Follow the link below to get to the pictures and my comments on each picture. There's about 50 pictures total. If you want to know more about any of them shoot me an email or post a comment.
http://s621.photobucket.com/albums/tt294/brown-pitt/San%20Francisco%20Trip/
Jul 27, 2009
so I forgot last week...
Wow an update, crazy right? Photos from SF this afternoon (Korean time), I promise.
So the week after I got back has been hectic to say the least. I was at work a lot (10ish) hour days though the middle of the week, I got all of my stuff from customs (finally), and pretty much crashed this weekend. The week was a bit busier because one of the residents is out of the office getting his VISA so there's just two of us to cover the same workload. Also I built and gave a presentation to several of the Doosan managers on one of Westinghouse's practices, so that ate up a lot of time. The presentation went over pretty well, I had about 45 minutes worth of material and spent most of it as a Q&A / town hall type of session. I thought that it was pretty well received and that I was able to convey the message that Westinghouse would have wanted me to.
Life outside of work was rather busy too. I did get all of my stuff set up around the apartment, which is nice, and I made a few trips to the grocery store to fill in the gaps (things that I thought I had packed, things I was missing like hangers). So that was rather hectic too, which lead to me crashing this weekend. I mostly slept and played video games (mario kart wii) so it was nice to just chill out and not have to worry about much.
I got my first round of bills too. Its interesting getting them here because: 1. they are entirely in Korean, 2. they are really colorful. Its quite the contrast to the US bills which are only in black and white. Most of the bills had charts and graphs (in Korean) but I could get the idea of what they all were saying even without reading them. Since I got this round of bills I thought that it would be a good idea to break down the prices of a few things, to compare them to the US prices. I'm going to use $1 = 1250 Korean Won because it normally hovers around that (between 1220 and 1320 while I've been here).
Apartment (19th floor, new building, short lease) - 2.5 million Won per month ($2,000)
Apartment management fees and utilities (one person, AC set around 75F, lights usually off)- 250,000 Won ($200)
Electric - 83,000 Won ($66.40)
Cable / Internet - 51,000 Won ($40.8)
Rental Car (long term lease, 2 door, technically a "sports car"...) - 790,000 Won ($632)
My last tank of gas (44L or 12 Gal) - 75,000 Won ($60)
McDonalds Big Mac Meal - 5900 Won ($4.72) [only 3000 Won 11am-2pm, just saying]
Frozen US Beef (about 3-4 servings for me)- 9000 Won ($7.2)
0.5L of Gatorade (16.7 oz) - 960 Won ($0.77)
Hite Draft (Korean beer)- 3000 Won ($2.4) [surprisingly more than Pittsburgh]
I'll add a few more as I think of them.
So the week after I got back has been hectic to say the least. I was at work a lot (10ish) hour days though the middle of the week, I got all of my stuff from customs (finally), and pretty much crashed this weekend. The week was a bit busier because one of the residents is out of the office getting his VISA so there's just two of us to cover the same workload. Also I built and gave a presentation to several of the Doosan managers on one of Westinghouse's practices, so that ate up a lot of time. The presentation went over pretty well, I had about 45 minutes worth of material and spent most of it as a Q&A / town hall type of session. I thought that it was pretty well received and that I was able to convey the message that Westinghouse would have wanted me to.
Life outside of work was rather busy too. I did get all of my stuff set up around the apartment, which is nice, and I made a few trips to the grocery store to fill in the gaps (things that I thought I had packed, things I was missing like hangers). So that was rather hectic too, which lead to me crashing this weekend. I mostly slept and played video games (mario kart wii) so it was nice to just chill out and not have to worry about much.
I got my first round of bills too. Its interesting getting them here because: 1. they are entirely in Korean, 2. they are really colorful. Its quite the contrast to the US bills which are only in black and white. Most of the bills had charts and graphs (in Korean) but I could get the idea of what they all were saying even without reading them. Since I got this round of bills I thought that it would be a good idea to break down the prices of a few things, to compare them to the US prices. I'm going to use $1 = 1250 Korean Won because it normally hovers around that (between 1220 and 1320 while I've been here).
Apartment (19th floor, new building, short lease) - 2.5 million Won per month ($2,000)
Apartment management fees and utilities (one person, AC set around 75F, lights usually off)- 250,000 Won ($200)
Electric - 83,000 Won ($66.40)
Cable / Internet - 51,000 Won ($40.8)
Rental Car (long term lease, 2 door, technically a "sports car"...) - 790,000 Won ($632)
My last tank of gas (44L or 12 Gal) - 75,000 Won ($60)
McDonalds Big Mac Meal - 5900 Won ($4.72) [only 3000 Won 11am-2pm, just saying]
Frozen US Beef (about 3-4 servings for me)- 9000 Won ($7.2)
0.5L of Gatorade (16.7 oz) - 960 Won ($0.77)
Hite Draft (Korean beer)- 3000 Won ($2.4) [surprisingly more than Pittsburgh]
I'll add a few more as I think of them.
