Yes, we’re enjoying the Chinese New Year, which is a 3-day holiday in Korea, and is one of the two big Korean holidays. (The other is Chuseok, the Korean Thanksgiving.) The official days this year are today, Monday and Tuesday, which makes for a nice, long weekend. This year is the year of the Dragon. Too bad the weather isn’t cooperating; it’s cooler today than it has been recently, and the KMA is forecasting snow(!) in Yeosu from tomorrow through Thursday. Do I put much faith in the KMA to call the weather accurately? Not by a long shot, so I’m gonna guess that we’ll get very little, if any. If it should happen to snow, I’ll go out and take some photos, if only to document that, once in a great while, the weather people give an accurate forecast. More later.
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To all my readers, friends, colleagues and family–may you have a very enjoyable holiday season and a prosperous and happy New Year. I’m in Nongkhai, Thailand at the moment and I’ll be heading over the border into Laos tomorrow, Christmas Day. Even though Thailand and Laos are Buddhist countries, many of their people celebrate Christmas as a holiday, not a religious event. Nai and I went to Tesco-Lotus (a department store/mall) today and the place was packed with shoppers. Of course, it’s Saturday, but it still seemed like a lot more people were out today than on a normal weekend. Perhaps the Spirit of Christmas is not recognized here, but the Spirit of Consumerism is alive and well. Like I said, I’m going into Laos tomorrow and I’ll spend several days with Nai and his family, celebrating the holidays. Folks there will be eating and drinking and entertaining friends. We’ll be chowing down on those large Mekong fish that are so delicious and I’m sure the Beer Lao will be flowing all over the country. The weather has been great, with daytime temperatures in the high seventies (25 C.) and cool nights, around 55 or so (13 C.), I would guess, and plenty of sunshine. I’m not looking forward to going back to chilly, windy Yeosu in a few weeks. I’ve got some photos to post, but I want to edit them first and, unfortunately, I don’t have any photo editing software on this particular computer. I’ll try to get some of them up before returning to Yeosu, but if I don’t, I’ll get them up as soon as I do return. Again, Happy Holidays to all. I have a lot of Yeosu photos that I haven’t posted yet, so I’ll start a new theme, so to speak, of Out and About in Yeosu, scenes from around the area, taken in August and September. I’ll try to get a new post up every 3 or 4 days (yeah, right) . . . OK, as often as I can. First up, I thought I’d do something a little different. Rather than just put up the complete photo, I thought I’d show some close ups, some snippets of larger shots, kind of an abstract thing. First, I’ll show the small shots, followed by the overall scene. Let’s see how this works. So here are the details. What are they? Shouldn’t be too hard to guess. Please click on each photo to get a larger view. Here’s Number One.
Number Two
Number Three
Number Four
Number Five
Now, so that you don’t see the main photos right off the bat, a little interlude. Speaking of right off the bat, the first day of the MLB playoffs weren’t exactly heart-wrenching. The over-achieving Rays slaughtered the Texas Strangers 9-0 and the Tigers-Yanks game was rained out. Looks like the Yanks game will be resumed tomorrow (Saturday in the ‘States) at the point where it was halted, bottom of the 2nd, tied at 1. Detroit scored with a cheapo The two teams will probably play another game on Sunday, which is Monday morning in Korea, but that’s OK with me, since we have Monday off because of a national holiday. It’s Korea Foundation Day, a celebration of the (mythical) founding of the country, both North and South. Check out a description here. All right, enough of an interlude; back to the photos. Here are the main shots. Number One. This one is part of the steeple of a church down by the harbor. Here’s the original shot, which I took from the Jongpo Ocean Park Walkway.
Number Two. There were several boats lined up along the dock at the Jongpo harbor near the walkway and this is a close up of one of them. Here’s the complete shot.
Number Three. These orange balloon-like things appear to be buoys that might be put in the water as warning signals. You certainly couldn’t miss their colorful presence atop the murky water.
Number Four. Seriously, I don’t have any idea of the purpose of these things. They were lined up across the harbor from the walkway. Very odd looking, yes? If anyone knows what purpose they serve, let me know in the comments, please.
Number Five. I must admit I cheated a little on this one. I rotated the original photo a bit in order to cut out the bottom part of the building. Anyway, they’re part of a building housing, I think, a maritime organization, like a fisherman’s hall or something along that line. Again, if anyone from Yeosu is looking, let me know what you think.
Number Six. Finally, the front of the building that kind of resembles a face, I think, is actually a school. Cute, if you ask me.
