Asia Update #6 - Misc. Seoul and Cheju

I have moved into my apartment now. It came with the major furniture, but not a lot of the little things (sheets, towels, blankets, etc.). I made a shopping run after getting the key and have the basics so I can stay here. It needs a lot more before it will really feel like a home. This will take some time, especially given how often I am out of town. Sure is nice, though, to be able to lay out my stuff instead of having to live out of a suitcase.

The weather in all of Asia for August is hot and muggy. Temps around 90°F every day. And none of that evening cooling we find in California - the temps only drop a few degrees at night. Sure makes exercising more difficult - need to always have lots of water and you finish your exercise dripping wet from sweat. Even just walking can be uncomfortable. I think it is a bit worse for me because my body is not used to it, so it causes me to sweat more to try to cool down. They do get 4 seasons here, and it already feels like it is cooling slightly. Probably won't be long before I'll be bitching about how cold it gets here (yes, it does snow here).

Saw a piece in the local news. The Korean Government is trying to increase imports of foreign cars by setting an example. They feel that if the leaders get foreign makes instead of local makes, ordinary people will follow. But the Government official's budget isn't enough for a foreign luxury car, so both BMW and Mercedes are offering significant discounts to these leaders. Sounds like a scam to me to allow the leaders to get luxury cars which they normally couldn't afford without the taxpayers thinking that the leaders are living too high on the hog. No one is complaining, so either my American point of view doesn't work here or their PR machine is superb. How do I get in on this? I'll have to talk to my boss about getting a company car, and what we should be looking at.

Had my first anxiety breakdown. Had read that this would happen. In trying to live in another culture, there are many little things that are different and it can all add up and cause you to explode. The trigger for me was my cell phone. I had a borrowed cell phone here for a while. Big complaint I had was that all the buttons and menus were in hangul (Korean). I couldn't wait for the one they were ordering for me to arrive because of course they would figure out (from my complaining) I needed this and get one for me with English instructions. It arrived yesterday, and no English instructions with it. To make it worse, it is a high end model with lots of options (they did assue that I would only want the best), which means lots of extra buttons and even a little touch screen. Then, it turns out that whoever had this number before still receives a lot of calls, and I don’t know how to respond in Korean yet to tell them that it is the wrong number... This and all the stresses of life in another country all added up and just about caused me to lose it. Thankfully, I made it through that (and the wrong number callers figured out pretty quickly that I wasn't who they wanted when I only spoke in English).

I was heading to dinner one night and saw this place (picture to right). Have to check it out in more detail the next chance I get. I suspect it won't be anything like boy scout camp was back in the States…

I'm am currently on Cheju Island. Cheju is off the southern tip of Korea and is the Korean equivalent to Hawaii (complete with it being the honeymoon capital of Korea). I have a meeting on Monday through Wednesday, so thought I'd head down early and enjoy the weekend here. Some nice sights and it is semi-tropical. Visited waterfalls, rock formations, local history sights, vista points, craters, beaches, more rock formations, etc. The island is an old volcano, so definitely has many interesting rock formations and lots of lava. And the water is clear - hopefully I'll get a chance to snorkel a bit.

The symbol for the island are these semi-phallic shaped statues of gnomes made from lava rock. To the left is a picture of me getting friendly with what is supposed to be the original one. There are lots of copies of this guy in all sizes all over the island and they are available in all sizes at stores throughout the island. I heard there are two different poses they are in, and if a women rubs the correct one she will have a boy when she gets pregnant. Throughout most of Asia, boys are more desirable than girls. Interesting, no one seems to know which pose is the right one…

Rented a car today for my first driving experience in Korea. It went well enough (didn't kill anyone), though I must say I wasn't 100% in compliance with the law (thankfully, never did anything funny in front of the police). I still have to learn to find their road signs and such (they are not where I am used to seeing them). Thankfully, the traffic on Cheju is much lighter than in Seoul, so that made it easier.

