A Day in Suburbia

Yawn...better get a strong coffee to read this post if you're young and/or restless. (I just got myself a cup too.) It's actually not that bad, just this first bit seems to be all kiddy-stuff.

Today Spencer went to the water-closet (bathroom) and didn't emerge for a while. Seems he wanted to do a little fishin'.


Spencer caught a fish in the sink!


There's another one; this one looks like a shark!


Yeow! Spencer closed his eyes and it got away.

After that incredible adventure we went out to do a little Christmas shopping. For some reason he really wanted me to take his picture in the parking lot. Do you think he's figured out I'm a shutterbug?


Ready for a couple of hours in the mall. (Shirt reads: Enchanted dog, DOOGY...Konglish is everywhere!)

Take a look at this: here in Zeller's (which is the discount chain of The Bay: a company that 300-odd years back owned the furtrading rights to all of Canada and now it has a struggling retail presence--kind of evolutionary capitalism in reverse) they got this 'precision massager' for CAD 80. C'mon! That works out to about USD 75 with tax and exchange!


In Zeller's, Canadian massage stick: $79.99 (plus tax).

Here's the version I got in Seoul for under USD 2. And it's environmentally-friendly (just a stick, no poly-carbons or such). Oh, sure, it doesn't have the kung-fu grip that the pricey ones has, but for 40 times as much I can guy a lot of Tylenol! Maybe I could import these things and sell them for $10 here...or $15 and include a tube of Tiger Balm or Ben Gay!


On the street in Seoul, Korean-style massage stick: 2,000 won (about 2.10 CAD, no tax and free smile from old man selling them).

I often get Koreans wanting to export to Canada (just find a wholesaler and you're off to the races!) but I think I've been in Korea too long. Sometimes they come to me with $1 items to sell here...I add in a few middlemen and freight and figure it'll need to retail for about $5 to make good money: no way, too pricey! Then I see something similar on the shelves for $6. So much for my market sense. In Korea all the stuff in these next 2 pics would be $1-$2, but it's $4-$5 here (plus 14% tax!).


In Zeller's: CAD 4.00 (plus tax); same stuff on the street in Seoul: 2,000 won.


More of the same: CAD 5.00 or so here, CAD 2.00 or so in Seoul...unreal.

And, no line-ups in Seoul...there are so many salesstaff it's just hilarious. Actually, comparing Zeller's and The Bay (they have one of each in the mall) is interesting. In university we looked at queuing methods: bank teller style (one line and many tellers) and grocery store style (many lines and you stay in the line). Well, the discounter (Zeller's) uses the old grocery store way and I must say it was incredibly fast. Scan, scan, payment, receipt, get outta there. In The Bay (so-called high end service) they have a bank teller format. Problem is the line is too bloody long! They got rid of the tills being scattered around the store and have one central cashier area. Theoretically it should be faster, but it isn't. Why? I think it's because of people's attitudes.

In The Bay you leave those in line and go one-on-one with a cashier. So, maybe you're both moving a little slower (ever see people at a bank?) and you feel 'entitled' to some extra time after your long wait. And you're alone with the cashier so it's a little more personal. At Zeller's the next person is breathing down your next neck and the cashier knows it (they can hear the tsk-tsk as you count out your change to unload some coinage). Things just move faster. Of course in Seoul everything is fast service, so I like Zeller's a lot more (cheaper, too).


Spencer tries out the helicopter.

Most parents don't' let their kids ride these things, and I never used to either. But, Kate does and she says it's like a vacation for her too (the boys can't run off if they're glued to the seat). One gal's kid saw him in this and just stared at it. She said that in all her time in the mall she'd never seen a child in the ride (that is, with the ride actually working/money put in it). I figure, what the heck. It also makes shopping a bit of fun for the kids, too...and that makes getting them out the door a lot easier.

On another vein, is it me or is Coldplay's Clocks song a heckuva lot like U2? When I first heard it I thought U2'd released a stealth-single (the new album wasn't even announced yet). Boggled me for a while until I heard who it was. I like In My Place, too...that one doesn't sound U2-ish at all.

Nick Cage was in Seoul a while back. He just got married to a Korean-American waitress (sounds like the plot to It Could Happen To You, doesn't it?). He wanted to do the whole Korean thing: wore a 한복/han-bok (Korea traditional clothing), ate 떡볶이/deok-bok-ee (noodles and hot sauce); basically the whole 9 yards for the going native thing. I used to think his movies were pretty weird (Wild At Heart was super-nuts) but the later ones were ok (Matchstick Men was pretty cool). I heard that he changed his name because he didn't want people to know that he is Francis Ford Coppola's nephew and wanted to 'make it on his own' or something. Well, at least his movies are better.

UPDATE: Here's a Korea Times article on Nick. Kimchi is good for the soul? Maybe a little play on words there (Seoul/soul).

Oh ya, and I was going to talk about Peninsula Temper. Well, basically it's like this: people from peninsulas are a little cut off from the rest of the world (Italy has The Alps, Korea has a Stalinist regime; both has 3 sides of water) and their tempers seem to be hot and short...but memories are short also. People seem to blow up and then brush it off easily. This makes sense, I guess. In Korea relationships and connections are everything but if someone's pissing you off you can't just avoid them forever: so you go nuts in order to 'connect' with them (or get their attention) and then afterward act as if nothing happened (after all, you both need each other). Island People (British and Japanese) seem to have a thick veneer of stiff-upper-lip and all that rot but their subtle hints are meant to indicate their true minds. Canadians? Well, we don't really care, as long as we're not taxed too much. We seem to compromise (sometimes too much) because, well, if you really hate someone you can move up to 5,000 km away from them and still be in the same country.

So, what happens when a Brit, a Korean and a Canadian go in to a bar? The Brit orders a complicated drink (vodka martini, very dry, shaken and dirty) and when it is mixed incorrectly he puts his nose up to it but nonetheless drinks it in little sips with a stern look on his face. The Korean jumps up and down for 10 minutes because they don't have any soju, but then settles down and has a (blended) whiskey (much to the horror of the Brit). The Canadian quietly sits with his pint of beer (any brand will do). Why? Hey, he was just thirsty.