I finally saw Spirited Awaylast night. Really beautiful and enjoyable. It has all the elements of a Grimm fairytale plus new twists and a Japanese style train. Definitely worth watching. Musically I am absolutely fascinated with Falco, a sure sign that 1) I've been here too long and 2) Busan musically lags behind about 20 years (there are areas where the time lag is closer to 50 years). Let me describe my day as follows: Falco forever! Rock me Amadeus!

I know that foreigners have to go through hell in America with immigration and greencards and permits and whatever else there is. I've seen the lines that wrap around most of lower Manhattan EVERY DAY just for getting a certificate that allows them to go somewhere else to wait. I feel sincerely sorry. We could try and blame it on 9-11: "If you want to be immigrants and shorten the wasted waiting in line time, then stop flying our airplanes into our buildings! You didn't? Well, then tell the other immigrants."
Let me say that a visit to the immigration office in Busan is quite different. You still have to wait, but that's to blame more on the speed of the immigration officials and on the fact that most of them speak no human language except Korean (with a strong dialect). The waiting time certainly isn't justified by the people ahead in line, since only about 2 people per week have a desire to immigrate (one would be a refugee from Ruanda, the other would be Osama bin Laden).
My alien registration card was about to expire, so I was told by the University to go and do something. What, they didn't know. Only that I should go by myself. (If you see any Korean gangster movie, by the way, the area it will be taking place in is right near the immigration office.)
When it was my turn, the guy actually spoke something resembling English. He wasn't sure why I wanted to get a new card. Neither was I really and I offered to go away. He then checked my papers thoroughly and decided that I had failed to report my passport renewal within 14 days to the authorities. I apologized and told him I had had no idea and nobody had ever mentioned anything, neither at the borders that I had crossed, nor at my workplace. He understood. But decided to let me stand around for a while and feel sorry. After about 10 minutes he finished up the other customer (the refugee) and thought about my case. He then said I needed to see Mr Kim on another floor. So I went to see Mr. Kim, who spoke no English. After about 20 minutes he understood the problem (maybe) and sent me back to the other floor. Waiting some more. The first guy didn't believe me that Mr Kim had spoken to me and wanted me to wait 3 hours. I refused. He had me wait 10 minutes, called Mr Kim. And told me they'd let me go this time. 30.000 Wan please. And he collected my passport for a week. The question is: Why me? Osama at the desk next to me had NO apparent difficulties whatsoever.

I did it. I saw Kill Bill Vol.2. Because I saw Volume 1 and because I had nothing else to do and because I had heard it was a better movie than Vol.1.
First of all, I didn't passionately dislike either movie, but I thought Vol 1 to be way more entertaining. Vol. 2 tried to get some emotional depth going and that didn't mix well with the overall design concept.
But I'm glad I did it. Just like I'm glad I saw all of the Matrixes and therefore never need to see them again *knocks on wood*.