In which one of life's most pressing questions is answered

Anyone who has watched Friends has surely wondered, "Smelly cat, smelly cat, what are they feeding you?" If somehow you don't know what I mean, click here.

I have, however, hit upon the answer to this most pressing of questions: Premium Royal canned catfood. Charlie *LOVES* it. Now, Charlie is a spoiled critter - she's come a long way from the feral kitten scrounging in trash heaps and begging chicken scraps from the local fried chicken joint that she once was. She has decided that canned tuna, canned Whiskas, and even certain Fancy Feast varieties are beneath her oh-so-refined palate. She will eat Whiskas dry food, but no other dry brands, and only if canned food hasn't been forthcoming for at least a day and a half. But Premium Royal? She'll knock the can out of my hand and shove her head right on in. Waiting to be served? Nonsense! Not when there's Premium Royal around. Check it:




This is what kitty crack looks like, apparently.
Unfortunately, Premium Royal might be pleasant for Charlie going in, but it is distinctly unpleasant for me coming out. I live in a pretty small apartment... but I also purchase quality cat litter. Until the arrival of Premium Royal into our lives, litter box smells were not an issue. But now? Ohmygod. I have to febreeze the entire house every time she goes. I can't imagine anything that produces such noxious shit (in the literal sense) could possibly be good for her. I've limited her to one serving a day (leading to numerous recriminating glances), but still! This is probably far more than you wanted to know.

Becoming a Big Purse Lady

In my obsessive planning and preparation for my upcoming job interview, I went to my favorite accessories store to purchase a little black purse. (BTW, they have the photo I gave them on display in their store!) I have far too many purses as it is, although none were either black or professional looking. This was what I got:

Unfortunately, it was only after making my purchase (no worries; it was super-cheap) that it occurred to me that if I wanted to bring along presentable looking copies of the texts that I'd edited, I was going to need something a little bigger. The only way I could transport texts printed on A4 in that little thing would be if I folded them up into little squares. Hardly professional.

During a lull in yesterday's rain, I popped over to Lotte Mart to find something a little more suitable. (All the purses at "my" accessories store are too small.) Now, I've never been one of those women who carry big purses... so this is definitely a first:

Charlie finds it fascinating. I'm guessing it smells a bit like dead cow.

I am not a cook.

I probably shouldn't paraphrase Richard Nixon, as he really was a crook, whereas I most definitely am not a cook. I have perfected spaghetti-from-a-jar and Korean instant curry atop Korean instant rice, and am pretty much content to let my cooking skills remain at this level. Luckily for me, I have friends who are far more into cooking! Coworker J had expressed an interest in learning how to cook Korean food, so G invited us over for an introductory lesson featuring seaweed soup and stuffed tofu.

Seaweed soup (미역국 - unfortunately transliterated as mi-yuck gook, which to the uninitiated sounds rather gross. I promise it's not.) is easy to make (even I could make it, were I suitably motivated), delicious, and healthy. It's a traditional food for pregnant and post-partum women here in Korea, although it's certainly not restricted to them by any means.

Seaweed (미역) is usually sold dehydrated. It doesn't take much to make a lot of soup.


Re-hydrate your seaweed in water... and soak your beef in water as well to remove the blood.


Once your seaweed has rehydrated, wring it out.


Mildly 'stir-fry' your seaweed in some kind of sesame seed oil, just long enough to get all of the seaweed covered in said oil. (Yes, I realize "some kind of sesame seed oil" is vague, but remember, I am not a cook.)


Drain your beef and add it to the seaweed.


Add water and soy sauce.


Add seasoning. Er... Korean bullion equivalent?

At this point, you just boil the soup for a few minutes, and then your soup is finished! Meanwhile, my stuffed tofu section of this post is even more vague.


After browning your tofu on both sides...

...cut a slit in the center of each square. Stuff with stir-fried meat-n-onions mixed with kimchi.


The final product.


