(Port) Coquitlam Odysseus

I just finished having the pleasure of a good lunch with the wonderful, interesting, and very handsome Mark of The Wanderer blog. We had met while we both worked in South Korea a few years ago, and it was good to see Mark here in BC. Mark is the third friend I met in Korea [...]

While in South Korea last April, I took a solo two-night trip to Japan to visit a good family friend and several former students of mine from UBC. I had a delightful time, and everyone spoiled me; it was also good that the flight was free. In the next posts I shall post a few [...]

This is another picture I have been waiting to take for the last couple of years. My wife’s parents live in Paju, and to go to Seoul we always got on the commuter train at Munsan Station. There is only one stop before this station, and so the cars are usually empty. Incidentally, this train [...]

While in Seoul on one of our several daytrips from the countryside where my wife’s parents live, we visited Seoul Grand Park, the large zoo in the city. And thus I filled in a photoblogging hole that has bugged me ever since I left the country in 2007: I took a picture of the gorgeous [...]

The month of April saw my family on a vacation to South Korea to visit my wife’s family. It was a time full of nostalgia for me, as my dear friend Ian still lives there, and since I met my wife in this country while teaching English there back in 2004. Chae Young and I [...]

Over at the Marmot’s Hole, Robert Koehler, drawing on a the work of GI Korea has just published ground-breaking survey of foreign English teachers arrested in Korea for drug offenses. Among the highlights: “As of August 2006, there were 4,598 Canadian E-2 visa holders. Even if we were to round the number of Canadians up [...]

(With apologies for the lack of verbs) It’s not the aggressive ones I’m thinking about. There aren’t many of those left anymore. It’s the just plain inconsiderate and incompetent drivers who are driving me crazy these days. The folks at the head of the line who drive below the speed limit in the fast lane. [...]

While it might seem trite to put “9/11″ next to “& me,” as though the two elements were puppies, 9/11 had a big impact on this Canadian. Partly inspired by my friend the Big Hominid’s thoughtful post on the subject, I decided to set down here what I experienced that day, and how it has [...]

If one can be impressed at all by what one sees, then anyone driving from the suburbs through Vancouver to the University of British Columbia would undergo multiple violent transformations of consciousness. For a temporary four week period, this has been my daily adventure, accompanied by the melodies of CBC Radio 2 when they’re not [...]

I see that my old friend S has been writing about the fact that the hagwon industry in Daejon in South Korea is paying people to turn in foreigners who are teaching private students. (Be sure to pay special attention to the pictures and the poor grammar in the “We are watching you” signs.) It’s [...]