::A Geek in Korea::

A couple was celebrating their anniversary, and asked us to come along on a train/bus tour of the southern region of Korea, specifically Jeollanamdo, an area I’ve never been to before due to it’s remote nature. We got in on the tour, and set off early Saturday for our adventure.

We went to an AMAZING Green Tea Farm. Bosung is the home to the most famous Korean green tea, and it happens to be my favorite strong green tea. My wife and I had been planning for YEARS to try to see this place, but due to it’s remote location and poor transportation access, couldn’t go before this trip. It was really pretty. Good enough that I’ll even forgive them for this:

Green tea ice cream soft serve.

The tour itinerary stated, “You’ll never forget the first time you taste green tea ice cream.” It’s not nasty, but it’s not really very good. Green tea really doesn’t need it’s own flavor of ice cream, but it exists, and I’ve now eaten it.

This was the best time to go to this region of Korea. The flowers and trees were in bloom, and it was CRAWLING with tourists. Everywhere we went there was an insane crush of people and it wasn’t easy getting around. Our bus was a modified mini academy school bus, so the seats were not designed for long haul travel. It was extremely uncomfortable to ride around it from location to location.

We ended the first night at Jiri Mountain, which was two hours out of our way, at least. There was a mediocre hot spring resort that had the standard “Hot Water, Cold Water, Hot Room, Hotter room” nude bathing only sort of set up. It was okay, but there are probably better resorts in Daejeon to try if I was really into the nude bathing thing.

After the sauna, we headed back to our hotel for dinner. We ate as a group. They served fish with a lot of different side dishes. There was a lot to eat, but our group tried to finish off everything we could. We actually ate more than the rest of the Korean groups on our tour, but not out of any effort to try to show people up. One of the people on the group thanked us for eating all the Korean food, as if this was a new experience. The two foreigners I was traveling with have also been here for a while, so we take new foods in stride without even considering it special anymore.

The room in the hotel was “Korean style”, which means no bed, only a series of thick matresses on a floor. Since there was no bed, our friends took a blanket out to a pagoda that was a block away near a parking lot. We had late evening picnic with wine and snacks. They slept out on the pagoda, while we returned to the hotel. The wake up call for the next day was 3 AM! We didn’t have long to sleep before we started out on the next leg of the trip.

Check out the pictures in the newly added Flickr group!

My last class is a group of high school students I won’t teach in a few weeks. We usually only have two days of class, and I guess some of the students get the memo we had class today. The one student that showed up told me that she’d be going to Cambodia tomorrow. Seeing as no one else was going to show up, and I had BEEN to Cambodia, that became our new topic of discussion.I brought the student into the teacher’s room and pulled up the Flickr set that I had spent time editing. I wanted to give her names to recommend temples to see and advice how to get around.

She knew I had been to Cambodia, probably because I couldn’t stop talking about it whenever someone brings it up. She told me she’d be there for five days, and that they’d be going on a tour. She told her parents about my advice to see the temples backpacking and making your own way as the best way to see the Seim Reap area. Her parents are weary travelers and didn’t think it was “safe” enough for the family to go that route.

Instead they’ll go on a tour and get ripped off at every turn by the guide. Her parents said that on their “Free day” they’d even pay the guide to take them around to different places instead of doing their own thing. She was really annoyed her parents weren’t willing to be more adventurous. I told her NEVER to let go of the Angkor Wat visitor pass, as it would mean she would be locked out of seeing anything on her own. As long as her parents took care of that pass, they could get their own tuk-tuk and do a side trip to see stuff if they got a change of heart.

I also passed along the advice of the Cambodians I talked to: “Korean guides run scams everywhere they go, and if they translate for you at a market or shop, they get a cut of every transaction. They try to rip you off while claiming to be your best friend.”

I told her that every market and ever vendor speaks English in the tourist areas, so don’t let the guides handle anything for you involving money. It was certainly true when we visited. The markets were persistent in their haggling, and if you wanted a deal they’d work with you. I imagine the premium for even arriving somewhere in a foreign owned tour bus is a 50% price increase.  I don’t even blame vendors for trying to scam them, as the Korean tours don’t spread enough money into the local communities due to the guides owning every stop along the way.

Despite my negative feelings about Korean tours, I gave her a few hints and told her the coolest places we saw. She’s a very adventurous girl. If she takes some of my advice and gets her family to explore a bit on her own, that would be awesome. I’ll bring in my Cambodian tour book to see if she recalls any of the sights.

(not my flickr)

Korean road trip! Some friends of my wife had a son that was going to Australia to study. Someone decided to make this an excuse for a road trip to a Sokri mountain two hours away from Daejeon by car. Little did we know there was a giant Buddhist complex to visit called Beopchu temple.

