So who ever attacked anyone with a pair of nail clippers? That’s what I wanna know. “Is water okay? Can I bring along a bottle of water?” “Which country are you going to?” “Australia.” “Yes. Water’s okay for every country except America.” I’m in the Singapore airport, you know, the transfers and duty-free shops area. So in Korea, I was among the duty free shops and asked, “Is there an ATM around here?” “No.” “Why?” “Because we must limit how much money leaves the country.” “I see.” It seems the ATM in the transfers section of the Singapore airport isn’t …
Category: TRAVELS
Travel Without Tech
One of the things about traveling is that it really reminds me how my personal comfort is ridiculously dependent on gizmos. Lime and I traveled up into Kangwon province, which is a pretty interesting place in some ways. We ended up spending most of our time in Sokcho, which is a town near the most northeastern point in South Korea. It was interesting because people did seem somewhat more chilled out there than in other places. They seemed more relaxed, and calmer; I wonder if the weather had anything to do with that? Perhaps… it was a lot cooler there …
오예, 베
The title of this post is “Oh Yeah Baby!” written in Korean. It’s something I once taught some kids at one of those camps I used to work every summer and winter in Jeonju. Hearing tons of kids laughing and teasing one another on the bus and then following up with, “오예, 베
No Wm. Gibson?
I was in the Japanese bookshop the other day, looking for a couple of books for Lime’s friend who majored in Japanese lit. That was a pretty odd experience… the girls who helped me spoke very little English, and I ended up saying, “New? Woman or man? Award? Okay!” and getting two books that way. While I was there, I checked out their extremely decent little SF-section, when I noted that there was no William Gibson in the SF section. I found myself surprised, but only for a moment. I guess a lot of the allure of his Nipponese sf-fantasies …
Not Making That Tom Waits Joke
…because it’s not true, it’s just that the rooms are so small here in Japan that I feel really big. Everything on TV twenty minutes ago was deeply weird, but it seems to have normalized now. Free internet in my room, the Sun Life Hotel in Fukuoka. If I had readers in Japan, I’d put out an offer to meet anyone who felt like it and have dinner and a beer, but I don’t think I know anyone in Fukuoka. Ah well. Maybe the foreign guys I met at the airport and went to the embassy with will call, and …