Sawasdee Khaa!

I've arrived and am safe. Will write more later when not paying a bazillion dollars a minute.

Loving it so far,

J

Greetings from Incheon

I have 2 hours before boarding time, and I'm all checked in, so I've staked out a comfortable chair with high speed internet attached to it, for the next little while.

Yesterday was a good day. I finally got to be a solo tourist in Seoul for a while, so I found the one subway station (City Hall) that had the two attractions that I needed to see. The first was through exit #7, Namdaemun, the famed south gate of Seoul, and National Treasure number 1. It is grand and impressive and ancient in the midst of skyscraping modern urbanity. There were traditionally dressed guards standing in front of the huge iron doors; I walked right through them. The ceiling was all painted with brightly coloured dragons and flowers.

After that I walked back to the station and took exit #4, and found my way to the Chung-gye-cheon river. This has an excellent story to it, a story which had been published on the Discovery Channel back in the fall. Ever since I heard about it I've wanted to see it. Basically, back in the Choseong dynasty, the Chung-gye-cheon river was where the housewives of Seoul used to gather to bathe and do their laundry. As the population increased, it became a social hub of the city, as small community businesses opened on the banks of the river. Eventually after Seoul became modernized and space was at a premium, the entire river was lost and paved over completely with concrete. There was even a busy highway overpass that was built over it. However, environmentalists argued that the stream should be recovered, and in the last few years a real push was made and the government agreed. Millions of dollars were spent opening up the land over the stream, volunteer efforts were gathered, and a whole new greenspace was created right in the middle of downtown. Now it's fully recovered and running again, thanks to a rather large pumping system that brings water in from the Han river. And again it's become a social hub of the city, as now many people from Seoul and tourists alike gather to walk along the river during their free time. It's still very human-centred, however, as rather bizaare objects of modern art line the walkways, and the vegetation that was planted still hasn't reached maturity. Nonetheless it's an enjoyable stroll.

After my sightseeing venture, I met up with Tim and Jihee for ice cream and a cup of traditional tea. It was good to see my old friends again.. it will be the last time I'll see them before I head back to Canada. I hope I'll run into them again in the future.

For the time being, I'm sitting in an internet cafe at Incheon Airport, just killing time and blogging and checking email. I'll try to keep you all updated as I venture through Thailand.

I am so excited. I feel like Thailand is the result of working here, and working in Korea was the result of really pushing myself through University. I really need this vacation.

Chincha Joaheyo...

If I can recommend it to any foreigner visiting or living in Korea, definitely try to stay with a host-family for a weekend or so to really get a sense of modern Korean culture.

I think though, that my own experience was better than I could have hoped for.

As a favour to me, a good friend of mine from Vancouver (He's Korean but is living there at the moment) offered to me the chance to stay with his family in Seoul for the weekend. The family owns a traditional rice-cake store, and has an apartment in a house about a block away. The husband and wife are happy and fun loving people, and they have three grown kids, 2 of which still live at home. My friend Rocky's bedroom is empty because he's now living in Vancouver, so I got to sleep there. I have the bright top floor bedroom with cable TV, fan, exercise equipment, a comfortable bed, a private bathroom with a shower, and a large balcony with as many various plants as I'd have out there if it were my own! They've helped me do my laundry, served me fantastically delicious food (Rocky's mom even takes the bones out of my fish), taken me swimming, even waited up for me and escorted me home from the subway station after I went out swing dancing yesterday. I love these people. They're incredibly generous and hospitable.

Today I'm meeting Tim and Jihee somewhere... I have to phone them first. I'll have a day out in Seoul and another night here with my adopted family, and then I'm off to Thailand!!!

Next update ought to be from either the Incheon Airport, or the hotel in Bangkok, I think. Check back on Tuesday...

How many Koreans does it take to change a lightbulb?

I don't know, but I can tell you how many it will take to ship a dog to Canada.

Oh well... what trip to the far east is complete without a bribery scandal???

What an awful day. I left my new adopted home at about 8:30 this morning and endured an hour's bus ride to Incheon Airport. That went fine, and even finding the quarantine office wasn't as hard as I anticipated. I met 3 staff members in quarantine who stared at me like I had two heads when I told them I wasn't going on the same flight as Paddy... they stamped my papers and told me next to go to customs. I wasn't told to go to customs prior, so I was confused when they said that. I didn't know how to get to either customs OR the air-cargo office, so I had to ask them in Quarantine... they looked at me then like I just grew another head, and told me just to phone the guy at the cargo office. Now, that guy doesn't speak english any better than these people.

