the enemy during the summer and especially during the rainy season.
But Korea is certainly a land of changing weather. So it's moments like this that I like to think back to how cold I was a few months ago and how much I longed for the season when I could wear shorts and t-shirts and enjoy a good sweat. Soon those months will be back, so for now, I'll take this.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
The Merry Month of May
So life continues to move along here. Spring has arrived and in a span of about two weeks I went from wearing jacket, hat, and gloves on my bike rides to and from work to wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Things change quickly here and soon it will be downright hot and humid. But with the heat and humidity comes the eye-candy in the form of short skirts and sandals. Can't complain about that.
The North Korean rhetoric has decreased a few notches, although they did launch a few missiles into the sea a little over a week ago. I have no idea what that was about, but perhaps they just had some leftover firearms and decided "What the hell? Let's fire these things off." Sorta like a young teenage boy will do when he finds a pack of bottle-rockets in the garage he put there before the 4th of July and then promptly forgot about.
And speaking of North Korea, if you haven't heard the story of about the guy who was born in a prison camp and then escaped from both it and the entire country, you might want to read the book. It's called Escape from Camp 14. It's an easy read and a really interesting story. In fact, it's one of those stories that if Hollywood had written, you wouldn't believe.
In other news, if you haven't heard about MOOCs, you are about to. MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Courses and there are a few different websites that run these things. The one I like is Coursea, which has dozens of classes in different fields. They are free and run similarly to the way a college class runs--lectures, readings, homework, tests. My favorite part, as was the case when I was attending real college, is the lectures. Usually they are broken up into about 10-15 minute segments (the professors break them up by the topic) and you watch and take notes. I take notes in a word document that I reduce to about 1/6 of the screen to so that I can keep one eye on the video lecture while I type.
The two I'm currently taking are "Sports and Society" and "The History of Rock". The former is run by an anthropology professor at Duke and the latter is done by a music professor out of the University of Rochester. Both are really interesting and while they do take some time and effort, neither requires nearly as much work as anything I took while getting the master's degree. Lectures probably take about two hours per week total and the S&S class has some readings to do. And then the homework and quizzes take very little time as they are in the form of true/false and multiple choice questions. The other aspect of the classes and the one that takes the place of classroom discussion is the forums. They are run just like any other online forum where someone starts a topic/thread and others respond. These can turn into quite interesting and fun discussion or not, but it's good to be able to see what other students have to say.
If you are looking for a real college experience, I wouldn't recommend MOOCs, but if you are looking for something to keep the mind active and are interested in the world around you in more than just a click-to-the-next-page sort of way, they are great. I've already signed up for more spanning everything from personal finance to evolution to the music of Beethoven.
The North Korean rhetoric has decreased a few notches, although they did launch a few missiles into the sea a little over a week ago. I have no idea what that was about, but perhaps they just had some leftover firearms and decided "What the hell? Let's fire these things off." Sorta like a young teenage boy will do when he finds a pack of bottle-rockets in the garage he put there before the 4th of July and then promptly forgot about.
And speaking of North Korea, if you haven't heard the story of about the guy who was born in a prison camp and then escaped from both it and the entire country, you might want to read the book. It's called Escape from Camp 14. It's an easy read and a really interesting story. In fact, it's one of those stories that if Hollywood had written, you wouldn't believe.
In other news, if you haven't heard about MOOCs, you are about to. MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Courses and there are a few different websites that run these things. The one I like is Coursea, which has dozens of classes in different fields. They are free and run similarly to the way a college class runs--lectures, readings, homework, tests. My favorite part, as was the case when I was attending real college, is the lectures. Usually they are broken up into about 10-15 minute segments (the professors break them up by the topic) and you watch and take notes. I take notes in a word document that I reduce to about 1/6 of the screen to so that I can keep one eye on the video lecture while I type.
The two I'm currently taking are "Sports and Society" and "The History of Rock". The former is run by an anthropology professor at Duke and the latter is done by a music professor out of the University of Rochester. Both are really interesting and while they do take some time and effort, neither requires nearly as much work as anything I took while getting the master's degree. Lectures probably take about two hours per week total and the S&S class has some readings to do. And then the homework and quizzes take very little time as they are in the form of true/false and multiple choice questions. The other aspect of the classes and the one that takes the place of classroom discussion is the forums. They are run just like any other online forum where someone starts a topic/thread and others respond. These can turn into quite interesting and fun discussion or not, but it's good to be able to see what other students have to say.
