My Gangwon Notes blog, the best damn blog never to be nominated by 10 Magazine for a best blog award, had a pretty clear focus: Gangwon Province.  Yes, I also mentioned my homeland, Canada, Korean politics and conservation efforts, a few book reviews, but I stayed mostly true to the title of my blog.

I am now in a new location and it is not undersupplied with bloggers (can you ever have enough bloggers?) and don’t intend to be ‘the voice of Busan’. but what do I intend?  Well, I have mentioned somewhere that I am interested in a few things, but I still don’t feel comfortable with the direction of this blog.  I am in a new location, have a new job and am using a new blogging site, why follow the same  path?  Still, I do enjoy blogging and want to write about something.

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today. I looked at these articles in Korea’s English newspapers.

The Korea Herald looked at blood donor rates, which are increasing.

The number of blood donors hit a record high, health officials said yesterday.

According to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 2.57 million people donated blood last year, up 9.5 percent from 2008.

Compared with the average over the past three years, the figure is an increase of 14.4 percent, officials said.

The KCDC also reported that the nation’s blood donating population is becoming diversified, with the participation of more women and people aged over 30.

Maybe I had something to do with this. Chris in South Korea recently talked about teaching ESL being a real job.  I agree and try to be professional about my work.  Still, I also award 1% to any student who shows me a recent blood donor card. Well, I did at my previous job, I don’t have as many points to be able to throw one away like that.

I hope my friend at a women’s university in Seoul isn’t having problems after complaints arose over their personal english comprehension test.  I don’t know much about any of the big name tests, but TOEIC is certainly the most famous.  I like the focus this test apparently has (from the Korea Times) :

..”[other] English exams focus highly on reading and listening skills, but our test is to evaluate speaking and writing skills.”

The test was developed with the help of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages for their proficiency guidelines and the Center for Applied Linguistics for their expertise in computerized assessments.

I want to skate more and it’s probably because of the recent Olympics coverage.  Also, Brian Orser did some/ most of  his training near my hometown.  Anyway, he and Kim Yuna are in the news (Dong-a Ilbo):

“As a Canadian, I’m glad Canada won the gold medal in ice hockey, the final competition of the Olympics, but not as much as when Yu-na won her medal.” Orser won the Olympic silver medal in figure skating in 1984 and 1988. Though failing to win the gold, he channeled his energy to get Kim to do what he could not. With a smile, he said, “I was finally able to let go of any hard feelings for the Olympics after she won her gold medal.” Orser came into Kim’s life in 2006. With great affection for his disciple, he said, “I’d say this is the happiest moment out of the four years I’ve spent with Kim. The worst was when Yu-na struggled with injury between 2006 and 2007.”

What the hey is a ‘half-moon bear’? Anyway, their are two new ones in Jirisan now (Joongang):

An Asiatic black bear, protected as endangered species in Korea, has given birth to two cubs on the Mount Jiri, the National Park Service said yesterday. It is the second time that the bear, known more commonly as a half-moon bear in Korea, gave birth after being released to the wild.

According to park authorities, researchers from the Species Restoration Center found the cubs and the mother on Feb. 23. The team made the discovery when the members visited a cave on the mountain.

They were there to replace a transmitter placed on the female bear. The bear was brought into Korea in 2005 from Russia. It was one of the 27 half-moon bears that have been released on the mountain since 2004 to live in the wild as a part of the endangered species restoration project. Only 17 survived. The researchers said two cubs and the mother were resting inside the cave when they were found. The mother’s activity was slower because it was winter hibernation time, but she attempted to protect the cubs when the researchers tried to take a photo.

I’ve followed the re-introduction of bears into Jirisan with interest and more than a little cynicism. Two bears were quickly killed and I expected the rest would soon follow.  I may be proven wrong and I will be happy if that is the case.

I love that Yonhap news used the full name of the ‘boozehound’ in their article, which isn’t about drinking or this guy at all:

SEOUL, March 7 (Yonhap) — Once known as a boozehound among his colleagues, Kim Tae-ju used to have no trouble getting back home by subway, walking through crowded stations to and from platforms no matter how drunk he was.

