Goodbye to Daegu (6/15)

Our last day of class in Daegu had finally come, and we spent it discussing Japan. The main question we focused on was whether or not Japan would rearm. Although Japan has a strong (but small) navy and air force, they've essentially avoided having a standing army since the end of WWII, when it renounced the use of force to settle disputes. This changed somewhat during the Cold War, when the US's distractedness in Vietnam and the close proximity of a potentially threatening USSR encouraged Japan to rearm, but has prevented Japan from developing significant offensive capabilities. Will the rise of China and other contemporary regional challenges change this pattern of behavior? That's the million dollar question!

Guided graciously by the Korean transit system yet again

After class, some friends and I caught a bus into downtown Daegu to do some shopping. I'm not much of a shopper myself, but wanted a chance to look around the city some more before we left it in the morning. I ended up splitting off from my friends and wandering about. I found a cool sculpture and bumper sticker!

Public depictions of homoeroticism?! No way!

Engrish!

I ended up catching a bus back to Yeungnam by myself, and not seeing my travel mates for about three more hours! Turns out they caught the right bus going in the wrong direction and got totally screwed by the transit system. I was glad they made it back at all! Public transit through a language barrier is certainly not trivial.

We hit downtown Yeungnam one more time together before packing our things and getting ready to fly to Japan first thing in the morning!

Goodbye, downtown!

Jack enjoys one last Korean hotdog

Where we'd spent so many of our nights!

This is the hutch under which we'd found that poor kitten a few days back!