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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The weather here in Yeosu has been great lately, with abundant sunshine and temperatures around 6 or 8 C (mid-forties fahrenheit); however, the big factor is that the wind hasn’t been howling, like it usually does this time of year. I even managed to get a few jogging sessions in this past weekend. If it would stay this way the rest of the winter, I’d be quite content. It ain’t gonna happen, I’m sure. No winter in Thailand and Laos, though. This is the best time of year to visit that area of the world, with temperatures in the 80s (30 C), low humidity and clear skies. It was wonderful when I went there in December and early this month, and it was tough coming back to what I expected to be cold, windy Yeosu. (Like I wrote, though, it’s not that bad right now). I flew out of Incheon about 1 p.m. on December 19th, after taking the 11 p.m. bus from Yeosu on the 18th and then hanging out at the airport from 4:30 a.m. until the flight departed. Incheon Airport, Korea’s award-winning facility, isn’t all that bad to kill time in–lots of restaurants, internet access and other niceties in this state-of-the-art site. At the main foyer on the first floor, there is usually some kind of Korean cultural theme or event. Featured this season was a traditional Korean winter scene. At 4:30 in the morning, there are hardly any other people around, and I usually head into McDonald’s for a large coffee. The fast-food joint is situated on one side of the foyer, so this was a very tranquil area at that time of day, especially with the winter scene just outside the boundary of the restaurant. So, here are a few photos of the setup.
Very nice, and, like most other things at the airport, a first-class effort. I’ll get some more photos of the trip posted when I can, but don’t expect something every day–I have one more week of long work days to go before the schedule settles down. Stay tuned. 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. Here are a few shots from my recent trip to Seoul. I only had my pocket camera, not the DSLR, so the quality isn’t the best, plus for some reason, my memory card got corrupted and I lost many of the better ones. All of these were taken in the Gwanghwamun area, near the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts. This is the cultural heart of Seoul, a very high rent district, which has many theaters, concert halls and other venues. I was a bit pressed for time when I went the week before last, but I hope to get back up there in December and spend more time walking around the area. I went to Seoul to get some more pages added to my passport. Here’s where I had to go–the U.S. Embassy. The last time I was up here, in 2005, believe it or not, the building was ringed with Korean riot police, acting as security, but nowadays you only see a few yellow-garbed security police.
I was standing in a central plaza of sorts when I took the embassy photo. In the plaza are a couple of large statues, one of King Sejong the Great and one of Admiral Yi Sun-shin, who used Yeosu as his headquarters in his battles with the Japanese. Unfortunately, the photos I took of the King Sejong statue were some of those that were lost on my memory card, but here’s one of Admiral Yi. You can see way off in the background the golden-colored Sejong statue.
Walking down the road a bit, you can see this odd Christmas-tree like structure, which marks an open space for street performances.
On this particular day, there was an exhibition of wheel chair skills, including basketball shooting and ballroom dancing, as this photo shows.
Just down from the performance space is a very lovely walking area below street level alongside a stream. It’s a great place for an afternoon stroll, and this day it was filled with office workers on lunch break, families and tourists.
Of course, the area is filled with upscale bars and restaurants. Here’s one that I thought was interesting, JS Texas Bar, complete with Elvis statue. It also had a classic Marilyn Monroe on the other side of Elvis, the iconic shot of her billowing skirt from the movie “The Seven Year Itch.” Unfortunately, it was one of the photos that the memory card ate.
Like I said, I hope to go back to Seoul in December and get some more photos. This time I’ll take the DSLR with me and a new memory card. P.S. I took a walk down to the Expo site this past Saturday and got quite a few shots of the construction progress in that area. Things are moving along quite nicely, it appears, and I’ll try to get those photos posted sometime this week. Once every semester, our special English class (Vision English) students and teachers go on a field trip to various attractions around Yeosu. (Here’s a previous post about the field trip.) We were supposed to take the trip today, but it was postponed until next Saturday because rain was in the forecast; we were told of the postponement a few nights ago. Everyone was disappointed, because we, the students and teachers, had been working all week on oral presentations that the students have to give at each site. Not that the work was wasted, but everyone was rarin’ to go. As soon as I found out about the change of plans, I looked at the Korean Meteorological website. Sure enough, they were predicting from one to two inches of rain on Saturday. In the back of my mind, I wondered how accurate the prediction was, since the KMA seems, more often than not, to be unerringly inaccurate with their forecasts. I also noticed that they were calling for an 80-90% chance of rain in the early hours of the morning, with a smaller and smaller chance of rain as the day progressed, finally petering out around noon. In the back of my mind, I thought that we could probably have the field trip after all. Sure enough, we got just over an inch and a half between midnight and 6 a.m., when it stopped raining. It’s now right around 10 a.m, the time when the field trip would have begun. Guess what? We’ve got beautiful blue skies and lots of sunshine, with absolutely no rain in sight. It figures. Hopefully, there’s no rain in the forecast next Saturday. There hasn’t been a whole lot going on around here lately, but we have had some gorgeous late summer/early fall weather; deep blue skies, plenty of sunshine, moderate temperatures and lower humidity have chased away the mostly oppressive summer days. This time of year and the middle of spring feature the best weather in Yeosu, in my opinion. I’ve been out and about, hiking, bicycling, walking and taking plenty of photos. Rather than making one or two huge posts, I think I’ll dole out a few photos at a time, hoping that y’all will keep coming back for more. (Plus, I get pretty lazy, at times, about processing all my shots. This is from earlier in the summer when the mist/fog lent an air of mystery to things. The humid conditions didn’t stop the local golfers, however, as the lights were on for the night owls.