I was having a fine time trying to explain to the air cargo dude that I didn't know how to get to his office. It wasn't in the departure terminal at all, but in a completely separate building halfway across the airport. I was running low on change for the phone, so I kindly asked a korean man to break a one-thousand-won bill, which is about a dollar. He didn't have change but he let me use his phone card after we established that he spoke perfect english (he's lived in LA for 30 years and travels internationally on business). I then asked him if he could help me translate what the air-cargo guy wanted to say to me. Turns out that they had CANCELLED PADDY'S BOOKING somehow, because they are inept at customer service, and had figured that because the YVR airport couldn't reach Chris (personally I don't think they even tried to call...) and were concerned that there would be nobody to pick up the dog, and therefore it didn't meet some stringent rule... What the heck... Anyway after they cancelled the booking, they neglected to TELL ME about that. They just assumed I would show up and pay the money anyway, and then my dog would sit in the incheon airport forever. We initially thought it would be ok if Chris could get ahold of the YVR Korean airlines office right away, and tell them he could collect her (at that point I called him in a panic)... but no dice... as you'll see below, the airway billing office was closed, so there was nothing doing.

Anyway... when Mr. Song, the Californian-Korean guy, figured this all out, he was really unhappy with this aircargo office, but especially more so when they told him they could maybe arrange the trip anyway for a "fee" which Mr. Song wouldn't tell me, but it worked out to be well over the booking price. Beats me if they'd actually follow through on it anyway. @$$#%$. So then we decided to go the pity-route, and go directly to Korean airlines and not through the questionable cargo booking company... we said that the plane is leaving today anyway... can't they just get my dog on the flight... And they said No, the airway bill office closed at 10:30 that morning for all KE weekend flights, and there was nothing they could do... God Damn It. At one point during the day I was sorely tempted just to get the first seat on the first available plane and just be in Canada tomorrow morning.... screw Thailand, screw all my stuff still in Suncheon... God it was terrible.

Anyway, the Korean Airlines desk people recommended a pet-shipping company that they use exclusively. Not only that, but the pet shipping people speak very casual and fluent English... and their slogan is "Pet Airline: Your pets. My kids."

I was advised by the pet-shipping company to travel to Gimpo Airport, where I would be picked up by car. They picked me up, gave me coffee, spoke to me rationally and fluently, they cuddled Paddy, and then got me the soonest flight they could for her... Monday at around 11am Vancouver time.

They gave me free boarding for Paddy for the weekend, so I took them up on it... she's a hassle at my friend's family's apartment. The company is going to do everything to get her on the plane on Monday, so I don't have to worry about it. It cost a little more than I was expecting, but hey, it was cheaper than the bribe and it wasn't going to cost me the inconvenience of cancelling my trip to Thailand. Once all this was finished up with, it was pouring pouring pouring rain when they drove me back to the subway station... and they even gave me an umbrella (I'd accidently left my little travel umbrella on the seat of the bus to Incheon... whoops!). PLUS, the president of the pet shipping company used to work for Thai airways, so he's pulling a few strings and cashing in a favour or two and getting me a plush window-seat for my trip to Thailand! Anyway they're very excellent people.

Now I'm sitting here in a smoky PC-room at 6:30pm, after walking for half an hour in the pouring rain, after having spent a lot of the day carrying around a heavy dog-crate, and being on the verge of tears... I'm exhausted, disappointed, angry and frustrated.

So, 3 people in the quarantine office, 2 people on the phone at the sketchy air-cargo office, Mr. Song and his friend who was with us and watching my stuff while I freaked out on the phone, 3 people at the Korean Airlines desk, 3 people at the pet-shipping office, and a handfull of folks who gave me directions or drove me places, I'd say that there were about 20 people who were either helping or hindering me today.

It seems Korea is all about indirectly asking for permission, filling out irrelavent paperwork, double-checking policy, and then blatenly breaking the rules. Everything seems to take at least 4 times longer than necessary.

Way to leave me with a good last impression of this country, people.

*Note: This post was cut and pasted from an email, so therefore it has been edited for profanity and personal pronouns, but not for content. Please exuse.

The adventure begins...

Paddy and I are just bunking down for our last sleep in this apartment... We've just spent the day running ridiculous errands, packing, and cleaning. We're off to Seoul in the morning where I'll be staying with the family of a friend for 4 nights before I head off on my solo trip to Thailand.

