Friday, January 29, 2010
Pray Please
One of the other JETs program teachers in Iwate, died recently. He was 23 and had pain and went to the hospital and passed. I just want everyone to keep his family and friends back home in their prayers.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Video Editing is hard Y'all
I was trying to edit the footage I took during our DMZ tour into something that you guys could watch. Not only is the video size allotment for this blog miniscule, but the video editing software I have is very difficult to navigate. At some point I deleted all the sound from the video. I don't know how. It was impossible to fix once deleted. I'll try again from scratch tomorrow, but for now here's the silent version. Just imagine that it's in sepia tones and piano music is playing in the background. (The guy in uniform up front is explaining everything so it'll all make more sense with sound.)
ACTUALLY,
Blogger refuses to upload the video. The popup that refuses my wish to share video clips is all in Japanese, so I don't even know why it won't upload.
UGGH. You win this round video editing.
S.
ACTUALLY,
Blogger refuses to upload the video. The popup that refuses my wish to share video clips is all in Japanese, so I don't even know why it won't upload.
UGGH. You win this round video editing.
S.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Big Big Post
In this post I will try to finish about Korea and update everyone on how we are. I will also be trying to post more often in the New Year but the past few days have been trying. First, Korea.
In Korea we had a ton of fun. In fact in you just wanted to come to Asia and had narrowed your choices to Tokyo or Seoul I would say go to Seoul hands down. The English was better. I mean, not fluent but at restaurants people could help you. Basically, people had enough English to help you in the situation you needed. We went to several cool sites like the National Museum of Korea. Its the sixth largest Museum in the world and was huge. There were a lot of cool exhibits pictured bellow.
After the Museum we got a lesson in geography from some Korean school kids. They taught us that the Sea of Japan does not belong to Japan. It also belongs to Korea. They were very insistent that it be called the Sea of Korea. Which I guess is just as good. The next big thing we did was the Seoul National Flea Market. It was really cool. We ate some good Korean food and saw some interesting art and things for sale. We bought ourselves some metal chopsticks. They are more commonly used in Korea then plastic or wood seemed to be. They are really pretty. We were looking around the flea market when we did discover one section that an American Flea market wouldn't have. Let me just say that it was an adult entertainment section and sold some things I wouldn't buy at a flea market.
We also did the USO DMZ tour. As we prepared to leave, a representative got on the bus and said "This is not a tour. This is a trip to a real war zone that is no joke and a place where serious diplomatic events happen." So on this not-a-tour which is to a real war zone where do they have the first stop? A gift shop. That and the fact that it is sold as tour made it a tour. It was a great tour too. We saw Panmunjom, the peace village. It is the northern most village in South Korea. We then went to the place where the armistice was signed. It had guards from North and South facing off at each other and showy diplomatic buildings on both sides. We saw the worlds tallest flag poles, the tallest in the North and the old tallest in the South. This kind of thing seemed common on the border. After looking from an observation post into North Korea we watched a video on the border becoming a impromptu nature preserve. In places the North had dug tunnels under the border. We toured one of these tunnels. It was like any other cave I've been in dark, damp, and too small. the last stop was a train station waiting for reunification to rebuild the tracks for service to Pyongyang.
This set of pictures is of the place where the armistice was signed and where negotiations still go on. This is the closest we got to North Korea.
After the tour we went out to eat with some Canadians and one guy from Las Vegas who were teaching English in Korea. It was a ton of fun. I will write more about Korea later in the week but right now I want to to catch you all up on us.
We have had a difficult week. I watch American news and I know that its been colder then normal. This weekend here it reach -12C which is cold. Our toilet pipes froze and a plumber had to come out. I apparently had not plugged the right plug to warm the pipe. Which is my mistake, but still annoying. Then yesterday our washing machine drain froze and threw up the water from the wash all over the freezing cold kitchen. Which took an hour in barely above freezing temperatures to clean up. It was a kind of depressing thing to do. Now, I know that many of you are wondering if these two event make a bad week, but I have a third one that will defiantly do it for you. Today I got home from work and Samantha turned on the TV and it made a terrible sound and caught fire. That's right, when our TV was plugged in it shot sparks and caught fire inside. So our TV is dead our house stinks of melted plastic and the Board of Education says it will be a while to replace it. The other ALTs and I have decided to ask the Board for more repairs on the houses like vented heaters and non freezing washers. The TV is just the icing on the cake.
