New Year's Office Party

I do not normally eat fish or other seafood unless it has been battered and deep-fried. (I *love* fried shrimp.) I enjoy sushi rolls from time to time, but it helps that the fishiness is offset by rice. Of course, when one travels around the world, one must become accustomed to eating whatever presents itself... and, as my mother says: never turn down free food.

Yesterday evening was our office's New Year's party, which was held at a very nice seafood restaurant in East Daegu. Samson - Gwen's husband and my boss - had told me there would be things to eat other than fish... but apparently what he meant by that was 'other sea creatures.' Luckily for me, it was, for the most part, quite delicious.

Appetizers


This stuff - translated for me as 'fatty sea worm' - was still wriggling.
I did not attempt to eat it!

You're supposed to suck the innards out of these. I tried one. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't really worth repeating either, in my opinion.


Plate o' raw fish #1

Plate o' raw fish #2

Snow!

It doesn't usually snow in Daegu. It gets cold, sure. Sometimes there are flurries. Sometimes the snow even sticks for a few minutes... but actual snowfall? Nah. Not in Daegu.

Well, that's how things normally work here, anyway. But this December is apparently unusual. Snow has been falling - and sticking. Ambitious Koreans head out and shovel sidewalks (I mean, it's Daegu; there won't be more snowfall, right?) only to have more snow drift on in. It's nothing like the current situation in the northeastern US (or the usual in Russia or Kyrgyzstan), but it's definitely unusual for Daegu. The sun is out today, and the snow is slowly melting... but more snow is already in the forecast. Here are some photos, to give you an idea:

This was the view out my front window when I awoke yesterday.


Unused kimchi vats on my rooftop


Thrown-away chair on my walk to work


Backalley Banyawol in the snow


Traditional home, Banyawol


Mainstreet, Banyawol - on my walk to work


My neighborhood park in the snow.


This chick was building a mini-snowman in her hand.

post-holiday links post

I spent Christmas Day at Gwen's - click here or on the supercute picture above to see the pictures, most of which are of Sahn :-)

I re-edited my photos from Solburun 2008 - click here or on the photo above to view the whole set, and click here to read the blog post. Enjoy!!

Simon's Cat shows us why some of us just can't do trees.

And lastly, TIME Magazine ran an interesting story about required HIV testing for foreign English teachers working in Korea. (h/t, The Marmot's Hole)

Wedding Crashers!

Yeon-shil, the secretary at the school where I teach, invited me, my cousin George, and our coworker Jeremy to attend her sister's wedding, which was held yesterday at the unimaginatively named Hotel Airport (located - not surprisingly - at the Daegu Airport. I don't know Yeon-shil very well, and I'd never so much as met her sister, so I felt a little weird about going, but as she seemed so excited to have us attend, I felt I couldn't let her down. This wasn't the first Korean wedding that I've attended (I went to one back in 2006), so I pretty much knew what to expect.

George and Yeon-shil

The first part of the wedding ceremony is very similar to a traditional Western wedding, with the groom in a tux and the bride in a floofy white dress, although the parents and several relatives of the bride and groom wore traditional hanbok.

Following the ceremony, the wedding photographer assembled the friends and family of the wedding party for formal photographs... and decided that including the three random foreigners (who knew neither bride nor groom, remember) was an absolute must. So yes, George, Jeremy, and I feature in several of this new couple's wedding shots. While the professional photographer was shooting away, some random fellow I'd never met nor seen before picked up my camera and immortalized this bizarre event for me as well.

After the photography finished, nearly all of the guests bustled off to the dining hall to partake in a huge buffet, while the close friends and family stayed behind to participate in a second wedding ceremony, the traditional Korean ceremony known as paebaek. I'd already decided the day couldn't get any more bizarre when we were asked to come and watch the private paebaek ceremony. This was something that I hadn't ever seen up close before, and I was quite pleased to be welcomed (and encouraged to photograph) - even though I couldn't help thinking it was rather strange to be included!

The complete set of photographs from the wedding can be seen here.

Linkety-Linkety :-)

Some more links for your enjoyment - please check them out!

