Grinds my Gears

Yes I ripped it off of Family Guy, but whatever. Koreans are rather interesting sometimes so I figured that I'd list a few more interesting differences and similarities that I've found.

1. You have to have an outfit for whatever activity you're doing. In the US if you're going fishing, or running, or playing sports, or hiking, you can wear pretty much the exact same thing for each activity. In Korea you need to have hiking clothes, fishing clothes, running clothes (including the really short shorts...), etc. I continue to find this odd and wasteful and I also end up standing out every time that I go running.

2. I have yet to figure out Korean Style and I don't think that I ever will. I've tried, I've seen a lot of people, and I still just don't get how it works, why they wear what they do, or anything.

3. Driving in Korea has been interesting to say the least. Many things are different from the US such as:

• You cannot make a left turn on a green light, you must have a green arrow.
• Speed is enforced by speed camera in most places. However there are signs telling you where the camera's are at. Police do not sit in their cars with radar guns.
• Turn signals are usually used, however they indicate that someone is moving not that they are looking to move.
• Pedestrians do not always have the right of way and will jay-walk at a random times. I've seen people walking through a tunnel in a car lane instead of walking over or around it... You just have to know where they are going to do it.
• The easiest way to explain driving is that you need to be an offensive driver as opposed to a defensive one. You have to decide where you're going to go, point your car in that direction, and go, don't hesitate, don't think, and let the other drivers worry about themselves. This works surprisingly well and there are far fewer accidents than you'd think that there would be. It could be because you know that everyone's going to be aggressive as opposed to the US where it's 50/50 aggressive/passive drivers.
  
• Ecobox Speeders. Many Koreans buy very small fuel efficient cars yet drive them like maniacs. They will drive up to an intersection and then most likely shut the car off (to save gas), however when the light turns green they'll fire it back up and then jam the gas and race to the next intersection. Effectively wasting any fuel that they saved by shutting the car off at the last light

4. Basketball. I was able to catch the season opener for the local Changwon team (one of 10 pro teams in Korea) and I have to say that I was throughly unimpressed by the "game". Each team is allowed to have two foreign players so they usually go for some 6'10" American who could play in the NBA Developmental League (D-League). So I was watching the game and I'd estimate that about 90% of the points were scored by the 4 foreign players between the two teams. It was really sad actually. Are Koreans just that bad or do they just want the Americans to carry their team?

• Sidenote: The refs were apaulingly awful in the game too. In the two quarters that I watched I saw probably 20 or more traveling, over the back, charging, blocking, and double dribble fouls that were either not called or called incorrectly. There weren't hardly any fouls called on the offensive player ... ever. I think that I saw one traveling called and that was it.
• Sidenote II: I also saw the biggest flop of my life. Two guys chase a rebound into the corner and both stop the one by the paint with the ball. Both are clearly standing, no movement for half a second at least. The guy with the ball then dives out of bounds (untouched) and gets a foul called on the defensive player ... who hadn't moved an inch. Seriously one of the worst calls I've ever seen in my life.
• Sidenote III: I'd rate the talent level at about Division II or Division III basketball (Pitt is Division I). Something that if I worked at it, I could probably make the team (on the bench, but still). Sorry Korea, not impressed, at all.
  

5. While out running Sunday I saw several groups of kids playing organized soccer on one of the fields. I thought that this was pretty cool and it was neat to see that it was set up and run almost the same as it is in the US.

6. They like to eat pickles with their pizza. No it's not in one restaurant, it's all of them. Still don't understand this one, they're not in the pizza, but on the side. It makes for an interesting flavor combination in your mouth.

• They also like some really odd flavor combinations on their pizza. I tend to stick to the "New York Style" which is basically a supreme pizza. Some of the others include: Sweet Potato, Several Curry based pizzas, various seafood pizza's, and many use mushrooms as the feature and not meat... yea. I would kill for a good pepperoni pizza like I can get 2 blocks from my apartment in the US.

7. Value Meals, Combination Platters/Meals, and anything else like that is called a Set. That took a while to figure out actually. "Hi, I'd like the Big Mac Set, please" Usually comes with a Coke, even if you don't ask for it.

Well I think that I hit a good number of things in this one. I'll try to think of some more interesting topics as my time here is coming to a close. As always if you have any questions, comments, etc, post a comment/send me an email and I'll try to get to it as soon as possible.

“Blog” meet Bryan, Bryan this is “Blog”

So it’s been a while since I’ve updated. 43 days in fact, hmm that is quite a while actually, so I’m doubting that anyone still even follows this (read: I've been a little too lazy lately). Either way this is going to be an update of the last month plus of activities. It’s probably going to be long, so sorry for that up front (it’d be shorter if I updated more…)

The beginning of September was rather uneventful actually. I wasn’t doing too much, work was kind of slow, and I was mostly getting ready to travel back to the US to visit people. Korea wise not too much was going on either, the weather was still really hot (but cooling) so I really didn’t want to travel much either. 95 and humid, eeeh no thanks.