We went to a traditional Korean restaurant and ate a huge meal. I met the group my wife’s been hanging out with on the weekends, and their teacher. He’s a really nice man who speaks English fluently. Not only that, but some of my friends also came along. We had a nice walk to the temple chatting.

The most astounding thing at the temple was the giant 33 meter tall gold plated Buddha. The original statue had it’s construction stopped when the Japanese invaded Korea. They later completed a second version in concrete, then spent 4,500 man hours improving the statue complex. Then they sprayed 80 kg of gold in a 3 micron thin layer over the entire statue. There was a museum in it’s base, and an even shiner Buddha below hidden from the weather. Unfortunately, that statue hadn’t been dedicated yet, so it was partially covered.

The temples and buildings reminded me of Bulguksa. Beopchusa is closer, but I don’t know if you can reach it easily without a car. I’m scouting out new places to take my friends when they come to Korea. I might want to switch up the tour, since my parents were really tired from running around all of Korea. If we could go to a few places that are closer that would keep down the travel time while still giving them the flavor of Korea.

After the trip, we all went to Bennigan’s. We had a giant order, and even got desert. Cursing our swollen stomachs, I invited everyone back to our apartment. I hadn’t expected everyone to take me up on the offer! I needed to do something for the entertainment. I fired up Wii Sports, and got someone to make a character. Two minutes later, we were playing Tennis and everyone was having a blast trying to burn off the calories we had put on during dinner.

We played Wii Sports for 90 minutes! People that had never played a video game in their life got to try, and they were hooked. The older teacher said that he really liked bowling, as it was very true to life. He’d be able to play it at home on his own. Three of the couples present said that they’d buy the console simply because they watched us play and had that much fun with it.

My wife and I suggested holding off to a Korean launch so they could find it cheaper. People were asking where we got it online, and even the markup we mentioned wasn’t dampening their enthusiasm. I hope no one goes buying a Japanese version by mistake, because that doesn’t come with Wii Sports. The “everyone’s welcome” intuitive approach to gaming really works.

I need to buy some Nintendo stock. I’m their best salesman in the city.

I send a message to my director last night to ask when I was supposed to go to work today. I wanted to arrive on time for the intensive classes starting this week. It turns out that there are no classes today, and that no one had passed the message on to me. My director said that she had posted a notice on the elevator about the classes being canceled, in Korean. Oops, I thought that was about the elevator being out of order or something. An extra day of vacation? How best to spend it? TO SEOUL! I braved the wind and snow to make a trip for more media to last me through winter.

With the Wii game I’m looking forward to release 2 months away, and Yongsan electronics market only selling Japanese Wii games or pirated stuff, I didn’t think my probability for success was going to be very high. I wanted to get a Classic Controller for the Wii so that I could play Virtual Console games and not worry about having the right controller all the time. While the games I have work with a Wiimote (NES and Megadrive games) or a Wavebird controller (N64 games), the “Classic” controller works will all games on the Virtual Console regardless of their system of origin. This means I don’t have to worry about controllers anymore when I’m thinking about purchasing a Virtual Console title. I’m going to get a few more retro games in the future once I finish Paper Mario on the VC.

My second purchase was Worms Open Warfare 2 for the Nintendo DS. My friend recommended this game to me, and after looking into it, I started looking for it immediately. I stress that I was looking for “Open Warefare 2″, as the FIRST game in the series is utter shit. No one in Daejeon had Open Warfare 2, but the first place I checked in Seoul had a used copy. The only one in the whole market it turns out. Sweet. I gave it a good long play while I was on the train coming back to Daejeon and this is a solid game for Worms fans like myself. It’s Wifi enabled, so I’ll be able to challenge my friend and kick some worm ass. Worms Open Warfare 2 might just be the best “length of time it takes to use the toilet” strategy game ever. For a used game, this is an absolute STEAL. Pick this up if you see it.

I picked up a few books too. Free Culture, and I am Legend. They should keep me busy a few weeks.

The ride home on the slower speed train was interesting. I was sat next to a mother and her two young kids. The girl was just walking, while the boy was under six with a Nintendo DS. The mother sat the boy next to me, and encouraged him to play a game together. He had a Korean version of the New Super Mario Brothers, but whatever was going on, his would absolutely not link with my system wirelessly. Sometime on the two hours back to Daejeon he dropped his stylus and the entire train was searched up and down for this piece of plastic by his very stressed mother. I calmed her nerves by telling her she could get a replacement pack of stylus cheaply at any game store. She was very relieved she didn’t have to worry about the boy scratching up his screen.

