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Recording

Recording the radio show was nerve wracking as hell and then it was over.

Spaz update:
1. Microphones are not fidgeting friendly. I had be reminded a few times not to rustle my papers or tap my fingers on the table. I finally settled for waving my fingers around in the air while I talked. Why yes, I did look ridiculous!

Rainy season has set in. I want to go out and be a tourist but when it rains I just want to hang about the apartment, read, and eat chocolate. Very exciting, I know.

Anyways, stay tuned for the radio show, Busan FM 90.5, "Let's talk Busan" on July 11th. It starts at 7:00pm Korea time (though I don't go on until 7:30) and should be available steaming on their website if you don't have access to a radio, or you know, Korean airwaves.

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http://aaaalexsadventuresinasia.blogspot.com/

Korea Herald: visiting this site may damage your computer

Today, I visited a library near DaDaePo Beach. It had a pretty good English section for children’s books – from the Jungle Book, the Secret Garden and White Fang on down to younger ages.

It also had the Korea Herald available. I haven’t seen the herald in print in years and haven’t visited the site in a few months, since Safari recognizes it as a malware site. Is it okay to visit? Anyway, I took a few photos of things that caught my interest. Click to embiggen if you want to read them.

Last year, at Gangwon Notes, I wrote about trans-boundary water and water recourses so this conference sounds interesting. There was only the photo and caption, though. No further details.

I also read about a ‘Green camp’ in Gangwondo. I am busy – and they haven’t asked me- but I would love to be involved in a wilderness/conservation-themed camp here.

Since I cannot link directly to the articles, let me say they were in the July 2nd, 2010 edition.

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a Foggy Morning

I walked along the shore this morning and here is some of what I saw.

a california prelude

i’m going to south korea this weekend. i’ll be living there until the end of next july, living in the major port city of busan and teaching english to kids, ages 5-13. i leave saturday morning from san francisco, and until then, i’m frolicking in santa cruz with one of my best friends from college, boda. i’ll get to the california adventures in a moment. but first, some ground rules.

there’s only one, really. i don’t capitalize much of anything. if you think this is lazy or reflects poorly on my intelligence and upbringing, so be it. just don’t complain about it to me. i like the way a page of uncapitalized text looks. it’s an aesthetic choice! no bitching.

now, for california: dad’s suggestion to go the redwood forest was brilliant. we checked out big basin yesterday, which meant hours driving through the mountains and a staggering amount of colossal trees. i was surprised how many had been struck by lightning, some of them so damaged that they were leaning at a sharp angle, yet were still growing. in the forest, it was remarkably quiet, and even the harsh winds we’d felt as we drove to the state park were dramatically calmed. there were blue jays all over the place, and we could hear an owl, though we never saw it. it was simply awe-inspiring, being surrounded by something so clearly ancient. i thought of tolkien’s tree people in the lord of the rings, the slow mannerisms he gave them, and it seemed the perfect personification. words and photos can’t do it justice, but i attached a wee slideshow anyhow.

today has been lazy. boda cooked me some broccoli and mushrooms with egg and ginger for breakfast. it was kind of a weird combination. we walked the whole one block from his house to the beach, which is mostly shale cliffs punctuated by the occasional small beach. the water near the shore is thick with kelp, and the weather was chilly today. later, a trip to the “medicine” dispensary, which i was not allowed inside, as i don’t have a medical marijuana card. chase (boda’s roommate) is a pothead of the highest order and has in his possession an impressive variety of both products to smoke and devices with which to smoke them. hash oils, THC extract, cow pie cookies with a dose of “medicine” baked into each, not to mention endless tiny plastic petri dishes containing samples of all the strains the dispensary has to offer. his room is like the lab of some mad scientist/apothecary. it’s like a caricature of stoner life. this guy’s dedication to getting high is nearly religious and can only be broken when he gets caught up talking about, get this, conspiracy theories. his favorite is that 9/11 was an inside job. so far, his winding comments on the topic have tied in blackwater private security operatives, nazis, prescott bush and some secret israeli fighting force.

boda is attempting to bake a loaf of bread, though he added three times the water his recipe called for. the glop on the counter is rising at an alarming rate, spilling out of its stainless steel bowl and threatening to take over the entire kitchen. we’re off to the store to buy more flour to feed the thing. by the time we’re done, we’ll have enough bread to feed the entire neighborhood.

