A day in a workers life

Imagine you finish a long ten hour shift at your job, eat a very dull dinner, and feel the comfort and warmth of your bed and fall asleep. *BEEP* *BEEP* hits your ears as you wake up, your alarm wakes you up at your regular time of 6:30 am, you need to start moving or you won’t make rush hour and the train will leave you behind! Luckily you get to the train and the assistants will “help you in”. The assistants force everyone into a very close ball, and push you into the door. You yearn for the day you can ride a bullet train, it sounds so nice and calming, yet so costly. In your day dreaming you hit the train stop and make way for your job. you sit at your desk when you're called for the daily meeting. The meeting proves nothing new, what you do right, what you do wrong, bla bla bla, you've practically memorised it by now. You finish your shift and move on to the train home, cook dinner and fall asleep in your bed. *BEEP* *BEEP*.

Life in Seoul

Seoul is the capital city in South Korea. Their population density is 10.14 million people. When I went to Seoul again when I was 7, everything was packed and crammed in the streets, the subway, and a whole bunch of other places. The streets smell of food carts that have little signs hanging above them trying to sell their product, music ringing through the streets, and you see a sea of people walking besides you talking to each other or just walking in silence. You usually have to stand on the subway due to the lack of space, so basically if someone you stinks really badly and gets off at the same destination as you do, good luck you'll need it. You always have to take the subway when you go to work and when you come back because the streets are usually full of people and there is usually traffic jams cause of rush hour. If you're walking down the street while in the middle of a traffic jam, you better bring a pair of headphones or ear muffs because you would probably go deaf. When walking near calm, quiet areas of the city, you will be hit by the mouth-watering smells of doughnuts, coffee, and a lot of sweets. I personally pestered my mom into buying me a box of doughnuts at Dunkin’ Doughnuts in Seoul because they smelled so good. Wouldn't you want to live in Seoul, South Korea?

Blocked by school

Imagine this

close your eyes and imagine this.

  

         You are in a crowded train station listening to the sounds of shouting, getting pushed around, and you are very tired.  You have an hour long train ride ahead of you, and you aren't looking forward to it.  (Are you still imagining it?).  You get on the train to late and you end up getting pushed in so that the train doors will close and stay closed.  You can barely feel your arms, because the blood flow has been cut off from being squeezed too hard by people around you. After a train ride that feels like an hour but was really only 20 minutes you get off and smell the sweet scent of fresh air after the smell of sweat and fart on the train you feel like you are freed from a vice trying to crush you. WAIT WERE YOU EVEN PAYING ATTENTION TO THIS WHOLE THING AND IMAGINING IT OR JUST READING!?!?!?!?

By Sherlock_of_Asgard (A.K.A Sebastian Metzger)    

Traffic Madness

You groggily wake up in your car that's stuck in the traffic that has been going on for two weeks. When you get up, rice cake crumbs fall from your chin onto the small weather mat covered with food crumbs. You look up to the blinding sun, and then down at your watch. It is currently 12:15, and you smell like 4 day old fast food. You open up the door with the sticky door handle, and there is a mob of cars sputtering the last of their gas into the damp air. You get to the grassy ditch on the side of the crumbling highway and start walking up towards the front of the line. You walk for about a half hour and find yourself stranded in the middle of the highway, with nowhere to go except for your gas- empty car that's about a half hour back in this madness. Then you remember, your phone still has battery! You reach in your pocket and find... nothing. You left it back in your car, so you go back to your car, find your phone, and see 15 missed calls from your wife/husband. Good thing we don't live in Hong Kong! Just imagine it....

Traffic Jams and Peeing in Pools

Could you imagine sitting in a traffic jam for EIGHT WEEKS??? What about living in such poor conditions that even if your spend all of your life’s earnings, you’re only going to be able to buy 10 square feet of property? This is what life’s like for practically everyone in Southeast Asia. For example, in Japan, there are literally jobs that have people stuff each other into trains. Isn't that crazy?! There are so many people, all squished against each other. Imagine the smell of sweat, like every single person around you just ran a mile. The sounds of heavy breathing. The feeling of being squished until you can hardly breathe, when every time the door opens, you feel like you’re going to fall out of the train and onto the platform, but instead having more people squished against you. Another example: the pool. You’re out on a nice family vacation, and you decide to go to the pool. Instead, you have to squish yourself into a millimeter of water against at least 5 people from all sides. Disgusting, right? Imagine the horror of thinking: What if someone pees in here right now? or I don’t know anyone around me. Help. Doesn't that sound horrible??? How would you feel if you had to live under these conditions?

If I was sleeping in the big dot on our population density map!

After a long, four-hour drive through smog-filled highways, I finally find a parking space at the hotel. This hotel smells like smelly socks. I ask the concierge where the showers are, and he walks me to them. I find a ancient, dirty shower. I turn the knob on red, the water stays cold. After that pleasant experience, I walk to my room. There is no bed, no chair, or even privacy.  Instead, there a bookcase of little, capsule-like rooms.  I watch the neighboring hotel member slowly climb into her little cupboard room. Before I can argue, I find myself in this small bed, squeezed inside my own cupboard. The next morning, I wake up and continue my journey across China. Would this be an experience you would be interested in?

Blog Episode XI: It Is Your DENSITY!

Chances are you have never been to a place with anywhere near the population density depicted in my collection of videos. If you have, then see me about what your topic for this blog could be. If not, your topic is to discuss one or two aspects of daily life that you saw and found interesting among that collection. Even better...research something new (about population density in an East Asian city such as Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai...there are several to choose from) and share what that new experience might be like.

Try to get your reader to FEEL THE EXPERIENCE by using descriptive, rich vocabulary words. Imagine yourself being in a setting like that and do your best to describe what that must be like. Dazzle your reader with the feelings, sights, sounds and smells of your chosen scenario.  

Grading: Because we are stronger writers now, Spelling-Error-Free POSTS must be 100+ words (4 points), contain a hyperlink or a video or have a picture/video brought in to your post (1 point) and end with a question (1 point).  For the last four points, you will need to use those rich vocabulary words to bring your reader as real of an experience as possible. Touch upon four aspects among the feelings (physical or emotional), sights, sounds and smells that you would imagine you would experience. As an example, maybe you would hit upon two smells and two sounds...or three feelings and a sound...four total for your last 4 points.

(Since this blog is the home for my stronger writers, you could try YET AGAIN to expand your writing by pointing out that you would like to try your hand at certain literary devices (Yer killin me, Smalls!)like similes (I know!), metaphors, alliteration or any others from that sweet link!. Please plan to play with the words on your plate if alliteration is your ailment...see?)

COMMENTS: You must be the first or second comment made to a post and it must now be 75+ words, spelling-error free of course (5 points), and once again it should clearly show that you have looked up information from the post and added it as part of your response (2 points). And once again, this time you must suggest to this author that they read another author's post. Connect your suggestion with a solid reason. For example you might say, "Hey Julio, I really liked reading your post about Sri Lanka and the amazing food they have there. It dawned on me that you might really like to read Darby's post. I know, I know...she wrote about Bengal, not Sri Lanka. But you will notice that each culture seems to share a love of spicy food, don't you agree?" See how I connected the two different posts by a common thread? That is your mission, and success there will earn you your final 3 points.