Seoul Trip

The past week has flown by.  I went up to Seoul to watch the South Korea vs. Argentina game with my buddy Luke Lee from Dartmouth.  We hung out with his brother and a few of his English-speaking Korean friends (all of us decked out in red South Korean apparel).  As the excitement of the game built up and our pints emptied, I found myself a bit lost in the mixture of Korean cheering swearing that began to take place.  Luckily for me, "going nuts" when South Korean scored right before halftime is a universal language, and I had no problem contributing to the celebration.



The rest of my trip to Seoul consisted of a lot of temples, shrines, palaces, museums, markets and other touristy attractions.  Rather than talk about everything I did, I'm just going to put up a bunch of pictures with a little blurb about each.  I would recommend clicking on each picture to see the full-size versions rather than just the thumbnails.  Enjoy.






I stayed at some nice little hostels while I was in Seoul.  They were some of the most fun places I've ever stayed.  I met some really interesting people at them.  One of the hostels actually offered me a  BBQ dinner and night of clubbing for free.  This one (see right) had a really interesting bathroom where the shower head was just on the wall right between the sink and toilet.  There is nothing separating the shower from the rest of the bathroom, so everything just got soaked when I used it.







Seoul is famous for its palaces.  The picture below is at Gyeongbokgung palace, the largest palace.  The second is Gyeongbokgung's sister palace, Changdokgung.  As you can see, they're not much different.

More palace Scenery

                     

I walked around a traditional village called Bukchon Hanok village.  I felt a little uncomfortable taking pictures of the people and village, so I stopped where some men were lifting heavy bags of cement, grabbed a bag, and carried to where they were stacking them (see pic).  They got a real kick out of this and started rooting me on.  It made me feel a little better about being such a tourist.

Changing of the Guards at Gyeongbokgung Palace

Myeong-dong market (right)

This was a really fun place where tons and tons of street vendors sell all sorts of stuff.  It's usually really crowded, but there's music playing, and it's a really fun scene.

On our way into a Buddhist temple, we happened to come across this little festival just outside.  The whole place was filled with those colorful lanterns.  The next two are shots from inside the temple.

On my last day in Seoul, I went up to the DMZ (demilitarized zone).  It's a buffer region spanning 2 km on either side of the border with North Korea.  You have to go up as part of a tour since it's heavily monitored and there are tons of restrictions on what goes on up there.  We had to suit up in helmets and bullet proof vests for the trip.  We also had to practice to drop and cover on command.  jk, we didn't have to do any of that.  I was surprised however, at how much military patrolling and blockage/invasion defense equipment was active in the area.  They're not taking any chances.  As part of the tour, we got to go into one of the tunnels that North Korea had tried to dig to invade the South.  There are currently four of these tunnels that have been discovered before the North could make use of them.  There is constant surveillance of ground vibrations because the South believes that the North is still building these tunnels.  I wasn't allowed to take pictures of much, but I did manage to get a few.


The tunnel we went into was actually right under a mine field...not kidding this time.  Here (right) is a picture of the barbed wire with "Mine" signs on it.  The entrance to the tunnel was directly below.  In the tunnel, we were allowed to go 150 from the actual border.  At that point, there is a huge blockade in the tunnel with constant video surveillance.  We were told that there was an underground mine field just on the other side of the wall we were facing.

COEX Aquarium

They had some really weird tanks at this place.  Yes, that fish is in a toilet.

