O-Man Won

Remember how I used to say/complain how the highest bill in Korea was the 10,000 won note, which, relatively speaking, is equivalent to about ten dollars? Well, not anymore, baby. Czech this out:

This bill made its debut on June 23, making it the first new issuance of currency in Korea in 73 years (when the 10k bill was introduced), according to Korea.net. It took a year to design it. The chick on the one side is the famous Korean writer, calligrapher, and artist Shim Saimdang (1504-1551), and is the first woman to be pictured on Korean money. The other side shows the image of a famous painting she did of some grapes and branches. I see it, but it looks more like a ship to me. Shin Saimdang's son, a famous Confucian scholar, is on the 5,000 won note.

I'm not sure how good your monitor's color is, but you're right to notice how similar the colors of the FIVE thousand won bill and the FIFTY thousand won bill are. Coincidence? I sense a scam here. At least the pictures are drastically different, and the sizes, though less noticeable, also vary among all the bills.

Hair

Well, it's happened before, but I figured I'd share this time. Any time I go to the hairdressers here, they give me a Vulcan haircut, then make it worse by turning it into a Speed Racer helmet, framing my head. It's terrible. Even when I bring a picture of what I want, this is what it turns out like:

Maybe someday they'll get it right.

Hiking by PNU

This weekend I spent in Busan again. I had a date, tee hee. There's not much to tell in terms of new and fun activities, but we did go hiking near Pusan National University. Yes, Busan=Pusan. Due to the nature of that particular letter in Korean being neither a b or a p, the romanization can vary.

It was a little difficult for me. I didn't do much leg exercise, even walking, this summer, so I'm a bit out of practice at the hiking. I was disappointed. Next time I'll be better.
We were crossing a gorge and I saw what at first looked like a well (it was actually a fire pit), and I was like, Oh, The Ring! So we took this photo with my phone (I was pissed I forgot my camera at home):
















If only I had long black hair.

It took us something like two hours to get to the top, though I'm not sure, since I didn't check our start time. Anyway, good exercise and a nice day. I was wearing jeans, though. I was totally unprepared and roasting.

Here are some views from the top:

Then we went to Haeundae Beach--my fourth time since I've been back. It was about 4:00 when we got there, so it was nice and roomy on the beach. Problem was, the clasp on my bathing suit busted last time I was there, so I needed a new bathing suit. I assumed the most popular beach in Korea would have someone smart enough to be selling bathing suits at one of the many shops near the beach, but no such luck. I was shocked. I did see some one-piece bathing suits at one store, like five suits, but they all were terrible.

I ended up getting some cheap flowered shorts and wearing my t-shirt with them in the water. I pity guys who have to wear shorts as swimwear and can't fathom anyone who would wear a t-shirt in the water voluntarily. It feels terrible. We also forgot to bring a towel, so it was a little rough drying off.

Good times, though. Good times.

Blog Contest

Well, the results of the blog contest were emailed to me today. I didn't win. B000000-urns. BOOOOOOO-urns. I can't say it enough.

Thanks for reading, though.