Catch Up Post

Hello all. This is going to be a randomness catch up post. I will also be doing a "My Great Saturday October 30th" post sometime soon which will be much more organized. Here I've just got some photos to share.

Here's another photo from the hiking in the previous post. I'm not
sure how this didn't end up in with that other set. I loved the scenery.

So I volunteered to be part of a "Quiz Show" that our school put
on as part of the 2010 Good Schools Expo. It was held near a
bunch of TV stations' buildings, and included a number of events.
Schools put up booths to try to advertise. The stage here was where
I sat during the quiz, which ended poorly for my team. Good news
is that because we lost I got to sing in front of the crowd that had
gathered! Was good times. I took this photo a while before we
actually did the quiz thing, while they were setting up. If I get
ahold of any photos of the actual quiz I'll post them.

So this is the largest ginkgo tree I've ever seen. It
was on the campus of Sungkyunkwan University.
I was there visiting with a couple of the teachers
from my school. It's really close to the school. It is
one of the oldest university campuses in the country,
and if I'm not mistaken the oldest remaining Uni
campus in East Asia. It was great to find, because
ginkgo are my favorite trees of all time! I've been
collecting leaves from the walk to work to keep at
my desk.

These calligraphy works were on display while we visited the university.
I imagine they are student works. They were really well done and very
beautiful. There were some in a variety of styles of hangul, chinese, and
I think japanese. There were many of them; the photos here are only a
small sample.

I wanted to share this photo mainly to show some
of what's possible with the iPhone 4 camera. I took
this from a subway car as it was speeding across a
bridge. I was really impressed with the quality of
the photo overall, but particularly the fact that it
managed to capture the individual spikes of the fence
in the foreground. At the speed we were going I don't
think I could distinguish the individual spikes with my
eyes, but the camera did. The shutter speed must be
pretty decent. I took a few pictures to make sure I got
a good one, and they were consistently good. The phone
is definitely replacing my point-and-shoot for most uses.

Here's another entry for my sign collection. This one isn't so much
funny because of invented replacement messages, as it's funny/shocking
that they are using cutesy emoticon-esque images to advertise for plastic
surgery. See if you can figure out what procedure each before and after
image is referring to.

This is just a night shot I took while in Dongdaemun recently. It
worked out pretty well, considering. The lights aren't quite as sharp
as I'd like, but still not too bad, particularly for a phone camera.

This is the alcohol section and a table at the Chinese
restaurant I visited with some friends on Friday night
(see facebook for some more photos of this night if
you've got access). It was a pretty nice place, and the
food was really good. The place is called China
Factory, and its in Hyehwa, pretty near my place.

Dumplings at the China Factory. I especially liked the one
decorated as a cute kitty. I'm confident there was no actual kitty
in the dumpling itself. I preferred the triangle ones taste-wise though.

This was my favorite part of the meal at the China Factory.
Peking / Beijing duck with tortillas, veggies, and sauces.
Dip the duck in sauce, wrap in tortilla with veggies, and devour.
Was deliciousness incarnate.

I'm not usually an overly skeptical person, but I
think that "delicious processed cheese in beef"
might be partly advertising hype. I found this at
the local grocery shop. I didn't buy any, so I guess
we'll never know for sure, but I'm pretty
confident these wouldn't be all that delicious.

All right, those were a few highlights from the past little while. Like I said, I hope to put together another post ASAP with the tale of my great Saturday (yesterday). I hope you're all doing well wherever you're calling home at the moment! I love you guys!