Korea

North Korea photos

Dear Reader, below are links to a treasure trove of photos of North Korea.  These are the best batch of photos capturing life in the North that I have ever seen.  These photos were taken by a Russian visitor who visited the country in 2006.  The photos speak for themselves.  Click on the links below to view the various photo pages.  Page 1 also has links to all these photo pages.
Note to Tortmaster:  I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, where we don’t have lightning bugs.  Man, talk about cultural insensitivity!  Remind me to take you to the Cascades some time for some snipe hunting.   As for sucking up–when your poor boss asks for your help moving a child’s swing set in the morning, and he laments that his wife is going to a wedding that evening and will be alone with his young child, and you know that the guest of honor has two young children about your boss’ child’s age, and you know that your boss shares a tangentially-related sense of humor with your guest of honor, you come to the logical conclusion that maybe it’s a good idea to invite him to a preplanned BBQ.  Sucking up, yeah, I know.  It’s absolutely shameless inviting your boss over for dinner–and your office too.

Making waves over the DMZ

South Korea started sending broadcast footage from the World Cup to North Korea today.  North Korean television will broadcast the footage.  Although I’m sure that it will be substantially edited for content, and the audience will be limited largely to cadres in Pyongyang who have access to television, it’s good to read that some media from the outside world is penetrating North Korea.  While intra-Korean cooperation continues, it is now largely economic cooperation.  This is most notably occurring at the resorts at Mount Geumgang in North Korea, which are operated by South Korean tour company Hyundai Asan (a subsidiary of the Hyundai Group), and at the Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC) located just south of Kaesong, North Korea.  The KIC also made the news today when 76 foreign envoys toured the site, including U.S. Ambassador, Alexander Vershbow, New Zealand Ambassador Jane Charlotte Coombs, and Russian Ambassador Gleb Ivashentsov.  Broadcasting the World Cup to North Korea is also noteworthy because inter-cultural exchanges with North Korea are far less frequent.  Although the average North Korea citizen will not see much of Germany, site of the World Cup, at least they can see a glimmer of life outside its borders.
 
Blog Note:  I read that England beat Paraguay 1-0 because Paraguayan Defender Carlos Gamarra accidentally headed a free-kick by England Midfielder David Beckham past Goalie Justo Villar into his own goal.  What a bummer.  So Paraguay basically beat itself!  Talk about bad luck.  Either that, or Beckham is an absolute genious.  If I were Mr. Gamarra, I think I would stay in Europe for awhile before heading home to Paraguay.  I don’t think the fans will give him a hero’s welcome.
 
Note to Tortmaster:  Sure, people who are struck by lightning usually survive.  If I were struck by lightning and became an X-man mutant, I’d like to be transformed into "Lightning McQueen – Champion of the Box Office!"  That would be cool.  Vroom!  I’d instantly transform myself into a fast race car and would have hot Porsches chasing me all the time.  Also, about rooting for Paraguay–since every team is going to be slaughtered by Brazil anyway, why not?  If the U.S. beats the Czech Republic tonight, maybe then I’ll be a believer.  C’mon, Paraguay needs a little attention.  The U.S. definitely doesn’t need it!  Post-script:  The Czech Republic beat the U.S. 3-0.

Monsoon season begins with a bang

Monsoon season arrived here late last week.  The heavy rains started last Thursday, let up a bit on Friday, and began anew yesterday morning with a vengeance.  The rain was especially heavy yesterday, mixed with booming, intermittent lightning and thunder interspersed throughout the day.  I felt empathy for my next door neighbor, who rented a room-sized, inflatable children’s bounce chamber for his daughter’s birthday party.  I hope he didn’t pay too much to rent it, because it’s still sitting outside unused, collecting water.  It wasn’t safe to be outside yesterday.  The longest lightning storm I’ve ever experienced continued virtually nonstop for half a day.  The storm hovered over our area, dropping immense amounts of rain and casting cloud-to-cloud lightning across the sky in booming agitation.  Beautiful, and potentially deadly.
 
I ventured outdoors with umbrella in hand, wading through puddles of rain water, to watch "X-men – The Last Stand" (a great movie, by the way), purchase gasoline for my car, and buy groceries.  It’s a challenge getting anything done when you’re out in a torrential lightning storm.  Sometimes it’s better to postpone them until the storm subsides.  As I waited at the gas station, I heard thunder crackling uncomfortably close above me.  It occurred to me that pumping gas during a lightning storm might not be the wisest thing to do.  If I were hit by lightning, I would probably survive.  However, if the gas station were hit by lightning, igniting highly flammable gasoline, the outcome wouldn’t be so certain.  I finished quickly and breathed a heavy sigh of relief.  Gas stations are not a place I think about during an electrical storm.  I always remember not to walk outdoors and avoid wading through water (both of which I did yesterday), but I never think about avoiding gas stations.  I will now.