My Observations

A little sorry that I haven't written here for a while but some things have happened. I spent some time working on other blogs which were also important to me but not as much time as I would have liked. I have all the normal things to do everyday like everyone else does. I forget about my blogs at times. When I came back today I looked over all the blogs here and saw the pageviews. Some of the ten or so blogs here have many pageviews. I decided to look into that and found that some pages had been seen recently. I could see the number of views from today, yesterday, last month and the total. I could also see on a world map which countries the viewers were in. On one I could see an address for someone who viewed one page recently and clicked on it. I found myself looking at a page with a picture of porn on it. I contacted blogger about this and hope they will reply. I don't want to think more about this. Though I left Korea I'd like to keep posting here. I wouldn't mi...

This afternoon didn't have 200 won change for a coffee from the machine so took a 1000 bill, like a Korean version of the $1 bill, which I thought seemed new and crisp enough. This has happened enough times but today I was surprised when the machine wouldn't take the bill. Tried it one way, then another. Held it and smoothed it a few times, tried again, and again, then smoothed it a few more times  (did this first two fingers of right hand, one finger on each side, holding one end of bill in other hand, kind of pulling it with two fingers.) Then put in again, came out. I then thought to just keeping trying and after another 1-2 times it worked. So total was close to 10 times I tried putting it in before I had success. This really was a new-looking bill that hadn't been in my wallet for more than a day or think since someone gave it to me as change. One time in the subway the ticket machine was spitting my bill out over and over. I was thinking to just kee...

This isn't nice but I'm going to go ahead and write it anyway. I did write about this before. I'd give anything if Koreans of all ages could shut their apartment doors quietly, not necessary really quietly, but normally, just making a little noise. The door to my current apartment and others I've had is made of metal. The one I have now is all gray metal, a little thick. When someone in my apartment building shuts their door it makes quite a noise. When someone near me does it it's impossible not to hear it. Sometimes there's a vibration in my apartment. Last night I woke up around 1am likely due to some noise outside my apartment. It could've been a door shutting loudly but I can't say. While I was awake I heard someone walk up the steps by my apartment to a higher floor. I could hear it but it wasn't really too loud. I heard them go up to the 2nd floor or maybe a little past and then didn't hear anything. About two minutes later though I hear...

I can take a free shuttle but to my workplace even on weekends which is great. There are only a few bus drivers. On weekends just one of them drives one bus all day, weekdays all of them work. It's great to consider how much I saved on taxis or regular buses, though I do take taxis at times and so do other people due to not wanting to wait for the bus, being rushed or in some cases the bus not showing up. Two of the bus drivers don't drive very well. As I recall of those two one of them also doesn't always show up on time. Between periods driving the bus he has break times. Once I observed that he was always coming late when going in one direction, and then when arriving at the last point just turning and going the other way, then arriving at those stops on time. Basically there aren't many stops and each stop has a stop on both sides of the street for going either way. It takes him just ten minutes to go from one end to the other, and about twenty to from the beginni...

As I write this I'm feeling a little bad. I was looking over my old posts in just this blog and found the one on swine flu which is 1 1/2 years old this month. In that post there's a link to a podcast series about Korea. I decided to click on it to see the site has moved, however if you scroll down the old posts are still there including the one I mentioned above. After I found that I scrolled a little more to see a post about a foreigner and Korean wife being cheated out of their apartment deposit and taking their landlord to court. The podcast is 31 minutes long and I'd like to listen to it sometime. What I want to say is this though: I've heard so many stories of Koreans cheating each other or foreigners out of money. Almost all cases I've heard involved employers cheating employees. Other cases that I can think of would be salespeople in places such as Itaewon cheating customers. Being cheated out of a deposit....I may have heard of this happening but can't ...

I would wish that Koreans would be quieter at night. From 10pm - 7am would be ideal. I know that's impossible, so I would wish for quiet from 12 - 7am. Or if I couldn't have that at least 2-6am. As I think about my time in Korea, one of the most recurring problems is being woken at night because of noise. Sometimes drunk people, college students, fighting...but often it's just ordinary people walking by or coming home late. Koreans go to bed later than Americans. No two ways about it. I'm sure they do. However there are some people that want to go to bed at regular times. And there are children, sick people, elderly, disabled, etc. or simply those who are really tired and really need to get to sleep early sometimes. Something else I can say is...getting enough sleep is essential for good health. Not getting enough sleep hurts you, your health...your thinking ability... How many people go to work and have to make important decisions which require critical thinking sk...