Rejoice! and be cool

The heat has broken at long last.

Tonight I do not sit under the air conditioner while beads of sweat fill my eyes.

Went to the beach last weekend, and spent the day frolicking in the Sea of Japan.
Good times abounded. Every time I go to the beach, I am amazed anew by the sheer volume of people consorting on the sands and in the water. According to Wikipedia, as many as 100,000 people gather on the one-mile (1.6km) strip of beach on busy days, and I believe it. The umbrellas stretch off to infinity in either direction, and it is no small accomplishment to find valuable waterspace.

A follow-up to an earlier posting: the official site for the movie D-War (Korean title) may be visited here. Again, I heartily recommend it.

We've just started a book box at school, where in people can drop off books they've read, and pick up ones they haven't. I'm cautiously optimistic, but also desperate. I feel like (insert clever and humorous drug dependency-related reference here). I miss books. I quickly got through all those I brought with me, and while one of the bookstores here does have a reasonably comprehensive English-language section, I'd rather not spend money on books that I'll be leaving behind.

The book box also got me thinking about books on which I'm missing out back home. I've got the new Jasper Fforde on my list of to-reads, as well as Paul Shirley's memoir,and Joan Druett's Island of the Lost, among others, but I'm sure there are still many more that have slipped under my radar or will have done so by the time I once again in a land with English-language libraries. In order to keep track, and to hopefully assist anyone else looking for stuff to read, I've decided to keep a list on the side of books I want to read. Feel free to post suggestions on the blog or email them to me here. In the unlikely event that the Book Box proves successful beyond all imagining, I may well open up a second sidebar entitled "what I'm reading now" or somesuch, but this seems improbable at best, so don't hold your breath.

You'll note that the links on the sidebar all bring you to either a big Canadian or American e-retailer. This is simply for ease of information gathering. If you want to read any of these titles, I strongly suggest you go to your local neighbourhood bookstore and pick them up there. Or your library. Libraries rock. I strongly recommend the Toronto Public Library if you live in Toronto. I also strongly recommend Toronto itself.

Shameless Promotion

From my inbox:

"The new issue of Papertag is up, and looking delicious, but I'm hungry for more.


This is a call for your Food Channel styled, close up, soft lit photos of lunch, dessert, the bananas you have laying around, whatever. Accompany the photo with your best food fantasy. Explain that your lonely granola bar lunch is due to your totally unreasonable supervisor's constant demands on your time. Maybe you are obsessively eating Doritos ever since your girlfriend left you. I want photos of the carnage, and words that convey your pain.

Share how the smell of chocolate chip cookies reminds you of your mom. Send in photos of your famous no-bake brownies in progress, with the recipe attached. Explain why local food matters (along with images of soil-dusted carrots). Tell us how a giant bowl of hot buttered popcorn is a metaphor for the war-industrial complex.

We're not judging -- we want it all.

Send your food related creations, memories, instructions, tangents, inspirations and anything in between to papertag @ g mail dot com.

[themes are merely suggestions for fun and inspiration. send whatever floats your creative boat.]

Looking forward to your mouth watering submissions,

Erin http://papertag.ca"

Movie Recommendation

In the roughly ten weeks I've been in South Korea, I'd seen a couple of movies (Die Hard and Transformers) and hadn't felt the need to comment on either of them. This past week, though, I was privy to a cinematic phenomenon the likes of which I had never before witnessed, and in all probability never again will.

I'm speaking of the movie D-War, which opens in North America in September. In theory, this is a movie based on an old Korean legend involving giants snakes and dragons. In practice this largely holds true, but I would be remiss in describing it as such and leaving it at that. Suffice it to say that if you've ever wondered how supernatural pterodactyls would fare against military attack helicopters, this is the movie for you.

Imagine, if you will, a film that combines elements of Lord of the Rings, Transformers, Godzilla and The Terminator, with special effects that, at their best, rival those in any of the aforementioned movies. To this technical wizardry, add a screenplay that would be hard-pressed to earn a passing grade in an applied Grade 10 English class, and actors who, after their performances in this movie, will be lucky to find themselves called upon to play the role of "Bystander #3" in the next Vin Diesel film.

D-War is almost certainly the worst movie I have ever paid money to see, but fortunately its awfulness is such that it becomes one of the lucky few to fall squarely and inarguably into the hallowed "so bad it's good" hall of fame.

Step aside, Conan. You've got company.

August

is upon us, with everything that entails. Or doesn't entail, one could argue. Because my school year here doesn't follow the Canadian calendar, I'm working most of the month. I've been off this past week, though, and doing the tourist thing to a small degree.

In no particular order, a few random thoughts:

-Beaches are better when you have a frisbee.

-Korean movie theatres have assigned seating. This is useful if you get there early (you can pick your own seats and then show up again 5 minutes before the movie starts), but less useful if you show up late (you're stuck with whatever's left). Then again, people who show up late to movies are generally stuck with the leftovers anyway.

-The odds of being visited by Jehovah's Witnesses are considerably higher in Busan than in Toronto.

-If you choose to order at random from a menu by picking something you can read without having any idea what it is, it's probably soup.

-No matter how hot and sweaty you think you'll be when you go outside, you'll be hotter and sweatier.

-The electronics stores here sell crazy-tiny cellphones, super-advanced computers, nifty little gadgets of all shapes and sizes... and portable cassette players.

-Children like to practice their English when they see white people. Some days this is cute. Some days this is not. The variable cuteness has less to do with the children than the temperature.

-Speaking of cellphones, I'm (hopefully) getting one this weekend. I've never had a cellphone before, but I think this proves I am finally a Person of Consequence.

-Korean public baths are quite relaxing. Cheap, too! For about C$4 one can relax in a selection of hot,warm, cool and cold baths for as long as one likes. An excellent way to spend an hour after walking around a mountain.