Clock Teacher

The greatest T-shirt ever made!

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mountain-Three-Wolf-T-Shirt/dp/B000NZW3KC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=apparel&qid=1242926093&sr=8-1

Behold it's splendor. To fully appreciate how awesome this T-shirt is, you MUST read the reviews. 

One good thing about swine flu: redirecting cruises to Canada

 So my parents go on a lot of cruises and they are pretty much all good deals.  In this case, after the scare about traveling to Mexico, a lot of cruise ships diverted up to Canada at the last minute.  For the people who had already booked, they offered half price tickets on their next cruise.  Then to fill up the spots they had some great tickets available, so this time my older sister Cindie and I went along too.  7 days from Long Beach to Vancouver and back.  We stopped by in Astoria, Oregon and Victoria, British Columbia.  We were on the Carnival Splendor and I ate a lot of food...a lot. Thankfully they had a gym on board that I used every day I didn't spend walking miles around cities, so that defrayed a little of the eating.  Anyways, here are some of the pics of the ship.

 

 

Here is more info on the ship if you want to see more. The first night I had a vegetarian Indian plate, really.  It was delicious! Here are some pictures of the food. 

 

 

mmmm yummy.  Next stop...Astoria.

Some summer pics of Glendale

Glendale is my hometown.  The name is a combination of two words that mean the same thing: glen and dale(both mean valley). I live in the northern part of Glendale which is mostly single family homes.  I was driving along Kenneth the other day and I noticed the lovely summer flowers that were blooming along the road and had to grab my camera and take some pictures, so here are a few of them. Enjoy:

 

 

Be all that you can be...and then you can be an American.

I thought this was interesting.

Koreans Rush to Enlist in U.S. Army

A one-year Army pilot recruitment program by the U.S. Secretary of Defense that provides a shortcut to a U.S. work permit has attracted a great number of Korean applicants, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The pilot program recruits immigrants who can speak strategically important languages such as Arabic, Korean and Farsi. While normal route to citizenship can take decades, through the pilot program immigrants staying in the U.S. on a temporary residence visa can apply for citizenship within six months.

Of the 8,000 people who applied to the recruiting center in New York since Feb. 23, Koreans made up the largest group. Most had good credit rating and had served in the military in Korea. "The quality of these applicants has been phenomenal," Lt. Col. Peter Badoian, the project officer for the pilot program, told the WSJ, "But we didn't anticipate one immigrant community would respond so strongly."

Out of 22 people who applied to the pilot program in Los Angeles, 20 were Koreans. Badoian said, "The Army continues to process applications from Koreans, but it is unlikely to accept all those who qualify."

englishnews@chosun.com / Jun. 03, 2009 09:59 KST

 

Especially when it is well known we are at war, and still people are jumping to get into the US.

I'm sorry. I haven't forgotten the blog.

Ok, so I know the blog is a little out of date, so its time to fix that.  My favorite theater in the world is the Mann Chinese Theater in Hollywood (or as I once referred to it on college, the Chinese Mann's Theater).  Most people recognize the outside from all the hand and footprints, but inside is truly a work of art, and one of the best screens and sound systems in the world. (see here for more info).  So I went with my niece to go see Wolverine opening night and here are some shots.  The movie was entertaining, though nothing like X2 which was just all sorts of awesome. 

 

 

So there are some shots of the theater.  I remember driving up from San Diego to watch the premier of the new editions of Star Wars as well as Episode 1.  There just is no beating the crowd there on opening night.  When Independence Day came out, they had showings there 24 hours a day for the first week.  I waited 2 hours in line and had a wonderful conversation with a back surgeon in front of us.  I saw the first Harry Potter there and they passed out fake press on scars for everyone.  Star Wars had the Sci-Fi channel, news crews, and of course, plenty of people dressed up.  I have a lot of good memories at that theater, and it was great to go back, I just wish it could have been with Star Trek, because that movie ROCKS!(more on that later).

No, it's not April Fools, the blog is back!

