West/An Tir War 2013

We just got back from the annual war between the Kingdom of the West (most of California) and the Kingdom of An Tir (Oregon and up). While fighting I noticed a remote control helicopter, which I thought was odd at a medieval event, but then someone explained that there was a camera mounted on it, allowing footage to be taken of the fighting without worrying about getting accidentally injured. How cool! They've just posted the footage on YouTube, and I thought some of you might be interested to see. (By the way, you can even catch a glimpse of our green and white striped tent. It appears in the bottom left corner at 2:17 and slides quickly across the bottom of the screen.)

Ouch

Today Haley and I went to the beach with my friend and her son. She and I put on our SPF 45 waterproof sunscreen at home, so it would have lots of time to soak in before we went swimming. When we got there, the weather was lovely -- nice and overcast (though still hot). Because it was a much less popular beach on a weekday, there weren't too many people :) We were there for maybe two hours total. And, like I said, it was overcast for most of that time. Alas, 45 times my natural sun protection is still zero :(

You mean that's not a bird?!

So when we first moved to Korea, I thought they had the noisiest, crappiest power lines on the face of the planet. Then I found out that that terrible, incessant noise was made by insects, not the power lines. We don't have cicadas where I'm from, but they're these big bugs, kind of like giant grasshoppers. They make a whirring, droning noise that is louder the hotter it is. They can also fly, and I've woken up a couple of times in the middle of the night because Hooligan was going nuts trying to get the cicada taunting her from the other side of the window screen.

What I didn't realize is the sheer variety of noises that cicadas make. Most of the noises I've thought were birds have, in fact, been cicadas. Here, listen for yourself to the cicada in this tree (and his friends in neighboring trees...)

Hallelujah!

The principal and owners apparently didn't know that not everybody has airconditioning. After a certain amount of debate, guess what?!

Yup, we have our very own airconditioner! I had to move the TV, and I'm not sure what to do with it now that I can't stuff it in the corner... But anyhow, woohoo! I ran it for 4 hours last night, and cooled the apartment off to 79˚ (and dried the air out too!). It was lovely :) I have no idea how much it costs to run though, so I'm going to save it for when I'm desperate.

Oddly enough, the unit comes in two parts. The upright part in the living room and the big box that lives on the back porch and blows hot air out the screen door.

Beating the heat

Between packing for my business trip to Hong Kong and getting ready for tonight's dinner party, we made time to come down to the river. The water has warmed up a lot in the last week; it was pretty cold right after the big storm, but now the reservoir has been warming in the sun. Haley is finding litter to remove from the river.

Heating Up

Current temperature: 88 F (31 C)

Heat index: 99 F (37 C)

Yuck :p

Marilynn's Visit to Korea (Guest Post)

Shortly after I got to Korea we went up to Seoul for four days.  We were visiting some SCA friends of Meg's at Osan Air Base, so stayed in a hotel they recommended in the bar district just outside the Osan Main Gate.  Here is Meg with a street vendor just outside the main gate:

I was a little unsure about the hotel when I heard it was in "the bar district," but it turned out to be really nice and had a beautiful swimming pool that Meg and I had all to ourselves at ten in the morning:

We stayed there for two days then took the subway 1 1/2 hours north (still in Seoul, which is a huge city of 10 1/2 million) to a chic hotel in the center of Seoul that even had a bidet with seats that would heat up and many options for spraying various parts of one's bottom that I was not quite up to trying:

While in Seoul we went up in the Seoul Tower.  Here is a shot of it as we were climbing up to it and another of Seoul from the observation deck of the tower:

While in Seoul we also visited the Changdeokgung Palace, which dates from 1405.  Here is Meg in the palace and me in front of the main gate:

My favorite part of the visit was back in Busan just hanging out with Meg and Haley, cooking, eating, talking, and poking about their neighborhood:

We visited the Old Market near their apartment.  Here are fresh fish and eels and fresh vegetables for sale in the market:

Busan is a metropolitan city of 2 1/2 million.  Here is a view towards the waterfront taken from the top of Meg and Haley's 25-story apartment building:

But it is also a very green city; especially in Haeundae, Meg and Haley's part of the city, there were many walking paths shaded by trees and decorated with rock gardens and flowers.  Meg and I enjoyed taking the paths just to see where they would lead.  There are also playgrounds and exercise parks on almost every block:

Meg had long wanted to follow the path beside the river behind her apartment complex uphill to the mountain beyond.  Here are some photos from that climb:

Meg and I also walked to Haeundae Beach.  Though it was a blustery day with a storm coming in, I dipped my toes in this side of the Pacific just to be able to say I had and Meg actually got in with her bathing suit: 

 Afterwards, we walked to a traditional Korean spa near the beach.  We were the only Caucasians in the spa.  It was a women-only naked spa and it was clear to the rest of the women that we didn't know the protocol, but they were very welcoming and helpful to us (I think partially because they could see that we were a mother and daughter together.)  One scrubbed down very, very clean in showers before entering the spa area where there were soaking pools from very, very hot to very cool and saunas of varying temperatures.  It was clear that it was a place for female bonding, with all ages from little toddlers to grannies so stooped over they needed to be helped to walk.  Meg loved it and would have stayed the whole four hours allowed if I hadn't tired of it sooner.

