Sakura. I tend to use that word more than the English or Korean translation and so does everyone else here it seems. Anyway this week they fully blossomed and yesterday started to fall. It’s be hard work doing anything recently. I’m pretty ill and should stay in and rest. I’ve been going outside for a couple hours just to be active but I really should rest the rest of the time. Anyway:

20060416 Grand Children
We went to Children’s Grand Park one day. I kept saying Grand Children’s Park and that confused the hell out of the Japanese kids, they repeatedly asked “Isn’t the name strange?” Then it came to light that they thought I meant it was a park for grandchildren and thus a little strange. Anyway, it was really nice as the Sakura was out in force and was relatively quiet due to it still being school days for most people. The park is big and nice to have a picnic or whatever. There are various attractions like animal shows, temples, a zoo and more besides. The Zoo had some really interesting animals but it all seemed a little cruel with the tiny amount of space they had. Some animals looked bored. It was nice to see tigers, elephants, lions, giant birds and so on but it was also depressing because of the conditions. Still, it was a nice afternoon.

20060415 Killer kimchi
More random pics from the last week or so. First up is a lunch that a girl made for me. It was truly scary having to try to eat those mini squid things. However, not too bad once I ate one. Strong flavour though. Monika and Erin follow. They’ve been great friends to me recently but unfortunately Monika has returned to her home country. A digger floating in the sky. Yes, a truly strange site. They placed it on top of a building like so and it has been digging through the building the last few days. Quite strange. Then Hwangsa, yes that yellow dust hurt us all here and has been blamed for the increase in illness recently. I went to a concert and checked out one of my favourite Korean bands - Underwear band and a Japanese band - Mono. Both very good but I think Mono lack that something special. Finally there are some pics of the first Korean girls I met in my time here. I hadn’t seen them for a month or two so it was nice to catch up with them.

Sakura and that
Sakura has been adding life to the grey of the city recently and the parks are particularly stunning now. Here are some various pictures of the trees and some of my better friends.