A Christmas tale to share...This week we had a farewell dinner with my English Buddy Program teacher and the District Head who we were reporting to. We went to a Shabu Shabu restaurant which I had been to before with a teacher from my school but this time I had my camera. I will try to describe with words and pictures further downFirst we had rice paper wraps. You take what looks like a CD sized plastic disc, which is really transparent rice paper. You dip it in ...

This month on the 15th we had our monthly Civilian Defence Drill with the sirens when all the cars pull over. This time I even got a flyer at my apartment about it given the recent north korea attack. Now this is a monthly routine practice and not a big deal to folks. Every six months they even do the big drill when people go into bomb shelters. However, CNN starts broadcasting people in Seoul running into subway stations making out we are all scared, in a state ...

This Saturday I wanted to find one of the four US military bases in Daegu, Camp Walker, as I read there was an import goods black market nearby. On the bus there I passed one of the other bases (there are three close to each other). They are actually not far from downtown, I thought they would be out in the suburbs. There is a one story concrete wall with barbed wire all around. But I could clearly see all inside the base from the bus. Later I checked on google m...

I'm always amazed and baffled by the page hits I keep getting on this blog, almost 2000 to date and over 500 in November. I know the previous teacher was forwarding it to all his buddies posting crazy messages when I first got here. But I'm curious as to who and why all these people are that still keep having hits and on older entries??? I know its showing up on google searches so I have to be careful with keywords or phrases.Since I can no longer keep this blog ...

Ok, so North Korea decides to attack and starts firing a round of shells. You know its serious when not just CNN is making a live broadcast, but so are the Korean TV channels and even the Japanese channel we get. Initially sounds like something to be alarmed about. But it was on a remote border island, not the mainland, although it was a populated island. Unfortunately two south korean soldiers and two civilians have died so not a joking matter.In Daegu I dont th...