Just spotted the HP 22″ Touchsmart @ a local Costco for $1449.99. Looks pretty sweet with an Intel Core2duo T5850, 64-bit Vista Home Premium, 4GB RAM, 500GB, dvdrw, tv tuner and nvidia gforce 9300.
Could this be the beginning of Microsoft’s vision of a Microsoft Surface in every home?
On my 13th day in South Korea, we drove a couple of hours south to Anmyundo Beach on the western coast and was hooked up with 1 night @ a condo resort. It was called the Lotte Ocean Castle. Not much news to report here as we spent my last couple of days in South Korea just relaxing. Oh actually, I did notice that middle aged Korean men like to dance together at an evening outdoor live music lounge. Apparently it’s a cultural thing where it’s customary for men and women to dance amongst themselves as in guys gyrating hips towards other guys. It was quite a sight to see them grabbing eachother by the hands to go dancing! :p
Other notable things:
Anybody know what these things are called?
$40 for 7 minutes into the sunset and back.
Day 14
There was also a pretty cool ATV ride tour for $25 that took me through the forests and sandy beaches for ~40 minutes. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera along with me on the ride.
That pretty much concludes my 2 weeks in South Korea. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep this blog up to date with more posts and pictures!
Day 11
The morning after casino day, we drove about an hour or two to the eastern seaboard of South Korea to some beaches near Gangneung. There were a lot of military posts from back in the day where I guess they were watching for Japanese invasions by sea. There lots of cool jagged rocks and cliffs to look at, but most of the visitors were divers and fishermen looking for shellfish.
Snorkel divers looking for shellfish.
2 fishermen taking a break on the rocks.
Day 12
This day was DMZ Tour day. We took a subway during morning rush hour which was crazy crowded… almost suffocating crowded as we had to stand for nearly 2 hours to get to Seoul where the tour bus was to pick us up. We had a very pleasant old lady as our tour guide who spoke remarkable English. She was still fobby but was very easy to understand and even knew when to throw in jokes and stuff.
If you’re looking for a tour, there’s only a few companies that do them and I think they’re all pretty similar. I forgot the name of the tour group I went with but it was based out of the Lotte Hotel in Seoul. We left the hotel at about 10am and was back by about 5pm. That was the shorter tour, there’s an even longer one that starts at 8am for those of you that are interested in visiting one of the previously secret infiltration tunnels built by the North Koreans.
Me standing under a monument @ one of the stops. I'm not Korean by the way.
Another monument @ another stop. It was at the last South Korean park before going to the DMZ.
This is Freedom Bridge where POWs were traded.
Steps leading up to an observation deck where we could see some North Korean villages.
South Korean soldier standing guard at the UN sanctioned meeting room between North and South Korea.
At the DMZ. Gray buildings belong to North Korea, blue buildings belong to South Korea.
North Korean faux village. Apparently, this village is for show only as they want to make visible that they are thriving. We were told that if we used binoculars, we could see that nobody actually lives there and that many of the buildings don't have any windows.
My 10th day in South Korea was spent at Kangwon Land which is a casino hotel resort type of place way out in the boonies of I don’t even know what province. It was near the east coast of the South Korean peninsula and was about a 5-6 hour drive from Seoul.
The Pros
We got to the hotel around 5 or 6 in the evening and it was pretty nice. The parking lot was quite full and parking was kind of hard to find. We walked up the the main entrance where they have some peculiar architectural displays?
The hotel lobbies and floors were very spacious and it didn’t wreak of that cigarette smell that permeates all the Las Vegas hotels. To enter the main casino, foreigners have to submit their passports for screening and free admission while South Koreans have to present identification and pay, I believe, 10,000won to enter. What a ripoff eh?
Upon entering there are 2 beverage stations that were pretty cool with about 10 different varieties of teas, juices, coffees, and sodas.
The Cons
There is airport style security to enter the main casino floor, except I have no idea what the metal detector was for. I saw countless heads walking through it with plenty of alerts which the staff paid no attention to. They did, however, prevented anyone from bringing in any liquids presumably to make sure nobody brings in any alcohol.
