It's just salt.

I took a group of Korean urban planning students out for an architectural tour today. It went fairly well. I wasn't familiar with the tour I was leading today so I spent a couple of hours yesterday learning it. I don't really understand why people have to spend a lot of time and effort studying things. Most of the time I see things once and remember them, especially if they are something really easy like anecdotal history, architectural information and such.

They asked a lot of really good questions, things like why certain developments haven't been as successful as other ones, why the buildings are all so close together that they touch, why racially- and culturally-based enclaves form, and how active Vancouver's Chinese community is in Asian politics.

By far the coolest question that I was asked was why everyone threw so much salt on the ground. Something I didn't know was that in Korea, that's what you do when you want to scare away bad spirits or ghosts. They wanted to know if something bad had happened or if it was a kind of ceremony or special event. I had to tell them that no, it was just cold out.

But my fingers weren't cold! I finally finished my Endpaper Mitts and wore them while I held my cue cards. The ends of my fingers got a little numb but they weren't nearly as bad as when I did my walkthrough yesterday. Yay me!