Top 10 Things I love About Korea Redux

It looks like Top Ten Lists are back in... so I thought I'd throw in my bit.

What A Waygook has "Ten Things I Can't Live Without in Korea"

and ESL Chronicle has "10+ Things I Love About Korea"

Back in the middle of the Jon Huer... thing..., I polled hub of sparkle readers and compiled this list of ten things we like about Korea for the Korea Herald. I think it's a pretty good list.

Well, here's the top ten list I put into What A Waygook's comments: (totally off the top of my head -- favorite thing about Korea is like favorite Beatles songs -- every time you ask me I'll rattle off a different list...but a few mainstays will keep coming back)

Things I… I won’t say CAN’T live without… but things that make me love love love living here:

1. soup dishes in the winter — seolleongtang, galbitang, samgyetang, kalguksu, sundubu jigae, kimchi jigae, dwenjang jigae, budae jigae… warm the soul.

2. covered markets – those semi-outdoor, traditional bazaar-style markets you find in the older parts of the city or town, where old folks give you great prices or freshy freshness, or just a taste of how things used to be.

3. restaurants with one thing on the menu… and old people lined up out the door to eat there. Lots of restaurants get lines out the door, but if OLD people willing to wait, you can be sure it’s not because the place is trendy, or was featured on a power-blogger’s food porn blog… but because the food is soul-food, cheap, delicious, and generously portioned. Best of all is Gwangjang Market by Jongno 5-ga station on the dark blue line.

4. the public transportation – especially in the city, but even if you’re traveling around the country, if you’re handy with a transit card, good at reading bus schedules, and not above hailing a cab from time to time, there’s no need to own a car here.

5. the tourist help lines here’s the place to find all the local numbers: http://www.visitkorea.or.kr/ena/GK/GK_EN_2_7_1.jsp – Korea’s really made an effort to become more accommodating to tourists who don’t speak the language, and this is one of the absolute best initiatives they’ve come up with so far.

6. Broadband speed.. EVERYWHERE. Every time I’m streaming Youtube videos on Subway line 5 deep under the Han River, downloading bus arrival times out in the countryside, or making a video skype call from a motel out in the boonies, I should blow a kiss at the nearest visible Korean flag.

7. Chats with taxi drivers and friendly old people – the better your Korean is, the more fun these are, and the more varied the conversation becomes.

8. The everything festival of everywhere always: there are a whole buttload of fantastic festivals celebrating everything from seasonal phenomena (flowers blossoming etc.) to traditional arts (masks and dances and foods), to the newest of the new developments in Korean culture… and if it’s not a festival yet, it’s probably a street party (world cup soccer games, flash mobs, flea markets, random live shows)

9. Jongno/Gwanghwamun/Bukcheon/Myeongdong – I’ve lived in this area for about 2/3 of my time here, and it’s absolutely inexhaustible… partly because there’s so much to see and do, and partly because it changes so quickly that even if you’ve tried everything in the area, two weeks later there’ll be something new to try again.

10. People-watching (and eye candy) everywhere – old people playing baduk in parks, little kids splashing in public water fountains, couples speaking in goopy voices in coffee shops… or breaking up loudly on the steps to a subway station…, little kids wearing hanbok on festival days… and at every crosswalk, whether you dig XX or XY chromosome sets, there’ll be at least one person coming the other way who’s an eyeful of style, beauty, handsomeness, high fashion or immaculate grooming, to give your eyes a treat as you pass.


better leave it there, not that I couldn’t go on…

So, readers: lists in the comments: what are YOUR top ten? Or put a link to your own blog.

Olympic Torch Relay in Seoul, April 2008: The Olympic Spirit is Dead

Thugs and goons. Thugs and goons. Thugs and goons. Thugs and goons.
Take that.And that. (feeling a bit cowed yet?)
Well, their intimidation tactics worked. Here's my new official line:

Soundtrack courtesy of Monty Python. Don't want to piss anybody off, eh?

Saw history today right out in my face, waving flags, noisy feet forward. Sure, it wasn't Ground Zero, Archduke Ferdinand-level history -- I won't get a book deal just for surviving it, but dear readers, I saw history nonetheless.