Piranha

Rare Two-Headed Turtle

Everland

Beth and I went to Korea's largest amusement park (Everland) for a day.  We wanted to get a full day in, so we planned to arrive at 9:30 in the morning when the park opened.  It was forcasted to rain, so we agreed that rather than worry about getting wet, we would just plan to get drenched and just suck it up for the day.  That part went as planned, and we got pretty wet.  Unfortunately we didn't realize that the park is practically closed in the rain.  There were about two rides open, and they were all the little indoor rides that are designed for 5-year olds.  It was a pretty sad scene...we ended up playing in a little kids arena with foam balls.  It was soo upsetting.  We finally found a decent river tube ride that we went on a few times.  We couldn't stop making fun of the waterproof blankets they offered to wrap us in during the ride.  They also had space heaters and fans for drying off after the afterward...needless to say, we avoided all of these.  As we wandered around the deserted park, we began to realize that there was quite a bit more to do than we originally expected.  They had some really cool zoo-like buildings, 4D moives, and an amazing safari tour bus ride that took us through an area with all sorts of wild animals.  Finally around 2:30, the sun began to come out.  Rides suddenly started going.  We got so excited that we began sprinting around the park from one ride to the next.  The greatest part was that there were no lines, since everyone had been smarter than us and had avoided the park on a rainy day .  We got to ride everything in the park as many times as we wanted.  We ended up being at Everland for 11.5  hours and probably got to see and do way more than we would have if it was a clear day and the park was crowded.

Our favorite ride was the the T-Express (right background).  Amazing wooden roller coaster.  Its first drop is 77 degrees and pulls 4.5 g's.  It's ranked #1 most thrilling roller coaster in the world.  All in all, it was a really impressive ride.  We rode it 8 times.

Tiger from the Safari Tour

Hey There Teddy. (Coming over to check out our bus)

-OAO

Food Update

Just a short update on some of the "delicious" things I've eaten over the last week.


Koreans put these awful things called sweet beans in many of their desserts (particularly ice cream). It looks just like a brown bean and tastes like one too. It's probably the last possible thing I want to find when I bite into what I think is a sweet desert. They also have a habit of crushing these "sweet" beans into a paste and making it the filling of things like ice cream sandwiches and warm rolls. For some reason, I always manage to make a poor choice in the cafeteria or supermarket and have to choke down some beans for desert, or first thing in the morning when I go for a warm roll.

Dr. Oh (the head of our lab) took the American exchange students out for dinner the other night with another professor from the school. Let's just say it was one of the most interesting dinners I have ever been to.  The other professor we were with said "want to know how to make the beer taste better?" I wasn't about to pass this opportunity up, so I followed his instructions to drink half of my beer. Then, he began to fill it back up with Soju. I case you don't know, Soju is a common alcohol over here which tastes like vodka to me, but is half the strength. Then, the professor continued to tell us that it is customary to go "bottoms up" on the first drink of the night. I couldn't believe my ears...this guy must have gone to Dartmouth.  It did add a nice flavor I might add.  By then, the food began to arrive and I stared at what was the most impressive sight of sashimi I'd ever seen.  The sashimi I am used to, like the smoked salmon etc., was child's play.  Let me go through a few of the highlights.





A plate arrived in front of me with literally a whole fish on it (head, tail, skin, and all). It looked like they cooked it straight out of the river. It was only about 3 or 4 inches long and an inch or so thick, but you eat it by popping it straight down the hatch, headfirst. Ok, so that was a little weird, but not actually that bad tasting.







Next, I tried probably my least favorite thing I've eaten in Korea to this day. If you ever get a chance to eat sea squirt, I would highly recommend thinking twice about it. I've got two pictures of sea squirt. One is what it looks like in its natural habitat, and the other is on my plate. They don't really do much to hide its appearance. But, with some alcohol on my side, one of those suckers went right down after the fish. Possibly the weirdest consistency I've ever eaten...nasty.






















When I thought it couldn't get much worse, the waitresses brought in something I have wanted to try since I heard about it over here. Live Octopus. Yes literally wiggling tentacles with suction cups on them (very
different from the kind you get when you order octopus sashimi. I asked Dr. Oh about what he thought of the live octopus, and his response was "it's not baby food". Grand. You have to pry a wiggling tentacle off of the plate, which immediately suctions onto your finger with surprising force. Then, the idea is the chew it rather fast to prevent it from latching onto the inside of your mouth/throat. I had heard some horror stories about people dying because the octopus suctioned on in their throats and suffocated them. I wasn't taking my chances...I chewed that thing to a pulp before swallowing.

The rest was a little anti-climactic, but we still got to try some bubblefish, sea urchin, a rather large piece of fish stomach,  and puffer (the kind that is poisonous if prepared the wrong way. Simsons episode anyone?). After dinner, we all went out to a Korean favorite. Nodebong (karaoke). It's very different from what we do in the states, but it's actually really fun.