Paddy'll be on a plane to Vancouver on Friday, and my sweet Chris will pick her up at the airport and watch her until I can be with them both again in September.

Yes you read right, and your head is on straight. Life is funny, and full of fantastic opportunities. Grab the good ones and run with them when they come along. With respect to this one, all questions will be answered in due course. How else will I maintain a consistent readership?

Not so Itsy-Bitsy...

Down came the rain and washed the spider out...

What a busy day

I got an awful lot done today, and had a few interesting experiences in the process.

I cleaned out the fridge and took down ALL my garbage, recycling, and compostable material. This was an adventure in itself as I had to battle the infamous Garbage Nazi in the process. He's just the grumpy old man in charge of groundskeeping... he's awful.

I took Paddy to the vet ONE LAST TIME to get her paperwork in order and get a tick removed from her belly. While we were there a deer was brought in. Absolutely beautiful, but had a broken leg where she had been hit by a car. I think (and hope) they'll set her straight and let her go, since my Vet's office is also a wild-animal shelter! The last time I was there they showed me a falcon that had been brought in.

I got a cheap little compass from the outdoors store so that I can have one that still sortof works while I'm still living in the world's second largest magnetic field (Asia). I can't calibrate my fancy digital one until I'm in the middle of nowhere BC, I think.

I finally bought my train tickets to and from Seoul, for before and after Thailand.

I had a nap and listened to all the kids outside who were performing some sort of screaming contest ritual, since it is officially Summer Vacation.

Now I'm about to go out for the evening-- it's the last big sendoff before everyone is gone on vacation... and after that some of us are going home. Good excuse for a party. I've heard that later in the evening there will be our own version of the summer vacation screaming contest ritual. It's otherwise known as Noraebang, or in English, "Drunken Karaoke".

"No more pencils...

...no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks..."

It's really weird to be singing that from the other side of the big desk.

It seems my four days of work have been cut in half. I'm now done, although I still have to actually show up at school on Monday and Tuesday. I'll have nothing to do.

I had my kids writing me letters this morning...

4 days left

When did this happen? Suddenly there are only 4 work days left in my schedule, not including today.

I work tomorrow (Wednesday), then Thursday is a half day, and Friday is cancelled.
Then it's just Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday is cancelled.

So, Wed/Thurs/Mon/Tues.... and that's it.

Then I go to Seoul.
Then I go to Thailand.

Holy cow.

Good News/ Bad News

Good News:
My part of Korea is now in high definition on Google Earth.

Bad News:
They took the aerial photos in the winter. BLEAGH.
Brown, Brown, Brown.

Dreaming of Thailand

Aside from being well absorbed into the fourth book of The Chronicles of Narnia, I've been using my lazy weekend to scour my Lonely Planet book and "plan" my two weeks in Thailand. I thought I would share with you my rough itinerary.

I've decided on where I'm going, for the most part, but I'm leaving all dates and times flexible. I'm booking nothing ahead of time other than my hotel room the first night, to allow for plans to change. I've also decided to take my time and fully explore a smaller area in the time I have, rather than rush and rush and go to places just to say that I've been there.

Click for a larger view.
My itinerary is in red. Some place names have been added.
It's a 1988 political map, so please excuse that Myanmar is being called Burma, still!

Thanks to the University of Texas Map Library for the Original Map.

First, Bangkok. I'll spend a few days here, to start with. I want to see the temples and museums, the Grand Palace, the markets, and chinatown. I want to see the city from the riverboats and the skytrain, as well as on foot. Even if I don't stay on Ko San Road, I need to at least go there and see it for myself... Ko San Road is the hippie mecca of Bangkok, kind of a "backpacker ghetto." I won't be doing much shopping yet, although I'd like to, I can't carry everything around for two weeks. Instead, I'll just scout out what's around, and if something's still bugging me after 2 weeks, I'll stop by again and get it on my way home.

Next, a night in Ayuthaya, the former captial of Thailand, situated about an hour north of Bangkok. I'll be renting a bicycle and touring the temples and ruins of former golden ages.

Then it's on the train south-west to Phetchaburi. I understand there are cave-temples here, and I would really like to see those.

