i made a wee video of my wee apartment here in busan. you can see it below:

here.

been having a bit of trouble sleeping, which i suppose explains why i am updating this thing at almost midnight when i have to be at work at 9:30 a.m.

tomorrow is the last day of my first week of work. i’ve been sitting in, watching a lot of classes. nine teachers are leaving at the end of the month or early in august, so we new teachers will be taking over their classes. tomorrow, i’ve got to do a mock lesson in front of the school director and some other folks. there’s something about the director that’s rubbed me the wrong way since we first met. she has an underbite, and her mouth is always hanging open. when she agrees with you, she nods vigorously and all the skin on her face jiggles unpleasantly. plus, she’s trying to get the new teachers to feel obligated to come in on one of our vacation days. i smell a rat.

there’s a funny smell here. i walk around with it in the back of my nose all day. i hope i get used to it soon and don’t notice it. it’s not unpleasant, really. the people in 1507, down the hall from me, keep their door open all the time, and their food smells fill my floor and just linger there in the humidity, getting soggy. then it lodges in my sinuses and stays there all day reminding me of kimchi.

i noticed today that two of the kids at school had terrycloth medical masks with friendly flowers and cartoon characters embroidered on them and pink straps. they keep them in their backpacks, and one of the girls wore hers in class today. is there a pandemic going around that i didn’t hear about?

night before last, i met up with my friend jeff at the beach for some dinner and a few drinks. we sat on the boardwalk and looked at the lovely two-level bridge that connects his part of town to mine. it’s illuminated nicely at night with lights that slowly change colors. to the left, a part of town that reminds me an awful lot of vegas, what with all the neon and colored signs. we met jeff’s co-workers for dinner at a restaurant that was described to me as a “pork spine place.” sure enough, the server brought a giant pot of stew, placed it on the burner in the middle of the table and walked away. floating among the potatoes, cabbage and various leaves and veggies were vertebrae with meat falling off them. it was pretty delicious, actually. there’s a photo in the gallery below.

most of the rest of the photos are from california. boda, chase and i went to a lovely state park one day where a natural bridge sat in the shallow water. we found small crabs in the tiny tidepools on the rock shelves by the ocean. boda and i spent an evening in oakland, the perfect night to be there. there’s a night once a month when all the galleries stay open late, the street vendors come out and there’s live music everywhere. boda and i wandered the crowds, saw some good stuff and some bad stuff.

that’s plenty for now, huh?

I’ve blogged in the past about my interest in ebook readers.  I finally got my hands on one for a few moments today.

I liked it.  The screen is plenty big enough and the device is small enough that I could easily see myself carrying one around.  The page change is fairly slow – I think that is common to all eReaders – and I could see myself getting to the second last line, then clicking and racing through the final line before the screen changed.

Yes, it looked good and felt right in my hands, but at trustedreviews they weren’t so thrilled with it.  The device comes with a good keyboard but there are few reasons to use it.  There are some good features – I think the article says “almost good features” – like a calendar and appointment book, but they don’t sync with outside hardware.  You could write yourself a note, but you’d have to retype it when you reached your computer, you couldn’t transfer it.

The shop, iRiver, was between Lotte Department Store and Migliore in Seomyeon in Busan.  The reader costs around 360,000 won or 390,000won for the ‘edu’ version which includes a dictionary.  I like it but I’ll continue to wait.

UPDATED a day later.  Here is a study comparing reading speed over four formats: paper book, iPad, Kindle and PC.  The result showed that reading a book is faster.  I like the post on it’s own merits as it describes the research format in detail.

One of my favorite things to do is go to the sauna. Before coming to Asia I had never been to a bathhouse. I admit they don't have the best reputations in North America. I felt a bit uncomfortable the first few times that I went. I had never really liked being naked in a public setting. Once I got over that, I really began to enjoy going to the sauna. They are a great place to relax and get clean. It is a good place to go after heavy exercise or recovering from a big night out. I have several tattoos but it has never been a problem at any of the saunas. Some have signs that say that they do not allow people with tattoos but it has never been a problem.

My favorite saunas in Busan are the following:
Hurshimchung is my favorite. It is the biggest sauna in Busan. The bath area has several different baths, steam rooms and outdoor baths. It also has the coldest cold baths. You can also buy ice cream inside the sauna. They recently renovated the Jimjilbang area. I thought it was better before, but still worth checking out. Price 7,900 won 2,000 won discount for a Mega Mart card. As well you can buy prepaid cards that give you a discount on price.
Spa Land in Shinsegae is a really nice facility. It has a really nice outdoor foot bath. The jimjilbang area is the nicest of any sauna. The sauna area is alright. It is more expensive than most saunas but if you spend the day there it is worth it. It is then a pretty cheap way to spend a day of luxury. Price: 14,000 won

Enjoy the video!

( Source: A. Germain )

Yes, I’ll be talking about Korean gender issues on Busan e-FM’s “Let’s Talk Busan” show on Sunday evening again, this time with new host and also Koreabridge owner and manager Jeff Lebow. Please tune in via the station website at 7pm Korean time if you’d like to listen, and as soon as that finishes at 8 I’ll be doing a live video webcast at Koreabridge too, where you’ll be able to talk to me either via the chatroom or by calling me directly via Skype (with or without a webcam).

As you’d expect though, the Busan e-FM interview was actually done a week ago, and unfortunately I tried to say too much in too short a space of time. I’ll probably want to use the webcast to qualify and/or add more details to the sometimes broad generalizations I made in that then(!), but of course we can talk about anything other callers like really. If you don’t get distracted by my two young daughters that is, who will probably be climbing all over my lap or dancing on the desk as soon as they hear me speaking!^^

For those of you that miss either show though, never fear, for I’ll post the files for you to download and/or listen to next week.

(Update: See here for those links)

Meanwhile, thanks very much to 10Magazine also for selecting The Grand Narrative as its Blog of the Month for July. Unfortunately, that probably makes any subsequent endorsement of mine sound a little insincere, but for what it’s worth if I was single or didn’t have any children then I really would regard its calender section alone as indispensable for living in Korea. Much easier to read in a magazine format than online though, you could do much worse than pick up a copy for a mere 3500 won.

Filed under: Korean Magazines, Korean Media, TGN in the Media Tagged: 10Magazine, Busan e-FM