Two things happened today – one made me remember I was in Korea, and the other made me think I was in Canada.

When I was coming home after work, I could hear the distinctive sound of the instruments the Buddhist monks play. I thought it sounded a little loud to be coming from the monastary on the hillside. I was right. As I approached the intersection near my house, there were about 4 or 5 monks sitting on the corner with about 12-15 women behind them singing and bowing in the buddhist way. That made me remember I was in Korea.

Later, as I was running some errands, snow started to fall. Huge fluffy flakes coming straight down from a black sky. It was beautiful. That made me think I was in Canada.

Of roses and protests….

One of my co-workers broke up with her boyfriend recently, so yesterday 100 longstem red roses appeared at the office. They were gorgeous. I’ve never seen so many roses in a single bouquet before – and they teachers room smelled fabulous for the rest of the day. Wonderful for us…not so wonderful for they guy that bought them, because I don’t think they’re going to do him any good.

In other news, students at the university I’ll be working at next month are in the midst of massive demonstrations. They are protesting tuition hikes by staging huge sit-ins. The protests haven’t interrupted the teaching schedule, but they have blocked access to the main building (where our new offices are going to be) – so we’ll be working out of the old offices for a little while longer. It makes no difference to me however, since I’ve never seen the old offices, or the new.

Thanks to Ben for the link to countries visited. As you’ll notice, there are still lots of green ‘unvisited’ places yet to be explored!! I cheated and put Japan on, even though I won’t be there until the end of the month. (And Singapore is just too tiny to show up)

It looks like I’ll have to start working on Africa and South America next…

My roomate just came home with the movie “Maid in Manhattan”…I think I’m going to go hide in my room.