Back Blipping

Well, almost a year to the day since my last blip, and two years from my very first, I am finally forced to drag myself out of retirement in order to justify the frankly absurd amount of money I just spent on a new camera.

There have been a few interesting developments in the last year, most of which I'll save for future blips.
Back in August though, we had a lovely little wedding party at my parent's home over in England, with a few close family and some wonderful old friends.
In a summer that was a total washout, we were lucky enough to get perhaps the sunniest day of the year, and in an equally magical fit of luck a great old schoolfriend of mine is now a top-notch wedding photographer, and was kind enough to take a cracking collection of shots of the day, most of which involved us randomly mooching around the nearby countryside.

I did have a plan in mind for this return blip, but that went out of the window when we ventured to our favourite coffee shop this evening.
One of the reasons we like the place is that there's a lovely Old English Sheepdog there, who's name is Milk. Today though, the owner had also rescued this beautiful dog when it followed him back to the shop.
The dog looks pretty well here, but was in a terrible mess beforehand - and underneath the blanket he's wrapped in he's been fully shaved due to his fur being so matted and tangled.
Fantastically though, he has already found a taker for the dog - his friend who lives in the countrside will adopt him, so a long and happy future beckons.

I think I was drawn to blipping this today as I've had a week where I seemed to see an animal in distress almost every day.

In the past seven days I've:

Fed hot dogs to the same freezing, shivering stray, twice.
Noticed a dog that's chained up in our neighbourhood 24/7 now seems to have a broken leg.
Thrown treats onto the roof of a house near mine that keeps a dog caged up there - and welled-up myself as it literally cried like a baby when i walked away.
Walked down the street with a random, large spaniel - a breed that often has a torrid time in Korea - as I hopelessly looked for its owner.
And also discovered a giant cage crammed with way too many chickens in the car park of a convenience store near my work.

As with many things in Korea, there seems to be large divide in the generations when it comes to animal rights. Groups of the younger generation can often be seen protesting in Seoul, whereas a lot of the older generation will keep dogs in small cages and are still happy to enjoy dogmeat stew come summer.

I could talk further about animal rights in Korea but don't want to overwhelm on my first day back, so maybe another time.
My wife actually rescued two dogs herself earlier this year - one of which is happily snoring away at my feet as I type - but that's a blip for another day.