Seoul Fine Arts Competition

On my last day in Seoul I visited a number of museums and events.

The Seoul Fine Arts Competition was interesting. It was only 2,000 Won to get in and I was brusquely informed that it was "Only Korean, no English". So nothing new there. It was in two halls. The first had some modern art pieces which were quite good. In the second hall were hundreds of scrolls of hanguel and chinese characters. Here's a collage of the photos I took:



The exhibition started Aug 21st, but I'm not sure if it's still on or not. If it is still running, it's at the Seoul Museum Annex beside the Seoul Musem of History building.

I'm A Seoul Man, In Tokyo

We arrived safely in Tokyo last week and moved into our new house. Today J:COM installed our internet and telephone connection. It has taken a week from first contact. Not quite as fast and efficient as KT were when we arrived in Korea, but just as easy.

The commute to work is quite acceptable: 4 minutes walk to the local station, three stops to Shibuya, then one stop on the Yamanote line. I've barely got time to read more than a few pages of the Japan Times newspaper. I've observed that the total fare deducted from my Suica card for the two journeys is 240 Yen. In the morning both journeys are 120 Yen each, but in the evening the Yamanote trip is only 110 Yen, but the Inokashira line trip is 130 Yen. Strange.

The Koreans will be pleased with a letter to the editor in yesterdays paper from William Wetherall reminding the Japanese how much they owe to their friends across The sea that we still can't agree a name for.

Korean Adventurers

Various people are setting off on adventures of one sort or another in the next few weeks and months.

President Roh is off to North Korea in October. He can't use the expensive new train route, so rather than fly to Pyongyang, he has decided to take the limo and drive there. On the way, he will perhaps see the devastation the recent floods have caused. The summit meeting, will be only the second time leaders of the two countries have met since the end of the Korean war.

Two Kiwi gentlemen, Andrew Douch and Roger Shepherd, are planning to walk the Baekdu-daegan Mountain Range running down the middle of South Korea. They will be hiking from Jiri-san northwards to Seorak-san, over a period of about nine weeks starting in September. They are probably the first non Koreans to attempt this trek. Follow their progess on their expedition blog.

Daniel Martin, currently teaching English in Seoul, has planned a trip by bicycle from Korea to Cape Town, South Africa. Daniel has already cycled from London to Cape Town, and has now found a tougher challenge: "The Axis of Evil (by bike)". He plans to depart from Seoul and cycle to the border with North Korea. Unlike President Roh, he's not planning on trying to cross the DMZ, but will get the bus back to Incheon and fly to China and then on to North Korea. He would like to cycle to the border with China, but how much cycling they will let him do remains to be seen. After NK his route includes Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya and on through Africa. He is setting off on Sep 1st and raising money for the charity Wild Day Out. I will be following his progress on his blog.

Kevin, The Big Hominid, is planning a walking trip in the US from the west coast to the east coast next year. Check out his blog for more details.

Joe is still trying to leave the country. Meanwhile, Chris Gelken has safely arrived in Tehran, Iran to start his new job.

And today marks the last day of our Korean Adventure. Tomorrow my wife and I fly to Tokyo and move into our new house. I will be starting work on Monday 27th.

Korea has been a fascinating country to live in. I have met a number of interesting people and learnt a great deal about this country and it's history. I hope that, through this blog, I have shown tourists and foreigners living here that there is plenty to see and do.

This blog will continue with posts about Korea; I've still got plenty of pictures and places to share with you. I will also be adding items of interest about Tokyo and beyond as I explore Japan and experience working there.

Top 30 ranked Korean Sites

I spotted a list of the top 20 Most popular Japanese websites on Ken's blog What Japan Thinks, which gave me the idea to do the same for Korean sites.

Following his methodology I downloaded the list of the top one million sites from Quantcast and searched for various Korean related words including Korea, Seoul, Kimchi, any domain ending in .kr and I included the English language sites that I am aware of. I filtered out the adult content sites and came up with this list of the thirty highest ranked sites on Korea.

Update : Thanks to Gdog for pointing out I forgot what is actually THE top ranking korean site : Cyworld!

Rank	URL	Description
14252	cyworld.com	Home of the mini-hompi
23405	naver.com	The two biggest Korean portals are popular in the US as well by the looks of it.
25652	daum.net
25986	chosun.com	Chosun Ilbo newspaper
36657	koreanwar.org	A huge site about the war
37930	koreanair.com	The airline
40836	eslcafe.com	Dave's ESL cafe. The hangout of a lot of teachers.
47295	kbs.co.kr	State Broadcasting company.
49606	donga.com	Dong-A Ilbo newspaper
55900	medicallaw.co.kr	A commercial site of some sort.
56209	knu.ac.kr	Kyungpook National university
56614	lifeinkorea.com	Popular site with a lot of tourist information
56819	korean-war.com	Another war site
57748	worldcupjapankorea.com	Hasn’t been updated since the 2002 Japan/Korea World Cup, but must have been heavily linked to when it was on.
60731	tour2korea.com	Korea National Tourism Organisation
73997	hankooki.com	Korean newspaper with English section on the website
77368	koreandrama.org	A blog in English with "Details, Synopsis, Cast and other info of all Korean Drama TV Series"
80311	kaist.ac.kr	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
80773	google.co.kr	Not very high in the rankings
81855	koreatimes.com	English language newspaper
83797	koreanfilm.org	Provides a wide-ranging introduction to Korean cinema.
84343	topsafe.co.kr	Very small commercial website
91736	sbs.co.kr	Korean broadcaster
92195	msn.co.kr	Microsoft's Korean presence
92289	koreadaily.com	English Language newspaper
102197	hankooktireusa.com	Hankook Tires
104207	koreanwar-educator.org	Another war site
107369	snu.ac.kr	Seoul National University
111793	auction.co.kr	Korean Auction site
123827	yahoo.co.kr	Yahoo trailing MSN
128346	theseoultimes.com	The Seoul Times

Interesting list. The newspapers do well, the war is popular and the only blog is one I've not heard of before! Are there any sites I've missed out?

