I took an interest in some of the TV news stories coming into work this morning, not for the content, but for the fact that my taxi driver had his eyes pinned to the small screen in front of him whilst driving along. This made for a few brown trouser moments avoiding near-misses and bouncing into obviously unseen pot holes in the road. This is very common practice, and there are no laws regarding what you can and cannot do inside the privacy of your own vehicle (one exception – drink driving, not the actual practice of drinking in the vehicle, or having open canisters, but being under the influence and over the limit. They take a dim view of this). The screen they watch is actually a 9” LCD which doubles up as a Sat-Nav system, radio and a TV. I have even seen one doing a light and sound show to the beat of music. The trouble is they prefer to have it do anything other than show the way to the destination.
One thing Korean driver’s love, is blue LED lighting – it’s everywhere! It’s in the cab, on the dash, behind the door handles, and backlighting all the gauges and dials on the dashboard. They even have them mounted into the car maker emblems on the body work. We’re not talking your average boy-racer here, this is the average Joe in his regular day ride. I got into a taxi the other day, and this thing had been pimped to the max! It had leather upholstered roof lining and door pockets, that resembled a Chesterfield couch. It had the obligatory blue LED lighting, and had a sound system complete with dancing plasma display hooked up to an MP3 player. I half expected to pay extra for the ride, just for the entertainment value!
Show me blue LED’s and my eyes don’t work, especially at night – I tend to see ultraviolet ghost images for ages afterwards, and it screws up my focus for a while. I’m sure there is a name for my condition, if not, I’ll call it LEDopia
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Monday, 23 March 2009
Burny-burny Cuisine
I don’t think there is a food we can’t have over here, in terms of international flavours. We have already given the local Pizza guy a mention, along with Korean dinner, BBQ style. We ventured out at the weekend to try Vietnamese food. All looked good, and I should have gone with my first choice, as regrettably the second hurt bad! I ordered a seafood mix on a bed of noodles, and it looked great, even the two small octopus the size of a golf ball looking at me from the plate didn’t put me off. I took a few bites, and munched down on the 8 legged creatures with gusto. Then it hit. My lips started to burn, then the tongue, then the throat. Chilli heat factor 9/10 Eowwwwww! Wiping lips, beads of sweat forming on brow, I was determined not to let it get the better of me, but it did. Sue even tried one little noodle, thinking I was a lightweight, but even she had to swig down a mouthful of pop to cool the burning sensations. I was beaten by a plate of seafood which had been chillied to death. Next time I’m sticking to chicken and rice, until I know how hot it is – let others take the pain. We might try the Italian next, in preparation for the folks coming over, just in case fiery hot Vietnamese isn’t their style.
Mobile at last
We bought a phone at the weekend, after both of us officially becoming “Aliens” Being an alien means we have our Korean ID cards, which shows our immigration and work status. These little gems also allow us to buy items over certain expense and also, mobile phones – you can’t register a number unless you are certified! We ended up with a snazzy little slide phone, with 1.3Megapixel camera. We got the stall guy to set it up for us in minutes with English menus and he also threw in a spare battery, charger and 30 minutes talk time for a total of about 25 GBP good value! We only expect to use it for one-to-one contact and when Sue’s out and about for emergencies. We have Skype of all our international calls (free of course)
High-rises and haircuts….
Our apartment is manky, don’t get me wrong, we love it. It just gets so dirty very fast. Even though we are 15 floors up, take our shoes off at the door, and have quadruple double glazing, it’s amazing how much dust actually gets in and settles on the floors, worktops, appliances, TV and glass top units. We have tried all sorts of contraptions including mops, static mops, cloths and wipes with little or no effect. Even damping down with spray bottles – all have little or no effect. All we seem to do is push the stuff around, or chase it back into the air to settle on some other surface. It’s done our heads in. I thought I might be able to blag a few tacky type cloths from work, as these are common in the electronics industry for use in clean-rooms. They are special wax impregnated cloths which make the dust stick to the cloth, rather than being pushed around. We didn’t have any! I’m worried about the infamous “Yellow dust storms” that threaten the peninsula on regular occasions. We saw an infomercial the other day which refers to them as natural disasters! Blimey! With that in mind, we made our way to Home-plus and bought a cyclone pull-along vacuum cleaner. Sue now has a new toy to play with in the apartment – she has deliberately left some parts of the apartment so she has something to do during the week!
Sue had her hair done before we left the UK, and hoped it would last for a while. Roots have no mercy! She had discussed the delicate issue with our Canadian neighbours and both had decided to bite the bullet and go to one of several local salons in the vicinity. We had found one on the second floor of the shopping block next to our apartment, and went in armed with a few words stripped out of the Korean survival book. “Colour, blonde, and how much?” was about all we needed. A young man of usual hairdressing persuasion approached from the clipping of a customers head, wanting to know what we required. A few points to roots, smattering of Korean, and bad renditions of “Blond-eru!” seemed to do the trick. What we didn’t expect, was to be seated and told it could be done next! We declined and made an appointment for the Monday. It seems that no appointments necessary – just walk in and wait. Great, how much? The guy brings out 3 x 10,000KRW notes for the till. 30,000KRW? Just under 15GBP, for a Colour, Trim, Wash & Blow dry? What kind of place was this? A great place actually, and a very good job too - another fine example of rip-off GB. Expect to pay about 50+ GBP back home. She’ll be back!
