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This is the final week of the Kids’ Camp for this session. No more kids until Summer Camp. Yippee! Ok, let me say that I don’t hate kids. They’re usually cute and adorable. But, put 15 of them, between the ages of 8 and 11, in a classroom and chaos ensues. They know that a foreign teacher is going to go easy on them, as far as discipline goes (by nature, I’m certainly NOT a disciplinarian), so they’ll get away with whatever they can. A couple of the boys were fighting as I walked into one of the classes last week, so I got between them and hauled them both down to the main office. It’s best to let the Korean admin people take care of something like that. They’ve been very well behaved since then. Here’s a few shots from a couple of my three classes.
The first one is from the youngest class. Wow, look how diligently they’re working. What could possibly hold their attention like that?
Let’s look at their work, shall we?
Ahh, budding Picassos. They’re supposed to be working on English activities, but I give them some free time near the end of class. It keeps them busy and out of trouble.
Here’s a girl from one of the other classes showing off the latest gizmo, which doubles as a ball point pen.
Hey, what are the boys up to? Looking up words in their electronic English dictionaries? Hahahahahah. Very funny. They’re playing games on their cell phones with the five or so minutes of free time I gave them.
We actually do get some English work done, believe it or not, and they’re pretty cool kids for the most part. Anyway, Friday is the final day of fun and games. I just hope that light ain’t a train. More later. (If I survive.)
What with all the teaching hours I’ve been doing, I don’t really have time to go to my dorm apartment and eat lunch. I’m off from noon until 2 p.m., but I use most of that time to do lesson plans. Still, because I eat only a small breakfast every day, I’m pretty hungry by lunch time. Luckily, one of the school cafeterias is just a short walk from my office, so I go there for a quick bite.
Like many institution eateries, the food isn’t all that great. It is, however, cheap (3,000 Korean won) and it’s pretty healthy. These 4 weeks of kids’ classes is about the only time I eat Korean food regularly. I’m glad it’s healthy, ‘cuz I’m not getting much exercise, except for on the weekends. Here’s a typical lunch.
From the top left, it’s tofu (or a variation thereof), the ubiquitous National Dish, kimchi (which is usually spicy fermented cabbage), a pasta of some kind, also spicy (I think it’s a rice-based pasta and very chewy), soup or broth, and rice. Not deliciously inviting, but, really, not all that bad, either. And, like I mentioned, healthy. Hasn’t stopped the weight from going up, though. Gotta get some regular exercise. One more week of kids’ classes to go, then back to the treadmill or outdoors, if the weather isn’t too cold or windy.
I thought that I would try taking a few photos with my compact camera held in one hand while I was zooming along on my motorbike, going from my dorm apartment up to my office at the Language Center. The first one shows the view as I’m coming around a corner, leaning into the turn.
I somehow managed to snap another shot of the beautiful autumn leaves just as the bike was flipping over, before I was knocked unconscious. I wasn’t able to get any photos of the paramedic guys.
Just kidding; no motorbike wreck. There wasn’t any traffic on the road at the time, so I was going rather slowly. The only danger was that I might have dropped the camera–I was holding onto it and the left handlebar at the same time. More later.
So, yeah, I’ve been out and about lately, taking some shots at various areas around Yeosu. Here’s a few, with more to come in the following days.
Keeping to my “theme” photos, sort of, here’s a shot of one of the many “love” hotels around town. These are primarily for overnight or hourly “stays” (cough, cough). Many of these places have quite interesting exteriors, some of which I’ll post. Here’s a rather titillating one representing Venus, perhaps.
Here’s the Narsha, a new tourist hotel that went up not too long ago. I like the way the blue sky reflects off the windows. One of the other teachers told me that the best steak in Yeosu can be found on the 3rd floor grill. I haven’t been there to check it out yet, but I’ll let you know, one of these days, how it is.
Another study in blue is the new ferry terminal, where you can catch a ride to many of the numerous islands in the area. This is the pedestrian walkway at the back entrance.
I was up at Jasan Park, which overlooks Odong Island (Odongdo) and here’s a stylized photo of the island. (Put through a few Photoshop filters.)
Ok, nothing too exciting, I suppose, but I was recently at the top of one of the mountains near the university and got some spectacular shots. I’ll get some of those posted in the next few days, along with some new night shots, and I’ll probably be putting some more in the Photo Gallery. More later.
Well, I’ve taken quite a few photos around Yeosu, and, being the small city that it is, I sometimes feel that I’ve run out of things to photograph. So, I’ve decided to take “theme” photos–shots that fit into a particular category. Right now, I’m looking out for business signs. Here are a couple of examples.
So, what is Nudee?
a. bar
b. house of ill repute
c. strip joint
If you said bar, then you’re correct.
Try your luck with this one:
What kind of business is it?
a. tanning salon
b. health food store
c. cosmetics store
It’s a cosmetic store. Hope you got that one correct.
However, more interesting are the various “cutesy” icons that are used on restaurant and other business signs. Here’s an example of the type that I’ll be posting. Obviously a restaurant that serves chicken. I’ll have many more of these later.
