Hey there blogger.
This letter is short.
There is no way to write you directly at Blogger, so I'm going to complain about it here. I have mentioned it on the help columns, and it seems to be an ongoing problem for numerous blogs, but it has not been repaired in two months.
At the bottom of blogger pages which are linked in my sidebar, dozens of links to my site have been appearing, from pages which do not directly link to those sites.
At the bottom of my page, links to dozens of other blogger blogs have been appearing, which have ME on their sidebar, but which do not directly link to my page.
This has not been repaired in two stinking months! The only choices I have are to 1. systematically, painstakingly go through each one of two months worth of posts and delete all the junk links, which is a huge time suck, 2. clear my sidebar link and hope that fixes it, but it also means my blog becomes much less useful for people interested in reading blogs. 3. leave it, and have cluttered and useless "links" bars or 4. switch to a different blog server which fixes glitches when they appear.
Now sure, with bogger and these free blog hosts, I'm getting just what I pay for, but if I'm going to keep blogging anyway, and if blogger doesn't seem to be fixing this, and if there's not even any way to contact them, the balance is starting to shift toward switching hosts.
If this is happening to your blog, post about it. If there is no way to directly contact Blogger about this glitch, maybe enough people posting about it will remind them, or alert them.
Take it easy, folks.
one expat's life in Korea
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Monday, February 02, 2009
A Few Notes, a Cool Site, and Guangxi Province
1. A Geek In Korea got a really nice gift from a reader of his blog. Awesome, mate. What a cool idea, for a blogger's readers to show they like him by sending nice gifts! (hint hint)
2. A blog buddy sent me a super-de-duper cool link which, while it would be off topic on his blog, fits my blog just fine, unfocused goof that I am (he described my blog as quirky and random, not unfocused and goofy, because he's nice). This page gives you an updated world map showing sunlight and darkness across the globe, and even cooler, it shows cloud-cover as you go. Thanks, man. Keep'em coming!
3. If you're an internet nerd, and you know what rick-rolling is, this mash-up will confuse you: was it a rick-roll, or a cool mash-up? If you're not an internet nerd, and you don't know what rick-rolling is, then you'll be happy to know I was lucky enough to catch the funniest one-liner of our entire China trip on video. Click here to see the video. (And if you want to get meta...)
4. Guangxi Province, China.
Guilin Highlights:
Mountains like this. Everywhere.
Two famous lakes in Guilain; this one had these awesome pagodas. They were even prettier at night, but those pictures didn't quite turn out.
Sunset, same park as that first photo.
This waterfall was in that same park, too where I took the first landscape picture. That was a seriously good walkabout day.
Shire Hobbiton Coffee: Matt is a huge Lord of the Rings fan, so finding the best coffee in Guilain, in a place named after Frodo Baggins' home, was just too perfect.
Interior was nice, too: full of LOTR themed painting...the nice, "Mist over the Fields of Pellinor" kind, not the geeky "Orc With Armor vs. Elven Warrior Prince" kind.
Walking around downtown Guilain, we saw this cool statue of a totally badass painter: that's totally a paintbrush. We took this picture...
And then later, when we came back through Guilain to catch our train to Kunming, we saw another group of tourists posing the exact same shot. I guess it's the Guilain equivalent to doing the cheesy hands-out Titanic pose on the prow of a boat.
And we ate the hottest Szechuan Hot Pot you'll ever find. The broth was about two parts broth and one part peppercorns and hot peppers. Ridiculous. Hotter than squid fried rice, hotter than jjuggumi, hotter than bbul dalk (fire chicken) in Korea. Silly.
Matt got a jet of boiling hot, hot oil right down his throat, and I ate a spoonful of peppercorns and spice oil, just for kicks. It was Christmas day.
This cute kid was at that same restaurant when we went there again, on our last day in Guilain.
One day, we took a bus down to a place called Longji. (Some nice, professional photos here and here.) The terraced rice fields there went right to the top of the mountain, and that day was mysterious and misty: one minute, fog would be hiding everything in view, and all we could see was a nice trail; then a wind would kick up, the fog would clear out, and we'd have scenes like these.
This picture was also taken up there.
It was just lovely, kind of tantalizing, the way you never knew when the mist would clear and stop your heart with beauty.
