Only in Korea

X-Ray Oddities

The 5-centimeter nail shown in this X-ray was found after a man came to a Seoul, South Korea, hospital complaining of a severe headache. After examining and interviewing the man, doctors speculated that the nail had been the result of an accident four years before his visit, but that the man did not know the nail was lodged in his head.

(Yohap/AP Photo)

JuJu @ Namsangol Hanok Village - Mar 19

My friend JuJu and I went to the same university. We actually only took one class together, science fiction. Perhaps it was a lasting one? Regardless, he came out to Korea before me, and he was actually heading back home a few days or so after we decided to meet up.

Namsangol is a little pre-fab tourist trap just out of Chungmuro subway station that offers several styles of traditional Korean homes to view. Especially for the time of year we went, it was a bit deserted. I enjoyed seeing a new thing, even if it wasn't a legitimate old neighbourhood. There are enough real ones in Korea, it's a little amusing to see that this one got built...

I find the typical Korean home style quite comfortable. What with it's huge sliding windows, inner courtyard and floor heating. If ever I have the chance to built my own home, I'd like to model it off an Asian-style layout.

We also found a gigantic time capsule commemorating Seoul's 600th birthday, to be opened when it turned 1000, to play on. Whee!


All in all, it was a nice morning to see a friend before he jetted home. Bye JuJu! Korea will miss you!

Weekend trip to Busan - March 1 -2

Perhaps I can update those close to me on my happenings in the last few months. I haven't been idle, only lazy with posting photographs. :P

So just for fun, Erica and I decided to go to Busan for the weekend March 1-2. We took the KTX, or the fast train, so it was about and hour and a half - 2 hours to get there. Busan is Korea's second largest city. I say "city" loosely because really, Busan felt more like a very huge town (being together with your closest 3.6 million friends).

I posted a bunch of arty pics on my picture blog, look at the March 8 through April 1 entries.

Our first destination was Haeundae Beach, and on the subway trip, numerous people couldn't stop gapping at me. I was a WHITE person! I saw kids get excited and point and loudly say, "Waegookin (foreigner)!" Even though they also have a huge English hagwon industry, there still isn't that many foreigners down there.

The sun was out, and for March, it was pretty balmy. Erica and I enjoyed the scenery and chowed down on some mandu.

Irony

hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

Part of Speech: n
Definition: fear of long words

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia — fear of long words. Hippopoto- "big" due to its allusion to the Greek-derived word hippopotamus (though this is derived as hippo- "horse" compounded with potam-os "river", so originally meaning "river horse"; according to the Oxford English, hippopotamine has been construed as large since 1847, so this coinage is reasonable); -monstr- is from Latin words meaning "monstrous", -o- is a pseudo-Greek noun-compounding vowel; -sesquipedali- comes from "sesquipedalian" meaning a long word (literally "a foot and a half long" in Latin), -o- is a pseudo-Greek noun-compounding vowel, and -phobia means "fear".