Roasted Sparrows

I remember back when I was a child every now and then my father would set out early in the morning with his air rifle to go bird shooting in the hills and return in the late afternoon with tiny birds hanging from his belt.  It was up to mom and the housekeeper to pluck them, pick out the birdshot and roast them whole, heads and all, for dinner.

I thought they were gross and refused to touch them back then, but now, I think maybe I can.  After all, they are supposed to be very tasty.  Recently I actually suggested a lunch trip to this restaurant in Jongno -- one of the very few remaining establishments in Seoul that still serve roasted whole sparrows -- to a friend, and he turned down the offer, as he thought they were gross.  And since I'd rather not go just by myself, the fate of the plan is currently in an uncertain place.  But really, if France's former President Mitterand can bend the rules to dine on the illegal ortolans (which are just like sparrows;  only classier, for some reason) for the last feast of his life, I think I can chow down on a plate of these birds, Korea's everyman-version of the hoity-toity French buntings.

They say that when dining on ortolans it's tradition to cover one's head with a napkin, to trap the delicious smell of the meat.  But I know the real reason -- it's to hide one's greed for the dish from God's sight.  Wonder if M. Mitterand covered his head?

Beauty II

A rose, yesterday.

 

Headless Ghost On A Wall

As if mere headlessness weren't scary enough, he was posing dramatically behind those "beheading" cables.

Bird Tracks In Fresh Snow

 

Related post:  Pigeon Tracks In The Snow

A Bit Eerie

Makes me think of old TV fantasy/SF programs like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits.

Just Looking At These Shots

makes me tired.  As I've said before, "Step out the front door in Seoul, and you're either standing on a hillside or looking at one".  It is known that 70 percent of the Korean peninsula consists of mountainous terrain, but sometimes it also feels like 70 percent of the city of Seoul is mountains as well.

Select related posts:  "Feets, Don't Fail Me Now"

                                   Only The Physically Fit

Pigeon With A Cat Silhouette

on its wing

To turn it into a proper "silhouette", I inverted the black and white

Reminded me of this stuffed cat I picked up on one of my prior trips to Seoul

and of course, the maneki neko, like this one found online

Parking Lot Stain

Trying hard not to Rorschach it...

 

Ghost Mask

 

Smeared

 

Like the Cloud God started to make some clouds, then changed his mind and tried to rub them out.

Gonna Roll With It

 

A Stray I Saw Today

admist my "favorite" condemned buildings.

(Click to expand)

More Errant Gloves

Presenting three more recent finds, in grayscale order.

Aha! Caught You!

I was waiting for the light to change at an intersection when I suddenly started to feel vaguely uneasy.  My spidey-sense was tingling, as if I were being spied upon by someone -- or something -- with an intense gaze.

Then...

Big Doodle

An unsuspecting spectator would see it as just a loud, confusing monster doodle.

But of course, I know the truth.

It's an atlas of Hell.  One of infinitely many.

Related post:  My "Phone Doodles"

Snow Day

Today it began snowing early in the afternoon,

so I hiked up the hills behind the apartment and shot the outside and the inside of the pavilion at the top.

After a fortuitous juxtaposition in the past I've come to regard my umbrella as a go-to prop for some photos.

Related post:  Untitled, But Sort Of Fairytle-ish

More Dreamlike Images From Waking Life

 

Feeling Lost And Alone In The City

One More Ghost Of A Staircase

 

"Seen In A Seoul Alley" Continues

"TEQUILA MORTAL"

Errant Comb

A Hello Kitty comb, no less.

What Is This?

ANOTHER AERIAL MYSTERY

I went out for a walk rather late the other day, and on an impulse, photographed the cloudy sky over the sinking sun.  The two shots below were taken just a moment apart and they are more or less identical, save for one detail.

What is that thing floating in the first quadrant?  I didn't notice it when I snapped the shot.

Maybe there is a prosaic explanation, like yet another "lens flare", or a stray reflection or whatever;  however, the fact that the two shots are of the exact same view, taken one right after the other under identical conditions, and yet the object only appears in one of the shots makes most such hypotheses unlikely.

Whatever it was, it must have been moving fast, to have made it that deep into the frame during the short interval that passed between the two shots -- so why didn't I notice it at the time?  Was it perhaps invisible to the naked eye?

Select related posts:  Mysterious Floating/Flying Object

                                   UFO Over La Cienega Blvd., L.A.

                                   Another Oddball Object...

Secrets

 

The OCD Man Strikes Again

They were accidentally juxtaposed by a trick of the perspective... but once I noticed them I had to impose order on their randomness.  The order called "parallax".