I.New.Seoul.Slogan.Disappoint

I.Seoul.U.  World Taekwondo Federation.

How did we get here? Sometime in August, I heard Seoul City was taking submissions for a new slogan. Because Hi Seoul was three or four years old, and everybody knows branding works best when the brand image regularly changes into new and inexplicable images and ideas. Already then I winced in expectation of a new slogan choosing process that would be awful and annoying at every step of the way. I wish my call hadn't been so dead-on.

High Street Low Street: Seoul Photography by Dayv Mattt

Dayv Mattt, also known as Chiam, is a photographer I've admired for quite a while now- he's had a handful of different blogs, and can currently be found at http://www.dayvmattt.com/dm/

Disclosure: he contacted me and offered to send me a copy of his book for free, in exchange for a review. I insisted on paying for it, because I admire his photography and want to support it, and because I still don't want my readers to feel like they have to doubt my writing because I've used my blog to get free stuff.



But more to the point... I simply love his photography. The man seems to wander around the same parts of Seoul that I do -- not to say the same parts geographically, but the same types of corners and  neighborhoods seem to attract his camera's eye. The search for a good subject leads him up hillsides and into alleyways instead of down the main streets - the grittier and more crumbled, the better, so his photos end up showing a Seoul that City Officials and Official Guidebooks rarely highlight in their urgent attempt to dazzle visitors with shiny lights and huge displays of pointless technology: places that pretend war in the long past, dictators in the nearer past, and poverty and class strife right goddamn now have never touched Seoul, which is a well-meant, but an outright lie.

Mattt's camera's eye also gives clear evidence that he has lived in Seoul for a long time, paid his dues: the tourist would not notice from their hotel room, or not realize how important and common an element of Seoul life they are, to include uniformed school kids swarming into the streets when the hogwans close, or the way people react when a pigeon explodes into flight. It takes a long time living here, and an observant eye, to know that some of the things documented in his book, actually are important parts of living in Seoul: more so, even, than touchscreen thingies on streetsides in Kangnam, or the ornate corners of austere hanok buildings against blue skies - which you have to go looking for, rather than walking by them on the way to the subway stop every day, and which even tourists can  catch in a point-and-click, and feel like they've captured something about Seoul that matters.

The crumbling stoop where somebody's grandmother is husking garlic cloves, the side-alley where middle-school kids linger between hogwan classes, or taxi drivers pull over for a smoke and a piss, where even the chicken delivery guy gets lost; random stoops decorated with drunken salarymen and graffiti-covered police buses get perceptive, and even loving treatment here, and this is why High Street Low Street is a new favorite book of Seoul photography.

The book is huge - A3 size, for those of you who feed paper into photocopiers, and beautiful, glossy and rich in color, with around a hundred full color, heavy paper pages. Mattt has self-published these beautiful editions, and is selling them independently, to help himself buy a replacement for his old camera.

Maybe the best thing I can say about the book is this: after spending some time with it, I feel like DayvMattt lives in the same Seoul I live in, and I bow to him for capturing in images the feelings of the Seoul I've lived in, and loved, cracks, uneven cobblestones, blind corners with sudden night views, pig faces and foul-mouthed middle-schoolers and night streetlights making old houses magical, and all.

I highly recommend this beautiful book of Seoul street photography. I will protect it from my baby for as long as I can, and I recommend you buy a copy at his website, through bank transfer or paypal, to support an artist trying to make something beautiful on his own terms.

The "buy my book" link. You won't regret it. I might order two more copies for my dad and step-mom when they come to Seoul.

Korea Heaven for Cyclists? The Country, Maybe; Seoul, Hell No

This big sign in a subway station kind of bothers me. It's about bike trails... clearly out of the city. It looks pretty; I'd like to bike there. I've had some great experiences biking around towns and countrysides outside of Seoul.


See, it's all well and good for Korea to be working on increasing and improving biking trails. I love that, actually, and as soon as I'm out of Seoul, renting a bike to explore the area I've landed, is one of my favorite things to do with Wifeoseyo.

But there's a problem with calling Korea (and especially Seoul) a biking mecca (and I'm not saying anybody has: this is a bit of a straw man, but I have a point to make, so bear with me here.)



Honestly, I'm not the guy to talk about bike trekking across the entire nation: I've never tried it, though I'm sure a country that's 70% mountainous would present challenges. Small towns often have some nice places to bike near their tourist spots, and many I've visited have bike rentals available: AWESOME.

And Seoul is an AWESOME place for recreational biking. Awesome awesome awesome. The Han River Park, the streams that go all the way up to Uijeongbu and down to Bundang, Cheonggyecheon and its off-shoot up to Hansung University station, the Olympic Park and Seoul Forest, the area around World Cup Stadium, and I'm sure there's a bunch I'm missing there: Seoul is a great place for recreational biking.



In fact, all the pictures on this post except one or two were taken on the same amazing (exhausting) day in October.

But here's the problem with advertising Seoul as a biker's haven:

It just ain't. Unless you're doing it for your health. If you're biking to work? You're taking your life into your hands.

Along Hongje Stream.


There are almost no biking lanes, almost anywhere in the city. Those right hand lanes where people usually bike? You're in danger of getting clipped by a taxi, or having the tar scared out of you by a bus, at any time. Sidewalks? Korean people's habit (and this is by no means exclusively Korean: every culture has people who lack spacial awareness or consideration) of walking three abreast, shoulder-to-shoulder, or with smartphones and headphones, means that you're gonna need a hell of a bell, and even then, the occasional dumbarse will just stare at you and not figure out that you're ringing the bell because they're the one in the way. So...  road biking is scary and dangerous, and sidewalk biking is barely faster than walking at times.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee. Dumbass pedestrian.

Chicken or the egg: are Koreans terrible at sharing the sidewalk with bikes because nobody bikes on sidewalks here, or does nobody bike on sidewalks here because Koreans are terrible at sharing the sidewalk with bikes?

Near Hansung University.


Here's another one: do very few Koreans under 60 use bikes to get around because Korean drivers are terrible at sharing the road with them, or are Koreans terrible at sharing the road with bikers because so few people under sixty use bikes to get around?

Why is this a problem? Utter. Bike lane. Fail. This is the bike lane in front of Gyeongbok Palace.


See how the only thing separating the bike lane from the driving lane is a white painted line? Well buddy, cars can drive over paint very easily. So can motorbikes, buses (I've seen it repeatedly happen), and taxis seem to enjoy driving over white paint lines.