Korean Clubs and Societies

This may be of interest: Teaching in Korea, Survey if you are interested in giving your opinion to a researcher in the US. There is very short summary of a research article and some questions on that and then about twenty questions asking about how you would rate certain facilities and services a teacher might be offered. She is offering a 1 in 25 chance of winning a 20,000 won gift token for Kyobo Books. I noticed it in the free adverts in the Korea Herald this week.

I was complaining last week that I'd not seen a copy of the magazine The Groove, so it was fortuitous that I should pick up a copy at The Wolfhound on Sunday. Their website had not mentioned that it was free. I initially dismissed it as not that interesting or relevant, but closer inspection revealed the short articles were not that bad. The interview with Peter R Brown, animator of the TV series who lives and works on the show here in Korea was interesting.

The small ads yielded a huge range of clubs I never knew existed here. I hope these will be of interest to some:

The Seoul Vegetarian club. They meet twice a month to check out veggie friendly restaurants. Non-vegetarians welcomed too!

MeetInSeoul "Come and hang out with a large free all volunteer social group. No membership fees, just pay for your own cost of the events (movies, dinners etc). "

Friendship club Their purpose is to meet at a bar on Saturdays and meet new people.

Conservatives Abroad. For supporters of David Cameron back home, they host social events, fundraisers and possibly public speakers from London.

American Women's Club They meet at the Hyatt hotel once a month.

The Australia and New Zealand Association They also meet at the Hyatt once a month.

Seoul International Women's Association They meet once a month at the Sofitel.

The British Association of Seoul They meet once a month at the Seoul Club.

Career Women in Korea They meet once a month at the New Seoul Hotel.

Suwon Scuba Club A dive club close to Osan Air base and Camp Humprehreys. They teach PADI courses and run regular tours for fun dives to the East Sea. The club also has a major social element.

Seoul Stich and Bitch They meet twice a month for a crafting get together in Haebangchon in Seoul.

Yongsan Kimchi Hash House Harriers Join them every Saturday at 10am if you like running walking and trekking through Seoul. There is also a SouthSide HHH group.

Korean Movie club They show Korean movies with English subtitles on a 120inch screen at a venue near sinchon station.

The Club Italia They host a lunch every Sunday for 15,000 Won. All welcome.

The International Hikers club meets every Saturday.

These groups also had adverts, but no webpages. For contact details see The Groove Website.

The Sinchon Toasmasters club are looking for members keen to improve their public speaking.
Fusion Art, seeks members involved involved in various arts for regular meetings.
Mostly over 40,This club meets once a month for lunch and consists of people mostly over 40.
Seoul Board Riders, for surfers keen to discover Korea's secret surfing spots.
The Canadian Women's Club meet several times a month.
There are also four different football clubs, two Rugby clubs and a Korean Cricket Association.

I hope you can find something you are interested in if you are short of things to do.

Free Furniture in Seoul

The Korea Bloggers meetup last night was a resounding success. I was delighted that so many people showed up. There was Jes, ExpatJane, Matt, Daeguowl, ZenKimchi; the bloggers; Derek, Suzanne, Joon, YoungDoo, Bill, Vicky, Stephanie, Isaac and David from flickr; and Kurt, Henny, Torento (sp?) and Joe who were friends of the aforementioned. I was delighted to meet you all. The photographers amongst us were very busy taking photos all evening, so if you check out some of the members photos you may recognize a few people.

In the excitement of so many people I completely forgot to mention the fact that we have some furniture to give away before we move out. We have offered it to several people, but no one has committed to taking it away yet.

Update: All the furniture has been found a home.

Various items of interest

Some things I found recently:

Brendon Carr, regular commenter at the Marmots Hole, has started Korea Law Blog including insights into getting a job, and setting up and running a company in Korea.

One of Stafford's co-workers, Grant, has just arrived in Seoul to teach ESL and started a well-written and interesting blog A Year in Seoul.

James Tunbull has started The Grand Narrative which looks interesting too, and not just for the pictures of Jang Sin-Yeong.

The creators of Galbijim have started a new blog called Korea Beat. They claim to be "The web’s only spot dedicated to Korean news articles translated into English!". I found them from a picture in the blog Asian Off Beat.

Danny Kim has just started Techno Kimchi. His goal is "To focus on the social dynamics, cultures, and economics behind the rise of Web 2.0". His Korean blog Taewoo's Log has about 5,000 RSS subscribers and 4,000 daily visitors, so he must be doing something right.

I mentioned tonight's K-bloggers meetup in the Korea Images group on flickr. That led to a comment about the 24hrs of flickr, Seoul meeting. 7pm Aug 23rd in Gangnam. It is being held to celebrate the launch of the book 24 hours of Flickr which I mentioned back in May. You can join members of the Flickr team for an evening of fun. They will have copies of the book and other "fine Flickr schwag" on hand.

News Update: Mike "I've battled a hoard of attacking ajummas for a pair of shoes" Hurt, of the Metropolitican maybe coming along tonight.

I've heard stumbleupon talked about a lot recently, mostly on problogger.net, so I signed up recently. It's another social bookmarking site. It's simple to use: sign up, select a couple of categories, and install the toolbar. It can get quite addictive to keep clicking the 'Stumble!' icon in the toolbar to find new sites that others have recommended. Almost all the sites it has linked to have been interesting and relevant.

This site may be of interest to ESL teachers and travellers looking for a place to stay and a chance to meet like minded people CouchSurfing. I discovered there are nearly 1,000 members in Korea so if you are travelling around the world and looking for a couch for the night with a friendly local, check out this site.

I tried to start a meme 'Going for a walk, somewhere new' last month. Thanks to Daeguowl for his walk. Other bloggers who've been for a walk include Robert, The Marmot, who has continued his theme of Churches of Korea with a trip to Jeondong Catherdral Jeonju. He has produced some excellent photos of all the churches he has visited, I hope he publishes them as a book, as several others have suggested.

Diamond Geezer blogged about a series of walks around East London documenting the landscape before the builders move in for construction of of the 2012 Olympics. [See his comments on their website for a good laugh.] It would be fascinating to see the equivalent photos for the area of Seoul before the facilities for the 1988 games were built.