Hey all, so sorry for the lack of activity.  However that will change now, I have my lost limb back in place. I bought a new computer.  Anyways, I know I have a lot to catch up on.  I've been back in the US for a month now. It has been great to see family and friends.  I am starting to really miss Korea though, especially the friends I left there.  So now the blog will shift focus a little, and try to share some of my life in America, especially for my friends living abroad.  But first, I have a lot of catch up to do.

 

Like showing Mike eating a legendary cornfry dog.  Mike was able to visit me for two weeks and we went from Seoul to Busan to Gyeongju and back. So I will have plenty of pics to share.  Oh, and this happened too...

 

So I'll have pictures and stories from my graduation too.  So don't delete those bookmarks yet.  There is still plenty more to come from Clock Teacher.

My final post from Korea

Sorry for lacking in updates, but I have been pretty busy recently.  Mike came to visit for 2 weeks and I will get to posting the pictures soon.  Well, tomorrow I head back to the US.  I am now a master of my domain.  I graduated last Friday.  I hate packing.  I will continue updating this blog when I get back to the US.  I have lots to catch up on in posting and then I get to document life in America for my friends back here in Korea.  Ok, back to packing...farewell for now Korea, I will miss you.

Lunar New Year

I saw this article in the Korea times that does a good job about showing the traditions of Lunar New Year in Korea. Don't worry, there are lots of pretty pictures. While last year I spent the new year in Beijing, this year I will enjoy it in Korea.  If I go out, I'll take some pictures and throw them on Flickr, but it is supposed to be really really cold this weekend.

Kick'n it with the dongseng.

After Linda and Grace got back from Japan we had another day together in Seoul.  We met up with Linda's Korean younger brother.  First off I took them to see the remains of Namdaemun (that burnt down about a year ago) then I took Linda to my eyeglasses store where I introduced her to the best eyeglasses place I know.  I have bought all of my glasses for the last 6 years here.  Linda got an eye exam, lenses(tinted), and frames all for less than 50$. 

       

I was instructed that I need to take a picture of the phenomenon among Korean men where they readily accept the bag holding duty.  Here is another picture of a Korean couple in the wild.  You can clearly see who carries the purse in this relationship.  The point being that it goes far beyond holding the purse in the store.  Anyways, Grace and Linda were very amused by seeing multiple examples of this as we walked around the city.

Next we went to the 63 building (so named for the 63 floors).  It is one of the tallest buildings in Seoul and at the time of its completion was one of the tallest buildings in Asia.  In the basement they have an aquarium, IMAX theater, and up on the top they have an art gallery and observation deck.  More info here. Here are some pictures from the gallery and observation floor.

               

Next we took a Han river cruise which was cold, really really cold.  After that we met up with some more people and headed off to Hongdae for some dok-samgyupsal(think really thick bacon).

       

       

     

Boguensa Temple

Back to the previously scheduled program.  After lunch at Gorilla in the kitchen, we went to the park next door which is dedicated to a guy who has a freeway named after him in L.A.  Grace and Linda recognized him. 

       

Next on to one of my favorite places in Korea.  Boguensa temple in southern Seoul.  This temple is right next to COEX and is the largest temple in Seoul.  Since it was Linda's birthday, I really wanted to take her to this temple.  Actually that was the main place I wanted to take her for the trip and it was worth it.  The place is such a beautiful mix of tradition and modern.

               

Later we went to a Christmas party put on by the guy who runs a website www.koreanclass101.com.  At the party we were split up into random groups so I don't have too many pics of everyone, and yeah, I did randomly end up at a table with three Korean girls.

           

The guy with the funny hat was our host.  The next picture is him showing off his break dancing skills.  Break dancing is very popular in Korea now where they have renamed it B-boy so they can claim it as their own (I'm not joking).  Anyways, it was a fun time.  It was also very ironic that after a very healthy lunch at Gorilla in the Kitchen, we had dinner at a Hoff consisting of fried chicken, sausages, and ramyeon...yummy.

Speaking of dinner, one of the fun things I love to do is cook of course, so I just have to show off some of the food I made for Linda while she was here.