OK, that’s it for now. I’ll try to get some more Out and About shots up in a few days (giggle, snort, guffaw–c’mon, Ron, get serious), so stay tuned for more later. Today is Korea’s Thanksgiving Day, Chuseok, pronounced, approximately, chew-sock, which doesn’t raise too many delightful images. Yesterday and Saturday we were bedeviled by the meager remnants of Tropical Storm Kulap, which had become merely a tropical depression by the time it wandered around near us. There wasn’t much left by the time it reached us, but enough to give us overcast skies and an inch or two of rain yesterday. For most of today, however, skies were clear, with sunny, warm and humid weather. I did a 20-mile bike trip, which pretty much wiped me out, decrepit old guy that I am, so I’ll recuperate tomorrow and then get back to work on Wednesday, after the holiday. I’ll try to get some photos posted of recent 2012 Expo construction, and I’m getting a bit of a backlog of other photos that I’ll try to get up soon, so stay tuned for more later. After spending a few uneventful days in Nongkhai, Thailand and in Laos, I’m back in Bangkok with Nai in tow. Tomorrow we’re off to Patong Beach on Phuket Island to spend a week lazing away on the white sand under the palm trees. OK, Patong isn’t quite that idyllic, but it’s nice enough (and nasty, too, but in a nice way Nongkhai is much as it was a year ago, but Vientiane has made a striking change along the Mekong. A new riverfront park was under construction while I was there last year. It’s been finished and it’s a beautiful addition to the city in an area that used to be dusty and dilapidated. We were there on Saturday and hundreds of Laotians and foreigners were out taking late afternoon strolls, riding bicycles or just sitting and enjoying the view. I’ve got photos of the park and, of course, other shots taken elsewhere; however, I don’t have a conversion program to process them, but I’ll post plenty of pix and a full trip report when I get back to Korea. More later. It’s kind of holiday “season” here in Yeosu. From May 5th through June 9th, there are four holidays, all of them on weekdays, so no work on those days. Unfortunately, we have to make up the classes that we miss because of those days off, a demand by the university that irks me to no end, as I’ve mentioned before. Some of the new teachers this semester said that it’s the first education institution that they’ve worked at in Korea that demands that holiday classes be made up. Our contracts state that we get all national and university holidays off, but that’s a bit of a half-truth if we have to do the classes at another time. It’s kind of like your boss telling you “No, you don’t have to work on Thanksgiving Day, but you have to come in on Sunday to make up for it.” Sheesh. Not much I can do about it though–grin and bear it. May 5th was Children’s Day, today is the celebration of Buddha’s Birthday, and June 6th is Memorial Day. In addition, June 9th is the Founding Day of the university, so classes are also called off for that event. Buddha’s Birthday is celebrated on the 10th in many East Asian countries and it’s celebrated on the 17th in some others, to coincide with the full moon. For the last two or three weeks, all of the temples here have been gaily decorated with colorful paper lanterns. If you didn’t know where the temples were located, you’d know their presence by the lanterns.
It’s been overcast and a bit rainy today, but between the sprinkles, I took a short walk down the road below the dormitories to a small temple, about 15 minutes away. I assumed there would be some events and ceremonies going on, and there were. Lots of people were present in the main temple–gentlemen dressed in suits and sporting flowers in their lapels, ladies wearing their finery and suited ushers showing people in. I would like to have shot some photos of the temple, but it would have been totally inappropriate for me to try to do so. Therefore, I contented myself with taking a few shots of the small grounds outside the temple. There either was already or there was going to be a parade, and this dragon float looked ready to roll.
He had a friend to accompany him, in the form of this tiger.
Here’s a shot of the outside of the main temple, where the ceremony was being held. I could hear the chanting of the monks and the clanging of gongs, and I really wanted to go in. Not this time, though.
The paper lanterns are quite beautiful and I love the details on some of them. Here are four for your viewing pleasure.
I was also out and about on Children’s Day and got a number of photos of the Turtle Ship Festival that is always held at the same time. I’ll put some of those up in the next post. More later. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention in my previous post that I’ll be signing on for another year here. Lots of reasons for doing that–familiarity with the job, pleasant people to work with, friendliness of the students and the people of the area, the beauty of the countryside, and, the biggest reason, the upcoming 2012 Expo next year, about which I’ve posted quite a few times. (Use the search box to find the relevant posts.) So, I’m pretty stoked about being here for at least another year. The new contract begins at the end of August, so there’s still a bit of time to go before then. In the meantime, I’m heading down to Thailand and Laos in June. I purchased my ticket from Thai Air last week–I’d been logging onto their web site for about a month, waiting for their ticket prices to drop, which they do around this time of the year. Sure enough, prices went down about $100 for a round-trip ticket in June. Sweet! I have a ton of frequent flier miles built up on the Star Alliance frequent flier program and they expire soon, so I probably could have used those for a free flight, if I’d been lucky enough to grab a freebie at that time. I’ve read that it’s very difficult to get a seat by using miles for free flights, and a more realistic scenario would have been to get an upgrade. However, I thought that wasn’t really the best way to go. I’ve decided to use the miles for a hotel room in Patong, Phuket, Thailand for a week for my friend Nai and myself. We’ve stayed at the Thara Patong Resort before, and we really enjoyed it, so I’m going to use the miles for that. It’s an upscale hotel, right across the street from the beach in Patong, with friendly staff, a very large swimming pool, and a pretty good inclusive breakfast in one of the restaurants. (I’m the early bird breakfast zombie–Nai usually sleeps in, lazy guy. Here’s a quick snap of the pool from our hotel room, back in 2007.
