Meme?

Not exactly sure what a meme is but a great little blog I frequent Darth Gateau passed my site on to do one and seeing as it's about books, I'll happily comply. Here are the rules of said meme:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Locate the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences on your blog and in so doing...
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged me.

Here goes, from Animal's People by Indra Sinha:

"The first pill I give Zafar on the day of the big democracy. The democracy is a meeting where everyone has their say, followed by a big fucking row, after which everyone does what Zafar wants. This one happens in Somraj's music room which he keeps sacred to goddess Sarawati and blue-throated god Siva."

I just started this book and hate skipping ahead so when I finally made it to page 123 today I felt more confident in posting about the book. It's taken some time to get into it but slowly I'm liking it.

The story is told by a cripple whose spine was brutally injured as a child when a chemical leak from an American plant poison the neighbourhood. Forced to travel on all fours throughout the slums of Khaufpur, India Animal has survived into his late teens knowing only this life. Around this time a beautiful American doctor sets up a clinic in the area and Animal is automatically drawn to her but others think she has been sent by the "company" and aren't so sure.

That's what the above passage is about everyone has gotten together to figure out how to deal with this new doctor and getting justice from the company. As for the pill, Animal is slowly poisoning his friend Zafar to keep him from making love to Nisha a girl he's grown found of. Not sure where the story is headed but it should be good because this book was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007.

I won't tag anyone because like a meme I'm not so sure what that means.

Less Back More Fun

Not the best week to start back on on the blog but what can I do. I took the day off today and hit up a hospital that specialises in bones and muscles. Long story short, turns out sitting back in your chair with your feet up on the desk (a la lazy boss) for hours on end is one of the worst postures you can have. Once I got partitions installed around my desk this is how I kill my afternoon hours at work. Oops.

From the x-rays my left side is now slightly higher than the right which has put pressure on my fourth disk. The doctor was a nice lady who set me up with drugs and physical therapy (read noisy machines doing deep tissue relief). She said it should clear up in a couple of weeks if I take it easy but if it doesn't then I will be hooked up to an MRI machine to check out what exactly is wrong with my fourth disk. I'm hopeful it won't get that far.

To cheer things up a bit here I'll post pictures from a few weeks ago when Dong Soo made the five hour trek into Seoul.

Things started off quietly in my neighbourhood.

Then Dong Soo started up on a drinking game which no matter what he did he continued to lose.

Our third round took us to a Fish restaurant Byoung Joone recommended. He picked out this octopus.

I love frsh, still alive raw octopi.

I don't like battery acid soju.

The doctor prescribed two weeks of taking it easy but with a long weekend trip to Beijing planned in eight days I'll have to be extra good. I've been sitting in this posture for too long now and doctors orders tell me to change it up, I'm thinking a movie lying down in front of the TV.

Dr. Pain

I didn't make it to the regular hospital after work. Instead I headed over for some acupuncture treatments from my friend Nara's husband. The last time I was there was a few years ago when I went for a bad case of the flu and was given some pin pricks and then chalk like medicine full of deer antlers and frog penises. It left me scared to return but I assumed that there would be no medicine to drink for a wonky back.

I explained my problem to Mr. Nara and he set me up in one of the back rooms. I started out lying on a warm cloth for five minutes before he came back and made me flip over. He then went to work hammering my back to find out the sore spots. Once he knew where to go he started loading up my back with needles and in what I can only assume was for decoration he pricked a final needle in my hand so I could watch it twitch once he started up the electrical currents. It felt great and after twenty minutes a nurse came and depricked me before setting up about four suction cups up on my back that massaged the back in different sucking motions.

Twenty minutes later an alarm went off and back came the doctor to load my back up with two hot suction cups that pulled at the skin. When these were removed I had what sounded and felt like a stapler gun run a series of pricks where the final hot suction cups were. I had to admit to feeling a tad beat up but a whole lot better, unfortunately the pain has slowly returned today. If I had time tonight I'd zip over to the clinic for another go (why wouldn't you when it only costs five bucks) but I'll definitely go Wednesday if things don't improve.

Attack of the Killer Back

I vowed last night to get back on the Blogging bandwagon but that idea was made before I got the worst backache in my life. I don't normally get backaches but last night I was sitting in front of the computer when around 9:30 I felt the lowest part of my back slowly start tightening up right around the spine. It continued to vice grip my spine for the next couple of hours and by the time I was ready for bed I was in pain.

I got the bright idea to use the hardness of the floor to fight against the squeeze and crashed down and tried to sleep. I can never sleep on my back so I tried for a few minutes before giving up and painfully flipping onto my stomach. Big mistake. I was now stuck face down where each and every move had my back in spasms. I finally did get back onto my back in a state of non movement but this was just in time to realise I had to go to the bathroom. Collapsed on the floor is a long way from standing and Saejin needed to come help get me to my feet.

I should of called in sick today but chose to just get up and try it out. I walk like a senior citizen and it takes me a few minutes to rev up my engine after I have been sitting. I can't wait for the day to be done and I'll hit up the hospital on the way home for some of the strongest muscle relaxants out there.

Spring Vacation.

I had the last ten days of for Spring Vacation and did a ton of stuff. On Wednesday I used my free pass to Lotte World and brought Teddy and ChanYeong along for some fun.


Strutting their stuff to get to the good rides outside.


Because it was a weekday we were lucky to avoid insanely crazy lines and instead settled into mildly insane ones. To ride the Atlantis ride we stood around for just under an hour but this roller coaster is well worth the wait.

After a series of boring rides inside we finally convinced Teddy to come outside and try another one of the big boy rides. The Gyro drop takes you up seventy meters before free falling to the ground. Teddy reluctantly lined up to ride but once a hint of rain started to fall he bolted for better shelter than my umbrella offered. It was a sad escape but I'm lucky he was so far away that he couldn't hear me shriek in fear on the actual ride.

Lotus Lantern Festival

On Sunday afternoon Shelly signed a wad of us up for making lanterns at the Lotus Lantern Festival near Insadong. Buddha's birthday isn't until next week but somehow the celebrations fell earlier this year. It was a tedious affair where you started out blowing the paper apart before twisting and gluing.


Joel and I debating the colour of his choice. He clearly couldn't see that he'd chosen pink and stood firm by it being a red colour.


The final outcome. Hugo won a prize for his lantern with it's untwirled hanging bits. To quote him, "I got rewarded for being lazy."

Wednesday's Fun

Wednesday we got the day off for our school's birthday but instead of wisely sleeping in and using the day to rest I got up at my normal time and headed out trekking about town. I had a few little things to pick up for friends and ended up hitting all the major shopping spots in downtown Seoul.


Here the stream is all decked out in lanterns for the celebrations of Buddha's birthday later this month and the lantern festival on Sunday.


The wrong side of the stream. On the other side there are huge coffee shops and things look great but the South side has yet to get remade.

The HiSeoul festival kicks off this weekend and there are plans all over the city of things to do. Shelly has signed up a bunch of us to make Lanterns on Sunday at lunch.


An older picture from earlier this month of the huge lantern set up outside city hall. The lantern parade takes place later that Sunday night and I hope to stick around to check it out.

Beef Day

Wednesday was a holiday for me (it was the school's birthday) and around five o'clock I got a call from Saejin telling me we had to meet for a beef dinner. Why? Saejin loves his meat but more importantly he is heavily influenced by the media. The important news (after bashing China for it's unruly students early in the week) was that Wednesday was the last day before American beef was aloud to re-enter the market. According to the fear mongering media, Koreans will be forced into buying this cheaper beef, forced into eat it and forced to die painfully slow deaths to Mad-cow disease.