Asia Update #5 - Beijing

Well, one thing I can say about the Chinese emperors - when they do something, they go big. Real big! A wall that is thousands of kilometers long, a palace that fits a city within its walls, and huge summer palace for when the main palace isn't big enough. I got to visit these, and more, over this past weekend. This will be a bit heavy on pictures and less on text…

I am now a real man. The Chinese have a saying that you are not a real man until you have climbed the Great Wall. Did that on Saturday. I had to upload the picture of me standing on the wall to prove that I was really there. Being that I am really not too photogenic, I also added a picture of the wall without me blocking the view. Overall, the wall is amazing. It is thousands of kilometers long (I've heard both 2000 and 6000 kilometers long, so I am not sure which - but either way it is very long). The majority was built at about 200 BC and it is all on the ridge line of their mountains. Between the size and location, I couldn't imagine such a thing being built now, let alone 2000+ years ago.

On Sunday, I spent the day visiting some of the attractions within Beijing itself. The first place I went to was the Summer Palace. This is where the Emperor would spend his days in the summer, when he needed to get away from the Forbidden City (his regular home). Here's a picture of the lake (quite a large lake - probably a few miles long by a mile wide) with one of the palace buildings in the background.

After this, we went to the Forbidden City, the name for the Emperor's Palace. The photo is from the main plaza. This plaza is amazingly large - the picture doesn't do the size justice. And the plaza is just a small part of the entire city. Looking at a map of the City, I estimate that the plaza is about 5% of the area of the entire Forbidden City. It is a huge area. And the Emperor lived here with his servants, guards, wives, and concubines (the emperor was supposed to have 3,600 concubines). No one else was allowed into the City, besides special guests. Commoners would never get to enter the city, hence the name.

After exploring the Forbidden City, we drove through Tianamen Square, made famous a few years ago when some Chinese college students held a protest and the government sent in the military. As with everything else, it is a very large square. It is supposed to be able to hold over a million people at one time. Here's a picture of the Tianamen building (complete with a picture of Chairman Mao).

Another part of the Chinese going big is the number of people at each of these sites. There were many tourists (mostly Chinese, though plenty of foreigners sprinkled in to the mix), and it seemed like as many vendors trying to hawk their wares to the tourists. You would spend a lot of time working your way through traffic and crowds in order to get to the attraction. And the vendors at the attraction were very aggressive, to the point of being annoying. They would stand right in front of you so you couldn't easily get around them and shove what they wanted to sell right into your face. There also doesn't seem to be rules about where vendors could be - there were vendors with tables hawking postcards, books, trinkets, etc. at many places right on the Great Wall, often impeding the flow of traffic. It isn't nearly this bad at the palaces in Korea, where the crowds were a bit less and the vendors almost non-existent. But, crowds or not, you should go to the Great Wall at least once in your life.

The air was pretty clear on Sunday, as you may be able to tell in the pictures. This was a relief to me - I've been having some troubles with my throat being slightly sore, which I have attributed to the high level of air pollution in China. Sunday was the first day where the sun was able to make its way through the haze. I think I am ready to return to Seoul and the relatively clean air (as compared to China, though Seoul is still no where near as clean as in the US).

Hey, I bumped into someone in Beijing which my biking friends may recognize. I was able to sit down and have a few beers with him and catch up. Here's a picture - anyone remember who he is…

Asia Update #4 - northeastern China

Thought I'd give some general updates on China in this write up. The sights of Beijing (Great Wall, Forbidden City, etc.) will come in the next one.

First an apology - in my last write up I said I was heading to Sungyan. Turns out I spelled it wrong - it is Shenyang. Oops. I guess I've been in too many cities in too little time. I haven't been in any one place for more than 4 or 5 days since this all started. And it looks like I won't be in any one place for longer than that until I return to California for 8 days in September.

On to the fun stuff - looking at the architecture in China, you can see a lot of new and old China at the same time. Not real old China - the traditional curved, tile roofs and such only seem to exist at historical sites and museums. But you can tell closed communist China versus capitalist China. Capitalistic China is trying to show a great face to the outside through designing spectacular showcase buildings. Examples of this would be the skyline you can see behind me in Shanghai at the riverfront in my last report.

Communist China, on the other hand, had very antiseptic looking buildings that are run down and/or in need of repair and often have a cookie cutter approach of many buildings looking the same. To the left is a shot of an apartment building from my hotel in Beijing… Lots of buildings with similar cosmetic issues to this, such as paint peeling or rust streaks below metal fixtures.

