Korean Technology Update: It's Always Something

Since coming to Korea, we have suffered:

- temperamental air conditioners and incomprehensible door control panels
- a stove we couldn't turn on
- dryers that won't dry
- no hot water in the bathroom
- not enough hot water in the floors
- too much hot water in the floors
- crazy Asian toilets that clog if you flush toilet paper (although we did not blog about it, we did, in fact, clog this hotel toilet so badly that I used the lobby bathroom in the middle of the night). (2x)
- Internet loss in the apartment (almost countless)
- power loss in the apartment

And this is just the ones that we remembered to blog about!

So let's put your money on what technological breakdown you think we'll experience next. Ready?

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If you guessed "Refrigerator," give yourself a prize! Last weekend, the freezer inexplicably cut out. We schlepped our perishables over to the neighbor, only to find out that the freezer resumed working overnight. Brimming with optimism that we'd simply left the door ajar (you'd think we'd learn), we reclaimed our freezer bag and resumed business.

Ha! Over the course of the week, the freezer and the fridge have proceeded to cut out at random, unpredictable intervals. The sour cream is liquefied. The cheese is no more. The butter smelled like feet. Basically, we had to bail on and clean out the entire refrigerator until the repair guy comes on Monday. And if you read any of the links above, you know that the odds of anything actually being repaired on Monday are kind of slim. We're also concerned that they'll try to get us to pay for any repairs, which would be totally uncool since a) we didn't break it and b) it belongs to the school. But our neighbors, who lost washing machine function, were asked to pay for repairs to that, so our trepidation may not be misplaced.

Anyway. Here's to a weekend full of Korean food (ugh) and nonperishables.

Nutters Nation

Remember that time we saw a guy in a "Peanutsburg Nutters" shirt? Turns out it wasn't a one-off. The Nutters, it seams, are a pan-Asian phenomenon - although everywhere else, "Peanutsburgh" ends with an H.

Taiwan comes in strong, with this representative of Taiwanese Nutter Nation. But the true Nutters fans can be found on the other side of the Straits, where they produce this classic model and this pink Nutters T-shirt, presumably for ladies who love... um... never mind.

The shirts say that they were "1979 MSY champions," but what is MSY? Did they play a game at Louis Armstrong International Airport? Did they defeat the ladies of The Mount School, York? Did they produce the maximum sustainable yield? I must know more!

[Edited to add: THEY'RE IN GERMANY TOO!!!! EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD BUT ME HAS A NUTTERS SHIRT!]

Singapore: The Beer

(This is one of a series of posts about our recent trip to Singapore. You can find other posts by clicking the "Singapore" tag below.)

Singapore isn't exactly known for its booze--import duties, vice taxes, Muslim culture and cuisine, and the sheer cost of bringing liquids in from overseas make alcohol relatively unpopular.

However, like most former outposts of the British Empire, Singapore does have a small local brewing tradition, represented mostly by the Asia Pacific Brewing Company (who now also brew the Malaysian beer Tiger under contract).
I tried two Asia Pacific beers while in Singapore. The first was a "strong brew," more German bock than anything British, and not a terribly good example of the form. Simply much too sweet, with too strong an alcohol taste. The second I tried was the ABC Extra Stout, a British-style stout (sweet rather than dry), and really quite good. Like cool, alcoholic coffee.