My office is somewhere in there. Click to see where I circled it.

link

Dolsot Ilbo » What’s Happening in Korea This Summer?.

Since I’m moving to Korea pretty soon and plan to use bike as my means of transportation, I was curious if Korea is a bike-friendly country. The last time I visited, I didn’t see many bicycle riders around.

Seoul, Korea to be bike-friendly by 2010

Good to hear!

This is interesting. Thinks it yields more space but less seating, tho.

Page F30: Seoul to start experimenting with subway cars with seats in the middle instead of next to the window.

I just purchased a one way plane ticket to Seoul, Korea and that’s a little over a month from now when I will have stepped my foot over there for one more time.

Like one of my friends’ favorite maxims, “No replacement for displacement.” He’s a big fan of the LS series engine with those big V8 cylinders. At the beginning, I’d argue with him and reasoned that a 4 cylinders engine could keep up with the best of them while being efficient on fuel. He said that’s cool but when it comes down to raw power and torque, nothing can replace displacement. Yep. When you want a go in your car, you just tap your foot on the pedal and a V8 engine will gladly rev up for you without too much effort. Not quite so on a i4 engine, you’d have to bring the rpm up high, get VTEC to kick in to experience some substantial power output. To put it succinctly, he said the Corvette is the closest thing next to a Ferrari that is mass-produced and affordable. Well said, friend.

Well, as luck would have it, I will be returning to the country where I was born in but was “displaced” at the age of three. In the last few years, I have given a lot of thoughts about going back to the country especially after having discovered my family and learned that my sister is deaf too. As I thought about my life and what I’d like to do with it, I realize that I cannot, in my good conscience, leave both my sister (and her husband and my niece) and my brother behind and pretend they are a figment of my imagination. They did not have the same fortune of living in the land of opportunity, America, and get a college education. Sometimes, I wonder what really went through my biological father’s mind when he made a decision to give me up for adoption? He must have made an insight that had I stayed in Korea, I wouldn’t have had same opportunities that I was able to experience. It’d be nice to inquire him about that a bit more but it was hard to communicate with him since we had nothing in common except for the blood and Korea has such a manner that parents do not reveal much to their children.

Another desire to go back to my country is to learn a bit more of the culture and what is culture without language? The language, Hangul, as I have learned, is a very effective language and is the only language to have a national holiday based on. I’ve always got a thing for languages in American Sign Language and English and thought it’d be cool to learn another language and become fluent at it. I often have a dream that I was able to converse in any of four languages. I realize that the image I have of myself has significantly changed after I visited Korea for the first time in 2002. It validated my existence, my identity and saw where I was truly from. Even at this point in today’s society and time, we have progressed enough not to use race as discrimination but our identity still remain important. So, going back to Korea will enrich my identity at the extent of who I am. There’s no replacement for displacement.

from here.

1951

Today

While waiting for our food to be served, I had my camera with me and being a bit bored, I started to play with my camera. That was then I saw the brilliant light coming through the glass doors. It was quite captivating, so I started to snap pics of the light.

Those converse shoes are quite popular in Korea.

Woot, this looks good! I shall make some soon.

KOREAN BARBECUE BURGERS

Ingredients

1/2 cup chopped green onions
1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger
3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon dark sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 pounds ground sirloin
Cooking spray
6 (1 1/2-ounce) whole wheat hamburger buns, split
6 red leaf lettuce leaves
6 tablespoons thinly sliced radishes

Preparation
Prepare grill.

Combine first 8 ingredients. Divide the mixture into 6 equal portions, shaping each into a 1/2-inch-thick patty.

Place patties on a grill rack coated with cooking spray; grill 6 minutes on each side or until a thermometer registers 160°. Remove from grill; let patties stand 5 minutes.

Place buns, cut sides down, on grill rack; grill 1 minute or until toasted. Place 1 patty on bottom half of each bun; top each serving with 1 lettuce leaf, 1 tablespoon radishes, and top half of bun.

Yield

6 servings (serving size: 1 burger)

Nutritional Information

CALORIES 343(38% from fat); FAT 14.4g (sat 4.7g,mono 5.7g,poly 2.3g); PROTEIN 26.7g; CHOLESTEROL 72mg; CALCIUM 72mg; SODIUM 534mg; FIBER 3.7g; IRON 3.8mg; CARBOHYDRATE 27.4g

Bruce Weinstein , Cooking Light, AUGUST 2007

Looks like he and I got a little in common. Heh. Hmm, I gotta work out more consistently and watch my diet if I wanna get abs like that. His name is Kwon Sang-woo. Pic from popseoul.com

More reason why I’m studying korean. :-)

From Ask a Korean

Here is ask’in another Korean who’s actually studied the anthropology.

There are certain types of East Asian physical types. Northern Asian, Southern Asian and islander aborigines.

Koreans are essentially of the Northern Asian type, which migrated from Siberia in the last ice age. Northern Asians are characterized by high cheek bones, small flat noses and wide eyes with an epicanthal fold. Northern Asians evolved from areas where it was very cold, and there was a high wind chill factor. High cheek bones and a flatter face helps the heat distribute better in and around the head. wider set eyes helped keep wind out as well.

The Chinese are a blend of Northern and Southern Asians. South Asians have rounder faces, slightly larger eyes and darker skin. It is well known amoung Chinese themselves that people from the North and the South look noticeably different.

The Japanese are a blend of Northern, Southern and islander aborigine (in approximately that order), with the Northern influence being more prominent on average.

No wonders I do like the cold… heh.

Cool commercials by Nike in Korea.

Oh yeah, does anyone know what is the model shoes the guy wore in the commercial?

Nike Plus (Korean Commercial 1)

Nike Plus (Korean Commercial 2)

Nike Plus (Korean Commercial 3)

Heh, cute. The actress is Song Hye-kyo

From http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=hangul

Hangul is the Korean alphabet. It was devised by King Sejong sometime around 1446, when he realized that Chinese was simply too complex for the average joe to learn. Its brilliance is only apparent when you study Korean: it’s 100% phonetic (*) , the characters themselves are simple to write. Indeed, one of the initial criticisms of Hangul (1) was that it was too simple to learn - REAL men learned Chinese ideograms. For this reason, widespread use of Hangul did not come about until the 20th century, as a result of national pride.

Hangul is, as another noder put it, easy to learn, given the proper attitude. The first step is to execute that anal-retentive English teacher that lives in your forebrain as Korean is nothing like English. If you want to learn Korean, the first step is to throw out any English grammar you’ve learned.

The second step is to remember, you are learning an alphabet; by themselves, these are not individual words or any of that crazy Japanese stuff

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