The Tower of Seoul

Ahhh, last post of November. Another year has almost past, and by that time I'll have been here 6 months. I'm still looking for exciting new things to experience and post about on this here blog, but it's just a little slow. Sorry about that.

I did see one of the most popular tourist attractions of Seoul a weekend ago, so this should make a good post. What I saw was the large tower which looms above the city of Seoul, called Namsan tower.

This trip didn't start great, due to the fact that I decided to stay out until 8 a.m. on the morning that I was getting up at 9 a.m. to go to Seoul. Real smart, me, real smart. Anyway, I got up at 9 and met my Irish friend Michael to head to Seoul. He's a friend who got here only a few weeks ago, and we made the trip for two purposes: one to eat mexican food, and the other to meet his friend Mariah from Sweden and see where the day takes us.

As soon as we got to Seoul we went to one of my favorite spots, called COEX Mall. This place has my favorite book store and mexican food restaurant in Seoul. Needless to say the books and mexican food were great.

After, we made our way to the Namsan which involved a couple of subway trains and a long walk up a hill. Along the way I passed my favorite piece of art I have seen in Seoul, this biker with a streaky paint finish. It reminds me of something I would try to make.

This is a picture of the tower and the daunting hill we walked up. It was nice they had a cable car to take us to the base of the tower, which was a life (and time) saver.

Here's a pic of my friend Michael and his (my new) friend Mariah. She's nearly six feet tall.

I decided to get my picture taken with these two giant teddy bears outside of some kind of teddy bear museum or store or something. I thought the picture turned out well.

This tower place is built up as very romantic. In fact, one can purchase a lock (or bring their own), write their own and their lover's name on it, and lock it around this chain link fence. It was really ridiculous how many were up there. There was yard after yard of these fences with locks on them. Locks locked to locks for locks upon locks upon locks. I joked that I was going to come up one more time with a bobby pin, start trying to pick some, and see how long it takes for the cops to be called. I wouldn't really do it because I'm sure all of the relationships associated with the locks would then be doomed.

This is one of my favorites. I think it's Italian.

We decided to not spend the money to actually travel all the way up to the top of the tower since it was a super gloomy day. Because of this I didn't get any very good pictures, and I'll most likely have to go back again some day. It also started raining a little so it was time to get out of there. We opted out of the cable car ride down the hill and had to go down this stairway with thousands of steps. By the time we were down I was almost physically unable to make the motion of going down steps, although going upstairs strangely still felt OK.

Here's a picture of a cabbage garden I thought I would thrown in just to illustrate how strange this country can be.

So the day ended well, we spent some time at this huge 0utdoor market which I forgot the name of. I wish that I needed something while I was there because I'm sure they would have had it. We stopped for some coffee on the way out to try to counteract my increasingly incoherent speech due to the one hour of sleep, and then we were on our way back home. All in all, a nice day.

Some Paintings

So I guess it's once again been about a week since any postings were put up here. Oops. I'm working on getting a few up before November is over. For now I have a few more paintings to post.

This first one I wanted to make look like a tunnel with a light at the end of it. I think it turned out pretty well. Here is "Tunnel Light":

One of my interests lately has been in fractals, which is a geometric shape that can be split into parts that are similar on different size scales. That's not the best explanation, but check out the wikipedia link if you are interested.

Anyway this is a painting I made with a hexagonal shape I like a lot, and then in the center of the hexagonal shapes is a repeat of what is around it. I think this one turned out OK, I'm not super happy with the colors I chose. It's just an experiment on paper, so no big deal.

"Fractal One":

And, a zoomed in view:
One more zoomed in view:

Mascots: Daejeon Edition

So my recent trip to Daejeon yielded some pretty good mascots, and by good I mean super crazy. These mascots are so good that I had a lot of trouble coming up with what they should say. Therefore, if any reader thinks they have a better line for a mascot, please post in the comments. Anyway, please enjoy Mascots: Daejeon Edition.

"I spit on your food to cook it!"

"My wife makes just the tastiest little babies"

"(singing) Oh, I lost my old job, at the WB, and now I am here where nobody seeeeeees"

"You know you can trust a bird with a human head"

"I can't believe I have to share the side of a tiny van with this guy!"

"I am your lord and savior, Jejas Ka Ree Soo Too"

Beautiful Daejeon

Well, this all happened two weeks ago Sunday when I decided to get out of Seosan for a day and visit the fifth largest city of Korea. The destination was Daejeon, located close to the center of the country, and home to booming tech and research industries.

I put the trip together pretty shortly before I left, so it wasn't really thoroughly planned. I had done reading on wikipedia, etc. about the city and read about a large park called Expo Park where an international exposition was held in 1993. Daejeon Museum of Art is also on the Expo Park grounds, so I figured this was good enough to kill a few hours.