I'll be taking a few days to follow the rail-line south along the eastern side of the Isthmus of Kra, along the Gulf of Thailand as far as Surat Thani. There are possible stops in Cha-am, Hua Hin, Prachuap Khiri Khan, or Chumphon, on the way south. I'll take it a day at a time, stay longer in one place if I like it somewhere, and just mosey my way along. It's apparently one of the cheapest and least-frequented parts of Thailand, but no less beautiful. Most backpackers just sleep through it on a night train or fly over it entirely... but it's been recommended as a great way to experience rural Thai life.

When I get to Surat Thani I'll take a bus to Don Sak, where I can grab a ferry to begin my adventures on the 3 small islands off the east coast: Ko Samui, Ko Pha-Ngan, and Ko Tao, in that order. Here I'll likely be meeting up with some other foreign teachers from Korea, whether it's planned or unplanned! On the islands there will be much in the way of exploration (how do you get lost on an island, anyway?) both in and out of the water.

From Ko Tao I'll take a different ferry back to Chumphon, where I'll catch a night-train back to Bangkok. Hopefully I'll be able to leave a day for shopping and seeing sights that I've missed (I'm sure fellow travellers will have many tips to share!).

Note: I may change my itinerary at Chumphon and decide to hit the islands in the reverse order: Ko Tao, Ko Pha-Ngan, and Ko Samui; then I'd take a night train to Bangkok from Surat Thani. I've no real firm plans for any of this!

From there, it's back to Seoul, Korea, and onwards south to Suncheon the next day.

What do you think?

Paddy Update

Well, I've abandoned my weekend in Busan because Paddy needed yet another trip to the vet. Nothing urgent or serious, but she was experiencing stress on her left knee joint due to rapid weight gain. I guess that happens when you don't eat regularly for several weeks (on the streets) and then are given two square meals a day for several months. That plus not exactly going out often in Monsoon conditions. She's on painkillers until her weight goes down (we've changed her food) and then it won't be so much of a problem. Apparently it's a problem common to older dogs of small breeds.

Paddy has two weeks left in Korea! Her flight is booked, and all we have to do is show up at the airport on the 28th of July, do a bit of paperwork, and presto! Dog will then be well on her way to Canada. She will have a happy and loving home until I can see her again in September!

Unidentified Crawling Object - Part III

Phylum: Platyhelminthes
Class: Turbellaria
Order: Seriata
(Thanks Grandpa, you're awesome!)
Sub-order: Tricladida
Family: Bipaliidae
Genus: Bipalium
Species: Bipalium kewense

Also known as a Hammerhead worm.

It's native to Indo-China, apparently, but has been introduced all over the place, probably through the soil of exotic plants shipped to nurseries. They're carnivorous and feast on earthworms.

Surprise Goodbye

I feel very loved, in spite of the fact that I was just told that today would be my last class with the grade sixes at my ThF school.



They threw me a party. It was a lot like a birthday surprise party, only held a week before when you thought it might be. It is funny to feel surprised and loved and let down and happy and sad all at the same time. They're awesome kids, really.

I know that I'll really miss them all. Here is my 6-2 class, posing for a photo opp:

I'm melting...

It's just after 10pm and it's 28 degrees in my place, and 27 degrees outside. Bugger. How's a girl supposed to sleep?

I've just had a great dinner party tonight at my place... Virginia, Helen, Annie, Nina, Cassandra and Scott came by for some homemade-tortilla fajitas. Chad showed up later in the evening with his upright bass, Scott fetched his guitar from down the hall, and we had some honky-tonk for dessert. Yummy.



Scott even hung around long enough to help me with the dishes! Now the kitchen is clean, the food has been put away, I'm exhausted, and it's too flipping hot to sleep.

I'm going to have to have cold shower number 3 today, before bed.

Yagh.

Speaking Contest

So, yesterday I got volunteered to be one of the judges at the "English Speaking Contest" at my MTW school. The contest was today. Thanks for the notice! They had to rearrange my whole schedule for this last minute arrangement...

A couple of the kids were really brilliant... and one struck me as something special. I don't think she won, because one kid went really over the top with content and intonation etc (it was all memorized, but he did a terrific job with no mistakes)... She's just a tiny little grade 3 girl, but it turns out that her English is better than most of my students combined. She just got up and totally adlibbed the whole thing complete with a few authentic ummms and ahhhs. I asked if she was a new student... Nope, she's been there all year. I could tell she'd been living abroad. For how long, I don't know.

