Diesel’s blog

  I teach English at Whimoon High School in Daechi-dong, Seoul, Korea. My school is one of the oldest (modern) private schools in Korea, founded in 1906. It celebrated a centennial anniversary in 2006. I graduated from this school in 1992.

  I teach both 1st and 2nd grade students. Pupils in my neighbourhood are generally well-educated at their homes and know how to behave themselves in the school. This is one of many advantages in teaching in the most education-oriented district of Seoul.

  Of course my salary became two-thirds of what I earned when I worked in COEX, but I have now more free time and feel much more settled than ever before.

  My summer vacation started July 15, and it will last until August 20. It's so cool to have a vacation of more than a month and still receive my regular pay during that time. My first objective in leading my life as a teacher is to become a more professional English teacher, to lead students to have better chances in life through English, and personally and lastly to become rich myself.

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  The oldest wooden building extant in Korea is located at Buseoksa temple(which is Buddhist one) in Yeongju, Gyeongsang-do province. The building in the picture is Muryangsujeon, the main building of that temple, where an exquisite Buddha sculpture is enshrined. The building itself was constructed in the mid-fourteenth century, during Goryeo dynasty.

  There are a couple of other wooden temple buildings that can lay claim on the title of the oldest, but this building with gabled roof is generally regarded as the oldest one among them, and as one of the most aesthetic, beautiful piece of Korean traditional architecture.

  The oldest wooden building in the world is in Japan, dating from 8th century, and the oldest one in China, as far as I know, goes back to 9th century. All are temple buildings. Korea had experienced two major catastrophes in the past that had a nationwide destruction, one was from the invasion of Mongol empire in the 13th century, which lasted about half a century, and the other was from Japan at the end of 16th century. Many precious ancient buildings were burnt to ashes in these two colossal calamities.

  This is the highest score LP in ladies' figure skating, performed by our dear Yeona. She showed what she could do in her almost perfect performance in Cup of Russia in Grand Prix series. Yeona can easily do five kinds of triple jumps, which helped her get bonus points.

  This is the best SP ever in the world of ladies' figure skating! Oh my queen Yeona! She scored 71.95 in her fantastic, mind-boggling(this is the expression a British commentator used after her performance) Short Program skating for 2007 World Championship. Her choreography and skating were so stylized to the charismatic beat of Tango de Roxanne from Moulin Rouge.

I feel I did quite well on the exam of pedagogy, scoring 17.2 points, but I'm not sure about my major exam, which can be from 70 to 75. I just want to pass at any rate. This is a very critical moment in my life because the exam result will determine the path of my future life.

  Imagination went wild on someone's monitor and the freewheeling mind could generate this exhilarating animation. Our monitor can have multiple dimensions.

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 In 2006, I took a short 3 day trip to Japan with my mother. We went to the hitoric cities like Osaka, Kyoto and Nara. The first photo is of the keep of Osaka castle. Osaka castle is known to be the resident place of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who invaded Joseon(Korea) in 1592. The present buildings in that citadel was reconstructed ones because the original buildings were destroyed in the civil war after Hideyoshi's death.

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 The second city we headed for is Kyoto, the traditional capital city of Japan before Tokyo. Kiyomizudera, seen in the photo above, is a Buddhist temple. Its fame lies in the peculiar structure of its supporting pillars. The terrace is set upon the stubborn framework of wooden columns and beams, established along the steep slope of the hill.

Kimono, traditional Japanese dress, has a variety of color and design, but the color code is quite different from that of Korea. I do not think that Kimono has such a natural feel as can be found in Hanbok, Korean traditional dress, but anyway, the above photos taken at Kimono show boast of delicate, luxuriant beauty of Japanese traditional style.

Kobe is the last destination of our trip. Kobe suffered from a severe earthquake in the past, but nothing was left of the ruins or damages done to the city except for a small symbolic ruin sites kept for memory.

 I was working for COEX in the summer of 2005. I joined a company tennis club and planned a summer excursion to Hoeingseong in Gangwon province. I really enjoyed organizing tour plans for my friends and colleagues.

