Day off in the CBD

Mike arguing with a dinosaur at Queensland Museum. 

Watching the CBD skyline on Victoria Bridge. 

Ice skating at King George Square in the CBD. 

Fresh fudge at the Jan Powers Farmers Market in the CBD. 

Albert Street Uniting Church next to King George Square.

I took a day off from paper writing today and we hung out in Brisbane's downtown area, aka the CBD. We checked out the dinosaurs at the Queensland Museum, then got fresh produce and chocolate at the farmers market. Before leaving, we stopped by the Winter Festival at King George Square to get some free chai and watch the ice skaters. That's right -- ice skaters. It was in the 60s today, but if you have a spare $30 you could ice skate in front of the city hall in Brisbane. While it had its charms, I'll take the Chriskindlmarket over Brisbane's winterfest any day.

Three's a crowd

A group of boys take shelter from the rain in our neighborhood. Captured by Mike using his HTC Desire cell phone.

Walkin' in the rain

The rain has been brutal this summer. Nearly every day we wake up and it's cloudy or drizzling. The weather has meant that we've been spending a lot of time cooped up inside and haven't been able to hike in a long time.

Well, today we decided we'd have enough of that. Despite the rain, we climbed up Mount Bugak behind our apartment. It sprinkled for the first quarter of the hike -- then poured for the rest. We still had fun though; it's great having miles and miles of trails basically in our backyard.

Here's a few shots I took in between the showers. The building in the second photo is Samcheonggak -- an old kisaeng (기생) house that now is a traditional restaurant and tea house.

Calm before the storm

Rain clouds over Mount Bugak outside our house.

A sunny afternoon in the park

In what has been the rainiest summer in 100 years, the sun came out long enough yesterday for Mike to play a set at Hongdae's Free Market.

By the way, I took the above photo using Mike's birthday present to me: the very cool Canon G11.

Singin' in the Rain

The weather has been warming up quite a bit this week, which has been nice for the most part (it has been a pretty long and dreary winter here).  But a downside to the warmer weather is the pollution in Seoul has become much more noticeable.  With the cold bite of winter gone the air seems thicker and hazier, and the smells of car exhaust and city dust hang everywhere like an invisible fog.

Fortunately we have the rain.  I've never appreciated rain so much before.  Even a light drizzle makes the air seem clean again, as if it's gone through a quick wash and rinse.  We had a few hours of rain earlier tonight so I open our window to let a little breeze trickle into our apartment.  It's invigorating, and fills the room quickly.  It feels like taking a cool air-shower.  Outside, I hear the buses and taxis splashing across the pavement in waves, clearer than before -- but their smell is gone, swept away into the city's storm drains.  All I can smell now is the crisp, night air after a light rain storm.

It's enough to make me wanna sing.

Spring has arrived

We went to Changgyeong Palace last weekend and a lot of the blossoms were out. While the nights are still cold, the weather is starting to turn for the better. (Though I hear it's been a lot warmer in Chicago than here lately!)

Mike added a new flickr feature to the blog on the left. You can look through photos he recently posted of our life in Korea, including some of us making hanji lanterns in our Korean language class. Hanji is a type of Korean traditional paper made of mulberry bark.

Bump, Set, Kixx!

Nissa and I had a chance to check out Korea's pro volleyball league for the first time this weekend.  We saw a men's match and a women's match -- both of which were pretty damn entertaining.

The above video is from the women's match between GS Kixx and Hyundai Hillstate.  Note the corporate team names, which is standard in Korean professional sports.  Exhibit A: the Kixx' mascot, which is a gas pump.

While the game was great, the highlight for me was the crowd participation.  As you can see, they're led by an energetic conductor and a group of cheerleaders.  Nissa was the first to notice the sound effects that play in sync with each bump, set, and spike by the home team -- "G...S...KIXX!"  The woman who spikes the ball in this clip is Destinee Hooker, an import from the U.S., who dominated whenever she was on the court.  She even had her own theme song (which you can hear) that they played after she made kills like that.  Granted, a few of the other players had theme songs, too, but I thought her's was the best -- "My Destinee, my Destinee..."

We had another first after the game as well.  Yellow sand (황사).  It's the toxic dust that blows in from China every spring and can be hazardous to your health.  We couldn't really see much since it was dark outside -- in daylight, a yellow haze hangs over the city like a fog -- but we took note of what the locals did and covered our faces as we headed for the subway.

장마 Season

It's jangma (monsoon) season here, as you can see from Mike's pictures below. Rainstorms in Chicago did not prepare us at all for the amount of rain we'd see here. The closest Midwest comparison I can think of is snow blizzards.

So far we've been experimenting with different ways to keep dry during the rain storms. Our plastic umbrellas do little to keep off the pounding rain. And wearing shorts and sandals means that your legs are drenched and your feet keep sliding out of your flip-flops. After the first downpour nearly ruined our textbooks, we've taken to keeping everything in a plastic bag inside our backpacks. Still, it's embarrassing to show up for a meeting or class drenched to the bone.

Amazingly the locals seem to keep dry in the rain. No one wears raincoats, and most don't have expensive golf umbrellas or rain boots. My current theory is that the rain just shows up more on my blonde hair than their black hair. But that doesn't explain why Mike gets soaked every time it rains too. Maybe we'll learn their secret before jangma season ends in a couple weeks. In the meantime, we're buying ponchos.

Cats and Dogs

The walk home from school...

Stairs...