"May 22, 2005
SISTERS AND FRIENDS
Spent a good weened. Dee and I went climbing, Dee one of my climbing buddys. The Monk showed up with Coffe and Soju this time, the Korean form of Vodka. He was urging us to have a drink and we did once off the rock and relaxing. It was not too bad. We had an encounter with some kind of strange dude. The Koreans are known to be outgoing and this character approached us just as we were packing up and started telling us about his hiking club and if we were into hiking at all or just climbing. Than he asked to take a picture of us and insisted on us showing up in it with our gear still on. He took two snapshots of me and Dee and another one with him in it. I guess we will be showing up on some kind of hiking web site somewhere on the internet.
I may be getting a taste for ultimate frisbee. I hooked up with some people today and gave it a whack. It turned out to be a lot of fun. After that headed out to look for a friends missing dog. This girl got her dog out here all the way from Canada, Manitoba and the damn thing runs away on her. It's been missing for a week and to me the chances of finding the pooch now are slim to none, yet I participated in the search party really more for the sake of exploration of the unknown neighbood rather than for anything else. Still would have been cool if we found the pooch. I really feel the pain and can simpathise with her but without voicing it out the chances are really slim especially since the dog was a pure breed and so worth quite a bit of dough around here. Not really the kind of dog that would end up on a plate in a restourant but the one that would be cought for its money value as a pure bred.
I have been batteling this damn cold for the past month, pretty much. It keeps resurfacing every once in a while and there does not seem to be a way out of it. Perhaps I need to take more drastic measures.
Here's an in teresting thing I found out. Apparently women in Korea can be friends only with other women if they are the same age. If the age does not match they are sisters. How that came about I don't know but in this way at least half the population are sisters and brothers. I can only immagine that a similar chierachy goes for the men around here. So it is not that the girls actually are sisters, its just how things seem to be referred to as.
The tv also has channels dedicated strictly to computer games. You can actually turn to one of the satelite channels and watch a game of socker between France and Germany being played out between two computer hungry game junkies. There's a waste of air waves for you."
"May 23, 2005
REALISATIONS
Something came to me yesterday evening as I was watching the Japanese NHK channel. I saw a couple of crying high school students being interviewed by the news anchor. I could not understand why the were crying at first. Later on what was shown still seems like a kind of bad dream to me. Right now I am not really sure wheather it actually happened or if I had dreamt it. The footage shown by the channel was that of several pairs of sneakers strewn about the asphalt of a street together with some backpacks. Then a graphic re-enactment sequence kicked in showing the accident. The students were crossing the street in groups. One after the other in groups of seven or eight. On the crosswalks imediate right was a turn from which a car came and stopped right in front of the intersection to let the students pass. The other car came straight on from the right at full speed I can only assume. He obviously did not see, or who knows maybe he did not care or was on a rampage. The end result was the same. Seven bodies of High school students, who I can only immagine were in the ages of 15 or younger, were thrown abbout like puppets. I don't know if the accident was fatal to all of them since my knowledge of Japanese is not that far reaching.
My poin to all this is. Life is short and you never know when it is going to end. For all you know it could happen very suddenly and unexpectadly. For all you know this could be the last moment of your life. The seven teenagers certainly did not expect it. So embrace every moment like it was your last. Make everything you do count for something. Make others happy with your presence and your deeds, since you will never know how many more moments like this one you might have. Life really is short and often we forget, simply because to think about it everyday would be torture. So if you find something that is wonderfull in your life, hold on to it with both your hands and enjoy it because who knows, this may be the last good thing that will ever happen to you."