The first thing I did was to choose our lodging place, and my selection was Hyu pension near the Hoeingseong lake.

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This is the pension, built with red bricks recycled from old western buildings in Korea. We rented the entire second floor, which has two rooms, one bathroom and a large hall. That was large enough for our 9 members.

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 Near our pension, there is a vale called Byeongjibang and a stream runs throught it. On the second day, we drove some distance to this spot and had a playful time pushing each other into the cold creek.

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 This was our club members. I felt we really enjoyed our summer MT together. They were just like friends, not like mere co-workers.

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After we came back to Seoul, we still needed more time to have fun with each other. So we headed for Hangang riverside park in Jamsil. The sun was setting under the clear, blue sky, thus making the picture above possible. Pictures taken during our MT always remind me of one of the happiest moment in my life.

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This is a plastic model of Le Soleil Royal, a famous 17th-century French man-o-war. But what is sad about it? Because the ship in the picture no longer exists now...all due to an unfortunate accident. In 2004, our family moved to another apartment for two months during which our apartment were remodelled. While boxes and packages were moved and unpacked, my dear ship was irreparably damaged...it was all because of my fault and negligence. I really regret not taking personal care of my ship...

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 This is the bow part of the ship. That gold color was the last thing I painted on this part. The rope is for the anchor. The golden railings is part of the forecastle, a kind of platform raised above at the fore part of the ship.

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Can you imagine what tremendous time and effort were spent in the making of one hundred and four cannons aboard the ship? One set of those tiny cannons were made up of 8 even smaller parts and the number of cannon parts was 832. This number took up about one third of the 2500 parts contained in the kit box. Heck!...And those small parts had to be painted one by one with red and bronze color, and after waiting for them to dry up, I put 8 parts together to construct one piece of artillery. How much I hated that time-consuming, tedious, unnerving process!

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 This is the stern part of the ship. You can see the gold color shining against the dark blue painting. The painting of windows and decorative figures were very tricky, requiring extreme attention and dexterity.

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 I did my work in my room. It sometimes took several hours or almost half a day. But the progress was slow as there were so many things to be completed before any single part of the ship could be attached finally.

I will try once again to build another sail ship sometime in the future, but I am not going to try another plastic kit for it takes so much time painting each part. Next time, I will go for a much expensive wooden kit.

 This can be called my first travel abroad and it is Nepal with its magnificent Himalayan mountain range.

I applied for Annapurna trekking travel in 2001 partly because I like trekking, and partly because the travel was led by Eom Honggil, a legendary Korean mountaineer who had climbed the 14 highest mounts in the Himalaya, including Annapurna. We were supported by local porters and sherpas. They were really helpful and good people.

But our trekking was not to reach the summit of Annapurna, but to take a round trekking route along the hillside of Annapurna area. The trekking itself took one week.

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 This was a valley we crossed by a steel rope bridge.

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Morning exercise. I was standing in the back. I cannot describe how I felt the air that morning, but I am sure it must have been one of the most primitive freshnesses in my life.

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 This mountain village was a typical feature in our trekking. We slept in one of those stone houses. There was no concept of heating in Nepalese houses, even in hotels.

The treks were used by local villagers and their animals together. Donkeys and goats were seen trodding through this narrow stone-paved street, often emitting thunderous farts or dropping round dungs as they went by our trekkers.  

Life there was simple and basic. They just seemed to live a life for the sake of living itself. They, too, might have the same human desires and wishes but I hoped capitalistic lifestyle would not penetrate into their minds. There should be some restraint on the unbridled desires of mankind, I believe.

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This is the sunrise at Pun Hill, the highest point in our trekking route, which is about 3250m above sea level. When I woke up this morning, I could feel somewhat less oxygen in the air, but not so serious as to cause any pain or hinder my breathing.

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 A casual shot on the way down to 'the surface'. It was really strange to come down to the flat ground after 7 day trekking in the mountain.