Our Mountain Inn

This is the bed and breakfast we stayed at in the hills outside of Seoul. My brother’s friend’s father built it just a year ago, and it doesn’t look very Asian to me. Nothing in Korea looks very Asian to me, except for the language.

Today we visited a church in the town nearby, and we ran into a group of students from the CM2007 Conference doing an outreach there. A few were Americans (who grew up in Korean homes and knew the language), so we could talk with them.

Here are a few pictures from around Seoul.

Here is my whole pile of pictures from around Seoul.

My brother’s friend and his wife were our guides this weekend. They shared a common language with my brother, but they spoke little English, so I did more listening than talking. They gave us the most generous Korean hospitality you could imagine.

Monk

I know this falls into the category of your neighbor’s vacation pictures, but here are more photos of Busan.

And if those aren’t enough for you, here are more.

This photo gallery became popular recently via Google. I thought I’d try some new photo gallery software with the original images.

See the original gallery (with a few more images) here.

The House of the People

Just got back from Bucharest, Romania this morning on the overnight train. (Got the last car in the train, and it was not unlike being in the last car of a roller coaster train – rough ride!)

We spent two quick days in Bucharest working with our great staff there on various things, one of which is their new student site: www.fitzuica.ro.

Three things stood out to me while we were there: dogs, Dacia’s and the House of the People.

There are a lot of stray dogs in Bucharest, everywhere you look. All the ones I met were very nice.

Dacia’s – one in five cars was made by Dacia, the Romanian auto manufacturer. Our friend, Florin, said everyone knows how to work on a Dacia, almost as a matter of course. In the absence of a market-driven economy it makes a lot of sense to keep making the same car year after year. Very efficient. But now Renault owns them, so their new models look like any other new car.

Finally, Nicolae Ceausescu’s House of the People, is a sight to behold. It’s second in size only to the Pentagon, worldwide. I had expected a gaudy, sprawling eyesore. Instead I saw a beautiful boulevard lined with beautiful buildings, capped at the end by this enormous palace. In 50 years I am sure the Romanians will love it, but it was such an inappropriate use of land and money by the former Communist dictator that many Romanians have a sour taste in their mouth for it.

More pictures of Bucharest

My Neighbor’s Car

I had to walk to work in the rain today, so I decided to find something interesting along the way.

See the rest of the photos from my walk.