Finding out what's on in Seoul

Finding out what's on Seoul has been a bit of struggle at times, so it's ironic that just as we are about to leave I find out about two events magazines that might have been useful. The item in the JoongAng daily brought to my attention two English language magazines ROKon and The Groove. Both have been running for several months now, but I've not seen them for sale anywhere. They both have websites: ROKon where you can download the latest issue and The Groove which has a calendar of some events but does not offer a download.

Seoul Selection, a monthly magazine edited by Robert Koehler of The Marmots Hole, provides 100 pages of reviews, articles and photos of cultural events and social activities. It also includes a calendar of what's on. A weekly email newsletter is available and they have recently added the ability to to download a PDF of the magazine. These three magazines and the three daily English language newspapers provide the mainstay of printed news of what's on in Korea.

SeoulStyle used to have a calendar of events but sadly it stopped being updated in Dec 2006 after the owner moved to Hong Kong. The site is still for sale, if anyone is interested in taking it on. Seoul Steves have started a similar events calendar but while it is not extensive yet, it shows great promise.

The Joong Ang often prints photos of events from the previous day. A good example was the picture of crowds queueing to buy railway tickets for the Chuseok holiday. Residents will know that this holiday date, which falls on 25th September this year, is when the whole of Korea is on the move visiting family members. To ensure you get a train ticket for travel during that period you have to book tickets as soon as they go on sale. It's a shame they did not think to mention it the day before. [And while we are on the subject of trains, what happened to the website english.barota.com? It used to be an English site where you could look up all Korean train times and book tickets. It's been replaced with a new version that looks very flashy, but only does Korean. I attempted to email them to ask what happened, but all the Email addresses listed on the contact us page bounce with the message Bad connection (io timeout)!]

The Korea National Tourist Office website has a good list of upcoming festivals and events and there is a emailed newsletter that highlights two or three forthcoming events that you can subscribe to. There is also a list of some of the cinemas in Seoul, but the majority of their websites are Korean only. The one notable exception is Dansungsa cinema in Jongno Seoul. The Korea Herald and Joong Ang daily write a weekly summary of the movies that are showing, but they do not print any showtimes. Mark of Korea Pop Wars pointed me in the direction of Cine21 (Korean) which has a list of all currently showing movies and where they are on.

Update: The Expat-Advisory website offers a regular newsletter of what's on in Seoul. Subscribe here.

Maybe one day TimeOut will come to town and cover everything to do with 'What's on in Seoul', but until that time you will have to hunt around, or learn Korean to figure it out from the local resources.

Korean Internet communities

The Ministry of Information and Communication introduced a new law to force Korean Internet users to identify themselves by their real names when posting comments on Korean electronic forums.

This rule was implemented at the two largest Korean portal websites on July 1st 2007 Naver and Daum and has, just this week, been applied to 21 more sites with more than 300,000 visitors per day. All users have to enter their names and resident registration numbers when using the service to post comments. The law was proposed to try to prevent the increasing spread of anti social and abusive comments being made by portal users.

However, as the Korea Times reported yesterday, it seems these measures have not been entirely successful. The hostage crisis in Afghanistan has given rise to a number of offensive postings by some Koreans. "Terrible postings continue to inundate our news pages or bulletin boards." Daum spokeswoman Jody Chung said to the Korea Times reporter.

Now, I don't know exactly how Naver and Daum work, but they are commercial enterprises out to make money. When one signs up to use their services I assume there are some 'Terms and Conditions' (T&C) that one agrees to. I have joined a number of similar forums in the past and in all cases there has been some sort of clause about undesirable behaviour on the forum that would cause the account to be closed by the forum moderators. For example I have belonged to the CIX conferencing system for many years and the 'Acceptable Use Policy' is quite clear that I could be thrown off for posting indecent, obscene, offensive, abusive, disruptive,libellous or defamatory comments.

So what is the situation with these undesirable postings on the Korean portals? It seems these users have not had their accounts closed and they continue to upset the rest of the portal users with their remarks. Are the portal T&Cs not specific enough? They need to rewrite them. Are these posts only offensive to some? In that case maybe the portals need to be enhanced to allow the functionality of a killfile whereby you can setup a list of users whose posts you do not wish to see.

With the requirement to enter one's registration number it would be straightforward for Daum and Naver to build up a blacklist of users that have been banned. These users can then move on to the other sites, that have not been forced to implement the requirement yet, and spread their undesirable opinions to a smaller crowd.

The pros and cons of the right to free speech and censorship are some of the biggest topics for discussion on the Internet where anyone can spout their opinions to the world from behind a keyboard. As the ministry has discovered, just trying to prevent anonymous postings does not really solve the problem.

Related reading : Nameless in Cyberspace. An 8 page paper from the Cato Institute on proposals by the Supreme Court to limit anonymous communications on the Internet.
Free Speech and the Internet Links to websites that concern themselves with the issue of the free flow of information on the Internet.
People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy. A Civil organization dedicated to promoting justice and human rights in Korean society through the participation of the people. They are strongly against the real-name validation scheme.

Another K-Bloggers Meet up Aug 5th

Due to popular demand I have arranged another Korean bloggers meet up.
Sunday August 5th
from 6pm onwards
at the Wolfhound, Irish Pub Itaewon.

Jes from Deeper Shade of Seoul, Expat Jane and Joe from ZenKimchi are coming so far.

Everyone is welcome, bloggers, commenters, lurkers and your friends and family. We'll have a drink or two and a laugh.

To get to the Wolfhound : go to Itaewon subway station on line 6. Come out at exit 4.



Turn 180 degrees (as the man is doing above) and walk round the corner of the crossroads.



Then turn immediately first right, going down the hill (avoiding the yound lad with the puppy).



The Wolfhound is on your right after about 50 meters. The pub is on 2F and 3F, we will be on 2F on the sofas to the right of the bar, I hope unless someone else bags them first.

I'm looking forward to meeting a few more of you.

Five things you did not know about me

A long, long time ago Gdog tagged me with one of those blogging memes. I hadn't forgotten, I've been saving up my response until I had an announcement to make. It's not quite as dramatic as Cat announcing she was pregnant, but read on down to number 1.

