나는, 외국인

Mad rush time again.

2011-12-20T12:00:00.000+09:00

It is the week before Christmas and as can you would imagine things are getting crazy. NOT.

Life is going on as usual. The shops are no busier than they normally are. Here are no more people in the streets than there would be every day. I suspect that on Saturday evening the only reason Icheon will be busy will be because it is Saturday and people will be out doing what they always do on a Saturday evening. No mad rush to buy presents. No stressed workers trying to help frantic shoppers while keeping the isles clear of the rubbish everyone throws down the moment they realize that this it is not what they are looking for.

I love Christmas in Korea

For Heavens Sake! Will…

2011-12-14T12:00:00.000+09:00

…someone please kick someone! =D

…someone please show me how to do that?

Dosirak

2011-12-13T12:00:00.000+09:00

This morning on the way to school I was listening to the BBC News Podcast and one of the segments was about lunch boxes in Japan. Unlike Korea, Japan is very serious about making the food look precise and beautiful. In Korea the presentation is very lose at the best of times. At the worst of times everything is just thrown in to the same pot, literally.

As luck would have it I watched an Eat Your Kimchi clip today about making a Korean lunch box. In the clip the mention that the lunchbox is called Dosirak. My experience with Dosirak is a stupid service which I had to use to get a ringtone on my old LG phone on KT. Not a pleasant memory. Turns out I actually have better experiences of this.

My actual real first experience, without knowing that it was called, was when we went to a restaurant and the people who ordered the item that ZenKimchi describes in this post. They also told me it was their school lunches and how they would take their metal tins and put it on the heaters in the class rooms to heat up their food (if they actually managed to not eat it already). I must say I am currently considering making my own dosirak rather than eat school lunches.

I have also had less pleasant but acceptable experience with the kind that you buy in large numbers to feed a group. The kind that FatManSeoul describes here is pretty close to what I learned to associate with Dosirak.

What I would love to have though is the kind shown in the main photo. For more amazing lunch boxes that I am sure would make even the Japanese envious, have a look at the images on this Google search.

The funny and norty

2011-12-10T12:00:00.000+09:00

I had my finger down and was taking a burst. Within a couple of seconds the photos went from her looking directly at me, seeing something, opening her mouth as of to say “Aaah!” and going in to the pout. No idea what was going on, but it made for a nice photo.

The artist was talking to her friend, I think, and the model was just sitting like this to make it easier to paint. But, with burst mode again, I managed to get a few shots that on their own did not really tell the whole story. I leave it up to you to create your own story for this shot.

Love the people in the background.

The model was looking around for something and with my oh so trustworthy burst mode I managed to get this shot of her looking bewildered in my direction. the photo makes it seem like she is thinking: “Hey! What the f*** are you doing?!”

This photo was just to good to resist. Everyone was staring or at least swinging their heads back.

The girls does not have a bad butt at all, but what made this photo for me was the towel that seems to be covering … nothing

Every man there wanted THAT job. Well, all the men like me who like butts. This particular model had rather large breasts, as you can see. The Korean photographers were crowding to get photos of the big breasted foreign women =D

Yes, these two are total perv photos. Like I said in an earlier post, anyone who thinks hat body painting is all art and no erotica is kidding themselves.

That is it for the photos from the Daegu International Body Painting Festival. More in my Flickr set.

Holy Model Painting

2011-12-09T12:00:00.001+09:00

This might be my favourite image of the whole event. At this early point in the process the model still looked like she was getting a bit of an Hindu/Buddhist design. The fan in the background was positioned in such a way that every so often, if the artist was out of the way, it would turn and make it look like the model had halo. Took me about 10 minutes of waiting to get this shot.

Consumes be done.

2011-12-08T12:00:00.000+09:00

The consume section was finished long before the body painting section. (I did not stay for he body painting results, because I was sun burned and wanted to make sure I would get on a bus back home).

The model in the main photo was done long before any other model, and the way she was positioned made it generally easy to get nice photos of her. This is not my favourite photo of her, but it is one that shows a lot of her costume.

