Randomness

It's been a fun couple of days messing about with our new camera. The first two photos were taken downtown. The third was taken at Sindduk, our new hangout.
Cute little guy (the camera that is).

Sunday

The Daegu hipster scene.


Thanks for the t-shirt guys. It fits like a dream.

Watch your back

Groceries in Korea are cheap. Restaurants are even cheaper. Everyone delivers. And everyone orders in. This demand for fast, direct service has created a master race of delivery scooters.
Laws do not apply to these two-wheeled speed demons. If a traffic light is red, they'll (maybe) yield and fly right through. If traffic is crazy, and it usually is during dinner hours, they pull up onto the sidewalk at mach speed. Mothers and fathers with strollers are no match for these psychos; it's a game of chicken and they always win. They're quite stealthy too. You won't notice them creeping up on you until they speed by, leaving you with nothing but a face full of exhaust and a heart attack.
They come in all different styles and models. This one, for instance, is a moped style bike with the classic milk crates for cargo space. The more successful establishments sport modern 'crotch rocket' style vehicles, with sealable cartons on the back to keep that live squid hot during transport.

Weekend

On Saturday we went to Gyeong-Ju, which is the old capital of Korea. It's known as a tourist city now because of its many temples, tombs and scenic attractions. This weekend was the annual Cherry Blossom Festival.

Visiting temples and cultural sites hasn't been easy because they're all outside of the city and in the mountains, so we have to make a day out of it. After sleeping in and missing the 9:20 train, we took an hour long bus ride north and spent the day wandering.

Personally I was very excited to see the architecture of the ancient temples and buildings. Most of them were originally built around the 5th or 6th centuries and have been restored or rebuilt after the Japanese invasions.


These dudes may just look like museum pieces now, but they're still very important. Several Koreans bowed to them as they passed through the corridor in which they stood.

Hungry?

On the weekend we went to Seomon Market in Daegu. It was an orgy of contamination. It was also quite fascinating, and probably a little more safe than it appeared to us uncultured foreigners.

We bought some fruit and vegetables, but we didn't buy any pig heads, dead birds or bloody octopuses.

Sunday

The sky is yellow.

Apparently every spring heavy dust storms kick up in the deserts of Mongolia and fine, yellow sand slowly makes it's way east, covering the skies of South Korea. This year seems to be exceptionally bad. The dust even made its way into the subway system, resulting in an unusually large amount of paranoid Koreans sporting surgeon's masks.

Saturday

Today we made our long-awaited first family trip to downtown Daegu. It was, in a word, stimulating.

Transport was smooth. A three minute cab ride to Yongsan Station and a 20 minute ride on the subway, with one transfer, took us to Jungangno Station and the heart of downtown.

We first hit up Kyobo Books and bought some reading material (at a fairly decent price considering English books are all imported) and then made our way to the main shopping district. There were probably 10 million people shopping in a six block radius. At least. Maybe more.

Carmen had a successful afternoon. She has the prototypical Asian figure, and every piece of clothing in any store we visited fit her perfectly. I, on the other hand, had a more difficult go of things. I found several shops I liked, but the t-shirts fit like some kind of leotard, and I basically looked like Renton from Trainspotting. We found that in the private, specialty shops there's only one size of every piece of clothing, so if it doesn't fit you're out of luck. But I still got a Mitch Albom book and Keith Richards scarf.

Visually, downtown was everything we'd pictured of an Asian metropolis. Bright lights, huge signs, endless crowds and raw meat. Add deafening hip-hop beats coming from every store and you've got six hours of culture that will last a lifetime. Too much culture at one time can be overwhelming though, so we played it safe and had burgers for lunch.

I sort of wish I was shopping today with Brad Pitt, because he would have garnered less attention than Cate. If we stopped for three seconds, hoards of people would crowd around and gawk, point, touch and take photos. Not an exaggeration. Really. It's hard enough steering a stroller through a tiny clothing store, but when everyone in the store stands in your way taking pictures and trying to hold your baby, it's basically impossible. No-one shops when we enter a shop, they just swarm around our oblivious one year-old daughter. She is a phenomenon. Example: "May I take a picture of your baby. She is just so beautiful, I just can't resist it."

Don't believe me? Here's just a few of her fans:


The pinnacle of my day, a visit to the Adidas Concept Store, was spoiled by Cate stealing all the attention . . . and service of the employees:

These guys call themselves Kimchi F.C. I have to meet them again tomorrow. Same time, same place.
There's the wise English teacher, with Cate, in front of a mass of students on their way home.