Yesterday, a few of the guys from the lab took three of us out for another unique food not uncommon in Korea. Woof woof.  Dog meat.  It was dog soup actually. Korean's don't eat it very often, and it was described to us as meat that would be prepared for a holiday meal (a bit like our turkey). The meat actually has a very unique flavor. The soup had both chunks of dog meat as well as little slippery bits. After eating one of these pieces, I held up another and asked one of the lab guys what exactly it was.  The response I received was "Oh yea. That's the uh, hmm what do you call it..(thinking)..Ahh! Skin". Meals never come without surprises over here.

A lovely view of what you might find in the markets

Enjoy your dinner!!


-OAO

First Week Down...

and I'm already struggling to keep this blog up.

Based on the rumors I've heard about Korea boasting some of the fastest internet speeds, I have to say that I've been a bit disappointed with the internet thus far.  The connections are shoddy and blitzing is sooo slow.  Although I have to say, Korea has its head on straight when it comes to computers...Macs don't even exist over here. You can't buy Mac accessories in any of the electronics stores.  It's very refreshing.

Household utilities are proving to be a problem over here for me. Trying to get 3:30 on the microwave took me almost three minutes of pressing buttons with random symbols on them.  Finally, I managed to get the clock up to 5:00... good enough.  I'm extremely low on clean clothes at the moment and still haven't figured out how to use the washing machines.

My third day in the lab, the president of Israel (see right) came to Kaist to meet Hubo (our humanoid robot).  It was pretty impressive seeing him.  I got a few shots of him, but it was difficult since he was constantly surrounded by important people and security. (Some of the pictures are small since I have to squeeze them into the blog, so you can click near the bottom on any of them to get the full-sized image).

A Brazilian guy who works on a different project in my lab invited me to join him for some soccer one night. As it turns out, he is part of the Kaist international soccer team that and plays games against other universities on the weekends.  Good bunch of guys from all over the world (Ghana, Brazil, Germany, etc).  They're really nice and have asked me to come play for them.  I'm just the pale American work horse, wearing tennis shoes and playing sweeper (don't even know what I'm doing back there)...it's a great time.  Our practices usually begin sometime after 10PM and sometimes we play until sometime around 2 in the morning.

Being in a foreign country during the World Cup is a completely different experience from the States. Daejeon isn't exactly a bustling city, and yet the roar form a goal can be heard from the streets at all hours of the night/morning. I've been going out to the local bars to watch the games which usually take place at 8:30PM, 11PM, and 3:30AM (Korean time).  Last weekend was quite an experience...three days in a row, I went out with my new Brazilian buddies to some bar around 8PM and came out when the sun was shinning at 5:30 in the morning. Who needs sleep anyways...that's what 3-hour Korean class is for.


On Sunday, I climbed Mt. Sikjangsan with another girl from the lab.  Daejeon is a very mountainous region around the outskirts of the city, but the experience was a little different from what I'm used to in the NH White's.  The mountain had tons of people on it, and the trail runs at a very shallow grade all the way up.  Every so often, there would be stopping points with some sort of picnic area.  I stopped at my favorite one and took a few pictures.  They have tiny little chairs and tables everywhere with little containers of food on them.  It's funny seeing a bunch of adults sitting around on little kids playground equipment munching on little morsels.  I ate some interesting little fishes just for the novelty of it (See pic).  I'm going to try to keep a list of all the interesting things I've eaten and share them in a later post.

As for what I am actually supposed to be doing while I'm over here, I have begun a project to try to teach the robot how to play Simon Says.  I run tests on a computer simulator of HUBO rather than the actual robot...probably a good choice given the way my tests are shaping up at the moment (See video below in full-screen.  I had a little fun with the sound effects).  I think we'd better put some pillows down before the poor thing acutally has to run my code.

Couple of other interesting pictures:

Common scene in supermarkets

Daejeon Street View (just as you imagined):

My new favorite drink (Tropic Thunder anyone?)

