I Roam The Alleys!

Probably, it's more like I haunt them.

The alleys among houses are usually deserted here, so as I walk them I meet no one. But god knows what a sight I must be to those few who do come around some bend and run into me.

I particularly pity the poor ajumma who rounds a bend and comes face to face with an old, fat, white man in a leather jacket slamming through the alleyways with his iPod turned to eleven. His arms wave in spastic approximation of TV on The Radio and his mouth howls (well it looks like that - the monster actually makes no noise besides the stretching and rubbing of leather overstrained by the body inside it. In some ways, I'm sure, the fact that no sound at all is coming out makes the scene even more terrifying) the lyrics.

It must look something like Hell Come To Earth to the poor old woman. I always drop my best Anyeong Haseyo, but it never seems to make up for the shock I have given. Then, I return to my perambulating Joe Cocker impersonation.

Got a curse we cannot lift
shines when the sunset shifts
there's a cure comes with a kiss the bite
that binds the gift that gives

No, I don't actually kiss or bite them.

Much.

Today was too shitty to head out to Expo Park. It didn't exactly rain, but it was overcast all day and that normally makes for cruddy outside shots. Diffuse natural lighting is pretty good for taking pictures of humans.. but most inanimate objects and natural scenes are pretty blah. Sometimes a good opportunity for B&W photography, but I'm not good enough to do that yet. So, alleys it was. A walk through the "old town" here in Daejeon on my way downtown. First to the train station and then off to, by some sort of indirection, good luck, and point to point navigation, find the Starbucks.

In retrospect, the fact that I immediately turned away from the Starbucks might seem odd. But recall - my plan began with indirection. So did I.

I wandered for a bit and then realized I was doing a sort of reverse version of the walk I had done on my first Saturday in town. I was heading over to the Solbridge Business Building. So I swung hard left and wandered very randomly through the near town. I bothered to stop and take one picture.

Regular readers (Hi ma!) might remember that I purchased some kind of "food" that I could never figure out the use for or provenance of. I'm afraid I have found the latter and it is demonstrated in the lovely photo there to the right. The mystery food is first extruded, and then sliced from the anu...... well, you can see for yourself.

After a long counter-clockwise-ish loop I began to feel I was recognizing things and then got to a rubber coated road lacing through a market area. It was tantalizingly familiar and I was sure I was on the track of the Starbucks. Also, I could see the two new buildings being constructed on the backside of Daejeon Station, so I also knew which way home was. That's always a comforting feeling.

Here I also discovered a shop that in some obscure way reminded me of MAF. So I took a quick shot of the thing that she might enjoy it as much as I had.

All of a sudden I realized, "hey, if I turn left here I will walk two blocks and the Starbucks will be right there on the corner." Which I did. The Starbucks, unfortunately, was not there. Nutted by reality.

I headed back into the market and kept walking. I passed by this startling diorama - it is of the classic Korean folk horror-tale that adults use to scare unruly little children (if the story of alley-lurking fat voiceless waygook singer don't do). The Korean tale of the headless wedding party is built to scare both as a horror story and as an abrogation of normal Confucian relationships. It is so scary that, someday, I will have to come up with the particulars of it. ;-)

Eventually I did find the correct left turn. Finding the Starbucks was the highlight of my day, which is probably why I was entranced.. maybe even hypnotized, by the old lady sharpening knife blades on an old-fashioned whetstone.

I walked into the closed part of the mall and took various pictures of things that homicidal ajummas were trying to pass off as food. The sign, if I am translating it properly, says, "Piles of incredibly nasty stuff. But surprisingly inexpensive!" The numbers underneath the Hangul are to local emergency rooms and poison control centers.

That arm? It does bend inwards my friends, it does bend inwards.

With all of this excitement finally behind me, I hied myself hither to the PCBang to grab some IM time with the OAF. Who, currently, is like the Starbucks - not quite where I expect or want it/her.

Hello....

Hello...?