In Korea we had a ton of fun. In fact in you just wanted to come to Asia and had narrowed your choices to Tokyo or Seoul I would say go to Seoul hands down. The English was better. I mean, not fluent but at restaurants people could help you. Basically, people had enough English to help you in the situation you needed. We went to several cool sites like the National Museum of Korea. Its the sixth largest Museum in the world and was huge. There were a lot of cool exhibits pictured bellow.
After the Museum we got a lesson in geography from some Korean school kids. They taught us that the Sea of Japan does not belong to Japan. It also belongs to Korea. They were very insistent that it be called the Sea of Korea. Which I guess is just as good. The next big thing we did was the Seoul National Flea Market. It was really cool. We ate some good Korean food and saw some interesting art and things for sale. We bought ourselves some metal chopsticks. They are more commonly used in Korea then plastic or wood seemed to be. They are really pretty. We were looking around the flea market when we did discover one section that an American Flea market wouldn't have. Let me just say that it was an adult entertainment section and sold some things I wouldn't buy at a flea market.
We also did the USO DMZ tour. As we prepared to leave, a representative got on the bus and said "This is not a tour. This is a trip to a real war zone that is no joke and a place where serious diplomatic events happen." So on this not-a-tour which is to a real war zone where do they have the first stop? A gift shop. That and the fact that it is sold as tour made it a tour. It was a great tour too. We saw Panmunjom, the peace village. It is the northern most village in South Korea. We then went to the place where the armistice was signed. It had guards from North and South facing off at each other and showy diplomatic buildings on both sides. We saw the worlds tallest flag poles, the tallest in the North and the old tallest in the South. This kind of thing seemed common on the border. After looking from an observation post into North Korea we watched a video on the border becoming a impromptu nature preserve. In places the North had dug tunnels under the border. We toured one of these tunnels. It was like any other cave I've been in dark, damp, and too small. the last stop was a train station waiting for reunification to rebuild the tracks for service to Pyongyang.
This set of pictures is of the place where the armistice was signed and where negotiations still go on. This is the closest we got to North Korea.
After the tour we went out to eat with some Canadians and one guy from Las Vegas who were teaching English in Korea. It was a ton of fun. I will write more about Korea later in the week but right now I want to to catch you all up on us.
We have had a difficult week. I watch American news and I know that its been colder then normal. This weekend here it reach -12C which is cold. Our toilet pipes froze and a plumber had to come out. I apparently had not plugged the right plug to warm the pipe. Which is my mistake, but still annoying. Then yesterday our washing machine drain froze and threw up the water from the wash all over the freezing cold kitchen. Which took an hour in barely above freezing temperatures to clean up. It was a kind of depressing thing to do. Now, I know that many of you are wondering if these two event make a bad week, but I have a third one that will defiantly do it for you. Today I got home from work and Samantha turned on the TV and it made a terrible sound and caught fire. That's right, when our TV was plugged in it shot sparks and caught fire inside. So our TV is dead our house stinks of melted plastic and the Board of Education says it will be a while to replace it. The other ALTs and I have decided to ask the Board for more repairs on the houses like vented heaters and non freezing washers. The TV is just the icing on the cake.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Tokyo/Seoul
The flight from Tokyo to Seoul was a decent one. It was about 2 hours. One of those where you spend more time at the airport than in the air. We rode the subway to near our hotel and then took a cab. The cabbie didn't speak any English or Japanese and we of course could not do Korean. So his solution he drove down the street yelling out the window at people to see if they spoke English. He found someone who did and figured out where we were going. By that I mean that the guy he found who spoke English used his cell phone to look up directions which he told the cabbie. The whole time the meter was running. Now to put Japanese prices into dollars you take off two zeroes. In Korea you take off 3 thin meant that we thought we had taken a 100 dollar cab ride instead of what we had taken a 10 dollar cab ride. When we got to the hotel we were happy to find it had American TV including America's Funniest Home Videos. That was soothing.
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