Food, Drinks and Mr Segway

I was talking to Polish Damien in Australia today and he told me that on my blog "It pretty much looks like all I do is eat, party and travel." I think that's the first ever blog critique I've had from a Polish guy. Muchly appreciated. It's his 27th birthday today and I'm sure he'll be celebrating in style with the guys back home. Happy Birthday Damien!

In this photo is an U-dong hotpot with stuffed pockets of aerated soybean and various other goodies. On the right is some sundried chilli cashew chicken. We chose to enjoy this particular meal with some apple and kiwi soju cocktails.

Some time ago, a group of adoptees came down to Busan for a quick tour and we met up after work for some drinks. I'm pretty much the only GOA'L affiliated adoptee down here, so I feel like an ambassador of sorts.


Here's a new drinking game that Eric taught us that night. Two lines of people are on either side of the tables. Each person in turn (one after the other) has to drink the beer from their own paper cup and then put it on the edge of the table. The next person can only start drinking once the previous person has flipped the cup so that it lands properly on the table. The first line to finish wins.

We played this game a few times.

I led the group to the U2 bar in Haeundae, somewhere I hadn't been in a while. U2 is fairly nice and they serve free popcorn. The owner speaks a fair bit of English and likes to drink tequila shots.

One of the European adoptees decided it would be a good idea if we all took our shoes off and danced. Mine are the brown ones in the centre.

Then Eric thought it would be a good idea if we all went for a swim at the beach at 2am. I wasn't particularly in the mood for it, but was eventually persuaded. Catching the taxi back home with wet pants in the wee hours of the morning was an interesting experience.

I also lost my old cell phone at some point that night.

Meet Lee's new and improved cell phone. It has a DMB connection, which means I can watch free television broadcasts on a few different channels. On the screen in this photo there's a Beijing Olympics replay of Park Tae-Hwan winning the 400m.

Soon after the other adoptees left, Marie Fleur, another French adoptee from Seoul came down for a visit. I didn't have much time to show her around because of work commitments. We had a walk around Gwangan and visited this live seafood shop. That's her on the right, with her sister and sister's husband. Live seafood still impresses me to some degree and it's funny to see how the little Korean kids can just pick up an octopus like it's a toy.

Heather and I are going fairly well these days. My only regular teaching duties during the week are on Friday nights, when I head to her branch to teach an upper level reading class. That means I also get to join in their Friday night hwe-shiks (after-work dinners).

Here are the admin staff of the Hwamyeong branch. Heather received a promotion yesterday to the title of wonjang, which is the branch manager. We've both come a long way since our humble beginnings at the old Busanjin branch in 2006.

Near our house there's a small unstaffed amusement outlet. In this photo, you can see two versions of the ubiquitous punching machines here. You put in a coin and get to see how hard you can punch. You also find out how easy it is to sprain your wrist by trying to impress your friends.

Here's Anthony, one of our new additions, in the batting cages. These were entirely coin-operated as well. You just pick up the bat and a machine will launch baseballs at you.

Have you seen the new Star Wars release? It's an animation based on Attack of the Clones. I've always been a big fan of Star Wars and Star Trek, but unfortunately showing an enthusiasm for such things here results in one being labelled a nerd. Jef's definition of a nerd is when someone owns a twelve-sided die (singular: dice). But I don't own one of those.

Yet.

Heather and I found a new favourite restaurant. It's called Van Gogh's Terrace and it's in the Haeundae area near the APEC building. They specialise in particularly good Italian food and French champagne. It's right next to the water and you can see the Gwangan bridge at night. We go down here sometimes for a treat and are developing a worrying affinity for Moet & Chandon.


Most days on the way to work, Mr Segway (as I like to call him) crosses the main road at the same time as me. He's usually crossing at exactly the same time each day. This is the only Segway I've seen in Korea. He seems to like it when people look at him and ask him questions about his device while he's waiting for the lights.

