Anyone want to join us, at any point? The more, the merrier. Flights to Europe at that time should run $500-$700.

In other news, we’ve had a few cases of H1N1 in Hong Kong. I think a high school was closed a few days ago. But at this point no one is really worried anymore, right? I certainly wouldn’t like it to ruin my summer holiday. Also, we had the Dragon Boat Festival this week; you can see some pictures on Jessica’s blog.

Anyone want to buy my old fat-form NDS? It has an R4DS chip, so you can download “homebrew” stuff off the internet and play them! I’m trying to get $80 from it, to fund a new NDSi. Obviously, it works fine and there’re no serious or noticeable scratches.

Here are the last of the pics from Korea! Yeah, that took a while. If you think that’s bad, I don’t think I’ve posted all the pics from my Australia trip and that was… well, I think I remember seeing dinosaurs there.

On Day 3 in Korea we went to the DMZ. The whole thing is theme-park-like, as I think the pictures will demonstrate.

We spent the remainder of the day in the fucking awesome COEX Mall. They have a store with just puzzles. I nearly wet myself. And a store with just plastic models. And a store next door to that with just plastic Gundam models. Floor to ceiling. They also have an aquarium, similar to the one in Sydney.

After the mall we went to the hostel we booked in Myeongdong, an area of Seoul that is as hip as our friend Joe advertised. For example, there are about two cafes on every block… I reckon there to be at least eight coffee chains in Seoul. Yes, this is my metric for “hip”. (It also helps that they have a larger-than-life statue of Gandalf the White.)

We spent the fourth day relaxing; we walked to a few temple/palaces nearby. I had a waffly fish filled with cream. Or something. It was tasty, that’s all that’s important. That night, we had dinner with really cool people that we met at the hostel. Sadly, it was American-style decorative sushi or something. Everyone else was sick of Korean food!

Work is going well. Recently I had a couple students for private, interview-prep classes. To get into a good secondary school, you have an interview and, of course, you want to come off seeming competent when they ask you, in your second language, about yourself. (I’ll tell you a secret: the answer to every question about life in Hong Kong is Ocean Park.) So, why am I teaching this? I don’t think I’ve passed an interview in my life! Anyway, in one student’s final class, I taught her what kind of books she likes (”epic novels” and mystery/detective stories), and at the interview the next day, they asked her that very question. Score! I hope they both get accepted into good places. In other work-related news, I made another girl cry, and chalk up one more peepee accident (separate incidents). And, I had a student named Weegus. Fine, a strange name, nothing new here, oh it’s spelled V-E-G-A-S? Ooookay. (This seems to be pretty common actually, there’s a girl with a name that sounds like “Venice” but it’s written Venus? Where do they get off!)

I started using a few nice tools, things I’ve been looking for for years: Rainlendar is a sleek desktop calendar with To-Do and Event lists. I tried keeping a To-Do list on GMail for a while and it didn’t work. Rainlendar solves that problem. Second is a wallpaper-rotator. So you don’t have to feel guilty about collecting hundreds of wallpapers!

I add stuff to my list of movies to see faster than I could possibly see them. Will anyone see the Dragonball: Evolution? It’s been out here for a month already. From what I have seen lately, allow me to recommend Ghost Town (Ricky Gervais!) and Children of Men. The latter is decent, but it has several long-take scenes that are worth catching, if you’re into Action. And I saw There Will Be Blood a few nights ago. Ummm… I don’t have much to say about it. Just put me down as No Preference. Some critic called it the second-best film of all time. LOL WUT!?

Octopus vs. Spanner!:

While I’m on the topic of animals, here’s a local faunitative story for you to enjoy. Look, I made a new word!

I think that Jessica and I will stay in Hong Kong for a while more, even if it means braving the terrible boar menace. But during the summer I want to take two months off. I’ll stay with the ‘rents for a few weeks, and then, who knows?! Anyone have any suggestions on what I could do? Anyone have any summer plans of their own to share?

I will post the remainder of the Korea pics, um… sometime.

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Please don’t share this pics with others. It’s probably illegal for me to post them or something. But, enjoy!

Minitoddlers!

Here are some really old photos of me that I don’t think I’ve ever posted:

Someone gave my aquarium video one star. WTF YouTube?

So I’ve been asked to write an academic recommendation… for a two year-old. What the hell? How do I even do that? My students that age need prep work to say Good Morning.

I’m brushing up on my programming, trying to do some Java. I don’t expect huge results but we’ll see if I can spark something.

I beat the original Castlevania, without save states. It felt good. Zelda II is up next.

I think that the octopus is my new favorite animal:

Can you explain how Darwinian evolution creates behaviors like that? Good luck.

Jess got a sweet new camera. Actually I’m going to go use it, right now!

A video of my aquarium! Can you spot the Indonesian Mimic Octopus? Don’t be disappointed if you can’t. He’s a master of disguise.

We went to a place called Vivaldi Park; the concierge made it sound really nice because there was a water park as well as ski slopes! Well we got there and the place was just starting to open for the day. Seeing as we had never done any sort of skiing before, we had to figure out what to rent, what to wear, how long we were going to be skiing, etc. There was no one to help us, certainly no signs in English. The people at the information desk couldn’t speak English. The prices tables at the ticket counter had no English. Well it took us something like two hours to get prepared.

