This past weekend I had a brief sojourn in Fukuoka, Japan on a visa run for my teaching job in Seoul. The generosity of the Japanese never ceases to astound me. Despite the dreary rainy season weather that greeted me and my fellow travelers, we were still met with gloriously wide smiling faces around every …
Continue reading Basking in the Artificial Glow of Fukuoka, Japan and Seoul, South Korea
Darting, diverting eyes are my only immediate companion this weekend. As a foreigner in Seoul, I stick out like a walking eclipse, but the Koreans try their best to be polite and not stare. Standing over a group of four women chanting at Samsung Park doesn't draw any noticeable glares my direction, so I continue to look on. The four …
The steam from the sake swiftly swathes through the air. Seoul is alive with the sound of cars eagerly maneuvering through its tight backstreets. The night sky is lite from the vivid street signs that attract night walkers into restaurants and bars like moths to the sun. Sitting beneath the neon glow of a Korean …
The sun slowly begins to make slow silhouettes out of two children playing beneath the red sky on the Mekong River. To the Laos (pronounced Lao by the locals) side of the river there is a large sand bar which swells the shallow stream of water. On the side which divides Laos from Thailand, a small mountain …
Living in Bangkok during the coup of 2006 I wake up sweating. My air conditioner has given out in the middle of the night as it so often does, and my neck and stomach are now soaked in my own epidermal excrement. I brush my hand across the back of my neck and wipe away …
Justin Calderón 