Korean Water Deer

  On Jeju, gentle little Roe Deer were a common sight on the slopes of sexy Mount Halla.  Out here, a different beast with hooves roams the hills.  It's got fangs...fangs!  Apparently the males can angle the fangs back when feeding, and forward when throwing down with other males.  Nuts.  Looks like something imaginary or prehistoric.

Birds lately

Pale Thrush

Northern Lapwing

Varied Tit

Grey Heron

Common Reed Bunting

Blue Rock Thrush

Eastern Crowned Warbler

Great Cormorant 

  Feeling no love from the birds this spring.  Here's the junk I've seen lately.  Nothing sexy, really.  I'll say it again - I was spoiled for birds on Jeju.

Japandemonium - Tanuki-mania!

Look at me plums!

'Bewildered facial expression'

My very own tanuki.  Love.

Dance, with a giant maniacal tanuki in NYC, Nov 2011

  Tanuki are mythical and mischevious shape-shifting racoon-dogs.  They have big bellies, bigger nutsacks, and are known to hold an IOU in one hand and a jug of sake in the other.  I love tanukis.  I bought one, and I spent the night polishing my tanuki.  You heard me.  I wasn't able to visit the tanuki shrine in Kyoto due to logistical reasons, but I'll get there further on down the road.  Tanuki is said to wear 'a bewildered facial expression' as he is easily duped.  I love my tanuki.

  There's a great book that features tanuki as a character called Villa Incognito, for the readers out there.  I'm hurting for a good book right now.  I'm lost without a book to read.

  Mike from Jeju, I saw you sent me a comment but I managed to delete it without reading it - I'm blaming the shitty new Blogger dashboard layout.  Sorry, please re-comment.
  Have I mentioned that I love my tanuki?

Japandemonium

Japoser

  Just got back from a long weekend in Japan.  I'm tired.  Many, many, many, many pics of amazing signs to come.

Coupla signs

Muscus well-being sushi...ain't feeling it.

Safety bears!

SAFETY bears!

Kolean jimmy hats-uh!

  Wooly Bully is a good song.  The best, maybe.

Birdin' Buse

Old Busan

Matchee matchee!

Mines beyond the fence

JP scopes the helicopter landing pad

Like me, not a morning person

  Here are some pics from my fruitless Busan birding jaunt to Busan with JP last weekend.  On the subject of fruitless birding jaunts, I went to an island and bushwacked some steep valleys yesterday...plenty of grumpy dogs but still no spring birds.  It's creepy and it makes me sad.
  I don't like cafes, never have.  Now and then I find myself having to kill time in a cafe on my own, and I always do dumb, clumsy shit when in that situation.  One time I drank my tea wrong - it was in some contraption, and I did it all wrong, and everyone watching probably thought that was just great.  Last week, in front of a table of giggling young Korean guys dressed like Peter Pan, I stood up and smashed my head into an overhanging light that was, in my opinion, not placed in a great spot.  Maybe I'm too tall for this country.  The peephole in my apartment is four feet off the ground.  In my best Pee-wee Herman voice, I said "I meant to do that," and walked away like a champion.

Bon-deggi

  Boiled silkworm larvae.  Smells like shit, takes like shit, Koreans love the shit.

Birdin' Goj

  I still can't find that passerine honey hole on Geoje.  I was spoiled on Jeju when it came to 'my patch'.  I'll keep looking, but peak migration season is almost over.  Good scenery though, f'sure.  Maybe the good migrants just didn't make it to this neck of the woods this year.  JP and I blanked at Taejeongdae in Busan on Saturday - nothing.

Cruisin' Goj

  I wouldn't recommend riding a clutch bike with one hand while taking video.  I got new filters and an oil change for Ol Curves, and she's purring nicely.  When I say purring, I mean rattling like a bucket of nails.  Sweet sweet music.
  Full-ass weekend.  Next weekend?  Japandemonium!

Tsushima Smooth Skink

Almost a good picture of one.

Gangly Geoje-do Goatlets

  Say that three times fast.
  The other day I was happily tucking into my convenient and delicious plate of tuna on crackers when, on some TV show, someone made a crack about  how his friend was about to lose all his money and be forced to eat tuna and crackers all the time.  I was like 'Hey-eyyyyyy!'.

Supercat smokes

  Koreans love their smokes.  Hard to find a Korean man that doesn't have a pack of skinny darts close at hand.  Can't go wrong when they cost as much as a bag of chips.  Oh, here's a rant for Resolute.  One thing Korean men have perfected is the 'smokes-butt-in'.  Almost every single time I'm at a convenience store, in the middle of a transaction mind you, a shifty Korean man with exact change dangling from his fat trembling finger-nubs will attempt to snaffle his way in front of me and get his fucking smokes.  I don't allow it to happen, and they always look at me like I just shit in their grandmother's mouth when I scold them.  'It'suh MY cunt-uh-lee!', they glare.  Wait in line like a civilized person, fuckface.
  One time a hideous Korean man-o-lantern pulled this shenanigan at a BANK, and walked in front of me, in the middle of my dealio, and started up his own dealio with the meek, feckless teller.  I fucking lost my shit up in there.  Frothed.
  Anyway, these smokes are cute.  Almost as cute as the 'Glamour' brand smokes they market to girls - small packs covered in pastel flowers.  I'll get a pic.  Good old Asia, anything goes, innit.

A giant thing of floating garbage

  It was glorious.  Very 'Star Wars trash compactor'.
  I feel more boring here on Geoje, when compared with Jeju.  Not bored - boring.

Abstraction of sludge

  Field scum!  Arty.  Time flies when yr gettin' old.  But yeah, the time she flies.  What's new?  This n that.  Going birding in the morning, if I can resist the urge to hit snooze all morning.