My company does work with the construction industry from time to time, so I have had the opportunity to talk with some architects and designers doing projects here. We visited one in Shenyang, and the experience was interesting. We walk into one of these older buildings to meet with him. The building wasn't overly inspiring - looked more like a 50-100 year old University in the US than an office building filled with architects. But they were working on designs for $100 million exhibition halls, conference centers, towers, etc. The country puts money into these major projects (and there are lots of them), but not into keeping up or improving the older stuff.

Money is an interesting subject when you start thinking about the differences between China and other country per capita incomes. The average income of a factory worked in China is about US$1000. It's shocking to consider that what I spend on a night in a hotel here is a month's income for a local person, yet the price I am paying is less than half what I would pay in the States. I make more in a year than the average person here makes in a lifetime. Wow, deep thoughts.

Of course, the cost of living is much less here. People can afford to survive on what they are paid. They may not be able to afford trips to the south pacific or to buy a car, but they definitely aren't starving and generally look happy, healthy, and wear clean clothes. If anything, they look happier than the average person in the States - maybe our consumerism and always wanting more is making us worse off than the simpler lifestyle that is reflected here?

This income also means that there is a very low cost of labor. It makes for some interesting methods of doing work - much less mechanization and much more hand labor. Railroad tracks are laid by hand. If you need a ditch dug in the road to bury a telephone cable, there will be 20 or so people with pick axes and shovels (no backhoe). No street cleaning machines, only lots of people with large brooms sweeping the road off. Need to have bottled water delivered to your office, a guy will bring it on a single-speed bicycle or tricycle modified to carry loads - and many of these loads looked like they would crush a bike.

There are benefits to travelers from afar with this, such as the cheaper hotel rooms and cheaper food. We had a business lunch for 8 people at a dumpling restaurant in Changchun. Sit down restuarant with lots of servers. Ordered 5 types of dumplings, a few other dishes, and a couple of soft drinks each, all very tasty. We couldn't eat all of the food served. Total for the bill for our group was under US$10.

On food, I added one or two types which I hadn't tried before during my stay. We went for Peking Duck (in Peking, of course) last night. The main course was great, but we also received a few other courses made of the different parts of the duck. The restaurant placed what looked and had the texture of a thick goose skin in front of us. I have tried everything placed in front of me, and have gotten to the point where I don't even worry about finding out what it is before trying it. First surprise was that this dish came topped with a very hot mustard sauce - I grabbed the top piece and didn't brush off some of the sauce to lower pieces as I was supposed to, and felt like I ate a whole tablespoon of wasabi. My eyes were sure watering for a while. Second surprise was when they told me what it was - duck's feet.

What follows is not for the squeamish… If you don't want to hear about toilets, I would exit this blog now...

Ok, you've been warned…

Toilets are one area which also has this old and new aspect. If you go into a new building, you get the standard toilet as you'd find in the west. But in older buildings, you get something much different. It is basically a porcelain hole in the ground. There are usually areas on the side that are slightly raised where you place your feet and then squat to do your business. It is kind of like going to the bathroom when backwoods camping, except it is a porcelain fixture and you can flush it. It does require some balance. Definitely would have been much more of a challenge to use the one on the train (I didn't) with all the bouncing around and everything.

That description definitely doesn't do it justice, so here's a picture…

I am sure most of you have experienced the American outhouse before, and know that it is a much more primitive form of our standard toilet. Well, I experienced the Chinese version today. Basically, take the porcelain away from the picture above and make everything a concrete slab with a hole in it. Not pretty, but then again I don't know of an outhouse that is.

Asia Update #3 - Shanghai, China

I am in China right now. Flew into Shanghai on Sunday. Spent Monday training the folks from our Shanghai and Beijing offices. Then we went out as a team for dinner…

I must say, that dinner was an experience. First was the menu, which you could basically call a zoo. Maybe Zoo isn't the right term - perhaps Pet Shop would be more appropriate. There is a large room lined with tanks and cages. You walk around and choose the animal which you would eat for dinner. Most cases you point and an attendant catches it for you. In some cases, they give you the net and you have a go at it. And some you just reach in and grab. All types of fish, shellfish, reptiles, frogs, snails, and poultry were present. I've been to pet stores in the states with less of a selection as they had here.

