I'm a picture taking fool again. Picked up a new Canon at a reasonable to me price. Maybe it was marked up a bit but they threw in a camera case and a tripod. I am thrilled. It's the Canon PowerShot SD1100. I anticipate a lot of fun with this new toy and I'm determined not to lose it. Pictures of beautiful San Cristobal. Maybe the political upset was still fresh last time I was here. It's so much cleaner and mellow than I remember. These days Oaxaca has more graffiti, not that it's a contest.
Look at that face. That's a happy guy.
I'm revisiting Canon Sumidero tomorrow and then I'll move to a warmer climate again.
By sheer stubborn will, the little Canon works again. I had given up on it after more than a week with no sign of life and was just off to a place that recycles these things when I pressed the power button on impulse and saw the dimmest glimmer of life. The screen read E-something error. I took my shoes off and hit the internet.
On the advice of some website, I took out the battery and tapped the camera on my desk. White powder, mineral deposits from Cheonggye Stream, fell out like dandruff and we were back in business. If only I had stopped there, I could have saved myself another week and a half of experimental tinkering.
I wanted to make it better than new so I took it apart with a mini-screwdriver set. I was careful, just not careful enough. It all became more complicated when a tiny part below the power button, apparently an important one, tinkled out of place. A lot of trial and error to figure out where it fit and how to get it to stay put while putting everything else back, besides taking the entire apartment apart to find a tiny screw I only thought had rolled off the table, and it was fixed for the second time. If only I had stopped there.
I went to Seolbong Park early next morning for some exercise before the heat wave drove me back to the air conditioning. A lot of people had the same idea. 7 in the morning and people were already working out and descending from the trail. I brought the camera along for a shot of the compressed air hose people use to blow dust and sweat from their shoes after a hike. The laptop gets this treatment once a month and it does wonders for performance. A good blast should have taken care of any deposits the desk taps had missed. It probably did but another essential part, apparently attached by just a microscopic dab of solder, fell off. I could still focus the lens but the shutter button wouldn't move.
There was no sense in quitting now even though I had two loose parts to finesse into place and hold still while reassembling the casing. I was in over my head but there was no stopping. I sat on one of three benches under a sun shelter and got to work.
I had been experimenting for almost an hour with the new broken piece when a random scary guy came by with his wife to hassle me. He didn't speak English. I don't speak Korean. Normal people just let it go with friendly smiles and move along. This guy kept talking away in a tone I didn't like while his horrible wife threw back her head and laughed at everything he said. I was not getting a good vibe from them at all. I would have loved to just ignore them but the man had no intention of allowing that to happen.
He pulled the hair on my arms and compared it with his smooth one. Children do that at school. They find it pretty fascinating. It's not something they see too often. But this guy was at least approaching my age and it was a total violation of personal space. There was nothing lacking in his non verbal skills as he offered several times to take my camera and smash it under his foot. His loud wife found that so funny. He reached through the buttons of my shirt, pulled my chest hair, grimaced and fanned his nose in disgust. The second grab for my arm hair confirmed I might be in for serious trouble when he showed me the gang tattoos, some kind of Asian characters, on his left arm.
I've been warned that if you get in a fight in Korea, all parties are arrested, even if you only acted in self-defense and that it is unheard of for the court to decide in a foreigner's favour. If you manage to gain the upper hand, you still owe the other guy blood money. It's a lose lose situation for everyone involved and besides all of this, I'm not a fighter at all while every man in this country has at least had a few years of military training. Of course, even with all these good reasons to play nice, fights still happen. Too much rage, alcohol, stupidity or plain meanness is all it takes for reason to vanish. The best advice is to get away from the situation. Run. And that goes double if you encounter a gang member.
Outside of the gangs, no one wears real tattoos in Korea. It isn't considered cool or attractive. I would have loved to get off the bench and walk away from this guy right then or run if he started to follow me. He was menacing and there was no telling how far he might go. But my camera was in pieces. Eventually he got up and left me alone after pulling my chest hair one more time and raising his shirt to show me his belly. I got lucky. Either by design or out of boredom, the woman walked away down the hill and he decided to follow, leaving me with a hand not quite steady enough to tinker with tiny camera parts so I packed it in and left soon after, once he was well out of sight.