This was one of the best meals of our whole trip. We hiked up to a village in the mountain -- a five minute walk from the peak -- and the tour guide led us to this little restaurant...
The lady in the pink apron was burning bamboo chutes in a fire, and above the fire...
They had rice and chicken stuffed inside the baboo chute, roasting over flames. She'd take the chutes and dip them in water regularly, to prevent the chutes from burning up.
When we ordered food, they came out like this...
and it was, pretty much, the best chicken I've had in my life. And that's saying something. Stewed in its own juices, with bits of berries and ginger packed inside to deepen the flavor, melt-in-your-mouth tender, all bathed in that bright, lightness that comes in bamboo cooking.
Warning: one sh-poop word in this one. (My sister follows this blog with my nephew and nieces, so I gotta give the heads up. Hi, Beckles. Love ya! Hi Matthias, Bethany and Carrie-ann!)
So that was Guilain and Longji. Yangshuo, Dali, Beijing and Vietnam coming soon.
2. A blog buddy sent me a super-de-duper cool link which, while it would be off topic on his blog, fits my blog just fine, unfocused goof that I am (he described my blog as quirky and random, not unfocused and goofy, because he's nice). This page gives you an updated world map showing sunlight and darkness across the globe, and even cooler, it shows cloud-cover as you go. Thanks, man. Keep'em coming!
3. If you're an internet nerd, and you know what rick-rolling is, this mash-up will confuse you: was it a rick-roll, or a cool mash-up? If you're not an internet nerd, and you don't know what rick-rolling is, then you'll be happy to know I was lucky enough to catch the funniest one-liner of our entire China trip on video. Click here to see the video. (And if you want to get meta...)
4. Guangxi Province, China.
Guilin Highlights:
Mountains like this. Everywhere.
Two famous lakes in Guilain; this one had these awesome pagodas. They were even prettier at night, but those pictures didn't quite turn out.
Sunset, same park as that first photo.
This waterfall was in that same park, too where I took the first landscape picture. That was a seriously good walkabout day.
Shire Hobbiton Coffee: Matt is a huge Lord of the Rings fan, so finding the best coffee in Guilain, in a place named after Frodo Baggins' home, was just too perfect.
Interior was nice, too: full of LOTR themed painting...the nice, "Mist over the Fields of Pellinor" kind, not the geeky "Orc With Armor vs. Elven Warrior Prince" kind.Walking around downtown Guilain, we saw this cool statue of a totally badass painter: that's totally a paintbrush. We took this picture...
And then later, when we came back through Guilain to catch our train to Kunming, we saw another group of tourists posing the exact same shot. I guess it's the Guilain equivalent to doing the cheesy hands-out Titanic pose on the prow of a boat.And we ate the hottest Szechuan Hot Pot you'll ever find. The broth was about two parts broth and one part peppercorns and hot peppers. Ridiculous. Hotter than squid fried rice, hotter than jjuggumi, hotter than bbul dalk (fire chicken) in Korea. Silly.
Matt got a jet of boiling hot, hot oil right down his throat, and I ate a spoonful of peppercorns and spice oil, just for kicks. It was Christmas day.
This cute kid was at that same restaurant when we went there again, on our last day in Guilain.
One day, we took a bus down to a place called Longji. (Some nice, professional photos here and here.) The terraced rice fields there went right to the top of the mountain, and that day was mysterious and misty: one minute, fog would be hiding everything in view, and all we could see was a nice trail; then a wind would kick up, the fog would clear out, and we'd have scenes like these.
This picture was also taken up there.
It was just lovely, kind of tantalizing, the way you never knew when the mist would clear and stop your heart with beauty.This was one of the best meals of our whole trip. We hiked up to a village in the mountain -- a five minute walk from the peak -- and the tour guide led us to this little restaurant...
The lady in the pink apron was burning bamboo chutes in a fire, and above the fire...
They had rice and chicken stuffed inside the baboo chute, roasting over flames. She'd take the chutes and dip them in water regularly, to prevent the chutes from burning up.When we ordered food, they came out like this...
and it was, pretty much, the best chicken I've had in my life. And that's saying something. Stewed in its own juices, with bits of berries and ginger packed inside to deepen the flavor, melt-in-your-mouth tender, all bathed in that bright, lightness that comes in bamboo cooking.Warning: one sh-poop word in this one. (My sister follows this blog with my nephew and nieces, so I gotta give the heads up. Hi, Beckles. Love ya! Hi Matthias, Bethany and Carrie-ann!)
