Partial solar eclipse

This week and next week are my busiest two weeks since I've been at Woosong. Twenty hours, but as they're all new classes there is a fair bit of preparation too. Still, after that I'm off to Ireland for two weeks.

The pic of the week shows the partial solar eclipse we had last week. It was the longest eclipse there will be this century, but we weren't on the path of totality. That ran to the south, and went over Shanghai in China.

Solar Eclipse
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The solar eclipse had a path of totality through India, Bhutan and China. It continued to Iwo Jima in Japan and on into the pacific. It was the longest eclipse of the 21st century, and the sun was blocked for about six minutes.

Here in Daejeon we only had 80% of the eclipse, which was less than Dublin in the 1999 eclipse (that was something like 94%). I was looking at it by reflecting it through my binoculars and looking at it on a white sheet, because I didn't have proper glasses. I took this picture without looking, and it didn't work at all. What you see there is some sort of reflection. The sun is extending its glow in the top right. I don't know how the reflection got there, and it's tiny in the original photo, but it's got the exact shape of the moon blocking out 80% of the sun. Although it looks dark this is because it was so bright I had to reduce the light right down, making it look like night. It was actually a beautiful sunny day with blue skies. Unlike in Shanghai where thousands tried to see it, but were blocked by clouds.

Scooter
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Just before I went to Taipei I bought myself a scooter. It's just a small basic scooter, second hand, and it cost just €160. I don't know myself with it now. Because I'm living a little further away, and my classes are geographically widely distributed, it's a great time-saver. With the scooter I'm 10 minutes from my furthest class.

Top five Dublin pubs
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A friend and his girlfriend are heading to Ireland on vacation, because her sister lives in Navan. He wanted to know the best pubs in Dublin to go to, and I had to think. I much prefer the old style pubs, and each time I go home I find there are fewer. But I settled on my top five, and have recommended them to him. They are

5. Bowe's, Fleet Street
4. The Long Hall, South Great George's Street
3. Kehoe's, South Anne Street
2. The Palace, Fleet Street
1. Mulligan's, Poolbeg Street

So now I'll have to try them out again myself when I go home.
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Anyway, that's it for this week. I'm in again in the morning.

In Ireland I'm going to be mostly down in Ennis, so I'll be up in Dublin for a few days around the weekend of 13th August, so I'll probably just park myself in a bar for the night and let you all know where to find me if you want to! Details to follow.

So until next week,

Annyeong-hi kaseyo.

Éamon

Today's headling in Seoul Shinmun: President Lee names new chief prosecutor