Ponderables

These are two of the things that smarter people have already figured out and other people don't really care about. I think about them when I'm bored and it blows my mind. Kinda.

When you look in the mirror from 30 cm (your eyes to the mirror), is your reflection 30 cm or 60 cm away from you? For example, if you had a zit that you could see from 10 cm in the mirror, how close would someone else have to get before they saw it - 10 or 20 cm?

If you gave someone one dollar today, ten cents tomorrow, one cent the day after, 0.1 cents the day after, etc. for all eternity, they would never have two dollars but rather 1.11111.... dollars. However, since you are giving them money for all eternity, shouldn't they have an infinite amount of money at the end as opposed to less than two dollars? (I know there's not an end to eternity, but work with me here.)

Have you ever eaten live octopus?

I (Jon) haven't. I have recently confirmed that I am indeed allergic to seafood. Not severely, mind you, but enough to encourge my abstaining from sea dwelling creatures. Should the occasion arise where my allergies have finally stepped aside, I perhaps will one day try the Korean delicacy of octopus.

Koreans generally serve octopus three ways: boiled, raw and alive. I did try octopus once (I think it may have been raw) when I was still not sure about the allergy. Boiled - well, boiled octopus isn't really anything too special or spectacular.

Apparently the live octopus is a little dangerous. The octopus doesn't want to be eaten and so it will fight you, sometimes to the death. True story. Some people have died trying to eat live octopus because it has suctioned onto their faces and they have suffocated.

Other people, if they did not chew a tentacle well enough, would be later suprised to find that it had crawled out of their stomach and is now poking out their nose.

More mild forms of discomfort while eating live octopus may include (but are probably not limited to) suction cupped lips, teeth, tongue and cheeks. Remember - this fellow is alive and does not want to be swallowed. The legs are also smart enough to fight back without being attached to the head.

Rule of thumb when eating live octopus: chew well and chew fast.

Best of luck!

Phone cards, Filipinos and Hand Shakes

So Emily and I have taken to going to a Korean sauna every Sunday after church. (See previous blog posts for more detailed information.) Long story short, it's a good place to relax and just feel like you're "getting away from it all" in the middle of the city.

This past Sunday we went there after church and before supper with a friend. We sat on the heated floor (so nice!) and did our Korean homework. We're both in Korean lessons right now and it's really doing us a world of good - we're learning a great deal, though it is a challenging language.

While we were doing our homework, a man came up to us and started talking to us. (As an aside, Koreans have far more phyiscal contact with their average fellow human being than Canadians do. When you shake hands, you will likely end up holding the handshake, or holding hands, for a large part of the conversation.) Though strangers approacing us is not unusual, this man was not talking like any stranger. We knew him from somewhere, and he knew us. We figured out that he was the man that sells us our phone cards ($16 for about 6 hours to Canada - good deal) and he bought us a traditional Korean drink (sweet rice water) and gave us some discount coupons for the sauna. A very nice gesture for a near stranger.

Anyway, we thanked him and went our seperate ways. Emily and I finished our homework and went up to shower and meet our friend for suppper. (The showers are the naked part, as a reminder.)

I was sitting in the hot pool, just enjoying myself and ignoring everyone else when, lo and behold, the phone card guy comes and sits beside me and starts talking to me! Now, this is pushing my comfort barrier, though I feel as though I at least owe him the common courtesy of talking to him, which I did.

Then it gets worse. Another foreigner (this time from the Philippines) came and joined our conversation. I had not yet met this fellow, so he introduced himself and we shook hands. The downside, though, is that the Korean fellow asked the Filipino fellow a question as the Filipino and I began our handshake.

And so it happened - the longest handshake in the history of mankind. As we are holding our handshake (naked), the conversation happens. I'm about to be late, I'm not comfortable and I need to finish showering. Really, what better time is there to talk?

Eventually, the handshake ended and the evening went on. The rest of the evening was thankfully clothed and handshake free.

Picture Update

It was great to see the Jackson's smiling faces. This is them in the airport as Emily picked them up. They have since come and gone (our computer was dead for a majority of that time, hence no related postings) but here's some reminiscing for all y'all that weren't here for it.


This is a picture of us at a temple on Mudeung Mountain, the most popular mountian in Gwangju. It was cold that day, but (apparently) spring comes in March in some places in the world. This is one of those places. It's like heaven, where winter is less a way of life than it is a season.

If you go to the market, you can see buckets of pigs heads. I think that's noodles on the one. You can see the nose and ear of another in the bottom right corner. Some people think it's a little gross. I, however, see the upside. If the head is outside the restaurant, it can't be served inside.



Costco has pretty much every thing here, including fresh fish. This was probably in the ocean mere hours previous to this picture.

Us mere minutes before the Gyro Drop at Lotte World, the world's largest indoor amusement park. (We're outside here - it has an outside component.)
The Gyro Drop. It's a 70 meter free fall, so it'll get your blood going. Lotte World was really fun, but someone died on one of the roller coaster about two weeks after we were there. That is one of those things that is better to know after you leave.

Shabu shabu, quite possibly one of the most delicious meals in existence. Spicy broth, vegetables, shaved beef, noodles and fried rice to finish it off. It's an amazing three course meal for 10 bucks a person.



Shabu shabu again. Seriously, try it if you get the chance. Unless it's not good shabu shabu. Bad shabu shabu should not be done.

Anyway, that's a small taste of the Jackson's visit to Korea. More will come later - we don't want to overwhelm you!