Sue had her hair done before we left the UK, and hoped it would last for a while. Roots have no mercy! She had discussed the delicate issue with our Canadian neighbours and both had decided to bite the bullet and go to one of several local salons in the vicinity. We had found one on the second floor of the shopping block next to our apartment, and went in armed with a few words stripped out of the Korean survival book. “Colour, blonde, and how much?” was about all we needed. A young man of usual hairdressing persuasion approached from the clipping of a customers head, wanting to know what we required. A few points to roots, smattering of Korean, and bad renditions of “Blond-eru!” seemed to do the trick. What we didn’t expect, was to be seated and told it could be done next! We declined and made an appointment for the Monday. It seems that no appointments necessary – just walk in and wait. Great, how much? The guy brings out 3 x 10,000KRW notes for the till. 30,000KRW? Just under 15GBP, for a Colour, Trim, Wash & Blow dry? What kind of place was this? A great place actually, and a very good job too - another fine example of rip-off GB. Expect to pay about 50+ GBP back home. She’ll be back!
Monday, 16 March 2009
A visit to Songtan...
W e had planned to go to out around Ansan on Sunday, for a bit of a stroll, which would have led to more furniture shopping, and looking for the latest blockbusters on DVD at Ansan railroad station, so we suggested to our neighbours that if they were at a loose end, they could join us. It turned out that they were originally heading to Devil’s Island, near Oido on the coast, at the end of line 4 for a day at the seaside with some of their Korean friends; They got let down, and suggested to us that a trip into Songtan would be more fun. We dashed over to a little shop called VD (I cant remember the full name of the shop, but that’s how they call themselves short form). We bought a cracking big solid wood coffee table and two bedside drawers all for the princely sum of around 180GBP – delivered next day too! We headed back to meet up with our friends at the gap in the fence round the complex and headed off at 12 noon.
The trip to Songtan involved a bus, and two trains. I had not been on a bus in Korea until this point. We caught the bus and took it to Gojan station to pick up the train. The ride there cost 800KRW which is about 35p in English money. It turns out that if you take a bus ride, and then catch a train, the train ride is free until you get off to transfer. We used our T cards, which is like travel money loaded onto an RF card. This is swiped when you get on and off the bus, and through the gates at the rail stations. Transport is incredibly cheap in Korea, as previously mentioned and reliable too. The total cost for the day’s travel bearing in mind the train ride was about an hour each way? – about 2.50 GBP !
Songtan is centered around a joint Korean/USAF air base, and full of GI’s. All the local shops are also centered around this population, with lots of American brand cigarettes, eating places, large size clothes shops, and most if not all trading in the American Dollar! All we had with us was Korean Won, which drew some surprised looks at some stores we went into. Although the Dollar is king here, the price of goods is more expensive that that of shopping in Ansan, and the rate of exchange is lousy if trying to buy in Won, but I guess they have a captive market here, with most base personnel not wishing to venture out past the town limits.
We made our way to a store with blacked windows with writing which said “DVD, GAMES, CD’s” This was a little store which would have come with a special license back in the UK, and would have been off limits to anyone under the age of 21! Instead, inside, they had shelves of empty DVD and CD cases with colour copies of the latest cinema blockbuster movies, and ones which had just been released onto DVD in the regular stores. The difference? All of these movies were carefully copied onto bright new shiny re-writable DVD’s and came with more colour copies of the covers which were of dubious origins. 3 for 10,000KRW (about 4GBP). OK, I know it’s probably not right buying these things, but when in Rome right? Everyone’s bought a Rolex made from tin cans at some point.
We got back, exhausted but happy we had made the trip, even if just to see what it was like.
The trip to Songtan involved a bus, and two trains. I had not been on a bus in Korea until this point. We caught the bus and took it to Gojan station to pick up the train. The ride there cost 800KRW which is about 35p in English money. It turns out that if you take a bus ride, and then catch a train, the train ride is free until you get off to transfer. We used our T cards, which is like travel money loaded onto an RF card. This is swiped when you get on and off the bus, and through the gates at the rail stations. Transport is incredibly cheap in Korea, as previously mentioned and reliable too. The total cost for the day’s travel bearing in mind the train ride was about an hour each way? – about 2.50 GBP !
Songtan is centered around a joint Korean/USAF air base, and full of GI’s. All the local shops are also centered around this population, with lots of American brand cigarettes, eating places, large size clothes shops, and most if not all trading in the American Dollar! All we had with us was Korean Won, which drew some surprised looks at some stores we went into. Although the Dollar is king here, the price of goods is more expensive that that of shopping in Ansan, and the rate of exchange is lousy if trying to buy in Won, but I guess they have a captive market here, with most base personnel not wishing to venture out past the town limits.
We made our way to a store with blacked windows with writing which said “DVD, GAMES, CD’s” This was a little store which would have come with a special license back in the UK, and would have been off limits to anyone under the age of 21! Instead, inside, they had shelves of empty DVD and CD cases with colour copies of the latest cinema blockbuster movies, and ones which had just been released onto DVD in the regular stores. The difference? All of these movies were carefully copied onto bright new shiny re-writable DVD’s and came with more colour copies of the covers which were of dubious origins. 3 for 10,000KRW (about 4GBP). OK, I know it’s probably not right buying these things, but when in Rome right? Everyone’s bought a Rolex made from tin cans at some point.
We got back, exhausted but happy we had made the trip, even if just to see what it was like.
