Wally Nes’ Blog

We interrupt this blog for a breaking story

Today, it rained in Seoul.

This, in it’s self, is not much to talk about. It rains frequently in Seoul during late summer.

Today’s rain was remarkable because it came with bits of Namsan park floating in it.

Soon after learning of the deluge by sticking my head out the window I went to see what caused this. Going right after that building in the back I found this:

Due to our inability to speak the language we are as of yet uncertain what body of water came down, but this is an exposé showing our brave adventurer unclogging drains to stop the water from coming down and examining the park above our house where the water must have come from.

More news when our Korean neighbour comes back from her trip to the beach and can ask the neighbours what the hell happened

For now, this is Wally signing off
And getting a nice warm blanket to crawl under

For the complete pictures go here.

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Quote of the day:

At least now it’s merely hot, instead of humid hell

- Raphaëlle

In my last post I introduced Orion.

Since then the cone is gone. Stitches too, of course. I could go on and on about him of course. I’m a dog owner now of course, and every bit up to the task of boring you to tears with tales of my dogs as any cat owner/newly-parent would with their new exciting additions to their life.

But I won’t. I see hooks in conversations where I could hook in a tale of Orion, but I just can’t put myself to do that.
It’s just . . . .
Well, let’s be fair. I’m probably 1 month away from doing it.

Met some people last week and the conversation was about the police, alcohol and college days and someone puts in that their cat did EXACTLY the same thing.

Really? This story about your cat includes the police, alcohol and it’s time at community college?
No, just the vomiting that resulted from the over-consumption of alcohol in college/over-consumption of tuna at home. Though in both cases the vomit hit the story-teller’s partner.
And both were kinda funny.
I”m sure Raph will be chiming in next week with our story next time motion sickness and vomiting on partners comes up.

I am not in the mood to tell you of the reactions of Koreans to Orion, obviously a big and fearsome dog to be avoided. Especially by old ladies who do go on to lovingly pet the golden retriever weighing in at 4 times Orion’s weight.

Instead I will tell you about how we got to pick Orion.

As I have mentioned before, picking a dog in Korea is tricky. We had a checklist.

• Shelter dog. Plenty of them around, and there’s moral implications on why you’d want one of those instead of a new puppy. Next to morality we also had other reasons for this: Skipping house training (woot). Also, getting information about litters thrown at a non-breeder is kinda tricky here.
• Medium size. Seriously, I’m 1.95m tall. I think “regular size” people with a teacup Yorkie look silly, it’d be worse with me. Besides, most of those do not fall under the header “Dog” in my book. Due to our lack of a car a large dog would be out of the question, and while our apartment is spacious putting a large dog in there would result in some space issues. So not small (or Korean regular size) and not large.
• One that was a bit active. I run with Orion pretty much twice a day and like that he can keep up. I want to be able to take him up a mountain, something that needs carrying after 1 hour would not really suit me
• Not suffering from any weird attention deficit/abandon anxiety. Soon™, I’ll have a job and be away from home from 8-6? Raph will have to go away on business trips on a weekly schedule. Any dog that would spend that time annoying the crap out of our neighbours and tearing up the apartment would not be suitable for us
• Mutt. Let’s face it, to keep a breed pure they sometimes practice inbreeding. It’s not pretty. Mutts tend to come with less genetic problems.
• Short haired, no-brainer.

We didn’t get to check all check marks on the list. The shelter had only 2 medium sized animals, and a cocker-spaniel? No. So that left him. We liked his character, but as near as can be figured he is a pure-breed Shetland Sheepdog. This makes him simultaneously not a mutt and definitely not a short haired dog.

And this is what has come of it:

And this happens EVERY DAY.

Over the course of the month we’ve had Orion we’ve collected enough dog hair to make 3 sweaters
2 coats
a blanket
or 10 more dogs.

We fear for our computer’s health. It sticks to everything, including my stubble. It’s in our food, our drinks And we have daily shows of tumble-hair.

You’ll find more picture of Orion here. And next blog post will be about some weird ass cultural thing of Korea again.

Small side note:

Typhoon’s are cool

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I have a great dog. She’s half Lab, half pit bull. A good combination. Sure, she might bite off my leg, but she’ll bring it back to me

- Jimi Celeste

So, I’ve been writing for a while. But mostly about things worth mentioning. Well, mostly about things worth mentioning and worthy of the effort to write down.

Unfortunately, my life isn’t filled with just things that are worth mentioning/writing down. There’s also a whole bunch of other stuff. But as this blog isn’t so much about me saying funny shit, getting a book deal and cruising to easy-town, and more about my life so I thought I’d mention some of the less mention-worthy stuff.

