June 27 2008
Stray Kittens I finally had a chance to talk to Jung about the cat names. Officially, Nick Fury, Mighty Terror, and Adolf are confirmed. I decided the name Steve French best fit the calico that's always lurking around them. Jung named one of the kittens "Tosh Carrot," but she's undecided on the name for the fifth kitten. |
June 25 2008
Colonel Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos It seems every time I pass the stray cats, there are even more each time. Last night, I saw the usual two, then I saw a third up on the rooftop. Before I hurried home to bring Jung back, I saw the third playfighting with a fourth. I brought her to see, and then I went back to get more food. When I came back, there were five. They're all very healthy, and we're thinking about adopting them out. Otherwise, the accumulated biomass of seven cats in the alley could start to piss off the residents. I've invoked my right to name the cats. If you remember, I declared long ago that if I photograph the same stray cat twice, I get naming rights. Well, the first two that I've seen can now officially be called Colonel Nick Fury (the one with the black eyepatch) and Mighty Terror (the orange one with the white nosebridge. I have name suggestions for the others, as one of the kittens may in fact be a Hitler cat. Also, I've always wanted to name a cat Steve French. But those last two names will not be official until I photograph them a second time. |
June 18 2008
Stray Kittens The kittens of the alley cat have started braving the open air in order to get food we leave for them. This week is the first time I've seen them out, and they look relatively healthy so far. As of yesterday, the mother has started recognising me, and whenever I pass by, the mother will run down to the edge of the roof and start meowing at me. |
June 14 2008
Window Cat Millie can see you from her new favourite window. Millie can see all. |
June 8 2008
(Ape with) Pipe Zoe decoded the name "Ape with Pipe" while we were sitting in a corner of the restaurant, listening to the water pipes over our heads which would make noise every time anyone took a shower. |
June 7 2008
Lonely Night On Saturday night, Jung went back to the protests to escort her parents, who wanted to see what it was like. I stayed home with Millie and Buster and was lazy all night. |
June 6 2008
Protest Disobeying Jung's orders, I went downtown and had a look at what was going on in City Hall. The protest had to be moved, because the area in front of City Hall was booked by a group called the Hidden Intelligence Detachment. They claim to be former spies trained to infiltrate North Korea, although I figure most spies would have studied the art of subtlety. They took up a lot of room for a memorial service that didn't seem to be for the benefit of anyone--apparently even the families of the dead soldiers objected to their names being used without permission. The Hidden Intelligence Detachment was a real organisation, but it seems that this group has nothing in common with them, having been formed right after Lee Myungbag took office a few months ago. A google search turned up only one decent English-language hit on the HID, in which they staged a much different type of demonstration. I'm curious if we'll be seeing more of them in the future.
The main message of the protest was to impeach Lee Myungbag, although there were still quite a few mad cow signs around. There were a lot of families there with small children, which I think is a bad idea even if they aren't expecting the riot police to attack in the daytime. Although maybe the riot police didn't attack because of the children there. It's still not something I'd be happy doing if I had children (although I did bring Buster along).
After this day, the HID packed up and left the space vacant, despite the fact they'd had it booked for all three days. I guess they were expecting some kind of support from the people.
|
June 5 2008
Protest in Yatap On the way home from work, I saw a small protest in the square in front of the station. They've been having these occasionally, but this is the first time I'd seen it since the government started cracking down. Usually they're larger, but probably anyone serious enough about protesting would just make the trip up to Seoul. |
June 4 2008
Cats Yes, it was really time for a new banner. Here are a few pictures mainly of Millie. She recently caught a fly in the window and gave it the slowest death possible. |
May 30 2008
Protest After the Demerit show I headed downtown to try and find Jung. There was no sign of her, but I ran into a few other friends. |
June 1 2008
Cats Just a couple pictures of the cats at night. |
May 29 2008
Stray Cats There was a new cat at the usual stray cat hangout, and it looked familiar. I thought it might have been one of the first ones in that spot, so I made a gallery of all the stray cat photos I've taken since October when we first started putting food there. It reveals that there have been five different cats up there that we're aware of. |
May 28 2008
Crazy Banner This week is our two-year wedding anniversary, a very special time when we must go to the immigration office to renew our "vows." The only picture I got this day was of a silly looking banner we passed. First I remarked that the guy on the left looked like he'd been punched in the eye, and then Jung noticed that the guy on the right was clenching his fist. Don't worry, I'll probably get bored of this banner soon. |
