Anne's Grumpy Christmas

Minor personal stuff *about my feelings*:

It's Christmas and I'm grumpy. I miss my family and I don't feel like hanging around the people I know here in Busan. So I've been staying at home the past week or so indulging in a quasi hermit-like existence. Lots of coffee, tea, movies and TV on my computer, as well as Diablo II. Every 2nd year or so I enjoy playing a real computer game. Yes I know, Diablo II is not exactly new but I'm having fun with it. I'm a level 11 sorceress!!

In other less self-pitying news, I signed a new contract yesterday. New as in new department cause the position is still at Pukyong - my fifth contract at this uni!! The contract is not ideal in that it's too many hours per week, but this is offset by a satisfyingly higher monthly salary, and 12 weeks vacation a year. Also, my students will be awesome cause I'll be teaching only English majors. Woot! So the headache of looking for a new job and moving has been avoided for one more year...

A few weeks ago I went through the bizarre process of getting a new cell phone. There was nothing wrong with my old one but I decided I'd really like a phone with a bilingual dictionary. Makes figuring out what I'm buying at the grocery store a little less of a crap shoot. Amidst various phone calls and faxing of documents I was able to get an older model phone for about $30CAD. It's still very fancy though. Along with the delightful dictionary it's got a pretty decent camera. While I don't usually carry my real camera around, I usually have my phone on me. Which means I can take random pictures like this:
In all homes here people take off their shoes before entering. Last night there was a Christmas Eve party with many attendees and this was the result. That's a whole lotta footwear...

I also spent a while snapping shots of my kitty, much to her disinterest. Here's her in her 'sexy' pose:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone out there who never bothers to write!!

Land's End - conclusion

Our last day in Land's End we'd hoped to go aboard Captain's ship, but it needed repairs so instead we wandered around the village.We again visited the Family Mart and hung out with some locals. They seemed to really like Soju.

A little later Jen insisted we follow her along a trail she'd found. It was such a beautiful day. Here are some sights.


After a short haul on the trail we reached this majestic monument marking the official southern most point on the peninsula - 땅끝.

Here's a kinda neat reflective shot of us adventurers:After that it was time to bid adieu to Land's End and our charming host and hit the road. The rural scenery in Korea really is beautiful, especially on a sunny autumn day where the fields of rice seem extra sun-kissed:

Unfortunately around sundown these glorious open roads ceased to be as we were returning to Busan on one of the days most notorious for traffic jams - the second last day of Korean Thanksgiving. Shortly after getting on the expressway we hit a dense wall of traffic and moved at less than a crawl for several hours. Finally around 11:30pm we couldn't take it any more, exited and found a hotel. We crashed for a few hours then were back in the car around 6:00am. Though the roads were no longer blocked, they were by no means free of traffic. We rolled into Busan around 8am and figured that around noon the roads were likely back to their chock-o'-block state.

Note to self: never EVER travel by car on Chuseok ever again!!!