Jul 16, 2009
Visit to San Francisco
So (as promised) here is the giant update for everything that took place when I went to get my VISA. It was a great week and I really wish that it could have lasted longer, especially since it was raining when I got back to Korea...
Wednesday:
Flew from Korea back to the states. The flight out left at 8am Korean time and I got in at 10am Pacific time ... the same day (with a 6 hour layover in Japan). Crossed a few timezones... I didn't do a whole lot Weds: Visited the Korean Consulate to drop my stuff off, meandered around the city some, and worked to get adjusted to that timezone. Thankfully Denny's is open 24 hours because I swung down to grab food around 1am that night. I really wanted an omlette.
Thursday:
Slept in (which was awesome) and checked out the shopping area near my hotel. There was a ton of stuff: shops, markets, etc around so there was a lot to do. I had a few things that I wanted to pick up, and I was able to find them with little problem. Thursday night I met up with Frances (met via craigslist) to go to a Giants' game. It was a good game, we had a great time and really got along, and AT&T was a beautiful park (on par with PNC park, in Pittsburgh) and looked even better from our seats. After the game we checked out the carnival that they had going on next to the stadium.
Friday:
Checked out parts of downtown, some scenery and the piers (mostly Pier 39, well known shopping center) with Frances. We contemplated going to the game, but decided to continue going down the Warf until we got to Ghirardelli square. Only later that night did we realize that Sanchez (3-8, and just back up from the minors) threw a no-hitter and we had missed it. I took several pictures and all of them should be loaded up sometime this weekend. I'll probably put them into Photobucket again and try to comment on each picture. Its just easier than posting here.
Saturday/Sunday:
Traveled down to Phoenix to meet up with Amanda to see her since I was so close (relative to PGH or Korea). It had been quite a while since we hung out so it was great to get to meet up and see how she was doing. I also got to meet a lot of cool Teach for America (TFA) teachers too. It was really interesting to get a "behind the scenes" look at all of the work that they do, even if in the end it reaffirmed my decision to not be a teacher. I just don't know if I could put that kind of time and effort into creating lessons and figuring out what to teach, and how to teach it. However, I still think that I could teach a high school science, but I would be a lot better suited to teaching some kind of collegiate level math (calculus) or science (physics or chem). Maybe someday in the future, I've still got a lot of time to do different things in my life.
Monday/Tuesday:
Flew back into San Francisco, did a little more shopping, picked up my VISA, watched parts of the home run derby and all star game. Also visited Berkley, parts of Cal's campus, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Golden Gate Bridge park. Pretty packed two days, but it was a lot of fun and I have a lot of great memories from the cities. Same as above, look for more comments in the photos because it will be easier to explain there.
Wednesday/Thursday:
Checked out of the hotel and flew back to Korea. Left the SF airport at 1:30pm Wednesday got into Korea at 9pm Thursday... timezones again.
All in all it was a great trip. I really liked San Francisco a lot more than I thought that I would. I was expecting to see the city and take in a few sights while I was there, but I honestly really loved the city and the people that were in it. Everything was always very interesting and varied which made it a good experience. It has its own kind of personality and charm (much like Pittsburgh) so I really could see myself living there at some point and time.
The weather during the trip was great SF was about 65-70 during the day and 50 at night (sunny every day), Arizona was up to 118 during the day and down around 90 at night. They say that its a dry heat, but it still feels really hot all the time. In my opinion, Phoenix was a great place to visit (and much larger than I was thinking it would be) but I don't know if I could live there, its just too warm for me.
If you want to know more about any part of the trip shoot me an email and I'll fill you in, or add another blog post.
Wednesday:
Flew from Korea back to the states. The flight out left at 8am Korean time and I got in at 10am Pacific time ... the same day (with a 6 hour layover in Japan). Crossed a few timezones... I didn't do a whole lot Weds: Visited the Korean Consulate to drop my stuff off, meandered around the city some, and worked to get adjusted to that timezone. Thankfully Denny's is open 24 hours because I swung down to grab food around 1am that night. I really wanted an omlette.