5. I'm a Sucrologist. It's not as painful as it sounds, it means I collect sugar sachets. Yes, those little paper packets that most people don't even notice. When I first went to the U.S. with my family, aged eleven, I noticed that each restaurant, diner and hotel we visited had their logo on the sugar packets. In some places they had themes like ships or presidents etc, so as we travelled around I started to collect them and I've been collecting ever since. I've amassed over 5,000 I'd guess. Sadly I have never got around to collating, labelling and presenting them so they remain in numerous sticky envelopes and shoe boxes in the attic. I have corresponded with several collectors over the years since my name was listed on another collectors website and I've exchanged sachets with some of them. These days I'm trying to kick the habit and no longer do exchanges, but if I see a sachet I don't have in my collection I still can't help myself.

4. I practice Iyengar Yoga. The Bat has been a keen practitioner since before I met her. She eventually persuaded me to try it, and after going to many classes and yoga holidays, I now find it has become a part of my life. I've not tried to find any classes locally in Seoul, because no one can match my guru John Shirbon back in Tooting.

3. I have a secret ambition to be an abstract impressionist artist. I can't paint or draw, but that does not seem to matter these days. Every time I see some of the stuff that goes by the name of art I think to myself "I could do that". I even have a "stage name" prepared. I plan one day to write a book about how an unknown artist, who hasn't actually been to art school, made a great living selling works that look as if they've been done by a child with one arm : based on a true story!

2. I'm a member of the London Underground Railway Society. When I moved to London I became fascinated by the history and operational details of the "Tube" network that I used to get to work every day. I bought books, visited the London Transport Museum and became a member of the LURS. This group of mostly elderly men gather for monthly meetings on topics such as the Jubilee Line upgrade, the Piccadilly line extension to terminal 5 and many other delights. I can't attend the meetings these days, but I still receive the monthly magazine Underground News.

1. I've got a new job in Japan. I've been job hunting for over five months and my resume went to all the investment banks in Tokyo. After many telephone and video conferencing interviews I got a job offer last month. It's for a permanent job, which is going to be a bit of change after being a contractor for the past 15 years.
For those of you reading my blog since my retirement email sorry I'm not coming back for a third time, though I did have several interviews there.

My "Gap Year" is almost over and I'll be going back to work soon, I am just waiting for the work visa. What this means for this blog I've not decided yet. I plan to continue blogging, but I may not have quite so much time.

In the spirit of the meme, I'll nominate Matt at Gusts of Popular feeling, Daeguowl at Kimchi For Breakfast, and Stafford at The Chosun Bimbo. If you'd like to tell us five things about yourself, consider yourselves tagged. No obligation, no hurry!

K-Bloggers Meeting up Sunday 22nd July

Thanks to Aaron for a logo:


Tomorrows get-together for drinks is confirmed. Sunday 22nd July 2007, Starting at 2pm.
I don't know how long it will last, but I don't have anything else to do tomorrow so it could go on till late evening.

I had a wander round yesterday and the "Western Bar", "Odyssey" (I'm not sure which part is the name and which is the description) looks like a suitable venue.
It's right outside Yeouido Subway (line 5) station Exit number 5. It's on the second floor above Dunkin Donuts.

So far confirmed are Gdog of The Daily Kimchi, Daeguowl of Kimchi for Breakfast, Stafford of The Chosun Bimbo, Aaron of Idiot's Collective, Joe of ZenKimchi and GI of Guano Island

If anyone else reading this would like to join us, please come along, the more the merrier.

K-Bloggers meet up

Gdog's announcing his last day in Korea has spurred me into suggesting something I've been considering for a while : The idea of a meetup for bloggers in Korea.

So here's my idea:

What : A casual get-together for drinks.
When : Sunday 22nd July 2007, Afternoon continuing until whenever.
Where : To Be Decided. I'm thinking of a Cafe / Bar / Restaurant type place in Itaewon , Seoul. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know. [Unless everyone would like to come over to a bar in Yeouido?]
Who : Bloggers, Commenters, Lurkers, Friends, Family. All welcome.
Why : Get to meet the faces behind the names, and as a "Good Bye Korea" party for Gdog and Me.

So, Leave a comment or drop me an email if you are interested so I can estimate numbers and see if we need to book a place.

I mentioned it to Daeguowl and he too will be there.

I am off on a house hunting trip in a few minutes, so nor more blogging from me until I return on 19th July. More details on my return.

Korean Blogs round-up

I met for drinks with Daeguowl of Kimchi for Breakfast during the week. I got the 461 bus down to his neck of the woods and snapped a shot of the "Always Funny Chicken" shop, which I'll post later.

We selected a bar called "The Beatles", it had about as much atmosphere as a meeting of the local undertakers union, so we moved on to a branch of the Millers chain of bars which was much more popular with the locals. Unlike our friends back in England, where smoking in enclosed public spaces has just been banned, we were soon enveloped in the fug of cigarette smoke. Over here the Koreans have just announced the opposite: Smoking is to be banned at bus stops by September and in the Seoul parks by 2008. Anyway, we had a great evening discussing our careers, the Koreas, friends, families and, of course, blogs and bloggers, so I thought I mention a few that we discussed.

Last week I celebrated the first anniversary of this blog, which reminded Gdog that he had started blogging just a few days before I did last year. Expat Jane also celebrated her blog's first anniversary with a background colour change to pink.

ROK Drop revealed some very respectable statistics about his blog. My blog did not make it into his top 5 referring sites. So, if you could all "Do The Korean Thing" and click this link to his blog, say 4 or 5 times, perhaps I can make the list next month. [if I make it to the top 5, I won't be promising to appear naked on the blog like Mr Angry , but if you think of a suitable stunt you'd like me to perform, do please let me know.]

Phil at London Korean Links also had some stats to share. The number of spam comments is causing him problems in spite of introducing the requirement to register before being able to leave a comment. I got fed up with blogger.com's anti spam feature, so I turned off the 'word verification' option on the comments a few months ago and I have been very lucky and still not received any spam comments so far, touch wood.

My blog's stats took a huge leap from the usual average of 40-50 visitors per day to 400 on July 2nd, thanks to a one line posting by Robert at The Marmot's hole linking to my posting on The Ideal Korean Male. In that posting I also mentioned Rain's cancelled concert, more details and discussion over at PopSeoul.