Friday, 13 March 2009
Korean story tellers
In business meetings, they way they are held is unique! Each individual, when asked about a particular customer or subject has to go through a full blown story telling process. It usually begins with how he was first involved with the project, what his responsibilities were, what was going on before, right now and what was going to happen. Now, I think that’s great, as it gives you a complete picture of what’s happening, and a whole story is better than none. But for them to repeat the same old thing every time you have an update meeting is wearing thin now, especially as it has to be translated to me by my assistant. I have suggested that we already know the facts, and want them to go for it Western style, but they insist that it is Korean custom and must be followed. Who am I to argue, I have all day for meetings like this don’t I?
Pen flipping and imaginary sums
Go to any Korean business meetings here, (I’ve now been to plenty!), and you will see that all of them are Cozy Powell wannabees (for those of you too young to remember good old Cozy, think Phil Collins on the drums!). They can do amazing little flips and twirls with their pens, and without looking at it too. I tried without success to flip my pen, and looked exceedingly embarrassed as I retrieved the thing from under the table. Needless to say, I don’t flip my pen anymore.
Another thing they do, when presented with a mathematical question, such as working out the percentage scrap, is that they use an imaginary pen like their forefinger, and work out the sum on the palm of the other hand. It is really quite a show, even doing the division and multiplying sings. Results usually get signed off with a full stop, I think this must be ingrained in the way they were taught at school, and I think it may have been a chalkboard they used.
Another thing they do, when presented with a mathematical question, such as working out the percentage scrap, is that they use an imaginary pen like their forefinger, and work out the sum on the palm of the other hand. It is really quite a show, even doing the division and multiplying sings. Results usually get signed off with a full stop, I think this must be ingrained in the way they were taught at school, and I think it may have been a chalkboard they used.
Our ship has sailed.....
Literally. We had shipped some of our personal possessions onto a forwarding agent back on the 12th February for shipping over to Korea. The consignment was about 250Kg, based on a pallet with 8 boxes of goods on it. It was due to land on the 19th March in Busan, with a forward road transport up to Incheon near Seoul, where it would clear customs and then be delivered to the plant here in Ansan. If there were going to be any problems, we thought it would have been in Incheon, clearing Korean customs. How wrong as usual – it turns out UK customs did the dirty on our container, and seized it before it was loaded onto the boat. Boat then sailed off, minus our goods.
It turns out that the waybill for the container, which contains multiple loads destined for many places including Korea, had a box of scrap metal, which apparently “could” be used to make guns. It kind of reminded me of the Super gun affair some years ago, when Matrix-Churchill was accused of delivering a load of oil refinery pipe work to Iraq, and were told by customs, that if it was stuck together, it could be used as a big gun! Needless to say, it caused a huge furor and people got sent to jail, but got let our when other people came to their senses. I just hope that our boxes with all the stuff in still has most of it left. I had the PS3, HD-DVD and loads of DVD’s in there!
Its currently on the Hyundai Mercury, sailing at a leisurely 8.25 Knots along the English channel, heading to Port Said to pick up the Suez canal. It’s due to arrive in Incheon on 19th April. At least my stuff is getting a nice sightseeing cruise out of it. I hope it’s got an outside cabin with balcony!
It turns out that the waybill for the container, which contains multiple loads destined for many places including Korea, had a box of scrap metal, which apparently “could” be used to make guns. It kind of reminded me of the Super gun affair some years ago, when Matrix-Churchill was accused of delivering a load of oil refinery pipe work to Iraq, and were told by customs, that if it was stuck together, it could be used as a big gun! Needless to say, it caused a huge furor and people got sent to jail, but got let our when other people came to their senses. I just hope that our boxes with all the stuff in still has most of it left. I had the PS3, HD-DVD and loads of DVD’s in there!
Its currently on the Hyundai Mercury, sailing at a leisurely 8.25 Knots along the English channel, heading to Port Said to pick up the Suez canal. It’s due to arrive in Incheon on 19th April. At least my stuff is getting a nice sightseeing cruise out of it. I hope it’s got an outside cabin with balcony!
Thursday, 12 March 2009
One Largee Pepperoni pizza man!
We have a little pizza shop on the complex where we stay. We were introduced to it by our Canadian friends who only like pepperoni pizza. We like to be a little more adventurous – we went into the shop one night, and looked at the menu. About 12 different pizzas were shown as pictures on the menu. We chose what looked to be a combination of toppings on a cheese bite base. This is little rolls of dough on the edge, which are filled with cheese. We’ve had similar back in the UK, at the likes of Pizza Hut, and we do enjoy it. I pointed to the pizza on the picture and motioned with my finger that I wanted “one of those please” The pizza guy rattled on in Korean, oblivious to the fact we could understand a word of what he said, but we did hear the word “Canadian” and him pointing towards the block where our friends live and then towards us. Oh! “Canadian?” No I said “Scottish!” (note: it’s easier to say we’re both Scottish that try to explain Sue’s English, and so am I in reality, but then try to explain why I have a different accent than English – oh you get the picture!) The pizza is hand thrown, and all ingredients are fresh, and tastes great! Until we bit into the cheesy bites! yuck – plastic processed cheese. You can’t buy a decent bit of cheese here, unless it’s the plastic tasting fully processed variety. We had to go to Costco to get a decent bit of Cheddar! Our next visit to the mad pizza man, who can’t shut up brought some disappointment from him. He expected us to order the cheesy bite variety again, but we wanted something different this time, and definitely no plastic cheesy bite this time. We got around this by pointing to other pictures of other pizzas and reciting different days to him one picture at a time. Much better with no yucky cheesy bites this time.
More things foody…..
Pass a market with food stalls and you may have an unpleasant surprise. Pig face anyone? Yes, all of the pig can be bought here, cheap as chips. Include the trotters, tail, face, intestines, eyes and brains. All for sale! - I’ll pass thanks! Give me a bacon butty any day, as long as it doesn’t look back up at me!