Thursday:
Slept in (which was awesome) and checked out the shopping area near my hotel. There was a ton of stuff: shops, markets, etc around so there was a lot to do. I had a few things that I wanted to pick up, and I was able to find them with little problem. Thursday night I met up with Frances (met via craigslist) to go to a Giants' game. It was a good game, we had a great time and really got along, and AT&T was a beautiful park (on par with PNC park, in Pittsburgh) and looked even better from our seats. After the game we checked out the carnival that they had going on next to the stadium.
Friday:
Checked out parts of downtown, some scenery and the piers (mostly Pier 39, well known shopping center) with Frances. We contemplated going to the game, but decided to continue going down the Warf until we got to Ghirardelli square. Only later that night did we realize that Sanchez (3-8, and just back up from the minors) threw a no-hitter and we had missed it. I took several pictures and all of them should be loaded up sometime this weekend. I'll probably put them into Photobucket again and try to comment on each picture. Its just easier than posting here.
Saturday/Sunday:
Traveled down to Phoenix to meet up with Amanda to see her since I was so close (relative to PGH or Korea). It had been quite a while since we hung out so it was great to get to meet up and see how she was doing. I also got to meet a lot of cool Teach for America (TFA) teachers too. It was really interesting to get a "behind the scenes" look at all of the work that they do, even if in the end it reaffirmed my decision to not be a teacher. I just don't know if I could put that kind of time and effort into creating lessons and figuring out what to teach, and how to teach it. However, I still think that I could teach a high school science, but I would be a lot better suited to teaching some kind of collegiate level math (calculus) or science (physics or chem). Maybe someday in the future, I've still got a lot of time to do different things in my life.
Monday/Tuesday:
Flew back into San Francisco, did a little more shopping, picked up my VISA, watched parts of the home run derby and all star game. Also visited Berkley, parts of Cal's campus, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Golden Gate Bridge park. Pretty packed two days, but it was a lot of fun and I have a lot of great memories from the cities. Same as above, look for more comments in the photos because it will be easier to explain there.
Wednesday/Thursday:
Checked out of the hotel and flew back to Korea. Left the SF airport at 1:30pm Wednesday got into Korea at 9pm Thursday... timezones again.
All in all it was a great trip. I really liked San Francisco a lot more than I thought that I would. I was expecting to see the city and take in a few sights while I was there, but I honestly really loved the city and the people that were in it. Everything was always very interesting and varied which made it a good experience. It has its own kind of personality and charm (much like Pittsburgh) so I really could see myself living there at some point and time.
The weather during the trip was great SF was about 65-70 during the day and 50 at night (sunny every day), Arizona was up to 118 during the day and down around 90 at night. They say that its a dry heat, but it still feels really hot all the time. In my opinion, Phoenix was a great place to visit (and much larger than I was thinking it would be) but I don't know if I could live there, its just too warm for me.
If you want to know more about any part of the trip shoot me an email and I'll fill you in, or add another blog post.
Jul 11, 2009
getting the VISA
Just wanted to let everyone know that I got into San Francisco without any problems and am working to get my VISA taken care of. I'll provide a better update (wrap-up, pictures, etc) next week or when I get back to Korea and have more reliable internet access for my computer (the phone works fine, but that's a lot of typing on a phone keyboard...)
Jul 5, 2009
Observations about Korea (version ?)
I thought that I'd post a few of the many observations that I have made while in Korea. Its going to be a bit of a brain dump, so we'll see what all makes it into the final posting.
- I've noticed that besides being a lot taller than most Koreans I'm also a lot bigger in general. Some of the males in the society are starting to get taller but they aren't filled out at all (pretty thin/wiry). Now I realize that I'm not the biggest guy ever, but it is an odd feeling to walk down the street and #1 be able to see everything / over everyone and #2 see that I'm about twice as wide as a lot of people (especially the women). I feel that I occupy a significantly greater volume (you know, like water displacement sort of test) than most Koreans.
- The beds are rather hard. If you're in a hotel they are alright, but otherwise they like their beds extremely firm. Some nights it really feels that I'm sleeping on a board. I may need to look for some kind of egg carton or something to pick up while in San Fran and take back with me on the plane.
- They don't carpet their floors. Most every place that I've been in has hardwood floors. (random I know)
- had a few comments about the cars here, but realized that I have enough for another post... look for it in the future
- All of the food is either "good for health" or "good for longevity" or "good for the brain" or something. Its funny to listen to them talk about it. They'll say that its good for something, but not be able to back it up... or end up saying that its traditional and that's why they eat it.
