Denied and Victory!

I was in the bank learning another truly odd (stupid to my mind, but who knows) thing about Korea: You can't pay a "partial" bill. I paid a gas bill before I left for the US, but received a new bill that did not reflect the payment.. after much to-ing and fro-ing (which probably added four or five phrases to my Korean), they accepted payment for the part still owed...

And then.. about 15 seconds later, paid me back for it and said without a bill with the correct amount owed, I couldn't pay any of it. Weird... bordering on stupid....

But.. on the TV in the bank, just at the time I came in, Yu-na was stomping the living crap out of her long performance. When it ended, you could see she knew she nailed it, and her coach did also. Coincidentally, I saw that Yu-na was being followed by her rival from Japan, Mao Asada. So I just hung out in the bank lobby with all the other customers who had wandered in. Asada seemed spooked to have to follow Yu-na, and wibbled and wobbled out her performance.

Yu-na for the gold!

PS.. ESPN is still, idiotically, struggling to find a decent picture of Yu-na to put on their splash page. Odd, for one of the prettiest ice-skaters out there..

Whoa.. Back in Korea, Married, Ill, and looking for some ballot stuffing

Been on vacation...
must have got too drunk, as I came back married...
Regular blogging will resume this weekend...

In the meantime, go to Asia 10 Magazine and vote for Korean Modern Literature in Translation
which would be my blog!

Great Contrapuntally Rotating Monkey Tits!

It is cold here... How cold? I'm having to develop a scale for coldness and I think we are currently somewhere between

"spray a cat with a hose and it freezes in place" cold

and

"threat to external genitalia" cold...

To be honest, I'm not sure which is worse....

Why was I out in all of this frigidity? Remembrance of girlfriends past? Suicidal ideation?

Visa extension.

And, did I find the place to do it. At the Omogyko immigration building they have a special room for professors and other special people. It's like.. like ... well, I never was a fan of strip-clubs, specially since my genitalia froze off in the "Big Seoul Cold" of 2010, but it's like the champagne room.

It has a TV with a remote control, couches, a FREE computer and fax machine, and staff who speak nearly flawless English. Even better? When I came in they were on #26 and my ticket was #28. I sat down, read the English newspaper they provided, and was in and out in about a half an hour, including some social yammer with my immigration representative.

Just amazing how being a professor changes the treatment you get... and you can look right across the lobby and see the laborers/hagwon teachers/Canadian dope-smokers struggling with the enormous queue.

Brilliant!

LOL.. no Korea hate....

Immigration is where every country sends the employees it doesn't want to deal with itself.

And some truly special people (I've always loved em, but I'm dead white)

We will find the right person...

The Wedding that Fate Hated!

LOL..

now immigration is fucking with Yvonne..... she can't change her visa status until the 15th... ooh.. sorry.. the 16th as the 15th is Seollal....

because they are afraid if they change it before her contract expires she will work in Daejeon all day until 6:30 pm.. then hop on the KTX at 25 bux both ways.. and race up to Seoul at about 9 and..

and...

teach classes at Dongguk, which doesn't even offer classes for this month....

stupid petty officials...

so tomorrow I get to go the the Immigration "Champagne Room" for E1 folks, and they will tell me if Yvonne actually has to surrender her passport after she applies for visa change...

if she does...

no wedding...

Which is why, today, I love Korea. ;-P