Seaweed soup and stuffed tofu... delicious!! :-)

sometimes you just need to run away

I spent a year and a half in the US during 2009-2010. Prior to that, I’d been living overseas since mid-2005. At the end of 2008, when I returned to the US, I had actually thought that I might have reached the point in my life where I’d be content to remain in the US forever – well, except for vacations, of course! However, it didn’t work out anything like I’d planned.

I quite unfortunately got caught up in a perfect storm of terrible people, bad situations, a horrific work environment, and bad decisions, turning that time into the worst period of my life. (I alluded to this a bit in my very first post, and I chronicled a lot of what was happening beginning in September '09 on what was, up until now, my super-secret blog.)

From July-December 2009, I carried my passport with me EVERYWHERE at all times, just in case things got too terrible to take. I actually set off for the airport a few times. I’ve never told anyone that before. I always turned back because I had too many obligations that I couldn’t just abandon at a moment’s notice, obligations which kept me trapped in that hell for far too long.

By early 2010, things had gotten much better. A temporary restraining order (or the small, southern town equivalent thereof – sadly, not kidding) had gotten the terrible people to (mostly) leave me alone, and I had left the horrific work environment. However, there were no other job opportunities in said small, southern town. I had one job interview, but didn’t get the job – the position was later eliminated due to lack of funding, so it didn’t really matter. My house was no longer my home; instead it was a den of nightmares, continually reminding me of the bad decisions I had made, and the horrible things that had happened as a result. I didn’t feel safe there at all. I couldn’t go anywhere – home, school (I took some college courses; what else do you do when you’re unemployed?), my mom’s house, shopping – without constantly looking over my shoulder, for fear of the aforementioned terrible people.

In spring 2010, G emailed me to ask if I would be interested in returning to her school (where I’d taught during 2006-2007), and I jumped on it. I totally fucking ran for the metaphorical hills. However, unlike my abortive trips to the airport during 2009, I had several months to get my affairs in order first: house cleaned and up for sale, power of attorney transferred to my mom for sale of said house, numerous ‘obligations’ taken care of (sorry, don’t want to be too specific) to lessen the load on my mom in my absence.

This was the only time I had ever left the US on the run, as it were. I’d always left the US seeking adventure. Home was always behind me as somewhere comfortable to which I could return if my adventures didn’t pan out as planned or when I simply wanted to return home. By the time I left, I was so stressed out (due mainly to the impending expiration of the temporary restraining order) that I truly did not expect to ever return. You know how, at the beginning of the Lord of the Rings (the books, not the films), Frodo wanders about the Shire, essentially saying goodbye to different streams and valleys and whatnot, because he thinks he's leaving for good? That was me.

Arriving in Korea as a method of escape (as opposed to seeking an adventure) was a different experience all around. I’ve always been fairly anti-social, and have never been into seeking large groups of friends, but I usually attempt to make some friends whenever I move somewhere. I didn’t have too many friends in Korea the last time I was here, although I have a pretty decent – if small – group of friends by the time I left. This time, other than pre-existing friends on the peninsula (G and her family, my friend S in the US military, and my cousin) and my co-workers (John and J), I have pretty much kept to myself. I haven’t even spent much time with them, much less anyone else. For the most part, I’ve wanted it that way.

It literally took the first few months I was here to get out of the habit of constantly looking over my shoulder. It took about six or seven months before I stopped crying myself to sleep at least once a week. Just this month I started feeling like I was finally ‘getting over’ the events of 2009. I’m not sure what the turning point was… but some time recently, I realized that the thought of running into certain terrible people no longer makes me envision hiding or running for the nearest cop. Instead, I just think: Oh, fuck off.

A couple of weeks ago I learned that if I do get the job in Seoul, I’ll have to return to the US in order to apply for my E-7 visa, and I actually feel excited by the idea of returning home for a short while. Time might not have healed all wounds, but it has certainly helped – as does being in an environment where I haven’t had to feel any stress about that whole situation.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve started wishing I’d gotten out more, explored more of the country (well, okay – I’ve explored a good lot of it on previous trips, so I don’t completely feel like I missed out) and at least attempted to meet some new people. I barely even blogged, and I certainly didn’t reach out into the ex-pat in Korea blogosphere like I did back in ’06-’07.

