Ever have one of those days?

Landing on the taxiiway in Japan

Mig 29 versus UAV

If you haven’t already seen it:

MIG 29 versus UAV

The Asian Housing Bubble

It isn’t just Florida and California that got caught up in the housing frenzy…

Here’s a pic I took while driving of a new construction project.  These planned developments are ‘massive,’ literally.  And they are everywhere.  One development I saw could easily hold 100,000 plus people.  It’s like they just built a little city out of thin air.

So who is going to buy these things?  There’s no real permanent immigration here as the vast majority of foreign workers are on contract, and the average local worker probably takes home $1500 to $2000 US per month.

Trucker Strike

As if to be step with their colleagues in Europe, the local truckers are on strike.  They don’t like the price of gas.   Well, who does.  I felt like joining them as I hate paying about the equivalent to $1.90 US per litre, which if my math is correct is over $7 per US gallon.

Korean Air has new no-frills offshoot, Jin Air

The locals have a new airline called Jin Air, which is the new budget arm of KAL.

It marks a real departure for Korean.  The F/A’s are going to be wearing jeans and t-shirts this time.

This is marked contrast from tradition, given that to be an F/A in Asia is a pretty elite position that is taken very seriously by the girls.  They are “princesses”.  And Jeans and T-shirts really go against that image.

Jin Air is going to be serving Jeju and Gimpo-Seoul initially, but if you ask me they would have been better off serving Clark down in the Philippines or Thailand.  That’s where most of the Koreans are interested in heading these days.

Not exactly up to Harold and Kumar standards, but a fun little trip anyway…

I needed to get some fresh air, so I threw the wife and kids in the car and went out on a little road trip to the sea.  There is a very nice Buddhist temple on the mountain.  I figured we go climb it to get the best view.

It doesn’t look too big in the picture, but that mountain is actually pretty high.

I had to push my 1 year-old in his stroller up the side of the mountain.  We made it half way before my legs ran out of gas,  but at least we made it to the little temple that’s half-way up.

On the way back home we picked-up a hitch hiker.  No, it wasn’t Neil Patrick Harris, but rather some old fisherman who flagged us down, who, it turns out, needed a lift into the nearby town.   The guy just stared at me at went: “Mi-Gook Saram,” which means American.  It was rather weird, but I’m sure he now has a weird story to tell his friends about how he got a ride from a foreigner.