And that's where there's a bike lane at all. If I worked in the downtown core, I'd be terrified to bike there. I'd wear two helmets, and a padded suit that looked like this:


The really funny thing about the Gwanghwamun bike lane fail is that right down in Mangwon, they've figured out how to do it right:

Those metal guards tell drivers, "Bikes only... or we'll wreck your car up"... and I bet it works!

Along the Hongje Stream, on the way towards World Cup Stadium, near the Hilton Hotel.


And... sorry to pull this into the discussion, but it's true...

Japan completely, totally, absolutely obliterates Korea, in terms of making the roads bike friendly.

Look what I randomly stumbled across in Kyoto when I was there with Wifeoseyo: a bike parking garage! It was beautiful. I saw people riding bikes in business attire there. I saw stylish people riding bikes there. I loved it.

Look how many bikes it can store, in how much smaller a space than a car parking lot! You know how everybody complains that there's no parking in downtown Seoul? Well...

My own theories as to why Seoul is ass for commuter cyclists?
1. Seoul is too hilly.
2. Bikes are for poor people. Korea is not far enough removed from its impoverished past to have lived down this stigma and notice how much cheaper, and how much more space efficient bikes are than penises status symbols cars.
3. Bikes are for kids. It's undignified to ride a kid's toy to work. And heaven forbid I sweat on the way to or home from work!

So nobody takes bikes to work... so nobody agitates to make Seoul more bike friendly outside of park space... the fact Seoul has lots of recreational biking options means that city planners can point at them and ignore the fact Seoul is terrifying to traverse, and horribly set up for bike commuters, and Seoul drivers are dreadfully unable to share the road with bikers, because they never have to.

Next time you're stuck in a Seoul traffic jam, though, I want you to think of this picture.
(source)


Will it always be this way? Probably not. Seoulites will figure it out. Eventually. The amount of recreational biking in Seoul has increased a lot lately, so that might be a good sign for the future of bike lanes and heedful drivers. Maybe when somebody brings more expensive bike brands into the country, so that people can use their bike brand like a North Face coat, and still compete for prestige while cycling, we'll see a change. Anyway, the pretend bike lane in front of Gyeongbok Palace annoys me, and I had to get that off my chest.

Rant over.

Climbed Dobong Monain. Killed My Legs.

Turns out Dobong Mountain is a steep bastard of a mountain to climb. I was out of practice, so it took days before I could do things like stairs again.

But once you get to the top it's crunking beautiful.

Here's a panorama I took last wednesday. Click on the image for a full-size picture.

Seoul is ASKMEN.com's 6th Best City to Visit

ASKMEN.com, the website equivalent to Maxim magazine, just listed Seoul as the 6th best city in the world to visit. Also: the top city in Asia, beating out Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai (none of which ranked, and all of which were also beaten by Beijing and Bangkok)

So... eat your heart out, lonely planet. And maybe next time another website says "Seoul Sucks," City friggin' Hall won't feel the need to act as if it's the end of the world.

Seoul's score was 80.2/100, and here were the criteria:

I like Seoul, too.  :)

Ten Facts about Driving in Seoul

So a little while ago, Grrrl Traveler rented a car for a five hour road trip, and came back with these ten observations about driving in Korea.

The most relevant one:

You need either an international driver's license, or a Korean driver's license, to drive in Korea.

Fortunately, getting a Korean driver's license isn't too difficult, actually.  Simon and Martina from Eat Your Kimchi  (and aren't their early videos cute, compared to the polished stuff they make now) go through how to get one from a driver's examination center.  The Constant Crafter also describes that process.


Fortunately for you if you're Seoul based, the Seoul Global Center makes it even easier than it was before: the one in Itaewon, or the one by City Hall, will take you through it pretty easily.

You'll need a little cash, your alien registration card, your passport, a few passport size photos, and your driver's license from your home country.

The other thing Grrrl Traveler got right, is that GPS is hella useful here.  Seoul has TONS of roads.  Apparently you can pay a lot more for a GPS that speaks to you in English... but to save the dough, it just takes a while to get used to reading the GPS visually, and tuning out the Korean until your listening is good enough to make sense of it.

Well, readers, after getting married, Wifeoseyo and I got a car, and after getting it, I drove to work, about a thirty-five minute drive (if traffic is light), for ten weeks.  We've also driven out of town, to various places in the nearby provinces, and as far as Gyeongju, in the six months or so we've owned the car.

So here are my own observations about driving in Seoul:

1. Driving in cities is just batshit, period: if you lived in a small or medium-sized Canadian town, and moved to NYC or LA, you'd say "Americans can't drive" just as surely as you would say "Koreans can't drive" if you moved to Seoul instead.  If you move to Seoul from a small or medium sized town, never forget that some of the things that are culture-shocking you are not about Korean culture, but about urban culture.  City driving is nuts, compared to driving in the towns and countryside, and the number of cars you come across inevitably increases the chance you'll meet some dumbass drivers, or some jerk-ass drivers.  Don't go saying "Koreans can't drive" without figuring that in.

2. Like dating, driving follows different logic in different countries.  For people who always drove, or dated, in one driving/dating climate, the way it's done makes sense, for that context.  Take someone from one context and put them in another, and things get sketchy.  It's not that aegyo doesn't make sense in the context of Korean dating, but it doesn't make sense to this Canadian.  Same with driving: put a Korean who learned to drive in Korea on Vancouver's streets, and that stereotype that Asians can't drive makes sense, not because Asians can't drive, but because they're driving by a different set of rules.

I've spent a little time in other countries, and they follow different logics in different places, too: in Canada, honking the horn most often means "I really don't like what you did." (not for kinda: only for really) in the parts of China I visited, they usually meant, "I see you there, but I can't, or won't slow down for you."  In Vietnam the horn just meant, "Aay, buddy! I'm here."  In Korea, honking the horn means either "I don't like what you did" or "Move along, buddy: let's go."



So while I have almost ten years of driving experience in Canada, I had to learn how to drive in Korea.  If I drove the same way I did in Canada, I'd hesitate and shoulder-check myself right off the road.  Once again: it's easy to say "Koreans can't drive" it takes a bit more effort to figure out how Koreans do drive, and roll with it.  And you have to.  If you follow the rules from back home, YOU'LL be the one who's making the mistakes, because you don't fit in.

