During my break time (I have only 2 classes today) I was making an ipod stand so I can have a proper clock at home. A student was standing behind me watching me work so diligently. After I completed my masterpiece he took a little thing off of his Samsung cell phone and gave it to me. It is a tiny Samsung stand that will now become my ipod stand. Thanks student (I think his English name is "Monster")!!

If someone hands you a phone and it's on, the first thing you shouldn't do is hit the hang-up button. I only wish I had thought to teach that little lesson to the nearby English teacher when I handed her the phone with an unknown Korean speaker on it. And I don't have caller i.d.

Church

this is a church

Korea is an interesting country when it comes to religion. There are Buddhist temples everywhere, but they are surrounded by buildings topped with a steeple and a red neon cross. You can see these crosses on any building, some look like churches, some look like office buildings. Some are regular "christian" while others worship an old Korean woman who is the second coming of Christ...or Mary, I forget. Also, if you answer yes to the question "are you Christian?", then you must not be Catholic. Here Catholic and Christian are not the same.


Fundamental Christianity has made its way here with some zeal. Many of these churches want Korea to become the number 1 exporter of missionaries, which is fine by me, since it will get them away from knocking on my door, or coming up to me on the train, or when I am walking along the beach, or shopping for some tinfoil, or walking home from work...

at the train station

All non-Catholic churches have a red cross on them, it is a bit scary.

I just found out one of our students stabbed another student with a pencil sharpener. Here they use box cutters to sharpen their pencils, so it did a bit of damage. His girl went off with this other boy it seems. The other students said she looks like a monster and that she is "garbagee".

Also, two other students have swin...er....H1N1 flu. They all live in a dormitory together, so this may not end well!

The answer

Nobody got it right.

A day at work

I taught 2 classes today, watched USA beat Trinidad & Tobago and watched District 9

Contest time!!

OK, I will try to hold more contests in a weak attempt to gain readers and so I don't think I am wasting my doing this site in such a half-assed manner.

Sorry Koreans, you can't participate in this one!

This is an advertisement I saw last week, can you tell me what product is advertising?


Your prize is a pair of wonderful Obama socks. Don't worry, you will receive an unworn pair!



To enter you need to post in the comments section what the answer is. You also need to leave your name!

baseball, Japan, more baseball and the area

Since my school can't get anything right at the moment, I had all of last week off. I was supposed to start on Tuesday, but instead will start tomorrow (Monday).

On Tuesday I went to another baseball game, this time sitting in the "exciting zone!!!" It is just the bottom few rows along the 1st and 3rd base lines, but it was nice to be so close. The right fielder is from Mexico and after a foul ball ricocheted off the wall near me he tossed me the ball. As per custom here, one is supposed to give the ball to a kid or else the entire stadium will chant "give it to a baby", though they do it in Korean. Since I was sitting in the "exciting zone" there were no kids around (too dangerous) so I had to throw it over a 20ft net to an eager looking kid. Unfortunately my throwing are isn't what it used to be and my toss hit the net and the ball bounced into the bull pen. The crowd wasn't too pleased with my attempt, but after a few others tried and failed to get it over the net, I didn't feel so bad (and the kid did get the ball in the end).


On Wednesday night I got a call from school saying that I had to go to Japan the next morning to get my work visa and then return to Busan that afternoon. I was to take the hydrofoil "Beetle" which takes about 6 hours round trip.

Last time I did the visa run in 2006 it took 2 days to get the visa completed. I told this to my school but they assured me that it would all be done in the afternoon with plenty of time left for me to catch the 3:30 Beetle back to Busan.

As soon as I got to the Embassy in Fukuoka I saw a sign saying that all visas will be ready the following day. I was livid. I am not sure why the school refuses to listen to me (I also told them to hurry up with the visa processing as it takes at least a week, and other very important information that they just ignored) but it is beginning to piss me off.

Now I am in Fukuoka with no hotel, not much money (Korean banks don't give international ATM cards to most foreigners) and only the clothes on my back. I was finally able to find a hotel after wondering around the city sweating and making my clothes stink. After taking a much needed shower I remembered that I didn't bring any deodorant, something that isn't always easy to find in Japan. Now I get to be the stinky foreigner.


Lucky me, with little money in my pocket but needing to get out, I found that the local baseball team was having a discount ticket night that evening. I went and saw the Softbank Hawks play some other team at the Yahoo Dome. Yahoo is much more popular than Google in Japan. The game and fans were great.

everyone had these plastic things to whack together to make annoying sounds

Fukuoka Baseball from Scott Smith on Vimeo.

Oh, and Japan, everyone already thinks you're a bit perverted, handing these (picture below) out to the fans when they entered the stadium doesn't help.

A typical Wednesday night