04/20/2009
02/15/2009
Baek il - 100 days
Yesterday was the 14th of February, which is also Valentine's Day here in Korea. The main difference between the western idea of Valentine's day and Korea's is that Korea also has a day called 'White Day' on the 14th of March. These two days sort of split the western day in two, with women giving chocolate to their boyfriends in February, and guys give sweets to their girlfriends in March.
The day was more special for Sujeong and I however, as it was our 100 days anniversary! For this reason, and because of the confusion caused by our different expectations of Valentine's day, we both gave each other gifts, and went for a day out.
I gave Sujeong a Swarovski braclet, and a jewlery box, and she gave me a blue Lacoste shirt.
We tried to leave early, but as usual, ended up setting off at around 11am, for the short drive to the area around the city of Paju (파주) which is about 30km North West of Seoul. If you know the location of Seoul, you will be aware that if you go to the North West about 32km, you'll be in North Korea.
The road that we took, runs along the edge of the Han River, and as you near the border, you can see high fences with barbed wire curls on top, as well as regular army posts looking out towards the North. It makes me sad to see this, because the history that led up to the division is so painful. South Koreans can look into North Korea from a distance, and there are many viewing points with telescopes.
After a little under an hour, we arrived at our first destination - Heyri (헤이리). Heyri is a small, recently built village, that contains many small exhibitions, museums, art stores and cultural things, even the buildings are quite artistic.
I really liked this statue, because you don't notice at first that the body is missing! Sujeong looks very happy to give it's breasts some support!
We visited two exhibitions in Heyri, the first of which was a collection of old Korean things. These things dated back to around the late 1950s, just after the Korean war. At that time, the influence of the west was obvious, certainly in the cities.
I took many photos, so there are only a few shown here. At one end of the exhibition was a small classroom, with an organ at the front. This organ was made by a Korean company called Aria, but looked and sounded just like the one that Sigur Ros use! I tried to play it, but I wasn't very good.
Sujeong also tried to play the organ, but prefered shouting into this loudhailer!
Upstairs in the exhibition was many farm tools, we found this hat that is used as an umbrella. I think it looks good, but it wasn't very stable, and very fragile!
The second exhibition that we went to was full of film memorabilia.
Sujeong really likes Shrek, especially this giant model. I'm glad she likes his fat belly, because I might get one of those one day! Shrek is obvious, I'm not sure where the space man is from though.
At around 2pm, we started to get hungry, so we went to another small, recently constructed, village, this time called Provence. Here there were many restaurants, serving western as well as Korean foods. We had some very tasty Sam Gyup Sal (삼경살), which is grilled sliced pork belly.
In Provence there are also many shops, including a garden centre, which is quite unusual in Korea, as most people live in apartments, with no gardens. I took this photos of some flowers, just before we left to go to...
...the English Village. This place was set up primarily as a place for Korean children to come and experience an English (Or American) village. Everyone inside the village speaks only English, and there are many role playing things for children to do, such as a travel agent, bank and post office. There is also a short musical about climate change that we watched.
The buildings here do look western, but there are just too clean. Having said that, this photo of Sujeong does look like it could have been taken in England.
After watching the musical, we went back home to eat Nachos and watch a movie...
It was a great day!
01/03/2009
Namiseom and Chuncheon
There is actually quite a lot for me to write about to catch up on what's been happening in my life over the last six months, and I hope to cover some of these things in future posts.
Today though, I'm going to start by getting right into what I did last Friday....
As many of you may know, I have a Korean girlfriend called Sujeong (임수정). Since we first got together nearly two months ago, we have talked about travelling around Korea and visiting various places. In particular, I am interested to go to the places that foreigners, especially westerners, don't usually go.
As the 1st of January is a public holiday in Korea, Sujeong suggested that we take a trip to a small island located on the north of the Han river, around 60km east of Seoul called Namiseom (남이섬).
This Island is famous for many reasons, and is named after a historic warrior in Korean culture.