If you are looking for a real college experience, I wouldn't recommend MOOCs, but if you are looking for something to keep the mind active and are interested in the world around you in more than just a click-to-the-next-page sort of way, they are great. I've already signed up for more spanning everything from personal finance to evolution to the music of Beethoven.
Monday, May 27, 2013
Rainy Day Haiku
Land of Morning Calm
Turned quite wet this afternoon
Rainy season starts
Hour ride in rain
Drenches both my bike and me
Tomorrow the bus
Kimchi pancakes go
Well with makgeolli and rain
Say the Koreans
Turned quite wet this afternoon
Rainy season starts
Hour ride in rain
Drenches both my bike and me
Tomorrow the bus
Kimchi pancakes go
Well with makgeolli and rain
Say the Koreans
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
No Balls and No Strikes
What do you do when a neighboring country announces that it is in "a state of war" with the country you live in? Why, you get the baseball season underway, of course.
I don't know what North Korea has been thinking the last couple weeks, but it seems that they've made a number of people nervous. Some members of the government, a handful of journalists, and one or two security "experts", all seem to be on pins and needles, in addition to a couple of my friends on Facebook, and my mother--though my mother seems to have made nervousness a perpetual state of her existence (probably a prerequisite for motherhood). Personally, I don't think Kim Jong Un has the balls to strike South Korea, or anywhere else for that matter. And I don't think he intends to or ever has intended to. I think he's playing a different game because certainly he knows that any major aggression towards South Korea or the US will result in his own demise. And that would mean no more visits from retired NBA badboys.
One group of people who don't seem nervous at all is the South Koreans. For them it all seems par for the course and life goes on as always. One of my students told me that someone, I think it was a politician, was upset because more Koreans were talking about the beginning of the baseball season than the threat from the North, something that struck me as both funny and rather expected. I tend to think that since the Southerners have lived with this sort of thing for a long time--the Korean War has been on "pause" for 60 years now--they must be rather numb to the constant posturing that comes from the North. About a week ago, I asked my students if anyone was nervous about North Korea and just one girl raised her hand--and that was one more than raised their hand last time I asked the question--and she told me she wasn't nervous about a war but instead was nervous that NK would do something on a smaller scale, like shelling one of the many island off the west coast or attempting to sink another ship.
So it seems no one here is nervous about any major aggression from the North. And until they get nervous, neither will I. All I know is that the weather is finally getting a bit warmer and baseball has just started--two very welcome arrivals.
I don't know what North Korea has been thinking the last couple weeks, but it seems that they've made a number of people nervous. Some members of the government, a handful of journalists, and one or two security "experts", all seem to be on pins and needles, in addition to a couple of my friends on Facebook, and my mother--though my mother seems to have made nervousness a perpetual state of her existence (probably a prerequisite for motherhood). Personally, I don't think Kim Jong Un has the balls to strike South Korea, or anywhere else for that matter. And I don't think he intends to or ever has intended to. I think he's playing a different game because certainly he knows that any major aggression towards South Korea or the US will result in his own demise. And that would mean no more visits from retired NBA badboys.
One group of people who don't seem nervous at all is the South Koreans. For them it all seems par for the course and life goes on as always. One of my students told me that someone, I think it was a politician, was upset because more Koreans were talking about the beginning of the baseball season than the threat from the North, something that struck me as both funny and rather expected. I tend to think that since the Southerners have lived with this sort of thing for a long time--the Korean War has been on "pause" for 60 years now--they must be rather numb to the constant posturing that comes from the North. About a week ago, I asked my students if anyone was nervous about North Korea and just one girl raised her hand--and that was one more than raised their hand last time I asked the question--and she told me she wasn't nervous about a war but instead was nervous that NK would do something on a smaller scale, like shelling one of the many island off the west coast or attempting to sink another ship.
So it seems no one here is nervous about any major aggression from the North. And until they get nervous, neither will I. All I know is that the weather is finally getting a bit warmer and baseball has just started--two very welcome arrivals.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Photograph Your Seoul
At some point I'd like to buy a good camera and try my hand at photography--maybe take a class. But until then, I'll enjoy the photos of others. Thought you might enjoy these too:
http://rjkoehler.tumblr.com/ (This is where I got the background image for this blog)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/gallery/2013/feb/22/seoul-life-in-the-megacity-in-pictures#/?picture=404392479&index=0
http://www.globalphotos.org/seoul.htm
http://rjkoehler.tumblr.com/ (This is where I got the background image for this blog)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/gallery/2013/feb/22/seoul-life-in-the-megacity-in-pictures#/?picture=404392479&index=0
http://www.globalphotos.org/seoul.htm
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
...And....I'm back....