It started innocently enough -- I went to a Seoul Writer's club meeting near City Hall. . . but on my way over there, I noticed what looked like a new trend in fashion accessories: red capes with yellow stars on them.


On second glance, I realized what they were: Chinese flags. The Olympic Torch came through downtown Seoul on Sunday afternoon, starting at Olympic Park (where I lived in 2003) and ending in Jongno, by City Hall (where I live now.) You may have heard some rumours about protestors hectoring the Chinese Olympic Torch Relay -- over in Paris and London they caused a fair bit of embarrassment, and San Francisco bent so far backwards to avoid turmoil and embarrassment (and a pissed off exporter of cheap plastic toys, clothing, and shoes), that it wasn't so much a relay as a game of hide-and-seek.

Starting a fifteen minute walk from City Hall, the boosters came out in Red.
And the riot police buses came out, too.
I don't know where they got so many, huuuuuge flags (I know I took my wall-sized flag out of the suitcase when my luggage was overweight at the airport), but they were literally everywhere.

Recently, Chinese news sources and netizens have responded to protests and criticism with hurt outrage: the Western Media wants to sabotage our party; like ants at our Olym-picnic, those biased Western journalists want to ruin our fun! And meanwhile, back home, the propaganderthals in charge of the media are playing up the us-vs.-them narrative to stoke nationalistic rage.

(One of my students saw this picture and said, "Are we in Korea?")
Meanwhile, anyone who suggests that this kind of hurt-pride defensiveness is less than the best possible way to respond to the attack, is thrown, nay, hurled up against the wall, gored on the spike of nationalistic pride, slaughtered as a scapegoat: a Chinese student at Duke University had her picture and her parents' address in China published on the internet (scroll down after the link to see a youtube clip, and read the poison on the Chinese comment board, too). She was attacked on the net (and her parents house was vandalized) for stepping between a group of Chinese boosters and Tibetan protesters having a holler at each other, and trying to suggest that, in the spirit of free speech, the Chinese boosters ought to stop shouting down their pro-Tibetters. (She should have sided unthinkingly with her fellow Chinese and found something heavy to use as a weapon -- anything short of that proves she hates China and might be a spy, it seems).

Giant flag. Big as my classroom. And blurry. Moving quickly as they shook it.
Things are ugly back in the mainland, too, and even paralympic athlete Jin Jing, who protected the torch from protesters in Paris and became a hero to the Chinese nationalists, couldn't talk them out of their "Boycott Carrefour" fervour -- instead, they turned on her, too. It must feel pretty lonely to be ostracized by a 1.3 billion strong nation -- the most I've ever been ostracized by is an elementary school class of twenty-six.

(metal detector to enter the main seating area)

There's a new strategy in play with this [debacle] torch relay: it started in Australia, and will rear its head, no doubt, through the rest of the torch relay.

On Sunday, 6000 mostly young Chinese, probably overseas exchange students, descended upon the torch trail in force, wielding huge flags (big enough indeed to block a Tibetan flag from view), waving them, and chanting pro-China, pro-Beijing Olympic slogans loudly (loud enough to drown out any protesters, in fact).
This kind of a preemptive napalm-strike strategy works, insofar as it drowns out any voice of dissent in an ocean of unison, marching in lockstep, chanting in time, and they might have needed it: South Korea has its own grudges with China, including a historical grudge about the kingdom of Goguryeo, and (the big one) the Chinese policy of sending captured North Korean refugees back to North Korea (to near-certain torture and incarceration in a death camp). In fact, a North Korean protestor tried to jump in front of the relay route and set himself on fire in protest.

Here are some pictures I took, making a strong case for my need for a better camera.
I wasn't getting closer to the scrum than that. Robert "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough," Capa I ain't.


What you can't see is the torch actually moving along the column of gray-shirted police officers.

More pictures better than mine are here. (like this one: highly recommended link)

So many flags.
As far as I could tell, the basic goal of the Red Army Escorts was to haul any protester to the ground as fast as possible, hopefully before any media outlets pointed their cameras.

This Tibet protester was beaten down in the lobby of four-star Seoul Plaza Hotel -- I'm told the crowd is chanting, among other things, "Apologize" and "beat him to death," as the police surround him.


