broken camera

yesterday i broke my camera!

not seriously (i hope) but the little catch that keeps the battery in pinged off into oblivion and now it can't be used.  even for uploading the photos onto the computer.

we think (again, hope) it should be pretty easy for someone to fix.  and we have some pretty good birthday weekend photos and another kindy field trip so hopefully it'll get sorted soon.

but we're good!  haven't done anything too exciting lately.  but maybe we'll post a photo-free blog sometime.

haircut

Today was Children's Day in Korea, so we had no school.  Instead I tried my luck at getting a hair cut in another language.  It was pretty weird.  I had approximately 7 seconds to pick a photo out of a magazine they gave me, and my first choice was vetoed by my rather sullen hair dresser.  I ended up with this.

It's not too bad, especially after I got home a re-styled it (original styling involved the longest layer being flicked out at close to 90degrees).  Pretty good price too, $20 000 won.

Long weekend

Being a long weekend, there was lots of activity in Seoul. We went to Gyeongbok Palace, where the King and Queen used to live before Japan invaded, with Nick and his parents who had been in Korea for the past 10 or so days. They had a reenactment of the coronation which was packed out, which didn't bother me because I was around a foot taller than everyone anyways, so I just gave shoulder rides to those who needed them.  It was a pretty hot day walking around the palace, which was massive.

I found my long lost Japanese sister on the streets of Hongdae. At first I think she thought I was trying to mug her or something, but as soon as you show an asian a camera, they know what to do.

These kids on the subway made friends with us, because the little boy's english was spectacular. Much better than that of anyone else we had met in Korea, and he was 10.

Here's part of the palace, beside a pond. We just somehow, by accident became part of a tour group we didn't pay for and Nick impressed our tour guide by answering questions often and sometimes even being right.

GUNS

After all that worry about getting beaten by Tibetan monks we naturally went and inquired about getting some home defense. This came in the form of a .357 Magnum. It was a very strange feeling firing a gun, almost impossible to describe, but certainly gets the heart pumping.

Not quite as impressive as the hide of a bear or narcotics dealer, but not bad. 83% success rate, and who ever said Die Hard Trilogy on Playstation never helped anyone in real life. If I am ever in Nakatomi Plaza I firstly will not be in barefoot, and secondly have around an 83% chance of exploding an East-German terrorist skull. I like those odds. 

Oh yeah look at that grouping of shots, happy trails Hans.

Penny went for the slightly more sophisticated Glock17, preference of the Euroterrorist, or at least Die Hard tells us so. If it ever came down to a duel our accuracy unfortunately is both exactly the same, although I'm not sure if the Glock has the power to take me. 

However, Penny does has the distinct advantage of being able to DUEL WIELD. 

These photos are taken off the tvnz website under heading: Gang violence in Hamilton South reaches all time high.

Rioting.. finally!!

NEW ZEALAND ROCKS!!
Here are some rocks from New Zealand, mainly graywacke, but a little of pumice and some ponamu. They were bought to Korea for the Olympics in 1988, and were put in this little area of other countries rocks. They are at the olympic stadium, where we went on Sunday, because being out of Dunedin for such a long time, we needed to get our riot fix.

The New Zealand flag actually has a mechanism in it, that works in reverse to the American flag on the moon and causes it never to wave, while all the other flags wave about. It just shows how humble New Zealanders are I guess, or something about kiwi ingenuity maybe, whatever the case our flag sure dominated the Australian flag, in some cruel mistake by the Korean government, or perhaps on Australian himself raised the Cook Island flag in its place.  This is all for the '88 games.

Here's some rude Korean lady who was just flipping the bird furiously at passers-by. It just happens everyday.

At Seoul national park. Good day for a pro China rally. 

They were so happy to have foreigners support China that they give you flags, in exchange for all of your information, so if you ever speak harm of China they can hunt you down and make you return the flags I suppose. After we got these babies (flags) we were like celebrities, everyone was getting photos with us and talking about how great China is. 

The Olympic gate, where the eternal flame burns, is where the torch relay started in Seoul. Wasn't too much violence going on here, and if there was, I think we chose the right side, numbers wise at least, to be on.

The guy with the torch. Probably some one famous. Maybe Helen Clarke. 

Bear Farm?..

On Thursday we had our kindy field trip - we have one once a month. April's trip was to a bear farm. We were originally concerned as to what exactly we'd be seeing there, but it turned out to be pretty much just a big playground.

This was probably the coolest part, a sled ride down the side of a hill. The kids loved it, and so did Cam. He wasn't very good, though, one of my kindy kids Brian is totally outstripping him.




There were 3 bears at this bear farm. They were in a pretty small concrete enclosure, probably about the size of our apartment but a lot deeper. Though I doubt the depth helped them much because there wasn't really anything for them to climb. We stood over them and threw biscuits to them.

Apparently the biscuits were fit for human consumption too, or at least the kids in Cam's class thought so.


This is my kindy class and my Korean partner Chris. I take one half of the class and she takes the second half. This outfit they're wearing is their SLP tracksuit and they look so amazing in it.

They also have a school uniform they wear sometimes, and on other days they all dress in mufti. I have no idea how they know which day is which because there doesn't seem to be a pattern but my class are always dressed the same.


One of the toys was a giant ball pit with slides and stuff coming into it. This is Cam, again being dominated by a student. His own this time, Julia. She seems pretty sweet, she spent most of the bus ride challenging Cam to Gawi Bawi Bo (Rock Paper Scissors).

Almost blossoms

On Sunday we went to some park somewhere to look at the cherry blossoms, which of course were finished blossoming. Penny made me take some shots for mum's, in the blossoms.

Very beautiful.

This is Penny with a statue of the guy who invented the Korean writing system. He is on the money too, Korea's own Apirana Ngata, except people actually know what this guy did.

The Korean road workers union came up with an 

elaborate scheme to maximize their smoko breaks, by dressing a mannequin up in workers uniform and have him stand there looking busy, or at least as busy as workmen normally appear to be. This was all right under the noses of the government and police buildings. The government officials were sitting there discussing the best communist jokes they had, meanwhile  a gang of workers were screwing the system eating all the green tea and biscuits they wanted, laughing their blue collar asses off about their ingenious plan. They were probably doing overtime too, suckers.

On a park bench somewhere in Seoul, I slowly but surely make my move.