What’s with the booze here?
Koreans are known for their hard drinking habits, but why oh why can’t you buy any decent booze here – it’s enough to make you go tee-total! Sure, they’ve got beer and Soju, a drink made from fermented potatoes or rice, dependant on the price, a bit like watered down vodka, but it’s not the same. Go into a bar, and you can’t buy a single measure of whisky or brandy – you have to buy a whole bottle, they then mark this up for you and hold it behind the bar for your next visit. I guess it’s good marketing for the bar, and at least ensures repeat business until the bottle is empty, but the initial outlay is a hefty whack. You can buy wine at the supermarkets, anything from a 5GBP bottle of new world wine to a French Chablis at around 40GBP, Johnny Walker gut-rot whisky (It’s gut rot, coz I know where it’s bottled – Kilmarnock!) and some unknown makes like Whisky Blue and some other sweet sickly concoctions. Brandy can be bought here, but holy cow! you pay the price! A normal 70cl bottle of Hennesey, will set you back the best part of 40GBP! Visitors please note: Famous Grouse Scotch Whisky and Courvoisier Brandy duty free please!
Korenglish!
Translation of things Western can be funny over here. Take for instance, we found a fast food outlet called Popeye’s – the bootstrap line read, “Chicken and Biscuits” - We couldn’t find any biscuits! We did however note lots of baskets, and lots of chicken, so reckon it must have been a poor translation of “Chicken in Baskets”. It made us smile, for, oh, about 2 minutes!
On a trip to Emart, a store like Tesco’s, but with little Western style products, we found an energy drink called Pocari SWEAT! Much like the raw crab, I didn’t fancy that somehow!
There are many other instances of Korenglish around, and I’ll report these when I find them
On a trip to Emart, a store like Tesco’s, but with little Western style products, we found an energy drink called Pocari SWEAT! Much like the raw crab, I didn’t fancy that somehow!
There are many other instances of Korenglish around, and I’ll report these when I find them
Things on a stick….
We pass all sorts of street vendors here during our evening treks to the stores after work, and I keep asking Sue if she fancies “something on a stick”. These are wooden skewers which have items of dubious nature on them. We can’t tell what they are, as they are almost always covered with a bread crumb coating and deep fried, and we have no idea even if they told us what they were, as we don’t speak Korean. I do know, they are cheap!, and this is like a magnet to a Scotsman. I’m going to have to go in and tackle my curiosity and take a bite some day. Be prepared to fly me back should it all go a bit pear-shaped!
Korean BBQ tastes great! Except…….
Ok, so we’ve been here 3 weeks now, but I have already found a great restaurant where we will be taking all of our guests to when they come for visits. You have been warned! The restaurant in question is a Korean barbeque type, where you get to cook food and a wire mesh placed over a tub of hot coals right at your table. You are then presented with an abundance of side dishes, many that I cant tell you the Korean name right now, but things such as Sambay sauce, lettuce, pickled radish, pickled onion relish soup, scrambled egg, marinated tofu, mint leaves, more sauces, hot and sour soup, noodles and a plate of delicious looking crab in hot sauce!
The meat is brought to the table on a plate, and the server puts this on the grill for you. A few minutes later, they are back with a pair of scissors to cut the meat into strips, which then cooks until tender and browned. This is then placed to the side of the grill, and the next slab of meat put on. I think we had a tendency to overcook the meat, because they would hover in the background and turn up to turn our meat for us, and not carbonize it. You take the chunks of meat, and wrap it in a leaf of lettuce or mint, then apply some of the onions and sauce, then stick it in your mouth and chew. Wow! Tender and juicy! Yum. A variety of meats can be chosen, but we tend to start with beef, then pork, then sausage ending up with prawn. Delicious!
On the first couple of visits I tucked into the plate of crab covered with spicy hot sauce, and was congratulated on my technique and courage to eat the crab. No big deal, I thought. It was very tasty, although the spicy sauce didn’t really allow the flavour of the crab meat to come through very well. On the third visit to the restaurant, I found out why I was being praised. It turns out that the crabs are whisked out of a tank at the back, cleaved in half alive, then plonked onto a plate and smothered with spicy sauce. If they weren’t dead already, then the sauce would finish them off. It would seem I was munching on raw crab! Now, I have heard some horror stories about raw crustaceans and the nasties it can bring on. I just hope I haven’t fallen third time (un)lucky! I’m sticking to anything with 4 legs from now on – oh wait, don’t they eat dog here? Errrrrr… then it’s pig and cow I guess!
The meat is brought to the table on a plate, and the server puts this on the grill for you. A few minutes later, they are back with a pair of scissors to cut the meat into strips, which then cooks until tender and browned. This is then placed to the side of the grill, and the next slab of meat put on. I think we had a tendency to overcook the meat, because they would hover in the background and turn up to turn our meat for us, and not carbonize it. You take the chunks of meat, and wrap it in a leaf of lettuce or mint, then apply some of the onions and sauce, then stick it in your mouth and chew. Wow! Tender and juicy! Yum. A variety of meats can be chosen, but we tend to start with beef, then pork, then sausage ending up with prawn. Delicious!