It’s a little late for all that now – I’m leaving in five weeks. It’s still up in the air as to whether I’ll be living in Seoul or Ukraine come September. But I’m back to being me, and whichever location I land, I’m going to get back to living life. No more hiding. (Well, okay, so I'll still have this semi-anonymous blog. I might want to tell certain folks to go fuck off, but that doesn't mean I want them knowing where I am and what I'm doing.)

more prepping

The interview that I’ll be having in Seoul next week is for an English language editing and technical writing position at a computer technology firm. Judging by the English language version of their website, they definitely need me (or if not me, a native English speaker in that role). Their website was obviously translated into English by a non-native speaker, and while the translator did a fairly good job, there are numerous mistakes with articles, helping verbs, and second-vs-third person verbs – as well as the occasional phrase that was obviously produced by an electronic translator. There’s also the Korean habit of using ridiculous run-on sentences (which is apparently a normal thing to do in Korean, but which just seems absurd in English). The company is planning to begin expanding into the English-speaking market… which is why they’re looking into hiring a native English speaker.

I decided that in order to show them what I can do, it would be a good idea to take a section of their website and edit it. I edited one section from their website (which came to twelve pages in Microsoft Word), which I have printed out and saved to my flash drive.

Today, I received an email from the company’s director (one of the people with whom I’ve been corresponding over the past month or so), saying that during the interview they’d like me to look over ‘one or two pages’ of their English text, and to edit or correct them as needed, in order for them to see what I can do. It felt pretty good to be able to write back and say that not only would that not be a problem, but that I had already edited a specific section of their website as an example of the skills I have to offer.

prepping for an interview

I could do an interview for an ESL position blindfolded and standing on my head. Granted, my potential employer might wonder what the hell was wrong with me for being interviewed in such a manner, but I'd totally ace the interview anyway.

I have had quite a few annoying American business interviews over the years where they ask those obnoxious bullshit questions along the lines of "What is your greatest weakness?" and (my favorite), "What would your harshest critic have to say about you?" (I've only been asked that one once, and I answered with a stellar "Ummmm...." and amazingly got that job nonetheless.)

However, I have no idea what to expect from a business interview in Seoul. I guess I'll find out.

Of course, it occurred to me that as they probably don't know what to expect from me, either. NCIS and Criminal Minds are pretty popular in Korea nowadays, so they might expect a tech-savvy American female to be something like this:

They wouldn't be so off the mark... although that's probably not the image I should portray on our first meeting :-)

Of course, given the reputation that native speaking English teachers in Korea, they might be concerned that I'll be more along the lines of this:

My current workplace has a business-casual dress code. Luckily, I did bring one business skirt and blazer with me... Of course, Korean women's fashion tends to look more like this or this than a black power suit. I went on a search for businesswomen's apparel this weekend that might look a tad more Korean, but everything I found was incredibly cutesy, containing at least one of the following: lace, ruffles, poofy sleeves, ribbons, and/or permanently attached tacky brooches. Sorry; just can't do it. Black suit it is:

I'm still debating the Korean thing of wearing nude/tan hose with a black skirt...

My cat can out-fetch your dog any day.

Daegu E-2 visa-holder shindig

[I should warn you: This post is very long and contains a good deal of ranting. Be prepared.]

Earlier this week, my coworkers and I received notice that this Saturday at 9:30am, we - as holders of the E-2, or English teacher, visa - were required by law to attend a meeting: the 2011 Daegu Foreign Language Instructors' Seminar.

My initial response was chagrin. As I've mentioned before, due to my work schedule (2pm-10pm), I don't usually get out of bed until around 11am or so. The idea of being thirty minutes across town by 9:30 on a Saturday morning wasn't particularly appealing to me. Looking over the schedule of events for the three and a half hour event, it really didn't seem like something that would be useful to me at all. The information listed on the schedule included "legal status and duties of E-2 visa holders," "local laws useful to foreign instructors," and "information on living in Daegu" - among others. Y'all know this ain't my first rodeo; this is all information I've known for years. Still, the law is the law, and if all E-2 visa holders were required to attend, then attend I would.

