Flash

I was walking home recently, when in sight of our apartment, the buildings around it lit up momentarily, and a thunderous bang followed almost instantly. Had I been in the UK, I would have thought it was a bomb going off, instead my first thought was of a serious road accident. I suppose that tells you something about my social impressions of both countries.

You never really know whether such occurrences are normal in a country until you see the reaction of the local people. As we neared our building, the sight of the locals coming out of their shops and looking around in confusion and alarm suggested that this was not a regular event.

At the side of our apartment building is one of the many telegraph poles which seem to carry just about every wire imaginable - Koreans (along with the Japanese) apparently sharing a dislike for running cables underground as happens in the UK. I have to say that while there may be some method to the madness, the wiring often looks highly dangerous but logic tells you it can't be because otherwise there'd be a lot of accidents. Be this as it may, the telegraph pole nearest our apartment had exploded, depositing a five by ten inch lump of charred wiring unceremoniously in the street below it. A few people stood a respectful distance away staring at it and up at the place it had presumably come from in turn.

It's fortunate no-one was underneath it at the time.

Barbershop 2

Korean Father turned up this morning with his barber friend who he'd bumped into on his way back from mountain climbing. When I'd first arrived in Korea, my 'shaved head' (merely two and one on the clippers) caused some surprise - it seems that most twenty and thirty-something Korean men prefer the shaggy dog look. Only five weeks after my last cut, my hair was getting longer and Korean Father seemed to agree that it was time to get back to my roots - so to speak.

As often seems the way of things here, this meant that I was off to the barber's shop before I really knew what was happening, so shortly after I found myself descending into his hot, dark subterranean lair, where the first small room which greeted me was furnished with a bed and a television - presumably where the barber relaxed in-between customers.

The barber refused our attempts to pay him afterwards because of his personal relationship with Korean Father, so we shot round the corner to a shop and bought him some bottled honey and ginseng drinks as a gift, which he then couldn't refuse.