Looking forward to visiting a buddy from Dartmouth in Seoul this weekend and hoping to check out the DMZ at the North Korean border (wish me luck).  Go USA.

-OAO

Day 1

Dear All,

Blogs have always seemed a bit weird to me and I've never been much of a writer, but seeing as I am required to keep this up, we'll just have to see how this goes.

June 6, 2010:

After a hectic return from Dartmouth and packing for Korea, I boarded the bus in CT and headed down to JFK.  It didn't take long for me to realize that I may have been the only non-Asian boarding Korean Air flight 082 direct to Seoul.  I got some funny looks, my favorite being a little Korean boy who was talking to his mom when I sat down next to him.  For the next 5 minutes he went absolutely silent and stared at me as if in shock.  Once on the plane,  "How To Train Your Dragon" (great movie actually) kept me occupied for 98 minutes of my 14-hour flight.  I was sitting next to an non-English speaking elderly couple from Seoul who continually stared at me and kept saying "Seoul?".  I would reply "yes, Seoul" because I couldn't seem to get across to them that I was actually going to Daejeon.  At one point, the woman suddenly grabbed my wrist and proceeded to drag it over to her husband while staring very closely at what appeared to be my watch.  So now I am sitting there with m arm stretched across three seats having no idea what this couple wants with my wrist/watch.  Finally, they gave me my arm back and began the whole "Seoul?" conversation again.  After landing,  I had some trouble meeting up with my contact in Seoul, but eventually found him and got on the bus for Daejeon.


After 30+ hours of travel, I finally arrived at my dorm.  Not even 5 minutes in my room, and I was already getting yelled at by the check-in man for wearing my shoes inside.  I guess you can only go barefoot or wear flip-flops when you're in your room.  My roommate is from Hong Kong and seems very nice.  He speaks some English too and seems to like speaking it.  At this point I was pretty wiped, so I hit the showers (locker room style) and then bed.

June 7, 2010:
Woke up and met up with Beth (another Colby) for breakfast.  The other students in the program arrived a week ago, so they have a better idea of what's going on.  Food is interesting but very inexpensive.  I don't really know what I'm getting half the time, so I guess it's a good thing I'm not a picky eater.  Getting my Kaist ID card took a little while and required walking all over the campus, but I had Beth with me to show me the ropes.  I haven't really got a sense of the campus yet, but I do know that there is a sick gym right in the middle of campus that is being build.  Apparently it was supposed to be done a few weeks ago, so I'm really looking forward to checking it out.

At 2:00, I set off for three hours of Korean Language class...wait WHAT?  This wasn't in the job description.  I've never ever heard of a class that meets for that long, not to mention actually attend one.  I have zero experience with speaking Korean and already missed the first week of class...lovely.  For the next three hours I sat and listened to  write and repeat meaningless sounds over and over.  I swear there is no distinguishable difference between "cooh" "coo" and "cuh", but she seems happy as we repeat them back to her. As if all the weird characters and sounds aren't enough, our teacher starts using French to explain a question asked by one of the other American students.  Surprisingly, the French was about all I understood in that three hour span.  In all honesty, Korean language is certainly not my calling, but I am starting to get the hang of it slowly.

In case anyone is wondering about the title, the Hubo Lab is where I will be working on the robotics and will be spending most of my time by the looks of things.  I don't know much about it at this point, but it looks pretty amazing from what I've seen.  Lots and lots of gadgets and machinery (my kind of place).  From what I have seen and heard, the other workers in the lab are pretty much machines themselves.  It's currently 10:00 PM and nobody has left yet.  I'm not even sure if they do leave.  I guess I'm a wimp, but I'm heading out to go hit the weights before I call it a night.

I thought that the gym might be the first place I actually feel like I know what's going on.  Apparently, the US is still the only place in the world that does not use the metric system, so again I found myself out of my element trying to lift some random number of kgs. rather than the familiar lbs'.  After 20 mins or so of fussing around with odd sized plates, I convinced myself that I was jet lagged and gave up early.

That's all I've got for now.  I'll try to get some pics up soon.

-OAO