I posted a notice on facebook, and tagged some of my fellow E-2 visa friends (including "John") to notify them, in case their schools hadn't been quite as on-the-ball at spreading the word as my school was. Take a look at the responses. Well, mainly John's response.

Let's quote that again: "However, even more annoying is how indignant some of the foreigners look and act at the simple fact that the government is trying to remind them that this isn't their country - and that we should be mindful of some of their rules."

I agree wholeheartedly with this comment; HOWEVER: the dude sleeps with prostitutes on a regular basis! I am aware that (in general) the Korean police tend to turn a blind eye to the flourishing red light districts, but it is still illegal here. Those of us who know of John's proclivities debated whether or not we should reply with something allong the lines of, "It's amazing how many foreigners are unaware that whoring is illegal in Korea," but in the end we just left it alone.

And now for the event itself. I'll start by addressing the actual presentations.

Following half an hour of registration were three hours of the actual seminar itself. It was held in an auditorium located in the library at Keimyumg University's Daemyeong campus, a fairly decent place for coralling the 850+ E-2 visa holders of Daegu.

The first hour featured cultural demonstrations, and it was by far the best part of the whole event. I was seated near the back of the auditorium (in between John and my coworker, J), and was not in a decent position to take any photographs. Additionally, I hadn't brought my pocket Nikon, and my DSLR doesn't do video. I rarely find myself longing for my pre-DSLR pocket Nikon, but I would have loved to have taken some videos.

The first demonstration was the most kickass taekwondo exhibition I have ever seen live. They were incredible: poomses (품새) choreographed to music and performed to prefection. These were followed by an amazing demonstration of jumping, flipping, kicking, board-breaking, and sparring. I was quite impressed to say the least. It really made me regret not keeping up with taekwondo (I might even still remember the first 품새...) but my knees are gimpy enough as it is without me subjecting them to such torture. Ahh well.

The other cultural demonstrations included traditional Korean dance, a Korean folktale performed in English by a professional storyteller, and some professional opera singers. (They sang four songs, only one of which was opera - from La Traviata. I normally don't dig opera, but that song in particular was simply wonderful.)

The seminar pretty much went down hill after that. The following two hours consisted mainly of people reading PowerPoint slides verbatim. (PowerPoint is great for showing graphs, illustrations, photographs, and bullet points in order to enhance a speech. One of my biggest pet-peeves is when someone puts his or her entire speech onto PowerPoint slides and then reads them to the audience. This isn't a Korean-specific problem by any means; it's a world-wide phenomenon and it drives me batty.)

Some of the information was useful, such as what you need to do regarding your visa status if you are fired or quit, or if you have finished your contract and want to stay in-country and look for a new job. The police officer who spoke was definitely the best presenter - he was witty and to the point, basically listing things foreigners shouldn't do: carry weapons (including kives), do drugs, molest children (!), prostitution (at the mention thereof, I turned to John and pointedly said, "John!" and he at least looked somewhat uncomfortable), commit violent crimes, drink in public, etc. The information from the In Daegu guy would probably have been very useful to Korea-newbies looking to get involved in the ex-pat community, and the information on Korean oriental medicine probably would have been interesting had the presentation been clearer (but I'll return to that later in this post). I was pretty excited to learn about HerbHillz, which is apparently located not too far from where I live.

A lot of the information was completely useless. We sat through a lengthy PowerPoint spiel on the requirements for an E-2 visa and how to get one. Seriously, folks. Everyone in that auditorium already had their E-2 visa; was this really necessary? Additionally, one of the segments in our schedule was "Financial Transactions Guide for Foreigners in Korea." This could have been useful. Instead it was merely a presentation by a representative of KB Bank (one of the sponsors of the event), extolling the virtues of KB Bank and encouraging us all to open accounts with KB today at the tables set up just outside of the auditorium. Yeah.

