As I noted briefly last night, the trip up the big hill was cancelled because it began raining the evening before. My boy ADA came up to tell me this, but asked if I liked coffee because he was gonna propose we all meet at the Starbucks anyway. So at about 10:30 we hopped up over the college to the bus and headed downtown. Got to Starbucks and I had a delicious coffee (black, the only way that is proper*) as well as a scone. Trust the Koreans to make everything their own in some way – right below my “berry” scone was a “red bean” scone. Which sounds perfectly gross to me but I’m not going to order it, and if it helps the Starbucks stay open, I’m down wit it.

Cause I roll that way homie. That’s why.

*Confucius would agree

A Third Mousekeeter showed up, a guy named Shirraz (I choked back the rather stupid collection of wine jokes that immediately swarmed up into my mind) and we compared equipment (so to speak).

After a while, we wandered off into the market section of the “mid” downtown and I immediately saw a rather immoderately stoned frogish thing that I snapped for BAX. Two steps later I saw the lovely “69 Motel,” obviously a love motel, and because the name was so tawdry I had to take a picture of that as well. I also, finally, saw some evidence of Easter-ness as these Christian lads were walking down the street holding 24-packs of colored eggs. I’m particularly amused that the chubby lad in the middle has apparently been trying to eat the eggs out of the tray as he has been walking. Check out his chin.

We wandered around in semi-confused circles and decided we would go to the “park.” This led us underground, to one of the many underground malls in Korean cities and back to a place I had been a few days earlier, the tube-stop by the Canon store. I had not been able to take a picture of its rather remarkable underground naturama (I swear to god that is a live tree) the previous time, as I was in search of a battery charger, but this time I was all charged up. So there’s the cherry tree verdant (“pinkant?”) in a ring of daffodils. There were also lovely little fountains all around and slightly less charming Jehovah’s Witnesses swarming like God had knocked their little anthill over. I was three days unshaven and this kept them off of me, but ADA was not so lucky. We finally waded through them and came to the end of the mall. Up the stairs and we were at the park which featured an absolutely ear-splitting concert of Christian singers. Really bad. It made me long for the nice choirs that SVC used to have come around for Black History Month. The weather had somewhat crippled attendance as the two pics show.

Then we squished across the park (like all public grass in Korea that I have seen, this stuff was stunted, crushed, barely yellow and barely hanging on) and discovered a little bird sanctuary/jail. The outside of it was the jail, with dispirited pheasants and peacocks moping about in dark cages. But the inside was a nice little pond with one tremendously obese duck and a bunch of the little critters in the pictures here. Certainly aquatic, but not any duck I recognized. Prettier. It’s a nice change from the pigeons that seem to make up 90% of this cities’ avian population.

We headed into a Costco, which was just as at home, except populated primarily by Koreans. We had pizza, ADA bought bagels, and we slipped out rather quickish.

Somewhere along the way I snapped the picture I now include to infuriate the OAF. ;-)

But goddamit, doesn’t he look noble!?!?!?

I also picked up that USB camera port for about 13 bucks. Probably more than I needed to pay, but more than anything I wanted to have my kit back working.

On the way back I showed ADA a new way back to our apartments. There is an “old” part of Daejeon on the hill and it has the totally cool little warren of houses and small alleys that old-towns have. We snaked this way and that and came out one street above the one we would have normally taken. No traffic and still older than our place. ADA said, “I’ve been here 4 years and I think I saw something new” (he had been across the river in the new town). I think we’re gonna make a good wandering team.

I haven’t figured it out yet, but there are also some good photos in the alleyways.

Then, as we walked on, we saw something familiar - children playing in a little park.. As we walked up ADA smiled and said, “you’re Korean children, you’re supposed to come up and yell “hi” at us.” Just as I was theorizing that these were evil Japanese chilluns, they ran up to us and did the “hi” thing. Some expats take this for mockery, but I take it as kids being kids. God knows that most of the kids speak better English than the college students we are teaching. Something disappears in the period between.

All in all a good day, and far better than sitting in my apartment and drinking 8 bottles of Soju and then consecutively sending them crashing down on the heads of the noisy pedestrians below.

That’ll be work for later this evening, I think. ;-p

I end with one more pic of the mystery birds. Perhaps MSM or BAX can divert one of the birdwatchers in their neighborhood to the computer to have a peek.

Then, do the merciful thing, and kill them.

Sing a bit of the old Aerosmith Van to them....

Checkmate honey, beat you at your own damn game
No dice honey, I’m living on my astral plane
Feets on the ground and your head’s going down the drain
Oh heads I win, and tails you lose to the nether plain
When I draw the line