Kevin, the Big Hominid, had some equally respectable statistics about sales of his book 'Water from a skull' and celebrated the fourth year of blogging. If you want a good laugh read his crisis at 40,000 feet post.

Feet Man Seoul has all the details on going for a pedicure, or 'padicure' as the sign at our local nail salon calls it.

Mike in Busan has an excellent shot of one of those crazy Korean motorbike drivers, this one was transporting a six foot tall potted plant on the back of his bike. His earlier shot of a lady with an iguana on her head still makes me smile.

Lost Nomad had some excellent shots of a life and death struggle between a snake and a toad he watched on one of his fishing trips. Richardson, meanwhile, had a photo of some attractively high kicking soldiers (North Korean I am assuming).

The Bat and I went to see the Transformers movie as did 75% of the cinema going public in Korea. We didn't join the Metropolitician's gang but, like Joe and Gdog, we both really enjoyed the movie.

The other Joe, of ZenKimchi fame, has some great news. The police have declared that he is not guilty of the libel charges raised against him by the hagwon owner from hell.

I'll end with that happy news, and I wish all the Canadian readers a belated Happy Canada day for 1st July, and all the American readers a belated Happy Independence Day for the the 4th.

A walk in Seoul, Onsu and Bucheon

Last week I was looking for somewhere new to go, so I decided to take a random bus to see where I ended up. Starting from the 'Yeouido Transportation Centre', which is a very grand name for the largest bus stop on Yeouido, I chose a bus I'd not been on before, that was heading south.

The number 261 took me south past Yeoungdeungpo, Mullae, Sindorim and Guro stations. Near Guil we crossed the Anyangcheon (The Anyang river that flows into the Han river) which looked interesting. I walked along the river bank and could hear the sound of drums and cymbals. The noise gradually got louder and louder as I approached a bridge over the river. Expecting to see a large troupe of drummers practising I was surprised to find just a family group of four with three drums and one of the children with the cymbal. They were sitting on a mat under the bridge happily making as much noise as they wanted!

Walking further I heard the sounds of a saxophone. I could not locate the source of the music, but it was another pleasant aural accompaniment. I crossed back across the river to Guil subway station and decided to head further out of town.

At Onsu station [photo] this church caught my eye and I decided to alight and investigate further.
It's certainly eye catching, but there was no information about it in English, so I cannot even tell you it's name.
Walking up the hill behind it I came to the Seoul city boundary [photo,photo]. Crossing the border, I entered Gyeonggi province which surrounds Seoul.

I walked passed the impressive Yuhan college buildings and through a residential area past many churches [church1, church2, church3, church4] . There was a mixture of low rise and high rise buildings and some small industrial units. I crossed the railway on a new bridge and observed the demolition of the old bridge underway [photo].

Walking up the hill the cityscape became much more industrial and the air was filled with the smell of hot plastics and the noise of metal being hammered from the many medium sized factories. I passed a learner driver centre [photo] and again the landscape changed very quickly to residential and again to horticultural [photo]. I followed a narrow lane, surrounded on either side with dense forest, and was surprised to come out into a green valley with just a few sheds and fields of vegetables.

The peace and quiet was unusual and it felt like a walk in the countryside. When a cockerel started crowing it really did complete the picture and I was beginning to wonder how I would get home again.

Of course it was not long before civilisation returned in the form of out of town restaurants of a variety of sizes and shapes [photo]. Two spirit posts, which traditionally mark the entrance to a town and ward off evil spirits, [photo] confirmed that I was coming back in town.

Coming around a corner I was greeted by sight of a large tower block complex[photo]. This pattern of development: rows and rows of tower blocks cut from the same cookie cutter mould is repeated all over the country. Is there not a single architect at the Korean National Housing Corporation with an ounce of originality? The good news for the future residents of this development is that subway construction is well underway here with an extension of subway line 7 from Onsu to join the Incheon subway at Bupyeong-gu office [map]. I explored the area a little more, taking in another church [photo] and admiring the Sang Rok school [photo] before jumping on a bus that looked like it was heading in the right direction.

The 23-5 bus took me past an interesting looking amusement park in front of the stadium.

It continued through Bucheon City, past City Hall, supermarkets, malls, department stores, shops, restaurants, tower blocks and churches before arriving at SongNae subway station on line 1. After photographing the urban landscape and adding another photo of the Statue of liberty on top a building to my collection, I took the subway back to Singil and a bus home.

You can view all the photos, along with a few others I took, as a slideshow here.

I thought this idea might make an interesting meme, I'm calling it 'Going for a walk, somewhere new'. So, where ever you are, if you'd like to pick up your camera, go somewhere you've not been to before and write a blog post on it then let me know by email or a comment. In two weeks time I'll gather all the links together in one posting to share with everyone.

The ideal Korean Male ?

From the Chosun Ilbo
Rhee Seung-chul, the head of plastic surgery at Hanil General Hospital, has created an image of the perfect Korean man from the faces of 16 Korean Wave stars.

He put photos of these 16 well known Koreans Kang Dong-won, Kwon Sang-woo, Kim Rae-won, Mun Jeong-hyeok, Bae Yong-joon, Jung Ji-hoon, Song Il-gook, Won Bin, Lee Wan, Jang Dong-gun, Jae Hee, Cho In-sung, Jo Hyun-jae, Ji Seong, Ji Jin-hee, and Hyun Bin into his computer program and came up with this:


[photo from Chosun site] Does it look like anyone you know?

Jung Ji-hoon in that list, better known outside Korea as Rain, has hit the headlines again today. He had earlier this month disappointed a lot of fans by cancelling all but one the US concerts in his world tour. The only one left was scheduled for 30th June in Los Angeles, but this was also cancelled at very short notice only hours before he was due to go on stage. Poor Lad, after all that publicity he got being spoofed on the Stephen Colbert show. I hope his next tour is more of a success.

Expats in Asia: Want to star in a TV show?