So that was Guilain and Longji. Yangshuo, Dali, Beijing and Vietnam coming soon.
China Triposeyo: Hong Kong and silly stuff
Now, I know that when bloggers post about their trips, a lot of readers just scroll through the pictures, so I'll try to keep the text minimal.
Hong Kong was overwhelming. So much, so high: we only spend four days there, and that was enough, because after living in Seoul, city travel just isn't what a bunch of burnt out teachers are looking for.
So we spend four days before moving on, three in Hong Kong and one quick day-trip to Macau.
The buildings were high. So high: it was like taking two Kangnams and stacking them on top of each other. City busses were two stories, not for local color like in some cities, but just because there was no space, and they had to fit the people somewhere.
These apartment buildings were run-of-the-mill for Hong Kong. In Seoul, they'd be top two percent in height. They had buildings like these all the way up a mountainside.
Christmas decorations.
We also took a bus up to the highest point on the island (Hong Kong's an island) and got some really nice photos.
The harbour was just unreal. Busiest in the world (for number of containers) - according to this page.
The trip to Macau involved some great Portugese food, a beer called Sagres, a fortress, and a casino.
We also climbed a hill to see a fortress, and in a playground, a few high-school students were blowing bubbles off the equipment. It was lovely.
Two highlights of the Hong Kong leg of the trip were the light show across the harbor, and the Sunday morning, special pink dolphin tour. You can learn more about the unique, pink dolphins here, and especially how to help protect their dwindling numbers. They're amazing animals, and meeting them was a wonderful experience, and even the tour guide said they really put on a show for us: we go really close, and saw two unique pods of them, along with two others later in the tour: a really rare turnout. You can watch some video here.
After that, we'd had enough of the city, and needed to get out of town.
HK was overwhelming, and expensive, too, though we had some of the best food of our entire trip during our time there.
Macanese food on the first night, wonderful duck at the night market, and good old British pub food at The Pickled Pelican, as well as the discovery of Tetley's beer, a really nice, drinkable beer that is exactly the same colour as Tetley's tea.
In Macau, we saw the remains of a cathedral, climbed the fortress hill, lost money at a casino, and sang silly versions of Christmas songs (we were there on December the 23rd). A lot of silliness took place during the trip... here's video of some of it... I'm just going to throw it on here without context, and explain parts of it as I go.
Warning: there is some potty mouth in the video. If hearing Roboseyo cuss, or seeing a video with cussing posted by Roboseyo will diminish your opinion of me...don't watch it.
Hong Kong was overwhelming. So much, so high: we only spend four days there, and that was enough, because after living in Seoul, city travel just isn't what a bunch of burnt out teachers are looking for.
So we spend four days before moving on, three in Hong Kong and one quick day-trip to Macau.
The buildings were high. So high: it was like taking two Kangnams and stacking them on top of each other. City busses were two stories, not for local color like in some cities, but just because there was no space, and they had to fit the people somewhere.
These apartment buildings were run-of-the-mill for Hong Kong. In Seoul, they'd be top two percent in height. They had buildings like these all the way up a mountainside.Christmas decorations.
We also took a bus up to the highest point on the island (Hong Kong's an island) and got some really nice photos.
The harbour was just unreal. Busiest in the world (for number of containers) - according to this page.
The trip to Macau involved some great Portugese food, a beer called Sagres, a fortress, and a casino.
We also climbed a hill to see a fortress, and in a playground, a few high-school students were blowing bubbles off the equipment. It was lovely.
Two highlights of the Hong Kong leg of the trip were the light show across the harbor, and the Sunday morning, special pink dolphin tour. You can learn more about the unique, pink dolphins here, and especially how to help protect their dwindling numbers. They're amazing animals, and meeting them was a wonderful experience, and even the tour guide said they really put on a show for us: we go really close, and saw two unique pods of them, along with two others later in the tour: a really rare turnout. You can watch some video here.
After that, we'd had enough of the city, and needed to get out of town.
HK was overwhelming, and expensive, too, though we had some of the best food of our entire trip during our time there.
Macanese food on the first night, wonderful duck at the night market, and good old British pub food at The Pickled Pelican, as well as the discovery of Tetley's beer, a really nice, drinkable beer that is exactly the same colour as Tetley's tea.