Near the end (the 18th) I came back to the US to visit family, friends, apartments, etc. It was a great trip and when I was back I realized that I was missing the US a lot more than I was letting myself believe. Things just made more sense, it was nice to hold conversations with people in non-broken English, and it was just nice to be around people that I knew.

The first weekend was my parent’s surprise 25th wedding anniversary party. I hope that they were surprised (it seemed like they were) and I’m glad that I was able to make it back for that. Despite the slightly jetlagged state that I was in. The rest of the week was fun too, I got to see my grandparents a lot as well as a few friends from high school (thanks for making the trip up to McKean). All in all it was a good week and the first real vacation that I’ve had since I started working.

I also went out looking for cars with my dad one day. I figure that this spring I’ll get something a bit newer. I’m currently looking at two models the Nissan 370z (probably non-sport package) and the Hyundai Genesis Coupe (2.0T). No the Koreans didn’t convert me to their cars, it just looks good and I really want to see how a manual, 4 cylinder drives (they only had an automatic, 6 cylinder in Erie). So votes, opinion, recommendations anyone? Going for the sportier, rear wheel drive type of car and these two seem like the best bang for your buck.

Friday (9/25) and Monday/Tuesday (28,29) I went into work for a few hours to check out the new offices in Cranberry. I’ve gotta say they are really nice, pretty convenient to navigate, and much better than the old ones out in Monroeville. However, they could do with a few changes. Having nameplates on the end of the rows would be good, making the numbers above the cubicles (hanging from the ceiling) larger, and putting some kind of name plate holder at the end of the rows (instead of a sheet of paper) would be great improvements. The facilities (cafeteria, gym, grounds) look great even with the construction going on. Apparently we’re adding a 4th building to the complex too. I have to say that it felt kind of empty though…. Maybe that will change once we get more fully moved in.

Saturday (26th) I participated in the “Crawl for Cancer” with a group of friends. It was a really great time and hopefully we can put a team together for next year too. Maybe a sort of college/roommate/friends reunion or something. Plus you’re helping out a great cause. The rest of the week in Pittsburgh was pretty calm, hung out with the roommates and people still around, picked up the new season of top gear and episodes of house (Korea is 2 seasons behind…), and took a few more days off.

For the next weekend I went down to New Orleans to visit my friend Frances and to check out the city and Tulane. I had a lot of fun on that trip and I’m really glad that I went down. I’ll definitely have to make my back to that city at some point and time, there is just so much there to see and experience (and taste, the food was awesome). Maybe I’ll head back for Mardi Gras or when it gets all cold in Pittsburgh.

After New Orleans I packed everything back up and caught a plane back Korea. The flights were alright (despite leaving New Orleans 30 minutes late and almost missing the Detroit => Tokyo flight) and the jetlag from this trip was really minimal, always a plus. I’ve found that I have an easier time traveling West than I do East and I have no idea why this is. I think that it helps that I arrive into Korea (my apartment or hotel) around 11pm so you can just go to bed. Usually you get into the US around 5 or 6pm and want to sleep, but really can’t. It’s almost like you need to fly for a longer period of time or something… I’m getting back into the US at 2:30 on November 23rd, so we’ll see how that goes.

Work since I’ve gotten back has been hectic to say the least. We got two new customers over here the week I got back (one Chinese, one Korean-American for a US company) so we are working with them now. Our Chinese customers seem to have forgotten how to speak English and our Korean-American customer is a little too knowledgeable and wants a lot from us… Also work has picked up a bit and someone’s on vacation, so we’re swamped only begins to explain what’s going on. It’s funny; there either isn’t a lot going on or everything, no steady stream of work.

Good news / Bad news: not that much has change in Korea since I left. It's really seems like it's about the same as when I left. I realize that I wasn't gone for that long (2.5 weeks) so not much could have happened, but it still "feels" the same, which is odd. Even though I'm living here, it still doesn't feel like home. Pittsburgh had that feeling, even when I moved there for freshman year of college. Maybe that's what's been missing in Korea. The weather has cooled off a bit here. It's about 70 during the day and 45-50 at night, almost perfect weather. The trees are also starting to change color. It hasn't been as dramatic as in the US (only a few trees here and there) but I'm keeping hope that the mountains will become ablaze with color soon.

And this ends this crazy long update. I’ll try to post more frequently for the last 5-6 weeks that I am in Korea and I will see you all around Thanksgiving.

Fishing in the Yellow / West Sea

Last weekend I went out on a fishing trip Brian Wiscombe (WEC resident) and a two guys from Doosan. We left from Changwon around 10pm Saturday night to make the drive up to a port by Taean.