These days I work in the office at our company's headquarters in Dongnae. That's my seat right there in the middle. Next to me is Brandon Na, the human resources director and in this photo he's interviewing someone via Skype. My work duties include interviewing new teachers from overseas, guiding them in and general HR related troubleshooting. I also look after the April English program to some degree.

Here's the CEO's office. We only moved in here a couple of month's ago.

And here's our dear Kelly Park, who left the company last week for greener pastures. She's been working for us since the beginning and would often be found running around to the different branches or the immigration department. She was really good at fixing problems and watering plants. A few weeks before she left, she found a snail on her lettuce and brought it into the office in a plastic cup. Then the cleaning lady threw it away because she thought it was rubbish. Oh well.

The snail had eggs though, which we kept in a different cup. Hopefully they'll hatch sometime soon.

That's all for this time. See you!

Art, Shapes, Daegu

Having reached my 2 years in Korea, it was time to extend my F4 visa at the immigration department. Immigration offices here tend to remind me of the old Centrelink offices in Australia.

Although a little skeptical that immigration could really be that wonderful, I was pleasantly surprised. All I had to do was fill out a form and pay around $30. I sat nervously on the other side of the desk trying to look like a model immigrant while the officer looked at my card. For a while it seemed like he was using his tongue to remove a piece of food stuck in a molar. Then he looked at me and asked me if I'm enjoying Korea or not.
"It's really good here" I replied, not knowing what the correct answer was supposed to be. But sure enough, a few keystrokes later and kabam! Two more years in beautiful Korea.

The thing I like about Korea is that I still find things amusing on a daily basis. I guess I'm still a little immature too.

So anyway, last weekend we decided to take a trip up to Daegu city, the fourth largest in Korea. Prior to this, I had only passed through the city once and that was very briefly.

Daegu is well known for being involved in the art scene. Last weekend in particular there was a special exhibition called Art, Shapes, Daegu. The focus was on art submitted by foreigners living in Korea. Some of my co-workers in Busan submitted some works (Michelle Lynch, Logan Fry and Randall Mosman).

This pagoda was made out of stacked up soju glasses. Now that's what I call fine art.

I must say that I'm not that much of a cultured art critic. Some art I get, and some art I don't. This one belonged to the latter category.

This is what I'd call good art.

'Cept I probably would not buy it.

One of my co-workers at the Saha Branch, Michelle, took these photos in the Middle East. Nicely done Michelle!

This exhibit encouraged observers to crouch down and become immersed in the silhouettes. Heather felt like she was part of an African wildlife stampede.

These two pictures are my attempt at artistic photography. I call it 'Two Photos of Heather and Emily outside an Art Hall and Heather is Sitting, while Emily is Standing."

Pretty good eh?

As dusk approached, we wandered the shopping districts of central Daegu. It was very similar to the Nampodong district of Busan, but a little nicer because traffic is kept out of the area. Clothing in Korea used to be cheap, but these days it's about the same as prices back in Australia.

Daegu also seems to have a bigger presence of foreign restaurants. We stopped at this French restaurant called Dijon to grab a bite to eat. Compared to Australia, there isn't as much easy access to quality international cuisine in Korea. The main reason for that being because Koreans love Korean food more than anything else in the world.

Oysters with melted European cheese, wrapped in char-grilled aubergines.

Dee-ricious!

Slow-cooked duck with apple sauce.

Oh look, here is my second attempt at artistic photography. These two photos are entitled "Waiting for Food - Arrival of Food."

It was a nice quaint little restaurant and away from the busy crowds. We lazed around for a bit and then headed back to Busan on the KTX.

We enjoyed Daegu and it does have its own distinct atmosphere. The roads were more peaceful and there seemed to be a few more trees around the place. Our taxi driver was also very chatty and apparently funny, judging by the laughs of my fellow companions. My Korean still isn't good enough to understand Korean humour. I usually laugh just because other people are laughing.

