Seoul survivor

As it has been a while since my last posts, I have many things to talk about. As that would result in a massive post longer than you have time to read, I am forced to edit down the most salacious details into nonexistence and include only the most boring incidents in my report. Indeed, clinical and dispassionate it shall be in its conveyance.

On the weekend of the 10th and the 11th, I undertook a lovely journey with Andrew to the bustling metropolis of Seoul. I had been to New York, LA, Istanbul, and Cairo, but I did not know what to expect from the 2nd largest metropolis of the world: Seoul. Ah, the thriving megacity of over 25 million people! Not the largest city in Asia, but considering Tokyo… Well, eventually I’ll just have to make it there too now won’t I? Andrew had done this many times before, as had most of my coworkers, but I had not and that needed to be rectified. So invigorated, we designed to leave Saturday morning on the bus to Seoul to see as much as possible before hitting the night life and taking the first bus back to Cheongju on Sunday morning. A day of sightseeing and a night of carousal?! What ever could come from that?

Hey, what could happen?!

Yeah, that’s Andrew looking like the New Yorker he is. Silly guy doesn’t know what’s goin on half the time. The other half of the time he tells you the wrong thing! Hah! But he was my traveling buddy so I had to entertain his craziness and he had to put up with mine. Unfortunately, as often happens to plans made by the best intentions, we kind of got a late start on Saturday (1:45 PM bus is never too late, right?), which quickly eliminated many of the items on our list of things to do. Considering the 1:45 departure time, the 3:45 arrival time in Seoul, and the sun setting at 5:30, there truly wasn’t much time at all for such visitations to the War Museum, wander the downtown, see the big stores, and so forth. Instead, we suffered the abbreviated version.

Upon arriving in Seoul, we decided to use the remaining day light to see the ’88 Olympic Park. Conveniently, there was a subway stop at the bus station. Inconveniently, we needed to change lines twice before making it to the Olympic Park. I’m really glad that Andrew was with me to help me navigate the subway since I had almost no idea what was going on. There was a steady flow of people wending their ways between automated ticket booths and automated turnstiles, clutching their cellphones and bags with almost nary a glaze lifted upwards to determine their paths. I’m sure a study of this humanity’s ebb and flow would have revealed the necessary steps for travel along the subway, but it was so much easier to simply have Andrew push me up to the automated ticket booth and show me what to do. Whereas many subways I’ve used before required you to either buy a paper ticket to get through the turnstile or buy a chargeable card (Charlie Card, for instance), in Seoul you can use your bank card. Amazing! You can simply charge your bank card (using your bank card?) to then use your bank card to use the Seoul Subway. It’s your pass! You don’t even have to take it out of your wallet as you go through the turnstile, just touch your wallet to the designated area and it’ll scan it in and you can walk through! The wonders of modern technology…

I still don’t think I know how to use this correctly…

After that quick admission, we proceeded down the steps to our train hoppings. As we walked down I noticed the picture you see on your right. I assumed it was a gutter for carrying water swiftly down the stairs, but was unsure. Bewildered by that little gutter, I was quickly disabused of my sordid visions about lines of men peeing against the stairs by a couple carrying bicycles down the stairs ahead of us. (If you couldn’t piece that together, the “gutter” is actually a little pathway for people to carry bicycles up and down the stairs of the subway, look at you learning!) Indeed, it makes more sense from a sanitary perspective to have people use a bathroom for urinating and that pathway for bicycles. How I didn’t see it before perplexes me…

Op op! Freezer styles!

Aside from that little speed bump, we saw the ubiquitous Psy hawking his wares. If you are unaware of Psy, go ask someone about Gangnam Style and watch their response (I encourage you to start guffawing at their dance moves). This lovely display I captured in digital image is Psy (the one dancing/eating in all the frames) selling Samsung’s new refrigerator/freezer combination unit. I’m just happy I can understand this advertising considering everything I heard about “Asian marketing” making no sense with loud noises and insane animations. Still, lesson to learn: this man is everywhere. Don’t believe me? Go to any Korean website and see who is on the front page in at least five different places…

Well, I’ve stalled long enough before showing you more pictures, so here is the lovely Olympic Park:

The grand esplinade!

I guess this isn’t racist?

At least the bells were fully interactive, though the hammers were not…

Don’t know what this display was along the side of the esplinade…

This was some kind of large “U”/ scimitar/??? at the end of the esplinade in the middle of the stadiums. Only thing really worth a picture, really.

A Happy Box! What happens inside?

The aquatic center.

That’s it! We had an hour to wander, no more, but we got to see a little of the park. Not much to describe: no one was there and nothing was really happening.