In Macau, we saw the remains of a cathedral, climbed the fortress hill, lost money at a casino, and sang silly versions of Christmas songs (we were there on December the 23rd). A lot of silliness took place during the trip... here's video of some of it... I'm just going to throw it on here without context, and explain parts of it as I go.
Warning: there is some potty mouth in the video. If hearing Roboseyo cuss, or seeing a video with cussing posted by Roboseyo will diminish your opinion of me...don't watch it.
A very important Seoul Podcast
Well... if you haven't already, go down to the Golden Klogs Survey and vote for me:
Part one
Click Here to take survey
Part two
Click Here to take survey
I'm nominated in a few categories, and without my readers' support, I'll never manage to squeeze out myballot-box-stuffing, dirty, low-down rivals.
However:
This silly survey is unimportant. So, so, so, so unimportant, trivial, trite, and asinine, next to this:
SeoulPodcast has done an amazing podcast concerning unexplained deaths in the expat community. Three ladies, survivors of expats who died under mysterious circumstances in Korea, discuss the loss of their loved ones, and the difficulties they went through trying to get the full stories of their losses, and the unwillingness of numerous parties to help them get help, answers, justice and, most of all, closure.
As expats living in Korea, we should be mindful of the fact tragedy can strike any of us, at any time, and we have the responsibility both to be prepared for the day our nightmares come true, and also to support these people and their searches for truth.
Go listen to the podcast. Get some tissue ready.
You can visit the homepage Stephannie White, the mother of Mike White, one of the expats who died needlessly, maintains, here, at http://www.mightiemike.com/ and she has a facebook page called a mother is looking for answers about here son. Think about supporting her, by comments, by money transfer (for lawyers fees), by writing an article about it for your local newspaper, magazine, whatever, and by contacting your embassy, your local political representative, or the Korean politician who represents the area where you live.
Go listen.
Part one
Click Here to take survey
Part two
Click Here to take survey
I'm nominated in a few categories, and without my readers' support, I'll never manage to squeeze out my
However:
This silly survey is unimportant. So, so, so, so unimportant, trivial, trite, and asinine, next to this:
SeoulPodcast has done an amazing podcast concerning unexplained deaths in the expat community. Three ladies, survivors of expats who died under mysterious circumstances in Korea, discuss the loss of their loved ones, and the difficulties they went through trying to get the full stories of their losses, and the unwillingness of numerous parties to help them get help, answers, justice and, most of all, closure.
As expats living in Korea, we should be mindful of the fact tragedy can strike any of us, at any time, and we have the responsibility both to be prepared for the day our nightmares come true, and also to support these people and their searches for truth.
Go listen to the podcast. Get some tissue ready.
You can visit the homepage Stephannie White, the mother of Mike White, one of the expats who died needlessly, maintains, here, at http://www.mightiemike.com/ and she has a facebook page called a mother is looking for answers about here son. Think about supporting her, by comments, by money transfer (for lawyers fees), by writing an article about it for your local newspaper, magazine, whatever, and by contacting your embassy, your local political representative, or the Korean politician who represents the area where you live.
Go listen.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Every Expat Living in Korea Eventually Visits Japan
Some move on from Korea and live there; others just visit. Many blog about it, and The Joshing Gnome even spoofed that tendency.
But blog pals Schwim and Foreign/er Joy both went to Japan for Winter holidays recently, and Schwim took some really lovely pictures, while Joy kept a nice, detailed day-by-day account, and loaded it up with explanations, but also put up tons of pictures, for those of us with short attention spans. Go read them.
Update: OK Korea did one too.
Thanks you two. I'll start reporting on my China trip soon: I've finally finished sorting the photos.
But blog pals Schwim and Foreign/er Joy both went to Japan for Winter holidays recently, and Schwim took some really lovely pictures, while Joy kept a nice, detailed day-by-day account, and loaded it up with explanations, but also put up tons of pictures, for those of us with short attention spans. Go read them.
Update: OK Korea did one too.
Thanks you two. I'll start reporting on my China trip soon: I've finally finished sorting the photos.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
How good an actor is Anthony Hopkins?