And last week we also had a training session for April English, the program that I'm partially responsible for. Here are some of the April teachers from across Busan and Changwon city, enjoying their lunch after some morning training. They're a friendly bunch.

That's all for now. Soon I'll be filling you in on the 10th GOA'L Anniversary in Seoul that I just got back from yesterday.

See you then!

Two years in Korea

According to the little purple stamp on my passport, July 21st 2006 was when I first landed in Korea's Incheon airport. Thinking back to that time, I realise that a lot has happened since. Every once in a while I rift through my earlier blog posts and in a strange way it sometimes feels like it was somebody else who was living that life. Maybe I should lay off the beer for a while.

A couple of weeks ago it was Heather's brother-in-law's birthday. We went to a buffet restaurant in Migliore called Todai. The food was quite spectacular and some of the earlier LKB readers may remember an old post about the Di Maris buffet in Jangsan. This restaurant was quite similar, but within walking distance of my apartment.

Todai is a franchise and apparently has outlets all over the world, even in Las Vegas. Koreans love family restaurants, so chains like VIPs, TGIF, Outback Steakhouse and this one are always packed on the weekends. The restaurant has a seating capacity of around 500, but you still have to make a reservation.

Here are Heather's father, mother and niece. They don't speak any English, but these days I talk to Heather's mother on the phone in Korean for conversation practice. I still speak Korean like a toddler though.

And here's Heather's brother-in-law. I don't think he appreciates being photographed, even if it's for a celebrity appearance on Lee's Korea Blog.

Yikes.

Heather's niece is called Ji-Ae. She is adored by the family and spends most of her time running around and exploring.

At the Todai buffet there was a chocolate fountain that you dip skewered fruit into. Ji-Ae was very interested in licking off the chocolate, but not so interested in eating the fruit.

"Hey! Who licked all the chocolate off my fruit??"

Here is a nicely sculptured watermelon. Back in the days when I used to cook, I could cut butterflies out of carrots.

Here are some of the Hwamyeong staff who I went to dinner with a while ago. The main reason I included this picture is because that white necked bottle on the left is $60 sake (Japanese rice wine). It tasted around 10% better than $5 sake.

As the weather warms up, house parties are more common among the English teaching community. I didn't know whose house this was, but it was a good time. There were around 30 of us crammed into a single room. The cops politely asked us to leave at around 1am and we obliged.

Here are Jef's friends, Maria Kwak (top), who is a CDI trainer in Seoul and Jennifer Esterline (bottom) who is an adoptee and designs mobile phones for Nokia.

Someone recently told me that I always make that face when I pose for cameras. Is it true?

Last post I was talking about how I landed a promotion at CDI. Now I have more responsibilities and am a little busier, but I'm enjoying it overall. Now I work in the office at the human resources department and interview new teachers as well as look after the April English program. This is part of the whiteboard in our office, showing our timeline for recruiting new teachers for the fall term. We have to bring in 30 new teachers by August 25th.


Korea is a little further ahead of Australia in terms of gadgets and things. My housekey and traffic card are microchip systems, rather than the aging technology I used back home. I shot this video last week of the fingerprint identification system that deactivates the alarm at my new workplace. Much cooler and more convenient than punching in a number password.

One of my co-workers, Kelly Park has decided to escape from the chaos and travel the world with her boyfriend, Joon Son. This is their travel plan over the next few years. Amazing, isn't it?

If any readers are living in any of these destinations and would like to help out two Koreans looking for part-time work, get in touch. They're not afraid to get their hands dirty and you'll find that they are overqualified for most positions. Joon was the previous CEO of the 13 CDI schools down here.

And for me the wheels of destiny are also turning. Recently I was accepted into Seoul National University for a doctoral program in biotechnology. I had declined a PhD offer in Australia in order to come to Korea, but it has always lingered in the back of my mind. Soon I will be traveling to Seoul to have a look at the campus, but my decision still isn't final. I really like the company that I currently work for and it does have an interesting set of challenges. I get more fulfillment from a place where I'm needed, rather than a place where I'm supposed to be.
If that makes any sense.