Now here's the kicker. I'm surrounded ALL DAY by little kids who just harass me from 9-5 every weekday, saying "Hi, Hello!" and "Nice to meet you!" and "My name is _____!!!" and "Do you like Kimchi?" They all wave their hands right in my face and want to know what I'm doing all the time. To them, I'm so different that sometimes I feel like a zoo exhibit.

But the ONE KID who I can identify with in the ENTIRE school, hasn't come to see me ALL YEAR because she says:

"I don't know, I guess I just don't have anything to say."

Ouch! That really hurts.

It's a dog's life...

How cute is this, seriously?

Ewiniar Strikes!

Things I've seen today, in roughly chronological order:

• A very scared and prudish small white dog
• Rain falling sideways
• Every branch on all the small trees, pointing in the same direction
• 200 typhoon-crazed students
• Every hallway window at my school, leaking from the bottom windowsill
• "Typhoon" written and pronounced in Korean: 태풍 which sounds like Tae-poong
• A report that the typhoon has been downgraded to a tropical storm
• Water streaming out of pinpoint cracks in the 2-story high retaining wall behind my school (um, yikes?)
• An umbrella crossing the street by itself

After Mokpo

Paddy and I had a pretty good adventure in Mokpo, on the weekend.

I met Brent and Stephanie at their place around 2pm on Saturday, and after hanging out and chatting for a while, we walked around the seafood market, where I successfully managed to avoid eating any live baby octopi, although I had much in the way of opportunity. Later, we met friends for a birthday evening-out. I watched an amazing party trick involving a bottle of Soju and a bottle of Seju... and I watched the boys consume more beer than I've seen anyone drink at any one sitting... I have photos of Brent sizing up a 700 cc glass, with an utter look of remorseful desperation on his face.

Mostly, the weekend involved a lot of wandering around, hanging out, chatting, and shopping. On day 2, we had plans to go for a hike, but was too hot and humid to go. Instead, we sussed out a nice air-conditioned bookstore. Back at the apartment, Paddy found herself supine on the most comfortable pillow in existence, enjoying belly rubs from all.

It was a long but enjoyable bus ride home.

This morning, I found myself caught in Typhoon Ewiniar on the way to school. Holy crap! Crazy wind and rain. Don't worry, I'm not living anywhere coastal, and both my school and my apartment are on relatively high ground. Suncheon is not going to get the worst of the force, not by a long shot. It's still kind of neat to watch the storm pass over, nonetheless.

Mokpo

Hi all,

Just letting you know I'll be making use of what weekends I have left in Korea, and getting some traveling in. This weekend it's Mokpo, a fishing port on the western side of this very province. I'm going to visit my Dumping Hole friends (wow that sounds like a bad thing) Brent and Stephanie, and also to scope out the town in general.

Next weekend is Busan, and then the weekend after, Gwangju, and the weekend after that, Seoul! Paddy flies out of Incheon on Friday the 28th of July, and I fly to Thailand on the 31st. The two weeks following will be spent in paradise, and following that, I've got 6 more days in Korea before I come home!

How time has flown, hey?

Pastel Work, Finished

I thought I'd update you on the pastel drawing I've been working on since December. I finally had a push to finish it this afternoon, since I knew that if I didn't finish it before I left Korea, I would never finish it. Apologies for the shiny spot in the middle, but the fixative I used on it isn't dry yet, and the camera flash got in the way. Nonetheless, it's looking pretty good.

The Korean on the bottom right reads (top to bottom, right to left, as in the old-school style)

낙 동
안 백
읍 꽃
성

Left to right, it would read "동백꽃 낙안읍성"
"Dong Baek Ggot, Nagan Eup-seong" Which means Camellia flower, Nagan Folk Fillage.

Unidentified Crawling Object - Part II

For scale, the head (at left, in the photos above) is about the width of the average pencil diameter... just barely smaller than the last one I saw. I have no English name for it, but I asked the nicer of the two building maintenance guys what he calls it in Korean... It's apparently called 지렁이 "Ji-reong-i" (which means worm) or 뱀 "Baem" which means snake. But, it's clearly neither.

The original post can be found here.

Gardenias

Hedges of Gardenias are outside the grocery store near my apartment... they all smell like sugary buttercream icing... you can almost smell them just from looking at the pictures... damnnnnnnn...

My Ticket Home

...has been booked, paid for, and delivered!

Aug 22nd, I'll be in Vancouver!

Cities and Rice

There's something that has bothered me ever since I came to Asia. It's a great social problem that is so much a part of where I live that it becomes lost in the framework of the country. It's overlooked.