Bullying and intimidation, friends. When you don't want to listen to criticism, making a fist and snarling "shut the hell up" will do. It was kind of disgusting.

The Olympic spirit is dead to me.

(begin sarcasm) But you don't have to believe my account: take it from the Chinese media! (end sarcasm)

I mean, with this extra Nazi-twist, the western media IS piling it on pretty thick, but you're not winning any sympathy from me when stuff like this happens:

More video. Watch them fast, before the Chinese government demands they be taken down, and the news agencies (naturally) comply.

More pictures, courtesy of Stafford, and Smokehard via the Marmot's hole -- the downtown area where I was. . . with a better camera than mine. From Stafford: the biggest Tibetan flag scrum I personally witnessed (video here) was about ten meters over from where this picture of loyalists was taken.
Also from Stafford:-- just repeat the party line, louder than the dissenters. Effective strategy for their purpose.

See what the Chinese media are saying. And a letter written by Chinese students from M.I.T. -- worth reading (summary: give us a break; we're still a developing country. If you're still developing, why are you hosting the Olympics? Why jump onstage if you don't know your lines yet?)

8000 Seoul police came out to keep order.
The lump of red in the middle of the picture are Chinese flags thrown up to mask a bunch of Tibetan flags that had just appeared. Before the police got there, all the Tibet protesters had been hauled to the ground, overwhelmed by rabid China-boosters.

Vehicle escorts: a big bus gives protesters another obstacle to get around, and increases the chance they'll be intercepted before they can reach the torch.Coke led the procession in a shiny float. Write a letter to Coke and tell them you won't buy more Coke products until they withdraw their sponsorship of the Olympics.
Ditto for Samsung.
In the hotel lobby again.
The ugly, disrespectful (to Korea, to Korea's police force, and to Korea's laws about freedom of expression), disruptive behaviour of China's own citizens in Seoul and other cities is more embarrassing to China than any protest could be.


Some of the facts in this video montage are off base -- it's not a policeman stabbed, but a journalist hit by a projectile in the picture of the guy in green bleeding from the head, and I can't vouch for the text that goes with the footage in the other countries. . . but just look at the footage!

The Propaganda Olympics will go on -- really, whether they go smoothly or tank doesn't even matter to China anymore. Either they go badly, and China can use the embarrassment to stoke the "West hates us" resentment for their propaganda purposes -- a powerful, angry country full of rabid nationalists is just perfect if China decides to go expansionist, or the Olympics go well, and China can use it to strut and preen, declaring they're "arrived" as a major world player, and fuel the nationalism that way.

Last word goes to this kid: a sign held by a college-age student with big old glasses, standing quietly (but confidently: he has 1.3 billion brothers and sisters standing behind him).
It reads: "Respect the Olympic Spirit,
All men -- are brothers!
Interfere with China's internal affairs,
Annihilate -- in the far distance."

Somehow the first and last two lines don't quite match, eh? And how does the threat of annihilation fit with the proclaimed wish for a peaceful torch relay? Dunno.

Not that I was going to ask him: don't care to be wrestled to the ground and sat upon by 6000 angry China-boosters. Yup. The intimidation worked.

Northern Illinois University and the prescient blogger.

Whoa. That's weird. After writing in my last post about why people do these kinds of destructive actions, I came into the staff room after a class and my coworker told me about the gunman in Northern Illinois.

I still hold to everything I said in my previous post, but it's sure freaky having a shooting happen the day after writing about it. Maybe I should write about stuff like my sister winning the lottery instead.

I'm reposting this clip from fight club. Just like yesterday, it's still graphically bloody, but the monologue in here (matched with the imagery, for that matter) just about perfectly describes what I imagine would have to be going through the mind of someone when they decide to actually pick up a gun and start destroying things.

"I felt like putting a bullet between the eyes of every Panda that wouldn't screw to save its species. I wanted to open the dump valves on oil tankers and smother all the French beaches I'd never see. I wanted to breathe smoke."



Somehow, each of these people have convinced themselves that the entire world deserves to be as unhappy as they are. Why or how they reach that state of solipsism is different for each one (and yes, I recognize that depression and mental illness can warp a person's world-view -- but they're not off the hook that easily. Each person has choices to make, too, and some chronically depressed people get help instead of torching national monuments or killing strangers), but their own agenda (sometimes spite, sometimes something more ideological) has become more important, in their minds, than any human life, any treasure, and certainly any law.

Now, I'm gonna throw some JD Salinger at you, because when I struggle with getting down, old Jerome David always picks me up. Thanks for that, Jerry!

You see, I've been struggling with/coming to grips with cynicism lately. I'm spending more time reading the newspaper and following news on English Expat in Korea -type websites, and I've been dismayed by both the cumulative drag of constantly reading about tragedies in the paper, and the amount of cynicism and negativity that sometimes gets packaged along with the news in the comment boards (and some of the writers) in the Korea Expat Blogosphere.

It's hard to stay up to date with the news and such, without getting dragged down by bad news. Add to that the fact I firmly believe that our characters are determined by the things we choose to look at and the way we choose to look at them -- my mom used to say, "Garbage in, garbage out," and the dilemma comes into a little more focus: how do I keep a positive attitude while still being aware of what goes on in the world, and doing my part?

And then, just when I think I'm finding a balanced way to view the world, that is realistic but also positive, that is both honest and edifying, something shitty happens.

(Northern Illinois University. Condolences to all involved. Peace Be Upon You and God, or Richard Dawkins, Be With You all.)
Maybe it's apples and oranges to compare a national monument's destruction with the loss of four lives, but the fact remains that both of those guys chose the best way they could think of to raise a middle finger to the entire world they knew.

In one of my favourite passages of Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield complains about graffiti in his childhood school:
“That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "Fuck you" right under your nose.”

And that's just the thing about life sometimes, isn't it? All that shit we can't control, that jumps out at us from behind the door, and derails our gravy train.



And you know, in the same way it's easier to watch TV than to read a book, it's easier to get caught in the cycle of negative thought, than to claw back up into the positive stuff. In a text message, I wrote to a friend that "Hate is just a way to postpone grief" -- all that hate, and then the grief, NEEDS to be sorted out, as much for my benefit as for anyone else's, but it's easier to shift blame and resent someone than to look in the mirror, deal with how I feel, grieve, and then (eventually) grow and move on. It's easier to decide I have a right to be miserable, and from there, to decide that the entire phony world deserves to be miserable with me. That negative energy feeds itself like feedback in a microphone, and can get blown all out of proportion, and from there, all bets are off on how I might react.

It takes work to pull out of the whirlpool. But if you can. . . (back to J.D. Salinger, at last)

Holden Caulfield's teacher, Mr. Antolini informs us that,
“Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behaviour. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them—if you want to. Just as some day, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.”

. . . but it takes work to get into the positive cycle, the good reciprocal arrangement, instead of lapsing into the negative reciprocal arrangement, where my bad attitude makes other people miserable around me, and then I soak up that misery and radiate it back out again wherever I go.

So I'm trying not to get too down today. I'm trying to remember all the wonderful things that make my life joyful, and to focus on those things (without blinding myself to reality). Hopefully, I'll get back to the last fifteen pages of Franny and Zooey again (I'd quote it, but you really just need to read the whole book for it to make any sense anyway) "There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady" see? Pretty opaque, huh? -- if you read it, you know.

And maybe, if I stay in the positive cycle, I can even get to my favourite Salinger quote of all: "I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy." (the fat lady is Jesus, don't you know?)

Anyway, it's been a bad week. . . by my lady found me some dairy free chocolate for Valentine's Day that was really really great, and I'm reading Lord of the Rings, which is such a flippin' awesome book, and today was payday, and my best friend is back from traveling in Europe, so things aren't all bad.

Pray for those folks in Illinois, though. And read Franny and Zooey, if you don't get the "fat lady" stuff, and want to.

A Three-Fer of Ridiculousity

OK. I like to be positive, as much as I can, but this just begs to be mocked.

Protests played an important part in social change in Korea: in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a number of important protests shook off their military dictator's shackles and opened the way for a legitimate democracy. Before a student protest in 1978 that was surpressed with gunfire (and started the ball rolling toward a true democracy), it was illegal, and dangerous, to protest the government. Protests were also an important part of Koreans' opposition to Japanese colonial rule. This young woman's another national hero in Korea. Since the '80s, as civil liberties increase, it seems that many Koreans choose to celebrate their civil liberties by protesting pretty much anything: every weekend, you can walk around the downtown and find a protest either by city hall, by the parliament buildings, or in front of the US or Japanese Embassy. Sometimes, it seems that people join a protest just for the fun of getting angry about something -- one blogger called these "I like crowds" protests.

