maandag, mei 21, 2007

the joy of transfers

Next time you have a choice of airport to transfer at have a look at this site. It lists the best and worst airports to sleep at. I have been at the top three, but have really only used number eight to sleep at. It's Incheon Airport, in Seoul, South Korea, where we waited for eight hours to transfer to New Zealand. After enquiring whether it would be possible to check out the city of Seoul, we decided not to take the risk and just roam free at the airport.

Even inside the airport you've got to be prepared for a bit of a culture shock though. Quite a gender-biased society, so it seems. Already in the plane our Korean neighbour had to complement Jon on his "beautiful wife", before he started talking to me. O_o ... very polite, I guess? But then there were also more confusing moments. We, that is, I, asked at a helpdesk whether we could go outside without a visum, and they answered politely to Jon that we could. Wait, did I see that wrong? So I asked another question, and yes, they answered it again - to Jon. Mmmm how weird. So we walked around, when two cleaners dropped a mop. As it happened right next to me, and their hands seemed quite full already, I intuitively wanted to pick it up for them - but they seemed in a sudden hurry to snatch the mop, look at me as if they saw a ghost and run off. Oh.
Obviously that futuristic, empty and extremely clean building the shape of a plane / whale desperately needed a mop :).

Incheon Airport

woensdag, mei 16, 2007

You're english better then mine?

Have a look here, whether you're learning English or whether your native language is English. No actually, it's compulsory to have a look if your native tongue is the one I'm still brushing up on. They are the 10 most annoying spelling mistakes to encounter (though not necessarily obstructing comprehension).

Most look so obvious but are probably just due to phonetic similarity. Oh, the joys of the English language! Is there ANY other language out there that is less logical with spelling?

The cartoon here is made by a dutch guy. It just struck me because I doubted straight away about the spelling - yet couldn't confirm. Now we know once and for all: this is wrong.


(see this website for more of his cartoons related to climbing, without spelling mistakes :)