Mmmm... I hope they have shrimp and cocktail sauce.
So, there's a buffet in Daegu, and it must be pretty exciting because both of the other English newspapers, the Korea Times and the Korea Herald, wrote front page stories about it.
I think they meant Buffett.
Because Warren Buffett visited there recently, and told people they should buy Korean stocks. I hope to have pix of these papers soon :)

Beijing, China

It's a strange feeling to go somewhere for nine days, then come back feeling like you knew less about the country that you did before ever visiting it. That's China. An amazing amalgamation of elderly women with bound feet, children with slits in their pants that make diapers unnecessary, wealthy entrepreneurs profiting from raging capitalism and communist scholars. There's a huge amount of optimism about the future and a lot of excitement about the upcoming Olympic games.

We ended up staying in Beijing the whole time, and saw a bit of everything: the Great Wall in Mutianyu, Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the weekend antique market, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven and even the Pearl Market, where Jack got excited and threw up all over a toy stand.

Anyway, here are some pix


This is the Temple of Heaven, basically the Buddhist worship place for emperors.

Some seafood at Wangfujing Market. Almost good enough to eat!

By order of the Communist Party of China, the uniformed children of this elementary school all lined up and raised the flag of China. It was about a 15-minute ceremony that I could see from our hotel room.

Jack playing around at the Beijing Aquarium, inside the Beijing Zoo.

Patty at the weekend antique market. We bought several handpainted originals, most costing less than $10. We later went to an art biennal, and found that many of the paintings were ripoffs of top Chinese artists, such as Liu Ye, who are commanding $500,000 a painting or more.

This guy was selling feathered hackey-sack type balls for about 15 cents each. I guess that's why there was no bargaining. He let me take pix of him on the condition that I send some photos back to him, which I will.

Here's the Forbidden City, on the only rainy day of our trip.

At the Great Wall on Mutianyu, though, we had perfect weather and an amazing three hours on the wall.

The next two pix are from the The Summer Palace. Not a bad summer retreat. The most amazing feature to me was the walkway for the emperor. It was entirely handpainted, with 8,000 paintings. The walkway went on for a long way, maybe half a mile.

The whole crew at the summer palace. Jack is flashing the peace sign, which is all the rage for kids in Korea when they take a picture.

Take a look at this menu. The English translations are quite funny. The first one is "Husband and wife lung movie."

And finally, scorps on a stick. Tasty.

Jack's birthday

We've had a little problem lately with Jack. The last two birthday parties he's gone to, HE blew out the candles. Well, on Aug. 19 (yes, I'm late posting), Jack had his OWN birthday party to mark his 3rd birthday. Jack's gotten quite good at showing people three fingers when people ask him his age. Anyway, here's a couple of pix from the big occasion

Borneo
A friend told me recently that he's heard of the phrase "going to Borneo" as a euphemism for getting drunk, but he's never known anyone who went there. Well, we were crazy enough to do it. We dragged our kids there for a few days -- even went down a python and crocodile infested river with our little babies. Yes, we are the parents of the year.

Anyway, here's a few photos -- of the sunset at the hotel we stayed at, a domestic water buffalo cooling off, the night market in Kota Kinabula, Malaysia on the island of Borneo and a proscibus monkey we saw in the wild.

Here, too, is a story I wrote about the trip.

Where the monkeys seem strangely familiar

To the market for burgers ...
U.S. meat has been the source of a lot of controversy here. Korea is a pretty closed country to exports, and US beef has been banned since 2003 out of fears of mad cow disease. Of course, the many cattle farmers here who get the highest prices in the world for their beef haven't been complaining. However, as part of a controversial free trade agreement, U.S. beef is coming back to the market. Slowly. Boneless beef only, at first.
The first day it went on sale, Patty, me, Jack and Anne went to the market to buy some U.S. beef! As we went in, we saw about 500 Korean troops marching out of the store. Patty started to get nervous. We went inside, and found no beef for sale. Protesters had stormed the store about two hours earlier, trashed the place and forced the store to agree not to sell any beef.
Here's a link with a photo of a protester throwing manure at the beef counter
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2878042

Happily, however, US beef is now sold at stores all across the country and the protests have faded away ...