Roboseyo's Really Cool Website of the Day

Lookathis.

Most frequently used words.

Every Expat Living in Korea Eventually Visits Japan

Some move on from Korea and live there; others just visit. Many blog about it, and The Joshing Gnome even spoofed that tendency.

But blog pals Schwim and Foreign/er Joy both went to Japan for Winter holidays recently, and Schwim took some really lovely pictures, while Joy kept a nice, detailed day-by-day account, and loaded it up with explanations, but also put up tons of pictures, for those of us with short attention spans. Go read them.

Update: OK Korea did one too.

Thanks you two. I'll start reporting on my China trip soon: I've finally finished sorting the photos.

How good an actor is Anthony Hopkins?

Playing Adolph Hitler


Playing Richard Nixon


Scary as hell (Hannibal Lecter)


and the real slayer

Just because I love to share... Get Fat in Downtown Seoul

When Brian from Jeollanamdo came to Seoul a while ago, he asked me to give him some tips on where to eat in Downtown Seoul. I created a Google Map of my favorite places, and sent him the URL.

Now, some of my foodie friends might be choked at me for sharing this, instead of revealing it bit by bit, and giving them some morsels and tips before sharing them with everyone... and I'm also hereby surrendering my exclusive "I know a place" power, so that people can find them on their own, rather than having to buy me nice things before I show them another of my finds, but I just posted the link in a comment board at Ask A Korean! anyway, so I may as well put it here, too.

Wanna eat well in Downtown Seoul? Here are the best places I found, after living there for 16 months. As always, I offer no guarantees that ANY of these places are still open... but most of them probably are. And they're all winners. Promise.

Tell your friends. Tell ALL your friends... just give me the assist, and don't pretend you found it on your own, because I ate at a lot of crappy places to find these awesome ones, so you owe me that much. There's more, but this will do for now.

Go forth! Eat well! Brush your teeth after every meal, exercise regularly, and don't blame me for the impending weight gain.

If you really, really like the places I recommended, send me an e-mail and let me know. If you know of a place that deserves to be on the list, send me an e-mail and let me know. If you loved these places so much that you want to buy me something nice anyway, even though I gave my richest treasure away for free, fire me an e-mail and we'll work something out.

-have fun!
Roboseyo

The map:

View Larger Map

The link:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=117290158438041859718.00045d3022a94c182234b&ll=37.577236,126.982899&spn=0.025135,0.040941&t=h&z=15

The Golden Klogs are Open for Voting!

Go see the post about the Golden Klog Awards, a survey to look back on the best Korea blogs of 2008, written up at The Hub Of Sparkle.

Roboseyo got nominated in a few categories...if you're a die-hard, you can vote for me, I suppose, and I might win a .jpg of some yellow kimchi (woo hoo), but I'm excited about the huge variety of blogs that got nominated: you can find all kinds of good stuff on there that's worth reading, best of all, a lot of them being blogs that aren't yet very well known, but deserve a larger audience.

Anyway, the full write-up is over here, including links to the survey.

Go forth and vote!

Have a good one.

Rob

These two guys are always on Korean cable TV...

And I love making fun of them, not quite as much as Mad TV does, though.


They got their acting styles really accurately.

Really Really Cool Website Of The Day

Go.  Play.  Enjoy.

Baby Name Wizard is its name.

Must have Java.

Doucheburns Goes Downtown

For more of your Doucheburns amusement, before I cut them off for my trip to Vietnam this seollal...

Here's the transition from "grizzly travel beard" to "doucheburns," for your edification.


and here's a short slideshow of doucheburns touching some of the bases in downtown Seoul.
Forgot to get a picture of Doucheburns in the Vietnamese embassy. My bad. I had lunch with Fatmanseoul, and hopefully those pictures will pop up soon: when they do, I'll post them here as well.

Enjoy!


Happy new year, and see you again soon.

Coming next week: the big, big Korea Blog Golden Klog awards survey: vote for your favorites.

Nominations are still open at The Hub Of Sparkle, but move fast: the window's closing, and this survey's already looking to be a whopper.

Bye for now.

Roboseyo

Doucheburns...The People Have Spoken

More later. I have to go downtown and pick up my Vietnam visa looking like this.

Two Things I Like and One Thing I Don't Like

Thing I like one:

These birds, feeding on the rice a dude scattered for them, near the Anguk end of Insadong, and scattering whenever something startled them.



Thing I like two:

These fiber-optic Christmas lights, in Myeongdong, Seoul. I'm bummed that the usual Christmas Lights were not up over Chunggyecheon Stream this year (Girlfriendoseyo said they were cancelled due to the bad economy... I say boo! I didn't notice myself, because I was on vacation in China. [sucka])

Previous years, absent this year:

(Image from Seoulman)

Lights I like, from Myeongdong this year.


Thing I like two point five:
Also: an impressive Christmas Tree I saw in Beijing, where I traveled. (Yeah!)
In front of a Lotte Department Store, on Wangfujing Street (hope I spelled that right).



Finally, something I DON'T like.

I'm looking around Seoul for a really good Spanish paella rice, and as I have learned, when one goes to a Spanish restaurant, one really ought to order the Sangria.

Twenty minutes after the pitcher of Sangria arrived for our party of four, we were left with this.



Rather than rant for two hundred words about it, all I'm gonna say is, I'm not paying for ice, nimrods. I can make that at home.

And that goes to every single place serving me cold drinks, too, all the way from the fancy schmancy Spanish place in Itaewon, to the Starbucks down the street, to the fast-food butt-burger. I want drink, not ice, and that watery no-longer-tastes-like-the-drink-I-ordered spuzz in the bottom of the cup twenty minutes after the drink is served? It might just convince me never to patronize your place again. thanks for listening.


roboseyo out

Roboseyo's Cool Website of the Day

time lapse map of the spread of various world religions.

Tooting cool.

Go here.

The Five Best Pictures I Took During My China Trip

As you know, I was in China for four weeks, just now. I don't want to bore you all to tears with miles of text about my China trip, or reams and reams of pictures... but I want to share some of it. The best stuff, you know.

So here are the five best pictures I took during my trip. And ooh, brother, it's been hard getting it down to five.

Enjoy.

(In no particular order, some of the pictures I think are interesting:)

Out the window of the all-night train from Shenzen to Guilain: the lit inside caught a reflection on the window, as a dark tree flashed by. I believe Matt actually took this picture, but it was on MY camera.
Trees in mist in the Longji Rice Terraces in Longsheng.
The Hong Kong Skyline, always a work in progress. From a walkway near Central Station.

A boat on Erhai Lake, near Dali City, Yunnan Province, South China

A skating couple at dusk in what I believe is Qian Hai Lake, Beijing, China.


And finally, you know Korea's left a permanent mark on you, and who you are, when you're on the Great Wall Of China, and you look around in awe at the mountain ridges and the amazing vistas, stunned by one of humanity's great engineering achievements, and you think, "Hey! I'm ought to commemorate this with a selca!" (Selca is an abbreviation for "self camera" -- picture of myself, taken by myself, a recently coined Konglish catchphrase.)

Don't forget: it's not too late to nominate blogs for the K-Blog Awards at The Hub Of Sparkle. Since I posted it, it would be a bit disingenuous to nominate myself in the various categories, but if YOU, my lovely readers, like my blog (hint hint) YOU are WELCOME (hint hint) to nominate my blog for various categories, as you see fit. (hint hint)

After all: what's the fun of the internet if you can't stuff ballot boxes from time to time.
The categories for the Klog Awards (or the Golden Kimchis) are...

1. Best Overall Korea Blog, 2008
2. Most Thought Provoking Korea Blog, 2008
3. Most Current and Timely Korea Blog, 2008
4. Most Helpful Blog to Expats in Korea, 2008
5. Funniest Korea Blog, 2008
6. Happiest Blogger, 2008
7. Angriest Blogger, 2008
8. Best Pop Culture Blog, 2008
9. Best Culture Blog in General, 2008
10. Best Food Blog, 2008
11. Best Korea Photography Blog, 2008
12. Craziest Comment Board in a Korea Blog, 2008
13. Most Interesting Comment Board in a Korea Blog, 2008
14. Best New Korea Blog, 2008
15. Up and Comer - Blogger To Watch in 2009
16. Best Post or Series by a K-Blogger, 2008
17. Korea Blog Most Completely Taken Over by Obama’s Run To The Presidency, 2008

HAHAHAHAHA - Tribute to that Stupid Catchy Song, and Beardoseyo

OK. still looking for nominations for the best blogs of 2008. Seriously. I don't want to be the only one with input here, 'cause, you know, that'd be lame.


Until then: while traveling in China, I didn't shave, because I hate shaving, and my hair's dark enough that I need to shave every morning while I'm working, or I look awful.

This is what it looks like after four weeks without shaving...


After the initial neck-beard trim, which would have sent Girlfriendoseyo running, screaming from my presence, it looked like this.


Now, before I shave it off entirely, I'm offering you, the readers of Roboseyo, some input:

For one day, I will do my remaining facial hair in whatever way my lovely readers choose, on the sidebar poll:

Do you want to see Roboseyo with:

1. Mutton Chops


2. a Pornstar 'stache


3. A goatee


4. Doucheburns


5. Laser Beard


and finally...

For all the songs that get stuck in our heads...

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Go to the sidebar. Vote.

The Best Blogs of 2008

Over at the Hub of Sparkle, I've started a huge survey of what you think are the best Korea blogs of 2008.

Take a look, and add your nominations on the comment board either there, or at the Hub of Sparkle Facebook page. If you're a K-blogger, tell your readers about it, so that they can get over there, stuffing the ballot box on your behalf: after all, it's the internet!

I'm closing comments on this post, so that you put all your comments at the Hub of Sparkle's site, or Facebook discussion group.