The second photo is the Japanese entry. Looks good, bit not very imaginative, I’d say. The third entry was my favourite. Not very risky, but I still liked it. Here the model was being led to the stage for the public presentation. The last entry was a bit weird, in a good way. The make-up on her eyes forms another set of large open eyes when the model closes hers. More photos on my Flickr set of the event.

Here’s looking at you, Photographer.

2011-12-07T12:00:00.000+09:00

Today's post contains a few photos of the models posing at the face painting and consume section. I mentioned before that I preferred this section. The artists in this section seemed to have a clearer understanding of what was supposed to be going on. they weren’t just using models as canvases that happened to be curved.

The first model in here was not only gorgeous, but also a delight to photograph. She would ofen look at the cameras and smile. Every time she did it I would nod my head and mouth “Thank You” at her. I think this helped because every time I cane round their area again she would look at the camera, do little poses and even show me the latest additions :)

The second model was not looking at the camera in that particular shot, but I decided that I preferred that one to the one where se was indeed looking at me.

The last photo was of a model right next to the one in the main photo, who was almost as friendly and pretty darn cute. I will post another photo of her that I took earlier in the day.

Not so booby

2011-12-06T12:00:00.000+09:00

In this post I only put a few photos in of the artists at the body painting side. There was a section for face painting and costume design as well. Personally I liked that part more. The body painting people were using the models as if they were canvases and not naked bodies ready to be painted. Only one artist did something on her model that would not look perfectly normal on a flat surface. You can see her in the previous post. More photos in my Flickr set.

Boob Painting in Daegu

2011-12-05T12:00:00.000+09:00

I am so far behind in my photos editing and posting, and this post demonstrates just how bad it is.

The Daegu International Body Painting Festival is held in August and only now, in December, am I editing the photos. I took about 600 photos on the day, managed to bring it down to about 250 and ended up posting 80 or so to Flickr. Knowing that I have months of photos to catch up on does not make me all that more willing edit.

The first few photos are of the artists are and the art being created. Yes, I know that in these four I have a lot of boobs, but anyone who says that there is no erotic element to this is lying to themselves. In the photo set I have more photos that are have fewer boobs in them, or you can wait for the 4 I will post tomorrow.

Korean Testicles

2011-10-31T09:00:00.000+09:00

Student: “Teacher…hungry?”
Me: “Yes”
Student: “Lunchee…Bulgogi…Faia Meat”

At first I thought he meant spicy, but most Koreans don’t really get what I say when you call spicy food “hot”. After a few seconds of thinking I realized he meant fire, as in grill. For some reasons Koreans calls bulgogi barbequed meat, but I fail to see why. The meat is boiled with spices and often squid until you won't be able to recognize what it is if it wasn’t for the texture. Aaaaaaanyway…

The name Bulgogi (불고기) is made up of two words Bul (불) translating to “Fire” and Gogi (고기) translating to meat, hence Firemeat. Funny thing is that when you look for Bul in a dictionary, you’ll see that it can also mean scrotum. What is scrotum meat other than testicles? Would cooked testicles also be called Bulgogi in Korea?

Come fly to me

2011-10-28T13:00:00.000+09:00

Your guild is getting ever closer to downing Ragnaros, the final boss in the Firelands raid. On Wednesday we started a fresh run and downed 6/7 bosses and spent the whole of Thursday evening’s session dying to Rag.

At least we are getting closer each time and our main issue at the moment is learning how to handle the last phase. This phase is crazy town, let me tell you. As a healer I have to find a way to stay close to my tanks , keep shields on them, try to find a way to heal and run when I get a debuff that starts doing damage if you stand still for too long AND worry about steering rolling meteors in the right direction when they randomly target me. It is madness, and I am not talking about the long sentence! But that is not what I really want to write about today.

Just before you get to Rag, you have to clear some trash. One of the things that happen is that a sort of fire pool spawns under you, and if you don’t move away before it blows, you are thrown in the air. Normally that would be just annoying, but in this particular case we are standing on a bridge. Nine times out of ten you will be thrown off the bridge and in to the lava for an annoyingly slow, red death. My raid awareness is steadily improving and I am now able spot when I am able to use a spell I didn’t really use before.