May 21 2008
Buster's Birthday Last year we missed Buster's birthday, but this time around I paid special attention to the date. We did the usual, just gave them a full can of catfood for supper and a lot of snacks, and later a bunch of catnip. I also brought out some of Buster's favourite toys to watch me play with, including the remote control monster truck and the yo-yo. |
May 20 2008
Stereoscopes At lunch today I took a few more pictures to try making stereoscopes. Some turned out better than others. I've found that I have a lot more luck seeing these with diverged-eye view, but if you prefer the cross-eyed way you can go here. |
May 13 2008
Shirt Just a random shirt I saw while on my way to scam the government. |
May 12 2008
Escalator Safety Since the beginning of time, etiquette has been a pressing issue on escalators. I remember my mom telling me that when she was in the UK, people would get verbally abusive and even push you if you were standing on the wrong side of the escalator, blocking people from walking. But in South Korea, they have taken a different approach to escalator safety. There are signs up in several subway stations suggesting that people don't walk when they're on escalators. The reasoning is that escalator accidents are a serious thing that cost a lot of money. I guess it's easier to do this than to enforce seatbelt laws or patrol speeding. I mean seriously, escalators? What a joke. This is going to really cause a traffic buildup in many subway stations. You have no idea how many times I've missed a subway by five seconds just because I was stuck behind some asshole on the escalator. The ironic thing is that most of these pictures were taken in Yaksu Station, where I once drunkenly fell while running up the escalator and had scars on my left leg that looked like an alligator had bitten me. Still, it wasn't that bad, and I can only blame myself. |
May 12 2008
Picnic Jung's family came over for the first time to see our apartment. Actually, they were supposed to come last week but they cancelled. We had cleaned up the apartment very thoroughly last week, so this week it was a little less clean. This morning Millie had some litterbox troubles and ended up running through the apartment trying to shake something out of her fur, spreading it all around. Buster was initially terrified of Jung's family, but Millie was surprisingly very calm. She had met Jung's mom a few times before, and she didn't once hiss, although she meowed in annoyance because Jung's sister was petting her too much. Once I lured Buster out from under the bed he was very calm too, although he was just waiting for his chance to get back under the bed. |
May 11 2008
Alley Cats I woke up early Sunday morning, and I was as surprised to see the alley cats out as they were to see me. They look like they're in pretty good shape. |
May 7 2008
Phallic Kids' Snack You might remember a while ago I mentioned somewhere on this site that the popular snack Jollyponglooks a lot like female genitals. Well, I don't think so, but the Korean YWCA apparently saw fit to try and ban them for it. Anyway, I have a new one. This snack, "Choco Drops," have a very rude shape. Basically, they look like the heads of black penises. I might have to take the images in stereoscopic so you can see. By the way, be warned, the last picture is X-rated. |
May 5 2008
UFO We were outside drinking, when suddenly we saw a UFO flying over the valley. It followed a path so perfectly straight that I don't think it could have been artificial. Shortly after, we saw a similar yellow one go by, but I was too shaken up to take a picture. |
May 5 2008
Children's Day For Children's Day I took Jung to Seoul Forest. I had seen a picture of deer somewhere in the park, so it was my goal to find them. It was pretty crowded, but the area around the deer enclosure was less busy. No, I would not try to get away with taking so many candid photos of kids in a park in Canada. But here it seems much less risky. |
May 3 2008Patches in Stereoscopic Vision Yes, I named my scooter Patches. I remembered that my old scooter was named Smokey, so I figured this one needed a name. Anyway, now you can see Patches in 3d. Just cross your eyes so that the images converge. I find it most helpful to aim for the little white "no scooters" sign. I just did this very quickly, but it seems like my scooter is a good subject for 3d images.
|
May 2 2008
Long Weekend Since Thursday was a holiday, and the next Monday was a holiday, my boss gave me Friday off so we would all have a five-day weekend. It was great to have such a long break, but I think the cats got enough of me. |
May 1 2008
May Day Just a couple pictures of the cats. They've changed roles lately, with Buster sleeping quietly all night, and Millie waking us up in the morning with her meowing. I have to admit that Millie's morning wakeup call is much more pleasant than Buster's. Buster does this long lonely yowl, like he's saying "Where did everybody go?", and Millie sounds much more friendly, like she's saying "Wake up, it's time for breakfast." I do get the impression she learnt this behaviour from her brother/uncle. |
ARCHIVE
CONTACT
Jon underscore Dunbar at Hotmail
010-3212-2812
Please remember that these photos are all copyrighted to me. If you want to use them in any way, there's a 90 per cent chance I'll give you my permission, and be able to give you a copy with a higher DPI.Copyright Jon Dunbar 2004
Photos taken by
Nikon CoolPix 950
digital camera.