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Post-241: Eating Shrimp Burgers at Lotteria (Or, the Shrimp Burger War)

10/28/2014

Since time immemorial, as far as I know, Lotteria has been "the only game in town" for shrimp burger fans,

But, lo, McDonald's has announced its own shrimp burger to South Korea, and Lotteria, worried, held a "buy one shrimp burger, get one free" in the last week of October to rally the faithful. I carefully investigated.

A Lotteria in Incheon, South Korea. The sign says:
"Shrimp Burger 1+1" (buy one get one free) / From the 28th to the 30th / From 2 to 10 PM

That's the Lotteria I found. In I went. This Lotteria, like many others, is multi-storey. You can see the second level of seating above. The inside of the ground floor was interesting in several ways:

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Post-240: "First World, Third World" Travel Essay

10/21/2014

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From my experience in international travel since 2007 (I left the USA for the first time on Jan. 1, 2007), I'm led to believe that no other rich country on this planet is anywhere near as unpleasant to fly in as the USA. The only airport I've ever been in that was less pleasant than the USA's airports tend to be today must be Manila, designated the "World's Worst Airport". (If you go through it for any length of time you will see why. I did.)

I discovered a stinging and incisive travel essay that captures the feeling of air travel in the USA today. Who among us can't echo most everything the essay says (those who have traveled by air in the USA in recent years)? The writer writes specifically about New York City, a place I've been in and out of several times lately. His social commentary about NYC in the quoted excerpts below I can also agree with.

I find it to be good, engaging writing, which can be hard for travel writing to achieve. Here:

First World, Third World: A Travel Essay
By Peter Van Buren

You travel a bit, and you wonder what happened. [...]

Read the Essay

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Post-239: [My Korean Essay] Mistakes by Foreigners in Korea

10/19/2014

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Our teacher's usual whirlwind style whirled on as she handed out papers filled with small boxes, and let me try to approximate by using the written word what her speaking style feels like to listen to by which I mean lots of words without many breaks and accordingly you can hardly keep the logical flow of what's going on and thus it gets confusing whereupon despite the strain you may feel somehow you've got to keep up since walking out and leaving the room is not possible and so when all is said and done you've got to figure something out. See what I mean? Hah. (If you read it quickly you can get some idea of what the class tends to feel like to me). But I digress.

There I was with my two sheets of paper full of boxes on them, puzzled. Han Teacher starts talking something about mistakes foreigners make in Korea, but as it sounds a bit to me like the previous paragraph may sound to you, I figure out what's going on more through logical deduction than true understanding of the fine points of the instructions. We were to write about our own experiences making (humorous) mistakes in Korea.

In each box, there could only be one Korean character, or a space, so we were limited to a certain number of characters, 400 to be precise (closer to 300 if counting spaces). It was implied that we had to more-or-less fill in all the boxes and be done with it. Not less, not more.

Here is my essay in Korean (after corrections) and then a translation into English.

한국에서 했던 실수에 대한 글
한국에 있는 외국인들은 실수가 많다고 합니다. 저도 실수를 해본 적있습니다. 여기에 제가 했던 실수에 대해 성명하겠습니다.

먼저, 미국에서는 우리가 보통 집에 들어가면 신발을 벗지 않습니다. 하지만 한국에서는 한국인들이 항상 신발을 벗는 것 같습니다. 그래서 저는 실수를 했습니다. 제가 신발을 벗지않고 집에 들어갔습니다. 저는 한국인들은 왜 이렇게 신발에 대해서 조심하라고 궁금했습니다.

다 른 실수도 했습니다. 이전에 한국말을 잘 못했습니다. 문법을 잘 몰라서 재미있는 실수를 했습니다. 저는 "발표를 잘 할거예요" (영어로: "You will do well") 말하고싶었지만, 저는 한국 문법을 잘 몰랐기때문에 "잘 거예요!"라고 이야기했습니다 (영어로: "You will sleep"!). 이런 재미있는 실수를 하고 지금까지 그 실수를 기억합니다.

A translation into English is below:

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Post-241: Eating Shrimp Burgers at Lotteria (Or, the Shrimp Burger War)

Post-240: "First World, Third World" Travel Essay

Post-239: [My Korean Essay] Mistakes by Foreigners in Korea

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