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Rules about trash – what happens

Freakonomics has a few articles about the unintended consequences of rules for trash (1, 2).

“The introduction of new pay-by-weight trash charges in Ireland seems to have produced a strange and troubling effect: an increase in burn victims at St. James Hospital in Dublin.

Huh?

The theory is that people wanted to avoid having to pay for all their trash so instead they burned it in their backyards.”

and

“Now, a family in Sharon Township, Ohio (where residents are charged for their trash), left behind a big mess when they moved out of their home. “When I opened the garage door, there was a year’s worth of garbage stacked in the garage, and on top of that garbage was a rat that looked like a small cat to me,” said a neighbor.”

Canada has some restrictions on home garbage pickup (I think it is one or two free bags and once a week or once in two weeks). There are also many public garbage bins in towns, cities and parks. I don’t know where the garbage goes, but the towns, cities and parks do look clean.

Contractors – home builders and renovators- must pay for commercial garbage collection. I think, in fact, that anyone doing home renovations must pay for special collection. I recall that while working at the recreation centre in Bracebridge someone was dumping their renovation waste in our dumpster at night to avoid paying fees. Good for them but annoying for us.

In Korea, there are almost no garbage bins in, well, anywhere. Garbage bags in a variety of sizes are bought from stores and recycling is very well followed with great source separation -three or more kinds of plastics, at least two different kinds of glass…- so household waste is efficiently taken care of. Still, the ditches of many backroads are filled with waste. The lack of garbage bins in towns means that just dropping the trash on the street seems a reasonable option even for me and I am pretty careful in such matters. Here in Korea, I have seen more rats than I ever did in Canada, but the trash seems mostly to feed the feral cat population.

Tragedy of the commons indeed.

tourism contests

Korea Tourism.org has a variety of contests going on right now. There is a tourism photo contest with the deadline of July 13th and an essay (photo essay? – they require 3 or more photos in the essay). The essay contest is in honour of the Visit Korea year 2010-2012 but I don’t think essays mocking the chronology will win. I can’t find a direct link to it but on the main page, upper left, is a button describing special promotions.

I found the contests will looking for other contests that might interest my students; caption contests and the like. A photo contest isn’t quite as useful for an ESL class, but it might help. Anyway, in searching for “photo contest korea” I found a great shot of Haedong Yonggung Sa. Now I want to visit it, even if it is not Buddha’s Birthday. Congrats to Doug Huffer, who I think is a Busan Gyeongnam KOTESOL member.

Samsung Blue Earth

The word Upcycle means to convert waste materials or useless products into new products of better quality or value. For example, instead of recycling plastic bottles by melting them down and reforming new ones (which creates waste in the process), upcycling would involve converting the plastic bottle into something of higher value, like a pot for plants. Other examples include turning old car tyres into wallets, or using wooden crates to make furniture.

Most of the developing world and especially shanty towns rely on upcycling to build their dwellings.

Whether you're concerned about environmental conservation or not, one thing that we all need to admit is that burying our rubbish in large holes in the ground cannot continue forever. It's convenient, but dumping hundreds of tons of waste everyday means that we'll be forever destined to dig bigger holes.

While we as individuals can only make a small difference through our daily lives, that effort magnifies when we spread information to others who might take it on.

Now here's something interesting. I recently bought a new cell phone called the Samsung Blue Earth, billed as the world's first environmentally friendly phone. The blue plastic casing is made from used plastic water bottles, which I guess means that it is partially upcycled.