On the first couple of visits I tucked into the plate of crab covered with spicy hot sauce, and was congratulated on my technique and courage to eat the crab. No big deal, I thought. It was very tasty, although the spicy sauce didn’t really allow the flavour of the crab meat to come through very well. On the third visit to the restaurant, I found out why I was being praised. It turns out that the crabs are whisked out of a tank at the back, cleaved in half alive, then plonked onto a plate and smothered with spicy sauce. If they weren’t dead already, then the sauce would finish them off. It would seem I was munching on raw crab! Now, I have heard some horror stories about raw crustaceans and the nasties it can bring on. I just hope I haven’t fallen third time (un)lucky! I’m sticking to anything with 4 legs from now on – oh wait, don’t they eat dog here? Errrrrr… then it’s pig and cow I guess!
You can’t have that! – no alien card!
We could learn from countries like Korea back in the UK, with it’s attitude and control of immigrants legal or illegal. Sure, they still have illegal’s working over her, but they are a little more clandestine that the equivalent over in UK. Here, you can’t even buy a mobile phone, PAYG or contract without presenting an “alien” card. The same applies to buying the more expensive white goods at the department stores. This card is an id which identifies you as official immigrant status and allowed to be resident in the country. Working visa’s are another story altogether. I used to be anti-id card in the UK, but can see the benefits in mandatory requirement for non-residents.
It takes about 2-3 weeks to arrange an alien card, but when we get ours, then it’s off down to the local subway to buy a PAYG for Sue – communication is pretty difficult right now, as my laptop is blocked to almost the point of not working at all. Skype, MSN messenger and all that malarkey is verboten! The only way I can contact her right now is through the hidden chat feature of Facebook. I don’t think the Korean’s have cottoned onto the Western popularity of Facebook yet, so it’s not blocked by my admin yet! There was no point in getting a phone for the apartment, as it is an expensive item to install and to rent monthly.
Top tech items such as iPhone come with some hefty prices to match, so I think it will be a simple flip type camera phone with cheap calls and top-ups monthly.
It takes about 2-3 weeks to arrange an alien card, but when we get ours, then it’s off down to the local subway to buy a PAYG for Sue – communication is pretty difficult right now, as my laptop is blocked to almost the point of not working at all. Skype, MSN messenger and all that malarkey is verboten! The only way I can contact her right now is through the hidden chat feature of Facebook. I don’t think the Korean’s have cottoned onto the Western popularity of Facebook yet, so it’s not blocked by my admin yet! There was no point in getting a phone for the apartment, as it is an expensive item to install and to rent monthly.
Top tech items such as iPhone come with some hefty prices to match, so I think it will be a simple flip type camera phone with cheap calls and top-ups monthly.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Catch-up
OK, so it's not Wednesday, but we have been off-line for a few days until they connected us to broadband, so here's a catch-up!
Getting from one place to another is relatively easy. Just take a taxi. There are lots of taxi ranks around the place, and with a little amount of walking you can reach these within minutes. Taxis are inexpensive by UK standards. As soon as you get into one, the meter is set at 1900KRW (Korean Won, the national currency here). Each kilometer or part thereafter is charged at a 100KRW. This means that a similar £10 UK fare which would get us just a few miles into town costs around £2 here. We almost called one taxi driver a rob-dog yesterday, as we had checked out of our hotel, and moved into the apartment. The meter showed up as 4100KRW (about £2.05) but as we got out he wanted another 1000KRW. His English was as good as my Korean, and he made a gesture of using a phone, which we took to be kind of threatening, as if to call the police, or at the very least, get his mates round to sort me out. Koreans are kind of small in stature, so I knew I could have taken him on, and probably a few of his mates too. Guess how stupid we felt, when relating the tale to our Canadian friends, and found that the extra is added on in all cases where a taxi is called to pick-up which is what we did at the hotel – Doh! As previously mentioned, taxis are paid by the KM, but they also have a timer which counts down at traffic lights, which are known to be a taxi drivers friend. Some drivers act like Lewis Hamilton, but other are positive snails, and like nothing better than to sit at lights all day long, and then saunter along to the next set. A phrase we are getting used to using is Kup-Eyo which means hurry up!
We dropped off the cases, and started to decant the goods into wardrobes, and drawers etc. I have never seen an apartment with so much storage space. Each room has built-in storage, then there is more storage around the living room, off the balcony areas, and a shed load more by the front door! The apartment is a bit Tardis-like, Doesn't look much from the outside, but step beyond the door and you could get lost. An apartment tour movie is on www.youtube.com Do a search for “ansan apartment” and you will find it pop up.
Home hardware shopping was next on the agenda, and off to Tesco's in the necessary taxi we went. This guy thought he was one of the Hamilton Lewis types mentioned earlier the way he careered through the traffic. Even I had to hang onto the roof handle! Collecting a trolley (100KRW which is 5 pence by the way, as opposed to the £1 coin need back in the UK) to release it from the grip of it's mates chain and we headed into territory unknown. Heading past bags of things which are best left unmentioned, live things which were still kicking on ice tray displays, past packets of dried whitebait, which the kids here eat like crisps for their lunch time break, and a mountain of dried seaweed, which is used in the making of sushi rolls. We found the aisles where the bedding was located. Koreans sleep mostly on the floor, relying on mats or palliases to get a nights kip. The reason for this, is the heating system, called Ondol, is based upon hot water pipes fed under the floor. Closer to the floor, means the warmer you are. Normal beds are unheard of except for us “Wayguks” (Foreigners) and better class hotels. We had bought a bed, so needed some bed linen and duvet covers. We had found a shop earlier which dealt only in bedding, but guess what, only mats and covers – no concept of what a duvet or fitted sheet was! We found a half decent duvet, which came complete with cover, and pooped it into the basket. We also found matching pillow cases, and a fitted sheet – I never thought I'd say this, but thank you Tesco! Piling in some more bits and pieces, including loo roll (very important!) milk, bottled water (Korea does have mains water, but it's not very good on the treatment aspects, so they recommend the bottled variety) pot noodles (lol) and rice we headed to the checkouts. Plastic bags are frowned upon here, and they supply a bench with rolls of tape, and encourage you to use their cardboard boxes the bulk items were supplied in to them. I guess this helps out on their waste recycling targets too. We had the forethought to bring our empty hold-alls with us to carry the goods back the apartment. Taxi for 2 please!