Playing Adolph Hitler
Playing Richard Nixon
Scary as hell (Hannibal Lecter)
and the real slayer
Playing Richard Nixon
Scary as hell (Hannibal Lecter)
and the real slayer
Just because I love to share... Get Fat in Downtown Seoul
When Brian from Jeollanamdo came to Seoul a while ago, he asked me to give him some tips on where to eat in Downtown Seoul. I created a Google Map of my favorite places, and sent him the URL.
Now, some of my foodie friends might be choked at me for sharing this, instead of revealing it bit by bit, and giving them some morsels and tips before sharing them with everyone... and I'm also hereby surrendering my exclusive "I know a place" power, so that people can find them on their own, rather than having to buy me nice things before I show them another of my finds, but I just posted the link in a comment board at Ask A Korean! anyway, so I may as well put it here, too.
Wanna eat well in Downtown Seoul? Here are the best places I found, after living there for 16 months. As always, I offer no guarantees that ANY of these places are still open... but most of them probably are. And they're all winners. Promise.
Tell your friends. Tell ALL your friends... just give me the assist, and don't pretend you found it on your own, because I ate at a lot of crappy places to find these awesome ones, so you owe me that much. There's more, but this will do for now.
Go forth! Eat well! Brush your teeth after every meal, exercise regularly, and don't blame me for the impending weight gain.
If you really, really like the places I recommended, send me an e-mail and let me know. If you know of a place that deserves to be on the list, send me an e-mail and let me know. If you loved these places so much that you want to buy me something nice anyway, even though I gave my richest treasure away for free, fire me an e-mail and we'll work something out.
-have fun!
Roboseyo
The map:
View Larger Map
The link:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=117290158438041859718.00045d3022a94c182234b&ll=37.577236,126.982899&spn=0.025135,0.040941&t=h&z=15
Now, some of my foodie friends might be choked at me for sharing this, instead of revealing it bit by bit, and giving them some morsels and tips before sharing them with everyone... and I'm also hereby surrendering my exclusive "I know a place" power, so that people can find them on their own, rather than having to buy me nice things before I show them another of my finds, but I just posted the link in a comment board at Ask A Korean! anyway, so I may as well put it here, too.
Wanna eat well in Downtown Seoul? Here are the best places I found, after living there for 16 months. As always, I offer no guarantees that ANY of these places are still open... but most of them probably are. And they're all winners. Promise.
Tell your friends. Tell ALL your friends... just give me the assist, and don't pretend you found it on your own, because I ate at a lot of crappy places to find these awesome ones, so you owe me that much. There's more, but this will do for now.
Go forth! Eat well! Brush your teeth after every meal, exercise regularly, and don't blame me for the impending weight gain.
If you really, really like the places I recommended, send me an e-mail and let me know. If you know of a place that deserves to be on the list, send me an e-mail and let me know. If you loved these places so much that you want to buy me something nice anyway, even though I gave my richest treasure away for free, fire me an e-mail and we'll work something out.
-have fun!
Roboseyo
The map:
View Larger Map
The link:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=117290158438041859718.00045d3022a94c182234b&ll=37.577236,126.982899&spn=0.025135,0.040941&t=h&z=15
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The Golden Klogs are Open for Voting!
Go see the post about the Golden Klog Awards, a survey to look back on the best Korea blogs of 2008, written up at The Hub Of Sparkle.
Roboseyo got nominated in a few categories...if you're a die-hard, you can vote for me, I suppose, and I might win a .jpg of some yellow kimchi (woo hoo), but I'm excited about the huge variety of blogs that got nominated: you can find all kinds of good stuff on there that's worth reading, best of all, a lot of them being blogs that aren't yet very well known, but deserve a larger audience.
Anyway, the full write-up is over here, including links to the survey.
Go forth and vote!
Have a good one.
Rob
Roboseyo got nominated in a few categories...if you're a die-hard, you can vote for me, I suppose, and I might win a .jpg of some yellow kimchi (woo hoo), but I'm excited about the huge variety of blogs that got nominated: you can find all kinds of good stuff on there that's worth reading, best of all, a lot of them being blogs that aren't yet very well known, but deserve a larger audience.
Anyway, the full write-up is over here, including links to the survey.
Go forth and vote!
Have a good one.
Rob
Monday, January 26, 2009
These two guys are always on Korean cable TV...
And I love making fun of them, not quite as much as Mad TV does, though.
They got their acting styles really accurately.
They got their acting styles really accurately.
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