The Longest Saturday in Seoul

This Saturday may have been the longest ever for me in Seoul. We all had to work at 8:30am because Monday was a snow day. After work I met some friends to drive a couple hours south to one of their friends baby's first birthday party.
In Korea you first birthday seems like a wedding or something -- they have birthday halls, like they have wedding halls!
After the birthday four of us went snowboarding. It was my first time and I don't know why that is, because it is really fun!! (Although my butt is very sore from falling all the time.) My first time down the hill took like an hour. The second time was a lot better. And the last time I was even taking pictures as I was riding, and I only fell like 4 times.
After that to Gomagoon, then noraebang where I sang to myself for the last 20 minutes. Then finally to sleep at 6am.

3 Crappy Cameras

Leica AF-C1/ ridiculously poor focusing


Olympus [MJU:]-1/ self-timing mechanism broke


Olympus XA2/ severely scratched lens, film counter broke

I have been having a hard time with point-and-shoots this year (but also some fun). So far I have paid for one and owned four. I keep trading them in for different used models at Mozart Cafe/Coffee Shop/Beer HOF/Camera Museum/Camera Store in Chungmuro (I am very lucky I can do this). The newest trade is a Rollei Prego 90, which I am thoroughly happy with so far (although I had some trouble getting it to recognize that the film was loaded), I will have to see when I get some negs back.

Snow in Seoul, JJang!!

Alex, my friend and one of my old roomies from the infamous Demon House DC, had a 24 hour layover on her way home to Cambodia. I tried to show her as much of Korea as I could while she was here. Apparently, this is the most snow Seoul has had in 70 years!! I love it. JJang!!
After a night of sam gyup sal (giant bacon), dobu (tofu), soju (light vodka), makgoli (rice wine), noraebang (karoke), and makju (beer), we went to Chungmuro, and to Gyeongbokgung Palace. Ran into an Aussie photographer that I knew, and talked a bit. While heading home saw the Seoul Police using their riot shields to shovel snow!

New Year's Day in Daejeon

I was invited by Hyungsu's family to go to Daejeon, a city about 3 hours south of Seoul for New Year's Day. We got there in the middle of the night on January 1st, and ate and drank in a celebratory fashion. The next morning we woke up and ate and drank and played yut nori for most of the afternoon. It turns out I am pretty decent at yut nori, and out of 10 teams we my team made it to 3rd place. I won a bunch of soap and more toothpaste than I could use in a year!
My New Year's was awesome. JJang!!

Cross-Processed Seoul

Here is a roll of Ektachrome I cross-processed, meaning slide film (which makes a color positive instead of a negative) that I had processed like color negative film, in order to get a richer color. I think it worked pretty well.
Now if I could just figure out the stupid focus on my Leica AF-C1 35mm point-and-shoot. I have never had such a hard time focusing a camera! It's supposed to be a point-and-shoot! It has two focal lengths, 1:2.8/40 and 1:5.6/80. I am beginning to think that the apertures are just fixed. So I'm shooting in bright daylight with a 40mm 2.8 on a point-and-shoot -- not ideal!