On one of my last days, we went with Haley to Shingesae, proclaimed by the Guinness Book of Records to be the largest department store in the world: 

And then we spent an hour at the karaoke studio Haley and her friends like to sing at:

It was altogether a wonderful visit!

Holy crud

So for Haley's birthday, I made brownies (from scratch!) in muffin cups to take to school to share with her class. For her party, she's having 4 girls over. They'll go to a karaoke room right after school, and then come home for pizza and girly stuff. I'm making a veggie tray with spinach onion dip, possibly guacamole, and ordering pizza. Oh yeah, and the cake... Korean cakes taste weird, so I made one for her. From scratch. Oh my goodness... Chocolate sour cream cake, with peanut butter frosting and chocolate ganache. Here it is in our fridge:




Assuming I don't drop it or some other catastrophe, I'll try to take a couple of photos tomorrow with the candle... :)

Anyhow, this cake was a pain in the butt to make, but if it tastes half as good as I think it will*, it's totally worth the effort a couple of times a year :)

* Of course I licked my fingers a couple of times, but I haven't gotten to taste all the components (cake, frosting, ganache) at the same time...

Location:Jwa 3(sam)-dong,Busan,South Korea

If you say so...

Today I went back for my 3 day checkup. I feel a lot better. I'm still snotty and coughing, but my incipient sinus infection is gone. I'm a little sick, but I'm not dragging around feeling exhausted and with that overall achy feeling. So yay for Korean drugs :)

My doctor decided to change my prescription, since I'd responded so well. He said he was removing some medicine and adding some cough medicine.

Growing up, I was a fairly sickly kid. Seems like I caught just about every bug that came around. So I took antibiotics a few times a year for the whole time I was growing up. And every time, the family doctor would lecture me that even if I felt better, I still had to finish all my antibiotics so that I wouldn't create drug resistant germs.

So I asked the Korean doctor if I had been on antibiotics, and if it was ok to stop after only 3 days. After a discussion clarifying the meaning of "antibiotics", he said it was ok to stop. I relayed my childhood doctor's instructions, but he assured me that since my illness had been so slight, I didn't need to take antibiotics anymore**. Ok... If you say so... I just hope my sinus infection doesn't come back resistant to that antibiotic. Meanwhile, I can hear Dr. John protesting in my mind's ear...

I also told him that the medicine packets made me silly, and asked if he could give me something with fewer side effects. He said he'd try, but I got the impression that anything that's effective is going to make me loopy.


** Koreans don't wear seatbelts either, which seems to trigger the same sort of "Uh oh, I'm breaking the rules!" instinct in me. The seatbelts in the back seat of most Korean taxis don't even work, so I usually try to sit up front. If I don't wear a seatbelt, I have a nagging, "something's wrong" feeling, and the last thing I need is added anxiety while I'm watching my driver perform death-defying maneuvers in Korean traffic.

High As A Kite

I've been battling a cold for the last week, but it started turning in to a sinus infection. So... time to go to the doctor. I hadn't been to the doctor yet in Korea, so it was an experience for me. The receptionist spoke no English, and my Korean is very minimal. She asked for my alien ID card and my insurance card. Then she spent a looong time looking up my insurance information on the computer, and asked me to call my work so she could talk to them. Twice. Finally, the doctor came out to tell me (he spoke some English) that my insurance wasn't in the system so they couldn't help me. At that moment, the receptionist found my information**. So I did get to see the doctor. After the most cursory examination I've *ever* had (he stuck a metal popsicle stick in my mouth and asked me to say "Ah" and then asked me a few questions - total time, 5 minutes) he sent me to a back room where I got a shot. At the time I thought it was antibiotics, but my coworkers later told me it was just vitamins. Then I took my prescription to the pharmacy downstairs where the pharmacist (the doctor's brother) prepared my medicines. Holy crap. You know those pill containers older people use to keep track of their daily medication? Korean pharmacists make these little plastic packets for you that are a lot like those. Except I had a packet of pills 3 times a day.

Yes, this is only 3 days worth of medication.***

So when I got home I cooked dinner and took my first dose. After dinner I basically passed out on my bed. The plan had been to do a little grading, but the minute I was horizontal it was lights out. This was not a bad thing; I'd been having trouble sleeping because of my cough, so it was a relief to get a good night's sleep. The next day I took my morning packet and went to work. Hmmm... I feel... funny...

At lunch I took my afternoon packet. My next class was Algebra 2. About halfway through the class, I thought to myself, "Oh yes. I think those drugs have hit my bloodstream. I can feel waves of drugs in my brain. My face tingles. If I close my eyes, I can feel the earth rotating. Yes, I am as high as a kite. And I have to teach Algebra..."

And that has been my introduction to medicine in Korea.



** I was inclined to be cranky about it when I was talking with my Korean coworker the next day, but she explained that she has the same problem with her sons, as they have English names. Apparently, translating English names into Korean is pretty nebulous. So when your name is entered into the system (and it has to be written in Korean) it is up to the person doing the data entry how to sound out your name. Which can be pretty comical, and makes finding your information later a crapshoot.

*** BTW, the total cost for my doctor's visit and prescription? About $8.

My Bed 2

I forgot to post a photo of my other set of bedding! Here's my blue bedding. Hooligan says Hi :)