2 Canadians in Korea

Welcome to our blog. It's designed to give people back home an idea of what it's like living in South Korea and to allow you to follow us on our journey.

I've been blogging a lot of facts and I feel I should say that some of it is copy pasted from books, the internet and the signs that I took pictures of at the tourist site itself.

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Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Rice Fields

As we travel across South Korea we see thousands of flooded fields everywhere and it tooks us about 2 months of wondering what they were before we finally asked and it turns out that they are rice fields. I figure they must build the field in a bed of clay or something that retains water as I never see them being filled. Read more about it here.


According to Wikipedia, the traditional method for cultivating rice is flooding the fields with or after setting the young seedlings. This simple method requires sound planning and servicing of the water damming and channeling, but reduces the growth of less robust weed and pest plants that have no submerged growth state, and deters vermin. Whilst with rice growing and cultivation the flooding is not mandatory, all other methods of irrigation require higher effort in weed and pest control during growth periods and a different approach for fertilizing the soil.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Golfing Disaster

Here is a little story about Ben and Pierre's golf adventure. We went to a "driving range" style place and I think they call it screen golf because of the screen tent to keep the balls in. We were wondering about the cost and if they had simulation golf and we were going to play if we could afford it.

It was almost 10pm and the place was packed so we couldn't play simulation golf, but we were allowed to shoot a bucket of balls called a box, which is a little bigger than the large basket of balls back home, but the wait was 20 minutes. Then, we asked about clubs and she looked on the computer and said there is a 7 iron we can use. That's it, one 7 iron.

Then, the club Pro showed up and asked a few questions and told us to come with him. He brought us to his bag and his bucket of balls and said we can use his stuff and we get a special discount - FREE! We got really excited and I got ready. The Pro wanted to give me an iron and I asked for the driver instead. I streched a little and then lined up for my shot.

I should probably mention that Ben and I walked for about 20 minutes to get there and it was a warm night so I was a little sweaty and the club's grip wasn't very good, it was quite slick.

So, I lined up for my shot and everyone stood around to see the foreigner play golf. I'm sure they were asking themselves if he was good... Then began the worst swing of my life! I missed the ball and the club slipped right out of my hands, hit the metal rooftop and bounced near the person playing behind me and flew to the next person behind him! I was so surprised as I'm sure everyone else was that I didn't even get a chance to feel embarassed right away. I turned around and saw a bunch of faces all saying the same thing, "Holy Shit!" Once the shock settled and the Pro got his club and inspected it he said very firmly in a small yelling tone to "RELAX!" I think he was mad. I asked for a glove and tried again and it went much better.

I managed to only make a small dent in the Pro's golf club and I think I ruined it for all foreiners who might stroll into that place in the future. I don't think he will let anyone use his clubs anymore!