3. Lines on the road: One of the biggest difference between the way Korean drivers handle themselves on the road, and the way Canadians do, is how we abide by the lines painted on the road.  See, Canadians are sticklers for the road signs and the lines on the road much more than Korean drivers in the city, who straddle lanes more often.  On the other hand, Canadians expect all drivers to follow those painted lines and signs so carefully that they don't pay as much attention to what the other drivers on the road are doing.  People on Korean roads, for the most part, are much more aware of what the other cars on the road are doing, because one of them might weave into their lane at any time.  Anticipation here is much better.

Plus: Koreans know the dimensions of their cars way better, and can park their cars in mad tiny spaces.

4. Buses are scary: Not just because they're so darn big, but because they move in and out of lanes.  The right lane is always a wildcard, because there are taxis, scooters, and buses dodging in and out.  Pick the middle or left lane.

Anybody who's lived here for a while knows that bus drivers in Seoul (I can't speak for out of the city) are way better than they used to be, as are bus lanes.  It's much less often I have to do that bus-driver drunk-walk to the back of the bus, where it looks like I'm off my gourd because I'm compensating for so many changes in speed and direction from the bus driver.

However, when a bus wants into your lane, it's still scary.  Every time.

5. Bikers are even scarier:  See, the bus drivers?  They've been trained to drive their buses, and they drive all day, every day, and many of them have been bus drivers for years.  Bikers?  Many buy their bikes because that's all they can afford, often it's the first road vehicle they've ever owned.

So you get these bikes, which can weave in and out between cars, driven by drivers who aren't as experienced at reading the road and anticipating traffic.  When they're bobbing to the front of the line up at a red light, that's alright.  When they're on the sidewalk, that sucks for pedestrians, but in my car, it doesn't affect me.  But when we're all in motion, and they're still popping in and out of lanes, it's scary as hell, because they appear out of nowhere, and when it's car vs. bike, the biker loses, and I really don't want a careless biker plastering himself across MY hood.

6.  People in expensive cars with dark tinted windows are the biggest assholes:  Yep.  People in small cars are more likely to be driving the first vehicle they've owned, and thus less attentive/aware, because of that inexperience, so you've got to be careful around them, but people in expensive cars - the Ssangyong "I'm A Big Deal," the Daewoo "Freud," the Hyundai "Long Car Important Driver," and all the imports with dark tinted windows know that, because of the way car insurance works here, people REALLY don't want to have even a tiny finder-bender with a really expensive car.  A lot of owners of those cars drive with the sense of entitlement that comes of knowing other drivers don't want to touch them, because they'll get the short end of any kind of accident.  You are likely to get cut off, or have your lane invaded by an inattentive driver of a cheap car, but you're more likely to be intentionally, brazenly cut off or around, or  nearly hit by the yellow-light-running, impatient daring of an expensive car.


7.  There's really, really no need to drive a car into town.  None.  Parking, traffic, traffic, parking, parking, traffic, traffic, parking, parking, traffic, parking, and gas prices.  Only if you really need to.  Given that Seoul has one of the best subway and bus systems in the world, you almost never do.

8.  The farther you are from subway stations, the more fun, varied and interesting the city becomes.  But because driving in Seoul is such a pain, I recommend bicycles.  Folding bicycles fit nicely on subways, there are a few shops near Hongdae, and a few near Apgujeong, where you can get a folding bicycle for less than 500 000 won.  It's worth paying the extra for being able to carry it more easily on a bus or a subway.

9.  You've got to assert yourself... but take some time getting used to how that's done.  What do I mean? People don't give you space on the road: you have to take your space.  This is done by indicating with your car - nosing in, or drifting partway into the lane - so that people know where you're going to go, before moving all the way into your space.  It's similar to how you can help people not bump into you when you're walking in a crowd, by setting your shoulders in the direction you're walking.  The turn signal helps, but you've got to take your space, and indicate that you want it.  Nobody gives it to you.  Spend some time driving more cautiously on the roads, to see how other drivers do this, before getting too assertive.

10. I think I know why the Car on Pedestrian Death Rate is so High - There are countries that have more traffic accidents per 100 cars or 1000 drivers than Korea, but Korea's usually first or second in car-pedestrian fatalities.  And it's because people tackle side-roads and lanes near apartment blocks and pedestrian areas, where kids play, with the same "Look at my big car" entitlement, aggressiveness, and impatience, as they tackle big thoroughfares where nary a pedestrian steps.

So that's what I have to say after half a year of driving in Seoul.  It's been fun so far, it can be stressful, but for the most part, Seoul's infrastructure is pretty good.  Driving here will improve your awareness and anticipation, by necessity, because anything can happen, and will.  And sometimes, you just have a "stupid driver day" when every dumb driver on the road seems to come across your path.  Whee!

Cold PSA

First: go vote for me on the "Best English Language K-Blogger" poll over at HiExpat: there are a few days left, and I'm within striking distance of fourth place... Roboseyites, Represent!

Second: It's BLOODY COLD!  I don't think I've ever seen it this cold in Seoul before.

And here's the PSA: Until it gets a little less frigid, don't forget to run your taps for a while, and flush your toilets once or twice, at night before you go to bed, so your water pipes don't freeze and explode overnight.  The older and smaller the building you live in, the more this applies to you.

In tribute to the cold, here's a song with "cold" in the title: "Cold War," by Janelle Monae, one of the hyper-talented young artists making music today.  Remember in 2000 when Alicia Keys had her song "Fallin'" out and everybody's ears were pooping with excitement at what had just come across the airwaves?  That's how stoked I am for Janelle Monae's career.  More about her later, or at least more videos of hers.

This one's a good one, too: the whole video is done in extreme closeup on her face, which makes the performance really intimate.  Plus, she can sing like a house on fire.

Chuseok...the Two Best Things To Do in Seoul

In case you doubted my word about Spam for Chuseok before, here's an oldy but goldy blog post about it: yeah.

And in case you didn't have any Chuseok plans yet, and because you're hooped for getting out of town now, in case you're stuck in seoul, because tickets have been sold out for about seven weeks already, as another expat whose gotten stuck in Seoul before on Chuseok, when you can't be sure ANYTHING will be open, let me give you some tips about the best things to do on Chuseok:

1. Go to Namsangeol Folk Village.  This is the Folk Village right near Korea House, right near Chungmuro Station, right near the bottom of Namsan (Nam Mountain) right near downtown Seoul.  Every chuseok they have tons of stuff to see - performances on the stage, activities like making songpyeon or your own paper-mache hanbok doll, and the like.  There's lots to do, and a lot of demonstrations of traditional Korean arts.  The park isn't too big, and the stage area has a lot of seating, but it might help to reserve a seat: a few times I've gone and had standing room only.

