SEOUL - DECEMBER 10, 2000
Well, my three months of my tourist visa has almost expired. I've been running around trying to find a cheap ticket to Southeast Asia for the last week or so. I probably should have done this awhile back. It looks like I'll be going to Vietnam and once there I'll try to overland travel to Cambodia. Two places I've been wanting to go for a very long time. Currently my passport sits at the Vietnamese Embassy waiting to be processed. It takes about four days to do all of the paper work. Then sometime next week I'll pick it up, and I have my ticket reserved, but not yet paid for. So hopefully there aren't any major problems. I reserved my ticket for December 20, so it doesn't give me much time to develop a backup plan if there are any problems getting the visa for Vietnam. Wish me alot of luck because I don't have any sudden backup plans!!
Just temporarily I would like to discuss Seoul. Everything is going really well here, except for the language class. This coming week is final exams, and definetely not prepared for them. The class was at such a face pace for my western English-native ears. I'm debating about going through a part-time program in January when I come back. The full-time was much too fast. I learned alot, but regrettably thinking about not even going at all next week. I'm certainly the worse student in the class. I'll keep trying with the Korean language, but I can pretty much say with 100% certainty that I'm not anywhere near the level I should be upon semi-competition of this class. The pace of the class seems much more suitable to Japanese students, and to a lesser extent Asian students in general. I will try again after the New Year though - maybe at a slower pace part-time program.
By the way, the Seoul 2000 pictures are pictures of all my classmates. The first picture is of Kimura (from Japan) and myself. He is a really cool guy. He has brought his digital camera to alot of out class get-togethers. All of the pictures seen on the Seoul 2000 page were from his camera. Its a little slower to view as well, because I usually scan my pictures to the web, but with digital camera, I'm not quite savvy enough to know how to minimize the pictures for the web.
This is probably my last intensive discussion on Seoul for about a month. From here on out, it'll be mostly Vietnam and Cambodia. Next time, I'm going to try to post some of the more interesting and more extensive website authors who live in that region. I also have a favorite couple author expats from Cambodia. I really want to discuss their works next time as well on this website board. So, as the journals temporarily takes a sideloop, I want to follow-up on a couple of the more interesting things about Seoul that I caught in some of the newspapers.
First, there is a rather large controversy going on right now about creating a "Millennium Gate" as a new national architectural icon. It would be the symbol of Seoul, much like the Eiffel Tower is the symbol of Paris, or the Statue of Liberty is for New York. I saw some designs from the artist, and it looks quite incredible. It is an extremely large ring (kind of looks like one of the rings you'd find around a planet like Saturn). The plan is to build it near the World Cup Stadium in time for the World Cup in 2002. Currently the discussion is for it to be 200-meters in diameter. A fairly large architectural project.
The other thing, was about the Internet phenemenon in Korea. I just pulled some stuff from a recent article in the December 11, 2000 edition of Time Magazine. I am just going to post some statistics according to their article to project the immensity of the Internet in South Korea. 34% of Korea's population has access to the Internet far ahead of Taiwan (18%), Hong Kong (17%), Japan (14%), China (0.7%). The article also went on to note that Korea has become one of the world's most connected countries, and Korea has exceeded Japan in terms of subscriptions to super-highspeed communication networks. Pretty amazing, as California and Japan seem to be about as high-tech as I thought anywhere in the world could possibly be. So, there you have it...
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Oh, and one last thing, a friend of mine from New York City. I worked almost daily with her in the same building on the same floor is a published writer. I saw one of her readings in New York City, and she was a pleasure to listen to her read. I wanted to create an entire page in my website dedicated with a picture of her book and some of her other writings published elsewhere. It is quite impressive, and an honor to have made her acquaintence. Her recent book has been popping up all around New York City (I was seeing it everywhere!) and throughout North America, and who knows elsewhere. I think she was contemplating some readings in Europe soon as well. Last summer, she was touring throughout the United States giving readings with a couple other of her writing collegues from New York. If you wish to view her work, or buy her book. Please, please view these websites. She has some published work on nerve.com which you can click to right now and read, and, if you love it, you can easily order an acutal book of hers through Akishicbooks.com. Her name is Lauren Saunders, and her book is called "Kamikaze Lust". I have to warn you, its loaded with alot of sex! You have porn stars and journalists and everything else thrown into the mix. If that doesn't sell it for you, I don't know what will. One of her favorite authors, and I discussed this briefly with her is Henry Miller, and if you've ever read 'Tropic of Cancer' or 'Tropic of Capricorn', you can see the slight influence it has on Lauren's work as well. Although Lauren's work is written much more clearly, whereas ol' Henry Miller would go endlessly into side tangents of thought. But anyhow, you can read her short story on nerve.com. If you love lesbian lust, you'll certainly love her short story. If you love her short story, then you'll certainly love her book. View one, and buy the other! She also has an audio reading through salon.com, and her own published website Jezebelle2000.com which has tons of pictures from her book tour and loaded with the most comprehensive information anything and everything you might ever want to know about her. |
To read the Next Journal Entry: December 15, 2000
You can email me at:
Wintermoon2@yahoo.com
Recent pictures on my website in Seoul, Korea
Kevin's Seoul Photos
A great article by Rolf Potts regarding the Teaching English
Boom which exploded in the mid-1990s
A
Return to Pusan
Website of the Pusan Expat Community:
PusanWeb
Teacher/Traveler/Writing Extraordinaire:
Rolf Potts
Great website for teaching abroad jobs:
Dave's ESL Cafe
My Friend Brad's Website:
Tripping
with Brad
Seoul's Rave Scene
Sickboy
Technogate
101Techno
Salsa in Seoul
Feel-A-Dance
Lauren Sanders (NYC writer and her works):
Her website: Jezebelle2000.com
Her publisher: Akishicbooks.com
Her short story: Nerve.com
Audio Visual of her work: Salon.com