Back at the ranch, our Canadian friend offered to take Sue down to “Sang-Knock-Soo” it's probably not how you spell it, but it's how it sounds, and it works in a taxi to get you there. The mission? To get cutlery, dishes, knives, bowls, loo brushes etc. Oh, and flip top bins for the loo's too. Why? In Korea, they can't handle loo paper down the waste treatment plant, so into a bin and bag for disposal along with the general garbage (I don't envy the bin men round here). Mission completed, Sue returned victorious with the spoils of her crusade in plenty of bags. We now have a simple functioning kitchen and household. More items arriving in due course.
Korean Telly:
Korean TV, is, well, just that – Korean! Plenty of telly-selly channels, selling live molluscs to the usual ped-egg from JML! The cable channels installed in the apartment, is limited to say the least. Channel 32 is interesting however, in that the content would be taken straight off our screens in the UK. I know what you are thinking at this point, but you are completely wrong! Its a CCTV channel with a camera pointing directly at the kiddies playground, so that nervous parents can watch their kids play in safety without having to bear the elements, and actually watch them play. The reason this wouldn't make our screens over in the UK? Do-gooders worrying that a paedophile might be droolling over his TV set seeing the kids at play. In the UK, you cant even take pictures of your own kids at the annual sports-day, or Christmas nativity play any more. Makes another reason we got out of Britain when we did. Not that I'm a paedophile drooling over his telly you know! We did however catch the local “chavs” lighting up a sneaky one before heading home at dusk.
I have asked our local guy in the plant to arrange satellite TV for us, or rather Sue, as she misses Eastenders, along with other such “quality” programming. We are expecting to get broadband within the next few days too. Our DVD player and HDD disk in currently on the high seas, and we expect this to land around the 19th March. DVD's of current cinema blockbusters with a dubious copyright agreement can be found at most subway stations. 4 for 10,000KRW (around £5). I think we might pay them a visit soon.
Thursday: More shopping!
Are we shopped out yet? I feel like I couldn't look at another shop, but we have forced ourselves to do yet another trip into Dongjan-Do, where the upmarket shops are based along with a few prized “pound shop” places. These are great for bargains like cheese graters, tupperware, shoe horns, washing liquids etc. Another taxi required please! Back home, dump the stuff off, and then back to Tesco's for the big Grocery shop now we have the fridge/freezer. We found baked beans! Lovely on a bit of toast. We looked at the meat counter, and found what we reckoned was a beef joint, so we should be OK for traditional Sunday roast. We even found a Yorkshire pud mix. Shower gel can be bought here too, but the price? Wow – around £3 for a bottle. Deodorant is also scarce and very expensive. It seems that about 50% of Koreans don't have some kind of gland that produces body odour (Cronin gland I think) so don't need it like us sweaty Westerners.
What's with the towels here?
We have two showers here in the apartment, one en-suite and one in the main bath over the tub. Like anyone, I like to get a good soak under the shower, then rub down with a huge bath sheet until dry. Towels in the shops here including Tesco and E-mart are minuscule! I mean, I have seen bigger postage stamps. OK, not quite, but the biggest towel I have seen is about the size of a hand towel you find in the wash-room. Don't the Koreans get as wet as we do under the spray like us? I reckon they must get out of the shower and run round the room until dry, because they don't buy the towels. We are going to venture over to Costco at the weekend where the American military do their shop. That's got to be a good bet for my size of towel.
Friday: Introduction visit and tour of plant.
Today was a visit to the plant, and meeting with my co-workers, and reports. Big impressive plant some new, some old, but all in very clean condition, and well looked after. About all of the space is used for some machinery or another. There is a cap-ex plan in place, and on the Agenda is a new Dragon AOI machine. We need to shoehorn it in somewhere. The plant works on 2 x12 hour per day shifts, with blue collars pulling around 60+ hours per week. Weekends are usually worked to catch up on backlogs (no difference there then!) The one thing I will be changing with urgency, is the fact the whole place comes to a halt during lunchtime, and tea breaks. All 250 staff take lunches at the same time. This equates to a huge 22.5 hours downtime per week over the 2 shifts. Rotating breaks will get a a major part of this time back at no cost to the company! Let's see how the staff react to that. Most of my time today was taken up with HR, filling in several forms for alien cards, work visa's, bank accounts, dependant's etc. I also arranged the broadband and satellite TV for the apartment which will please Sue. We hope to have this all installed by Tuesday latest. I also met the COO and CFO, board directors of the plant and took a leaf out of the etiquette book, by bringing along a couple of boxes of Walker's shortbread for them. This is probably brown-nosing at it's worst in the UK, but is considered quite polite here, and shows that I have considered the local culture. I'm off out tonight with my team along with our Canadian Ops guy – should be quite a night, if I believe all I'm told!
Norae Bangs, and cats choir!
