Bloredom

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In Germany we have a saying, “Wenn einer eine Reise tut dann kann er was erzählen”, meaning that if someone leaves his home to travel to other countries he’ll probably be able to tell lots funny stories afterwards. Same in my case after coming back from South Korea (again) and Shanghai (first time):

(Click on the pictures and read the comments to see what I mean.)

Additionally, something really weird happened after arriving in South Korea. I went to an ATM Machine at Seoul/Incheon airport to withdraw 50.000 Korean Won (around € 31,50) to pay for my bus-ride to Cheong-Ju. I probably should’ve known that something was wrong when the guy in front of me in the ATM-queue told me that he couldn’t withdraw any money as the manchine behaved somewhat strange and didn’t accept his ATM card. I tried nevertheless, inserted my ATM card, entered my pin, requested 50k Korean Won and recieved, …, 300.000 KRW (186 €), a profit of 155 € !!!. (No kidding, I also double checked with my bank account)

And again, as predicted, the spicy food again almost killed me. On two days at our client’s canteen I had to eat plain rice only with soy sauce because everything else was so incredibly spicy. It’s like having plain potatoes in Germany…

Oh, and to explain the title of this post: When I was in Korea I found out that South Korea is among the very few developed countries where eating dog is somewhat common. Read this fabulous article which deals with the question on what’s wrong with eating man’s best friend. Enjoy…

Noooooo, another week of Kimchi lies ahead (yes, the red stuff which you can see on the picture is, as far as I know, all Chili)

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I can already see myself, waking up in my hotel room in Korea at night, sweating to death (not because of the Kimchi like it always happens during lunch-time in the Korean canteen) but because of a nightmare full of Kimchi.

If there’s one country on earth where you probably shouldn’t be going if you can’t eat spicy food (but where they serve Kimchi every single day) it would be Korea. How perfect…

It reminds me of a previous post, praising the good old Schinkenbrot, before leaving for Asia. ;)

After some 24-hour-journey (including a cancelled flight due to a snow storm in Detroit) I’m back in the US. Just a few points to note (also theck the gallery and the picture descriptions):

• The civil servantes at the border control are as unfriendly as usual. Funny, they had this sign at every checkpoint, stating their pledges, including “We pledge to cordially greet and welcome you to the US” and “We pledge to treat you with courtesy, dignity, and respect.

  In fact, the woman who let me into the US did a pretty good job in showing me she couldn’t even care less, …, about people in general.
  Check out the following report, a pretty impressive example of what I mean.

• Funny, in the past two years (since I left Virginia), probably mainly due to the Dollar-weakness, the US really seemed to have become a low-labour country. I only paid 4,33 $ (2,73 € !!!) for a chicken value meal (equivalent to the 5,49 € “Sparmenü” in Germany) at McDonalds in Detroit. Strange world…

Separated by four years and five thousand miles (according to this handy World Distance Calculator), these two girls share the same sentiment nonetheless. One is celebrating Israel’s 56th anniversary on 26 April 2004; the other, 62 years of South Korean independence on 01 March 2008. Charming, aren’t they?

[Update: the Korean photo is Stefan's, of course]

V., I have to make an additional statement about the article about Adelaide which you quoted in your last post, now that I was accidently in Adelaide for work for almost two weeks. In a way the article is right: Glenelg and its beach is just a dream, the weather is nothing but incredible, just considering the people as just nice would be an understatement and the food I’ve experienced here so far is also great.

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The only problem (and that’s the main and only disadvantage I’ve figured out so far) is it’s location: Australia is probably the most remote country in the world (which I believe is also the reason why everyone here is so relaxed compared to, say, Germany), and as soon as you want to leave the country (which could be nice as it’s close to so many interesting Asian countries) you have to get on a plane and prepare at least for 4-hour-flight. Not to mention the distance which you have to travel if you want to go to Europe once in a while. But besides that I love it here. Almost as much as my favorite “second home” Singapore.

Oh, and btw: For the first time in my life I was driving a car (a red Holden Commodore, nice car, unfortunately not available in Germany) on the left side of the street to work… ;) So irrititating, you just drive with this constant fear that someone bumps into you from a direction which you haven’t really paid attention to.

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And yes, I checked it (in case you remember this episode from the Simpsons): Here in Australia not only the sun but also the water in the sink turns the other way round. ;)

And one last thing: Funny how you meet a friend (from my time back at the NUS), which you haven’t seen for over two years now, and already after two minutes you feel as if there were no time in between, …, as if just one day has passed and you were knocking on his neighbouring door at the Ridge View Residence again, asking him to have lunch and a banana ball at the Yusof Ishak House.

The next post will come from Taiwan (again ;) And remember: “No worries, mate” :)

Have you ever been to a country in which the nice guy at the reception strongly adviced you not to leave the hotel at 2 pm because of the heat (42 degree celsius) outside at the street?

(no, this was not a shop for air-conditioners. ALL of them were in operation to cool this one shop)

And for those who didn’t know: Qatar (or to be more precise: Doha, the capital of Qatar) is the home of probably one of the most famous TV stations “Al Jazeera“. Unfortunately they didn’t really let me come close to their buildings (damn it, I really wanted to have a picture of me in front of their home base) as the whole area was secured like a military outpost in war-times.

Oh, and btw: I really feel like a complete fool when I as a student, because of Germany’s great enviroment-saving policies, have to pay 50 Euros to fuel up my tiny Citroen, while all the Emirs here in Qatar fuel up their Audi Q7 3.0 for maybe 4,50 Euro:

(Price for one liter of fuel: 0,7 QR – 0,14 Euro;
Price for one liter of bottled water in a convenience store: 1.5 QR – 0,30 Euro)

Probably one of the best 5-day-trips since a very long time:

Taipei 101 – The city from above

Same shot as in Spiderman 2. ;)

No “bombing of fish”

And thanks for the wonderful evening and the extremely entertaining train-ride back home to Taipei… ;)

Tokyo, …, probably the only city that was not only destroyed quite often by earthquakes and typhoons but also by a huge saurian animal a.k.a. “Godzilla”. For that reason Tokyo’s founding fathers probably decided to build this strange animal a memorial, right in the middle of Tokyo’s main shopping road… :)

And yes, this is also Tokyo :)

Update:
And btw: I did it!!!! (Link 1; Link 2) :)

I’d say one of my best shots so far here in Japan (a real pity that I didn’t get closer cos it is indeed a bit hard to see):

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Two women in a kimono, trying to read the map of Kyoto (Lost in Translation?) followed by a couple of businessmen.