Landscaping

(Edit: this is being posted Thursday, May 13 at approximately 1 o'clock in the morning. The only reason that I can think of for this post to have an April date is because that's when I started it.

So, back to the story at hand!)

My mother has been after me for eight or nine months to get pictures of my home. I've stalled quite a bit, because I wanted to have a surprise for my Life Day party, near the end of April.

It's now May, my party was very nice, so here are some pictures.

What I'm going to do is show how the landscape looked when I bought the place, and follow that with how it looks now.

We'll start with the front yard.
They took out the bushes near the windows, and a couple of other bushes. The walkway from the driveway to the front door was barely 3 feet wide, and it had a sharp 90° turn. The bushes themselves crowded into the walkway... All in all, a tight squeeze for my chair.

The new configuration has a 4 foot wide walkway that is more fluid, more flowing, with curves instead of sharp angles. I also had the idea to put a border of river rock on both sides. It looks good now, and I have a feeling that in a couple of years, when everything grows in and fills in more, it's going to look fantastic.

What can I say? A dead patch of grass (well, it hadn't been watered in quite a while), more shrubs around the edges. And a 2 inch height difference between the cement and the grass.

This is looking better! You can't really see it in this picture, but the ramp that you see attaches to a deck in front of two sliding glass doors. The grass is green, some shrubs have been disappeared, and the grass and the cement are at the same level.

Shrubbery! Which didn't look good. Most of the shrub disappeared, and some hummingbird and butterfly flowers appeared. Actually, the flowering plants got planted all around the border to the grass.

You can kind of see the deck in this picture. And the ramp. I'm planning on having the white pergola (that's the overhead shade type thing) replaced with natural redwood.

Now, this! This is my joy. This is what it looked like, originally. A big empty space, covered by wood chips. Ever tried rolling through wood chips with a wheelchair? Not really something you want to try. The wall that you see there? Nothing to stop the sunlight from beating down on it in the summer. This was all kind of... What does Ron Popeil say? "Set it and forget it!"

Like I said, this is my joy. A nice wide cement pathway with a curved flow to it. A pergola, that I tried giving a little bit of an Asian feel to, along with the bench. A kimchi pot or two for ornamentation. In a couple of years, grapes.
And yes, in the background is a waterfall.

It's very peaceful back here. I've managed to fall asleep back here a couple of times already, and I'm looking forward to doing that again.

But, it's not broken! (Part 2)

I had someone ask about the x-rays. I guess it's difficult to figure out what the hand actually looks like by just looking at the bones. So, here is a couple covered by skin.

The first picture shows how far the bone juts out into the palm of the hand.


The second two pictures are compatible to the two x-rays that I posted. You can see how the joint of the thumb kind of just sticks straight out, and is kind of useless.

Pictures! Day 03 June 13, 2008

05 this is one of the vans that the government has available for wheelchairs. The only modifications, really, are in the back, to add tie downs and, in this case, a ramp. Some of them had a lift instead of the ramp. So, yes, I did bump my head a couple of times getting in and out, and had to tip my chair backwards a little so that I wasn't rubbing my head on the roof.

But the prices! Amazingly inexpensive!


02 this palace wasn't right in the middle of downtown, so the grounds hadn't been encroached on quite as much. I think we were in the cab for about half an hour.

After we finished here, we walked for about 10 minutes to go see something (I forget what). When we got near there, there was a protest against American beef imports just starting up, so we found the subway, instead.

06 while the palace that we saw the day before was more relaxed, this one required we join one of the tours. Apparently, people were just tromping through the wooded areas, creating their own paths and causing soil erosion and damaging some of the structures.

You can see one of the wooden ramps that they've put in, way in the background.
04 here you can see some of the detail that goes on in the paint jobs in the eaves.
03 the actual entranceway to the palace complex. Again, you can see the wooden ramp in the background. On this side of the entranceway was a small park, where the tour gathered before starting.

01 the courtyard/parade grounds of this palace. It's a little older than the one we saw the day before.

Finally, some pictures! Day 02, June 12, 2008

These are just a couple of the pictures from the first day of our actually being in Korea. If, for some reason, you want larger versions, contact me. I've have the fun of trying to reduce the pictures so that I don't use up all of my allowed storage. Trust me, on most of these the larger version is much larger. And, of course, I have lots left for people to see when they come to visit!

004 these little police stations were all over the place. As near as I can figure, they serve as information booths and places to bring complaints to. And places to film Korean dramas.

017 if you enlarge this picture so it fills the monitor, you'll see a distinctively American name

019, 007 changing of the guard in front of the palace grounds. I'm not sure if this was for ceremonial or theatrical purposes.


018 where the Emperor would review the guards and receive visitors of state

012-011 you couldn't go into the buildings, but there were ramps all over the place to go right up to them. And then there's the painting that's been done on them! Each individual beam, and all very intricate...



014 on palace grounds. Apparently, businesspeople come onto the grounds to walk on the paths during their lunch breaks, and we saw some school children running around, too. Which was a little surprising to me, considering Korean parent's penchant for education. I mean, besides school there is music lessons and tutors and more tutors and still more tutors. If you're a student, and you don't get good grades, you can't get into a university, and the University you go to determines how good a job you can get. Think of it as a difference between MIT or Stanford or Harvard versus UMass Amherst or UC Berkeley. The first three will get the top jobs and the other two not quite so good, no matter how good grades are. It's not quite that bad in the states. And there's also be "who do you know?" factor.


009 a cannon. For arrows. Not cannonballs, arrows. And you thought all those flights of arrows you see in the movies required archers.

016-015, 013 trying to find a curb cut out. Don't worry, these cars were parked taxicabs, just outside of a hotel. Except the third one, which was against traffic. And look! A crosswalk in the middle of the street, without a cut out! This was going towards the National Bank and its Museum of Currency.



006 from the Museum of Currency at the main branch of the National Bank.


005 they are trying to conquer the world!