After the park we headed into Itaewon (the “foreigner” district) for a bite to eat and begin bar hopping. Andrew and I got some tasty burgers and some dinner entertainment from the group of ten military men and women at the next table over. By entertainment, I mean that they were loud and disparaging towards Korea while showing their general ignorance on many things. Now I understood why there is a curfew for American military personnel…

After dinner, we entered a Canadian bar to begin our hopping. A quick beer and off to the Hongdae (big bar area)! At the Hongdae we met such intelligent signs as:

You see? It’s Feiday! and it’s only female. Shucks, I wanted to meet Tequila…

Japanese Style Icing…? Something must have been lost in translation…

Also, we had a brief rendezvous with culture here in the street. There was a small tent set up with posters from the Cannes film festival I think. Very interesting things, but I could not get great pictures. This is the only one I could get:

International culture!

Enough with the culture, lets get back to the festivities! Two small last games to play. 1) Guess which of the following drinks is mine?

Which drink is mine?

For all of you who know me, yes indeed I did have an “Orgazm” in public. 2) Have you ever seen a gin and tonic under black light? We went to a club where I got to see such a spectacle.

Jordan told us about a glowing beer at Bonnaroo and now I show you Glowing G&T…

Pretty awesome! Dancing, drinking, and camaraderie to pass the evening, ending with a subway trip back to the bus station at 5 AM for some Burger King for breakfast. True, a Bulgogi burger may not be the best choice of a breakfast food (it’s not mine either), but it was the only thing cheap/open at 5:45 AM. Then we boarded the bus at 6:45 and closed the weekend chapter on Seoul. Ah, I must revise the previous statement. I received a phone call from my parents who were partying it up in The Grove at Ole Miss with the Harris and Swartz families for the Vandy-Ole Miss football game. So it was lovely to talk to them before passing out on the bus ride home. Whew. Quite a big trip, hm? First trip to Seoul? Done! Who’s in for the next one?

Society and Korea!

Well well. It certainly has been a most eventful few weeks. Perhaps first and foremost I should say that it has ever been my intention to mimic the prodigal sons of old to go abroad and seek my fortune. Indeed, the reason I accepted my current position was not for the chance to experience a new culture, language, and job field, but for the vast sums of money I accrue every pay cycle. As such, I wanted to show you a glimpse of the riches I have gained in my short time here:

MADE IT MA! TOP OF THE WORLD!

Ah, the riches of the Orient. What do I do with my millions, you ask? I spend only what is necessary to cover my modest living expenses – food, bills, weekend festivities, and my phone bill. Ah, what’s that? You didn’t know I got a phone? Interesting. Looks like I couldn’t call you with that info, hmm? Whose fault is that? Well. I am the proud new owner of a cell phone here in Korea equipped with all the latest in technology. I have the lightning 4GLTE, I have a camera, I can use apps, and it even, yes even, makes phone calls and texts. Wow. Astounding! So, if you need to reach me, please download the Viber app and call me at +82 010 9418 6493. Or download the app and send me your number and I’ll get in contact with you. Now I am woven back into the social fabric and able to take on the world!

Part of taking on the world involves experiencing Korean culture. You know that I have already done some more traditional/historical cultural events, but I also have an obligation to the current Korean society. So, on Saturday night I got to cross off a very Korean item off my list. I have never played Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, I have never been to a PC Room for gaming, and I have never played against Koreans in videogames. Well… Hadn’t ever…

Daniel setting up Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. We totally kicked @$$!

MWUHAHAHA! Protoss!

We had gone out for Josh’s birthday on Saturday night to a little conveyor-belt sushi place called “Fun Fish,” but had some time to kill between dinner and hitting the bars.

Fun Fish. Ryan (l) and Andrew (r) were excited at least…

In that hour of time, I joined a Korean coworker – Daniel – in finding something to do. Side note, Daniel has led a pretty interesting life. He is in his early 30s and just came back to Korea from 10 years in Canada where he studied and worked. In his earlier days at the tail end of university, he was a video game tester (Need for Speed Undercover!) and is still heavy into the video games. That’s what made this all relevant – him, time to kill, going to a PC Room – and worth recounting. So, he set up another account and had us gaming in the limelight…

Strike that one off the list. I’ve gamed with a Korean on Starcraft II in a PC Room. And. We. Won. Oh, by “we” I mean that the entire UI was in Korean and Daniel had to tell me what to do for the most part. Pretty awesome stuff, I know! Now I just need to go to a tournament…

KB Stars!

