Come back in a long while.

Sorry, this blog is on hiatus at the moment.

I am on the road around the world.

If you want to see any new pictures, you'll have to go to my main blog:

alimamo.blogspot.com

Thanks for stopping by.

Friends

It has been a while since I have posted any new photos here. I apologize for that. I have just been a bit lazy.

Since I just sent some photos to friends, I thought I would share those photos with you too. The first three photo sets are hosted on different photo storage sites, so I'll give you the overview image and you can click it to see all the images.

The first set is from a new friend from Seoul, an architect, and a very nice young woman, Jeongeun. She came down to visit Andong and Dosan Sewon. Anyone who visits me gets the obligatory photos of the visit. These were the ones I took while she was here. Click on the collage above to see them all.

The second set was taken when Myeonghee came to visit Andong. It was her first time here. Myeonghee Lives in Onyang, but I met her a long time ago when I worked in Yesan. Since it was her first time, we went to Hahoe village. It was pretty hot, but we still had a nice time. Click the collage and see the photos of Myeonghee at Hahoe.

The final set is just a few pictures from when I went back to Cheongju to visit a good friend, Youngmi. It had been a while since we had met, and it was my turn, so I went back to my old stomping grounds to say hello. Here we went to a park after lunch. It is her turn to visit me now, but it may be a while. It seems to be just one visit per year.

The last two photos are of some friends/students who came to visit me at my place to have dinner.

I made them switch places in the two photos, but in this first photo, from left to right, it is Eunjin, Jeongim, and Youngmi.

Eunjin, on the right in this photo, is now in China studying Chinese and such. The other two are still in Andong. They are quite a group of young ladies. And cute, too.

I hope you enjoyed meeting some of my friends here in Korea. I'll try and get back to a regular picture posting schedule soon.

A Trip to the Zoo.

This set of photos isn't so much about Andong, but they were taken on my travels in Korea. I went to the city of Daejeon (Taejeon) to visit a friend. While there, we went to visit the local zoo.

It was not too bad as far as small city zoos go. The majority of the cages were a bit cramped, though. There was a fair selection of animals, but nothing too exciting.

This guy was kind of interesting. This camel was of the Bactrian variety, two humped. He (she?) had a nice face and seemed to like to be photographed.

These iguanas didn't look too comfortable in their particular enclosure. They were crawling all over each other in a rather small box with a plastic front. The thing that was probably the most annoying though may have been the children banging on the plastic.
Many times, Koreans, especially children, generally seem to have a lack of respect for animals, especially wild animals. At the zoo I saw children and adults banging on cages, throwing food, and even throwing things at the animals. I am not sure if it is mostly ignorance about how the animals should be treated, or just a general lack of respect, but it is not very nice to see.

There was a special exhibit there that day about insects. There were a couple of varieties, but mostly just a bunch of these guys.
Korean kids use to collect them as pets, but you don't find them around too often these days.
Here is another one for you. Personally, I think they are really cool.


There were birds in the zoo, too. Several different kinds, both colorful ...

... and not so colorful but still rather pretty. Sorry about the cage wires. There was no other way to get a shot.


There were also dogs in the zoo. This little fellow was sharing his home with rabbits.


And unless you thought I was joking about dogs being in a zoo, take a look at this.

The sign in front says Golden Retriever, but the dog in the cage is actually a Saint Bernard. You'll notice the dog seems to be a hit with the little ones, though I think that may just be the parents allowing them to actually get close to a zoo animal.

Yes, a common breed dog in a zoo may seem rather strange to folks in the west, but here I have also seen cats and chickens in zoo cages. And these are not petting zoos. Until fairly recently there were very few breeds of dogs in Korea. In fact, there were really almost only two or three breeds, depending on who you talk to. One main one was the Jindo, and the other was the eating kind (I won't get into that argument here.) Now though there are many more breeds.