It was freezing cold that day, around -7, but with an even colder wind chill. As a result, I had to wear my ski jacket and hat, and ended up looking a little stupid. Sujeong as always looked very elegant!
The Island was very beautiful, and we may visit again later in the year, as Sujeong tells me it looks totally different in the other seasons. Below are just some of the many photos that we took.
This last one is my personal favourite, because it captures the spirit of that day really well.
After visiting Namiseom, we decided to go further East, to the nearby city of Chuncheon (춘천). This city is famous for one of my favourite Korean foods - Dack Kalbi (닭갈비). This dish is really spicy, but so delicious...
08/31/2008
A Day Trip To Hamburg
I have a Chinese friend called Renee, who used to work for LG. Just over 1 year ago, she got married and moved to Hamburg to have a baby. Her baby is the cutest thing I have ever seen, facial expressions, her mischeviousness and her humour make spending time with her great fun.
Renee has been so busy with her baby, that she hasn't been able to learn German yet, and she left all of her friends behind in the UK when she moved to Germany. I have no doubt that Renee is very happy with her husband and her daugter, but I know it must be hard for her with so many changes in her life in such as short space of time.
Just as last year, I was am in Berlin this week to attend the IFA consumer electronics show. When this trip had been confirmed I booked a train from Berlin to Hamburg to go and visit Renee and her family.
I arrived on Saturday evening and we had a nice time checking out the city's night life, which is so different to that in the UK. There was rubbish everywhere, a red light district, and a street rammed full of people, containing only night clubs and sex shops. I have to say it's not really my taste in night life, but it's always nice to see a new city.
The next day, after getting up fairly late, playing with Fenja, and having breakfast; Renee's husband Nils went to watch his local football team play, and Renee, her daughter Fenja and I went for a brief tour of the city.
I had heard that Hamburg was an amazing city, but to be honest, apart from my initial impression on arriving, I'd not been that impressed with it so far. That all changed however, when we walked just 500 metres from their apartment, to one small part of the lake and canal complex that covers the city. It was so peaceful, with people rowing boats, paddling canoes, and sailing. At the edge of the lake, others were sun bathing, having picnics and barbeques; and the whole area was just so green, trees and grass everywhere, so much different from the city from the night before.
After this, we took a bus down to the main river, and met up with Nils who had finished watching his team win. He continued the tour, along the river and up the spire of an old church that had been destroyed during the bombing raids of the second world war in 1943. This spire had been kept as a memorial of the damages of war.
At the top of the spire, accessed by an elevator, was a plaque that detailed the damages of the raids in 1943. In there are details such as 35,000 people that died, and 120,000 people injured during those raids.
What really surprised and shocked me though was that the whole plaque placed the blame for these raids, not on the English, but right back on them selves, with comments such as 'The Original Catastrophe occurred ten years earlier, in 1933, when the National Socialists with the support of large parts of the elite and the population abolished democracy and the rule of law within a matter of weeks.... Ultimately the dead injured and homeless of the air raids, were victims of Nazi Germany's politics of aggression, its claim for world domination and its barabarisation of war.
The humble nature of the German people today and their shame over the past makes me very emotional, and I can't describe really my feelings after reading this, but it touched me. You can read the entire plaque by clicking the picture below and then clicking the show full size option on the page with the image.
After this, we all had a lovely meal in a Szechuan restaurant near to the train station. I went to catch my train at 8pm, and embarrasingly typically for me, I left my train ticket in the restaurant. Nils kindly ran back there and retrieved it while I waited for the train. Thanks very much Nils!
Here is a photo of the whole family...
Cycling in Paris
A couple of weeks ago, I took a Friday day off work to go and meet some friends in Paris. It was a bit of an impromptu event, only organised on the Wednesday two days before, but with Paris so close since the Channel Tunnel has been built, I thought what the heck.
I got up early at around 4am and set off for London. I arrived in Paris at 10.30 to meet my friends at Opera station, which was where their shuttle bus dropped them.