I got to Daejeon at about noon, and this was when I encountered a problem. I arrived at the bus terminal in the city and found absolutely no information about how to get to the park in my native language. I walked the area around the bus terminal for a while and didn't see anything, then asked a random guy in the bus station hoping he spoke English. Luckily, he spoke a little bit and pointed me in a somewhat right direction.

His directions were to walk down the street and turn right to find a bus, so I walked down there and didn't see much. Luckily again, I found a tourist hotel and talked to the desk worker. He showed me a bus map, told me which bus numbers would go to the park, and also where the bus stop was.

So this was another misdirection because none of the buses that went to the stop I was at where on the list he gave me. Bummer. This was when I decided to just hail a taxi, and I was on my way.

I made it the park grounds, and it felt deserted. I went to a restaurant that staffed five people, and was one of four people eating there at 1:30 in the afternoon. The grounds were interesting because all of the giant monuments, but the fact that they were nearly deserted was my favorite part.

Wandering around the empty grounds gave me the feeling that this would be a great location for a zombie movie. I would walk around the various landmarks being chased by slow moving flesh hunting villains. Just in time, I would grab one of the umbrellas pictured above and use it as an implement to bludgeon the demons in the head.

I would then find this deserted tram to ride to safety, having to throw the zombies off of the tram who had found a way to get on.

Anyway, zombie movie aside, the park was a nice place. One of my favorite parts was Expo Bridge, which I had to walk over to get to the art museum. This city did some smart planning by putting a running track and park right next to the river, making for a very pleasant walk.

I walked over the bridge and then past this giant roof structure, and found that the planner of the park lined up the roof, the bridge, and Hanbit Tower (part of the grounds). Thanks for the nice picture, guy!

Right behind that ever so great picture was a massive paved area which was most likely a parking lot during the expo. Now it's an area used to rent out bikes and motor powered vehicles to small children. It was fun to watch, so I picked up a corn dog and a beer and chilled out there, drinking beer in public in front of children.

The area near the museum was nice, with this fountain walkway. It was a brisk fall afternoon, so I had to time my walk to miss the spray.

The art museum was OK, there was a giant space-themed exhibit going on which was a little bland. They did have these cool tiled space invaders put in random spots throughout the museum.

This was a giant room devoted to a projection screen and an image of a rock floating up and down above the sea bed. I decided to become a part of this art with my silhouette.

This was one where you walk in front of a camera, and you can see yourself on a screen with images of you being staggered behind you at a few frames per second. I tried to get a picture of it, but it's tough to try to pose while holding the camera and taking a picture of the screen.

It did end up being a nice day, Daejeon had already seen many of its trees change colors.

I decided to talk all the way back to the bus station from the park, which had been a ten or so minute taxi ride. It made for a nice trip, also because I walked on many side streets and found a lot of great restaurant mascots, so expect a mascot post in the near future.

One of the strangest things about this city was that in my five or so hours I spent there, I didn't see a single other non-Korean person. I figured I would see some since the city has about a million and a half people and there should theoretically be a lot. I guess I just didn't visit the areas they hang out in.

A Few Random Things

So posts have been scarce around here; I know it's been maybe a week without one. I guess I've been pretty and then when I feel like I should write one I'm like oh maybe I'll watch an episode of South Park first. Then it never happens. Anyway, I've got about five posts planned for this week so I hope everyone checks back soon.

I went back to check on the bicycle that I reclaimed from the river, and it was gone. I checked back one week later so I imagine either the owner got it or it was stolen.

We're entering the pleasant fall season in Korea, so the leaves have changed. There's some nice colors to enjoy and some great pictures to be had, so I'm going to try to find them. Here's one with some brilliant coloring:

On my way back from checking on the bicycle I went through this park with these really great trees. They all grow needles at the top so it makes a canopy to walk under. These trees don't come up straight when they grow, either. Many of them have a spiral to their stature which makes it really neat to walk through this park.

I also found these crazy squirrels in the park. They're regular looking squirrels for the most part, but then they have these crazy ears with hair that stands way up and looks like rabbit ears. Here's two together:

And a close-up:

Anyway, check back soon and I'll try to post some interesting stuff.

A Bike Adventure

A strange thing happened to me on Saturday, when I saw this bike that had been thrown down in a ravine, see below:

This little bike, most likely meant for a girl aged 10 to 15, decked out in a pink paint job with a sweet basket on the front, was down there. I can't be sure exactly what it was doing down there, but my guess is that some jerk, possibly drunken, grabbed the bike and just threw it down there. Here's a view from the opposite side.

I became somewhat obsessed with getting this bike out the ravine. I began sizing up how I could do it, possibly just climb down there and try to throw it back up was one of my first thoughts. It was down there probably 4 or 5 meters from street level, so that would have to be one hell of a throw.

