This weekend I was invited to the first birthday party for a friends son. In Korea you are born age one so this is his second birthday in korean numbers. The venue was something unusual. A high rise residential building by the subway had an underground restaurant floor. There was a large self serve buffet area in the centre around which were separate party rooms for different guests. Each room had a greeter wearing bunny ears and there was a display table setup. ...

Last week Wed-Fri was final exams. Students wrote their exams and left at lunch so there were no school lunches. Thursday for lunch all the teachers went for lunch then we went to the movies. I had a choice of three movies, Spiderman, a Korean Romance Movie, or a Korean Movie about a water virus. I opted for the virus movie as I had already planned to watch spiderman saturday with my kids Close to my apartment are two movie theatres, CGV and Megabox. I will miss ...

Since I came to Daegu in August 2010 many parts of the city have been clogged by construction work taking place for the new elevated Line 3 Monorail. Now two years later, we are seeing much of what the final stage will look like. The city landscape is being changed with some striking new architectural features.Living at the northern end of Chilgok the new line 3 will be a welcome relief. Current bus journey times downtown are 45 mins on winding bus routes or one ...

This weekend I went biking again to revisit a temple to complete my write up on my local temples. The first temple is located on the northern most tip of Chilgok. From the Homeplus and 7-Valley shopping centre keep walking north from the intersection with the Lotteria. After ten minutes passing thru the rice fields you will see the temple. I first came here about a year ago so this was a lengthy revisit. The compound is circled by a double layer stone wall and I ...

Friday was contract renewals with the Daegu Board of Education. I am signing again for a third year. The perks of renewing is that you get a $2000 renewal bonus and 10 extra summer vacation days in addition to the 8 regular and August public holiday. The public school system has two hiring intakes in February and August. I am with the August intake. Daegu has 100% placement in all of its public schools for Elementary, Middle, and High Schools, so approx 500 teach...