New photos, all the time!

Just wanted to let you all know that even though I'm no longer updating this blog every...um...month, I'm constantly adding new captioned pictures of my adventures to my flickr page. You can click on the "Pictures of Korea" link on the right or access my flickr page directly through this link.

My Flickr Page

Hiatus...

Yeah. More than two months. I've just not been keen on keeping up the ol' blog lately. I'm still alive. Things are still good.

New Flickr Set: Funny Singing Room Names

Yes, I'm still alive :)

Private singing rooms, called noraebangs (or 노래방 if you have Korean font installed) are really popular in Korea. So are hofs, which are bars without a "bar"--basically a room with a bunch of long tables used for drinking beer. Some of them have really awesome and/or strange names. I decided to keep a running tab of them here on my flickr page. Enjoy!

See the set here.

And in related news, may I present menwholooklikekennyrogers.com.

Random thoughts on my trip to Japan

1. Japan is clean. Nobody spits on the streets or throws trash on the ground. Even though there aren't many public trash cans, like in Korea, people hold onto their trash until they throw it away.

2. Japanese people are polite. They say "excuse me" when they bump into you.

3. Japanese arcades are HUGE, and are filled with every type of game imaginable, from the newest titles like Street Fighter 4 to classic arcade machines to slot and pachinko machines.

4. Pachinko is hard. I never really did figure it out.

5. Stuff is really expensive in Japan compared to Korea. Just getting in a taxi in Japan costs $6, while in Korea it's $1.80. Food seemed to be about twice as expensive too, though it could have just been the area we were in.

6. Men in Japan are much more effeminate than in Korea, and if you know how Korean men can be, that's really saying something.

200 Posts!

Thanks for sticking it out through 200 posts! I wish I could do something more to celebrate, but I can't think of anything cool to write about other than...

....NEW COMPUTER!!!



Soooo nice....and this weekend I'm going to Tokyo for four days of fun!

Student Essays

I just started a lunchtime class for students who want to practice their essay writing skills. Today I gave them the prompt:

One night, I was lying in my bed in the dark. I heard a strange sound, so I...

...and then they finish the story. I got two great entries, both of which (coincidentally?) feature Johnny Depp. Here's one of them-click the photo link on the right to see the other.

Baseball Cards

It's so cool when something you like but think that nobody else cares about actually turns into something that someone else cares about. I'm talking about 1987 Topps. This was the first year I collected baseball cards, and I still have that first binder of them. Thing is, I kinda assumed that nobody else liked that set. It's got a cheesy woodgrain border, the backs are a boring dark blue and green, but to me they hold a treasure trove of memories of my childhood and little league.

Surfing the web today I started looking up baseball card stuff on wikipedia, which led me to a baseball card blog. Apparently the baseball card blog. And guess what set he rated as number one of all time?

Click to find out.