Dear Foreign Language Education Association, I have some suggestions:

If at all possible, could this event be held once every three months, with attendance required only at the first one held after an E-2 visa holder's arrival in Korea? For those who have been here six months or so, or those whose contracts are nearly over, the useful items from today came a little too late.

Following the super-awesome cultural events (which you should definitely keep!), the rest of the seated-in-an-auditorium event should definitely be shorter. I would suggest limiting presentations to the information from immigration and the police. Following the presentations, teachers could visit information booths for such things as ex-pat organizations, information on oriental medicine, HerbHillz, KB Bank, etc. This would enable teachers to stretch their legs, mingle, and get information about the things which interest them.

And now to what really bugged me: I was completely embarrassed by the behavior of so many of my fellow E-2 visa holders today.

It started with the unprofessionalism of the foreigner who was the emcee of the event, who kicked off the event by making a joke about how good it was that we did without a Friday night of drinking in order to make it to such an early event on a Saturday... or maybe we didn't, hahaha. Seriously? This is how you kick off what was supposed to be a professional seminar? And it totally set the tone, let me tell you.

The emcee then led us in a word-association icebreaker - which resulted in a wide variety of juvenile word associations, mostly involving drugs and alcohol. (The chairmen and women of the Daegu Foreign Language Education Association, plus numerous school owners, and representatives from the police and immigration were present at this event. How exactly does shouting "SOJU!!" as an association with 'teaching' seem like a good idea??) Sadly, one of the phrases used for the word association activity was 'oriental medicine.' This ellicited most of the loudly shouted drug references, plus some jackass in the back of the room screaming "BULLSHIT!" over and over at the top of his lungs. And there was an English speaking representative of the Association of Korean Oriental Medicine sitting in the front row, who was one of the presenters scheduled for the event. (I mentioned this several paragraphs ago. When she gave her presentation, she obviously just skimmed through bits and pieces of a pre-prepared presentation, and looked - and sounded - like she might start crying at any moment. Maybe she was just nervous about public speaking; maybe it wasn't a result of the actions of the foreigners in the crowd earlier in the event. I sincerely hope it wasn't. It might also have had something to do with audience behavior; see the next paragraph.)

Following the obnoxious icebreaker, the cultural demonstrations began. As I mentioned above, they were quite entertaining, and as such, the crowd was pretty well behaved. However, audience behavior turned to shit as soon as the presentations began. I should mention here that when we checked in at the beginning of the event, we had a paper stamped, which we are all required to hand over to our employers as proof of attendance. The paper stamping really should have been done at the end of the event, as I bet you can guess what happened. A good chunk of people simply got up and walked out as soon as the 'entertainment' portion of the event was over. A lot of them walked out while the first speaker was speaking. As the final two hours of the event progressed, more people left. Many, many of those who stayed got up and were walking around the auditorium, chatting with their friends. Many were having really loud conversations.

I didn't want to be there, and I wasn't particularly interested in a lot of the presentations; HOWEVER, I sat in my seat politely, attentively, and respectfully. To walk out, or to walk around and carry on loud personal conversations while people are giving presentations is incredibly rude. I was completely embarrassed, as were John and J. (Yeah, people. Your rude behavior embarrassed John.) The presenters had obviously put a lot of time and effort into the event, and yet so many of my fellow E-2 visa holders completely disrespected them. I felt terrible for the presenters, and embarrassed at being associated by default with the behavior of my compatriots.

I know how I feel when I'm teaching a lesson and my students ignore me and talk to their friends. As every E-2 visa holder is a teacher, I would venture to guess that every one of them has had that exact experience on more than one occasion... and yet they still behaved this way. And at least our students have the excuse of being children.

Comparing Japan and South Korea

[I've spent 31 months in South Korea between 2001 and the present. I've traveled pretty much all over the peninsula at one point or another. In comparison, I've spent a grand total of three days in Japan, and my travels were limited to Fukuoka and Beppu on the island of Kyushu. As such, I realize that this "comparison" can hardly be accurate; however, as several people have asked for a comparison, I've decided to write one, based on my limited observations.]