There’s Ultimate Frisbee. Now, it’s hard to combine a word like Frisbee, the plastic disc we’ve all chucked around as some part in our life with Ultimate. So to give you an idea of how much I run during these events here are a few videos.
Though I’d like to add I’m nowhere that fit and usually only run that fast during the first 2-3 points. But it’s a nice game and even though we play in the heat of Seoul summer I enjoy it. We play on the shore of the Han, which means we have a nice view while playing.

There’s my Thesis. You know . . .  the thing at the end of my academic career? The thing I’m here to finish? The thing that’ll guarantee me a fantastic job in Europe/America (though is as yet of no help getting me something here). I spend a large part of my waking moments thinking/writing/reading/theorizing about this thing. I’d say it’s quite an important part of my life here. Though . . . not something I can put in a humorous light easily. Or an interesting light for that matter. So . . . mentioning it here. Still working on that. Recently got the final go-ahead so unless I screw up royally I should be done by October.

I’m running a D&D game. OK, this is worthy of mention, but not yet. I am planning to do a bit of writing about it, but at the very least I’ll put a blogpost up about it pretty soon. I started the game with 1 fellow veteran (actually far more veteran than me) and 4 noobs. Of those 4, there are now 2 left. It just wasn’t for them. I actually lost one to Warhammer . After the summer break we’re getting reinforcements though. All people who have played it, though sparsely (And like 15 years ago. And boy have things changed since AD&DII) . This sunday we’re finishing the introduction chapter of the campaign and I can throw my little nooblets to the wolves/demons/beholders/ettercaps/devils. I won’t bore you with their adventures yet, but know that the murdering bastards have been in Jail since the last session. And I think it speaks well for my players that I’ve gotten them to the point where they murder ‘innocents’ so soon.

Raph has a language exchange partner. She teaches her partner French and in turn she gets tutored on Korean. Which is sorely needed as we’re very very lazy on our own studies. I wonder if I can find some Korean silly enough to want to learn Dutch. . . Why not, found a Japanese girl while living in Tokyo that wanted to do that.

We’re looking into getting a dog. This is proving to be tricky. First, dogs in Korea are small. Very small. There’s not really a lot of social acceptance of big dogs. People will cross the street if a golden retriever approaches them, big dogs can’t be transported in the city public transport system and their owners aren’t always treated nicely.
It’s tricky for other reasons as well, first is the language. We’ve been able to identify 2 shelters that handle adoptable dogs. There’s things like cafe.naver.kr/dogpalza(No, that’s no spelling error on my end) but we can’t really identify what we need from that.
The last bit of trickiness comes from the big dog popularity issue . . . We went to visit the shelter and were told there were 3 medium sized dogs. There were 2, the other one really was in a smaller size category. One was a cocker spaniel. Then there was 1 of interest left.
There were 13 small sized dogs in there, of which only some were available for adoption, the rest were there for veterinary procedures. And 2 medium size dogs. 0 big dogs. You’d think that with the problems regarding big dogs some people would try it and then dump the dog somewhere, but there’s just small dogs. We might be able to find something with breeders, but . . . something something principle of the thing something something. Besides, we don’t care one fig if we get a purebred. Mutts tend to have less genetic problems and gentler temperaments anyway.

We’ve got friends. Save 2, all of them are non-Korean(Yes, we have a token black guy. Though he’s really from the Dominican republic making him . . . latino??). All of them. We suck submerging ourselves in the local culture . I can’t even tell the Koreans at ultimate apart(Though in my defence 4 out of the 9 Korean players are Kims). The other two consist of the before mentioned language partner and the other is the partner of/neighbour. We have yet to make friends with a Korean we met through non-waeguk interaction. I’m pretty sure we need to do that some day. Maybe get back to that language course so we can actually talk to them . . . .

Anyway, that combined with all of the other stuff you read in these two blogs should give you all the basics you need to imagine what a day for us is like.

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Bonus Quote of the day:

I pity the fool

- Token Black friend

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Quote of the day:

Nobody reads these anymore.

- Springfield Elementary Blackboard

More pictures of the apartment!

This time during daytime, so you can see light conditions and the view. And an updated floorplan. I don’t have dimensions of windows and specific sizes of doors and stuff (Can’t find tape measure) or the bathroom, but this is pretty close.

Rooms 1 and 2 have east facing windows, so they get the morning light.

Room 2 in the morning light:

Room 1 in the morning light:

The master bedroom has south facing windows, so the morning glare won’t wake us up instantly, but the light isn’t as pretty yet when I took the pictures this morning as it can be. I’ll post more pictures at a later date.

The spaces of our house which aren’t inside the house:

And the grand space which I am still not sure may or may not be ours to use:

Panorama view from the rooftop terrace (click on the thumbnail and click on the loaded picture to enlarge):

Also, to show just how close the forested hill behind the house is:

Took a look at the fusebox btw. We have 3 groups. Each has a 30 amp fuse!

