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Today I went to, well, a lot of places. Started out with a trip to the Korean War History Museum, whose title was a bit misleading. I expected a bunch of background on the war of the same name, but in fact got a museum of all wars and battles taking place in the peninsula since the dawn of history. Really, it was fantastic, and occupied us until about 4pm. Us? Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I spent the day with a couple of Japanese hostelers I met here, one of whom speaks pretty decent Korean.

Anyway, after that we went to Namdaemon, which spawned a pun in Japanese for those of you clever and fluent enough to pick up on possibly the easiest pun in history, and did some shopping. Then we went to Shinchon and ate some grilled meat. With about 20 side dishes. And beer, and soju (Korean distilled liquor).

On the way back, I helped an old lady up the stairs in the subway, something I've never felt compelled to do before this week. This makes the second time I've done that here. Does this mean I'm building up karma?

And now I am happily intoxicated, safe in the hostel and chatting with various people. I just finished talking with a guy from Czech Republic who spent 5 years as a kid in North Korea with his dad, who was working there under direction from the Soviet Union. It's not every day you get to meet someone who has been to North Korea (relatively) recently, so I took the opportunity to grill him for secrets. Interesting.

Another fantastic day here. Despite the fact that it was pouring buckets AGAIN (and looks to be raining all this next week, I still had a good time wandering around the shopping districts and eating. Dolsot bibimbap for lunch (hard to explain, a rice bowl with kimchi and meat and veggies and hot spicy sauce you mix together in a hot stone bowl); I got it from the same chain we got the pork rib soup from last night. I can't remember the name; the mascot looks like a potato. I also got my hair cut by a Korean woman in a back alley. We couldn't communicate at all, but she did a fantastic job. Shampoo and a trim, 20 minutes, quite refreshing; and it only cost me 6000 won (about 6 bucks). It was pouring buckets so I had to buy a pair of shorts to wear while my soaked jeans dry out, and a pair of flip-flops to walk in the puddles. Total: 15000 won for everything. Transportation, food, and basics are so inexpensive here.

Hung out with Chao and his girlfriend, who is Chinese, beautiful, and an airline stewardess. I was introduced to a couple of her friends who run flights to China... wow. Maybe I made a mistake studying Japanese; I think I should have studied Korean or Chinese.

One thing I've noticed here is that there are a lot more people just eating and drinking in open patios in front of restaurants. The atmosphere is completely different; nightlife seems almost like a European city, actually full of life and vigor. I'm looking forward to exploring some more tomorrow.

So it's not pronounced exactly the same as soul. OK, so sue me.

This has been a week for meeting interesting people. Last weekend it was the local octogenarian Mr. Watanabe who talked to me in English (!) and told me again the story about why the tiger dance takes place every year. At the Japanese license division I met a guy from Turkey who is doing research at Tohoku, a couple Mormon missionaries, and a woman from Brazil who only spoke Portuguese.

Oh yeah, I didn't mention: I got my Japanese driver's license. First try. Booyah. Still need to get the motorcycle one though.

Last night, in the midst of a torrential downpour, I met a couple guys at the hostel, one from Canada just finishing up his 3rd year of JET, and the other from France coming in from a trip through Bangladesh. The Canadian guy took us to a restaurant area of Seoul where we shared my first meal here: a pork rib soup with sides of a couple kinds of kimchi. It was spicy, filling, and delicious. We then headed off to a bar and drank a huge pitcher of beer.

Today I'm going off to meet Chao, who is in town visiting with his girlfriend. What we do today is anyone's guess. I'm hoping it involves good food and me not getting completely lost.

A rather amusing take on the Fermi paradox:

http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/05/why_we_havent_met_any_aliens.php?page=1

Ars Technica wrote up a fantastic article about the history of "Digital Rights Management". DRM is basically a form of encryption that media companies use to try to prevent people from making copies of movies or music. It sounds great in principle, until you realize it prevents you from burning that song you bought on iTunes to CD and playing it in your car, or making a backup copy of a movie you bought in a store to bring with you to watch in Japan. Some DRM only allows you to play the media on certain brands of music player, for no real reason. Add to that the fact that it doesn't-- and can't-- prevent a group of professionals in Russia from breaking the code in a matter of minutes and distributing the media illegally. In short, DRM does nothing to prevent illegal distribution of copyrighted materials, and does a lot to hinder your legitimate use of purchased material.

Here's the article, which gives a short but detailed history of some of the more widespread forms of DRM, and how they were broken.

http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/drmhacks.ars

Wow, I really should update, huh. It's been a bit too long.

Well, this part of the school year is wrapping up, which means that summer vacation is starting. Summer vacation for the kids means they spend most of their time with club activities. Summer vacation for me means I come into the office and sit down and do a lot of nothing. Which means I have time to do more important things than teach classes, such as walk around and actually socialize with the students, watch their canoe races and band concerts, go swimming in the pool, play shogi with them, and learn how to play go from the elementary school principal.

And it's also a good time to take time off work and go travelling. Which is why, in about a week, I'll be going to Seoul for a vacation. Damn, do I need it. It also means you might see some photos from a place other than Japan! Exciting, huh? I know I'm excited.

I didn't want to post about this until it was all over, as I'm sure Mom would have had a heart attack if she knew where I went. Last Sunday, my buddies and I loaded our bikes on a truck and drove to Ebisu racetrack in Fukushima prefecture.

When we arrived, the fog was so thick you could cut it with a knife, with annoying little floating misty rain. It all cleared up just as the first group of riders (the experts) made their first run, and by the time it was my turn the track was dry. I ran "experience class" (beginners), meaning there were only 4 or 5 other bikes on the track. First run was with a "pace bike" showing the best lines for all the turns-- for those of you who don't ride, if you start on the outside of a turn and cut in to the middle before ending on the outside, you can "shallow out" the turn a bit. Then we pulled into the pit, and they turned us loose for 5 laps. I started out in front, but with my smaller bike and more cautious attitude, I let most of the other guys pass me early on. With them out of the way, I opened 'er up and proceeded to gouge a furrow in the asphalt of the third hairpin with my footpeg. Whoops.

If I ever do this again, I need knee sliders; normal procedure is to lean HARD off the bike in a turn, sticking out your knee. Knee sliders are pucks specifically designed to scrape on the ground, giving you appropriate feedback if you're leaning over too far; the alternative is letting the metal bits of your bike gouge the pavement, which tends to upset the suspension of the bike a bit (an understatement). I didn't have sliders, so I had to be more cautious. Even still, at one point I could have sworn I felt the back tire washing out a little bit, an interesting feeling seeing as how I'd never push my bike that hard on the street.

The way the Ebisu track is laid out, there is a hairpin right from the start, a chicane followed by a downhill straight into a pair of hairpins, a series of right turns that basically meld into one big sweeper, and then an uphill straight crank across the finish line. I don't think I ever got it out of 4th gear, but it sure as hell felt fast. And during that last uphill straight, as I was screaming up the hill in full tuck each time at thirteen thousand RPMs (while only going about 100kph), it seemed as if the chained demon inside would rip itself from its prison and run amok like a rabid animal.

Good grief, if you run like that on the street, you're insane.