Days later, I finally figured out that shutter button piece. In the right place, it looks upside down so it took a while. The camera works.
Here are some of the pictures taken on that fateful day at Bukhansan and Cheonggye Stream. The Youtube video from that day stops about 15 seconds before the Canon slipped out of my pocket.
Nobody needs two cameras and I found a great home for my personally refurbished Canon. From now on, I'll be playing with the water proof Olympus. It all ends well.
Cheonggye Stream downtown Seoul one cold December morning 2007.
Pictures probably make the difference between a rotten blog and a mediocre one. In an attempt to make the most of my remaining time in Korea, I visited Mt. Bukhansan yesterday. I took a few pictures too but no one will be seeing them, not even me. I dropped the camera that has served me so well since April, 2006 in a stream.
I still have high hopes but low expectations that it will resurrect after a few days of drying. I read on the web that that sometimes happens. We’ll see. I have it in a container with some silicone gel bags to reduce mold. I may even take it apart today if I can find the right mini-screwdriver.
Summer in Korea is a very sweaty time and I found a nice alternative to hiking up the mountain right at the base where a cool stream rolled through big rocks. I found my spot by a small swimming hole worth about one good stroke in either direction. Daredevils slid down a steep smooth slope into the water. It looked a bit chancy to me. A bad landing could end in a serious head injury. I’ve been trying to cut down on that kind of excitement.
I had a giant high rock in the middle of the stream with a smooth depression in the center of the top the length of my body. Laying there, catching a sweet breeze after a nice dip in the cool water, I wasn’t surprised to find my book slipping out of my hands and I didn’t wake up until a park official peeked his head over the top to tell me I had to button my shirt. I had noticed that everyone else was splashing with their shirts on. They did that at Seonjong Beach in Busan too. I thought it was strange; never dreamed it was a rule. Well, rules are rules but Iwanted toknow why. He tried to explain but lacked the English words so as far as I can tell, it’s considered indecent for men to take their shirts off when swimming in streams in national parks. Maybe the same applies to public beaches.
This is not where I dropped the camera. A big storm seemed to be on the way so I drifted along back downtown to walk around in no particular direction and see things I’d missed before. When I stumbled across the Cheonggye Stream, I knew it was way past time to descend from the street and take a stroll along the banks.
Under a bridge, people sat on the bank to dangle their feet in the water and some waded out to the center. That gave me the brilliant idea to wade out to the center and walk the length in the water, snapping pictures from a different perspective. It looked easy. It’s an artificial stream, not too deep, and the bottom is made of flattish rocks. I didn’t get far, probably four stubborn steps at the most. The current was surprisingly strong and a bit of moss made those rocks nice and slippery. I was ready to give up but getting back wasn’t so easy. Realizing there was a solid chance I was going to fall and find my way back on hands and knees, I got ready to minimize the damage and toss the backpack onto the bank first. A friendly stranger gave a hand. I was ready. I lunged for a rock and my camera flew out of my shirt pocket. Dang. Lights out for the little Canon Powershot.
Some guy in a uniform came down to chase the waders back to the bank. Wading isn’t allowed there and it shouldn’t be. I think that’s the main job for this man and a few others I saw. Sitting on the bank with feet in the water is cool but the minute someone stands up in the water, these guys are there to tell them to sit back down again. Tempting as it is, that stream is rather hazardous. Lots of potential for head and spinal injuries. I was already on the bank by the time he arrived to chase the others but I suspect he made a special trip for me when someone reported on a walkie talkie that a stupid tourist thought he could wade the whole stream. I don’t know that for sure but he openly glared at me until I left the scene of the crime and his fixed hostile stare.
Sniff. Maybe the Canon is only in a coma. For now, it’s in intensive care, waiting for a sign of life before pulling the final plug. If the rain stops today, I’ll try drying it with that foot cleaner/ air compressor at Seolbong Park I use to blow the dust out of the laptop once a month.