My apologies to my loyal readers, though I doubt there are any of you left. I have a few excuses for the lack of posts here, but I bet you'd rather I just get on with things...so I will.
A lot has happened since my last post. The big three that come to mind are: 1) A trip to Thailand, 2) A running injury, and 3) A move.
1) Ami and I went to Thailand over the holiday break. We met my parents there, who, by the way, were staying in Thailand for a full six weeks, and had a great time. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime things, meaning that I doubt we'll ever meet my parents in Thailand again. We will meet them in other places and I certainly plan on going to Thailand again, but I rather doubt both will happen together.
Anyway, we stayed on Kho Samet for five nights, in Bangkok for two, in Sukhothai for one, and then up in Chiang Mai for three--this excludes the two nights near the airport upon arrival and departure. It was all great and just don't think it's possible to tire of Thailand--though visiting a country and living in one are two entirely different things. Just as things were on Koh Chang last year, the touring was fun, the food was great, the warm weather was very welcome, and the people were awesome.
In Koh Samet it was lot of relaxation with conversation, card games, and Chang beer. In Bangkok we did some shopping and looking around. In Sukhothai we enjoyed a night of old rock and roll and Belgian beers. And in Chiang Mai we walked around, got massages, and met a guy (and his wife and young son) from England that I used to work with here in Korea in addition to meeting a Thai student I had when I taught in California.
Over the two weeks, we laughed, we talked, we ate great food, we drank good beer, we explored, we met some of the locals, we rode (for too long) through the Thai landscape, and we got to know Thailand. It now seems a Frame family tradition to spend Christmas in a different place every year. Over the past few, we've been to San Antonio, Orlando, Key West, Mexico, Panama, and now Thailand (though we were missing my brother's family from this last one, much to our disappointment). Next year? Who knows.
2) As for the running injury....I have no idea what happened. Injuries for me have always been of the kind that creep up on you like an elephant in the tall grass. You know it's coming and you can't stop it. It arrives. You give it some tlc. And eventually it wanders off. This one was different however.
I was doing a simple 4-mile loop on a Monday morning. I hadn't run in the two weeks I was in Thailand, but in the previous week (my first back) I'd done four runs of 3 and 4 miles. So I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary. I wasn't running fast. I wasn't going long. I wasn't just starting either as I was 3.5 miles into the run when suddenly my right calf seized up on me. I've never been shot, but I imagine the suddenness with which this hit is quite comparable.
I stopped and thinking it was just a cramp, a very aggressive and evil cramp but a cramp nonetheless, I bent down and tried to massage the thing out. It hurt. It really hurt. And it wasn't going away. So I tried that great piece of advice that all child athletes across all sports have heard from their adult coaches, I tried walking it off. I walked about a block stopping a couple times to massage the thing and then I tried to take a running step and was promptly shot again. "Well this ain't good" I thought as I pulled up. I then decided just to walk and see how it would go.
I ended up sporting a major limp for the rest of the day and gradually beginning to feel better. By the second day off, I was feeling pretty good when I realized that I'd forgotten the attendance sheet as one of my classes was about to being. So I told the students I'd be right back, walked out of the classroom, and then started to run down the hall. I got about one step in when the sniper struck again. I won't tell you what I said, but I will tell you that if any students were still lingering in the hallway, they heard a very natural English.
Over the next few weeks, I mostly rested it getting out to test it maybe three or four times. Mostly it felt ok, but one time I felt the pain coming back and stopped. I was merely trotting around the block so that if the sniper struck once more, I'd be within about 200 meters of my apartment.
As the end of the school session and the move to a new residence approached, and as winter barely began to subside, I decided that I'd just go ahead and let the running go until I moved--sort of a new beginning on many fronts. So with that, I will start the running quite soon. I hope that whatever it was is gone.
3) Around November we had a lunchtime teachers' meeting--these happen about once a month--during which time I was informed that I'd have to move out of the apartment provided by the school and into a new apartment provided by me (well, partly). Apparently, rents in the Gangnam area have gotten so out of hand that even the Gangnam government (my paycheck provider) can't afford them.
Now, Ami and I had already had a strong desire to move. The Gangnam apartment was a mere room, a large room, but still just a room. And I don't do well unless I have a place to escape to with no one else--sans maybe a cat. Since I've moved to Korea, the girl and I have tiptoed around when the other is sleeping or sick or just in a bad mood, being careful with noise and light, waking times and sleeping times. It was in these times that I had the profound thought that walls and doors can be a man's best friend. Thus, when Gangnam told the boss and the boss told me that I would have to move, it wasn't unwelcome news. It was the kick in the pants that Ami and I needed to get it done.
