Home Plus

The Guy in the Pink is a Champion Wrestler
(Really)

Home Plus is a chain of Korean Department Stores, one of them is across the street from my apartment and the most convenient place to get groceries. They play this constantly on big screen televisons and over the intercom, silence is dead in Korea.

Seoul

Just a few random things I saw when I was wondering around Seoul.

Dog Menu

Museum of Chicken Art
(Middle Sign)

I don't know, but I plan to find out

Sand Presso
Sand is Konglish for Sandwich + Presso from Espresso

Willy Campus
Fun Languages

Sexy Lion
(Looks Grumpy to me)

These are Seoul Police mascots
(and they shall forever haunt my nightmares)

Gate

This would never be legal in the States

Mighty Mouse

The scroll ball on my Apple Mouse stopped working a couple days ago and no amount of cleaning would get it to work again. So, I did what anyone would do and disassembled it for a more detailed cleaning. I didn't bother taking any pictures or video but it was quite similar to what the guy in the video below did.





Only thing I can add is that you may wish to have a bit of canned air on hand to blow it out since my mouse was filled with dust, lint and hair.

If you like working on electronics and you live in Seoul, the area around Yongsan Station (right of the station proper when you're facing the main entrance) has several small shops with tools and parts. If you find yourself in a redlight district then you're in the wrong place.

EBooks

One thing that has always driven me nuts in my time overseas was the lack of reading material. I love books and in non English speaking countries they tend to be; expensive, hard to find, and there never seems to be much of a selection. So what's a bibliophile to do? Find 'em free on the Internet of course.

Hal Spacejock - Is an Australian series about the misadventures of a space cargo pilot. First book in the series is available for free download. It's a decent read and the price is right.

Baen Books has all of their books available for download in several formats at WebScription including a large number of free books in their Free Library.

Finally; Google Books and Project Gutenberg have a number of old online. (With Google you need to mess with the settings a bit to make it show full books).

Walking Tour of Seoul

Last Sunday, I went on a walking tour of Seoul's Joseon era palaces conducted by the Royal Asiatic Society's Korea Branch. The tour itself was fairly well done and I was continually impressed by the guide's extensive knowledge of Korean History. (Though his knowledge of non Korean History and Politics could have used a tiny bit of refinement).

We started the tour at Deoksugung Palace which is located next to Seoul City Hall subway station (Line 1 and Line 2).



The palace complex has several preserved and brightly painted buildings.



The above building was designed by a British Architect and constructed at the end of the 19th century.

Side View

This building was built quite a bit later during the Japanese Colonial Period and it adjoins the above building.

More of the Palace Complex

You can see the city in the background of this shot.

Site of the former Imperial Russian Legation
The American Ambassador's residence is down the hill and to the left

Another Palace

The original was destroyed during the Japanese Colonial period and was later rebuilt by the Korean Government. This one sits behind the Seoul city museum.

Traditional Korean Houses

The Blue House

This is the home of the President of Korea and is the site of the infamous Blue House Raid when a group of North Korean commandos infiltrated in an attempt to assassinate President Park Chung-hee.

Picture from another Palace

Government Building on the Grounds of another Palace

The Last Palace

Members and relatives of the Korean Royal Family lived in this palace until 1991 when it was acquired by the Government.

Fairly sure that this is a palanquin

Walkway

The Grounds

Another shot of the grounds

Train Tracks

All in all it was a fairly good tour, if a bit long (8 hours). An amusing consequence of this was the fact that I got a mild sunburn. When I showed up to school the next day, the students were all convinced that my face was red because I'd been drinking heavily all weekend and several of the other teachers thought it was because I was angry about something.

If you are in Korea, I recommend checking out the the Royal Asiatic Society's Korea Branch's website for a list of future tours. The cost for the one I went on was 20,000 won and I learned a lot about Korean History.

Seoul Racecourse Park

Bronze at The Entrance

Went to the horse races last week (and today) and had a great time. The park was originally built to hold some of the equestrian events for the Seoul Olympic games. After the games were finished, they turned it into a racetrack.

The Outside of the Stadium

The Outside of the Stadium

Seating

There is a special foreigner lounge on the fourth floor. Unlike the seats in the above photo, the lounge is enclosed, heated/air conditioned, and staffed with people that know some English.

Winning Ticket
1000 on 7 to place
500 on 7 to win

Minimum bet is 100 won (about six cents) maximum bet is 100,000 won (about sixty US dollars). To bet, you fill out a ticket and take it to the cashier. Pay the cashier and she'll (all of them were women) give you a receipt. Take the receipt and your ticket and feed them into the machine next to the cashier's window (receipt first) and it'll give you something that looks like the above.

There's a better set of directions along with pictures in a brochure that can be picked up at the entrance of the foreigners' lounge.

The Race is About to Start

The Way Out

The Exit

To get there, take line four to Seoul Racecourse Park Station. (Seoul Subway Map)

For more information, you can go to the KRA Homepage or the Horse Racing in Korea Blog

The National Assembly

Going to have to arrange a tour of the place some day. I've toured the National Diet building in Japan and Congress in the US, Korea will make three.

The Tallest Building in Seoul

I Passed

Created by Train Horn

The first time I heard about the 'teenager sound' was in an article about shops in the UK using it to keep teens from loitering outside their entrances. Kinda cool that I can still hear it years after the supposed cut off age.