Korean gambling habits are nuts! It seemed like the game of choice amongst the natives were variations of baccarat, blackjack, roulette, slot machines to the max. Shoot, I don’t even think I saw many other types of games. All the card tables (I’d estimate ~250 tables) had people on them at least 3-4 layers deep and I’m not exaggerating. The first layer consisted of the players sitting at the table. The second layer consisted of either the players’ significant others, or people trying to get a seat. The third and fourth layers were all people trying to get into the action or just watching. So at any given table, there would be a at least 20 people crowded around. Needless to say, I didn’t even get to touch the felt on any of the card tables.
The slot machines were a whole different beast. People didn’t gather around any of the machines but they were practically all taken up. I’d estimate about ~1000 slot machines of various game styles and the majority of them were all accounted for! And now here’s the crazy part. I’d say over half of the slot machines had players which I’d like to call ghost and ninja ATM machines.
The ninja players were the cash cows. They would either scope out an empty row of slots or start with a machine in a row and wait for neighboring machines to open up. Then they would insert ungodly amounts of money into entire rows of slot machines and put them on auto-pilot. This auto-pilot scheme worked by the player stuffing a piece of paper or dollar bill into the crevice of the maximum bid button. Then they would run back to the ATM’s for more funds or stand watch nearby. So it was totally not uncommon to see entire rows of slot machines spinning all by themselves without anyone even sitting at them.
The ghost players would insert money into one or more slot machines, leave either a 1000won bill or napkin over the credits and just disappear for unknown amounts of time. Unlike the ninja players, the ghost players do not prefer to put their slot machines on autopilot. These were the most annoying players and made it hella hard to find a cheap open machine to play. The biggest bitch I saw was one that was ghosting a 10cent machine. I was playing on a machine next to hers and every 20-30 minutes she would come grumbling over to pound on the poor slot machine buttons for about 2 minutes and then leave to lose more money elsewhere. This went on for about 2 hours before I left.
About the hotel… The amenities outside of the casino floor were lame! There was an “Adventure Palace”/ arcade/movie theater that we looked forward to instead of gambling all our money away but it freakin’ closed @ 8pm! Furthermore, all the shops and bars were closed by 10pm! So after 10pm there was nothing to do except roam the casino floors and drink from the free beverage (juice/tea/soda) bars.
After my first taste of bungee jumping on day 3 I went searching for something even higher! We found a place in Jecheon called Cheongpung Land and decided to make the 2 hour drive out there. Surrounding Cheongpung Land is a humongous lake surrounded by some of the most beautiful and green mountains/hills I’ve ever seen.
The cost was $40 for a single jump and was well worth it as it was the tallest bungee tower in all of South Korea @ 62m (203 feet) high! Man, I gotta tell you, the hardest part was after they clipped you in and then it was time to hobble to the edge of the platform. It was crazy scary looking down and having half my feet dangling off the edge. Then I had to raise my arms and stand straight up closing my fists…
5…
4…
3…
2…
1…
whoooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!
The fall was intense as I had never fallen and hung upside down for that long before. I felt my head pulsating with rushes of blood for a good 10 minutes afterwards.
The Super Burger
On the way home we stopped by a Shinsegae for dinner where I had the best burger I’ve ever had. Well, the meat was a little bit too well done but damn, I don’t think I’ve ever had a better basic burger in the states. The bun was super fluffy soft and had almost everything you could want in a burger. Lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, onions, egg, bacon, mayo, ketchup, and I’m probably missing something else, all stacked super tall. They called it the ‘Super Burger.’
It’s about 6 inches tall.
The meat’s in there somewhere.
Day 8 was a rest day. Stayed in to watch some ridiculous yet entertaining Korean TV and went out for some basketball in the evening.
Sometimes I wish America had some funny wholesome shows like they have here instead of all that reality TV crap.
We spent day 7 on the road to visit an old friend of my girlfriend’s uncle in a rural area near Daegu. Then we drove about an hour to Boryeong to check out the beaches and to have some fresh lunch. Boryeong is famous for their mud as well as their annual mud festival that attracts foreigners from all over the world.