I meant to give you all pictures of my latest exploits. “Meant to” because I went to use my camera and found that it wasn’t working. Not a blip of light, not a sound of whirring gears. Therefore, in my newly saddened state, I must beg mercy of you for another boring post sans pictures. To be honest, this post, more than all others, needs pictures.

Kay-Bee Star-zuh!

For the past two Sundays, I have been meaning to join a coworker of mine – Chris – in attending the first games of the KB Stars. Such prowess! Multitudes of athletic displays! Solid gameplay fundamentals! Oh, what sport is it? Why, it’s women’s basketball! To see Cheongju’s own KB Stars (pronounced Kay-Bee Suh-tar-juhs) play the-other-team-that-I-don’t-know! Well, on the 4th, I finally made it.

I met up with Chris and Craig around 5:45 for a taxi ride to the stadium, prepared with nothing more than 5,000 W for my ticket and a readiness to experience some Korean culture. We got there a little after tip-off and looked at awe at the Cheongju stadium. This is the only picture of it that I could find on Google:

Blastoise! Use Telescope!

However, when I get a chance, I’ll find a way to take a better picture and post in on this blog. As you can see, it looks like cross between Blastoise’s shell and an observatory dome sitting on a panoply of stairs, painted somewhere between forest and regular green, and squats in the depressing aura of most buildings made in the 1950s and 60s. As we walked up the expansive stairs, cheesy arena music and rip-offs of 80s rock tunes filtered through the sounds of traffic and light rain. Buying tickets was fairly easy and went without a hassle since Craig went up, simply said something that was printed on a board next to the window and “saegae” (which means 3, if talking about items/units/pieces), then handed over 15,000 W. Now with paid admittance, the three of us ascended yet more stairs to the entrance. Light rain, darkness of the evening cloaking us, slight chill penetrating our clothes, and a quick comment about how “Everything, even the ticket windows, about this place looks like a prison” (Craig) propelled us into the arena.

As stated, we arrived a little after tip-off and made our way to some seats where we would have comfortable views of the spectacle that unfolded in front of us. There wasn’t a bad seat in the house! To be fair, I think Elon’s basketball court holds more people, so not much of a comparison. However, we got a great vantage point on which to perch and I got a chance to look around the venue and take appraisal of my first Korean sporting event. The first thing I noticed was the the crowd. There couldn’t have been more than a thousand people there, but they were evenly distributed across all ages and everyone was very enthusiastic! We had those silly thunder-sticks with “KB STARS!” printed on them (gray lettering on yellow, great color scheme) and smacked them together all the time for cheers such as *Boom* *Boom* “DE-PENSUH!” Perhaps I should explain that. In Korean, there is no “f” sound and Korean does not end on the “s” sound. So, the closest thing is a hard “P” sound and “suh.” It sounds funny to me, but it is tres enjoyable to shout. So our side of the arena was populated by the supporters of the KB Stars (KB is a bank, so I guess the teams are named after companies?) and we were very raucous in our support of the local team. The game was full of the shenanigans you’d expect at a HS game: dropped passes, some traveling, questionable play calls, some frustration, and overall “oh that’s… great… basketball” moments.

The next thing I noticed was that it is the 50th anniversary of the KB Stars team (supposedly). According to the graphics that were displayed on the Jumbotron (not Jumbo by American standards), the KB Stars have been around since 1963. So in a few months, they will be in their 50th year! A woman’s sports team that is half a century old! Amazing!

The game was quite interesting to watch. There are 10 minute quarters and the game lasted under 2 hours, so not too bad on time and well worth the 5,000 W ($4.85?). The final score was 56-54, KB Stars defeating the Whatever-they-were-called, and the largest lead was 5 points. However, there were some good drives, some hard fouls, a couple flared tempers, and even impressive shots (a couple big threes and some nice behind-the-head-lay-ups). While I’m sure these girls could absolutely destroy me at basketball and being generally athletic/physically fit, I would say that they played on par with a college team back State-side. I’d like to see Elon take them on just to see how it turns out (and to say that I actually ever went to an Elon basketball game). The best players for the KB Stars were #10 Byeon Yeon Ha and #15 Jung Seong Hwa (I think). Byeon Yeon Ha was the Kobe of the team and #15 was the tall rebounder/blocker who was a dominating presence on the court.

