There we were sitting on a bench at busy Seoul train station in South Korea when my wife spied a silver 100-won (10 cents in Aussie currency) coin resting unnoticed under a nearby seat.
I was about to comment how it wasn’t even worth picking up when, at that precise moment, a homeless man carrying a small plastic ‘donation’ box came shuffling past.
With not a word of delay, our fifteen-year-old daughter sprang into action, bending down to scoop up the wayward coin and calmly depositing it in the man’s box.
Impressed with this sweet (and swift!) show of character, not to mention uncharacteristic teenage situational awareness, we dubbed her the ‘Won Hit Wonder’ – a title she enjoyed for the rest of our 10-day trip.
This post was composed for a weekly travel writing competition that asks readers to share a travel experience in 150 words or less (with or without photos). The comp runs in a travel magazine called ESCAPE, found inside the Brisbane (Australia) newspaper, THE SUNDAY MAIL. There’s a monthly prize (something usually to the value of around $500) for the best story published. The address to send entries to is escape@news.com.au if you’d like to have a go. Click HERE to find out more details.
While in Korea (arriving back in Brisbane this morning) I spied this book in one of Seoul’s titanic-sized book shops (yes, such a thing, on such a scale, still exists) –
Check out this for a plot – 10 people find themselves locked in a bank during a holdup. Then a murder happens. Everyone is a suspect but who exactly is the murderer?
Almost as interesting as my two all-time favorite bank robbery movies –
Thank you for sharing. Your site means so much across the ocean here in America!
Diana Louise Webb
https://www.dianawebb.us
First, props to your daughter.
Second, I hope you had a nice trip.
Third, I love the sound of that Val Kilmer movie but hate that he was dead already. Did he film a bunch of scenes before he died and they needed to finish it? Or did they just decide to do the whole movie after he died?
Fourth, Heat is one of MY favorite heist movies! I also like Thief, with James Caan. Did you ever see that one?
I have just ordered THIEF (1981) on DVD through ebay. Thank you so much Stacey. This is Michael Mann’s (HEAT) debut film as a director so I am super keen to see it. Huge fan of James Caan as well as Tuesday Weld.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQdgQs7ozdw
My understanding with AS DEEP AS THE GRAVE is that Val Kilmer signed on to star in the film several years ago but was unable to make it onto the set because of poor health. His daughter Mercedes Kilmer, a 34-year-old actress, singer, and producer, was the person who granted the producers permission to use A.I to resurrect the star.
Oh man, I keep forgetting that’s the same director! lol DUHHH! Yeah, ’cause then I always have the same thought: boy, Michael M. is obsessed with thieves!! What’s the dealio? lol
As for Val, I gotcha. That makes more sense and makes me feel better. I guess that’s partly what those huge strikes were all about back during the pandemic–trying to keep studios and others from escalating the AI stuff and putting actors out of work, although I don’t know how they could legally do that. All I know is that between outsourcing to other countries and AI itself, captioning, my career, is all but dead here now. Because, you know, you don’t have to pay for healthcare for a machine, and they definitely don’t need a lunch break. How preposterous and annoying, right?!
When I typed into Google – “How has A.I affected the captioning industry?” – I got back (from A.I.) –
The role of the transcriber is moving from manual typing to becoming an AI editor, often called “word wizards” or “caption editors”.
As AI takes over the bulk of the work, rates for human captioning have decreased, causing frustration for professionals in the industry.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/sep/23/subtitlers-replaced-by-ai-sdh
I would find the situation you are having to face very challenging and unsatisfactory, to put it mildly.