But these days, Kim, 42, who gave up drinking this year, finds himself bumping into and apologizing to people even while sober, as the government’s new walkway campaign — which requires South Koreans to walk on the right instead of the left in public places — bumps up against an 88-year-old Korean practice.

I have long been interested in traffic patterns, although I have normally looked at automobile traffic.  I would mostly say here, that I don’t mind where Koreans walk but would like them to 1) not walk four across on a sidewalk wide enough to four and 2) to close doors when they go in- or out-side a building.

More:

“I personally think we should have switched the (non-binding) rules a long time ago,” Yu added. “Familiar and comfortable rules are not always the best ones.”

There are still concerns that the right-side pedestrian campaign will cause more inconvenience to disabled or elderly people who carry canes or rely on guide dogs.

“Most of these people carry sticks in their right hands and hold onto the left side handrails when they walk up and down the stairs,” said Yoo Jung-hye, an official at the Korea Disabled People’s Development Institute. “Making them reverse is virtually impossible.”

Despite the growing dissatisfaction among people, the government is firm on the necessity of undoing the country’s 88-year-old pedestrian traffic legacy.

The government cites research that shows keeping to the right could reduce up to 24 percent of pedestrian collisions and increase walking speed by up to 1.7 percent. Because pedestrians can make eye contact with the cars coming toward them when they walk on the right side, the new measures will also reduce people-car collisions to a considerable amount, it believes.

I am amused by the apparent need to emphasize the ‘non-binding’ power of the new rules.  I feel sympathy for the disabled who have become locked by long-formed habit to using the left-side stair railings.  But, I am confused by the final paragraph.  Oh, I am also amused but the “increase walking speed by 1.7%” part.  The confusing part is about reducing people-car collisions.  If people walk by the same rules as cars drive, they will have cars approaching them from behind.  Walking on the left side, into traffic, is the best way to see approaching traffic.

I am jet lag's whore. I'm confident that in time, I can flip this relationship on it's head. For now, I float through the day slightly groggy. My first flight left Busan at 7am Wednesday morning; my last arrived in Toronto at 8pm the same day (so to speak). Were it not for the 10 hour layover in Incheon, or my completely failure to fall asleep, this might be an easier transition.

Two Gravol pills are usually enough to get the ball rolling on my barf-free journeys. I learned my lesson from the 6 hour barfathon that was my 2004 New York bus trip. Not yet having appreciated the full potential of my motion sickness, I neglected to bring any antinauseants with me, and began keeling over the bus shit hole not long after the border crossing. This continued for the remainder of the bus trip and, after a brief respite sitting on the filthy Port Authority floors, on the number 7 train to Queens. There's nothing like discovering a hole in your vomit bag across from the family of three that you've been putting on a Hurl Show for, to teach you the value of always having some puke meds on you.

In November 2008, prior to my first plane trip back to Canada, I discovered that rather than getting drunk on Gravol, I could try these patches which I found at a pharmacy in Busan. I have no idea what their American equivalent is, though I imagine that one exists. Essentially they are small patches that you stick behind your ear and keep you in check, barf-wise, for about 72 hours. The first couple of times that I tried them out, I also used a little bit of Gravol, just to play it safe. This time I did not, hence my failure to fall asleep. As it turns out, I do not sleep like a baby on planes, as I have long boasted; I sleep like a baby when I consume large amounts of Gravol. Duh.

Where I failed to fall asleep, my seatmate was quite successful. Of course, the sleeping came after I fed him some Gravol to prevent further barfing. Thankfully, such things don't bother me much. My senses are so dulled on airplanes that I barely noticed him utilizing his barf bag in the first place.

The Gravol was more or less a trade-off for the No Jet Lag pills that he'd been passing me. Apparently if you take one of these No Jet Lag pills every 37 seconds while in flight, you will feel like a golden pony once you touch ground. I read the package with suspicion, which prompted him to assure me that they were legit. I suppose that it looked like I didn't trust taking pills from a stranger, which would probably have been true, had it not been outweighed by my suspicion that whoever was responsible for the pill's packaging was full of shit. In the end, I can't say whether they really helped or not, but I've felt worse. So, maybe.