When we got into town we headed towards the local fish market for some fresh catches. The cool part was that after we bought the fish, all we had to do was take it over to a local restaurant of our choice to have them prepare it anyway we liked for our meal. We got a cuttlefish, a halibut, an earth worm looking thing, and an orange spiky looking thing and some other kind of fish that I don’t remember. We got everything sashimi style like last time… yum… actually, this was the most fearful sashimi I’ve ever had as we were in a pretty rural part of town and I have no idea what kind of good health practices are in place over here. I just hope I don’t poop out any tapeworms anytime in the future.
Boryeong fish market
Fresh catches of the day.
White stuff is cuttlefish, I was scared of the the orange and pink stuff.
Topped everything off with a spicy seafood hot pot.
Walking around town where every fishmonger and restaurant owner was heckling their deals at us.
At the beach.
The town getting ready for the Mud Festival next week.
Enjoying some ice cream at the seaside 7-11.
After a couple of hours in Boryeong, we headed back to the countryside to drop off the old friend and have some tea before we left.
Rice fields in the countryside.
I have no idea what this was, but it was some kind of grain based tea. It was yummy.
Truck Stops and Freeways
Truck/rest stops in South Korea are awesome. I’d say they’re equivalent to strip malls that we have in the U.S. except these are mostly food courts and giant restrooms with some dvd and widget vendors tossed in between. Heck, I even saw a baby bed decked out with baby wipes and all for the little ones at one end of a food court. There were also lounges with big massage chairs to relax the weary travelers.
The freeways actually aren’t free. They are all toll. Upon entering a major highway you go through a toll booth where a machine dispenses a ticket. You’ll need this ticket once you exit the highway as the toll is calculated by the distance you had traveled. I believe we went about 150 miles for about ~$4-5.
A rest stop. The strip is actually 2-3 times as long as pictured.
I ventured out for an evening stroll here in South Korea tonight. I walked about a mile in the direction of a set of basketball courts that I’ve noticed before to see if I could scope out how the game was played here. After about 20 minutes of walking in the most humid weather I have ever been in, I sat down on a bench at one end of the basketball courts and watched. This was my observation:
In general, they were weak sauce and actually stereotypical of all the FOB Asians I see in the O.C. I think I finally understand where this type of playground basketball mentality comes from now. I think this is due to the fact that Asians would prefer to let more people play so they’d rather play 2 half court games of 4 on 4 then play a full court game of 5 on 5. That way 16 people could play instead of 10. Makes sense…
But that doesn’t really play out here in the states because I’ve seen plenty of times where a group of 20 FOBs would show up at a park and just play half court 4 on 4 all night on a single half court and wouldn’t give us the time of day. Even if we just needed one more guy for a full court game! So that leads me to the conclusion that they are probably too shy, don’t comprehend the full court game or are just plain lazy and aren’t really out there looking to run. That probably explains all the guys I saw in Korea walking around in a half court game.
On Day 6 we decided to take some public transportation to Myongdong where there’s a shopping hot spot for tourists and Koreans alike. It’s also popular hangout and destination spot among younger Koreans from all over. The bus ride took about an hour from Suji and is about 20 miles away to the southeast. The fare was only 1800 won, ~$1.80US so that was a pretty good deal if you asked me! Only problem is that unless you speak Korean, you might have a hard time interpreting the stops as there is no English translation on board.
Traffic congestion in Myongdong.
Butt loads of people getting off of busses onto a street median.
Busses are everywhere in Korea, often times seen in caravans.
Shopping in Myongdong
Namdaemun Market
If Myongdong is for the hip youngsters, then Namdaemun Market would be for the older crowd and a good spot for tourists to shop for souvenirs and trinkets. I found that prices for the same goods and souvenirs were about double the cost in other tourist hot spots like Itaewon.
One of the many gates leading into Namdaemun Market.
The guy pictured below was the highlight of my visit to the market. I was told that he was a retarded beggar that went around to every vendor in the market yelling a Korean soccer chant from there last world cup visit circa 2004? It was pretty funny actually, it was interesting to see the locals staring at him as well so I didn’t feel so left out 
. When I took this picture I was standing about 30 feet away from him just watching and then he spotted me with my camera around my neck and posed for me. Hilarious!
