June ArchivesMain page is here. |
June 30 2006
Quitting Time One of my coworkers decided to leave last week. Another one is on the way out. I went out for supper with them. On the way home, I fell asleep on the subway and missed my stop for the first time. The train took me all the way to the end of the line. Never done that before. |
June 29 2006I haven't had much to update on this site lately because I've been busy with the other page. Today I restored a large chunk of my archives, including material from before I had my Indecline site. These photos start at the beginning of my trip to Korea in December 2003. Go and have a look. I'll probably restore them all the way up to the present day.There's been a bit of news going along here. Jung's father has been searching for years for his older brother, who disappeared in North Korea during the Korean War. He finally got news that his brother had died, which isn't so surprising because he would have been in his 70s today. However, his brother did have children, who are now in their 40s. Through a government program, Jung's dad and 95-year-old grandmother went up to Geumgang Mountain in North Korea to meet these long-lost relatives. These visits are always reported on in the news, but for this trip there is an older South Korean woman who is visiting her son who is still alive, and that's more newsworthy. Still, we got this picture on Naver of Jung's grandmother and newly found older cousin. They're coming back on Friday and I'm anxious to hear about the trip. |
June 18 2006
Millie's Operation We had to take Millie to the vet so she could be spayed. It was not a happy operation for her and she put up quite a fight with the vets. After she was barely conscious, then fearful, then looked at us with anger, and then went back to normal. She seems to be alright now but the day after the doctor noted she had a 0.03-degree fever. |
June 16 2006
Kneel Before Zod My immigration card in the mail, surprising me into my similarity with General Zod from Superman II. Well how about that? Also, I was surprised to see a familiar name at the convenience store while looking for a snack. It's been a busy week for me, Internerd wise. I've been sharing a lot of these things on the message board, but they bear repeating here. I was pondering on the topic of horoscopy and using odd things to predict human behaviour/the future. Koreans generally believe that your blood type affects your personality. A, AB, and O are good, and B is generally considered bad. Oddly enough, there is a major difference between Korean blood types and western blood types. Among most white races, A and O are most common. But in Korea, A and B are most common. Not too surprisingly, this whole belief is a little quirk they got from their much weirder neighbours, the Japanese. But where did the Japanese get it? I'll just let Wikipedia speak for itself: The discovery of blood types in 1901 has been hailed as one of the greatest advances in medical history, but the breakthrough was then used by the Nazis to further their eugenics program, and claim the superiority of Germans -- mostly types A and O -- over Jews, Asians and others with a larger proportion of type B blood.Since then, of course, blood typing has been totally discredited. It was picked up in the '70s by some crackpot Japanese writer and spread through Asia as a pseudoscience. And just to show that I'm not playing favourites, I have a lot to say about western astrology as well. Go read your horoscope, and tell me how accurate it is. I put together a gallery of photos for a quiz. North or South Korea? It's not as easy as it sounds. Give it a try before you look at these next two links. The source of some of the quiz pictures, I found these brilliant North Korean photos taken by a Russian. He got away with a lot more photos than most tourists can get. It gives an interesting view of the parts of North Korea that you're not allowed to photograph. It's not as bad as you'd think, although he probably wouldn't be allowed near any of the real disaster areas. There are some surprising shots, including when his guide takes a wrong turn into a rural town, but it's not that awful. This place, on the other hand, is hurting. A guy who used to serve with the US military in South Korea posted some old pictures from 1968 online. At the time, South Korea was a lot more rural. Even pictures of downtown Anyang rank down there with the Korean Folk Village. The buildings in Seoul are poorly made and have a blank look to them similar to North Korea. What are the differences between 1968 South Korea and modern-day North Korea? Well, for one, the photographer in 1968 South Korea was allowed to talk freely with any locals and was given a reasonable freedom of movement. These pictures go to show: South Korea has come a long, long way. And North Korea hasn't been advancing. |
June 11 2006
Millie's Bike Jung bought a new bike last week, but so far she's been afraid to take it out in the rain. It's still sitting in the middle of our apartment, wrapped up in packaging materials. The cat loves this bike and spends most of her day sitting next to it. I decided to get a few pictures of her with her new toy. |
June 8 2006
Beer Candy Well this was a nice treat I picked up in the 7-11. It's basically a little mug of beer perched atop a lollipop stick. I also got one in the shape of a cola bottle which I ate on the way back to the office. That one was good and pretty well what you'd expect. This one was a little more malformed, and I couldn't imagine what it would taste like. In the end, it turned out to be pineapple, I think. |
June 4 2006
Brendan's Barbecue I was invited to a barbecue on the rooftop of Brendan's place. He's the publisher of 4N Publishing, with whom I am in the process of negotiating a few projects. This was later in the day after I saw Samia's new kittens for the first time. She wasn't in those pictures mostly because she was putting on makeup at the time. Recently she had an accident and her clavicle snapped in half. It's slowly growing back together but she's been enjoying a lot of pain medication in the meantime. |
June 4 2006
he House of the Blessed Virgin of Eternal Catness I've decided to rename the Pussy Palace because you can't have more than 10 offspring without automatically becoming Catholic. Rudy's certainly gotten as much action as people who sign virginity pledges. This batch of kittens is just like the last two: three boys, two girls. This time all of them are healthy. They were two weeks old, having been born on the 21st of May. This time though the father is Butt-Butt, who is a completely different genetic stock from the last two batches (the first two fathers being father and son themselves). |
May 31 2006
Scooter Trip After our earlier trip to the Chinese market, I decided to test my scooter with a longer drive. Our mission was to find the edge of Seoul and hopefully see some countryside. We made it down to the northern tip of Anyang before doubling back to Seoul. It's possible we'll try to take my scooter all the way back down to Suwon for a look around. |
CONTACT
Jon underscore Dunbar at Hotmail
010-3212-2812
Please remember that these photos are all copyrighted to me. If you want to use them in any way, there's a 90 per cent chance I'll give you my permission, and be able to give you a copy with a higher DPI.Copyright Jon Dunbar 2004
Photos taken by
Nikon CoolPix 950
digital camera.