Ack I only know one of the Korean words you typed.

good grief!

You'll be pleased to know that Sunday is <market day> in Hyunpung.>

All the people from the farms come in to the village and the main street becomes a carvinal of gay banners, old ladies laden with heavy bags pushing young men out of the way, and every manner of fish, fowl, and vegetable you could ever imagine.

You can't walk three feet without almost stepping into a wooden bucket roiling with squid, octopi, cuttlefish, flounder, anchovies, or eels as big as ropes. There are as many different kinds of <gimchi> as there are people in the village, since everyone makes their own "brand" at home.

Just peek in any back alley here and you can see the huge earthen pots with them delicious super spicy cabbages pickling away.

Children from my school run up to me and yell HI TEACHER, HI TEACHER at the top of my lungs and gladly teach me some Korean nouns.

Today I walked over the <kang> (river) that runs through the city. It has fish in it, since there are very strict pollution controls here.

I also climbed up the local <san> (mountain), baking in the September heat, to discover a remarkable Temple. It was a stone wall surrounding two raised granite platforms with rice planted on them.

There was an inscription on a giant obsidian stone at the gate, but I can't read <Hangeol> so I didn't venture past it.

For all I know I might have been walking on somebody's dead grandma or something.

The <sal> was buzzing with very noisy, very large and very huge insects.

Anyone can get it in most restaurants in town, though it's not printed on the menu.

You just say the name of the dish in Korean and they bring it to you.

I haven't tried it yet, but my Scottish friend <Fraser> said it is quite delicious, sweet tasting. I asked him why they don't put it on the menu and he explained that Korea wants to be more "western" and they know that westerners frown on eating dogs due to thier "pet status." Of course, he explained it in his idiosyncratic way.

He laughed in my face and said "<my real name>, they don't have a picture of a smiling dog giving the thumbs up on the window of the restaurant."

However, they certainly have plenty of smiling pigs giving the thumbs up on restaurants here. The <sam gyup sal> is absolutely heavenly, I had some at a restaurant yesterday.

However, the gentlefolk here also have pet dogs. I guess they don't eat those ones.

I was initially horrified, not at the idea of eating a "pet animal" (food's food, for God's sake), but at seeing/hearing the dog factory.

I never heard such concentrated howling in my life.

But then I realized that chickens cows and pigs in the West are "raised" in just as appalling conditions.

Consequently, in my personal opinion, I would regard anyone who looked down on Koreans for eating <Fido> to be laboring under a misapprehension.

I played three games on Yahoo yesterday and enjoyed myself mightily.

for several hours I was not in Korea, not in my apartment.

I was in the comforting, inestimably exciting confines of myriad chess positions.

And what a happy place that is, especially if you win.

I was very pleased to find that my chess level had not fallen due to recent inactivity.

I remembered how to play just fine, thanks very much.

Heh.

Knight sac on <f7> for an attack, and a winning one at that, in my last game of the day. I just love exposing the enemy king, and trying to prove that he has no clothes.

I fell asleep replaying it in my head.

Thanks <so much> for the EMU.. I sent one back.

Speaking of date rape drugs, has anyone ever explored the full potential of the <poisoned pawn> in this regard?

I think it's best he doesn't know all the details.

Hi <Deffi> yes I know someone in Montreal who had a <Vietnamese Pot Pig>. He galloped around like a little horse and could sit up and roll over on command.

His name was "Fred."

Spot any <leprachauns>? <Lepers>, maybe?

EMI, of course, is the correct English plural form of EMU.

I think.

Yes, that waa EMI II - it's a sequel - better brace yourself! AWH

I rented <Blood Diamond> 2 days ago.. and the movie <Unknown> with <Jim Caviezel> - the second one was so bad IMO.. but Leonardo played amazing in Blood Diamond as a South African.. Quite a thought provoking story (Only 8 years ago..)

So I don't have a soul, okay. But I got about twenty broken-off fragments of soul, maybe they'll do instead.

It means the world to me.

Then I will go for a brisk walk and then come back for a HEAVENLY AFTERNOON of playing chess.

Anyway, how's the teaching going? Your accounts of everything there are very captivating (though I've understandably edited some of it down before allowing my two dogs to read it). I love my students, except one this semester. He's an older guy (or at least older than his 52-years-old-in-November instructor) who's deeply entrenched in political and religious dogmas and who has tried to hijack the class on occasion. It's not his views that bother me, even if they are more or less antithetical to mine. It's just that they are not informed or thought out at all. I actually became somewhat unhinged last Thursday.