I had until August of this year to do it, but Ami was searching online one evening and found a place that sounded good--decent location, floor plan and pictures looked ok, and the price was right. So she made an appointment to check it out, we checked it out, we liked it, and we made the deal. It was all rather painless (well for me anyway since I can't speak the language and really just agreed that it all looked good).
Our move date was March 1st, which turned out to be a thing of beauty because the last day of the session at my school was Feb 28th and I would then be getting six straight days off (I am currently enjoying the last of these days). The move was fairly painless and easy thanks to Ami's stellar language skills in setting up the proper appointments, my packing skills (honed by a nomadic lifestyle since I was born), and Andrew, who came to help us on moving day. All in all it was one of my easier moves.
I don't know if I ever made myself clear here, but I never much cared for the Gangnam area. It's nice enough, what with its tall buildings, its wide polished sidewalks, its overabundant coffee shops, and it finely dressed people scurrying this way and that, but I never much liked it. The streets were all at 90-degree angles so it was impossible to get lost, there were very few street vendors like in other areas of Seoul, and the people always had an air of entitlement about them--this was the worst part.
So I am happy to report that we've moved to an area that so far (and I'm less than a week in so more research is needed), but so far seems better. Yesterday I took a short walk around the new neighborhood and was overjoyed when I got lost. The roads around here are crazy and what's better are all the little alleyways that you'd be hard pressed to walk side-by-side with someone through. It's like a maze, a labyrinth of concrete and residences. It's great! It's going to take me months to learn the area.
The rather good aspect of moving here is that we are about 10 minutes away from the "foreigner" district. Now, I don't much care to make these foreigners my friends, but what I do like is the mix of people I see walking around and the mix of restaurants from which to choose--just have to watch the bank account. Yesterday, I walked to the foreign foods market (and when I say "foreign" I don't mean "American"). It has food from all sorts of different places and I was happy to find a few things I've missed--Italian dressing, balsamic vinegar, pancake mix, different pastas, cookies, and more--no beer though, to my great disappointment.
Anyway, the new neighborhood is older, less organized, grittier, and much more what I expected when I moved to Korea. And so far, I love it.
A lot has happened since my last post. The big three that come to mind are: 1) A trip to Thailand, 2) A running injury, and 3) A move.
1) Ami and I went to Thailand over the holiday break. We met my parents there, who, by the way, were staying in Thailand for a full six weeks, and had a great time. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime things, meaning that I doubt we'll ever meet my parents in Thailand again. We will meet them in other places and I certainly plan on going to Thailand again, but I rather doubt both will happen together.
Anyway, we stayed on Kho Samet for five nights, in Bangkok for two, in Sukhothai for one, and then up in Chiang Mai for three--this excludes the two nights near the airport upon arrival and departure. It was all great and just don't think it's possible to tire of Thailand--though visiting a country and living in one are two entirely different things. Just as things were on Koh Chang last year, the touring was fun, the food was great, the warm weather was very welcome, and the people were awesome.
In Koh Samet it was lot of relaxation with conversation, card games, and Chang beer. In Bangkok we did some shopping and looking around. In Sukhothai we enjoyed a night of old rock and roll and Belgian beers. And in Chiang Mai we walked around, got massages, and met a guy (and his wife and young son) from England that I used to work with here in Korea in addition to meeting a Thai student I had when I taught in California.
Over the two weeks, we laughed, we talked, we ate great food, we drank good beer, we explored, we met some of the locals, we rode (for too long) through the Thai landscape, and we got to know Thailand. It now seems a Frame family tradition to spend Christmas in a different place every year. Over the past few, we've been to San Antonio, Orlando, Key West, Mexico, Panama, and now Thailand (though we were missing my brother's family from this last one, much to our disappointment). Next year? Who knows.
2) As for the running injury....I have no idea what happened. Injuries for me have always been of the kind that creep up on you like an elephant in the tall grass. You know it's coming and you can't stop it. It arrives. You give it some tlc. And eventually it wanders off. This one was different however.
I was doing a simple 4-mile loop on a Monday morning. I hadn't run in the two weeks I was in Thailand, but in the previous week (my first back) I'd done four runs of 3 and 4 miles. So I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary. I wasn't running fast. I wasn't going long. I wasn't just starting either as I was 3.5 miles into the run when suddenly my right calf seized up on me. I've never been shot, but I imagine the suddenness with which this hit is quite comparable.
