GRAB SOME BUDS!!!

Went out for Fish & Chips the other night with work colleagues and had a blast.

Gentlemen there's nothing special about tonight.

Tonight's underrated.

Tonight is free of expectations.

Tonight you can't be disappointed.

It's just another night.

That's why tonight could be the greatest night of your life.

Bravo on good radio ads AB.  

I certainly miss them.  Thank goodness for somebody putting them on YouTube.

Chuckwagon Parking Lot Memories

This week there has been a wood sculpture vendor on the main road that it reminds me of the guys that sell this type of stuff all the time out of their trailers in the abandoned parking lot.

Signage

On my walk around I gathered more photos of the cool signage that is around Suncheon-si.

I definitely can attest to the beautiful nature and people that I've met and interchanged with certainly live up to the friendly standard presented in this sign.

A bumper sticker for the Garden Expo next year.  

The Exercise Trail

Just some examples of some of the exercise equipment that's on my running trail.

They're stationed about every half kilometer on the running trail and there are several stations per stop.  

This one is great for stretching hip flexors.

Situp station in the foreground and an arm/rotator cuff stretch in the background.  It reminds me of a pirate wheel every time I use it.

A pull up station.

Also on the trail there are tons of different flowers, trees, shrubs, etc planted and to my pleasure I noticed the other morning they were all labeled.  The best part is they're in fact labeled in Korean (duh!) but they're also labeled using their given technical Latin scientific names.

A Walk Around

On Sunday I took a beautiful walk around this quaint town that I am now temporarily calling home.  It's an odd layout of the town in that there are almost three sections of the town that are quite spread out.  This makes taxi, bus or bike the preferred method in order to get from one side to the other, but with an entire day I decided to take a walk.  I enjoyed the heck out of it.  Here are some of the pictures.

After drooling over this beautiful natural beauty that is almost in the middle of this intersection I noticed a man in the middle of the intersection bowing to all of the passing cars.  It was great to stand there and watch.  I didn't understand it, but I enjoyed it.

Then there is the river that divides the town from the newer part of town that I reside in from the older neighborhood and older downtown.

There's a running trail (not the one I use) that runs alongside the river fully equipped with exercise equipment (like the one I use) and also from what it looks like large padded areas for perhaps yoga or tai chi.  The cool thing I also noticed about the running trail is it is marked with different colors for directions and arrows.  Very ingenious.

When I got into old town there were several street murals that I saw that I loved.  Unfortunately a good number of them had been vandalized with red paint making it seem as though all the individuals that were painted had bleeding eyes.

Here are some of the murals minus the bleeding eye individuals.

This one is actually mosaic tile.  You can see some of the red paint in the middle of the star unfortunately.

These were painted on the side of a school down a back alley.

This was on a long low wall that edged a park.

This was the awesome part of this mural.  Talk about recycling.  The silhouettes are created solely using beer caps.

Last on my walk around I saw this very awesome house.  It looks like it might be abandoned, but I loved the fact that it had so much dedicated garden space around it.  I also like the design, the second story and the roof.

Long Awaited Updates, Waffle Lady Language Immersion 101 and the Potato Tornado

Sorry I've been absent from here this week.  Been thinking, running, working, and drawing.  Also been talking to a lot of people back home in Texas and Oklahoma.  Love everyone back home.  To the reoccurring question: Mexican food and barbecue.  :-)

I've been trying to learn and use more Korean phrases.  This week I worked on "This is delicious", "Potato", "Good-Bye" and "I really like it."  Most of these apply to food, but they've been perfect because I test them out with my Waffle Lady.

She makes more than waffles though.  I've been trying this potato on a stick snack that the kids call a "potato tornado".  It's a spiral potato that's fried and then dipped in a salty cheese powder.  It is absolutely delicious.  It reminds me of the snacks that we used to get at Czhilispiel.

Road Runner & Wile E. Coyote cartoon collection - Zoom at the Top

We watched this one after the Penguins of Madagascar and they couldn't stop laughing. There are also no words. Interesting.

The Penguins of Madagascar Our Man in Grrfurjiclestan

I watched this after my kids' tests yesterday and I was the only one laughing. :-( Lots of innuendo humor that wasn't just straight interpretation. I enjoyed it though, even if they unfortunately did not.

Keep Poking Me with That and You'll Walk Funny

So I assume because of the holiday my waffle lady was taking an extended break.  I applaud her.  I revisited my street food stand that was closer to my bank on the way to work Wednesday and the man wasn't the one in the actual cart doing the cooking this time, it was his wife and he was doing the prep work on the side.  She was working diligently and was waiting on the waffles that were in the iron to be fresh for me.  I appreciated it, but I couldn't communicate that I wasn't in any hurry.  I was enjoying watching the man work.  He'd look at me then he'd turn and poke his wife in the leg with his rolling pin and motion for her to fix me a waffle.  I'd smile and motion that it was ok.  Then he'd turn and poke her again as she'd go back to more of her cooking.  She hauled off and started ranting at him as he went to poke her again with the rolling pin.  Haha.  I thought I had a hard time ordering food, how was I potentially going to explain this woman beating this man within an inch of his life if he made the mistake of poking him again.  I was all smiles and laughter whenever I left the cart.

Boots in Korea

Yes we are actually back to being a more authentic title for the blog, boots in Korea.  :-)  I had talked earlier in the blog I believe about the heel on my Christmas present boots popping off. :-(  Real bummer so I was sporting my Chuck Taylor's for a while.  I asked my boss at work where a cobbler or shoe repair store is and he told me they're everywhere.  Great, well just suppose I don't know everywhere and point one out to me.  Turns out when he said everywhere he kind of meant it, but you can't look for a storefront like a person might be used to.  They appear to be almost double-wide telephone booth with aluminum curtains and I thought at first it might be just a shoe shine stand, but they do all shoe repair here.  The nice Korean lady that works there had the goofiest smile on her face when I entered her stand carrying a pair of cowboy boots.  I showed her the rubber pad that had fallen off and she picked up a new pad and motioned that she'd be using a new one.  Then she motioned to the other boot in my hand, implying that she obviously wanted to repair both.  I handed it over and she held up 1 finger and did a swirl around her watch face.  Haha.  I smiled and told her thank you and went for a cup of hot chocolate and some reading and prep at a local coffee shop.  When I returned in an hour I was absolutely thrilled at what waited for me.  They were beautifully polished and the heels looked gorgeous, although they were a little taller than I'd like (I've noticed there are numerous Korean products to add inches *to your height*).  :-)  13 bucks and we were all done.  I was so happy to have my boots back and I will definitely be visiting her stall again.