Unlike Joe Mondello over at Paintroller blog, who has become an "extremely minor internet celebrity" thanks to his video resume (in Korean) and is turning down TV interviews, I don't get many invitations to go on TV. So when this email arrived out of the blue I was intrigued:

From: Chandramohan Nag
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 15:48:35 +0800
To: Jon Allen

Hi

Greetings!
My name is Nag , a television producer working from Singapore, i just happen to see your blog , . I'm currently working on an 8-part television series called Global expats for a local television channel. It aims to examine and track the lives and livelihood of expatriates who choose to work, live and play in Asia. I would like to feature you in our series. We would like you to share your Expat experience what kind of a cultural shock you had? How did you cope? What are the things you like about the new place? How is different is life away from home etc. what's the culture shock you had first moved in? What efforts you take to adapt to the culture? (For example learning language, music, art etc? how you socialize with local people etc.

If you are interested pls. drop me line : cm_nag [at] yahoo.com

We will take it from there.

Regards
Nag

So I exchanged a couple of emails with him but after I told him my age, and gave him a few details about our interests, poor Korean language skills, minimal social life and how we only have a small number of Korean and expat friends, he seemed to lose interest!

But maybe, if you're younger, sexier, speak a bit of Korean and have lots of Korean and expat friends you might be more what he is looking for. He did not give me any more details, so drop him a line if you are keen and please do let me know how you get on. Did any other bloggers get his email?

This forum also has a few 'media requests' for British expats if you have a burning desire to get more attention.

Korean Blogs that have lasted the year

Today marks the first anniversary of this blog. Yes, one year ago I tentatively began this blog about our impending trip to Seoul. 150 posts later I'm still blogging and still bringing a small but loyal band of readers a mixture of news, events, photos and items of interest on my life in Seoul.

To celebrate this anniversary I decided to take a visit to The Korean Blog List to see how many other bloggers that added their blog to the list around the same time as I did are still blogging.

Feet Man Seoul Continues to grow his blog with daily posts on Korean fashion tips and stars and has expanded with Korean language posts as well.

Art Life and Everything Penelope stopped posting in December 2006.

Azikiwe Chandler Azikiwe is still blogging and writing a book.

Lazy Saturday Suegene is still busy blogging about knitting from New England.

Just Wandering Jackie is still blogging and has decided to stay another year in Korea. She's just got a new job at a University.

A Year In Korea Not sure what he's called, but he lasted the year and he is about to leave Korea very soon.

Deeper Shade Of Seoul Jes is still here blogging about her life.

Dae Han Min Decline Jon is busy DJing and has pictures of people vomiting and other happier scenes from punk rock concerts on his blog.

I Dream Therefore I Am Jimong has moved his blog to wordpress and continues to blog about Korean items of interest from Vancouver.

A Canadian In Korea Eric has posted a few updates and is back in Canada soon.

A Welshman With Seoul :P Now defunct.

DeiHanMinGuk Discoveries Goulash updates his blog on an occasional basis.

Living On The Flipside Amy provides very detailed updates on her life almost every day.

Flora In Seoul Flora's stopped in April, and has started facebooking. (Is that a verb yet?)

Show Dae Jang Geum On BBC Alice in London started a blog about her quest to get the BBC to air the Korean drama 'Dae Jang Geum' in the UK. Her latest post in May indicates that the BBC would love to share it with the British viewers, but sadly there just isn't enough time in the day to show it.

Seoul Searching This one disappeared.

Seoul Brotha Adrian was on my blogroll until last month when I noticed he stopped posting in December last year.

Simply Korean This one has disappeared too.

Hidden Confessions Jon stopped posting in Sep 2006.

Beloved Babbling Beloved is back in the US and still babbling occasionally.

Noraebang He hasn't posted since April

Peace Of Rice: 1/150,000 KADs Soon Young is still blogging frequently.

Almost Urban -Canadian Student Henry has been blogging steadily during the year. His postings on his trip to Mt Kumgang in North Korea are excellent.

The Daily Kimchi The indefatigable Gdog has continued to blog a post every day since he began his teaching job last year. His blog also provides the largest number of referrals to this blog for which I am always grateful.

So, out of the 24 blogs started only 8 have stopped blogging. That is quite a good record I would say. Congratulations to all those that have lasted a year. Here's to another year of blogging, and to the 36 blogs that have been added to the Blog List since my last roundup in April can you last the year?

IFC Seoul Construction site in Yeouido

Back in November last year I mentioned the start of construction of the International Finance Centre Seoul. [Their website has to be the least informative site I have ever visited.]
Days after that photograph of the trees was taken, the hoardings went up and work began in earnest. As you can see from this shot the hoardings are a work of art in themselves. These drilling machines have a certain 'transformers' look about them.


This was the view yesterday from the Shinhan bank office overlooking the site. The LG Twin towers are opposite.

And this is the view from the other direction looking towards the Shinhan building, peeking through an open door on to the site.

As you can see they are going deep with the underground levels. There is a continuous stream of heavy trucks removing the earth. Here you can see the drilling machines at work.

Across the road is Parc1. The ground breaking ceremony was on the 5th June 2007 and the hoardings went up around the whole site very quickly, but there is not much else to see at the moment.

The Parc1 site was the last undeveloped lot on Yeouido, with the possible exception of a small plot near Building 63. However there's a two story KBS building, with a large area being used a car park, right beside the site of the subway station currently under construction on line 9. I think this is a prime target for redevelopment. The next most likely place is a block directly opposite the National Assembly building occupied by some elderly and shabby low rise blocks, used again by KBS. I can already sense the wrecking crews moving in.

Longer term, I spotted an announcement that MBC, a large broadcasting company, are planning to move their headquarters out of Yeouido across the Han river to the Digital Media City currently under construction not far from the World cup stadium in 2011. This will no doubt be followed by the swift redevelopment of the sizeable plot they currently occupy. So the rumble of construction trucks will continue around Yeouido for many years to come, as I think it will do around the rest of the country.

Here's a google-earth snapshot with the sites marked.

Itaewon Restaurant Discount card

This looks like it could be useful if you live in Seoul and eat out or go shopping in Itaewon. American Bill Swisshelm has launched a discount card called Eat-A-One. Members can get a discount of up to 10% at around 30 restaurants, shops and even dance studios in the neighbourhood.

