Wally Nes’ Blog

In Korea, the risks part I I told you of Kimchi.

I am pleased to report that should I for some reason be overcome by my revulsion of the stuff, if I can no longer stand it on the breath of everyone I interact with, if the woman I love’s kiss becomes shear terror through the consumption of the stuff there is now a way out.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8530836.stm

South Korea has opened what officials say is the world’s first purpose-built prison for foreign convicts.

The prison offers Western food and satellite TV programmes in English, Chinese, Russian and Arabic.
The number of foreigners in South Korean jails has more than doubled in the past four years to about 1,500.

The prison’s director said the inmates would still be able to pursue the “Korean dream” that had led them to the country in the first place.

The prison is about 100km (62 miles) south of the capital, Seoul, in Cheonan.
Inmates are given classes in Korean culture but can also view satellite TV from around the world and eat non-Korean meals.

Sweet, sweet release will never be outside of my reach.

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Row! You incomprehensible, horizontal-eyed, Western trouser-wearers! Eurgh! You all look the same to me! How I despise your lack of subtlety and your joined-up writing! You, who have never committed ritual suicide in your lives! SILENCE! Unceremonious rice-pudding eaters! How I abominate your milk-drinking and your lack of ancestor-worship and your failure to eat your lunch out of little boxes!

- Tsutomu Sekine

When I went to Kenya I was urged by several people within my field of friends and family to reconsider. Kenya was a most dangerous place indeed. I would certainly get mugged, raped, eaten and converted to some heathen religion (not in that order). I expect the same people would be mortified with my move to South Korea.
Not because of the mugging or raping, most people will realize a 1.95m tall white guy in a country of 1.65m short asians isn’t prime target for that. No, it’s the neighbours. South Korea is next to North Korea and they’ve been huffing, and puffing and mostly just blowing steam for well . . . 5 decades now? They make the front page a couple of times of several newspapers every month with nuclear something, firing somethingother, launching whatchamecallits and mostly aggressive other stuff. I’m basically not worried about it much. Partly because of how the western media portraits the North Koreans and partly because nothing military is going to happen anytime soon. America is still very on their toes regarding the state of this peninsula, Japan isn’t NK friendly and China recently basically told them they didn’t have their back unconditionally.

So, what will I worry about.

THE FOOD.

Korea’s most notable contribution to world cuisine is Kimchi. Health Magazine has named it one of the world’s most healthy foods because it is loaded with vitamins A, B, and C, but its biggest benefit may be in its “healthy bacteria” called lactobacilli, found in fermented foods like kimchi and yogurt. This good bacteria helps with digestion, plus it seems to help stop and even prevent yeast infections. Best news of all though: Some studies show fermented cabbage has compounds that may prevent the growth of cancer.
Now, call me a skeptic, but I like to review my sources. Currently, I fill my days checking sources and whatever for my final thesis so the first thing I did was try and track down some of these sources.
Thin. Very thin.

What I did find was this: Kimchi and soybean pastes are risk factors of gastric cancer, by Hong-Mei Nan et.al.

Hell, if you google Kimchi cancer you will get a lot of links to either side of the arguement. Some of them indicate it being the cabbage that is responsible to the anti-cancer properties, others the pickling. And then others indicate the pickling is directly related to gastric cancer.
All in all it’s a hotly debated topic it seems and whichever side of the arguement I believe it’s not likely to affect me for years of regular use anyway.

But, here’s my stance on Kimchi.
To introduce and conclude: Kimchi, is a pickled dish made of cabbage, some other vegetables and various seasonings.

It’s pickled cabbage.

PICKLED CABBAGE.

I like neither pickled foods nor cabbage. Case closed. It could give me superpowers and I’ll politely pick at it during official functions and ignore the hell out of it during the rest of my stay there. But considering it’s served with every bloody meal and aelle seems to actually like it (I knew I should’ve questioned her tastes when she fell for me) I’m sure I’ll have enough exposure to it and so: Worry about it, I shall.

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Being a parent is wanting to hug and strangle your kid at the same time

- Bill Watterson

I started this blog some time ago when I was prepping to go to Japan. Covering some of the things I had to go through to get there, some cultural oddities and the like. Then, in Japan, I continued covering what was happening, to me, to others, to Japanese society covering more cultural oddities, TV weirdness, cultural conversions and you continued to read.

Now I’ve been back in Europe for over a year and a half and this just hasn’t been too much fun to read. Let’s face it, posts like this, this and this just haven’t been as funny as this, as amusing a read as this and as interesting a read as this. And I haven’t said much at all about Japanese Cultural stuff in a long while.

Well . . . that’s about to change(Well, not the Japanese bit, but KOREA!). With all my coursework handed in(though not passed yet, who knows what headaches that will bring yet) I can now focus on my final thesis. And my final thesis will include moving to South Korea. So I can now seriously start prepping for it. Starting to read up on what life is like there at different places in the blogosphere (I read scientific papers full-time now, I’m not going to actually read something like that about the South Korea sociological-somethingorother, dear lord, are you kidding?) and getting my first glimps of Cultural oddities.

It’s odd that because Korea actually is a lot like Japan in a lot of aspects not everything strikes me as odd as it would some of my readers.

BUT

Let me start you off with . . . .

Dun

Dun

DUUUUUUUUUUUUN

FAN OF  DEATH

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“Pffft, English. Who needs that? I’m never going to England.”

- Homer Simpson

I’m back in Biarritz with the grandparents of Raphaelle.

I find myself remembering the last time I was here quite vividly. As a matter of fact it seems mere weeks ago that I was here.
How is that possible, it has been over 3 months since I last set foot here.