The most interesting things happened off the court/during breaks. During some time-outs, the cheerleaders and the mascots would perform little routines and launch stuff into the stands: T-shirts, basketballs, an energy drink called Pocari Sweat (explanations to come at another time/another post when I try it), and even a take-out dinner from a place called VIPS. As Chris would say, we got “Hella” into trying to get the cheerleaders to give us stuff, seeing as we are their biggest fans from overseas… Craig actually managed to get the packaged dinner from VIPS, which contained chicken nuggets, fries, salad, pineapple, and some chocolate dessert. Otherwise, the mascots did the Gangnam Style dance (it’s ubiquitous, there’s no escape), the cheerleaders did some floor routine and were really peppy, and there was this dude in a ruffled shirt in the crowd or led us in a lot of cheers. Entertainment! So we got to watch some athletics, chat, experience some Korean culture, and we got some free stuff! Pretty successful. Hopefully I’ll have an image-capturing device when I go again and I can get you all some great pictures to back-fill this story with information and context for you.

Oh, I highly recommend you coming to see me so that you can come catch some Korean culture for yourself. Now that I’ve been to a women’s basketball game, my list consists of the following: baseball, soccer, volleyball?, and video game tournament/convention. I’m definitely going to get a camera for those…

Gamer!

Remember that part where I told you that I was becoming an amateur game developer? Yeah, I’m sure I mentioned it in my post about how I was starting these online courses, one of which is on Python Programming. In fact, if I recall correctly, I also promised that I would share some of the games that I developed with you all to prove that you can teach an old dog new programming languages (even ones who hate math and mix metaphors). I could try to make stuff up and tell you about about things I don’t know, but I do that enough that I’ll just let you read about Python on Wikipedia and you can do your own searches from there on (actually I just have no idea what it is). Suffice to say, I am learning basic functions and trying to create little games. It has only been two weeks for me, so I can’t really say that I’ve done anything exciting, but I have completed several assignments and felt that maybe I could share them with you if you want to waste a minute of time.

First, this course uses a version of Python that has been compiled by the professors of the course, which is located for free and open use at CodeSkulptor.org. If you feel so inclined, you can even just click through that (use the docs section) to find code and try and fit it all together. My “programs” (term used loosely here) only work in this Python host/website-thingy. Forgive my awkward stumblings as these new fangled technologies and computers are new to me. I’ll give you a brief run-down of how to interact with CodeSkulptor so you can actually run these programs without getting too frustrated. The left side, where you see all the text is where the codes go that will eventually make a program or game. The right side is where much of the code will print out (most of the time). You have to hit the play button in the upper left-hand side of the text box to actually run the code and the return arrow (last one in that row) will stop the code. Just worry about those two buttons, the code window, and the read-out window. Again: play button starts the program, the return arrow stops the program, look at the right side of the display to see what’s going on.

Ok, so I’ll lead with my first program: rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock. This plays a game of rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock like on Big Bang Theory (my professors are total NERDS!). You input your guess at the bottom where you see rpsls(“text”). Make sure you input your guess between the quotes and exactly as it appears at the top of the program. Right now I can only code games so that words have to exactly match. If you capitalize something incorrectly or add a space or misspell something, the game will stop and you’ll end up panicking. Great, now you think I’m an idiot because you messed up… Figures. So input a guess and see some words pop up in the read-out on the right. Just keep hitting that play button at the top of the left side and you start a new game. If you want to play multiple games at once, just copy and paste (or type in) rpsls() and put your guess in quotation marks between the parentheses. The read-out will run each game separately and print out your results! Awesome!!! Yay! You played a game I created!

My second game didn’t work out so well (failed miserably, that one did), so I’m going to skip straight to the one I created today: The Stopwatch Game. This game is so much more advanced than the rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock game. The first thing you’ll notice is a pop-up with a big black box and three buttons on the left. This is a graphic user interface and I created it (Oooooooh boooooyyy!) Not too flashy, but I don’t need to be to impress you, you already are impressed. Ha! This game you don’t need to see the right-side read-out window next to the code. All you need to see is the pretty display with the buttons and the black canvas with pretty white letters. This game is fairly simple: try and stop the stopwatch on the exact second (1.0, 2.0, 59.0, whatever.0 since you can run this forever, in theory). Hit the ‘Start’ button to start the game and then hit the ‘Stop’ button when you are confident enough that you’ll hit the second on the what-for (mixing metaphors again?)! Each time you hit ‘Stop’ it’ll record a try and you’ll notice the right-hand number in the top left count up by one. If you land on an exact second, you’ll see both numbers increase since it is a try and a win! Congrats! You can’t cheat and land on a second and then keep spamming the ‘Stop’ button to rack up more ‘wins’ since I coded against that (nyah nyah nyah). After you’ve hit stop, you can keep going by just hitting ‘Start’ again. This won’t reset your wins or tries. Or, if you are feeling a little put out and want to start over, just hit ‘Reset’ and that’ll reset all the things.

So those are the games that I’ve made so far. I hope you enjoy sharing my little successes. Pretty soon I’ll be creating the next Morrowind…