Giant Octopi over Seoul- a week and a half to go
The above photo is an evening shot from the
Hyehwa district in
Seoul. For those of you that have known me for a while, especially on message boards, you'll recognize this as the base source of my most common avatar. Here's the original again, for the first time on this blog.
These days...
I really should be packing. I'll be back in Canada on Feb 29th and home by the 1st of March. Preparations are starting to come together. There's lots of stuff to do on this end, but I'll save most of that for the
K2K Journal. The votes in the poll seem to imply that you want this blog to be a bit more personal and I have no problem with that. I've been blogging my personal life for three years already.
So what about the Canada side of things? I've hooked up with an automobile and already dealt with my first insurance frustrations. Bear in mind that I have been driving for almost 14 years with a clean record-- but because I haven't held an insurance policy in the last 3 years, I'm getting dinged. One company actually refused me coverage. The one I finally settled with, has graciously allowed me to sign up with them for a 300% increase over my past premiums. I left paying $400 a year. I return to pay $1600 a year.
No accidents. Never.
The closest thing to an accident I had was one evening back in the summer of '97, but I wasn't even in my car at the time. I was sitting with a friend at the Newcastle Tim Horton's when two idiots tried to break the laws of physics and occupy the same space at the same time.
There's a bit of a rotary in the center of town, that circles Queen Elizabeth park. It's not big, but it's circular, so I'll call it a rotary. A lady was driving in her car with her two kids and decided she wanted a coffee, so she pulled into a parking spot without signaling. At the same time, one of the local grunts was taking his girlfriend on a motorcycle ride. Seeing the car slowing down, which must of been an incredible inconvenience for him in the center of town and all, he decided to pass. Rather than pass on the left, where there was another lane, he passed on the right without any idea that she was turning. *BANG* The motorcycle bounces off the car, into the parked cars. Buddy's girlfriend launches 40 feet ahead and lands in the center of the road. The kids in the car are screaming.
Now call it psychic prescience, or pessimism, but I had a hunch that they hit my car. Sure enough, my trunk was now "V"-shaped and my car was pushed 5 feet up onto the curb. Being at the Tim Horton's parking lot and all, the police were very quick to respond. The first question they asked me was, "You sure you didn't park it like that?"
My turn came for me to talk to the policeman. He sat me down the squad car and began filling out these little cards with all the vehicular information on them. This was first (and only) time that I had been in a police car. I have to admit that it was a little exciting, so my ears perked when the radio crackled to life! I expected something like a break-and-enter in progress, maybe even a murder (my town led Canada in per capita homicides back in '92). I figured I might hear a long spiel of cryptic numbers saying they had a, "130 in progress at the 438, Highway 11, so would cars 23 and 11 please respond 274 out." Well, I was wrong-- but it was numbers alright. The voice of the dispatch came on to say, "The Leafs are up 3 nothing, over". (By the way, for anyone not up on radio lingo, "over" instead of "out" means that he expected a reply).
Now whether it was it was because the soldier was recently transferred to the area, or simply because he was some young buck punk, he didn't have insurance. Eventually, I would learn of this but I suspected something similar while we filled out the cards. The officer seemed to be mentally labouring over something. There was some kind of issue that I was unaware of, and it was making me a bit nervous. He reached out the squad car window and summoned over one of the other officers. Since we were next to Tim Horton's, lots of officers had arrived. With a grave and serious tone, he inquired, "Do you think the guys at the station would like some donuts?" His partner answered in the affirmative and my interviewer began to get out of the car to fetch the goodies.
"Can we finish this first?" I had to ask.
"Oh," he said, cheerily. "I was done with you ten minutes ago. You can go!"