Today, I came across the protest of the weekend, and, well, sure, citizens are within their rights to protest things, and it can be an important way of exercising (the hell out of) one's freedom, but if you're putting yourself out there for something like this, I am also well within my civil rights to mock you.

They were marching, and I decided to look at the signs to see what they were marching about. As I moved up from the back of the line toward the front, while only able to read the signs with English on them, and sound out/recognize a very few Korean words, I spotted just about every cause I know:

FTA (free trade agreement with US), GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transsexual) rights, Iraq War, Skyrocketing Housing Prices in Seoul, Poverty/Social Welfare, Something about Samsung, Korea's largest conglomerate, currently involved in a corruption scandal, and also responsible for the error that led to an oil spill off Korea's West coast, Mistreatment of Migrant Workers, and, of course, a picture of Che Guevera. Because there always has to be a picture of Che.
--all in a single protest!



This baffled me, so I sped up to get to the front of the march-line, and the sign the union members held as they chanted, said, "A dream for a new world. A world without Poverty, FTA, War, Discrimination"

Basically, it was the white elephant table of protests -- if you're on the protestor's mailing list (of which I am certain there is one), meet at noon at City Hall (or wherever it is these things always muster), bring your favourite sign, and make sure you're dressed warmly and ready to shout!

If you like shouting, it's more fun than joining a swimming club! AND, you can lord it over your friends on the beer league soccer team that YOU'RE a social activist, and all THEY do with their weekends is play meaningless games.

Now there's nothing wrong with protesting in itself, but you know, when you flag ALL your e-mails as "High Priority," everybody ignores it, and on the weekend you really DO need a quick reply, you're still shuffled into the "read later" file. If you protest about every darn thing, every weekend, it just becomes a dull hum, chalked up to "one of the drags of being a Korean politician" - it loses its impact. I wonder if these people press for social change in any other way (organizing boycotts, giving money or time to social change organizations, changing their consumption habits, going on letter writing drives, publishing circulars and writing letters to the editor) or if they figure chanting slogans on Saturday acquits them of their other social responsibilities, plus, they get to meet their protest pals and get sloshed later! (Which sometimes seems to be the final stage of EVERY activity involving more than two Koreans -- once I told my students I climb mountains for my health, and one said to me, "But it's not healthy to get drunk the way mountain-climbers do" -- not all hikers, friend. Not all.)

Finally, I have my own opinions about celebrity gossip, but THIS has got to be the best story EVER.

Na Hoon-A is a star of the Trot musical style I discussed in an earlier post. He went AWOL for a little while, and the press cooked up a doozy of a story to explain his absence (you'd hope they could have produced a doctor's note). According to the rumor mill, Mr. Na had knobbed the wrong female popstar: one who had caught the eye of a big-time Yakuza (Japanese answer to the Mafia) boss; in response, as a way of saying, "I don't care if you're famous, nobody f***s with my lady," he had this guy kidnapped and castrated.

Well, Na Hoon-A is back on the radar, ready to tell anybody who listens that he is fine, and his manhood is intact. In fact, he was ready to share it with the press. (He doesn't actually do it, but when he climbs up on the table, everybody gets a little nervous, that "is this actually happening?" feeling when you witness a car accident. And listen to the camera shutters click.)



If you look at a picture of him, this is a dude not to be messed about with -- I wouldn't want to be the reporter who cooked up this story, stuck alone in a room with this guy.



And in case you doubt his manhood, here he is in full swagger, (pop and drop apparently) intact.


PS: how to win a swordfight:

Photo update.

come on, people. comment already! I think I'm the only one reading my blog anymore!

*with the exception of BradJ*

or is this your passive-aggressive way of telling me to start writing shorter posts?

So the Tell Me song is a ridiculously huge dance craze. It was about five below zero (celsius) this night, but these hardy girls were still out, shaking booty, doing the "Tell Me" dance to advertise soju (which the original "tell me" singers, the Wonder Girls aren't even old enough to drink yet).