· Balykchy: A Town on the Edge - Ben Rich brings you his adventures in the decaying lake-side town of Balykchy, Kyrgyzstan.

· Seaside of Death: The perils of progress in Sumgayit - in keeping with the theme of decaying lake-site towns in the former Soviet Union, Joe Scarangella brings you his adventures from Sumgayit, Azerbaijan.

· But that's not all from Joe... he's also brought us a series on a desolate island off the coast of Yemen.

· And from me (because you came to my blog, so surely you want to hear what *I* have to say), I've revisited a couple of tales from my past: one wonderful - a visit to the collapsing remains of Russian nobility; one horrific - a large portion of why, for me, 2009 was a living hell.

e-mail update

Just to let everyone know,
I will no longer be using jane@janekeeler.com as one of my email addresses.
If you wish to email me, please use jane.keeler@yahoo.com. Thanks :-)

Market Day in Banyawol

I really, really love my neighborhood here in Korea (which is also where I lived when I was here in 2006-2007). It's near the eastern edge of the city, meaning that the crazy-jam-packed-with-people madness that goes on in downtown Daegu never reaches out here. It's a laid back kind of neighborhood, very friendly, and incredibly safe. South Korea touts its modernity at every opportunity, and many neighborhoods in Korea are nothing but modern highrises as far as the eye can see. My neighborhood is different. True, we have our fair share of newly constructed modern highrises, as well as the ridiculously oversized and opulent Lotte Plaza, but we also have the smaller, more traditional homes and alleyways of the original neighborhood. We also have market day, a day when food, clothing, and household goods are sold on the street in the age old manner of a street market.

Market day in Banyawol happens roughly every five days. It is held on days ending in 6 and 1 (with the exception of the 31st). I've been waiting for a market day to fall on a weekend during which the weather was sunny and I was feeling healthy. Today, December 11th, was the first time all three factors coincided. I'm not good at taking pictures of people, so most of my pictures are of dead fish and of the decaying area of Old Banyawol in which the market is held. My complete set of photos can be seen here. My favorites are below.

Koreans eat a lot of fish, and the marketplace was filled with vendors selling fish of all shapes and sizes, living, fresh, frozen, and dried. I don't like to eat fish, which perhaps is why the fish in the markets fascinate me so much.


I didn't get many people shots at the market, but this was definitely my favorite.


Korean mailbox and home gate

An abandoned property

No, it's not a Nazi swastika, it's a buddhist manji, and it's showing the location of one of the many small temples located in Banyawol.

CLICK HERE to see the complete set of photos!!

Calendarriffic Madness!

In addition to my 2011 calendar featuring photographs of South Korea, Desolation Travel has just put up *two* 2011 calendars - one is specific to Kyrgyzstan, while the other has images of desolation from all over the former Soviet Union, taken by the Desolation Travel team. Each calendar sells for $19.99. Check 'em out and buy one - or better yet, buy all three! Simply click on the image(s) below to preview and purchase!

More desolation than you can handle!

During the past month, we've been pretty busy over at Desolation Travel.

· We expanded beyond the former Soviet Union just a bit with a post about Detroit and rural Pennsylvania.

· Nicola shared her tale and photographs from a December trip to Kazakhstan, complete with nicotine-craving mafia burglars.

· Ben R provided us with a travel guide to and photographs of the breakaway republic of Transdniester.

· Derek promptly went to Transdniester, and shared his story of bribery and extortion

· And lastly, in a fit of pique over the cancellation of my planned trip to the DMZ this weekend (cancelled, of course, due to the shelling of Yeonpyeong-do), I posted about North Koreans in Russia, and added my story and photographs from my trip to the DMZ in 2004.

If you'd like the direct links to our sites, here you go:

http://www.desolationtravel.com

http://desolationtravel.blogspot.com

And if, for some inexplicable reason, desolation isn't your thing,
check out Charlie being petted and purring!
(The purr becomes audible around the 15-20 second mark.)

Photos of Korea: A 2011 Calendar

Above are the photographs featured in my 2011 calendar,
which you can purchase from lulu.com for $19.99.
CLICK HERE or on the images above to purchase! :-)

Miss Charlie: The cute and snuggly bed cat