This is the second supermarket-staff-group-dancing video I've posted and I strongly suspect the last. It seems Home Plus have upped the ante a bit, replacing 'If you're happy and you know it' with what sounds like a bit of ropey old Belgian techno from the early nineties. Not only that but the staff need to stand in lines and sync their steps, which didn't seem to be going down too rosily with the group I was watching. So, well done there Home Plus.
Just as Koreans can turn pretty much anything into food, they also can turn food into other things. Witness the use of cabbage as a decorative plant on the streets of Daegu.
Koreans really can sweetify anything and create some of the most unappetising desserts known to man. Witness here the sickly and sugared octopus near the top of the picture. And yes, it is a real octopus.
I've been trying to capture this for a while. This is the in-house ditty of Korean supermarket chain Home Plus. Every hour or so the staff have to down tools and sing along to this in unison. It's set to the tune of 'if you're happy and you know it...' and at the end of each chorus they have to awkwardly gesture towards the product they're selling. It's awesome.
Second in a series of two imaginary dialogues with my son on a fireman/fire engine theme
'So, driving the fire truck now, eh? And still claiming you don't want to be a fireman. Shame on you son.'
'You put me up here, you slab-headed dolt. Anyhow, these trucks handle quite sluggishly, not sure I'd want to drive something so underpowered.'
One thing I love about Korea are the stationery shops. Just the sheer amount of crap you can buy there is impressive, from toys to computer stuff and hello kitty backpacks. And the stationery is so peculiarly Asian, every notebook covered in bizarre pictures and even more bizarre English ('coffeetime is nice smiling happy place!), pens with lights and monsters and other weird stuff hanging off them.
'Son, would you like to be a fireman when you grow up?'
'Sure dad, the bravery, the sense of giving something back, public service..I can see the draws.'
'Really?'
'No dad, I'm two and a half, I'm dazzled by large shiny objects. Don't read too much into this.'
Just a quick shout out (I can't believe I just wrote that) to the guy who makes the coffee at the cafe near us. I never realised there was such a thing as coffee art, but apparently there is, and this is the kind of stuff he does.
This is the Woobang Tower in Daegu, an edifice rightly famous for its above average height. In fact, if you travel to the top of the tower, there is detailed information there about how many other towers in the world are bigger. Quite a lot it turns out. However, I believe there are towers in both Germany and Sweden that are slightly smaller, so suck on that Northern Europe. On the plus side the views are spectacular from up there and there's always the possibility that you'll see an xtreme athlete (I gather that's how they spell it) seriously injure himself bungie jumping from the top. So, it's not all bad.
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