· The scenery in the countryside between Fukuoka and Beppu looks almost identical to the Korean countryside.

· There is much less Romanization of Japanese signage. Here in Korea, nearly all traffic signs, bus stop signs, and signs in the subways are written in Korean and Latin letters. Often signs are written in Chinese characters as well. Even if a person cannot read hangeul (한글 - the Korean alphabet) it would still be fairly easy for that person to navigate this country, assuming that he/she had a lick or two of sense. There were far fewer Romanized signs in Fukuoka than I am accustomed to in Korea... and there were even fewer in Beppu. Additionally, Japan uses three different writing systems. They used the Chinese characters (which are often used in Korea as well) as well as two different alphabet systems. (I'm simplifying this a lot, as I know next to nothing about this topic.) In Korea, you can almost be guaranteed that whether or not Chinese or Latin characters are present, 한글 definitely will. All you have to do is learn one phoenetic alphabet, and at the very least you can navigate. In Japan, it seemed pretty difficult to predict which set of characters was going to appear when...

· I've been told numerous time that Korean and Japanese have the same grammar. Just from being there three days and knowing only a few words, I was able to pick up on and recognize language patterns that paralleled Korean. In theory, someone who masters on language, should be able to do fairly well in the other just by studying vocabulary.

· Manners (at least during interactions between the average Japanese folks and foreigners) are very, very similar to the interactions between average Koreans and foreigners; however...

· ...there's much less staring at foreigners in Japan than in Korea. Here in Korea I've grown accustomed to people of all ages (although especially children) staring at me. In Japan, I almost felt like people who didn't have a reason to interact with me (such as store clerks, etc) did their best to pretend I didn't exist. I certainly didn't have people shouting 'Hello!' at me or nearly running me over in order to shout, 'I love to speak English!' from their car window (which happened to me this evening).

· There seemed to be more individuality in women's fashion than there is here in Korea. While a lot of the fashions were similar to the stuff that is popular here, I saw a lot of other styles, too.

· No hot red pepper! It's on just about everything one eats in Korea... and yet it was on nothing I encountered in any Japanese restaurants. Additionally, when I ordered my ramen in Fukuoka with the help of my cousin's Japanese friend, both she and the waitress warned me that the kind I'd selected (based on its picture in the menu) was "really hot and spicy" - although while I found it delicious, it wasn't spicy in the least.

· Pachinko all over the damned place.

· More handicapped people. Most seemed to have congenital disorders, as far as I could tell. I know that Korea is not exactly a disability-friendly society (although things have been slowly improving over the ten years that I've been traveling here), and Korean culture has a tendency to keep the disabled out of sight. It could be that there are the same number of disabled people here as there, but that Japan has a more open attitude. I don't know. I was wondering if perhaps the congenital disabilities were a result of the nuclear fallout from WWII, although I'm certainly just speculating out my ass.

· As I wrote yesterday, there seems to be an equally high prevalence of bob-tailed cats in Japan as in Korea (this could, in theory be related to the above point).

Cats of Japan

When my cousin and I arrived at our hostel - Happy Neko, or Happy Cat - in Beppu the first thing we saw were three adorable black, tiny, bob tail kittens. Sadly, I have no photographs of them, as they were a tad feral and skeedaddled as soon as I tried to play with them. I saw a couple of other strays in the area of the Happy Neko - whose owners apparently put out food for the neighborhood strays. They all had either bob tails or 3/4 length tails.

The only other cats I saw during my trip to Japan were in Fukuoka near the Shinto shrine we visited. I did get photos of them - all bob tailed, or with shorter than normal, oddly shaped tails. Here in South Korea, cats with bob tails or bent tails are very common. (The tip of Charlie's tail is bent, although you can't see it in photos. Her father has about a three inch bob tail.) I once had a vet tell me that the prevalence of bob tails in Korea is purely genetic (not due to mistreatment or disease). It would seem that this trait is present at least on the Japanese island of Kyushu as well.