It eventually became obvious to me that I would need some rope to hoist it out of there. Luckily, there were poles which used to hold up a fence right near the edge of the rocks (if you squint you can see them in the picture above).

I decided I was going to get some rope, repel down the side of the rocks, tie one end to the bike, and climb my way back up with the help of the rope. Somehow, this plan went off without a hitch, and I managed to pull the bike back up pretty easily. It was covered in weeds and stuff because it had rained a lot the night before and some water may have flowed over it or something.

I decided not to keep the bike due to it being both pink, and having a lock on the back tire. Anyway, here the bike is now, right next to the bridge over the river where it had lived the night before. I didn't bother to clean all of the weeds off of it because I thought if the owner got her bike back she would be happy enough that a few weeds on the bike wouldn't really affect her. My friend Ben suggested that maybe the girl hated her bike and ditched it so that her parents would have to buy her a new one. I think I like this idea a lot of some little girl thinking her bike is haunted and reappearing. Whatever happens, I hope the owner gets it back.

4 Months Down

As most who read this blog know, I had my four month anniversary of living in Korea a few days ago. It's been a lot of good times, good memories, some annoyances, and some strange/absurd/wtf type things. To commemorate my four months here, I'm going to talk about this category of these situations.

Here are 5 of my top strange/absurd/wtf situations in Korea:

1. Mothers and daughters holding hands

This is definitely one of my favorite things about Korea. Whenever I walk through town and through the market I always see mothers and daughters (of all ages really) walking and holding hands.

I think this stems from how it is customary for a child to live with their parents until they either get married or go to college. If they finish college and don't get married or a job somewhere else, they move back in. This means that there are countless 20 something and even 30 something girls living with their mothers. Whenever they go out to the market, they hold hands. It's really cute.

2. The bug bomb car

My town, Seosan, has a way of controlling bugs (though it doesn't seem to do much) where they have trucks and motorcycles outfitted with a fogger on them. These vehicles then drive around the streets, often leaving a giant cloud of noxious fumes on the sidewalks. Let me rephrase that, giant sometimes inescapable clouds of noxious fumes on the sidewalks. A few times I have been walking down a street or sidewalk and one of these trucks drives by to leave me with no choice but to duck off the side of the road and stay low. Here are some pictures I stole off my friend Lisa's facebook album:

3. Fan Death.

I have written about this before, and it still just boggles my mind.

4. I only have to walk three blocks to get an octopus

This is one of the great things about where I live is that I am just a few minute walk from a really great outdoor seafood market. They sell other things, but this market is pretty famous for having great seafood. I think I can get about anything there, buy my favorite things to look at and dream about buying are the octopus.

This market is a great place to just walk through and see some interesting sights. From the seafood, various other street foods, art, and clothing, there is a lot to look at. Possible the strangest thing to see at the market is an old lady who has been working a job which requires her to bend over so much that she is permanently bent. There are literally dozens of these ladies at the market whose permanent posture is now bent over at the waist looking directly at the ground. I would take a picture of them but I feel bad.

5. People never look where they are going when walking

One time, while driving my little sister's then new Volkswagen Jetta, I was on the backroads at night and encountered some deer standing by the side of the road. They were stopped, and I proceeded very slowly by them in an attempt to not strike them with the vehicle. While passing one of the deer, it started running before looking the direction it was moving and bumped its head directly into the side mirror on the car.

For some reason I will never understand, this is exactly what happens with Korean people on the street, them being the deer and me being the car. There will be a group of people talking, and one will say goodbye and leave while walking off and not looking where they are going. This leads to a lot of bump ins between them and me. It's really stupid. People, please look before you walk.

Swine Flu and More Halloween, Too

So the storm of swine flu has reached Korea, and the fear has reached ridiculous heights. My worst fear has happened, every teacher is now required to wear a mask while at work. Come on. Seriously? I consider wear a mask to be more inconvenient that getting a light case of the flu for a few days. Besides, it's actually pretty important that the kids have the ability to see our mouths while we are speaking.

One possible bright side: the schools in the area might close in order to stop the spreading. I would not mind one bit having a week off. So, do I dare say hooray swine flu?

And here is me in a mask, in case anyone was wondering.

Does it help bring out my blue eyes?

I just have to say why, Chorizo, why did you have to bring this terrible curse on the world?

OK, I'll lighten the mood with pictures of some halloween activities. For all of my afternoon classes last Friday I had them paint some little oranges with acrylic paint to look like jack-0-lanterns. There is no better way to kill a half an hour.

Age 8 kids

One of my favs from that class

Age 9 kids, who seem to lack any creativity.

Age 11 kids

another favorite

and another good one

One of the strange things I've noticed is the fact that in general the smart kids who study hard show little to no creativity, while the horrible students make the great art work. Have any other teachers noticed this?