Think about this. Many millions of people live in Asia, and rice constitutes the main staple of their diet. Rice farming is an integral part of this country, and of course this continent! It's part of the culture, history, and landscape. Yet, rice farmers work on a very low income, some of the lowest per capita, and live in poverty. Progress is driving these farming communities to want more for their children -or driving the children to want more for themselves- and so they're getting educations (learning English *coughcough*), moving to the cities, going to church, having MORE children, getting cell phones and air conditioners and expensive shoes.

(Side note, the young women here pride themselves on their pale skin, their excellent posture, and their unfathomable ability to walk around for hours in high heeled shoes... thus proving that they are not of the poorer farming class. These women certainly don't want to have the doubled over backs, bowed legs and brown leathery skin of their elders... )

The new middle class believe in their right to these newer amenities, and they also believe in their right to have enough to eat. What they don't take the time to think about, is that their grandparents are working the same fields, harvesting the same crops that they have been for decades upon decades, without much help from the younger generations, and meanwhile the population (and therefore demand for rice) is skyrocketing. The increased demand and lack of a viable labour force is driving the farmers to use more pesticides and fertilizers and machinery to compensate... but what happens in the next twenty years when there is nobody left to work the fields? What happens when pests become immune to the poison? What happens when the ecosystems are crippled with too many chemicals? (Rice is the most water-intensive crop out there, requiring several hundreds of Litres of water per Kilo crop yield.) Environmental disaster; crop failiure; lots of hungry people; sudden need for import; huge economic crisis.

But then, where is Korea going to import its rice from, if all the parallel economies of Asia are straining under the same burden?

I've noticed the same problem with the city markets... it's never young people you see, hunched over red bowls of peppers, persimmons, crabs and eels. Never young people stacking the piles of cinnamon sticks, cabbage, or dried squid. When the demographic changes, here, the street markets will forever be replaced by grocery stores... for that is where the young people work... and a special part of Asia's culture will be severed from the present, into history.

The thought of this makes me uneasy and sad, and the knowledge that it will likely happen in our lifetime is even worse. The keys to change are better income for farmers, incentive for young people to be willing workers on farms, a movement back to the traditional ways of farming rice. The ultimate goal is sustainability within the country, to preserve farmland and tradition, and ensure that the growing population of Korea (and elsewhere) won't go hungry in the times ahead. Not an easy task.

I could write more on this, but my lunch-hour is almost up (actually I didn't eat rice today, but it's simply because I'm just plain sick of it... I'm not actually on a boycott for others' benefit) and I'm off to go educate the farmers' grandchildren. Lucky me. If only I spoke their language, I could explain that they should be learning english to become true global citizens who ought to be working for the betterment of humanity.

Happy Canada Day, from Korea!

I was very pleased to have met Brent and Stephanie, last night, a couple of teachers from Mokpo, and the proprietors of the blog called The Dumping Hole, listed at left. With us, of course, is the lovely Virginia, who has forbidden me to go home in August. Alas, I must.

The thing on my head is actually a strawberry sticker; it's a coupon from a pot of strawberry jam... but doesn't it bear a shocking resemblance to the Canadian Tire logo? The Koreans must have thought I was clinically insane to have glued a strawberry to my head... but if there's anyone who has the right to wear the damn strawberry, it's me, after having given up four years of my young life to that store! And for what it's worth, every single Canadian recognized it for what I had intended it to be.

Everybody got really dressed up in the customary red and white, and marched into Julianna's bar as patriotic as a group of ex-patriates could be. It was a nice time, seeing everyone I hadn't seen for months, including a large group from my orientation in Gwangju, last August. At some point a lot of us went up on the roof with birthday sparklers (thanks, Nina! This time no sarcasm...) and sang the national anthem in both official languages (I have most of the english version on video).

Later our parade got rained on by a bunch of nervous English football fans, as the game dragged on and on and on, and finally resulted in an unfortunate round of penalty kicks after the last bit of OT. The nervousness then turned into shellshocked disbelief, and at about 3am Korea-Time the gutted Englishpeople proceeded to either get really really drunk, or go home. Here are some of them, before the game, looking seriously hopeful and proud. (Yes, Daniel adopted a dog too...)

I turned into a pumpkin at about 3 am too. So, being in no mood for dancing after standing around watching a field of 22 sweaty men run left and right and left and right again for several hours, I went home too, and slept.

Happy 139th Birthday, Canada!