And now we end our day with a sunset back in Andong. The zoo in Daejeon is actually a nice place. It is a good place to spend a lazy afternoon and animal/people watch. There are a lot more animals than what I have pictured here. I guess I was just not in much of a picture taking mood that day. I hope your day is a good one.

Odds and Ends

Yes, yet again it has been quite a while since the last photo update. I could make up a lot of excuses about doing other things, emergencies, or some such, but it would be only partially true. I have a lazy streak. Maybe it is more of an 'easily distracted' streak, but none the less, it does take me a while to do things sometimes.

But I have decided I am going to stop apologizing for not having photos here in a timely manner. If I want to be lazy, I'll be lazy; if I want to feverishly post the latest details of my life, I will do that too (don't count on it). But there is no reason to have to say I am sorry just because it has been a while since I have posted. So there it is. No more "I'm sorry". If that bothers you, if that chaps your ass, well then ...

... I'm sorry.

This post is just a collection of some photos at the end of one memory card and at the start of another. There is no underlying theme here except maybe that all these photos were taken in the spring of 2005. So yes I am officially one year behind in posting photos.

This first image is of cherry blossom time in Seoul, Korea. In all honesty, the cherry blossoms were much better in another city I lived in here, Cheongju. What I was really trying to show here is the sheer mass of people that come out all at the same time to see the floral show. This picture does not convey the hordes of humanity present. When going home, it took us about about ten minutes to go down one flight of stairs to the subway, another ten minutes or more from the stairs to the subway gate, and then about thirty to forty minutes waiting for our turn to get on the subway train. I think living in Seoul would be hard for me. I have the patience of Job, but even for me there might come a time where the constant crowds would make me freak out.


This is the "63 Building" in Seoul along the Han river. So named because it is sixty-three stories tall. It actually is pretty nice. The golden color looks nice against the sky when there is not too much smog. I have been in the building, but never up to the observation deck. It was just too expensive for me at the time. I would do it with someone else if they wanted to go. But for myself, I am a cheap bastard. If you want to see something neat, and you have Google Earth on your computer, click this link. It will download a model of the 63 building and place it in the correct spot on the earth. Then you can zoom in and out and rotate all around the model.


This is just someone there in the park that day. He was staring at me so I took his picture. It is interesting how babies as young as this, and sometimes younger, can look at a foreigner and recognize them for being foreign. That day in the park he just kept staring at me. He would occasionally glance at my Korean companion, but always returned to stare at me. This kind of thing has happened numerous times, so I know it is not just my imagination. It is also interesting how as the individual gets older, the staring becomes more annoying. But no matter how old they are, they still do it.


There were many more flowers on display in the park that day too.


This is the actual reason I went to Seoul that weekend. To see a friend, Misun. I am not quite sure why she seems to be looking beyond me and not at the camera. Perhaps there was some good-looking guy behind me at the time. I saw her just the other week. She has changed her hair, but still looks pretty similar.


The cherry trees were also blossoming back home in Andong, too. These are along the river just above the bridge over the Naktong river. I think they should have planted these trees to spell out some word or create an image. It would have been more interesting. Something like that has been done before. Take a look at one rather infamous tree planting in Germany (second picture in the story).


Some closeups of the flowers.




Just a local enjoying the day and the flowers.


This is just a compound in the older style, out away from the city. I don't think anyone actually lives here. Perhaps they just use the house for special occasions.

Here I am looking over the wall to get a shot of the porch. Yeah, I know this image would look better without that wire there, but I didn't feel like taking it out of the picture.




These next five shots are some pictures I took when I revisited Dosan Sewon in Spring. If you don't remember Dosan Seowon, click the name and go have a look.

Looking out the kitchen window.

A gate down to another level.

Some rooftops.

A roof and the forest.

A garden gate.

And finally, I leave you with something else that has been on this page. Can you guess what it is? Got it? Well, this is Andong dam again, but this time I am at the base looking up the face.

I hope you have enjoyed these photos. If you feel like it, leave a comment. I would love to hear what you have to say.