Yellow Dust

Yellow dust, Asian dust, whatever you want to call it, it's nasty stuff. What's Yellow Dust you say? Well, basically what happens is jet stream winds pick up all sorts of crap like desert sand, dirt, pollen and pollution from places like China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan and then carry it east and dump it all over places like Korea and Japan. Our director warned us a while back when it first began; it's a seasonal thing that occurs every spring. Since then it hasn't really been an issue, but today was a pretty ugly day. I check a couple websites (Korea Meteorological Administration / airkorea.or.kr) often to see what the levels are and this is what they showed today:

Each colored line represents a different city across South Korea.

Notice all the red dots, and then take a look at the chart at the bottom.

 They say that levels above 400 parts (ug/m3 whatever that means) are dangerous: outdoor activities for children, elderly and people with respiratory issues is PROHIBITED. Of course, we still saw people on the streets, and even children, including one of our students playing in the park today... Sighhh..

I took these photos from the roof of our school around 6:45pm:

At first I thought that was the moon above the building, then I realized it was the sun...

There's not much we can do to protect ourselves from the dust, except to limit our time outdoors and when we do go outside wear these awesome masks we bought:

Pororo is a really popular cartoon for little kids :)