- Honestly they will eat most anything. Sometimes you look at it and you think to yourself "... those are just weeds covered in red pepper." Also they cover most everything in hot sauce or red pepper. Just an FYI if you ever travel here and order food. Make sure that you ask for the toned down version, unless you really, really like the hot stuff.
- I'm still working out why (or the reasons why) Koreans dress the way that they do ... look for that one later too
- The Korean Won is an interesting currency. The current conversion rate is about 1250 Won for every US dollar. The interesting bit is that the largest bill is the 10,000 Won and if you do the math, that's about $8.00 US dollars. The easiest way to describe would be to say that the largest bill in the US is the $10. Thankfully there is a 50,000 Won coming in July, however we'll have to wait and see how fast they circulate.
- Prices in Korea are similar to the US for a lot of things. Most goods here are cheaper and most services (taxi, etc) are a lot cheaper than the US. Cars, computers, petroleum, and housing however is much higher than in the US. My apartment would cost about $2400 a month (granted this is inflated due to the short lease), my rental car is about $620 a month, and petroleum is about $4.60 a gallon. If these things weren't paid for by the company, it would be rather hard to be living here, especially at those prices.
Update (version ?)
hmm, it appears that I can't keep to a MWF kind of schedule (I'm too lazy or something) so updates will be infrequent. I seem to keep updating on sunday, maybe that will work best. I'll aim for two at a time or something.
A quick update on me. I've been pretty good so far, no major incidents or international crisis to speak of. This week (July 8-18) I'll be out of the country in San Francisco acquiring a VISA, so that I can come back to Korea and collect all of my belongings (which are being held hostage at Korean Customs). I'm coming all the way back to the US because I really didn't feel comfortable surrendering my passport in another country (Japan, China, etc). I just think that the security of being in the US without it will be better. Anywhoo, plane tickets are booked and all now, so I'll be there then. That also means that my US cell will be back on (and in cell mode ... it probably misses the 3G signal), so feel free to call/text me while I'm there.
The tentative plan is to take in a few Giants games (9th and 10th at least) and then go from there. Maybe some time on the beach and probably a lot of American food (even if it destroys my internal systems since I'm not as used to it now). Other than that the trip is kind of open ended, not too sure what I'll do or end up. Ideas or suggestions are more than welcome :)
Physically, I'm in about the same shape as when I left. Maybe 10-15lbs lighter, but I had the weight to lose (poor diet before I left...). I've also been working out 3-5 times a week, so I wouldn't doubt that is contributing too. There is a track near my house so I've been there a few times and playing basketball for a few hours on other days. Running here is actually a bit harder than in the States.
The big difference is that it is pretty warm most days (30 deg C = 84 deg F) which isn't bad, but the humidity is always pretty high. Its just a product of the season (so I'm told) and Changwon being near the coast. We have had a few really warm days (33 deg C and up) but it hasn't gotten too bad yet. Supposedly its warmer (and more humid) after the rainy season in August. Sigh, we'll just have to see how it goes. Well that's about it for this post, be sure to read the other one for today too.
A quick update on me. I've been pretty good so far, no major incidents or international crisis to speak of. This week (July 8-18) I'll be out of the country in San Francisco acquiring a VISA, so that I can come back to Korea and collect all of my belongings (which are being held hostage at Korean Customs). I'm coming all the way back to the US because I really didn't feel comfortable surrendering my passport in another country (Japan, China, etc). I just think that the security of being in the US without it will be better. Anywhoo, plane tickets are booked and all now, so I'll be there then. That also means that my US cell will be back on (and in cell mode ... it probably misses the 3G signal), so feel free to call/text me while I'm there.
The tentative plan is to take in a few Giants games (9th and 10th at least) and then go from there. Maybe some time on the beach and probably a lot of American food (even if it destroys my internal systems since I'm not as used to it now). Other than that the trip is kind of open ended, not too sure what I'll do or end up. Ideas or suggestions are more than welcome :)
Physically, I'm in about the same shape as when I left. Maybe 10-15lbs lighter, but I had the weight to lose (poor diet before I left...). I've also been working out 3-5 times a week, so I wouldn't doubt that is contributing too. There is a track near my house so I've been there a few times and playing basketball for a few hours on other days. Running here is actually a bit harder than in the States.
The big difference is that it is pretty warm most days (30 deg C = 84 deg F) which isn't bad, but the humidity is always pretty high. Its just a product of the season (so I'm told) and Changwon being near the coast. We have had a few really warm days (33 deg C and up) but it hasn't gotten too bad yet. Supposedly its warmer (and more humid) after the rainy season in August. Sigh, we'll just have to see how it goes. Well that's about it for this post, be sure to read the other one for today too.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