The weather was fantastic and we had a lovely day, visiting the Louvre, Notre Dame and just general sight seeing on the open topped buses.
My friends left at 6pm, but my train wasn't until 9.15, so I had 3 hours to kill. My favourite place in Paris is the Sacre Coeur, which is located in the north of the city, in the Montmatre area. I set my sights on going there that evening, but was met with problems right from the start...
My original plan was to take a subway to Montmatre station, and walk from there to the church. Unfortunately, I'd run out of cash, and for som reason my debit cards wouldn't work in the ATMs. (I later found out that this was caused by a global problem with Natwest bank accounts!)
Without any cash, and no subway ticket, I thought about walking, but it really was too far. Right next to the ATM that I had last tried however was a row of bikes for rent. I'd seen these bikes before, and often thought about hiring one but never really had the chance... now I had one.
Here's my shiny machine! Actually this is my second bike, the first one I tried was broken, but that doesn't matter too much as the system allows you to put the bike back and select another one if there's any problems.
The Eurostar train leaves from Gare Du Nord, which was sort of on my way when coming from Opera, and my first stop was there, so that I knew where to come back to after I'd been to the church.
After Gare Du Nord I was pretty exhausted. The northern part of Paris is on a hill, and I was heading upwards. My next stop was outside my friend Samir's new apartment. This was sort of half way between the train station and the church.
There are roads which go up the final ascent to the Sacre Coeur, but as it's so steep, they are long and windy, so I decided to take what I thought would be the easy route - up the steps. I was wrong, this wasn't the easy route at all, and carrying the heavy rental bike up these steps was anything but easy.
I finally made it to the top, and the view was spectacular, just as it always is. I didn't have enough time to go to the top of the dome, but I was pleased that I'd made it this far anyway.
The journey back to the station was downhill, so I had a nice relaxing journey back to the station.
I got home at about 1am to find a parking ticket on my car! Despite this, the day was great fun and I very much enjoyed myself.
08/06/2008
Great, but strangely disappointing.
Last weekend I went shopping and bought many CDs, there is one that stands out however and I have to say that I'm both pleasantly surprised and a little disappointed.
I've been a fan of Alanis Morissette for some time, since her Album 'Jagged Little Pill'. Since that time, I've bought all of her CDs, they've all been good, though some more instantly accessible than others. Interestingly, it's the ones that grow on you that you end up liking the most.
This new album has been co-written and produced by Guy Sigsworth, the same Guy Sigsworth who was one half of the band 'Frou Frou' that I've talked about before.
Guy's influence is obvious right from the start of this album, giving it a totally different and more modern feel. Some tracks really do sound like they could have been Frou Frou tracks if the vocal was a little different.
Lyrically the album is up to Alanis' usual standard and doesn't disappoint. What does however disappoint is the audio quality.
Last night I listened to this CD at home for the first time (previously I'd only had chance to listen in the car and office). I was expecting big things, as Imogen Heap's album 'Speak For Yourself' has a wonderfully immersive stereo image that you can completely loose yourself in. Don't get me wrong, the quality of the reproduction is fine, but there is just no stereo image at all. This is a real shame as Alanis' previous albums have not suffered in this way.
I'm tempted to wonder if this failing is due in part to the large amount of electronic mastering and tweaking that goes into making music like this, but the aforementioned Imogen Heap album is probably much more fettled with in this way. Unfortunately I think this is more likely to be down instead to poor production - shame on you Guy!
07/31/2008
Wavy Gravy leads to Air-drawn Dagger!?!
In the last few months since I posted on here, I've bought a few new CDs. Too many to talk about in the time I've got, but the latest one I will mention.
About a month ago, while taking part in an idea generation meeting for work, some music was played to sort of break up the silence while we were thinking. One track really impressed me, so I asked one of the organisers what it was. They told me it was called 'Wavy Gravy' by Sasha.