First we got lunch; there was no English, so we ended up with some style of dumplings. The Burger King and Starbucks didn’t open until later. Then we wandered into a gear shop three or four times until we cowboyed up and bought some hats. It was below freezing, and we had no hats! After this we felt a little more confident and we almost had to beg the information booth ladies to translate some pricing for us. I would say it was about $100 for both of us for gear rental and several hours of skiing. Now we were making progress! We realized we were the only artards wearing jeans and decided that there was probably a good reason for this. We found a place to rent waterproof pants hidden in the back of the gear shop. Success! (One English speaker in the entire theme park would have been useful.) Finally, Jess couldn’t get her calves in the ski boots. I think she must be a Westerner or something. She ended up wearing boots a million sizes too big. Anyway, not my problem.

Finally we hit the slopes! I considered myself a skiing expert since I had read the WikiHow To Ski entry a few weeks beforehand. This is apparent from the smug look I have in the picture above. We started in the Super Beginner area, and that went fine, although we busted ass a few times, of course. Then we moved up to the regular Beginner slope. It was a much bigger jump in difficulty than I had imagined. It was a lot steeper, so I was going fucking fast. At halfway down I realized that I didn’t know how to slow down or stopped so I made myself fall. I was okay though and I got back up! But I shouldn’t have, because I ended up going even faster on my second try. I didn’t have to worry about stopping this time; instead I did a Double Aerial Cartwheel: an advanced technique which ends with a face-first landing in the snow at 30 mph. Seriously I thought I was going to die. My sunglasses as flew across the slope, luckily a nice Korean gentleman fetched them for me. I couldn’t get up for about five minutes, after which I somehow got to the bottom of the slope safely where I decided to never ski again. And that was a wrap. Oh, I also twisted my ankle mildly.

We retired and had Burger King and an awful coffee. Some snowboarders rode the gondola (to the highest peak) with us and made us feel inadequate for not looking awesome. Then we walked to check out Ocean World and the rest of the park. The outdoor parts of Ocean World were closed (I think we should have expected that) and we decided not to visit the indoor pool. Instead I did some hieroglyphics work.

We were bored and had several hours to kill, so we walked around the forest park. There wasn’t a single other soul around because the hiking trails were basically shut down for the winter. It was so surreal. There was a frozen creek and a frozen water wheel. And I got to throw loads of snowballs at Jessica while she tried to take artsy photos.

Towards the evening we took the bus home. I think I mentioned that we were staying at the COEX Intercontinental. Underneath our hotel was the COEX Mall which is huge and super awesome, even for Asian standards. They have an aquarium in the mall. And a store with nothing but jigsaw puzzles. And a store with nothing but Gundam models. We ate at a delicious Chinese/Korean restaurant, I drank Japanese apricot juice. Sooo good. I need to figure out where I can get some of that.

South Korea - Day 2

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On our first night in Seoul, we relaxed for a bit in the hotel. We realized that the hotel was super expensive. The menu had like $10 glasses of orange juice. Jess bought a $5 bottle of water. Good times. However, they had a pillow menu, with about a dozen different kinds of pillows. I slept on a chrysanthemum pillow. It increases blood flow or whisks away evil spirits or some shit. It was all they had left.

Then we went to N Seoul Tower, which is that brand of tower that every trendy city seems to have now. I think they must be made by a single company. When we got there it was snowing! It was magical for us, as we had never gotten to play in snow. Of course I pegged Jessica several times with snowballs. Or tried to. You can see me in mid-toss in one picture.

South Korea - Day 1

The next day we went skiing, but I think I’m going to make these posts bite-size. It seems like that’s all you guys can handle! So check back later this week. (Some of you haven’t commented in months. That makes you lurkers.)

We have some (very) short videos for you to enjoy (very briefly). You might not enjoy them at all, actually. Regardless, I am prepared to guarantee† you that I’ll upload some pictures within a week.

A Gondola Ride:

Decipherment:

Some buns steaming, because it looks cool:

I have a few others but they are literally five seconds long. Just check out my YouTube channel if you insist.

A pipe blew up here the other night and there was no fresh water to seven apartment blocks! But they got it up and running within 24 hours after covering the sidewalks with emergency piping. It’s a bit like the old Windows 3-D pipe screen saver outside. I should take a picture for you.

Oh yeah, did I mention that I got some new fish? They are a lot happier and more active, probably because I didn’t buy them out of a piscicide baggy. I learned so much from those first forty-odd fish I killed. For example, fish get spooked by the translucent marble-y rocks I had before, and it takes at least ten guppies to make a sushi worth eating. I reckon you don’t want to see any more pictures of my aquarium, right…?

One other itam: My friend’s final project for a film class, and I highly recommend it: UNOBTAINIUM.

† Not a guarantee.

We have shitloads of pictures to go through. Look forward to that! In the meantime, here is my sister Melinda (and my nieces) hanging out with the fucking Prime Minister! There’s a reason for it butwhocaresOMGpix

Now I’m going to sort out the new photos. NOT play Guitar Hero.

How was your Christmas?