Retarded yet crafty beggar with a loud voice.
Phone booth based fish monger.
One of the many fruit vendors.
Subway
From Myongdong, we hopped on a subway to our next destination for ~$1 (1,000 won). The subway was a treat since it was first time taking a subway anywhere and man, how I wished we had one underneath Southern California! It was very clean here and had stops like every half to 1 mile? We eventually took multiple lines all the way home to Suji for a $1 ticket (16 mile trip).
Clean subway.
People on subway.
Itaewon
We then took the subway to Itaewon which I think should be called little America or Europe or something. You can find a ton of internationally recognized brands here along with a lot of higher-end shopping. There was also a surprising number of Americans here! I’d say out of all the people I saw walking around a good 30-40% were either Americans or Europeans. I even heard the loud booming rap music from cars just like at home. And if you didn’t know, there’s a US military base nearby which explains it all.
Western restaurants.
Nightclub for foreigners.
Got Yahoo travel luggage?
Bulgogi burger! It was ok.
‘Triangle Pie’ – It tastes like a deep fried hot fudge brownie, except the crust was 10 days old.
Itaewon street vendors.
Illegit street vendor with a legit Nike store in the background.
Dinner on day 4 would qualify as the weirdest and most extreme meal I’ve ever had. It was 7 courses of almost sashimi style everything, meaning raw fish all around! Except it wasn’t just fish. There was sea cucumber, some type of mollusk and a good helping of other sea creatures that I couldn’t even identify. Some of them you can see in their tanks below.
The worst one was that giant earthworm looking thing. It came to the table sliced up but still wriggling. And as soon as you picked it up and dipped it in soy sauce it would freeze up and get all rigid!
I thought the sashimi was kind of weird, besides the tuna everything else was really gelatinous in texture and uncharacteristically firm. Almost rubber band jelly like. I was later told that this was because all the sashimi was cut fresh straight off of live fish before it was served and all the soft fish that we’re more accustomed to in Japanese sushi is due to the fact that they are usually flash frozen and shipped all around the world.
The rest of the fish and bones were cooked in a hot pot style soup that we ate with rice. It wasn’t very good and had too many little bones in it making it nearly inedible.
The most curious thing about this restaurant is that it was floor seating only and you had to take your shoes off first before you entered the main dining floor. But I’ve been seeing a lot of these as I walk around the local neighborhoods. Most neighborhood restaurants seem to share the same floor seating style.
Day 5
Today, we hit up 2 shopping centers. The first one was Shinsegae and the second one was 2001 Outlet.
Shinsegae was nice! It was a 10 story shopping center and had tons of high-end designer brands as well as a super cool market area. This market was on the 1st floor and was like a Whole Foods on steroids. There were a ton of different vendors with foods from all over the world with every vendor trying to persuade you to buy their foods. The ladies waving giant blankets of dried seaweed were pretty funny. I had never seen anything like it.
The 7th floor had a very nice looking food court + restaurants. The design was like that of fancy hotels and the prices weren’t great but we did make out of there with a lunch for 3 for 22,000 won. That’s about ~$20US. Not bad. Oh and I came away from that with my new favorite Korean food, the Korean pancake!
The 10th and top floor had what they call ‘Sky Park’ and a cultural center. The park was open aired and gave shoppers a chance for some relaxation from the shopping. Adjacent to the park was the cultural center which looked like it housed meeting and classrooms. We even caught a cooking class in session as we passed through.
On the way out I stopped by an awesome bathroom. Across from the sinks was a cool bamboo styled bench and background with real bamboos and greens [not pictured].
2001 Outlet wasn’t as nice but still cool nonetheless. It was similar to Shinsegae except it wasn’t as refined and luxurious. Funny tidbit: as soon as you step toe into a store/booth you are immediately greeted and attended by a store person. Too bad I couldn’t understand them but they sure did make sure they followed me everywhere I went.
Oh and if you didn’t know, parking is like this EVERYWHERE!
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