Korea
I went to South Korea. Pictures ensued.
The reason I was in Daegu was for a conference. I was presenting a paper on my bio-inspired micromachined flow sensors. The talk went well. To prove this was a business trip, here's a pic of the conference center:
Otherwise, I went out a lot, tried to see Daegu. The downtown area was nice, very busy and well-lit as I expected.
The Metro...wtf? Am I in DC? The subway was basically a huge mall. In the pic is a 7-11, but it extends for a few miles of all little stores.
There were interesting fashion trends, the scariest of which is buying matching outfits for couples.
The society is still heavily male-oriented when it comes to working, so most women volunteer or get simple part-time jobs. Here is a picture of a lady whose job is to stand in front of a parking garage talking over a loudspeaker to people driving up. When they approached, she would press the button on the ticket machine and hand it to the driver. I found this whole process quite odd.
Speaking of odd, I did watch a little TV there to see what it was like. I found the Tigers game (in Korean). They also have no less then 2 all-Starcraft channels, in addition to the algebra channel, calculus channel, and Go channel.
I did learn a little Korean while I was there. The nice tour-guide lady gave me a useful phrase to help me get into the festivities at the Chinese Immigrants Day Festival.
Speaking of beer, we drank a lot. The beer there is crap, very light and no flavor, but Soju on the other hand, is AWESOME. Its not a wine, not a vodka, but somewhere in between. Around 20% alcohol, $3-$7/bottle, and very crisp flavor. The idea is you order one bottle at a time, and everyone shares. You never pour your own drink, and fill any glass that is empty. Very good social drink. However, the snacks they provide with the soju can sometimes be scary. Yes, those are some sort of bugs. Yes, Emily and I ate them.
The non-alcoholic drinks in Korea are great, too. Pepsi made with real sugar. Lots of good lightly carbonated drinks that werent as awful sweet as american drinks. I even had liquid aloe. Kind of chunky, but good. Helps for esophagus sunburn too, I guess.
Went to a big Buddhist temple. Not what I expected. All the monks had the latest Samsung phones and were chatting away on them. It was interesting though. Here is a gate guardian, which apparently scares little Korean kids into being good.
Stacking stones makes wishes come true.
World's tallest stone Buddha. Didnt realize how many forms of Buddha there are, and that most of them are not fat.
Here's me on a mountain, somewhere above the temple.
Finally, the food was excellent. Kimchi wore on me a bit, but I love the soups and the meat dishes. On my final day I needed something quick/cheap, so I stopped into a fast food place. This is a bulgogi burger, and it was damn good.
Thats about it. Overall a good trip. Met some cool people, saw/ate some good stuff. Maybe I'll make it back some day....
The reason I was in Daegu was for a conference. I was presenting a paper on my bio-inspired micromachined flow sensors. The talk went well. To prove this was a business trip, here's a pic of the conference center:
Otherwise, I went out a lot, tried to see Daegu. The downtown area was nice, very busy and well-lit as I expected.
The Metro...wtf? Am I in DC? The subway was basically a huge mall. In the pic is a 7-11, but it extends for a few miles of all little stores.
There were interesting fashion trends, the scariest of which is buying matching outfits for couples.
The society is still heavily male-oriented when it comes to working, so most women volunteer or get simple part-time jobs. Here is a picture of a lady whose job is to stand in front of a parking garage talking over a loudspeaker to people driving up. When they approached, she would press the button on the ticket machine and hand it to the driver. I found this whole process quite odd.
Speaking of odd, I did watch a little TV there to see what it was like. I found the Tigers game (in Korean). They also have no less then 2 all-Starcraft channels, in addition to the algebra channel, calculus channel, and Go channel.
I did learn a little Korean while I was there. The nice tour-guide lady gave me a useful phrase to help me get into the festivities at the Chinese Immigrants Day Festival.
Speaking of beer, we drank a lot. The beer there is crap, very light and no flavor, but Soju on the other hand, is AWESOME. Its not a wine, not a vodka, but somewhere in between. Around 20% alcohol, $3-$7/bottle, and very crisp flavor. The idea is you order one bottle at a time, and everyone shares. You never pour your own drink, and fill any glass that is empty. Very good social drink. However, the snacks they provide with the soju can sometimes be scary. Yes, those are some sort of bugs. Yes, Emily and I ate them.
The non-alcoholic drinks in Korea are great, too. Pepsi made with real sugar. Lots of good lightly carbonated drinks that werent as awful sweet as american drinks. I even had liquid aloe. Kind of chunky, but good. Helps for esophagus sunburn too, I guess.
Went to a big Buddhist temple. Not what I expected. All the monks had the latest Samsung phones and were chatting away on them. It was interesting though. Here is a gate guardian, which apparently scares little Korean kids into being good.
Stacking stones makes wishes come true.
World's tallest stone Buddha. Didnt realize how many forms of Buddha there are, and that most of them are not fat.
Here's me on a mountain, somewhere above the temple.
Finally, the food was excellent. Kimchi wore on me a bit, but I love the soups and the meat dishes. On my final day I needed something quick/cheap, so I stopped into a fast food place. This is a bulgogi burger, and it was damn good.
Thats about it. Overall a good trip. Met some cool people, saw/ate some good stuff. Maybe I'll make it back some day....