Here is a picture of Ming Zhang and Paul Lai from our China sales team choosing a crab for our dinner. The tanks behind the guy in blue contain various fish, shrimp, and sharks. Right in front of Ming (the one holding the crab) are various mollusks. There was a second row of tanks, plus also some side areas containing other items (veggies, cooked poultry, live poultry, etc.). Many of the animals in the tanks were of types I had never seen before, so could not name. There was even a shark which barely fit into the tank it was in (it was probably a good 5 feet long).

Here are some more tanks, containing various reptiles. To the left side (just out of the picture) were venomous snakes, including cobras and vipers. The cages you can just see on the right side contain various live poultry.

I let the folks from our China sales team place the food order. This seems to be the way to go in most of the places I visit, given that the menus aren't legible to me. So far, it hasn't been a bad decision to give them the control, given that I haven't gotten sick yet. Tonight's dinner almost made me regret giving them the control, given that I did eat a few new and unusual things. Most notably were…

• Cucumber drink - basically cucumbers squeezed hard enough to make a fluid. Very green looking (like moss or pond scum) - kind of gross if you just go by looks. But tastes like cucumber, so not nearly as exciting as it looked.
• Some sort of high-proof rice liquor. Truthfully, once the drink gets up above 50 proof or so, I can't tell the difference in flavors. Seems that every country likes to try to get the guest of honor smashed before the night is out, and these folks sure tried. Thankfully, I drank enough to keep them hapy, but not so much that I got smashed.
• Snake soup - yes, they ordered a snake. Non-venomous, probably a good 4 feet long. The soup tastes just like an egg-drop soup you'd find in the States. The snake tasted like chicken (no joke). I had heard that snakes were eaten in China, and was actually looking forward to trying it. Most of you know that I used to keep snakes as pets, so I was wondering if I would have misgiving about eating a snake. Nope. Even went for seconds.
• Snake skin salad - they wouldn't tell me what this was until I tried it. I thought it was some sort of sea food. But it turned out to be the skin of the snake flaked into small pieces.
• Snake blood - they placed a small cup of red fluid in front of me, which they explained was the snake's blood. Of course, as guest of honor, only I received this. I did try it to be polite - didn't really taste too bad. But I must say that the thought of drinking snake blood didn't really appeal to me much. I guess this is supposed to have some medical benefits in eastern medicines.
• Snake gall bladder. Here's another one with various eastern medicinal benefits and another which only the guest of honor receives. First I got to see the gall bladder au natural, then they crushed it and mixed it into a wine. Thankfully the wine masks whatever the taste would be. I heard that this was supposed to have some benefits towards my sexual prowess or something like that, though I think I am too western to be willing to fully try it out… Just tasted it, but didn't finish it.

After dinner, a couple of the guys from the office took me sightseeing. Went to an area by the river called Wai Tan. Definitely was the happening place to go and hang out. Quite crowded, but the buildings in the area made quite a view. Here's a picture from it...

Not much else nearly as exciting as that dinner happened. Now I am off to Changchun and Sungyan (I didn't even know where these cities were until last week) for a day each before heading down to Beijing for the weekend. Should be exciting to see the Great Wall, Forbidden City, and other Beijing favorites.

Asia Update #2 - I have a Home

I found an apartment and am in the process of signing the lease. 2 bedroom, 2 bath, and supposed to be some 800 square feet, but I'm not totally clear on the size. Koreans measure their space in units called pyung, with one pyung equal to a little less than 4 square yards. To make it more confusing, they measure the gross space (including your share of communal space - stairways, hallways, garage, etc.). Makes it hard to figure out exactly how large the place is. But, no matter what the square footage is, the place is plenty large for me.

The apartment is in the area which they call Central Seoul. It is the old downtown, and contains things like City Hall, lots of museums, and most of the historical palaces (such as Kyungbok Palace, which I talked about last time - turns out there are 5 palaces within walking distance of my apartment). A lot of embassies are also in the area, including the Czech and Saudia Arabian embassies being on the same street I am. The US embassy is also close by - though it is ugly and looks more like a prison than anything else, with all the guards and barbed wire and such (I'll have to get a picture of it).

