White Chrismas 2008 in Vancouver

Merry Christmas.

For the first time since 1971, every region in Canada has a White Christmas. I think the last time Vancouver got so much snow was in 1996. Yesterday on Christmas Eve, the snow kept falling all day and I had to plow the snow three times or else it would have been unmanageable. In the afternoon alone, more than 6 inches fell. It had been snowing for almost a week here, which is pretty rare since it almost always rains in December.

The result is the following:

Received My Official 2010 Winter Olympics Lanyard

It's the 24th of December and it is still snowing. So much snow that I had to shovel the snow two times already today. But the main reason for this post is to show the Official 2010 Winter Olympics lanyard that I received via the mail today.



I am quite disappointed in the quality of the lanyard, especially when VANOC (Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee) charged $23 for it. It didn't even come with any standard packaging. It just came in one of those cheap plastic sleeves which street market DVD vendors use to sell pirated DVDs in. From looking at the plastic holder, I am also surprised at how big the size of the tickets will be.

Seoul Day 4: Incheon International Airport

3 months have passed since my last posting, and its time to continue where I left off.

During the past 3 months, two of which were spent intensely studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Exam Level 2. I completely underestimated the test and whether I passed or not, I learned a lot of new things during those months of study.

Now back to the original topic of this post. I took these pictures on May 5, 08 on our last day in Seoul. Despite the large size of the airport, there was almost nothing to do while waiting for our flight at the airport.

Regarding the shops in the airport, every single one of them was a duty free shop which sold luxury goods priced in U.S. dollars, not Korean Won, even though we were in Korea. I found this quite strange, but I guess the duty free shops can make more money from the exchange rates. Also what few shops that weren't selling luxury goods were selling merchandise that only targeted the Korean people. I thought this was kind of weird that for an international airport that they didn't have any other types of shops which offered amenities to the international traveler like newspapers, snack food, etc.

The departure hall: