Instant Karate Expert

Tired of spending your hard earned dollars on weeks of karate training, only to get mediocre results? Tired of wasting all your free time in the dojo practicing for hours and hours without anything to show for it?

Don't worry, because here's the miracle break-through in martial arts training that you've been waiting for! With the purchase of a simple red karate outfit, anyone can become a karate expert. Watch this completely unskilled child become a Karate Master in the blink of an eye when he dons the outfit:





Truly amazing. Act quickly. These outfits won't last long!

Still in USA

Due to an unexpected roadblock, I'm still in the U.S. Turns out, Jessica and Aidan need a visa in order to live in Italy. I should have known. They needed one for Korea, so they should have needed one for Italy. The big problem is that they need to have the "official" U.S. passport (the brown one) not the standard blue "tourist" passport, which they have.

As it happens, the turn around time for these official passports is 4-6 weeks. So we submitted that paperwork recently and they will have to wait here in the states while I travel forward to Italy. I'm going to miss them both, but it'll give me the opportunity to have everything straightened out so they can have a smooth arrival when they come. I really feel bad for Jessica, because she's going to have to travel to Italy by herself with Aidan. He's can really be a handful at times, especially when you are by yourself.

So I'm departing Monday for Italy. I'll arrive in Venice on Tuesday, 1200 local. Ah, Venice. I'm going to have my camera with me, so I'll put up some pictures when I arrive. Keep posted!

Back in HotLanta

After an overbooked flight and two delays, we finally arrived in Atlanta from D.C. six hours after we had planned. Could be worse, I suppose. At least we arrived here today.

We're in Atlanta from now until Thursday, then we're off to Italy. While I'm in town, I'm available for viewings from 2:00 until 6:00. Exceptions may be made on a case-by-case basis. Brizmo and CDB, send me an email with your latest contact info. I'll see if I can shoot you one to initiate contact. Hit me at joel.springer AT hotmail.com. No nude photos, please.

Man Without a Country

It's been ten days since our last post. Some of you might think that since we're no longer Seoul residents, "Fillet of Seoul" might cease to be. You're partly right. We are planning on shutting down this blog and opening another to highlight our European adventure in Italy, but not yet. We're still in between houses right now; staying with Jessica's family in Maryland, then my parents in Georgia for another week before heading "over there".

We've been busy here, seeing the sights and local haunts. I've got some pictures from the Smithsonian and National Zoo, but I can't upload them yet because I don't have the camera cable necessary to dump them. I think my Dad has one in Georgia, so hold on to your butts.

We've been living out of a suitcase now since 28 September, when the movers packed up the last of our household goods and shipped them out. Today is Oct 18. You'd think we'd be used to being transient already, but it still hasn't happened. My biggest complaint is how the dumb suitcases take up so much space on the floor of the room where we're staying. If only I had some sort of wizard powers that allowed me to levitate the suitcases up off the floor and hover over each other. Then they wouldn't take up so much space and we wouldn't feel so trapped in the room all the time! I imagine that it would work something like this:

Now that's just a rough conceptual sketch; the actual magic bolts will look much cooler in real life. Anyone have an old wizard hat lying around?

Aidan's Birthday Marathon

Because we're traveling this year between Korea/US/Italy around Aidan's birthday, he's getting multiple parties at each location. Tonight was his Korean birthday/going-away party. Our friends Kat and Tyler hosted a little get together for his with cake, candles, and presents. Here's the guest of honor during the money shot.

SUMO!!!

Please read the above title with all three exclamation marks.

As rumored/promised in an earlier post, here's a video of some of the Sumo that we saw while in Japan in September. It's taken a while to put it up here because we've been homeless and computerless for a while, but thanks to Kat and Tyler and their computer, I managed to stitch this together a couple of days ago. It's only about a minute, and with no music or snappy editing, but I think it captures the essence of what was going on. Enjoy!

Leaving Country

Well, the time has finally come to bid farewell to Seoul and Korea. Jessica and I leave Korea next Tuesday U.S. bound. The year has flown by, which became immediately apparent when we checked into the same hotel that we checked into when we first arrived in country. We've got a nicer room this time, but other than that it's the same old hotel. To tell the truth, we don't really like staying here. I can't put my finger on it, but the hotel gives us a weird vibe. Not exactly like a "Shining" vibe, but in that vein. The hallways are strangely quiet and there's some unusual ambient noise that seems to be in every room, but you never seem to get any closer to it.

Oh, and there's a couple of creepy twin English girls that randomly appear in the corridors.