It’s Always Ninjas
I like spiders. Along with pigeons they’re the only wildlife I get to see regularly in Daegu. We’ve got some pretty cool spiders on the roof of the school; Eunsuk calls them my pets, but honestly spiders are much closer to houseplants.
First there are the cute little jumping spiders. They run around all over the place, jumping like mad. Then there are the impressively large orb spiders. The type we have here are kind of a mottled yellow-green color with striped legs that look like they came straight out of a Tim Burton movie. Some of them can grow to monstrous sizes, as big across as my hand or more.
We also have a number of other interesting bugs. There are at least two different kinds of mantis- the regular green praying mantis and also a brown one that looks like a discarded cigarette. There are various grasshopper and cricket type things which apparently form the main diet for the bugs I actually like. Oh, and then there are the moths which are as big as birds- I hate them. I know it’s weird, I like spiders and mantises but get squicked out by moths and butterflies.
These days, this is the closest I ever get to communing with nature.
October 1st, 2008 at 5:30 am
Urban nature, eh?
“spiders are much closer to houseplants”
I regularly find myself chasing after houseplants with a glass and a piece of card.
I’m jealous about the size of your moths though… moth envy… We have some pretty cool ones here, such as the fabled Peppered Moth, but nothing of notable size.
October 1st, 2008 at 5:00 pm
You know, you leave them in one place, you can’t teach them tricks, they aren’t very cuddly… like houseplants.
My first year in Korea a big moth flew in through my window. It wasn’t one of the really big ones, but it was bigger than anything I’d ever encountered before (about a 6cm wingspan). I couldn’t get it out so I left the window open, thinking it would fly out… and overnight it died on my kitchen table. Disposing of bugs isn’t normally a problem but for this one I was wondering if I should call the department of sanitation.