Here’s another bit of English from Korea. Here’s more info about the the firm that made these, Lufdesign.
As an English speaker, when traveling abroad my eye often goes straight for written English. I found this to be especially true when traveling around South Korea last month. Even though some Chinese characters are used in Korea, and I know a few having lived in Japan in my youth, the Hangul writing system is prominent throughout the country and remains foreign to me.
Yes, I’ve heard that in just a few hours a person could learn how to sound out the Hangul writing system. It consists of 19 consonant and 21 vowel letters, which makes it sound easy to learn; however, the letters are arranged in blocks to form syllables that can look like Chinese characters. Mathematically, that means more than 11,000 syllables could be formed, though about 256 are commonly used. So in my preparation for the trip, I decided to forego learning how to read and to focus on learning how to speak a few key phrases, and how to listen (I was even told that I had good Korean pronunciation).
Anyway, did you know that there are “only” about 375 million native English speakers in the world, though 1.5 billion people are said to be able to speak English? English is all over Korea. Most of it is perfectly fine. Some of it is strange.
Here are some signs in English from Seoul.
Agua Volcano dominates the southern skyline from the city of Antigua, Guatemala. With the city’s streets on an easy to navigate grid, Agua serves as a constant reminder of which direction you’re headed in the city. So here are some views of Agua — sometimes behind clouds, sometimes from city streets, and most often from a hill upon which is a cross just to the north of the city.
What stands out when walking around Antigua, Guatemala, are the many colors on the sides of buildings and walls that line the city streets. Here are a few of them.
What stands out when walking around Antigua, Guatemala, are the many colors on the sides of buildings and walls that line the city streets. Here are a few of them.
The Fuego Volcano outside Antigua, Guatemala, was spewing dark ash all day on Sunday, Jan. 3, 2016.
At sunset, we could finally see the flames shooting up from the volcano.
Some random metrics about my life in 2014.
Blogging
Number of blog posts on michaeljanairo.com: 73
Most read blog post: Readercon wrap-up: ‘You don’t look Filipino’
Work
Number of jobs left: 1
Number of new jobs started: 1
Writing career
Number of short stories published: 3
Number of writing conferences attended: 1 (Readercon)
Music
Top Spotify artist: Bruce Springsteen
Travel
Number of countries outside the US visited: 1 (Guatemala)
Number of cities outside the US visited: 7 (Monterrico, Antigua Guatemala, Panajachel, Santa Catarina, San Antonio, Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala)
Number of US cities visited outside the Capital Region: 14 (NYC, Pittsburgh, Providence, New Haven, Boston, Cambridge, Williamstown, North Adams, Freeport, Prospect Harbor, Lincoln, Omaha)
Social media
Number of tweets: 512
Most impressions on one tweet: 40,461
The tweet: https://twitter.com/mjanairo/status/420222698036289536
Most looped Vine: Dance @yaleartgallery
Number of new FB friends: 89
Number of lost FB “friends”: About 200
FB year in review: Here
Most liked Instagram post: Found at work today.
Instagram year in review: Here
Lake Atitlán as seen from the road in the hills above the town of Panajachel, Guatemala.
One of the biggest tourist draws in Guatemala is in the highlands, Lake Atitlán, and the many towns that surround it. We stayed over night in Panajachel and then, led by a tour guide from Guatemala City, we took a boat to visit three towns: Santa Catarina, San Antonio and Santiago.
A view of Lake Atitlán, with the Atitlán Volcano to the left and the San Pedro Volcano to the right.
The landscape north of Antigua, as seen from the Pan-American highway.
Walter’s van
I spent most of my visit to Guatemala in Antigua, which you can see and read about here, but I also took trips to other parts of the country.
All these trips were put together Walter, the owner of the Don Quijote Travel Agency in Antiuga Guatemala.
Here’s Walter’s van to the right. Our trip from Antigua to Chichicastenango took about three hours, which included stopping for breakfast at a place high in the mountains. Though the roads we traveled on included the four-way Pan-American highway, it also included going though plenty of towns and villages and mountain passes, where the roads are twisty and traffic is controlled by speed bumps. Lots of speed bumps.
Crit and Walter.
Walter is the best kind of travel guide — he knows where he’s going, he explains things clearly and he has a great sense of humor. On the morning of our trip to Chichi — as the town was called — I sat up front in the van with him, my camera on my lap. He pulled over now and then as we drove along so I could get shots, such as the one of the volcano/mountain landscape with thick fog in the valley at the top of this post, and (after I turned around) of him and Crit in the early morning sun. Continue reading →