Gold member merchants such as Chakraa, Italonia, La Casa Loca, Pharoah's restaurant, Toque Diner, Namaste restaurant and Saigon Grill offer a 10 percent discount. Silver member merchants, such as Santorini, Smokey Saloon, Flying Pan and Taco Amigo, offer either a discount or a benefit such as a free drink. Discounts only apply to the cardholder and a guest.

There are also discounts at other Itaewon shops such as at the dance studio You Can Dance, Well-Being Shop and the English bookstore What The Book.

A one year membership at Eat-A-One costs only 25,000 won, Bill reckons you could save between 300,000 to 500,000 won a year depending on how often you use the card.



For more details check out his website www.eataone.com. Story from Korea Times, H/T SeoulSteves.

Update: The card also gives a 20% discount off tickets for the show Nanta. Two tickets will almost save you the cost of the card straight away.

Comedy in Seoul tomorrow

Sorry for the short notice, but I only just read my Seoul Selection newsletter last night.

Tomorrow night, for one night only, Perry Kutz and Kurt Green are doing a comedy show in Itaewon at the B1 Lounge.

These two professional comedians from the United States, have been brought over to Korea for a one night only show in Itaewon. I've not heard of them before, but it's the first comedy I've seen advertised since I've been here. I emailed BH Promotions yesterday and got two tickets, so I guess they have not sold out yet. Let me know if anyone else is planning on going.

Venue: the B1 Lounge, Itaewon, line 6, exit 1. Go out exit 1, turn right at KFC, walk up about 20 meters. The B1 Lounge is on your left.

Date : June 24 2007

Time: Doors open at 5pm. Show starts at 6pm. General seating.

Tickets: 35,000 won, includes one free drink. Tickets are on sale in advance at the venue (open everyday 7pm until late).

Reservations: by email only at thebhpcompany @ yahoo.com.

Space is limited, please reserve/buy advance tickets early.

For more information, call Kirstie at 016-695-4624.

[All details from Seoul Times]

The best bread in Seoul

Daeguowl's observation about the difficulty in obtaining decent bread, now that he has arrived in Korea, reminded me that I have not mentioned the best 'Backerei Konditorei' that we found in Seoul. If you are tired of the wonderloaf, crustless pap that you get in your local Paris Baguette, Tous les Jours or Crown Bakery, then head over to Richemont in Hongik



It's a couple of minutes walk from Hongik University subway station on line 2. Take exit 6 from the station, continue walking along the main road and turn left at the traffic lights on to the road leading up to the university entrance. The bakery is just there on the corner on your left. It's open until 10pm. It's marked on HongdaeHongdae's flickr map.

The bread is a bit more expensive that that of the chain bakeries but it's well worth it. They do a very good sour dough bread.

The cakes are good too.

The pastries are difficult to resist

But don't get caught out by these savoury doughnuts on the bottom right in this picture. I bought one expecting a sweet sugary jam filling and was surprised by a curry flavour filling of vegetables.


If that's too far to travel then the Paris Croissant chain is an acceptable susbstitute. There are branches around the city, there's one at the Gwanghwamun end of the Cheonggyecheong opposite the huge snail-like sculpture.

SaraDevil found a good place for bagels in Daegu, and Queen for a year found the Strohrer bakery in Ulsan, but alas, she didn't let on where exactly.

What sort of English are they teaching the Koreans?

The JoongAng Daily newspaper produces a weekly supplement titled 'Think English'. It has a number of different sections including translations of recent news items and general English comprehension tests with Korean translations. (They should maybe rename it 'See English, Read Korean' but I guess it doesn't have quite the same ring to it).

There is a section titled 'Real Vocabulary', contributed by Kenny Kim, which consists of six sentences with multiple choice options to fill in the blanks for the missing words. Each week I look at it and spot at least one grammatical error or nonsensical sentence. Two weeks ago he set a record with five out of six sentences having at least one problem. My copy of the newspaper has now been recycled and sadly they do not seem to archive that section of the paper on the web, so I cannot share with you his mistakes.
Last Saturday's issue was a welcome change when I could not find any mistakes in that section. Well done Kenny, keep it up, I'll be checking back next week.

What did catch my eye though, was on the next page in the 'Fun Fun' section: [Readers who are offended by four letter words should NOT click to enlarge on this scan below]


Well I certainly wasn't expecting that type of language in a family newspaper. Can anyone translate the article please? I am fascinated to know what advice they are giving.

Perhaps the Think English staff have been to Itaewon, The westerner's ghetto area in Seoul, seen the name of this shop, and thought it a perfectly acceptable word to discuss?

Or maybe they've been watching the TV show Six Feet Under where the characters swear in almost every other sentence.

Meanwhile the Korea Times 'The Learning Times' supplement recently translated a dialogue from the movie The Devil wears Prada, underneath the headline 'Good Will Hunting'. I wonder if anyone noticed?

Trip to Taipei, Taiwan

The recent pause in posts has been due to a short break we've taken in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan.

The two and a half hour flight from Incheon with Asiana Airlines was a bargain 270,000 won each.

Our accommodation during the holiday was the remarkable Grand Hotel.



It may look very grand from the outside, but inside the rooms and facilities are of a regular three star hotel, still, the foyer was quite impressive.

Our first stop was the world famous National Palace Museum. We took advantage of the free guided tour in English at 10am. The well-spoken and enthusiastic lady lead us around the highlights of the museum's many precious artefacts including Chinese porcelain, ivory and jade. The museum has recently been renovated and all the rooms are well lit and all the objects had detailed English descriptions. The audio guide we used when going around for a second time, was also of a high quality and gave useful and interesting information. This is a view of the second building, currently housing an exhibition from the British Museum.


The title of "world's tallest building" is currently held by Taipei 101. This impressive skyscraper stands out on the city skyline and a trip to the observation deck was next on our itinerary. The elevators to the 89th floor take less than 38 seconds and reach a world record speed of over 63km/h (37 mph).
The weather was not particularly good, but the views over the city were still spectacular.
The clouds over the jungle covered hills were beautiful. The skyscraper also claims to have the world's largest 'mass damper' and they are proud to display the 660 metric tonne sphere in it's enclosure in the centre of the observation deck.

