Adventures in Yellow Dust…
Spring is such a conflicted time here in Korea. On one hand, the cherry blossoms are fluttering to the ground like pink snow and the lilacs are starting to produce their gentle purple fragrance. On the other hand, China has started exporting it’s noxious yellow dust. Every spring, wind picks it up from the Gobi Desert and hurls it across the Yellow Sea directly into the lungs, eyes, teeth and icecream cones of the residents of South Korea. From the picture above, you can see one of the storms that passed over the Korean peninsula recently. (It’s the big dusty looking swoosh to the right of the picture…yup, there it is. You’ve found it now. The big mass of yuck that’s not clouds, water or land.) From my perspective (ie, not one from a satelite) it just looks like a hazy, hazy day. However, don’t let those tiny particles fool you into thinking they’re harmless. The icky bits (particles) in today’s dust were 2-3x higher than what US officials consider a ‘hazardous’ health concern. That’s in Daegu. Seoul had twice as many icky bits. We usually get several dust storms a season, and hopefully we’ll get rain tomorrow to dampen the spirits of this latest one before either my lungs or my icecream become permanently damaged.

Adventures in Pottery…

Tomorrow is Thursday ~ my favourite day of the week. Even though I have an early class, I finish teaching at noon, then head off to pottery class. The picture on the left is the largest/least wobbly piece I’ve made in the past 3 years. (And yes, since the flowers in it are green and blossoming, you can be sure they are fake.) I’m thrilled that so far this semester, none of my pottery has cracked, wobbled, toppled, warped or contracted a horrible case of the uglies. There are still many weeks to go before the semester is over at which point the pieces will face unforseen traumas lurking in the glazing/firing process. I’m keeping my fingers crossed though. So far, so good.

Adventures in New Furniture…

I’ve had my eye on this little table for a few months now, and finally decided to pick it up. I figured it would be a nice Korean souvenir when I (eventually) go back to Canada.

As you can see, there are 20 tiny little drawers filling the top 1/2 of the table. A word of advice, if you ever find yourself with 20 little drawers in a table in your foyer…don’t put anything personal in any of them. Almost every person through my door has said “Ooooh, what cute drawers. Is there anything in them?” and they start opening the drawers at random.
I keep some spare keys, decks of playing cards and some gum in some of the drawers. I think I’ll put a door prize in one drawer, and everyone who comes to visit gets to choose a drawer and try and find the prize. That’ll be fun. Furniture and Fun all in one ~ what a buy.