Heh heh heh. When Insurance Advertisers cause Diplomatic Incidents...

Resemble anyone you know?



(from Mad TV...I think)

Dealing with Racism

From Foreigner Joy, here's a good look at how to deal with racism in everyday life, and how people respond wrongly when they encounter it.

Heh heh heh.

From Cracked.com, from last summer:

"Ways to make the Olympics Kick More Ass" -- a cracked.com photoshop contest, where people photoshop funny pictures based on a theme.

Welcome, Korea Herald Readers

The news is this: I have been asked, and accepted the offer, to write an ongoing column for the Expat Living section of The Korea Herald. My theme will be building community in the Expat world: I hope to talk about the importance of community to enhancing the expat experience, and helping people who live here, to enjoy the heck out of Korea, and I also hope to feature some of the communities that add meaning to expats' lives while they live here.

The article itself:
If the link works, you can read it here on the Korea Herald's webpage.

If the link doesn't work, you can read it here, cut and pasted to Roboseyo, and magically buried deep in the past.

Finally, if you are part of an expat community, or a community involving Koreans and expats together, and you think your community should be featured in my column, drop me a line at roboseyo@gmail.com explaining what you do, and why you'd love to be featured, and we'll be in touch.

If you're new to this blog, welcome to Roboseyo! You can look at the sidebar to the right, and see some of my favorite posts, to get to know who Roboseyo is, and what I'm about.

Thanks for stopping by!
(and thanks also, Matt, for giving me the opportunity to write this column)

sincerely
-Roboseyo

Remember the Foreigners who got Deported for Producing a Comedy that Made Fun of Korea?

A moment in memoriam.

Metropolitician on the same: he describes the Korean police/media's "scandal creation attempts" in a number of similar incidents where foreigners got scapegoated or demonized, sometimes through exaggeration, sometimes through outright fabrication.

Have things gotten better? Talk amongst yourselves.

The Korean Does it Again: K-Blogger of the Month for January

Ask A Korean! a blog you might remember from my old complaining expat teamup, published this list of visual cues on "How to Tell a Korean by Looks" back in September.

And he gets to be my K-blogger of the month for January, because he deserves a look.

Since I'm on vacation, but want to keep the blog posting until I come back, I've saved this up until now to highlight. "The Ultimate Korean Looks List - How to Pick Koreans from Other Asians Just by Looking At Them" discusses. . . read that title again. It's a funny and bang-on list that made me laugh several times.

The most helpful, and also funniest part discusses how to identify a young Korean woman by her fashion.
Best line: The overall look is that of a literally overdressed woman who outgrew exactly half of her wardrobe.

I salute you, The Korean, for referring to yourself in the third person so consistently, and for producing good content non-Koreans find worth reading.

Two other Ask A Korean! gems: The handbook of How To Deal With Koreans, and how to interact with Asian cultures in general without making a fool of yourself. It's great.

Two highlights:

Do not ask "Where are you from?" to an Asian person unless you are reasonably certain that s/he is outside of his/her American hometown. If the Asian answers, say, "Los Angeles", do not follow up with "where are you originally from?" or "where are your parents from?" Our precise ethnicity is none of your fucking business. Do we ever ask you whether you are from Dominican Republic, Ireland, or Ivory Coast?

and

On the other hand, if you are at a Thai restaurant and don't have chopsticks, do not act all high and mighty and ask for chopsticks. Thai people don't use chopsticks.

And finally, after the great "Why do Expats Complain about Korea" teamup, The Korean joined forces with GI Korea from ROK Drop in late September, which also deserves a second look; I'd meant to blog it then, but got distracted by Youtube videos of cats falling off chairs and fan-made animations of Batman fighting other superheroes from the Marvel universe, so I want to bring your attention to them now. They are a lot more specific than the "Expat" series, because the Military in Korea is a much more singular and specific group, with unique needs and interactions with Korea, and who represent something much more specific to Koreans, which means they got to go into much more specific detail in discussing this (sometimes) mutually antagonistic relationship, than I could in my complaining expat broad-brush-generalization-fest.

So if you haven't already, I also highly recommend you read:

from ROK Drop, Why do GIs Complain about Korea,

and from Ask A Korean!, Why do Koreans Complain about the US Military in Korea. The list is much more specific and focused than the one I wrote about expats in general, which is a much more diverse group with many more varied interests and experiences of Korea, and so much harder to write about with any specificity.

Go forth and read!

(his latest post about Fan Death is a real winner, too)

This is a naughty one for all you English Teachers out there...

If you think your job sucks. . .

(warning: sex jokes and bad language)

Korea's version of haggis

instead of stuffing a sheep stomach, how about stuffing a squid?





from So I Married An Axe Murderer


till then. . . seen in the window of a hiking goods shop. . . uh. . . yeah. Special hiking underwear. You know, for all those jolts as you clamber over rocks.

I like that their logo is an elephant, too.