Leap of faith is one of the funnest (better than most fun) spells in a Priest’s bag-o-tricks. A when a friendly team member is in range, this spell literally pulls them all the way to you. There is a cool sound effect, the target gets angel wings and they do some fast low flying. It doesn’t look that great if you are the target, but from my side it looks SWEET. It is mostly used in Player vs Player where you will run ahead and pull your flag carrier forwards and out of a fight. (It is also good for annoying people when they are trying to be first back after we all died, but that is a whole other strategy guide.)

Last night I was able to use leap of Faith with afore mentioned trash. One of our healers was standing in the fire. It is not always easy to see when you are in it, but I was able to see that I WAS NOT and she WAS. I targeted her and readied myself to pull her if she did not move fast enough. I didn’t really expect her to get blown in the air because she is usually much better than I am with these things, but when she did get thrown, I went a mashing on my keyboard key for that spell.

What a boring story, you say. Yes, I suppose, but not for the two of us, or at the very least, for me, and lest face it, I am the only one who really matters *wink*. She was blown completely out of my view but I managed to literally pull her out of the air. I watched her get thrown up, start speeding away, disappear off my screen and next thing I knew she was whoooshing to my side, alive and well. That is going in to my book of Sweet Moment in Gaming

It was so good I was a little turned on, and yes, sometimes I am THAT geeky.

Yes, that is a negative.

2011-10-19T15:15:00.000+09:00

Student: “Teacher, we have class today?”
Me: “No.”
Student: “We have class?”
Me: “We don’t have class today.”
Student: “Oh? We don’t have class today?”
Me: “No.”
Student: “Uh? We HAVE class today?”
Me: “No, we don’t have class today.”
Confused Student: “No class?”
Me: “No class.”
Still a little confused Student: “OK. Bye Bye.”

Only after she left did I realize that this was what I had learned last week. See, in Korean, in a situation like this “Yes” will mean something like, “Yes, I agree with you and what you are saying is true.” It amounts to basically saying the opposite of what you would normally want to say in English. A better answer from me would have been…

Student: “Teacher, we have no class today?”
Me: ”Yes” (That is correct. We have no class today.)

Art Binge

2011-10-17T11:00:00.000+09:00

Over the past weekend I was on a bit of an art binge. On Saturday I went to the Seoul Art Center where they have something new every few months. Currently they have an exhibition consisting of work mostly by Korean artists. Many of the artists were present at their allocated spaces and most of the art on display is available for purchase.

The new and improved, one month long Icheon Ceramics Festival is still on and I finally visited the competition display at the re-designed Ceramics Museum (I’m not sure if that is what is it called at the moment.) Along the way I gave my phone and the new instagram app a workout.

Happy.

2011-10-14T15:00:00.000+09:00

“Just after high school a girl asks me ‘what do you want in life?’ My answer was big and lengthy including a large home, cars, money. After I finished, I asked the same question. She answered ‘I just want to be happy.’ That answer had changed my life and still does. Nothing really matters if you're not truly happy.”

That is a post from someone on my Facebook friend list. At first it seemed like such a profound thing to say. It seemed like such a simple, noble goal. However, when I thought for a minute longer I started wondering what “I just want to be happy” means in this context.

My conclusion was that it meant nothing, nothing at all. Everyone wants to be happy. Everyone KNOWS they just want to be happy. No one, when asked what they want in life will say “I hope to be miserable someday.” (Mentally disturbed not included.)

When I ask someone what they want in life, my implied question is “What would help you reach happiness?” When I ask you what you want from life, and you answer me with a list of things, be they material or metaphysical, then you are merely telling me what would make you happy. You’re just answering a very basic life question with more detail. Sure, your idea of what would make you happy might be misguided, or not, but that does not change that fact that you are in essence telling me that you want to be happy and that you think these things would help you achieve that goal.

If someone asks you “What do you want in life?” , feel free to list things because. I’m sure that, just like me, you just want to be happy, but unlike me, you at least have an idea of what you think will work.

*** This post, and an answer like that, does make you think about your current path, and if what you choose to focus on will indeed make you happy. Happiness is a feeling, a feeling you can have right now. Getting things might make you happy, but sometimes getting rid of things might do just as well. Find out why you are not happy first and work on correcting that.