The Japan Adventures, Part 5: Fukuoka Temple Time

Originally, our plan had been to spend Saturday afternoon at the monkey park, and then spend Sunday morning hunting for Shidaka's Utopia - an abandoned amusement park in the Beppu area. Unfortunately, between delays and rain, we had to forego the hunt for Shidaka's Utopia. It was lunchtime by the time we returned to Beppu from monkey mountain, and the weather was still pretty nasty. We decided to return to Fukuoka a little earlier than planned, in hopes that the weather might be better there.

We lucked out. The skies were rather hazy and dreary in Fukuoka, but at least it was dry. We checked in to our hostel, the rather awesome Khaosan Fukuoka, then set out on a tour of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in the Hakata district. I can't tell you much information about these temples (all the available information was in Japanese...) but they were pretty fabulous to look at, explore, and photograph.

Zen Buddhist sand garden

Shinto Shrine - unfortunately it had closed for the day just minutes before we arrived, and this was the closest I could get. See the cat in the tree? :-)

job update

As I wrote a month ago, my job situation for September is somewhat up in the air at the moment. I have an interview in two weeks at a large international company located in the most prestigious part of Seoul. At this point, we've negotiated a starting salary (more than I'd expected when I wrote about this last month), airfare, visa logistics, and a good deal more. Essentially, they've done everything but offer me the job. I'm hoping that they will actually do that (or at least let me know one way or the other) on the day of the interview.

I've been feeling incredibly guilty about the fact that I haven't let the school in Ukraine know that I might not be coming... but I don't want to count my Seoul chickens before they hatch for fear of ending up with neither job come September.

I'm trying not to get too excited about the potential job in Seoul, as I don't want to risk getting let down... but still! When I wrote about the potential job before, I wasn't sure if it was something I wanted to do. Now, while I'm not 100% certain (can one ever be?), I'm definitely 95% sure that it's something I want to try. For one thing it would be something different. I've been one of the 30,000+ Americans here with the US Department of Defense (in 2004, as a civilian). I've been one of the 30,000+ native English speakers here teaching English. It would be nice to be among the smaller group of others for once. Additionally, living and working in the heart of Seoul would be a vastly different experience from living and working in staid east Daegu!

Then there's the fact that I mentioned the other day: I'm (finally) starting to feel like an adult. It's a little scary to realize that I'm in my 30s and have less than $800 in my retirement account.

So. Two weeks. I'll keep you posted.

The Mountain Called Monkey

The Japan Adventures, Part 4: Monkeys!

Sunday morning, we got up incredibly early... only to discover that it was raining. The trouble with a super-short vacation is that you can't put things off until the next day on account of rain. As such, we set off for Beppu Station, where we caught the first bus to the Takasakiyama Monkey Park. [You can take bus AS60 or AS61 from in front of Beppu Station. In the mornings it leaves twice every hour, at 20 after and 54 after; in the afternoons it leaves at 20 after. The first bus of the day leaces at 7:54am.]

We arrived at 'monkey mountain' just as it opened (8:30am), and as such were the first visitors. And yes, it was still raining. Nothing like trying to juggle two cameras, various lenses, and an umbrella. Sigh.

The first thing you see when arriving at monkey mountain is a sign warning you not to touch, tease, chase, or feed the monkeys. It also tells you not to look them in the eye.

Monkey mountain is also home to an active Buddhist temple. While you can't tour the temple itself, you can see the exterior of several temple buildings (covered with climbing monkeys) as well as the occasional monk. Occasionally bells resound throughout the complex, and chanting is heard as well. (While the monks and the monkeys are colocated, the monkeys are cared for by a professional staff, who feed them and tend to any medical needs.)

I was worried that, due to the weather, the monkeys would be hiding in their houses and shelters... I needn't have been concerned. Not only were monkeys everywhere, but wet and bedraggled monkeys are even cuter than dry monkeys. There was so much unbearable monkey cuteness, that I felt like I could stay there forever and never grow tired of it. I took over 500 photos; I'll leave you to enjoy just a handful.