One of the most impressive squares in Taipei is the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall Plaza. This building is the National Theatre:

On the opposite side of the square is a similar building, the National Concert Hall, and between the two is the huge white marble building that is National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall:


We took a trip to the National History Museum and were delighted to discover an exhibition of the terracotta army of the Xian Dynasty. We were remarkably lucky to get in without queueing. After seeing the exhibits we came out to find hundreds of people queueing around the block to get in! The botanical gardens form the grounds of the museum and provided a welcome bit of greenery to enjoy.

Taiwan is well known for its green tea and we were keen to go to Pinglin to see 'The world's largest tea museum'. We followed the detailed instructions in our trusty Lonely Planet guidebook and took the MRT, Taipei's very modern and efficient subway system, to the southernmost station Xindian. From there we took a bus for a 45 minute ride further south to the small town of Pinglin and found the museum. There was a reasonable amount of English on the display boards and several rooms of exhibits that were interesting and you get to taste some tea in the gift shop. The museum is not huge, but we felt it was worth the trip.


During a walk along the river bank I spotted this hairy little creature:


In the evening we visited Longshan Temple, The photos on the wikipedia page do not do it justice: The intricate carvings and decoration are impressive, the lights dazzling, the smoke from the incense intense and there's a waterfall outside too!

We took a trip to Beitou on the northern edge of the city, at the end of the red line on the MRT, to get closer to the national park. We followed a road winding up the end of the valley through the dense vegetation and discovered this small temple which had great views of Taipei.



After coming back down into the valley it was time to sample the hotsprings for which the town is famous. We chose a relaxing hot bath in the Sweetme Hotspring resort hotel. [No Dr Fish this time!]

On our last day we just had time to visit the Fine Arts Museum of Taipei at the bottom of the hill from our hotel. There were four exhibitions on: The "Still Life" show of Taiwanese artists was very interesting; There was Taiwanese Photography on display in another room; A sample of ten contemporary Italian artists in another room, and last but by no means least A Retrospective of Su Hsin-Tien’s Cyclical Space Paintings whose style was sometimes very similar to a drawing of MC Esher, one of my favorite artists.
One memorable aspect of the visit was the large number of school children that were being taken round in groups. They obediently sat and listened attentively to museum staff explaining the pictures in front of them.

It was then back on the rickety public bus that goes out to the Taipei's international airport for our trip back to Incheon airport and home to Yeouido.

Construction on the AREX railway

Phase 1 of the AREX airport link between Gimpo and Incheon airports opened in March. Phase 2, which takes the line from Gimpo into Seoul Station, has been under construction for sometime now and I have been photographing what I can of the sites where work is occurring.

At Gimpo airport the line is deep in tunnel, it heads north east and rises to the surface to cross the Han river on a new bridge.


On the north bank of the river the next section of the bridge is being built, ready to be moved into position.

The line curves to the east and descends into tunnel to go below Susaek bridge. The line is being built in a cut and cover tunnel running parallel to mainline railway to Susaek station. From Susaek to Gajwa railway station there is a short section being constructed using the "Tubular Roof and Trench Tunnelling method" it proclaims on a banner at the site entrance. At Gajwa I sneaked into the work site and got this photo of the 50m deep excavation. You can just see the guard on the far left coming over to order me off the site.


However it seems they had miscalculated something and the retaining wall on the right hand side of the photo collapsed suddenly on Sunday afternoon :



[Photo courtesy of the Korea Times newspaper.] Thankfully no one was injured. The construction site worked evacuated the site at 4:30 when they realised the wall was not going to hold, but no one thought to inform the railway that they may want to stop trains until 5:00pm. The last train crossed the tracks just two minutes before the collapse. The chosun has some choice words to say about this!

I visited the site yesterday and there was a continuous stream of trucks delivering material to fill the hole to be able to reinstate the railway lines as quickly as possible. It was a local attraction with at least twenty men watching the proceedings. I hope this setback does not delay the opening date of 2010.

From Gajwa there is another short section not in cut and cover before the open trench reappears. The trench follows the line of the previously existing Yongsan railway line traces of which can still be found at a couple of the roads that cross the work sites. At Hongik University there is more major excavation for the new station which will connect with Subway line 2. The trench continues to Gongdeok where there will be another station. The line then continues in bored tunnel under the hill to come out on the west side of Seoul Station.

Update : Matt has more photos.

SamcheongGak: Seoul's secret sanctuary

If someone had told me last week that there exists a place, only ten minutes drive from Downtown Seoul, that is green and peaceful, with views of undisturbed forest and not a tower block in sight, I would not have believed them.

But, thanks to a Korean friend who took us there, we have discovered such a place. SamcheongGak. This is the view from the terrace looking towards the city fortress walls, beyond the hill is the presidential residence the 'Blue House'



In 1972 the Red Cross built it in the pine forest behind Bukak mountain as a venue to hold a historic meeting between North and South Korea. The buildings were reserved for use by high ranking government officials until 2000 when the Seoul Metropolitan Government bought the site and opened it to the public as a venue for traditional Korean cultural performances in 2001.

This small valley holds a peaceful escape from the hustle and bustle of the city that anyone can visit. There are six traditional buildings, the largest, Ilhwa-dang, contains a restaurant, tea house and the performance hall. This building is used for classes in tradition arts such as the tea ceremony and pottery.



You can stay overnight in two of the other buildings.

If you'd like to take a trip up to the gate in the fortress walls you'll need to book up at least a week in advance to join one three daily visits to Bukak mountain.

There is no public transport to SamcheongGak, but there is a free shuttle bus service from Gwanghwamun Station (line 5) Exit 3. Buses run daily from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Timetable.

The 4th World Ceramic Biennale Gwangju and Yeoju

Not content with visiting the Ceramics Biennale at Icheon, we made trips to both Gwangju and Yeoju sites to get the full expo experience.

At Gwangju the major exhibition was from the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul and showed Chinese and Turkish ceramics from the collection.

At Yeoju we saw the other half of the competition "Ceramics for Use". The Bat took the camera off me and photographed all of her favourites. She enjoyed the works of art so much that she has now created her own blog to show off the photos. Click on over to Blog-bat.blogspot.com to see the 40 photos we've uploaded.