This week in apps

2011-10-08T13:59:00.001+09:00

I've been looking at what was to be found in the app store and needless to say Google's apps were first on the list searches and keeper. All the rest, with the exception of the Amazon app went the way of the bin.

Today I was listening to This Week in Photography and the photographer being interviewed mentioned Instagram and how popular it was. Based on her recommendation I went in search of it.

Imagine my surprise when I found that it was free, and awesome. It let's you take square photos which is always a nice option for phones and then let's you choose from a selection of preset prosessings, all nice.

What I looked most was it's ability ti instantly share the photos. It would seem that all photos taken with Instagram are immediately uploaded to the Instagram website where people can view it. I haven't tried it yet, but it seem that you can do the same for most of the photo sharing sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Service in Korea

2011-09-29T09:00:00.000+09:00

I finally got around to listening to the newest Seoul Podcast. The show was recorded in a Italian restaurant, I think it was Italian, in Seoul. I nearly laughed my butt of when I hear d the live service…

Patrons: “Desert menu, please.”
The waiter hands over a desert menu
The patrons look at the menu where it says “Today’s Desert” and nothing else. They try to establish eye contact with the waiter who is now busy doing other things, supposedly to give them time to ponder there decisions between Today’s Desert and Today’s Desert. Finally they get her attention.
Patrons: “What is today’s desert?”
Waiter: “We don’t have any desert.”

Service in a “Western” Restaurant in Korea.

Kaalvoet oor die Drakensberge

2011-09-20T10:00:00.000+09:00

There is a temple hidden in what I think it called Namsan (South Mountain) in Busan. It is strange that the mountain is called that, because it is in Northern Busan, but that is completely besides the point of this post. This temple is known for having rather large, impressive rock carvings. These carvings are the reason I went to Busan.

For the trip I packed my camera backpack with my camera, lenses and all the extras, like clothes and a a toothbrush . I estimate that this all weighed about 7 kg. Not much, but if you have to carry it, along with a lose tripod for 24km, then it starts working on your legs and shoulders. With this background information, let me give you a quick run-down of how I managed to rack up those miles.

I arrived at the bus station, first time ever, and walked back and forth a few times trying to figure out where I was supposed to go. When I finally found the subway, I headed to Haeundae Beach to look for a place to spend the night. It might be because of the time of year, but the prices were way to high and I am not going to pay 100,000 won just for clean bed. I walked around for a better price. The better price didn’t happen, but the miles did.

With no place to drop off some of the stuff in my bag, I decided to just take the train back to Beomeosa to find the cable car and then the temple for the photo. Station to cable car… another mile or two. By the time I got to the top of the mountain I realized that it might rain, and that I would have to push it to get back to the cable car on time, so not only would I be racking up a few more miles on the mountain itself, but I would be doing so in a hurry. I missed my turn off to the temple and only saw a decent map telling me this when I was nearly at the bottom of the mountain. Great!

At least I now have an alternative route when I go back to get the stupid photo.

Some more walking to the nearest station, some climbing of stairs, as all stations in Busan seem to have and more getting lost looking for the apparently biggest spa in Asia. The spa did not impress me and the miles even less. My legs felt like rubber.

Clean again, I decided to go see if I can find the bridge everyone is always taking photos of. I’ve seen it before, but I still can’t remember how I got there. Needless to say, after much walking I did not get my photo, again. With a tired body and not much to do, I headed to the main fun zone of Busan for a coffee and some “people watching”. While there I also searched the internet for a jimjilbang to spend the night in.

With information on a place to sleep, I left the coffee shop and headed to the nearest station. Of course I headed in the wrong direction. Miles. When I finally reached Haeundae it was a mission to find my target location because, heaven forbid, the directions would be faulty. Miles.

Sunday was not that bad, but I did add a few more. Not nearly as much as on Saturday though. Some of that included walking about 2km just to find a bus stop where the bus I was taking would stop.

All this for almost no photos, and none that I wanted.

I’m going to hell, for sure, or maybe heaven. Who knows?