So we moved to South Korea
BIG DEAL.
How much of an impact on your life can it really have?

First of all the Vegetarianism/Veganism.
It’s not a title we claim anymore. Let’s face it, we don’t speak the language and our ordering tactic pretty much consists of looking at the wall

and picking the third one from the left. (Or right, got to mix it up a little every now and again.)

This is how we ended up with the fish head stew*.

It was part of our cultural growth, which we have now passed and will never visit on again.
The term most accurate in describing our dietary disposition now is: I’m-annoyed-by-this-but-will-eat-it-lest-we-starve-itarians.

Charades

We rock at it.
No, seriously. We have absolutely no idea what people around us are saying and vice versa. Fully submerge yourself in a country like that and your charades skills will skyrocket. I have even made charade inquisitions which lasted shorter than had I asked it in a language I’m familiar with.
Then again, it’s taken us maybe 7 hours in total spread out over 3 weeks to figure out how to get garbage bags.

You see, in Seoul, apparently, you are not allowed to put your trash outside in any old plastic bag. Nor in a generic black garbage bag. Even if the translation on the bag is “galbage bage”. No, the garbage bag you use is issued by your local gu’s office (where a gu is a part of the city, so in our case: Songpa-gu) and is clearly marked (we guess) with marking indicating that you can put this outside in your own gu.
These garbage bags, according to the guidebook, are sold by pretty much any local conbini (They have little convenience stores on every corner here, much as in Japan) except that they’re not on the shelves. The generic garbage bags, however, ARE on the shelves. But after two weeks the cleaning lady started delivering back our garbage. This indicated we were running out of time figuring this out as that stuff doesn’t stay fresh for long usually. Try charading garbage bags, I dare you. It wasn’t till one I got my hands on an actual (used) garbage bag that I was able to get my point across and I was sent to  . . . the conbini.

Armed with my used garbage bag (smelling slightly of ashes) I made my way back to the big combini. Yes, she had garbage bags. Under the counter, obviously for her own use. WHERE (어디) DO YOU BUY (wallet tapping) THOSE (point at garbage bag).

-nothing-

She kept grasping the bags desperately going for the good old “My engrish bad” option after a strained silence.
OK, luckily for us there is a guy around here who does speak very passable English (He’s modest about it, but he’s also far superior in English skill than any Korean I’ve accidentally met) who took me by the hand to a different combini and yes . . . . you have to buy your garbage bags here from under the counter. Propped away so the casual shopper won’t see it.
There’s a couple of things which spring to mind being sold from under the counter.
Garbage bags isn’t one of them

Epilogue, noone can really tell me what the things are called, so we have 4 garbage bags now and before we use the last one we will take it to the combini, wave it in the teller’s face and say MORE

Also, it would be nice if we could figure out why the old Korean ladies who take away our trash keep returning our bottles.

Being comfortable around naked Koreans

Ok, this wasn’t really a biggy, a year in Japan prepared us for this quite well. Besides, we’re both blind as a bat. I just do my business in a foggy room filled with slowly moving Korean coloured blobs.
Thing is though . . .

You feel sensitive about certain things. When I came to Korea I had a massive headcold and you know what happens when you have a massive headcold and you take a shower (or eat hot food). Stuff comes out. So you’re sitting there, in the mist, with all these Koreans and you blow like a foghorn. And again. And again. Aaaaaaand you’re starting to feel the eyes of the others on your back as your nosedrippings slowly make their way to the sink and you hope it doesn’t have to pass other people’s feet on the way.

There’s other things though. Both Raph and myself preen certain areas for euhm . . . hygiene purposes.
I’m OK walking into a room with naked Koreans.
I’m OK with them scrubbing each other’s back, and it’s been done to us, perfectly natural.
I’m OK with the genitalia flopping around
I’m OK with the little naked kids running around
I’m OK with the nose blowing
I’m OK with the deep buttcrack towel sawing

Shaving my balls in front of other people?
No, not OK with that.

Living together

We used to spend about 42 hours every two weeks together. We’d long for when we’d see/touch/taste each other again. It was torture (sweet, but torture non the less) to be apart.

Now we’re together pretty much all the time outside of when we go to the communal baths (which are segregated)

We haven’t broken up.
Yet

Spreading Happiness

We do this a lot
At random things we do we make people laugh
Haven’t quite worked out where our comedic talents spring from

But people like us a lot. Or at least, there’s the laughing.

.

P.S. Ik heb m’n blog tweetalig gemaakt voor diegene die dit liever int nederlands lezen. Bovenaan rechts vind je een keuzemenu voor English/Nederlands. Ook onderaan tweetalige posts kan je de opmerking “Deze post is ook te lezen in: Dutch” vinden.

* Picture does not represent the reality of the food we were served.