I’m not planning on staying up late for the New Year, but for those that do, ring in 2008 with a bang for me!

Tags: Wii, Seoul, Yongsan, Train, DS, Nintendo, Worms, Wiimote, Classic Controller

Paris! Mimes! Snooty waiters! People with fashionable clothing! Lots of stinking cheeses and delicious wines! Serial rapist skunks!

Paris is a lot of things, but it wasn’t the land of stereotypes I was expecting. The entire trip, I didn’t see a single mime. Of course, Marceau Marcel is dead. Perhaps they were all in silent mourning somewhere. It would be silent, I suppose.

In fact, the waiters won’t exceptionally snooty, the people were only somewhat fashionable (London beats them hands down), and the fromage store was definitely pungent, but often closed and avoidable. We didn’t have any wine, but I’m sure it was delicious if you had the budget.

The bakery we went to for the tart above was not far from the Musee d’Orsay. Paris had delicious baked goods, but this was a luxurious place that mostly served exquisitely delicate looking desserts. Walking down the case made me drool. All the bakeries we visited in Paris were exceptionally good, but this was by far the best snack I had on the trip. It also cost like 2.85 Euro, so it better be good.

Outside the subway station, directly across from where we were eating this delicious treat was a homeless man begging for change. He was one of the few beggars not using a dog to gain sympathy in Paris. We were also being attacked by pigeons. Rather than let the delicious treat be soiled by a bird, I bravely ate it all. Someone has to be a hero at times like these.

After Paris, there was nothing left to do but to get on a plane, head back to Hong Kong, and then get to Incheon Airport as swiftly as possible. The flight returning only had 93 people on board, so we all had a row to ourselves. It was splendid. I finally discovered how you can have a comfortable flight: Remove more than 75% of the other passengers.

All in all, our trip was great, with no major difficulties. Regularly scheduled programing may now resume.

Most of the pictures from the German set are in the Lego store in the city of Cologne. I’m not actually someone that has space, or time, to play with Lego anymore. Sure, if someone donated thousands of dollars worth of Lego, I might play with them, but I’m much too busy and too little patience to build, say, the Death Star, or the Millennium Falcon.

I was given permission to get anything in the store, as long as I could carry it with me. This is the same mandate I made with every purchase my wife got. She could get anything she wanted, as long as she was willing to carry it to the next city. I settled on some magnets, and later in the day I ended up with a book too.

By this time, the trip was winding down, and the baguettes were getting mighty stale. Next stop, Paris!

Switzerland was the most amazingly friendly place ever. People would walk around with smiles on their faces. This is very different than Korea.

The last time I saw that in Korea was when they were sitting on the top of the World Cup standings for their group in 2002. People would walk around grinning all the time. If you tried smiling at people all the time now, people would look at you like you had a mental problem.

Not only that, but when you got lost in Switzerland, you only had to hold open a map for a minute before people would stop, ask you where you wanted to go, then walk with you to the location explaining the sights along the way. Not only that, but they could probably explain the directions in four different languages.

Koreans have developed GPS devices in their phones, possibly because they don’t want to have to ask strangers on the street directions at any time. They also avoid people with maps most of the time.

It’s the subtle things like that remind you that you are on vacation.

Around 30 kilometers outside of Rome, about an hour away by crowded bus, we ended up in Tivoli. We had finished up Rome early, so we had a day to spend walking around in the glorious fountains of Villa d’Este.

As confusing as that picture I included in this post might be in regards to sexuality, this one has it topped.

There are so many works of art to see in Europe that after a while you really stop being able to process them all. It’s hard to appreciate thousands of years of history laid out before you in easy walking distance from major subway lines.

Thus, I present to you, the “Sarcastic Art edition” of my Flickr Photo sets. Look at classical art with snarky, sarcastic titles. This will cover the art of Rome and the Vatican City portions of our trip.

I’m of the opinion that Venice, Italy can sink into the sea as quickly as it wants. I feel guilty that by spending my tourist dollars there, I might have prolonged the amount of time that the city can act as a dirty, tourist trapping maze.

I cringe as I think of that labyrinth sucking in people and spitting them out with empty wallets, oversized Louis Vuitton bags that will be eventually covered in pigeon shit. No one can escape the pox of designer stores and flying rats that infest that city.

On the other hand, it does look charming in pictures. That’s when you ignore the logistics required just to go anywhere for a decent shot.

Florence was like a crowded, more expensive version of Prague with a kick ass huge church. The art gallery was the only one with a stick up it’s ass about security though, and their lines were exaggerated. People expected too much, following the Simpson logic of “If the line’s THIS long, it’s got to be good.” It was alright.

Next up, Rome!