i made a wee video of my wee apartment here in busan. you can see it below:

here.

been having a bit of trouble sleeping, which i suppose explains why i am updating this thing at almost midnight when i have to be at work at 9:30 a.m.

tomorrow is the last day of my first week of work. i’ve been sitting in, watching a lot of classes. nine teachers are leaving at the end of the month or early in august, so we new teachers will be taking over their classes. tomorrow, i’ve got to do a mock lesson in front of the school director and some other folks. there’s something about the director that’s rubbed me the wrong way since we first met. she has an underbite, and her mouth is always hanging open. when she agrees with you, she nods vigorously and all the skin on her face jiggles unpleasantly. plus, she’s trying to get the new teachers to feel obligated to come in on one of our vacation days. i smell a rat.

there’s a funny smell here. i walk around with it in the back of my nose all day. i hope i get used to it soon and don’t notice it. it’s not unpleasant, really. the people in 1507, down the hall from me, keep their door open all the time, and their food smells fill my floor and just linger there in the humidity, getting soggy. then it lodges in my sinuses and stays there all day reminding me of kimchi.

i noticed today that two of the kids at school had terrycloth medical masks with friendly flowers and cartoon characters embroidered on them and pink straps. they keep them in their backpacks, and one of the girls wore hers in class today. is there a pandemic going around that i didn’t hear about?

night before last, i met up with my friend jeff at the beach for some dinner and a few drinks. we sat on the boardwalk and looked at the lovely two-level bridge that connects his part of town to mine. it’s illuminated nicely at night with lights that slowly change colors. to the left, a part of town that reminds me an awful lot of vegas, what with all the neon and colored signs. we met jeff’s co-workers for dinner at a restaurant that was described to me as a “pork spine place.” sure enough, the server brought a giant pot of stew, placed it on the burner in the middle of the table and walked away. floating among the potatoes, cabbage and various leaves and veggies were vertebrae with meat falling off them. it was pretty delicious, actually. there’s a photo in the gallery below.

most of the rest of the photos are from california. boda, chase and i went to a lovely state park one day where a natural bridge sat in the shallow water. we found small crabs in the tiny tidepools on the rock shelves by the ocean. boda and i spent an evening in oakland, the perfect night to be there. there’s a night once a month when all the galleries stay open late, the street vendors come out and there’s live music everywhere. boda and i wandered the crowds, saw some good stuff and some bad stuff.

that’s plenty for now, huh?