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Even a fish wouldn’t get into trouble if it kept its mouth shut

- Korean proverb

But before we get into the nitty gritty of Language studies, this is the building in which I am currently residing.

I won’t show you what the inside currently looks like, as it’s 2 desks (one holding up one end of the other) a couch, a futon and some cut up cardboard boxes to act as curtains.
And a smelly fridge. Cardboard boxes also smell actually, held fish before.

It does now have fully functional internet and stuff though. I’m not sure how Korean internet works, but it’s been done just so that if you take out the standard modem and put in a router you don’t have to configure anything. Decent speeds, but youtube really doesn’t like it here.

Anyway

Korean Language.

I don’t know dick about it yet, but then: That’s blogging. Not being an expert in something but telling the internet how it is anyway.

Basics first.

The Korean written language originated as being somewhat of a Chinese offshoot. 漢字　and the like. Back in the mists of time an emperor figured out that while 漢字 are pretty and can be used in a language it isn’t the easiest way to have a langauge.
So he redid the system and came up with Hangul (한글). An alphabet much like our own and far easier for peasants to master. Literacy in Korea under this emperor improved quite drastically.

For the uninitiated eye korean will look as weird as Kanji but it is actually nicely structured. Whereas Chinese every pictogram has a meaning, which can be part of a larger group of pictograms in which the meaning adds to the collective of the pictographs (linguistic borg) every “block” in Korean is more of a syllable consisting of 2-4 letters. So while the untrained western eye sees an equally unintelligible jumble  of lines in 안녕하십니까 as well as 漢字で書くことを勉強した one can dissect the blocks in the first into letters:

안 = ㅇ, silent as first letter or ng elsewhere; ㅏ, a ; ㄴ, n (though exceptions apply) =an
녕 = ㄴ, n , yeo (this is weird, I should use phonetic alphabet for you to understand, but I’ll get to that), ㅇ, ng =nyeong
하 = ha
십= sib (but pronounced sim due to something something grammer rule something something)
니까 = nikka
안녕하십니까 = annyeonghasimnikka = How do you do (or literally: Are you at peace. And as much a rhetorical question as our version is)

漢字= Chinese letters
書く = to write
勉強 = to learn
漢字で書くことを勉強した = kanjidekakukotowobenkyoushita
There’s no link between the lines and pronunciation. There’s a link between lines and meaning, and the meaning is linked to pronunciation.
(Some of you may see I’ve cheated, writing Japanese as I know even less about Chinese than Korean except that it’s fun making beginning  foreign students of the language say 4 = 4, 10 = 10, 14 = 14 , 40 = 40. Don’t understand? Find one and ask.)

Now, I’m no linguist and I’m not actually sure where we got this alphabet from, it’s called the latin alphabet so I’m assuming those buggers had something to do with it. But the form of the letters itself evolved from stuff (Hieroglyphs and the like). The form of he Korean letters were chosen. So there’s a lot of logic in the letters.

ㅗ,ㅓ,ㅏ,ㅣ,ㅜ,ㅡ are vowels
ㅛ,ㅕ,ㅑ,ㅠ are the y-vowels
So you get ㅏ is a and ㅑ is ya. ㅜ is u and ㅠ is yu. Logical right?
There’s something similar with the w-vowels, though those are a bit sketchier.

The problem I’m having so far is with some of the letters.
Specifically ㅓ,ㅡ,ㅈ,ㅐ and ㅔ
Why these are problematic we have to delve into phonetic alphabet.
You see this is the description of the vowels as per linguistic guide in the Lonely Planet (Raph does not agree with this one btw)

Silly thing is, we have all these sounds in my native tongue, I’ve just . . . never seen them as one letter. So I have problems pronouncing theㅓ,ㅡ,ㅐ and ㅔ. Seriously, the last two are just e to me.

Which leaves ㅈ in my list of letters I don’t quite get.
I explained the logic in the vowels but haven’t touched on the consonants yet. They also come with little rows. Most notable for this example is:
ㅅ,ㅆ,ㅈ,ㅉ,ㅊ
s, ss, j, jj, tch
Similar letters, similar pronunciations. So why do I have a problem with ㅈ. Well, because ㅈ will be anything from ㅅto ㅊ whenever it decides to do so.
제 = mine, pronounced je
저기 = over there, pronounced tchagi
지내다 = to pass the time, pronounced shineda

Now, there’s a whole range of other letters not doing just one thing. ㄱ is k or g depending on its mood and will be a ng if it follows a ㄹ. But that’s something that’s written down somewhere. Something they tell you from the get go.
ㅈ just ignores all the damn rules sounding like whatever it damn well pleases.

GOTTA HAVE RULES

(I’ll make a great old man one day, Git offa mah lawn, ya daym kids!)

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Quote of the day:

To alcohol! The cause of – and solution to – all of life’s problems!”

- Homer Simpson