Has anyone been out to South Korea on holiday? I'm out here for a month visiting a friend in Incheon (also came last month for a week), which is fairly close to Seoul. Quick breakdown of things I have noticed since I got here: 1. One Korean building looks much like another Korean building, they rarely seem to go in for asthetics. 2. Korean's are very curious about foreigners and you'll get stared at for hours. 3. Taxis are cheap so to counter this the drivers all drive at break neck speeds risking life and limb, of their own and their passengers, to pick more fares. 4. The public transport system is so vastly better than our own it isn't funny, plus it is actually clean. 5. There are NO chavs This is coupled with the fact that in general the people of Korea are very well behaved, you don't see graffiti, you don't see trashed public facilities, you don't see chewing gum stuck places, and you don't see roaming gangs of youths threatening people. 6. There are no immobile old people, you certainly don't see little electric deathtraps on wheels driven by blind grannies who have a vehement hate of everyone under the age of 65. 7. The food is either painfully spicy or lethally sweet, the Koreans for example reckon that pineapple juice isn't sweet enough and add sugar to it. 8. Technology is fairly advanced in Korea, there is a 7 story building at Yongsan in Seoul selling tech items, but it is extremely expensive due to the luxury goods taxes slapped on tech items. Even home grown brands such as LG and Samsung could hardly be called cheap compared to UK prices. For an example a 50 DVD cake tub of 16x Verbatim disks costs £25 here! I have however got to play with a 19" screened laptop 9. For the reason mentioned above you only see Kias, Hyundais, Daewoos and other Korean makes of car. Most cars have battle scars due to Koreans regarding traffic signs and calming measures as abstract concepts that don't really apply to them. 10. Buying a real Christmas tree in Korea is extremely difficult, possibly because no one has thought of cutting down a Koreana pine and selling it. 11. One of the national dishes is Kimchi, which is fermented spiced cabbage, much like marmite it is an acquired taste. Galbi, pork ribs, is also popular with many restaurants competing with each other. 12. Korea is not a tropical climate, here in Incheon at the moment temperatures are at the -10 ish level with a fairly severe windchill on top of that. 13. You can buy nunchucks and ninja stars, real ones, from street vendors for use in recreational activities. 14. Stuff on sticks is a readily available food source from street vendors, and if you're feeling adventurous you could try the silk worm larvae. I'll post a few more observations on Korea over the next month, it really is a fascinating and amazing place! It also happens to be close to Japan so I might take a flight over to Tokyo or Osaka to have an explore round there Note there are few things in life more satisfying than leaving work on a Friday evening and saying casually I'll see you in a months time Actually if you do that to your project team right when the coding effort has finished and the debugging effort has begun then it is evening more satisfying!
Stationed? Front line? No wonder. You werent exactly sight seeing I'd imagine. South Korea sounds a lot like China, you'll love it, JADS. Do yourself a favour and learn some Korean though, hopefully it's more like Japanese than Mandarin.
My friend is over their living wih her dad for a year while he does an architechture development. She is in Busan city. She is teaching english and gets something stupid like £50 p/h for private tutoring.
dont thay have a stupidly fast internet connection like 100mb/s an you can get a Wi-Fi hot spot anywhere
I thought that was Japan at 1Gbps?!?! And a friend (who is doing Japanese and Japanese studies at uni) is talking about taking me for a trip to Japan for a month.
Wait until spring break - rioting/demonstrating was a popular spring activity for university students when I was there about 15 years ago (I was there for 6 years). Kwang Ju and Seoul were the hot spots for it. They usually didn't bother foreigners, but tear gas doesn't care where you're from. Visit Seoul, it's interesting to see how many middle aged men will pretend you don't exist and try to walk right through you - everyone else was friendly. Out in the countryside people are even more friendly. A lot of farmers invited me to lunch just to have a chance to practice their english. Homemade Kimchi is also much better than anything in a restaurant. I traveled all over the country by bicycle and was amazed at some of the historical sites that can be found. Trust me, it's only the modern buildings that are boring. Winter can be a bit rough on the lungs with all the ondol burning (charcoal used for heating) but it's still a rather nice country.
yeh thats rite, theres a program on channel 5 (uk) called the gadget show and they visited seoul, it looks amazing and so high-tech. The 100mb/s broadband is true, it was shown on the show.
My friend is going over to japan to further his karate studies. He hopes to someday open his own dojo! But yes korea is very hi-tech, they have pc stores there like we have corner shops!
It is more fun coming to the country to sight see and explore I'd imagine My friend has a camera and I'm in the process of putting her pics up on a website so hopefully sometime soon! I know know going on holiday without a camera Korea uses an alphabet like we do, rather than script like China or Japan. Their language may look like script, but each 'symbol' is actually comprised of multiple letters to form a sound. Wiki has a reasonably good article on Hangul if anyone wants to look it up. Internet here is certainly fast and cheap, which might explain the sheer number of online gamers Even really old people while away the hours in net cafes fragging. There are certainly some very attractive Korean girls although as this is a conservative country I'd advise not staring too much if you do visit! I was hoping to travel out to the countryside at some point to get a feel for other parts of Korea as I suspect like any country it varies depending on where you are! Might try some of that homemade Kimchi to, but I must admit to not being a particularly big fan of it. I've just booked a flight to Nagoya, Japan so I'll report back from there to! If anyone is wondering Nagoya is between Osaka and Tokyo so commuting between the two cities should be relatively easy It also happens to be cheaper to fly to and stay in hence why I am going there rather than any of the big cities. I have 3 1/2 days in Japan so I'm going to try and cram in as much as possible, including Akihabara. Should be fun Geek mecca.
I also was stationed in Korea for a year and despite being so far away from my family it wasn't all that bad. The one thing that always struck me as nuts was their construction practices. They would build scaffolding to the sky and pour solid concrete buildings in what seemed like no time flat. There would be a bunch of buildings, all ~40 stories tall and identical and in a bunch. A block over would be another development. Where I was stationed I only saw 6 traditional "western" detached houses. (Like I've seen throughout Europe and the US). The local food, as mentioned, is an acquired taste but if I could get my hands on some now I would. Dang that stuff is great. The cucumber kimchi is probably the best version of it, and yes, the home-made stuff is way better than whatever one might find at a restaruant.
If you fancy doing some skiing come up and visit me. I'm in a small town on the shinkansen line from Tokyo to Niigata. glad to know I'm not the only bit-tech'er here in Japan. I've been to Tokyo for weekends three times now (will be four this weekend) but still haven't been to Akihabara. Check out the Sony building. some amazing fun there. If you need any info on anything drop me a line.