2. Climb mountains.  Particularly the busy ones.

One of the genius things about Seoul, that's never promoted in the Hi Seoul promotional materials (stupidly) is that there are about twenty great mountain hikes, ranging from "I could do this with my step-mother" to "better bring your climbing gear" in difficulty, all within reach by the Seoul Subway and Bus System.  Public transportation still runs on Chuseok, as do the odd taxi, so you can definitely get there, and they're mountain trails: it's hard to close those, isn't it?

Head up to the north end of the #4 Subway line, choose a peak, and strike out for it, get up to Uijeongbu and do likewise; check out this list of mountains in Seoul, or this one, or this one.  Or do Bukhansan, which holds the guinness world record for busiest mountain, meaning it's the one mountain in the world where climbing it will stress you out, or the one mountain you SHOULD climb if you like being around crowds.  Yes.  It's the COEX of Mountains.  But on Chuseok, there will be fewer people up there than any other day, because most folks are with their families.  So take the chance... and September to October are PERFECT climbing weather in Korea.  And Koreans are seriously NEVER more pleasant than when they're on the mountain - it's one of the sweetest aspects to the culture you'll ever find.

Also:

They're gorgeous.

Large and Tall T-shirts: General Request

Hey there.  I have a few friends who are taller and/or larger than the average Korean, who need to buy a few new t-shirts for the summer.

So... especially these days, when there are more big and tall Koreans than ever before, there MUST be more big and tall shops where Korean folks can get the big and tall sizes they increasingly need...

Where are they?  Can any of my bigger-than-the-average-Korean readers - particularly the females - recommend a place where my friend could either buy, or have made, some summer wear?  She's looking either for a tailor where they actually know how to fit larger women (not just slapping an elastic waistband on a tent with feet holes), or a shop where they have sizes for her.  She's also a bit tired of digging around the big-and-large shops along "wanna buy a suit" street in Itaewon, where she's been all through the wringer with bad experiences.

So... help me out here, folks.  Directions are good, links to google maps are better, links to websites for shops and even online stores help, too.

I know someone will come through for me on this one.  My coworker is waiting on it.

Rob

Passion 5: Nice Design = Crappy Service, and Why Gangnam Restaurants Suck

[Update: I've revisited this topic]

It's ridiculous that it is this way, but what can you do (except complain, warn your friends, and go elsewhere).

OK. Now I'm not that picky, really, about restaurants. Like Zenkimchi Joe, I'm more an enthusiast than a critic, but there are some things I won't abide, and every once in a while - not often - I have an experience that actually upsets me.

Dear readers, I'd like to share a particularly unpleasant experience I had. See, down by Hangangjin Station, between Hangangjin and Itaewon, there's this really, really cool building. It's big and black and beautiful, and in the middle, there's this amazing shining, shimmering, spinning chandelier. I've noticed it and thought about going in there for a long time, readers, out of curiosity at what's going on in such a cool looking building. It's feng shui was fenging me shui down the block!

The Chandelier.


Other bloggers have written about it: the bakery gets good reviews. Even from me. Dan Gray, who likes fusion foods and fancy design with good presentation, has posted on it a number of times.

And famous people like to go there. I saw Jeon Jihyun there once. And a friend spotted a famous politician.

nice looking place.

I managed to eat there for a brunch once with my nemesis Dan Gray once, and met a girl named Amy. She was nice, too. Smart. And the food was alright. Portions on the small side. A bit pretentious: you're not allowed to take pictures inside the building. Your food's too good for pictures? Really? Is it vampires?

Look at that: a place that looks that nice MUST have good food and great service, mustn't it?

Well, that's what I'm here to tell you. A couple of weekends ago, it was time to go again, this time for a mini-meeting of some bloggy people, talking about some stuff that might be coming up on the horizon. (oh ain't I such a tease!) I arrived a bit late, joined with the meeting proceedings, and grabbed a menu: I hadn't eaten that morning, in order to especially enjoy my food.

Well, I got the menu, chose what I wanted, and waited.

and waited.
And waited.

We were a table of about 15, and they made us wait. And we were in painfully plain view of the entrance, where the greeter (oh wait: this one had fancy decor, so it must have been a maitre'd) seated people and took your money, and they could see us look around anxiously, and then hungrily, and then angrily, and they made us wait.

and then they came and took orders for drinks... and left.

And we waited more.

But the design of our little cubby hole booth was very nice. We had lots of time to admire it.

And then they brought us our drinks, but didn't stick around to take orders; maybe that was somebody else's job.

And that somebody didn't come. And didn't come, and didn't come. I was ready shatter one of the water glasses on the ground just so somebody would come to our table...

Approaching desperation, finally we flagged someone down, possibly with the help of a referee's whistle... and asked them to come and take our orders.

We ordered. I told them, in Korean, that I have a milk allergy, and that I'm allergic to milk, sour cream, cream, and cheese. I pointed at a menu item and asked if it had cheese on it. The guy said it would be OK. I ordered it.

Twenty minutes later, three of our group got their food. The person who brought the food was very well-dressed and groomed, and nice to look at.

The dishes were beautiful. My food didn't come. But the dishes were beautiful.

Twenty more minutes later, we asked them where the rest of our food was.

Ten minutes later, my food came. It was a spaghetti-ish dish. It looked really nice -- attractively presented, as were all the meals. Very attractive. And the staff were well-dressed. And the restaurant's decorations were very nice. Very very nice. And that chandelier... like I said before: wow!

And then I looked a little closer at my food. There were these funny little whitish things on top of it. Maybe shaved ginger - it being a fancy fusion place, you never know what they might put on top of your pasta! Or maybe it was some kind of radishy thing: a taste explosion, perhaps!

It was cheese.

It took about an hour to order, about an hour for my food to arrive (and I was HUNGRY, readers) and the one thing I told them I COULDN'T eat was on the dish they SAID it was OK to order. I didn't send it back, because I didn't want to still be there at freaking closing time. And it wasn't quite enough food to totally satisfy me either. And that and a cup of coffee was 25000 won. It was like being mugged by a guy wearing armani.

The food tasted OK, but I'm never going there again. I don't care who you are.

Oh yeah: I forgot to mention: three THREE people didn't get their food at ALL.

The name of the place is Passion 5. Avoid it.

Somebody tried to excuse them because they appeared understaffed... but how is it MY problem that the restaurant manager didn't bring in enough people to deal with brunch, on a Sunday, in a stylish place... they were surprised people came on Sunday brunch, the best brunch time of the week?