Thinking about it I can think of a couple of things that have happened since I last came here. I got my BSc, I went to Vienna . . .  but most of all I have been at school. Lots of school. Apart from a couple of sections of day where the network of school was out and some weekends absolutely necessary to maintain sanity I have been at school every day for that last 3 months and more. Not just limited to weekdays either. I have spent a fair number of Saturdays and Sundays there aswell. It started as regular 9 – 5 work but has since then grown into 8:30 to often past 19:00. And it is starting to frighten me. I am not done with schoolwork yet and have months to go yet on my thesis even after my final assignments have been handed in. I am feeling the strain and I can see where the cracks are appearing.

I have mentioned the weekends absolutely necessary to maintain sanity. They have been filled with anything to take my mind of the unfinished workload I have sitting at school. No watching TV, because it leaves too much time to think. I engage 2 or 3 different forms of entertainment simultaneously in order to relax. A book will have to be very well written indeed not to let my mind wander to my work these days. What I want to do is come home and switch off my brain to coast, but I need to keep myself busy in order not to regress to my MATLAB code. And despite all of that I find myself doing lit research more often after 21:00 than I care to admit.

A lot has happened in since I last was here, but I can’t feel it. It’s been one long haul, and while I have tried to relax I have to conclude I can’t. I need to finish this, need to finish school. I need to get this over and done with so I can dial back the pace of my life. After school there’s a career, which is obviously not the best time to dial back. What the hell am I supposed to do about this crap? Screwed if I do, screwed if I don’t.

Besides the Vienna thing and closing off the BSc another thing has happened in these last few months. I seem to have lost a good friend. Though I don’t know why, he hasn’t told me. One day he didn’t come to my birthday and I haven’t heard from him since. I think that was significant. I need more social interaction than I am getting, and Raph can’t fill that hole due to the whole Long-Distance thing. I am trying to hold on to my other dear friend, but I am not giving myself the time to do it properly. I will need to change before I tear myself apart.

But for now I will try to truly relax. I have tried this before so I have my doubts about it working, but I will try. So far I am too obsessed with trying to get the verification for my new version of MATLAB done though. For some reason it won’t verify which means I can’t do my work here. And I definitely can’t voluntarily not do the work if it isn’t even possible to do the work if I wanted to. That doesn’t mean I’m relaxing, that means I’m forced to do nothing. Which is something completely different.

Now I know it’s been a long time since I was here because last time I was here I got a sunburn while surfing. A notable difference with the frozen wasteland I just behind. Clear indicator of time past. It is, however, not the only indicator. People are celebrating Christmas all around me, indeed I have my first gifts in my possession already. But I can’t help but not feel the actual Christmas spirit. I am stuck in Emotional October. It can’t nearly be December yet. When I pulled out of my studies long enough to take stock last week I found it was already far too late to plan anything efficiently. Thanks to my girlfriend I am here though, someone around me is rooted in the correct time-frame that can steer me a little bit.

Hell, it is now even possible to see my mental pre-occupation now. Due to 6 days of not getting around to shaving I now sport a beard. I could just shave it, but that requires time and I’m not prepared to use time for that.

Now, it is not to say that I am here wholly lost and overworked. I would not be myself if I couldn’t draw back from my current predicament to know I am in a pretty good state. School is drawing to an end, I have the love of a beautiful woman and I’m not nuts/sick/schizophrenic/etc.

But right now I’m just so tired. And I can’t go to sleep till I say so.

So while I don’t really fully comprehend what is happening around me I will leave you with a “Merry Christmas”/”Happy Chanukah”/”Happy Solstice”/”Happy Isaac Newton Day”/”God Jul”/”Happy Holidays” and an alcohol soaked new year to you all.

Wally

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Quote of the day:

Too fucking busy, and vice versa

- Dorothy Parker

SNOW

LOTSA SNOW

Oh man, it’s gorgeous outside. Absolutely breathtaking.
Sure, it’s cold. And with the wind the way it tends to be it’s worse than that, fucking freezing comes to mind. But in the right light it’s breathtaking.

And lets face it, what is more fun than snow. I felt like a little schoolboy outside today. And I know that doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that I was going to school. It all has to do with what I saw and what I felt.

It started fairly tame yesterday with only the white view . . .

Today was worse though . . . snow flying about quite vigorously withe impressive wind speeds

snow was coming into my arboretum aswell


Now, considering that has a roof over it I knew outside would be worse


You can even see the snowsweeps on the ice

Not easily deterred it was ON TO SCHOOL
You can tell the snow was having fun by the way it strove to represent a racewheel

and when it stopped trying

School was suffering equal onslaught though



and getting through the untouched snow of the last few meters where noone in their right mind would be (though there were at least 4 other people at school later in the afternoon)

Now follows a slower part of my day. It included noodles, 6 cups of hot cocoa (and a trip to the bathroom to pee)- and can I just say “Thank you for the free cocoa machines” to my school- and 5-6 hours of crunching numbers. So I won’t bore you with that. I certainly didn’t photograph any of it.

On the way back I picked a time with no snow falling to head back. And karma rewarded me with a grand total of 10 snow-free seconds before starting the rain, hail and after 30-or-so seconds: Snow.

The trip back also had me pausing for pictures:

and after a bit more snow tried to force itself through my derailleur

You can see the poor thing being detached. I had to lug the thing back the rest of the way


my own snowangel (though not very visible)


And finally

Eventhough I had nothing to do with that one.

For more pictures go here

Bonus picture:

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Quote of the day:

Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the lottory

- Bill Watterson