I stopped and thinking it was just a cramp, a very aggressive and evil cramp but a cramp nonetheless, I bent down and tried to massage the thing out. It hurt. It really hurt. And it wasn't going away. So I tried that great piece of advice that all child athletes across all sports have heard from their adult coaches, I tried walking it off. I walked about a block stopping a couple times to massage the thing and then I tried to take a running step and was promptly shot again. "Well this ain't good" I thought as I pulled up. I then decided just to walk and see how it would go.
I ended up sporting a major limp for the rest of the day and gradually beginning to feel better. By the second day off, I was feeling pretty good when I realized that I'd forgotten the attendance sheet as one of my classes was about to being. So I told the students I'd be right back, walked out of the classroom, and then started to run down the hall. I got about one step in when the sniper struck again. I won't tell you what I said, but I will tell you that if any students were still lingering in the hallway, they heard a very natural English.
Over the next few weeks, I mostly rested it getting out to test it maybe three or four times. Mostly it felt ok, but one time I felt the pain coming back and stopped. I was merely trotting around the block so that if the sniper struck once more, I'd be within about 200 meters of my apartment.
As the end of the school session and the move to a new residence approached, and as winter barely began to subside, I decided that I'd just go ahead and let the running go until I moved--sort of a new beginning on many fronts. So with that, I will start the running quite soon. I hope that whatever it was is gone.
3) Around November we had a lunchtime teachers' meeting--these happen about once a month--during which time I was informed that I'd have to move out of the apartment provided by the school and into a new apartment provided by me (well, partly). Apparently, rents in the Gangnam area have gotten so out of hand that even the Gangnam government (my paycheck provider) can't afford them.
Now, Ami and I had already had a strong desire to move. The Gangnam apartment was a mere room, a large room, but still just a room. And I don't do well unless I have a place to escape to with no one else--sans maybe a cat. Since I've moved to Korea, the girl and I have tiptoed around when the other is sleeping or sick or just in a bad mood, being careful with noise and light, waking times and sleeping times. It was in these times that I had the profound thought that walls and doors can be a man's best friend. Thus, when Gangnam told the boss and the boss told me that I would have to move, it wasn't unwelcome news. It was the kick in the pants that Ami and I needed to get it done.
I had until August of this year to do it, but Ami was searching online one evening and found a place that sounded good--decent location, floor plan and pictures looked ok, and the price was right. So she made an appointment to check it out, we checked it out, we liked it, and we made the deal. It was all rather painless (well for me anyway since I can't speak the language and really just agreed that it all looked good).
Our move date was March 1st, which turned out to be a thing of beauty because the last day of the session at my school was Feb 28th and I would then be getting six straight days off (I am currently enjoying the last of these days). The move was fairly painless and easy thanks to Ami's stellar language skills in setting up the proper appointments, my packing skills (honed by a nomadic lifestyle since I was born), and Andrew, who came to help us on moving day. All in all it was one of my easier moves.
I don't know if I ever made myself clear here, but I never much cared for the Gangnam area. It's nice enough, what with its tall buildings, its wide polished sidewalks, its overabundant coffee shops, and it finely dressed people scurrying this way and that, but I never much liked it. The streets were all at 90-degree angles so it was impossible to get lost, there were very few street vendors like in other areas of Seoul, and the people always had an air of entitlement about them--this was the worst part.
So I am happy to report that we've moved to an area that so far (and I'm less than a week in so more research is needed), but so far seems better. Yesterday I took a short walk around the new neighborhood and was overjoyed when I got lost. The roads around here are crazy and what's better are all the little alleyways that you'd be hard pressed to walk side-by-side with someone through. It's like a maze, a labyrinth of concrete and residences. It's great! It's going to take me months to learn the area.
The rather good aspect of moving here is that we are about 10 minutes away from the "foreigner" district. Now, I don't much care to make these foreigners my friends, but what I do like is the mix of people I see walking around and the mix of restaurants from which to choose--just have to watch the bank account. Yesterday, I walked to the foreign foods market (and when I say "foreign" I don't mean "American"). It has food from all sorts of different places and I was happy to find a few things I've missed--Italian dressing, balsamic vinegar, pancake mix, different pastas, cookies, and more--no beer though, to my great disappointment.
Anyway, the new neighborhood is older, less organized, grittier, and much more what I expected when I moved to Korea. And so far, I love it.
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