2011-09-08T09:00:00.000+09:00

I was obviously not raised in a Calvinist environment because I don’t remember every thinking that, no matter what I do, my entrance in to heaven had been decided on before I was even born. This is called Unconditional Election, I think, and apparently most of South African Christianity is Calvinist meaning they follow this doctrine.

This leads me to many questions. Why make an effort? Why go to church? Why stay away from all those “bad” things around you? Why be nice to people? Why spread the gospel to people who will go to hell no matter what they do, or go to heaven even if you yourself don’t do “convert” them?

How can people believe in something like this? If they argue that some other doctrine allows you to get in to heaven, then they are saying that this doctrine is a lie, which brings us back to how you can follow something that is a lie? Someone help me out here, please.

Would you believe I found this out by reading up on Afrikaans?

As a side note, I’m considering travelling somewhere this Chuseok, just to see to experience the traffic, and take photos of the people who cook and sell food on the gridlocked highways.

YOU, WAIT! YOU, GO!

2011-09-07T12:30:00.000+09:00

Stopping at one intersection on my way to school, I saw two men, dressed in blue, directing the traffic. I assume they were police. It is a rather busy intersection and it would make sense that someone would direct traffic there.

Problem was that they were only directing motorists do to what the traffic light were already telling to do. When the light turned green, they would tell the cars to go. When it turned red they would tell them to stop and tell the next group with the green light to go. Stupid, isn’t it? I thought so.

I did however remember seeing them on a previous occasion. I normally pass this intersection much earlier and I saw them arrive a few days ago, but didn’t see them actually do anything. On that day they did have what seemed to be a control box open and was getting ready for something, apparently that something was this.

See, they work in threes. Two guys direct the traffic, or more accurately, make sure people do what the lights are telling them to do. They also keep an eye on how many cars are waiting. When they think it is appropriate, they signal the third guy, he presses the button and the next group of cars goes.

I guess they are not that stupid after all.

10th Annual Lifelong Learning Festival

2011-09-06T09:00:00.000+09:00

This past week saw Icheon host the 10^th Annual Lifelong Learning Festival. It is not a local even, but a National festival, and it was bigger than anything I have ever seen at Seolbong Park. There were huge tents as well as many smaller tents, with exhibitors filling almost every spot, from all over the country. There were two stages with one busy almost every time I went past the park.

Everyone knows that Koreans see studying and grades as a very serious subject. Despite this Koreans don’t see “learning” in the same way I was taught to think of it. Learning does not stop when you leave school or university. You don’t have to go take an official course of something official like a language, or a computer program that you will need for a possible new job. It is a much wider concept.

Learning includes anything you can learn to do. Anything you don’t know how to do yet. Learning how to make paper dolls is learning. So is photography for fun, or a martial art you know nothing about. Anything that take a bit of effort to implant in to your mind is considered learning, no matter how menial it might seem. And don’t forget to bring the children along.

At the festival there wasn’t really all that much that was obvious to a non-Korean speaker. Most of the booths were representing the Lifelong Learning Centers from various cities in Korea, and you had to read their material or speak to them to find out what they were all about. I suspect it will be pretty much the same thing in each city. Why exactly I, as a visitor, would like to know what the learning Center in Busan, a city 5 hours away from me, offers no one no one would know.

At a few booths there were things that caught my eye. One booth had a setup for what looked like stop-motion photography. Another booth had a big setup and was teaching children funs sciency stuff and yet another had examples of that plastic food you see in restaurants. I am sure that most booths were offering interesting things, but the presentation in general was not exactly changing the world.

All in all I was really impressed that something like this even existed and having a look at this idea of Lifelong Learning might be something that more people and countries should consider.

Traveling again

2011-08-31T09:00:00.000+09:00

Yup, it has been a long time, but most of that time was taken up by school vacation and everyone knows I don’t do much writing or uploading when it is that time of the year.

I do have a few nice photos that I will be editing and uploading soon. At the moment it is just so frustrating not having internet and I try to spend as much time outside the house as I can, hence not on the computer editing and uploading. Hopefully those idiots will have my internet installed today. If not, I’m cancelling the installation and finding another solution.