Here's a virtual tour of the place…

This is a picture of the living room. Don't worry, the furniture will be changing. These pictures were taken before I moved in. The apartment is coming furnished, but not with the furniture shown (at the time I am writing this, I don't know what furniture will be used).

Turning around, here is the kitchen. 

Not shown are the two bedrooms - just empty spaces at the time I took these photos.

This is a shot of the building from outside. I'm in the building in the center. It is a 4 story building, and I am on the second floor. There is a small yard with a marble table out back. And some unfinished space on the roof. It really could use a table and chairs - be a neat place to hang out and enjoy the view. Speaking of which…

This is a view generally northward. The Kyungbok palace I talked about in my last report is hidden by the buildings here, but within an easy walk.

This is a view southward. The tower on the hill in the center is the Seoul Tower, which shows up in many postcards and photos of Seoul. The tower would probably be considered the center point of Seoul, as it shows up in just about the middle of most maps of Seoul (such as http://english.seoul.go.kr/residents/transport/trans_01map.html). The financial district (and my office) is on the other side of the hill.

This was the surprise find from the roof - the Kyunghee Palace. The building I will live in is named Kyung Hee Palace, and it turns out it was named this because the actual palace is about 100 meters away. I have explored the palace also - it is still being restored, so isn't quite as spectacular as the Kyungbok Palace, but it was nice to be able to walk around it without any crowds around.

Asia Update #1 - Welcome to Seoul

Well, I've hit the ground and stumbled through my first steps. 6 hour delayed flight to start. Once we arrived, I must have looked pretty funny trying to navigate 4 bags (over 100 kilos) around the airport and to the taxi stand. Most humorous to look back on was when the little old Korean lady grabbed a bag and helped me across the street (I'm not joking).

Taxis were a problem at first. The office here sent me mailing address information for the hotel I was supposed to stay at and also for the new Raychem office. A US equivalent to the form of the address would be 10-23 Harlem, Manhattan, New York City. Both the hotel and office had this address format, so I figured that the number was some sort of grid system. Nope - the number was assigned by the order the buildings were built and means nothing else (they aren't even posted on the buildings). And the mailing address does not include street names (which it can't, because it turns out they generally don't use street names). To get around by taxi, you need to know landmarks (and speak a bit of the language). Couldn't find the hotel, so checked into one which I had on a web map I found. Next morning I got lucky and found a landmark which I was told about for the office and finally found my way there (at just about the time the taxi driver was looking frustrated enough to kick me and my bags out).

I must say these frustrations did make me start to wonder if I made the right choice. Thankfully, it has gotten better. Finding the office meant I could store the bike shipping box and not have to schlepp that around any more. I spent most of the next two days with the relocation firm looking at housing options. They explained a lot to me, though it is very obvious that I have much learning to go. They also found the right hotel, so I am now checked in where I should be.

Actually, the hotel was a concern also. I am staying at a place called BJ Membership Club. Sounds like a place where old, lonely businessmen go to spend time with women of questionable nature. One of the girls in the office here made the arrangements - I was beginning to wonder what her impression of me was. Turns out to be a true hotel, though definitely not 5 stars. Adequate for my needs, not too expensive, and within walking distance of the office.

Housing is expensive (even by SF standards), though I found one that seems reasonable and would fit my needs. Hopefully I will be able to settle in to a place within a few weeks. Until then, I am living in hotels. This isn't so bad, considering I am traveling a lot at first (3 days in Singapore next week, 10 days in Shanghai and Beijing the following week), but it still would be nice to be able to lay out all my stuff somewhere.

 I did a little exploring so far. There is definitely lots to see. Seoul is a cosmopolitan city with lots of culture, but the country also has an amazing history. For example, I visited the Kyongbok Palace (see picture) and marveled at their architecture and history.

For those who want to know about biking opportunities in Korea, check out the web site http://www.angelfire.com/ga/achamtb/. I got out for one ride so far at a park within biking distance of the city. The guy who showed me around said it was one of the easier parks around. If this is true, I am going to love it here. Lots of technical stuff to play on. And all trails are open to bikes.


I learn a few words a day of the language. Hopefully I will have a conversational ability in Korean within a few months. I also hope to learn to read the language. Korean is one of the few which has a simple written language - one which is totally phonetics based.