Today my co-workers and I had our first meeting of the school year.  Nothing too much came out of it.  We chose our new book for the term and received our schedules and classroom assignments.  Also, students started moving into the dorms today, and classes will start Thursday afternoon.

After I returned from Bali, my laptop had moments of turning on and then mysteriously shutting itself off.  I thought it had something to do with the power cord, but I’m not so sure now.  For the last two days, I haven’t been able to turn on my computer or access anything on it.  That’s why there have been no posts.  Today, I went to the university’s computing center and dropped off my laptop to be looked at.  The tech guy was really nice, and called the service center, inquiring when TG could send a technician to work on my laptop.  Since tomorrow is a holiday, the soonest they can come to the university is Thursday.  Hopefully I’ll have my working laptop again by the end of this week.  Then I can finally change that Bali banner I have on top of my blog.

This is Kuta Beach, Bali during a sunset.  During the day, you wouldn’t see too many Balinese locals around the beach.  Then around 5:00 or 5:30 pm, locals descend upon Kuta Beach in hordes.  There are at least as many locals as there are tourists to watch the sunset.  And what pretty sunsets they were…

Earlier in the day, I spent 3 hours with Raswan, Mat, Lucia, and Adnan (all my co-workers) catching up on what we each did during the winter vacation.  Everyone in the room had been to Bali, so that was one common thing we all discussed.  Lucia went to Australia, Adnan went home to Canada, and Mat stayed in Korea, saving money.  The one thing we all agreed on, was that we didn’t want to come back to Korea, and how cold it was.

Therefore, it was appropriate that Mat forwarded me this email.  It’s one of those, "You know you’re Korean, when…" lists.  There were 88 items in the list, but the ones below were so poignant to me.  Either I, or my friends have experience and seen the following more than ten times, and they’re definitely true.

You know you’re Korean when:

1. You stare like a blinded deer in headlights at anyone different.
2. You attempt to go into the subway or elevator before the people get out.
3. You think having 4 seasons is really special.  (SO true!)
4. You describe any girl over 110 pounds as "fat."
5. Your cell phone has more than 20 pictures stored on it…of yourself.
6. You look at thin blonde women and assume they are Russian hookers.
7. You open all of your windows in the middle of winter and crank up the heat.
8. You open the window a crack when your fan is running, just in case, because you think running fans can kill you!
9. You’ve traveled to various places in the world and when asked about whether you liked the food or not, you say, "I don’t know." "Did you try the food?" "No. It wasn?t delicious.  I tried to eat only Korean while I was there.?  (Do you know how many times I’ve seen Koreans pull out individual packets of kimchi and ramen when I was in Thailand or China?)
10. You would never dream of asking to get paid extra for the overtime worked.
11. You think picking your teeth or nose in public isn’t polite…unless you oh so discreetly do it with one hand covering up your activity.  (Yeah, now I definitely don’t know what you’re doing.)
12. You eat dog because it supposedly gives you four thrusts instead of three.
13. You open up a new business with an arch of balloons and two dancing girls.
14. You proudly adorn your new business with a sign that reads: "SINCE 2005"
15. You ask the foreigner next to you if he can use chopsticks, while he is eating with chopsticks.
16. No one in your country has AIDS, but "kimchi" can cure it.  (It can also cure bird flu, btw.)
17. You order pizza and it comes with corn and mayonnaise, as well as a side serve of sweet pickles to put on top.
18. You have a terrible cold and it doesn’t occur to you that coughing in other people’s faces and food will make them sick too.
19. You honestly believe foreigners care about whose island Takashimi/Dokdo is!??
20. You cover your mouth when you laugh or smile but not when you cough or sneeze.

I’m back in Korea, and am lying in bed, resting from the traveling.  My flight out of Singapore was 9 am yesterday, and I stepped into my apartment a little bit after 9 pm last night.  Everytime I return to Korea, I have similar feeling upon arrival.  Everything is familiar, and I feel "home", in a sense.  At the same time, I can’t believe I’m back.  There are so many warmer places I’d rather be.

I walked into my apartment last night, almost as if I had been gone years.  Things were familiar, but I felt eerily detached from the objects in the room that were supposed to be mine.  The first thing I really noticed was how cold it was.  Today, Koea has a high of 36F (2C), while Singapore and Bali are around 85F (29C).  For the last month, I’ve been packing around a hooded sweatshirt and down jacket I wore when I left Korea, at the bottom of my pack.  Needless to say, I needed them upon my arrival back in the land of kimchi.

My first day back at work is a week from today, next Thursday.  In the meantime, I’ll be doing some spring cleaning and posting pictures from Bali and Singapore.  In addition, I took quite a few videos from my trip.

The following video, I particularly liked.  It was taken in Ubud, Bali, at the monkey santuary.  This monkey is grooming a baby, and casually looks up at me once.  It continues to groom and turns the baby over, and is peering at its butt, then looks up again to see me.  It looks surprised and instead, gives up grooming and holds the baby close.  Then, as Raswan says, it starts coming on to me with the facial expressions that follow.  I’m not sure of that interpretation, but it’s funny, nonetheless.  More videos to follow.

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First of all, Happy Valentine’s Day everybody!  It’s just another day here in Bali, except that there are posters and ads for Valentine’s Day parties around Kuta.

Since my last posting, I’ve been doing some amazing diving on the northern and eastern coasts of Bali (the best being in Tulamben).  We’re now back in Kuta until we fly out on Saturday.  The intention was to get some more pool, beach, shopping, and diving time before we leave here.

Unfortunately, I had some bad luck last night.  On this trip, I brought my laptop with me, enabling me to work with my pictures, crop & edit them, and have them ready to blog.  I think the power cord for my laptop blew out last night, and I can’t turn on my computer.  So, I probably won’t be posting many new pictures until I return to Korea in a week.

I’ll fly out of Bali on Saturday morning, and go to Singapore for 3 days.  I’ll be back in Korea next Wednesday.  I’m not looking forward to the cold.  I heard it snowed recently in Seoul.