I commented, between the crap service, the nice decor, the outrageous prices, the small portions, and the beautiful presentation of so-so food (it was nicer than the Pomodoro chain, but not ENOUGH nicer to justify double the price), that even though they were Itaewon, they'd managed to succeed in their attempt to convince their diners that they were in Gangnam.

And everybody laughed the knowing laugh that means "Yeah. I've had overpriced mediocre food with beautiful presentation and shit service in a stylish restaurant in Gangnam a BUNCH of times, too."

And this is what it boils down to: If you're new in Korea, remember this:

The nicer a place looks in Korea, the better the design, the more likely you're going to get shit service, and pay through the nose for it, and end up feeling like you've been mugged. Don't go there until two people whose taste in food you trust ENTHUSIASTICALLY recommend it to you. (This is also my rule for all italian restaurants in Korea: there are so many that it just means there's a lot of mediocre italian out there.)

And if you're a Korean Food Promotion Ministry guy, listen up, because this is for you: THE FANCIEST RESTAURANTS: THE ONES THAT KOREAN TOURISM ALWAYS WANTS TO PROMOTE, ARE ALMOST INVARIABLY MY WORST EATING EXPERIENCES IN KOREA.

This is not to say there are no stylish restaurants with good food and good service. Of course not. I've been to a few. Some were amazing, and worth every penny. But every time I HAVE gotten pretentious service and overpriced, mediocre food, it's been in a restaurant just too damn stylish to even look at.

But cards on the table: The best Korean food, for one thing, is the cheap, hearty, farmer food. The bibimbaps and the jigaes and the seolongtangs, that are messy, spicy, flavorful, and cheap. The best Korean restaurants are the little ajummah places out in a back alley, where you have to know how to find it, or you never will, and at lunch on a tuesday there's a lineup out the door. I've had slow service, but always a reasonable price and great food, in the dinky hanoks where I've eaten. (The fancy restored ones... jury's out, because I can't afford the 70 000 won per person those kinds of Hanjeongshik places serve... but I bet the jigae jip is better)

For another thing, it seems, again and again and again, that the nicest, fanciest looking restaurants really feel like they can, or ought to be able to, get by on the sheer amazingness of the design of the place, and not have to back it up with a quality menu, or any kind of service at all. I'm convinced that they're not selling themselves as places that serve food, but places to be seen. Try to convince me otherwise. Tell me the waffles at that dumb cafe in Samchungdong really are better than the cheaper ones elsewhere, and that they're worth 15000 won or whatever.

I'm not saying the service at the little mom and pop places is the best all the time... but first of all, they're not charging 20 000 won a plate now, are they? That changes my expectations a bit.

(my favorite expression of "Expectations are different, stupid" - Jon Stewart, on Crossfire - 7:15 "You're on CNN! The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls!")

Also, at least at the old ajummah place, you're allowed to shout down a waiter and ask for what you want, or just get up and get it yourself. Korean food, Korean service: it works! And it's satisfying; hell, it's even a fun part of the Korea experience, to holla for an extra dish of naengmyeon, or to get up and bring back handfuls of plastic cups of water for everyone at the table! At Passion 5, after the first hour, I'd have been happy to see a 스파게티는 셀프 sign, to step up to a grill and cook the damn spaghetti myself.

In the fancy places, it sometimes seems like the wait staff was trained to wait for a chogiyo, but everybody feels like they can't shout, because this is a "nice" place, and in the absence of a chogiyo, they think nobody needs any service. People trained in Korean "Chogiyo!" service at a "western" style restaurant where the waiters are (in the western style) supposed to come by and check on you, is about the worst combination I can think of - about as ill-suited as a foot fetishist inviting a leg amputee to salsa lessons on a blind date.

So, to the fancy restaurants in Korea: Listen up and listen good.

I don't give a cracking booger if the owner of your restaurant was on TV.
I don't care if your chef apprenticed at a four-star restaurant in Paris.
I don't care if you spent a bazillion dollars on your layout and design, and if my chair is made of gold leaf, and my plate is a 3000 year old restored artifact from ancient China. YOU'RE A RESTAURANT! Give me good FOOD!
Train your staff in the style of the restaurant you are: if you're western style, train them to come by from time to time and check up on people.

Teach your waiters to know what's on the menu, and to check with the chef rather than to freaking lie if they can't answer a question about the menu! I actually appreciate when waiters run to the kitchen to check about dairy, because it shows they actually care that I get food I can eat. Some people have deadly food allergies.

Bring out the food at the same freaking time if you're a restaurant that serves food in individual portions, rather than big pots for everybody to share.

That's the barest, barest of service expectations, and I really don't care if your waitresses are all dressed the same, and are as pretty as those girls in the Korean Air ads, if they can't get my order and my food in a timely fashion, answer questions about the menu, and check in if I need anything.


And Passion 5: you took it pretty hard in this one. But frankly, I'm furious at you! Your service was insulting. If I'd been alone, I would have refused to pay, and made a scene. You just got Google bombed. Choke on it. I choked on my cheesy spaghetti. Twice. Ask the guy next to me, who had to move out of the way twice so I could walk past him and scuttle off to the bathroom to choke in privacy.

Rant over.

[Update: as of June 9 2010, this post is STILL the top google hit for "Passion 5." Still waiting for the apology. I'm a reasonable man. I'll happily retract this story for a bribe.]

Korean Multiculturalism: Putting Them Furriners In Their Place

I usually don't like linking The Korea Times, for reasons I've delved into before... but Jongno district is giving a group of Filipinos the bum rush, and it sucks.

"Little Manila Faces Closure" describes a Sunday marketplace set up by Filipinos in Hyehwa, near the Filipino Catholic Church - it's a tradition in Filipino culture to go to church on Sunday, and then head out to the markets to hang out, buy provisions for the week, and meet their friends. I haven't been lucky enough to see it happen in Hyehwa on some sunday, but when I was traveling in Hong Kong, I saw exactly that with the Filipino migrant workers there, and the filipino market was awesome - it had this awesome, joyful, busy-but-never-frantic energy.

Well, Seoul City wants to boot the market, because it has been the subject of a few complaints about noise or disorder, and relocate it to the Nakwon-dong neighborhood (near insadong), where Seoul plans to build a "Multicultural Street" (whatever that means - can I open a hot dog/hamburger/steak stand?) in March. The complaints the district office cited were all of the type that, a representative of the market says, "The problems that they raised can be resolved by talking to the vendors. They are willing to cooperate." Meanwhile, it's illogical and frankly insulting to ask people to walk forty minutes to their own market (which is a once-a week thing, not a daily thing that would be given a place at a multicultural market anyway). Even more so, given that one of the complaints was that pedestrians were blocking traffic... so we ought make them block traffic along a five kilometer walk, rather than just from the church to the nearby market? And this makes sense how?

Now, before we even get into the whole "relocation = giving them the shaft in slow motion" thing (cf: the vendors who used to work in the area that had to be cleared for the Chunggyecheon, who were relocated to Dongdaemun Stadium, wrecking the flea market that used to be there, and then turned out again when Dongdaemun Stadium got redeveloped into the new design plaza... were they even provided with another alternate location this time? Or were they just told to piss off?), why on earth is Seoul trying to gut one of the few really multicultural events that has already, spontaneously developed in one of its downtown areas? Why not promote it and support it? Oh - because it wasn't City Hall's idea, that's why. And they want to build a waterfall. It better be a f***ing great waterfall.

On the other hand, when Seoul seems to be in open war with its own, Korean heritage - razing old buildings, gutting the lovely City Hall building, and the like, maybe it's comforting to know they don't discriminate - they shit on everybody's heritage, not just their own, in the name of development.

No. No, it's not comforting at all.

(image: city hall being ruined. From Popular Gusts.)

And why should my English readers care about a bunch of Filipinos? Well, first, we have more in common with them than you think, and second, who's to say how long it'll be before some ambitious politician/developer team sends a very profitable proposal across the desk of the municipal government, to redevelop that other dirty old neighborhood full of red-brick buildings from Korea's embarrassing poor past (those red brick buildings are '80s and early '90s artifacts), full of noisy and unsafe apartments, to raze it and replace it with luxury condos that will be seven to twenty times more expensive, and way out of the range of the people living there now, and somebody stamps approval on the Haebangchon redevelopment plan?

The thing about Korea's diversifying population, that Seoul City has missed, is that people are going to form their own communities, and do the things they always did, and they're going to do it where they live, where they go to church, where they shop... and you can't tell a whole population where they have to live, or shop. You can't sequester or ghettoize them. It's good to build Seoul Global Centers in the areas where foreigners live - Ichondong, Banpodong, and the like, to make help available... but trying to require foreigners to stay in the places prescribed for them is the opposite of becoming a really cosmopolitan city. The way to become a city truly acclimatized to the new global environment is to let them furraners do what they do, where they do it, so that everybody else gets used to Seoul no longer being only for Koreans.

Rant over.

In Which Roboseyo Exhorts Seoul City Not To Get in A Snit About Lonely Planet

So Lonely Planet says that Seoul is the third most hated city. Similar statements have been made before, and then as well, Seoul city got all worked up...

Now, first of all, the idea that an institution is within its rights to "correct" people for their opinion, getting upset and responding with "are not, either!" the way Seoul City has, especially when it comes to something like travel preferences, is just silly... yet it happens. And then it happens again. And a similar pattern occurs in other areas. . . not least Korea Times' infamous "Setting The Record Straight" (ps: note the absence of comments below said article)- which is basically the same attitude in a totally different arena. (speaking of which... since publishing that correction (of its readers), The Korea Times has demonstrated an admirable change of direction.... not. yep. I made a 'not' joke.)

For the record, Seoul City's response makes more sense, and more valid points, than the KT's.

Now, as far as the deeper, cultural-level workings of this kind of reaction, I'm probably out of my depth, but we've seen this "let's correct his/her opinion" attitude before: KT's unapology, Brian in JND's 2008 cyber-bullying incident, Seoul City's previous head-buttings with Lonely Planet, and, uh, VANK. Korea's hyper-polarized political scene demonstrate that there IS a healthy bit of disagreement allowed in Korean society... but then this "Let's correct" thing pops up, too... often enough for me to want to start investigating it, looking for a sociological source. So, if anyone wants to give me a grant, I'll get on it.

A few guesses, though: this "let's correct his opinion" thing might simply be traces of Korea's quite recent authoritarian history, in which the people in power right now grew up in a time when those in power COULD say "are not, either" and quash their critics' dissent... but that doesn't work anymore, and the sooner they figure that out, the sooner they will stop appearing arrogant and snippy and hypersensitive, the sooner they will stop taking outdated approaches to modern challenges. I wrote at very great length on the way Koreans get defensive about criticism way back in 2008, and might recommend you read that.

But here's what I want to focus on right now:

Getting all worked up because Lonely Planet says that Seoul Sucks is just not what a world class city does. Sorry, dude. If somebody in a major magazine, or a travel guide, says "Paris has dog crap all over the sidewalks, and the citizens are rude" (commonly-known stereotypes), Paris city hall doesn't go to the press nitpicking those claims, questioning the methods of the survey which discovered tourists don't like stepping in dog crap or getting shite service at a cafe. Why not? Because they're motherf***ing PARIS, that's why. And because they're motherf***ing PARIS, they either figure the travel writers can say what they like, because all press is good press, or they try to improve the complaints they can, if they care to, but I'm SURE they don't write 160 pages of promotional material and send it to the publishing company that called their city... whatever they called it. When Seoul announces itself as a world design capital or a mecca of whatever or a business hub or whatever else, but then feels the need to strike back at a travel guide that said something they don't like, they undermine their attempt to be taken seriously. They'd do better combing the criticisms for ways to improve, and then moving on... or ignoring it, because it's just the internet. Better still: say nothing, and let other people jump to their defense, which makes it look like Seoul is taking the high road, while still further increasing the amount of Seoul-related discussion that's occurring here and there.

Defensiveness. There are myriad reasons Korean companies, netizens, or individuals might get defensive, possibly stemming individually from the frustration of being crapped on by the level above them in a deeply hierarchical culture, in organizations that are frustrated that many people in the world still think Samsung is Japanese, nationally from the frustration of being sandwiched between China and Japan, two richer neighbors which have left a larger imprint in the consciousness of the world... and we end up with people who can't abide someone who whispers that D-wars sucked (that's changed... even the kimcheerleaders who originally supported it smile with embarrassment, or feign amnesia, like the Beef Mamas who are buying American beef, and can't quite remember where they brought their kids in strollers last spring.

And you know, sometimes, singling something out to say it sucks, is a higher form of praise than anything else. There are thousands of dumber songs written than Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, but the people writing these top ten and top five lists know that tagging the Beatles will get them more viral headlines, and a stronger reaction. But saying the beatles suck, or one of their songs suck, or their name sucks, is just a tribute to what a deep impact the band has made... if people are taking cheap shots at Seoul, maybe that means Seoul has officially entered the pantheon of world-class cities! It's been validated as a big, easy, well-known target. Don't you get it, Seoul City? That's GOOD! The New York Times put Seoul on ITS list of places to visit this year (though it didn't clarify whether this year means 2010 or 2010 to 2012) --

If Korea wants to actually have the place in world culture it claims to aspire toward, it's gonna have to get used to these kinds of cheap shots. People aren't going to see Ninja Assassin because Rain is Korean. They'll either see it because it's a good movie, or ignore it because it's a bad movie. Right now, Korea's trying to have its cake and eat it too- it wants to be a world media force, but it also ONLY wants people to use approved phrases when talking about it. That just ain't gonna happen.

Korean video parody
Uploaded by MeowHouse. - Family events, birthdays and parenting videos.

When Korea figures out that if Wonder Girls gets a bad review in a rock magazine, that's better than being ignored, I'll get to stop writing blog posts like this. If Rain gets mocked on the Colbert report, that's GOOD - he's becoming more famous! Anybody who doesn't get that, well, it seems to me that they're concerned less with whether Korean culture is actually rising to prominence, and more with... something else (possibly what Gord Sellar once wonderfully described as the standard, near-universal conviction among Koreans that a positive image of Korea must be presented to the world). Eventually Korea will have to let go -- it'll have to realize that the country's big enough, and significant enough a presence, that they will no longer be able to strictly control its perception and its promotion. Creating an authenticity badge for Korean restaurants abroad will accomplish nothing, because people will eat the food if it's good, and they don't care if some stuffed shirt from Seoul approves of it. Eventually, if a teenager from Des Moines blogs that The Wondergirls Suck, Korea will be confident enough in its position that thousands of fourteen year olds WON'T feel compelled to tell that teenager to kill herself. Until then, this all-fired defensiveness just screams "Inferiority Complex" to everyone but the kimcheerleaders who are too red-in-the-face to notice.

Preach it, sister!

Interesting article in the expat living section of the Korea Herald:

Thanh Cam Nguyen, rightly argues that ugly people can spoil an attractive city, and names a few behaviours that all of us have seen, and suggests ways to improve those weak spots. The article's worth a read, and while she's almost certainly right that Westerners have an easier go facing discrimination, than South-Asians like herself do, I still had a smile at the line, "When Koreans meet us for the first time, they usually ask, "Did you come to Korea to get married?"... I am very sure that the same question would not be asked if we were white and blonde."

Nope. White and blonde females get asked if they're Russian. And all that goes with it.

[Yeah, that was a petty snipe, and yeah, wise-ass cracks like that are the reason Westerners who follow Korea online may well have an inaccurate view of Koreans -- one that's informed more by "wacky Korea" and "sparkling" stories from ESL Cafe and the like (where the weirdest and most extreme incidents run the highest chance of being passsed around, and so, the FrankenKorean mischaracterization perpetuates...) than reality, but still...]

And she was mostly right about the success of Beijing's awareness campaigns for the Olympics: I was there five months after the olympics, and even then, people were still standing aside when subway doors opened to let people off before pushing on. Not that spitting was gone entirely, but it sure wasn't as bad as a walk through Pimatgol toward Jongmyo park.

anyway, the article's worth a read. Git over there.

Photo Dump: Gyeongju Hi Seoul Festival, And More

On buddha's birthday I went to Gyeongju. It seems like a long time ago, because the ATEK stuff has pretty much hijacked all my free time, and might continue to, until I am satisfied that what's been needed to be said has been said, and them who needs to find out about it, can. I'm actually OK with that, because this is something that actually MATTERS to people: blogging is finally something more than me writing words and flattering myself that somebody might want to read them, and can actually be a way for people to connect, communicate, and try to understand each other...because that's what life is about, and that's what community is about, isn't it?

Anyway, I took a ton of pictures, but haven't put them up yet, as well as some video.

But first: 'Seyo's Bliss-out of the week, as soundtrack for the post.

Hit play and start reading...but here's the background. Dan Deacon is "freak electronic" artist. His music, rather than being "party music" like, say, The Chemical Brothers, which plays great AT a party, Dan Deacon's music sounds like he's taken a bunch of instruments and sounds, thrown them in a room together, and the INSTRUMENTS are having a party together. And you get to listen.

This song is long -- it's actually in two parts -- but it's also one of the giddiest songs I've heard, with the singalong chant at the beginning, and reprised at the end. He's apparently a wizard live, so I'm glad to have live video footage, and you can see and hear people dancing and singing along, and it's awesome. One of my new friends, Robyn from New York, just went to a Dan Deacon show that was webcast on NPR (recommended listen), and I'm seething with envy. Then again, I get to eat the world's most delicious Korean food every time I leave my house, and she's stuck with the crappy Korean food that you can dredge up in New York, so it evens out a bit. (I showed her around one Saturday, so she plugged my blog, too. But she called me strange. Next time she comes to Seoul, she's only getting SECOND TIER locations out of me. Take that, lady! Nah. I'm just kidding. I don't hold grudges. Or so she'll think right up until the other shoe drops.)

So The Hi Seoul Festival happened. These cool streamers were up in the night sky.Two white girls were dancing, and eight Korean guys were taking their pictures, and wishing they could join in, and occasionally doing so awkwardly for spurts of about eight second per.
The Korean bands No Brain and Cherry Filter, both awesome, were there. The show was set up with two stages, so people kept moving from one corner of City Hall Plaza to the other, which wasn't a bad way to do it. The mass migration was fun to watch.


I love all-ages shows. The three foreign girls dancing were funny, too.


Time to scandalize all my fellow k-bloggers (it was a big K-blog weekend last weekend. Don't know just why, but by some strange convergence, suddenly I managed to meet Seoul Eats, Kiss My Kimchi, Fatman Seoul, Zenkimchi, Kimchi Ice Cream, Expatriate Games, and Studio UR, not to mention some other, real human beings, all in the span of two days. And all that was along with flaking out and (I think) forgetting to follow up with Foreign/er Joy (sorry about that, Joy. Totally unintentional.)

I met Terry at a Buddhist Vegetarian restaurant. She was a pretty cool cat. But the real selling point in this picture is something all you ladies have been waiting for: look along the far right, and you get to see Dan Gray's crotch! (sweet! My blog is totally taking over the number one google hit rankings for searches with the keywords "Dan Gray's Buddhist crotch"! [warning: avoid the image search]) So, uh, just in case you'd been wondering.
There are other things I know about Dan Gray, after a night of drinking with him, which I WON'T share...but this picture was too much to resist. I actually like the guy. You should hang out with him sometime. I'll give you his private phone number if you send me a message. (again... just kidding, eh?)

Sorry buddy. You're allowed to publish any dumb photo you have of me, too.

In other embarrassing K-blog photos...Joe likes Mexican Beer.
(actually he was holding everyone's beer while they all took pictures of each other. What a nice guy. He's also free to publish any embarrassing picture he has of me...and I'm sure he has some. Of me making the Yanni face, or pretending to orgasm as I eat well-being pickled vegetables [stole that joke] or something.) Anyway, now that I've made enemies of two super-cool blog pals...

I went to Gyeongju with Girlfriendoseyo. We rented bikes and found some really lovely trees and things.
Anapji pond was one of the prettier things I've ever seen in Korea.

All around Gyeongju are spots like this, where rocks are laid out in formation: remains of former temples, palaces, tombs or other such structures, weather-worn, often catalogued, but not yet restored. If you get up close, you can still see some really nice stonework on some of these, too. Must have made impressive palaces. Maybe later they'll get restored. Maybe.
One of the biggest ancient astronomy observatories in Asia.
More of the cool trees at the park behind the tombs.
The coolest old guy I've ever seen outside of the wacky wildness of Jongmyo park, standing around outside Dong Daegu Station, where we stopped on the way to Gyeongju.


A lake on the way in to Bulguksa Temple:


These clamps held up the strings of lamps:

Eaves at Bulguksa.
This was another view of Seokguram temple. The cave is up at the top of the hill.

Back from Gyeongju: there's a photo shop at the corner of Itaewon station that always had this picture of a baby boy with its little baby dong featured prominently, as was the tradition a generation ago, when having a son was very important, so photographers intentionally took baby pictures with the little man-child's equipment fully on display. Well, somebody finally convinced them that this would not attract all the foreigners who visit Itaewon into their shop, so they fixed the problem.

With a post-it note.Too funny.

Here's another one of my superduper cute former-student Cecilia.

And when I met Kimchi Ice Cream last weekend, we went to an incredible Japanese style ramen place. Ooch, I'm STILL thinking about it. (there's my buddy Evan's nice, pointy western nose. Evan's quality.)

Broth boiled so long it was milky and rich with flavour. Lovely. A thousand ways lovely.
Behind the Seoul Art Center in Gwanghwamun:

OK. Now here's the second half of the Dan Deacon song. It's good. Listen to it. The climax/final chorus is wild, even more so with the live crowd just giving it.

Did I mention? The song's name is "Wham City" from Dan Deacon's album, "Spiderman Of The Rings"

Teach English? Live in Seoul? Help a Schola' Out

I got a very polite e-mail from a researcher from the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore named Francis Leo Collins.

You see, Francis is gathering information about English teachers in the Seoul Metropolitan area, and would like some help with a survey about our backgrounds and why we are here. The Seoul Metropolitan area means Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi province: Suwon, Gimpo, Paju, Uijeongbu, etcetera.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=bzYn4_2fCV3JdsmJJ036yw2Q_3d_3d

If you're not sure whether you want to take part, well, as an incentive, if you do, you'll get a chance to win an Apple Ipod Nano, to be drawn at the completion of the survey. If you have other questions, Francis Collins' contact information is on the opening page of the survey, and you can feel free to get in touch.

So, help a schola' out, and take the five or ten minutes it takes to answer the questions.

Fanks.

-Roboseyo

Got my Korean Drivers' License.

But no, I'm not posting a scan of it on my blog. Personal info, you know.

However, if you want to know how easy it is for foreigners to get a Korean Driver's License these days in Korea, you should go check out the step-by-step breakdown I wrote at The Hub Of Sparkle.

Seoul Forest, and Excellent Weekend

So on Friday (Halloween) night, my friend Jennifer took me to Kyunghee Palace, the most haunted palace in Seoul, and regaled us with ghost stories about royals accused of witchcraft, the spritual-superchargity of Shaman-Central, Inwang Mountain, and serial killer princes locked in rice chests to starve to death, which led to the old puzzle:

If Halloween is a Western holiday (and it is; it's only just now gaining speed in Korea, mostly through Hogwan halloween parties), do Korean ghosts come out, too?

I've always wondered about this; what about luck: as a westerner living in Korea, should I avoid the number 13 (western superstition) the number 4 (Korean superstition), both, or neither? Is it safe for me to open umbrellas indoors here (Koreans often do, leaving umbrellas open in building entrances or hallways outside apartments, so that the water runs off), or should I still avoid it?

Whoa. When I did a google images search for "Black Cat"
I expected this.


Not this. (Black Cat: Felicia Hardy. Thanks, Marvel)
Anyway, we didn't see any ghosts; only some ineffectual security guards. We did go to a great ghost-themed dive bar that was about as cheesy as a scene from Army of Darkness, and as awesome.

Saturday, I helped Foreign/er Joy move to a new place, and hung out with Gomushin Girl (who took some pictures I want) and Zenkimchi, and ate lamb galbi, and durn, it was good (you can read about it here and here, too), but Sunday was gorgeous: I went to Seoul Forest with Girlfriendoseyo and we saw some of the more fantastic fall colours I've seen this year. Girlfriendoseyo says the Fall Colours are not as nice this year as other years, because of the dry summer, but you won't hear me complaining. The Eulalias (the white-headed stalk-plants you'll see blowing in the wind in the video) stood out in white against the vivid fall colours, and we biked all around that area, over to the deer park, and down to the Han River Park on rented bicycles, soaking in the perfect weather and rich sunlight.

Yah, it was nice. One of the most colourful days I've ever spent outside an amusement park.
Here's the slideshow, with the song "Summer Life" by Shaky Hands to accompany.


And here are some pictures so you can feel happy too.
So anyway, if you're in Seoul, get ya butt down to Seoul Forest, THIS WEEK, before the gorgeous leaves fall off the trees.

But you'll have to find your own hottie to accompany you.  Girlfriendoseyo's taken.

P.S.: they have horses.
Below: probably my favourite picture from the day.
And the most colourful: in the Summer, the eulalias are nice, but in the autumn, against the red, orange and yellow, they're spectacular.
Off with ye: get over there.  Ttukseom Station (line 2), exit 8, there's a shuttle bus that goes right to the park entrance, and a bike rental spot right next to the entrance.  You. Have. No. Excuse. Not. To. (if you live in Seoul)