Mobile Randoms from the First Part of Spring

Just random phone shots:

Wonggisa

WaBar Kirin Pints

Sound of Vitality

Apsam

Shameless Advertising

(Our land is Dokdo, our coffee is Davinchi) 

.....No coffee is grown on Dokdo.

Where Readingtown used to be.

Daegu City Center

Near the Arboretum

Ur Awesome Jews!

Homeplus at 830am

Dalseo Municipality is planting more flowers this spring.

I like it.

Downtown

Dinner in Thai place downtown

Korean graffiti. Still amazed by it.

Apsan from Daegok ringway

Little Alley

Apsan again from the top of Daegok.

The lanterns by Imhusa ahead of Buddhas birthday.

Wonggisa

On Saturday the weather was great so I decided to once again head to Apsan. This time, however, I decided to go along the valley to the east of the mountain to a temple I had never been to called Wonggisa. It started off as a minor stroll but ended on an uphill grind that had me exhausted and stopping to rest every 10 minutes (70 degree angle in parts). Anyway, when I got there it wasn't actually a temple at all but a cave and a carving.

Apsan and mountain range south of Daegu

Buddha

Again

Lake near the base of the mountain

again

Anyway it was a hard grind but well worth it. This really is the time of year to be in Korea.

New Philippine Pics

The camera I went to the Philippines with last year was actually kinda on the outs, and when I started blowing up some pics of the Cordilleras I realized that most of them are quite blurry on the left of the picture. Usually just the bottom left corner, but it is enough to make blowing them up for picture frames etc. impossible. So I asked Mike to send me his and have now added them to my albums. Some of his are amazing, and as an added bonus he got a few great shots in Manila that I missed. A few are here and the rest are on facepalm:

From Manila:

From Ifugao:

I'm just sitting up here thinking.

Tragedy at Sea

In what might be the worst civilian maritime tragedy in Koreas history, a passenger ferry carrying over 400 people from Incheon to Jeju-do sank, for reasons as yet unknown.

The BBC covers it in detail here.

This is tragic for so many reasons. First off, twenty-four hours after the ship went down there are still 290 people, almost all High School students, unaccounted for. In those cold waters on a sinking ship, the rescue ships are really working against the clock and are really hoping for a miracle. If one were to find a blessing, it would have to be that the ship was only about half full. It can carry 900 people plus crew at full capacity.

There are a few oddities to this story:

-What happened to the ship? This is a busy waterway and it seems unlikely that they hit a rock.

-The passengers were told to sit and remain calm even as the ship was at a 45 degree angle and filling with water. Korean safety standards are rarely what they would be in the west but that just seems totally unacceptable. Though that may answer the next question.

-The ship sank in two hours. Very fast all things considered but still ample time to evacuate.

I guess answers will arrive in the next few days, but for now people are just hoping for the best.

Fire Near My Old Place

Last week (before I had this amazing computer ;) I was walking Yen to her shuttle bus to work when we saw a lot of smoke coming from down the road. After the bus came I decided to walk over there and have a look. As I got closer I realised just how close it was to my old Readingtown apartment. I also realised just how long it had been since I had walked down that street, even though I live 15 minutes away.

When I got there I realised that not only was it close, it was right next door.

I snapped a couple pics on my phone:

the smoke is coming from the red building. 

I used to live in the white one next to it.

Dalseo Fire Department

I hung around for fifteen minutes and saw a westerner poke his head out of my old place. I never did find out what caused the fire and, to be honest, didn't care enough to find out.

Anyway an interesting morning.

My New Computer

Well it happened, I finally caved and, after nearly ten years of cheap, second hand, under-performing computers, went out and bought one that will likely work for the next five years. $1600 CAN later ($1450USD/1490000won) I have a Macbook Pro.

my new computer

Honestly, I wasn't sure about making the switch to Mac. Mike had suggested it, noting that PC's are great for people who like to play with computers, while Mac's are better for people who just want to click on something and have it run. Friends who have MacBooks have also had them for years and note very little lag time, great durability and generally swear by them. Given that my school and much of the work I hope to be doing in the next couple of years is online based, a good, easy to use computer that won't slow down seemed a good buy. It'll also mean that I can blog, upload photo's and do things that were just becoming chores on the old HP I had.

A huge purchase but so far I am happy with it.

The Daegu Arboretum

Despite being a twenty minute walk from my front door, I had never made the trek down to the arboretum here in Daegu. With spring coming early and cherry blossom season in full swing we decided to go down on Sunday for the afternoon.

The Daegu Compass does an uncharacteristically good write up of the arboretum.

It is actually quite nice in the morning before it gets too crowded, and there are many flowers to see. I don't know why I have never been before, but i am sure I will go back again this spring.

Here are a few pics: