The one where the wild calls

The differences between Atlanta and the back woods of Michigan are rather stark.  It's cooler here, though the Michiganians think it's sweltering for some reason.  There are a lot fewer people in Michigan.  And there is no internet connection out "on the farm".  It isn't really a farm, but that's what I call it.  25 acres in the country is a farm to me, I don't care what crops they don't grow.

I enjoy my visits, however.  It's so different from what customs I've cultivated in Korea.  Without internet, I can't watch videos, check my mail, read a blog, or any of several other activities that have become so commonplace to me over the last 13 years.  Meals are on a schedule and consist of plain country fare with fruits and vegetables harvested and canned the previous year, unadorned meats, rough

hewn bread and a tall glass of water drawn straight from the tap but tasting like a mountain spring.

After a homemade dessert of pie or cake or even sometimes ice cream, we gather in front of the television to watch the evening news followed by either an Agatha Christie story or Red Green.  We banter lively and test our theories about who Hercule Poirot will finger, or we laugh heartily at the antics of the Possum Lodge!

Bedtime comes early, about 10:30, maybe 11 if there's something especially interesting on the TV.  Dawn breaks as we awake the next morning.  The window is open, and the sounds of the breeze in the poplars, the birds collecting their breakfast, and Jack sipping his coffee on the back deck drift into my little bedroom off the garage.

I'm jealous of them, the people who live this life every day of every year.  I doubt I could be totally happy living this way all the time, but for this summer, it is the most wonderful place on earth.

Next week I return home, and though it's a world away, I hope that a little bit of my stay in the Michigan countryside will follow me down the road to Korea.

The one where a shirt speaks for me

The last couple weeks in America, I have noticed that there are a LOT of fat people.  I'm no Twiggy, granted, and compared to Koreans, I am definitely a big guy, but here in the States, I look rather slim next to some of these folks!  Maybe here is a reason:

Candy vending machines!  I had forgotten about them, because I only see them here.  This one looks so inviting, eh?  Plus, everything you order at a restaurant here is double the size it should be. Today I got a burrito at the Raging Burrito downtown, and it was bigger than both my fists side by side!  I haven't been able to finish a restaurant meal here since I arrived!  What does it say about a people who eat so much while so many on earth starve to death?  And it isn't that the fat Americans don't realize people are starving, it's that we seem not to care.  I got mine, to hell with you.  That's not right; shame on me, too. 

Oh, I had a wonderfully long and friendly chat with a lady and her incompetent assistant (but a sweet gal nonetheless) about Korea, Korean money, culture, and motorcycles, the army, weather, and god only knows what else we covered.  She runs a T-shirt printing shop in some mall that I came across by accident while looking for the drugstore I had dropped some film off at.  I wandered into her shop while contemplating hanging around for a movie to start, and when I realized where I was, I told her I was a Democrat and I wanted a shirt to emphasize that by saying the following:

She instantly knew what I was getting at, and we had a good laugh.  There's an election today, and she warned me not to wear this today in public! LOL  However, I like it, and I don't mean it literally, though I'm sure some right wing radical would easily oblige me if he had the chance!  Considering all the hate-filled signage we've seen from tea partiers the last year, my T-shirt is rather tame, I would say.

The one where I ate a reuben

This is the motorcycle I chose to buy while I was in Georgia.  I learned a lot about registering vehicles in Georgia, but I'm not upset over my mistakes with it all.  Mistakes are honorable teachers and I respect them. As you might know, if I do not learn something constructive on vacation, it's a wasted vacation as far as I'm concerned.  However, the bike is registerd in the state of Michigan now, or at least it's in the process of getting registered there.  Next week it is being shipped to my hometown of West Branch where I will meet up with it and ride it around showing it off (it's a handsome ride) before storing it carefully for next time.

I enjoyed lunch today with Ryan, the guy I bought the motorcycle from.  We signed the bill of sale and had it notarized at a UPS store in Marietta and ate Reuben sandwiches at the Marietta diner before he had to go.  I am really glad fate introduced me to him.  He's a good man.  The Marietta Diner isn't a little Ma & Pa joint, but it's a diner, of sorts, and I got to sit at the counter, so it was just fine by me!








Joan got a job doing the windows for Sufi's, a restaurant which is scheduled to open this autumn in the Buckhead area of Atlanta.  I got a shot of her doing some measurements there before she left for a week's vacation in Napa Valley.

Things have not been going as planned this vacation, but I have enjoyed the rest and relaxation available.  My plans to go to Greensboro did not materialize, so I'm a little at sea about how to fill this weekend. The Waffle House museum will be open to the public this Saturday, and that is a definite MUST SEE!  (I really like diners, if you didn't know that before.)  Hey!  That's what I can do!  I can go around trying out diners around Atlanta!  To the Yellow Pages!

The one where Michigan will wait

An office/classroom floating in the sky is a fine setting for one of my final interviews of the semester.  All the grades have been entered, and all the complaining seems over as well.  Maybe my comforting and encouraging explanations satisfied the students that their grades were as fair as I could make them given the restraints of the grading curve percentages imposed on us.

Monday is my departure from Korea to the United States for a holiday.  It was meant to be a visit to my family since I had received frowny faces over the last decade that I wasn't visiting often enough.  However, I am apparently visiting too often now as nobody among my six siblings and 10 nephews and nieces living in Michigan nor even their adult children are willing to pick me up at the airport when I arrive. (Don't they know how generous eccentric uncles are?!)  So I will be visiting the one family member who actually said she'd pick me up... in Atlanta.  Therefore, I will have my holiday in Georgia and the Appalachian Mountains, and Michigan will have to wait.

The one where you can't get there from here

When I got to Busan Sunday, I needed a helmet for riding on Rob's motorbike, so we swung into E-Mart and found this adorable little number.  It really brings out my eyes and retarded side, I think.

Busan is a beautiful city, and according to Rob, you can drink beer right out in public!  I have that American stupidity ingrained, I guess, that says you need to put your beer in a paper bag if you drink outside.  What's up with that, anyway?  Why do Americans have to pretend to conceal something that is so obvious as to make the whole affair ridiculous?  Then again, what about America isn't ridiculous half the time? ㅋㅋㅋ

Being somewhat naive about almost everything Busan, I asked Rob to drop me off at Busan Station, the big central train station downtown, so I could catch a train home.  Of course, you can't go to Gyeongju from Busan from the big central train station without going to Daegu first, then backtracking to Gyeongju, making the trip about 5 hours to go 40 miles.  Needless to say, I took a bus home.  Should have taken my motorbike, but everyone said the weather was supposed to turn foul, which it did not, thank you kindly all you naysaying dumbasses!

In other news, I ordered a MacBook Pro from the Apple store in Busan, and it was delivered to my home by the creepiest delivery man I have ever encountered.  I'm used to Koreans being surprised when a "foreigner" opens the door to them, and I've encountered a few people so taken aback as to become temporarily speechless (in any language).  However, this guy showed the usual surprise (even though my foreign name was emblazoned on the box and my door!), but then he got this twisted little grin, and his eyes roved around on me and the apartment behind me in the oddest way.  I discreetly looked down to make sure all my body parts were inside my clothing and dismissed the guy politely, but quickly.  Just a little weirded out.  So, drum rolls please!  Here is my new MacBook Pro:

She's a beaut, eh?  Stay tuned for further updates about this little gal!
 

The one where I still can't have nice things

I certainly do live up to the Raymond Family motto: "Cur non possumus bona habere?"*


I was getting on my motorcycle this morning when I just happened to see Pepper not only outside, but sneaking in between our building and the one next door! (The cats are not allowed outside unsupervised.)  At first, I couldn't believe it was him, because I have a sliding glass door that separates the entryway from the rest of the house, and I distinctly remember closing it.  He must have been hiding in the entryway behind boots or something and sneaked out when I went outside to go to work.  So, I tried to sneak up on him to grab his tail but he took off just as I was closing my hand around his tail.  I instinctively lurched forward, smashing the helmet I was wearing into the corner of the building.  I would have rather gotten a black eye, though, because black eyes go away.  This helmet is barely ten days old, and already it's marred.


Anyway, Pepper didn't go far, and he came to me when I started talking to him.  Crisis averted.








*"Why can't we have nice things?"   Thanks to the YouTuber "tenneral" for helping me with the Latin!

The one where this little piggy went to market

Almost everything seems to be left up to the professional teachers in Korea.  Today HomePlus was busy with children as adults (that I assume were teachers) escorted them through the store.  All the children had little baskets, though the adults chose the items for them to put in their baskets.  I wanted to ask what was going on, but I knew better.  Whoever I asked would simply stare at me in horror, collect him/herself, then smile and scurry away.  It's the usual response I get when I ask questions here.

Was it a shopping lesson?  A PR moment for the store?  I will probably never know.

It's probably good to be taught how to shop.  My learning came with the money I pilfered from the usual locations of loose change in the average home: sofas, end tables, mother's purse, loose change spent frivolously at the dime store on plastic cars and dart pistols. I'm not a good shopper.  Usually, it's in and out a single store to be done with the burdensome deed.  Maybe I should have tagged along with the children today and learned just how shopping should be done.