Plus, watching these, adult women dance, didn't make me feel like a creep, the way watching the 14 and 15-year-old wonder girls do.

I can't imagine how these poor ladies stayed warm: it's not like they have any body fat to store heat, either, unlike hairy Roboseyo, whose chest hair is like constantly wearing an extra t-shirt.

Buying pirated movies always includes the chance of some unintentional comedy in the subtitles. This is from the movie, "Lust, Caution", a huge hit here in Asia, and controversial enough in China to have some of its erotic scenes censored.


The Chinese subtitles were probably simply run through Google Translate and edited in. Love that stuff.

For hours of entertainment, go to this site, which runs any phrase through Google Translate, into another language, and then back to English, to see what kind of mangled concoction comes out. It's hilarious.

My line from this site: "If what you have doesn't make you happy, having more of it probably won't, either," translated to Korean and back again, goes like this:

"To spread out and it was happy what will be extensive not to make, to be possible it compared to be, in addition."


Sometimes chalk outlines can make you cry.
(this was child-sized, right near where my former student was killed by a bus)

If I were the mayor of Seoul, I would make incredibly tough penalties for drivers of delivery scooters who go onto the sidewalks, and even tougher ones for their employers, who pressure their delivery people to skimp on safety for the sake of delivery time. You should see the craziness -- helmetless, flying down the sidewalks, gunning over crosswalks or through red lights -- it's insane.


It snowed in Seoul.
this happened.


And in front of City Hall, they built an ice playground, now that it's properly cold.

I like cold. I like seasons, I decided. I much prefer my seasons to behave as they should: if I saw a cat gathering nuts in the fall and hiding them in tree hollows, I'd probably freak out, and when early January feels more like late October, I get nervous, even as I enjoy the outdoors.


This is the shape of Admiral Yi Sunshin, one of Korea's greatest military heroes. He is also commemorated in a statue in Gwanghwamun, the beating heart of Seoul's Downtown.


Here's the real Admiral Yi, right out directly in front of the main gate of Seoul's most important Palace, generally recognized as a naval strategist on par with any in history.

OK, that wasn't the REAL Yi Sunshin, either (he's dead now) -- just the original statue that the ice sculpture imitates.


There was also an ice rink there, but it looked pretty poorly maintained -- uneven, with puddles and cracks and lots of carved-up snow, as such crowded outdoor rinks end up being. It'd be romantic, but onerous to skate there.



One thing I love about Seoul is that there are little back-alleys like this all over the place.


And if you head in there, you can find random little places buried around corners

with kitchens full of old ladies making INCREDIBLE traditional Korean dishes, with portions that'll fill you up, for about five dollars, sometimes less.


This one makes Kalguksu -- just plain old Korean-style soup -- but it's famous. It's been around for decades, the prices are still the same as they were in 1984, the decoration and atmosphere is nonexistent (or worse), with tacky posters on the wall at best,

(i mean, if this counts as atmosphere to you, you're laughing!)

it's crowded as heck (you bump elbows with strangers as you eat), there's only one thing on the menu. . .
but people line up out the door and down the alley to have a bowl during their lunch break. And Seoul is loaded to the rafters with little holes in the wall like this: in Canada, if a restaurant gets a good reputation, they usually introduce the "reputation surtax" whereby they charge as much as they can while still running on their rep; in Korea, that sometimes happens, but often part of a place's excellence is the pride they take in giving top-notch food at low low prices.

Plus, Korea is historically a peasant culture. The most famous foods are the kinds a farmer might eat when he comes in from a day in the field -- hearty, simple, and cheap. France or Japan take pride in the refined foods they served the upper class, and you'll still pay through the nose for five-star sushi or escargot, but the strength of Korea's cuisine is in the simple, hearty, healthy fare. Wonderful. (Plus, it's SO easy to eat healthy here for cheap.)

I don't know what's going on in here, but I'm not interested.

two I didn't take: from an expats in Korea facebook group:

parking for princesses only:
and. . . this baby knows what they're for.




take care, everyone! Hope you enjoyed my picture tour of the last three weeks!

-Roboseyo