For the meantime, I've contacted the department head at SNU and deferred the position until January. Exciting times.

Last weekend was the 2008 Boryeong Mud Festival. I went last year and blogged it, but I decided to go again this year. Shiraz Moe, a fellow teacher in Busan, was nice enough to organise the whole trip for us, including booking the hotel and coach bus. So on Saturday morning, 30 English teachers congregated at the agreed meeting place and set off for the west coast of Korea.

It was a six hour journey. Along the highways of Korea there are numerous small towns that make their living from operating large rest stops. They are all very similar and have a cafeteria, some shops and high capacity toilets. The food available is so homogeneously identical that sometimes you wonder if you've traveled far at all.

Over the course of the day, coach buses and cars will continuously stream in. The cafeterias are set up to take your order and feed you within 20 minutes, which is the standard coach bus waiting time.

Erick was rummaging through the back alleys of the convenience store and found these curious oddities. They're called Dick Sticks.

He quipped "I wouldn't know what they'd taste like. "

On the way we also stopped off at the Hite beer factory. Hite is Korea's biggest brewer and holds 55% of the market share for domestic beer products. If you look closely in this photo, that worker in the middle has a patch over his eye. He might have been a beer pirate.

A woman from the company began to take us on a tour, but she couldn't speak any English. She called out and asked if anyone could translate for her. So Emily went up to the front and began translating a whole bunch of Hite facts for us. A bottle of beer takes 30 days from start to finish and the factory produces 1000 bottles per minute.

Then we walked around the factory, with Emily still translating along the way. Although she had never been a tour guide before, no one could tell. The real tour guide would whisper the information in her ear and then she'd announce it to the crowd.

This is what we looked like. There were so many of us that the ones at the back couldn't hear anything. I don't know why Erick is smiling like that. Maybe he just ate another one of his sticks.

This is a wax sculpture of Park Ji-Sung, a Korean who plays for Manchester United. He's wildly popular amongst elementary schoolers here. He is also a spokesperson for Hite beer.
Now that's an interesting combination.

This is the factory floor, with kilometres of conveyor belts winding their way through mechanical boxes and checkpoints. The factory was closed for the day, so everything was in suspended animation.

And here's where all the action happens - the beer master control room. If you work in this room, you literally have the power to stop and start the rivers of beer as it moves around the factory. It also has alerts for when there's not enough beer, which of course would be a critical situation. I like to imagine there's a place like this somewhere in my head.

And here are the kegs, ready to be shipped off to the happy dining tables of Koreans enjoying BBQ all over the country. I forgot how many litres of beer per day they make, but it was an impressive number.

Then at the end of the tour they gave us free unlimited beer, which was nice. We all got tanked up, with the beer being much crisper than normal. When we all got on the bus later, it wasn't long before half of us were begging the bus driver for a pee stop.

Here's Emily, with a well-earned beer after her tour guiding. Hite actually tastes pretty much identical to the two other major Korean beer brands, which are Oriental Brewery and Cass.

And here's Heather posing with her beer. She's saying to the LKB readers "A Hite a day keeps the doctor away."

In the same area they were selling this shirt, of which I bought the last one. It contains an interesting misprint and reads "Let's drink fresh teste of the Hite. Hite is our new good friend." I don't know how much of a good friend I am, but I don't have that kind of devotion. We actually told the lady behind the counter what it translated to and she was surprised. I think they'll fix it up for the next print run.

And here we are at the end of a long day of factory-touring. In the background is a wax sculpture of Jang-dong Gwan, a famous Korean movie actor.

I'll split this post up so that it wouldn't be too long. When I have time next I'll pick up where I left off and continue with the rest of the Mud Festival weekend.

See you soon!