We met up around 7:30 and headed to town. The favourite restaurant is a Korean BBQ place, which required the removal of shoes at the door, and tables close to the floor. I was quite happy to find that there was a pit in which you could swing round and place your feet into. I didn't think my back or chunky Western frame could handle the sitting cross-legged for long! The usual practice of necking Soju with an accompanying toast was the order of the night. I was accosted several times by what I thought was street vendors plying their wares, but it turns out that they are giving out little gifts along with a business card to entice you into the hostess bars located by the barbers poles. Little sachets of mouth wash, or boiled sweets are the usual things to get. After dinner, we all headed up stairs to a bar, and more beers and Soju's later, we headed back out to the street. Next up was a Norae-Bang, which is a little Karaoke room, complete with tacky disco lights, and large screen projector. One of the Koreans was most apologetic, because he had brought us to an expensive one, where the service comes complete with hostesses for the evening. We ended up with 6 hostesses to the 10 of us. Our Canadian guy opened up with Hotel California by the Eagles, and I was soon coaxed into a dreadful rendition of Wonderwall by Oasis. I could feel the cat's in the back alley covering their ears! As soon as time was up, the room cleared, and we made our way the WA Bar, which is an ice bar, where all the beers are in a central ice box, and you just help yourselves. A barmaid notes down your consumption, and sticks it on your tab next the bar. We rolled out of there at about 3:00am. I smelt like a chimney, because EVERYONE smokes like one.
Getting from one place to another is relatively easy. Just take a taxi. There are lots of taxi ranks around the place, and with a little amount of walking you can reach these within minutes. Taxis are inexpensive by UK standards. As soon as you get into one, the meter is set at 1900KRW (Korean Won, the national currency here). Each kilometer or part thereafter is charged at a 100KRW. This means that a similar £10 UK fare which would get us just a few miles into town costs around £2 here. We almost called one taxi driver a rob-dog yesterday, as we had checked out of our hotel, and moved into the apartment. The meter showed up as 4100KRW (about £2.05) but as we got out he wanted another 1000KRW. His English was as good as my Korean, and he made a gesture of using a phone, which we took to be kind of threatening, as if to call the police, or at the very least, get his mates round to sort me out. Koreans are kind of small in stature, so I knew I could have taken him on, and probably a few of his mates too. Guess how stupid we felt, when relating the tale to our Canadian friends, and found that the extra is added on in all cases where a taxi is called to pick-up which is what we did at the hotel – Doh! As previously mentioned, taxis are paid by the KM, but they also have a timer which counts down at traffic lights, which are known to be a taxi drivers friend. Some drivers act like Lewis Hamilton, but other are positive snails, and like nothing better than to sit at lights all day long, and then saunter along to the next set. A phrase we are getting used to using is Kup-Eyo which means hurry up!
We dropped off the cases, and started to decant the goods into wardrobes, and drawers etc. I have never seen an apartment with so much storage space. Each room has built-in storage, then there is more storage around the living room, off the balcony areas, and a shed load more by the front door! The apartment is a bit Tardis-like, Doesn't look much from the outside, but step beyond the door and you could get lost. An apartment tour movie is on www.youtube.com Do a search for “ansan apartment” and you will find it pop up.
Home hardware shopping was next on the agenda, and off to Tesco's in the necessary taxi we went. This guy thought he was one of the Hamilton Lewis types mentioned earlier the way he careered through the traffic. Even I had to hang onto the roof handle! Collecting a trolley (100KRW which is 5 pence by the way, as opposed to the £1 coin need back in the UK) to release it from the grip of it's mates chain and we headed into territory unknown. Heading past bags of things which are best left unmentioned, live things which were still kicking on ice tray displays, past packets of dried whitebait, which the kids here eat like crisps for their lunch time break, and a mountain of dried seaweed, which is used in the making of sushi rolls. We found the aisles where the bedding was located. Koreans sleep mostly on the floor, relying on mats or palliases to get a nights kip. The reason for this, is the heating system, called Ondol, is based upon hot water pipes fed under the floor. Closer to the floor, means the warmer you are. Normal beds are unheard of except for us “Wayguks” (Foreigners) and better class hotels. We had bought a bed, so needed some bed linen and duvet covers. We had found a shop earlier which dealt only in bedding, but guess what, only mats and covers – no concept of what a duvet or fitted sheet was! We found a half decent duvet, which came complete with cover, and pooped it into the basket. We also found matching pillow cases, and a fitted sheet – I never thought I'd say this, but thank you Tesco! Piling in some more bits and pieces, including loo roll (very important!) milk, bottled water (Korea does have mains water, but it's not very good on the treatment aspects, so they recommend the bottled variety) pot noodles (lol) and rice we headed to the checkouts. Plastic bags are frowned upon here, and they supply a bench with rolls of tape, and encourage you to use their cardboard boxes the bulk items were supplied in to them. I guess this helps out on their waste recycling targets too. We had the forethought to bring our empty hold-alls with us to carry the goods back the apartment. Taxi for 2 please!
Back at the ranch, our Canadian friend offered to take Sue down to “Sang-Knock-Soo” it's probably not how you spell it, but it's how it sounds, and it works in a taxi to get you there. The mission? To get cutlery, dishes, knives, bowls, loo brushes etc. Oh, and flip top bins for the loo's too. Why? In Korea, they can't handle loo paper down the waste treatment plant, so into a bin and bag for disposal along with the general garbage (I don't envy the bin men round here). Mission completed, Sue returned victorious with the spoils of her crusade in plenty of bags. We now have a simple functioning kitchen and household. More items arriving in due course.