On one of my walkabouts, I spotted these bright red flowers in a small garden plot on a small side street next to a small house. I think they’re pretty. Anyone know what kind of flowers they are? (I’m definitely not a flower guy, but I was, and am, a proponent of Flower Power).
Finally, it seems that we just don’t get that many good sunrises and ‘sets in Yeosu, at least from my vantage point, especially compared to those I had the pleasure to see in the Dominican Republic and Morocco. Lately, though, we’ve had a few nice sunsets. Here’s one. (Sorry, there ain’t nuthin’ I can do about the power transmission towers and lines in the photo–it was taken from the balcony outside my dormitory apartment.)
I’ll definitely try to get some more photos posted in a more timely manner, probably 3 or 4 shots per post, mostly just random stuff from around Yeosu, 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. Finally, we’re getting some gorgeous weather. For the last week and a half or so, clear blue skies have banished the overcast conditions that we were experiencing, though it’s still quite humid at times. I got sunburned riding my bicycle last Sunday and while walking around town in the middle of last week. Marvelous! Before the great weather, I went down to the Expo 2012 site to see how things had progressed since May, the last time I’d been down there. I got a lot of shots of the ongoing construction, but I also took some more photos of the wall murals that I mentioned in a previous post. Here are a half dozen or so of the paintings. Peruse at your pleasure and, as always, click on ‘em for a larger version.
Sadly, some of the paintings that I photographed in May are no longer there. In this area of town, crews are widening the road in preparation for the Expo. Walking a bit down the hill, I saw that the mural wall came to an abrupt end where it had been demolished by the “improvement.” Here’s what I saw at the end of the wall.
Yikes! Well, I suppose it’ll look better once they finish the construction. This area will lead into the international village where all the foreign workers at their various pavilions will be living while they’re in Yeosu. Construction is ongoing at the Expo site; here’s a brief preview of the new hotel being put up. I’ll have more Expo photos in a few days.
First, let me say, be safe, everyone, if you’re in the path of Irene. Listen to your local authorities, take all precautions, and be very humble in the face of this force of nature. Sh*t happens, so be careful. On a lighter note, here are some tips for Brooklynites, especially you technophiles, from website The Awl. Here’s just one of the good tips: A device that creates light. As you likely know, the light in your home comes from “electricity.” In Brooklyn, much of your electric comes into your townhouse by way of above-ground electrical lines. (You can call your contractor and ask about this if you like; he won’t return your call.) Those lines are often disturbed in high winds, due to trees and such. So it might be worthwhile to get a battery-powered lamp or some such, like a flashlight even. N.B. If you order a cute little electric generator on Amazon it will not arrive prior to the storm, no matter how much you yell at Fedex. Pro tip: fire can also be used to create light. (Use sparingly.) Another suggestion from “The New Yorker” is to read these stories about hurricanes while you are suffering through Irene. Also, from the same source, is a playlist of hurricane songs. Check it out. Anyway, good luck, take care and stay out of harm’s way. The rainy, gray days continue, so I still haven’t been out with the camera lately. This seems like the worst summer of the three that I’ve spent here in Yeosu. I think I can count on one hand the number of sunny days in July and August. It was supposed to rain all afternoon today, but checking the weather radar, it appears that no rain is heading our way. (Typical bad forecast by the KMA.) Despite overcast skies, I think I’ll go down to the Expo 2012 site later this afternoon and take a few shots. In the meantime, here are some more photos from last May. Some of these I’ve played around with in Photoshop, so click for a larger version to see how I’ve enhanced them (or screwed them up). The western part of the peninsula is quite beautiful, but I don’t get out there that often; I don’t ride my motorbike around in town (too dangerous, I think) and it’s kind of far out for much more than the very occasional bicycle ride. Here are a couple shots of the area.
This one was taken a bit closer to the city, near the Soho Yacht Marina.
The tall ship trainer heads out to sea with a boat load of passengers to take in the yacht regatta that’s occurring farther out. Check out the guy up on the mast. All of the photos in this post were taken with my compact camera, so I didn’t have the Canon DSLR with it’s long telephoto lens. If you look closely, you can barely make out the small boats in the distance.
Here’s a different kind of ship, unladen, perhaps going across the bay to Gwang-yang to pick up a load of steel.
Finally, the cherry blossoms were in full bloom then, so here’s another one that I “photoshopped,” pink cherry blossoms in all their glory. As always, click on any of the photos for a large version. More later.
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) Some of these might be interesting, some not. Enjoy, or not. Let me know what you think.