Now I've heard of Sasha before; he's a Welsh DJ, who is widely thought to be at the top of his game, but what I wasn't aware of was that he had produced a solo album. The track 'Wavy Gravy' however comes from his first solo album titled 'Airdrawndagger'. Apparantly the title of the album is a reference to a line in Shakespeare's Macbeth - something to do with a recurring dream.
I'm not a great fan of paying full price for CDs, but this title is from 2002, and in relatively short supply, so I bit the bullet and with my next Amazon order I added it to my basket.
When I returned from my business trip to Paris and Milan this week, it was waiting for me on my desk at work. I was really looking forward to listening to find out if the rest of the album was as good as the track I'd heard so put it on as soon as I got in the car to go home.
Initially, I had been planning to write that 'Wavy Gravy' definately is the best track, and whilst I'm still tempted to say that, the whole album is really growing on me. The genre is sort of Electronic Chill Out, but it's really really well produced. Some tracks sound like BT, there's elements of Robert Miles' later work on 23am, and of course William Orbit comparisons aplenty.
Overall a great CD, that I've been listening to non stop since yesterday evening, all through my working day today.
Lost... then unexpectedly found!
About two months ago, at work, I bumped into what I thought was a new employee at LG in the lift. I'd noticed her in the office a few times before, because apart from being really pretty, she had a great unique dress sense. I was looking forward to getting to know her, when she just disappeared!
Then, on Monday this week, during a business trip to Paris to study IPTV, my colleague Samir who I'd gone there to meet up with, mentioned that he'd invited a Korean girl out that evening to our evening meal. He told me her name and I didn't even twig that it might be her until I was coming down in the lift from my hotel room to meet them in the lobby.
After getting over the strange co-incidence, we went out for a meal in a southern French style restaurant. We all had a great evening, though might have drunk a little too much, I felt pretty ill the next day - Why does this always happen when I go to Paris?!?
Samir unfortunately left LG today, but I'm hoping that we'll all get to meet up again in the future, perhaps in Korea if he gets the chance to come over and visit me after I move.
03/10/2008
Hypocaust - don't give the Romans the credit!
It's been ages since I last posted on my blog, five months in fact, and it's about time I did something about it!
Before I post anything new, I've actually got to put up some pictures from my last trip to Korea in early March.
Apart from the snowboarding trip that I've talked about below, I also had some spare time in Seoul, so I decided to go the the Folk Museum, which is located in the 경복궁 (Gyeongbok Palace).
The palace is really pretty, with many big buildings that have all be restored to a fantastic condition.
Seoul is such a modern and fast growing city though that the enevitable modern buildings enter the backdrop in some pictures like these below.
This is a picture taken in the Folk museum showing a primitive Korean underfloor heating system.
Even today, most properties in Korea are heated by underfloor systems, though I imagine that these are hot air or electric types these days.
Most of the domestic buildings in the Gyeongbuk Palace are heated in a similar way to this reconstruction - by hot air from an open fire, drawn under the floor and out through the walls and chimneys on the rooftops. In some cases, as shown here, the fire used for heating, can also be used for cooking.
When I was reading about this, I couldn't help but notice that this heating system is remarkably similar to the Roman system called Hypocaust. The Korean system is called 온돌 (On-Dol), so the names are not even remotely similar, but further research suggests that maybe the Koreans were first, with the first finds dating to around 1000 BC!
The Wikipedia entry on On-Dol can be found here.
I wish I had taken some more photos inside the Folk Museum. For me the most interesting section is that of modern history, which shows the development of Korea from the end of the last century 'Opening Of Ports' time, to today. I am awestruck at the speed that the country has changed. Especially when you consider the times of Japanese occupation, and civil war.
Shown below is an example of the rapid introduction of western culture and products to Korea. The Beatles had truly become a worldwide sensation at this time with records on sale even in Korea.
Korea will always be for me a country that I never tire of reading about. I'm so pleased that due to recent career changes, I will have the opportunity to live there for a few years, even though I believe that the rate of change has now slowed considerably since these early days.
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