Hail to thee, JoongAng ...
Just got back from the JoongAng Ilbo's 41st anniversary celebration. There was an auditorium full of Korean men in suits, with four Korean men in suits facing them from the stage. I guess those guys were the top bosses, but I have no idea.Anyway, they handed out awards to 51 of the people -- and made sure to have plenty of diversity: 5 of those 51 were women! The highlight of the ceremony was the singing of the company song at the end. Dang, why doesn't Tribune come up with a song? Oh yeah, now I remember ... It's Go Cubs Go!!!

Take me out ...
Well, the North Koreans still won't cooperate with anyone and almost ALL of the TV shows here are in Korean, oddly enough. . So, hmmm, what to do ... what to do ... what to do ...
I know.

BASEBALL.

Yes, baseball, Korean style. Thundersticks for everyone. Cheerleaders, both male and female. Sparklers in the crowd. And sports teams that aren't named after their town, but rather (and what's more important than this, let's be honest), for companies. Capitalism at it's best.

So, one of the reporters here, Jee-ho, and I took in a crazy game of the Kia car company Tigers vs. the Doosan business conglomerate Bears. I'm hoping this will catch on back home. I would love to see Disney get throttled by GE ... or Gannett take a beating from Google ... or see General Mills crush Exxon.

Anyway, at this game, we were rooting for the Tigers. They were the "little" guys.

P.S. Kia won, 6-2. I think Hyundai, GM and Honda and shaking.

Trainspotting
Choo-choo! That's the only sound it takes to get the 2-year-olds running. Patty had some moms and kiddies over the other day, and this is what happened when the train came by.

Five years and 8,000 miles away
We saw Flight 93 in Seoul recently, and it really brought me back to that day. And week. And the months and years afterward that we wrote and covered that event for Newsday. And of course, the coverage still continues.
Here, we did not do one story on 9/11. The JoongAng Ilbo, the larger Korean version of us, did a page on it But the JoongAng Daily did not. There was no local angle.

You won't find this in "Beautiful Baby" magazine
I was putting Jack to sleep last night. And, since it was only 11 p.m., he wasn't happy about it one bit. First, he started crying. Then, he started coughing. I picked him up to pat his back and out it came. I was covered in vomit from my face to my feet. Jack was fine. He was laughing 10 minutes later and blessedly asleep not much later than that.

Disoriented
The word "oriental" seems to be not offensive here. In the States, using that word to describe an Asian immediately brands the speaker as either ignorant or, at worst, racist. But here, I've come across the word many times in newspaper stories, although I usually edit it out. In addition, people here can get degrees in Oriental medicine and get an Oriental massage. No one seems bothered by it.

One night in Sinchon
This place is a big college hangout and a good place to grab some food -- especially when we were skipping the 100-day birthday party of a cousin of Patty's daughter.

The first photo is one of our favorite places to go in Seoul, KK for short. The second is a view of the streets of Sinchon, full of hipsters. It's three subway stops from our house. The last photo explains why I came to Korea.

A fantastic trip to Phuket, Thailand

I felt sad on the last night, because I never wanted to leave. Check out the whole slew of photos (60 or so) on snapfish. Here's the link

http://www1.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=51923357/a=38080572_38080572/t_=38080572

And these are a few of my favorite shots

Crazy train

Sometimes, it's good to be the outsider in a foreign culture. On our way back from Daejeon Beach, we got on a packed train home. In fact, we had to buy a ticket on the black market (!) for an extra $5, through our taxi driver, just to get on the train.

Well, we took our seats and put Jack into a stroller, hoping he'd have a nice sleep on the way home. Soon, an older man ambled on the train and sat near us, in the handicapped seats. He sat in his seat, then turned the seat in front of him around and plopped his feet on the seat. Because the train was full, (and the guy only bought one ticket), the conductor asked him to give up the second seat. He would not. He started screaming about how he always travels this way and wasn't going to stop now. (Translated by Patty). Well, soon, a couple of old women got on the train. There weren't enough seats because of our pal, so they both shared one handicapped seat. That didn't work, so one of them sat on the floor. So ... I told one of them to take my seat, and then I went and plopped myself down on the seat the older man was using as a foot stool. I sat on the corner of the seat and stared at him. Most Koreans would not do this, because older people (especially older men) are revered and it is not right for a younger person to rebuke them. But I'm not Korean!!!
So, everyone got nervous when I did this, and the conductors got involved. Eventually, they asked the old woman to sit on the seat and share it with the guy's legs. This time, the guy was willing to let her. But still, he argued with the conductor the whole way, until he got off the train.

So, we went to Daejeon Beach a couple weeks ago, and stayed in a friend's cabin. (Our friends the Pangs in Seoul, cousins of our friends the Pangs in New York).

The trip was great, except I tried to crush and drown Jack. First, I walked away from his stroller when looking for the cabin. About 15 seconds later, it somehow tipped over, dumping the poor little guy on gravel and cutting his face in two places.
I should have learned. Later, we went to a famous bathhouse in the area, and I brought Jack to the kiddie pool. I took a few steps away, turned around, and couldn't see him. The kid was in the water, face down, even though it was only about 4 inches deep. By the time I grabbed him, Jack was screaming and everyone in the bath house was staring at the white guy ...

Well, now that true confessions are over, here are a few more highlights.

This seafood dinner was amazing. All fresh clams and shellfish and actual fish on the bbq. It was about $35 for all three of us, with a couple of drinks and tax and tip.

Next is the Korean national flower, the Mugunghwa

And finally, here is a shot of the beach. It is by far the most modest beach I have ever seen. Almost everyone wore shirts and shorts into the water. Maybe three or four people (out of probably thousands on the beach) dared to wear a bikini top with the shorts. I saw one Western woman and one person wearing a bikini. Not coincidentally, they were the same person.

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