Most strikingly, it runs on solar power. For every six minutes that the solar panels receive sunshine, it'll give you about one minute of talk time. The panels are pretty sensitive, and will automatically recharge even if you're only getting a small amount of sunlight from indoors. It can also be charged with its own recharger, which is designed to be 25 percent more energy efficient and is manufactured with eco-friendly materials.

Even the box that the phone came in was made from recycled cardboard, which was designed to be upcyclable into photo frames. I had to rummage around in my plastic folders for some photos to put in them.

Now here's an old photo. This is a picture of me when I was two years old, being held by my foster mother in Korea. It was sent to my Australian parents in the mail before I was adopted. Kind of like a mugshot, if you will.

But this post isn't about me, it's about upcycling and my new phone. There's also a Find Music feature, where you can use the phone to record a few seconds of a song and send it to a server that identifies the track. Heather also bought a new phone, and has been fixated on a built-in game it has where you brush away dust from vegetables, for the past couple of weeks.

I, for one, would like to welcome our new cell-phone overlords.

And this feature is called Eco-Walk. You enter your height, weight and average length of step. Then you put it in your pocket and walk wherever you want to go. It senses each step you take and calculates how many hypothetical trees you have saved by walking instead of driving a car. So far I've saved 12.8 trees, apparently.

While I question the integrity of the algorithm, it nevertheless gives me a daily dose of eco-friendly amusement.

Overall I'm happy with the purchase and the only downside is that the phone heats up a lot when charging in the sun. It might be only token eco-friendliness, but it's a start at least. And more importantly, it's a good reminder that you and I should all remember to reduce, reuse, recycle and upcycle.

Because our efforts propagate when we spread awareness of such things, remember to remind your friends as well.

Feeling That Feeling

With the up in visits recently I'm starting to feel the nudge of obligation to post up a little more often.

However, I don't want things to become spectacularly boring for the readers (whoever you are. I mean feel free to leave a comment or something, stranger.)

As I've said before, my life isn't necessarily all that interesting at the moment (though it is undoubtably good). It's actually a tad humdrum. Stuck in a job I hate, have to put up with rude people for the sake of keeping the peace, and I'm just counting down the days until I get to shake off the shackles, the dirt, and the feeling of tepidity and spread my wings again.

This is definitely one of those times when I realize that I'm probably not made for working under other people's thumbs. I'm not office worker material.

Anyway, more on that as my thoughts develop. Right now it's just a big mess, like someone pranced right up to the pool of my mind and tossed in a tiger (that makes it only a fraction more chaotic than usual).

ANYWAY

So, World Cup is pretty much over as far as most of us here in Korea are concerned. Korea's out, USA is out, England is out, and even Japan is out now. The hardcore soccer fans are now picking random teams to cheer for until the end, and the rest of us are slowly coming down off of the World Cup high.

Good go for all of you! KOREA! USA! ENGLAND! JAPAN! You did your best, and you did well!

EPIC LANGUAGE ADVENTURES

Ideas are still being formed, and help is still being requested. Thanks to those of you who expressed your interest in ELA! I hope that more of you will send out an e-mail (even just to say "Good luck!", support is nice no matter who you are.) expressing your interest to participate in the language/culture project.

Looking for:

* People currently living in Korea, Japan, Taiwan, or China.

* Native or fluent speakers of Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese living anywhere in the world.

* Language learners of Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese (all backgrounds and levels. *beginners included).

* Language/culture experts (self proclaimed or otherwise) in all areas regarding Korea, Japan, Taiwan, or China.

*Anyone interested in honing their web development skills.

Also wouldn't mind hearing from anyone who just has some interesting ideas they want to share.

Please send an e-mail to [email protected]

Looking forward to hearing from you!

IN OTHER NEWS

There's not much going on, actually. Well, that's a total fib. There's PLENTY going on... but I am currently not at liberty to discuss these things.

I'll keep everyone updated as much as I can.

Until next time,

~A.

Life in South Korea: Rainy Season

During June and July rainy season happens in Korea. There is lots of rain and it is very humid.

Koreabridge