Here is a photo I took with my phone at the Daegu Body Painting Festival. It was my first every festival of this type and it was interesting enough. I hope I got 5 or so decent photos to make the sunburn I got worth it

Yes, I know I have to use sun screen or something, and amazingly I had some. You would think a South African would not be so stupid to ignore the sun on a warm overcast day, wouldn’t you?

Rainy days and smelly feet.

2011-07-14T09:30:00.000+09:00

Reading the rubbish that 35 students wrote on “Rainy Days” is tedious, but every now and then one student writes something truly funny or screws up in the most amusing way. It is Monsoon Season in these parts of the world. Think is that here it is called Typhoon Season. It took me a good minute to figure out that toe pong is not smelly feet, but in fact, a weather pattern.

Reflections on Middle Street

2011-07-13T11:00:00.000+09:00

At night, when Middle Street is wet, and there are few people blocking the view, you will see beautiful reflections of coloured lights from the various shops. If you find the right spot and wait for a while, you will inevitably see someone walk across one of the reflections and cast a shadow. I find this makes for a more interesting photo.

Problem is that to get the perfect photo you have to stand there, holding your camera, on in this case your phone in the ready position to take about 10 shots, just in case some don’t work. (Most don’t.) Standing like that with your phone pointing at, urm, something, makes you look and feel like an idiot. People walk past glancing at you and surely thinking: “What is the weird foreigner doing now?”

After I posted this photo I noticed the sign towards the top right. Apparently, after all these year of having a sizable number of Koreans who speak very good and sometimes perfect English, and now foreigners who speak it as their mother tongue, Korea sill thinks that “Grand Open” is acceptable English. Great street lighting…shitty English, STILL!

YPBooks

2011-07-12T10:00:00.000+09:00

What is this?
Youngpoong Books, also known as YPBooks has a few branches in and around Seoul. I find that YPBooks does not have the selection of Kyobo, especially the Banpo branch, but they are not to be ignored when you need something to read. The staff often does not have the very best English, but they are always able to help you with whatever you need.

Where is it then?
Possibly the best know branched are in Gangnam (actually Banpo) and Jongno.

For the Gangnam Branch go to Express Bus Terminal on Line 3. Heat out Exit 7, immediately turn right and head in to Central City. As you enter on the B1 floor you will see YPBook on the other side of the floor.

The Jongno Branch is right next to Jonggak Station on Line 6. Head out Exit 6. As soon as you exit you will see the smaller entrance to YPBooks on your left. It is that easy.

And when are they open?
I still have to confirm this, but my current information is that they are open from 09:00 to 22:00 every day.

I have questions. Can I call them?
I still need to go back and ask them for a phone number where we can reach an English speaker .

Is this information still correct?
I was at the location on 10 July 2011 and can confirm the pin. I need to go back and check the times and telephone numbers.

Take me back to the list of bookshops, or show me the map with all the pins on it.

Kyobo Books

2011-07-11T13:00:00.000+09:00

What is this?
Kyobo Books is probably the biggest book retailer in Korea and their section on English-language books is immense. For people from South Africa, Kyobo stocks about as many books as an average sized Exclusive books. As if the sheer number of books is not impressive enough, they also stock academic book in English. There is usually a competent English speaker to help you and what they can’t find in store they can usually order fro you online.

Where is it then?
Possibly the best know branched are in Gangnam and in Jongno.

For the Gangnam Branch go to Shinoghyeon Station on line nine. Head out Exit 7 and the main entrance to Kyobo will he right in front of you.

For this, the Jongno branch, go out Exit 4 at Line 5’s Gwanghwamun Station. As you come out, look to your left and you will be starting at the Kyobo Building. Walk a few steps down the road and you will see the entrance on your left, leading down into the bookshop.

And when are they open?
I have to confirm this because it completely slipped my mind, but I suspect they keep the same hours as most major stores in Korea, so 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m, seven days a week.

I have questions. Can I call them?
As with the hours, my familiarity with this location make me not even consider going in and asking for a phone number. This will be added to my to-do list.

Is this information still correct?
I was at the locations on 10 July 2011 and can confirm the pin. I need to go back and check the times and telephone numbers.

Take me back to the list of bookshops, or show me the map with all the pins on it.