TV Bye Bye

Once upon a time an old Korean ajuma went into my friend Heidi's place when her son (the ajumas son, not Heidi's) was moving out and knowing no English the ajuma said, "TV Bye Bye*." For me being back in Canada I wouldn't miss the TV one bit if it were gone. Back in Korea, it was a different story. I downloaded all the big hit TV shows from the US and the UK to watch back on the computer and felt I needed to watch. Here it's a different story. I don't even know what shows are on what night and really other than Sunday nights (aka Amazing race and Brothers and Sisters night) I hardly watch it. The only thing I will admit to watching more of is hockey and that's just because it's on when I'm at home whereas in Korea it was on while I was teaching morning classes. This being said, V is premiering tonight and I plan to watch just to say it's not as good as the original series.

* The ajuma knew very little English and meant to say, "He is my son and he will never marry you. You don't even know how to clean out the left over rice in the rice cooker."

English Bay and Stanley Park

Time to get some Vancouver sights on here. The apartment is a three minute walk from False Creek.


Posing on the beach one morning after we arrived in September.


SJ being a both a good and bad Vancouverite. He is proudly drinking coffee on the beach but he didn't bring his own reusable cup. The tree hugging hippies will not like him.


Kimchi!


Taking a break in Stanley Park. I was so happy to see a garbage can again that I had to get my picture taken next to it. (Korea is a garbage can free zone and if there is one it will definitely be overflowing with garbage.)


SJ acting as if he is used to being surrounded by nature. He did a good job of not jumping each time he heard trees playing in the wind but did panic when a nursery of raccoon met us on the trail.


The Lost Lagoon


More wildlife not to be eaten.

All in all Vancouver is a great place to live. The only thing that would make it amazing is if the city can somehow convince Calgary to swap hockey organizations.

Canadian Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving kind of snuck up on me without much warning. Living in Korea you remember when Korean thanksgiving is (nobody forgets to notice at least three days off in a row) and the American thanksgiving is celebrated at lots of the pubs in Itaewon (nobody forgets the places that serve turkey.) It wasn't until I looked at the Safeway flyer and noticed a special thanksgiving section that I knew Monday was a holiday. I'm still not brave enough to cook turkey and unlike Korea nobody gave me any holiday Spam gift sets to eat, so Saejin and I bought monster sized steaks. We made sure we plated at least two vegetables and by drinking the meal with wine it was a holiday meal.

For the day off on Monday(aren't all days off when you're unemployed?) Rachel Lynn woke me up with a text message saying her boyfriend Ross was about to roast up some ham. She invited us over for an early dinner and it was amazing. She made up a salad that was so good I didn't even notice I was eating beets. So I'm not so out of the loop on holidays I think I'd better fill in my day planner with the Canadian ones. I think Halloween might be coming up sometime soon.

I'm Australian

Turns out that no matter how long I worked in Korea as a Canadian they think I'm Australian. I was supposed to get my pension from Korea mid September (and after working there for so long it's a big chunk of change) but it didn't arrive until a couple of days ago. After calling Korea a few weeks ago to find out what the problem was it turned out that the records between the pension office and immigration didn't match up. Immigration had me down as an Australian. The lady working in the pension office had been working there for three years and she said this was the first time she had ever seen this kind of problem. She was glad I'd called and she explained it was just a shuffling of paper work that was delaying the money being sent. When I passed the phone onto Saejin she was even more apologetic and said she would personally send the money from the local office's account and speed things up. She also mentioned to Saejin that my school has yet to make the last payment and once (and if) that happens (it won't) I'll get another hundred and thirty bucks in my account. I'm not holding my breath but with the job search still on going it gives me a lot more time to find exactly what I'm looking for. Happy Thanksgiving.

It's on fire

Saejin is convinced that the bathroom is constantly about to burst into flames. No matter how many times I explain it's just a heated light that warms the bathroom he gets worried. Back in Korea he had no problem with the shower shooting water inches from the electrical socket or the fact the light bulb was unexposed and also within reach of the arcs of water. Cultural differences are fun.

UBC Museum of Anthropology

Old post here from the first week in Vancouver. Rachel-Lynn's mother works at the museum and they were having (in Vancouver like hippie ways) a dance performance at the museum. With nothing better to do and the first chance to see RL we agreed to head over to UBC.


RL and her boyfriend Ross grooving to the music.


Saejin adopting Mrs. Baird as his Vancouver mom.


RL and Saejin touching one of the "touchable" pieces of art.


Posing for a picture after being led through the museum by a troupe of dancers who stopped every so often to hippie dance.


Everyone hippie dancing. The thunderclap is now a new favorite dance move. Can't wait to show it off to my Korean friends.