So, as of now, my tentative plans are to fly into Bangkok on June 11th, take the overnight train to Nongkhai, Thailand on the 12th, arriving the next day, then goofing around in Nongkhai and Vientiane (Laos) with Nai until the 19th. We’ll then take the train back to Bangkok and fly out of the City of Angels on the 22nd for Phuket, returning on the 29th. Back to Korea on July 1st. Too short. But, it’ll do. So, long term–another year in Yeosu. Mid term–the trip to Thailand in June. Short term–get in beach shape. I’ve taken off 5 kilograms (about 11 pounds) since the beginning of the semester in March, and I’ve got a long ways to go. I’ve been working out at the gym on the weight machines, so I’m trying to develop the physique, along with losing the weight. This recent illness has slowed my progress, but I’ve got a couple of months to go yet, so I’m hopeful that I’ll look like this guy. More later. Not kidding about the physique. Jack LaLanne at 95 years old. Fantastic.
Well, I survived the kids’ classes, which finished last Friday, and now, just in time, we’re getting a nice 5-day holiday in celebration of the Chinese New Year, called Seollal (pronounced suh-lahl) in Korea. The holiday itself is only three days, but this year it happens to fall on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday; thus, we get a really long weekend, so to speak. The New Year (based on the lunisolar calendar) is celebrated in China, of course, but is also a major holiday in Korea, Vietnam and a few other countries. Also just in time is some much nicer weather, with temperatures sneaking into the 40s F. today and creeping up to 50 by the beginning of next week. Finally, I can go jogging outside, which I did in bright sunshine today. I hadn’t jogged in quite a while, due mainly to teaching most of the day, but also due to the cold, windy weather we had been experiencing for most of January. Hopefully (but doubtfully), it’ll stay this way until spring gets here. More later. Here’s wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy New Year. Yesterday was the first day that has really felt like this time of the year, with below freezing temperatures and a vicious wind contributing to very chilly weather. At least the sun is shining and there’s been no snow, yet. (Fingers crossed) The first two weeks of my vacation have flown by and I assume the final week will go just as fast. I wish that working days would go by so quickly because the first 4 weeks back are going to be killers. I told my boss to give me as many hours as she could, if she needed someone to fill in some extra slots, and she obliged me. I’ve got 7 classroom hours a day, 5 days a week, from Jan. 3rd to the 28th! That’s a heckuva schedule when you figure in lesson planning time. I’ll be teaching 4 regular Language Center classes, the usual number for this time of the year, but I’ll also be teaching (babysitting, actually) a children’s English Camp another 3 hours a day. My first class starts at 9 a.m. and the final one finishes at 7:30 p.m. The few hours that I don’t have classes will probably be spent doing the next day’s lesson plans. I figure I’ll be pretty burned out by the end of those 4 weeks, but at least I’ll be making a lot of overtime pay, if I survive to collect it. Again, Happy Holidays to everyone, everywhere. More later. Happy Thanksgiving to all of my family and friends in the USA and elsewhere. Wish I could be there. Don’t eat too much. No problem about that here–it’s just another ordinary school day. No turkey and stuffing, no pumpkin pie and no football games, but, no shells falling from the North either. I’m certainly thankful for that. More later. |
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Copyright © 2012 MontanaRon - All Rights Reserved
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home run and the Yanks scored without the benefit of a hit. That’s one thing about the New York Nine this season–they can win with speed and savvy baserunning. They were 3rd in the American League with 147 stolen bases (Tampa was first with 155), their most since 2001. Jeter actually struck out in the bottom of the first, but still scored the Yanks run, hustling to first base on a third strike wild pitch, one of those baseball oddities. He subsequently advanced to second on a walk to Granderson (former Tiger) and went to third on a groundout to second. He then scored on a grounder to third. Hopefully, the game can be completed tomorrow, though 