It took about 4 hours to drive there, and that was with rather empty roads (since it was late and all). Once we got into town we had breakfast at a local place (soup / rice) and then slept for a few hours till we could check in with the boating office. Around 4am we checked in, got any extra equipment that we had forgotten / needed (poles, hooks, bait, ponchos, etc) and then moved all of our stuff onto the boat. Around 5am we left the harbor and traveled out to the first fishing spot, a trip that took about 3 hours. We started fishing / battling the rain around 8am and kept fishing around 6pm that night. After that we came back to the harbor, packed up our gear and fish and made the trek home. All in all a really long, kind of cold / rainy day, but we ended up catching a lot of fish (as you'll see in the pictures) so it was a pretty good time.

Also I found out that I do get a bit seasick, mostly when we were at low idle and the boat was really kicking around. I was ok traveling out (except for when we throttled down b/c of waves) and fishing for the morning, but it really hit me in the afternoon. I'm not sure what all it was (the long day, the waves, maybe not eating enough, or a combination of everything) but I was really sick / tired all afternoon so I mostly slept.

We ended up catching 20-25 fish on the day (between the 4 of us). I caught 3-4 in the morning and then another one during lunch, but that was it. One of the Doosan guys with us also got a little sick and he sat most all of the day out (he did catch a fish though). Most of the fish were 12ish inches but Brian caught the biggest one on the boat probably around 16-18". You can see in the pictures below and then take a guess if you like.

We were mostly fishing off the bottom of the Sea about 30-50m down (100-170 ft), so we had extra weighting on the lines and we also used two hooks with different bait at different heights. Most all of the fish that I caught was off of the lower hook / bait. You can see that a few guys were able to catch two fish at once (first picture in the album below) because of the two hooks. The boat was pretty good sized (you'll see in the pictures) and had space for 22 fishers at once.

These pictures are from the boating company itself, a rather neat service that they provide. The deckhand was running around snapping pictures as we hauled fish in, so he had a pretty busy day. It should be pretty easy to pick out Brian and I since we're the only Americans, Mr. Kim (also with us) is in the third picture and then about 7 more... he had a pretty good day. We guessed that the average person caught 4-5 fish, but that might not have been the case.

And these pictures are what Brian and I took throughout the day. I've added more comments on each of those pictures too, so be sure to check them out.

Slacking off

Well it appears that I've been a bit lazy in updating this blog during this month. I'll try to remedy it in the coming weeks.

First things first I'll be back in the US from September 19th through the 29th visiting a combination of Erie/McKean, Pittsburgh, and New Orleans. It should be a lot of fun and I'm excited to get to see everyone. Its hard to believe that I've been away for over 3 months already or that I'm over half way done. If you're going to be in any of those places let me know so that I can be sure to come visit.

Work has been a little hectic lately (and probably the reason for the lack of posts). Our residents from China rotated again (every three months) so we have new guys in here which means ... they need broken in. They're getting there, but its going to take some time. It's also harder because our last residents spoke English very well and these guys aren't quite as good. Mr. Chen was also a lot of fun because he was around my age (26) and we could relate on a lot of things.

We've also had a few visitors from our US customers too, so we've been showing them around setting them at ease about the area / company and generally working a lot with them. Which can make for some pretty long hectic days.

Life outside of work has been pretty good too. I haven't been doing too much on the weekends, just tooling around the city taking it easy. I think that I'll travel more once I get back from this break because the weather will be less hot and/or rainy than it currently is. I'm also expecting fall to be very good with all the mountains and trees everywhere, so I'll try to take a lot of pictures to share with everyone.

Photo Blog - Masan

Here is the last batch of photos from my week off. I traveled out to Masan (near by city) to take in the sights there and to try to get a feel for that city.

Masan is about 16 Km (10 miles) from Changwon, center to center. Masan is about 1/3rd the size of Changwon (pop. 200,000) and is a significantly older city than Changwon. It does have the feel of older Korea and that is also represented well in the architecture and structure of the buildings. Most are 3-5 stories tall and there aren't many of the apartment complexes that you see in Changwon (though they are building a lot). The town has a more "country" feel compared to Changwon's "urban" sort of feel. I can only imagine what Seoul (pop 20 million) and Busan (pop 7 million) are like, however I feel one word would be "cramped" ...

http://s621.photobucket.com/albums/tt294/brown-pitt/Photo%20Blog%20-%20Masan/

I traveled to Masan mostly by public transportation and I have to say that its a lot better than what I've experienced in the US. The buses were on time and most of the bus stops had a computer screen in them telling you what the next bus was and how long it would take to get to you. I know that would be convenient in Pittsburgh (save playing the "well maybe something will come along" game). The only major downfall that I found with the public transport was that the buses were all manual transmission; while they are great for fuel economy, you also get shift shock (especially first to second) coupled with people standing. Lets just say that people get thrown about a bit so you really need to pay attention.