What's the difference between a teacher and a tourist?

Apparently a backpack.

So I spent the weekend in the central South Korean city of Daejong. It was amazingly simple...I just jumped on the bus I normally take to get to the subway...and got off at the last stop. There I was at the bus station. I bought a ticket within half an hour I was southern bound on a bus.

After a 2 hour bus ride and the joys of which included the joys of traffic... I arrived at Daejong...I was waiting for my friend...I walked around a park in the heart of the city. Two things of interest happened. First, a random, old Korean man...turned to me and stared curiously into my eyes. Apparently, in the land of black eyes...blue eyes are something of a novelty. The second is that I was surrounded by a swarm of 10 Korean elementary kids that wanted to practice their English.

I spent the afternoon at the dam...and if I had never seen a dam before in my life I would have been very impressed. But sadly, I grew up watching tv powered by Grand Coulee Dam. So while my British friend was very impressed...too me...the dam seemed...quiant...maybe some it'll be a grow up. After all it is a third as long and half as high !!!

The next morning, we took in some art galleries. One of the artists wasn't so much a painter or a scuptor...but a man that used television as video art. It felt a little like Terry Giliham/surrealesk.

I will attempt unsuccessfully to relate what I saw. It was a video of an older television. The kind with 2 knobs...the one for the normal stations and one for the UHF...it you can stretch you mind back before the days of remote controls...you may be able to just barely remember what I'm talking about. So a hand would come out from beside the screen and turn a knob...and the channel would change. Fair enough...that's what's supposed to happen...but then the hand would turn the knob again and the upside down feet on the screen began to turn upright.

Strange...

The hand came out and smacked the tv again and turned the channel...nothing happened. So the hand pick up the tv and the image on the tv panned up to reveal a pair of legs...the hand dropped the tv and picked it up again...this time the tv showed only the feet.

So I am still kicking myself for not bringing my camera on my vacation...so instead I get to show off the view from my room. I'm on the 8th floor of a 15 floor studio complex. The bottom 2 floors are restaurants and minimarts (this is a no vending machine country!!!! but there is a mini mart every 10 meters...)

PS On doing a little more research for this blog (30 extra seconds on an online dictionary) I found out the Grand Coulee is the biggest concrete structure is North America...and the 5th largest dam in the world. Maybe I should get a little less perspective...like when I I see a big building, I shouldn't compare it to the Boeing plant up in Everett (which just happens to be the largest building in the world...ok ok...maybe I spent 45 seconds looking around the dictionary)