Korean Telly:
Korean TV, is, well, just that – Korean! Plenty of telly-selly channels, selling live molluscs to the usual ped-egg from JML! The cable channels installed in the apartment, is limited to say the least. Channel 32 is interesting however, in that the content would be taken straight off our screens in the UK. I know what you are thinking at this point, but you are completely wrong! Its a CCTV channel with a camera pointing directly at the kiddies playground, so that nervous parents can watch their kids play in safety without having to bear the elements, and actually watch them play. The reason this wouldn't make our screens over in the UK? Do-gooders worrying that a paedophile might be droolling over his TV set seeing the kids at play. In the UK, you cant even take pictures of your own kids at the annual sports-day, or Christmas nativity play any more. Makes another reason we got out of Britain when we did. Not that I'm a paedophile drooling over his telly you know! We did however catch the local “chavs” lighting up a sneaky one before heading home at dusk.
I have asked our local guy in the plant to arrange satellite TV for us, or rather Sue, as she misses Eastenders, along with other such “quality” programming. We are expecting to get broadband within the next few days too. Our DVD player and HDD disk in currently on the high seas, and we expect this to land around the 19th March. DVD's of current cinema blockbusters with a dubious copyright agreement can be found at most subway stations. 4 for 10,000KRW (around £5). I think we might pay them a visit soon.
Thursday: More shopping!
Are we shopped out yet? I feel like I couldn't look at another shop, but we have forced ourselves to do yet another trip into Dongjan-Do, where the upmarket shops are based along with a few prized “pound shop” places. These are great for bargains like cheese graters, tupperware, shoe horns, washing liquids etc. Another taxi required please! Back home, dump the stuff off, and then back to Tesco's for the big Grocery shop now we have the fridge/freezer. We found baked beans! Lovely on a bit of toast. We looked at the meat counter, and found what we reckoned was a beef joint, so we should be OK for traditional Sunday roast. We even found a Yorkshire pud mix. Shower gel can be bought here too, but the price? Wow – around £3 for a bottle. Deodorant is also scarce and very expensive. It seems that about 50% of Koreans don't have some kind of gland that produces body odour (Cronin gland I think) so don't need it like us sweaty Westerners.
What's with the towels here?
We have two showers here in the apartment, one en-suite and one in the main bath over the tub. Like anyone, I like to get a good soak under the shower, then rub down with a huge bath sheet until dry. Towels in the shops here including Tesco and E-mart are minuscule! I mean, I have seen bigger postage stamps. OK, not quite, but the biggest towel I have seen is about the size of a hand towel you find in the wash-room. Don't the Koreans get as wet as we do under the spray like us? I reckon they must get out of the shower and run round the room until dry, because they don't buy the towels. We are going to venture over to Costco at the weekend where the American military do their shop. That's got to be a good bet for my size of towel.
Friday: Introduction visit and tour of plant.
Today was a visit to the plant, and meeting with my co-workers, and reports. Big impressive plant some new, some old, but all in very clean condition, and well looked after. About all of the space is used for some machinery or another. There is a cap-ex plan in place, and on the Agenda is a new Dragon AOI machine. We need to shoehorn it in somewhere. The plant works on 2 x12 hour per day shifts, with blue collars pulling around 60+ hours per week. Weekends are usually worked to catch up on backlogs (no difference there then!) The one thing I will be changing with urgency, is the fact the whole place comes to a halt during lunchtime, and tea breaks. All 250 staff take lunches at the same time. This equates to a huge 22.5 hours downtime per week over the 2 shifts. Rotating breaks will get a a major part of this time back at no cost to the company! Let's see how the staff react to that. Most of my time today was taken up with HR, filling in several forms for alien cards, work visa's, bank accounts, dependant's etc. I also arranged the broadband and satellite TV for the apartment which will please Sue. We hope to have this all installed by Tuesday latest. I also met the COO and CFO, board directors of the plant and took a leaf out of the etiquette book, by bringing along a couple of boxes of Walker's shortbread for them. This is probably brown-nosing at it's worst in the UK, but is considered quite polite here, and shows that I have considered the local culture. I'm off out tonight with my team along with our Canadian Ops guy – should be quite a night, if I believe all I'm told!
Norae Bangs, and cats choir!
We met up around 7:30 and headed to town. The favourite restaurant is a Korean BBQ place, which required the removal of shoes at the door, and tables close to the floor. I was quite happy to find that there was a pit in which you could swing round and place your feet into. I didn't think my back or chunky Western frame could handle the sitting cross-legged for long! The usual practice of necking Soju with an accompanying toast was the order of the night. I was accosted several times by what I thought was street vendors plying their wares, but it turns out that they are giving out little gifts along with a business card to entice you into the hostess bars located by the barbers poles. Little sachets of mouth wash, or boiled sweets are the usual things to get. After dinner, we all headed up stairs to a bar, and more beers and Soju's later, we headed back out to the street. Next up was a Norae-Bang, which is a little Karaoke room, complete with tacky disco lights, and large screen projector. One of the Koreans was most apologetic, because he had brought us to an expensive one, where the service comes complete with hostesses for the evening. We ended up with 6 hostesses to the 10 of us. Our Canadian guy opened up with Hotel California by the Eagles, and I was soon coaxed into a dreadful rendition of Wonderwall by Oasis. I could feel the cat's in the back alley covering their ears! As soon as time was up, the room cleared, and we made our way the WA Bar, which is an ice bar, where all the beers are in a central ice box, and you just help yourselves. A barmaid notes down your consumption, and sticks it on your tab next the bar. We rolled out of there at about 3:00am. I smelt like a chimney, because EVERYONE smokes like one.
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