Here’s a couple I took earlier this summer, and did some HDR processing with them. The first one is the golf course across the highway with the watering system going full blast, shot with my telephoto zoom lens, which I don’t use all that often. Hmmm, don’t see anyone running for cover. With fall here and winter not too far behind, they probably won’t have the water on too much any more.
And here’s one of the few sunrises or sunsets that I’ve been able to capture here, for one reason or another. I’m gonna try to get down to the ocean early some morning and get some sunrise shots. This one is looking north from the balcony outside my dormitory apartment around sunset.
In case you didn’t see it, the Yanks stunned the Rangers in the first game of the AL Championship Series, coming back from 5 runs down to win 6-5. Agonizing to watch at first (with Texas up 5-0 early on), it got fun in the 8th inning when New York scored 5 runs. Next game–tomorrow. More of the same, I hope.
The rainy season was supposed to have ended a while back, but it seems to have been extended into this week, one of my vacation weeks. We had a couple of inches of rain a few days ago, an inch and a half today, and anywhere from 2-4 inches forecast for tomorrow through Sunday noon. Sheesh.
There was a bit of a break yesterday, though, so I went to the Jongpo Ocean Park walkway to take some photos and process them using a technique known as high dynamic range (HDR). In short, HDR photography attempts to capture the full range of all the dark areas and all the very light areas that might not be normally possible in a standard digital photo. For example, a darkly shaded area on a sunny day might not be able to capture all the detail in the shadows and might overexpose the brightly lit areas. In HDR photography, several shots are taken, and some of them are intentionally underexposed, some are overexposed and one is taken at normal exposure. Special software lets you combine these different exposures into one, with the result being that detail can be seen in the shadows and the bright areas aren’t overexposed, or “blown out.” That’s the simple explanation.
Yesterday was one of those days where we had some bright sunshine and dark clouds present in the late afternoon hours, usually one of the best shooting times of the day. I took a bunch of HDR photos and processed them. Some of the results are below. Unfortunately, I didn’t use my tripod, so they’re not the crispest of shots. Still, they give some sense of the potential of this type of photography. One result of this style is that you can use the software to give some very surreal (some would say unreal) shots. I think artistic is a better word, one that is best applied to results from photographers that are more familiar with this style than me. Still, here are a few of my first attempts.
Here’s the original photo of the new bridge spanning Dolson Island with the mainland. (Hmmm, is it my imagination or are the two spans off a foot or two from hooking up exactly?)
Here’s the HDR shot.
I’ve got a lot more detail in the hill to the right and better coloring in the large cloud in the middle, as well as in other areas. (Click the photos, of course, for larger shots.)
Here’s another one of the two spans. In the original, the foreground boats lack much detail or color. Here, they’re much more vibrant.
Ok, now for the more “artsy” stuff. In this one, the apartment buildings on the hill were very dark in the normally exposed shot and the red Hamel Light was merely a colorless silhouette, due to the brilliance of the sky. Here, I’m able to draw out their details while simultaneously bringing out detail in the clouds.
This one’s even more surreal.
Finally, here’s a shot of the walkway itself, sort of a “study in blue.” For this shot and the above two, definitely click for the larger photos.
I’ll be posting more of these types of shots from time to time, as the situation merits. Leave me a comment to let me know what you think. More later.
Here’s one I forgot to post to the photo gallery. I’m particularly proud of it, though I think I got very lucky capturing the exact moment of impact. Master Kim, my former taekwando instructor in Andong, Korea, gave an open house in March of 2005, a few months after my tired, broken old body had given up the discipline of taekwando. However, he invited me to take photos of the event, in which his younger students gave demonstrations to their parents and friends. About half way through the event I told him that things seemed to be going pretty well. He responded that he was nervous. I asked why. He told me that he planned to break 9 marble slabs with his hand at the end of the program, but he had only broken three at a time before! Yikes. But, he did it, as you can see below. He blew this photo up, from the original I took, quite large, and has it hanging on the wall of his office. He tells me the other taekwando masters in Andong are jealous of it.
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I thought I’d put up a comparison photo of a clear day so you can see just how hazy it gets around here sometime. These were not taken at exactly the same time of day, but it’s only a few hours difference between the two. Lately we’ve been getting some very nice weather, clear skies, and temperatures in the 80s. Quite nice. Unfortunately, my cold has returned. More later.
Clear skies on May 2, hazy on Apr. 29
It was very hazy a few days ago, looking much like the smoke-enshrouded skies of Montana during fire season. I don’t know whether it was water vapor, an actual forest fire somewhere else in Korea, or Chinese dust, though there were no dust alerts issued that day. Speaking of forest fires, Montana and other western states can expect more drought, according to this article. In Andong, the forecast is calling for rain today. What better day for a wedding? Two of our former office staff are marrying at noon. I’ll post some photos later.
View from my office on Apr. 29
Now, I’ve been accused of having my head up my butt, but never up someone else’s.
This photo is from last summer’s kids’ camp. They were playing a popular game called, I think, “Horse,” wherein two of them hook up, as above, and the rest of the gang jump on their backs, one by one, to see how many they can hold before the “horse” collapses. I captured this shot from my 5th floor office.
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