Namdaemun and CKC

Firstly, I'd like to show you a picture of Namdaemun, the old gate into the city walls of Seoul. It now stands alone, the walls long gone; the gate is an island in the traffic flow. It is hard to feel the history when there are hundreds of Daewoos, Hyundais and Kias crawling past!



Yesterday, a few of us went down to Daejeon, where the Cambridge-KAIST Collaboration symposium was being held. It was great to see outside Seoul, but it did involve getting up at 5 and returning at 12. There were more than 30 talks to attend to. Several of the big men from Cambridge attended and it was also a chance to meet up with my supervisor and go over a few things. Below are some of our group at SNU and my supervisor.



And here are the musicians hired to entertain us at the evening banquet.

Trip to Insadong

Today, we escaped the lab for a while and went on a tour of Insadong district, which is close to the old royal palace. The area is known for its more traditional flavours, one of which is roast chestnuts:



This area was not nearly so crowded as Myeong-dong, so it was a much more relaxed experience altogether. There are quite a few tourists here also. Here are some of my group-mates enjoying the fresh air outside the lab! We have So-Young on the left, Yoon-Seok, Sae-Hwan and his girlfriend.


Another of the traditional flavours is tea. Below is a cup of plum tea and the inside of the teahouse. Of course, you have to sit on the floor, which for an inflexible Westerner like myself is tricky!

Here's a fungus

A Scottish fungus.

The Tree of Veg

It looks like Fisher-Price is truly bounteous on the streets of Seoul, or perhaps it is a handle on the giant trapdoor to Vegetable-Cavern.



Ah, but this is more like it. Fewer veg, more dead slimy things...yum... Didn't have any, of course. This is all from Sunday's trip of course. On weekdays, I am stuck in the lab for about 11-12 hours a day. This Korean work-ethic is not right.

TfK 3

Find out about the subway fares before you venture underground. Like I didn't. I got stuck behind the barriers because I didn't have the faintest clue what I was meant to pay, and neither did the ticket man. That's not his fault: I didn't tell him where I was going. I thought sticking a 1kW note under the window might do the trick but unfortunately it meant that a cleaner had to let me through the barriers when I got to the end stop. D'oh!

Apparently, the fare is based on distance. So there you go.

Some pictures from the first weekend

Here are some photos that I took yesterday as I wandered around Myeong-dong and the City Hall area of Seoul. City Hall is where those enormous crowds gathered during S. Korea's remarkable, not to mention fortunate, progress to the World Cup semi-finals in 2002.

Firstly, here is me in front of a building in Deoksugung (Deoksu Palace). This was one of the minor palaces in the Joseon dynasty that lasted approximately 500 yrs. It was interesting enough, but most of it was rebuilt in 1906 following a fire. Unfortunately, having already been to the Forbidden City in Beijing, it seemed rather small. It also has a rather bizarre mix of architectural styles: Korean, Neo-classical, Korean/Neo-classical (it has classical columns under a oriental roof). Unique.

Here is the changing of the guard. Again, slightly odd, because once the guards changed, they all marched off round the corner, never to be seen again. How do they guard? Perhaps their taekwondo is so good they don't actually have to be there.

Next: Myeong-dong shopping district. I didn't know where I should get off the subway, so I chose this area. Very busy, as you can see; apparently this is the main fashion shopping sector. I had some chicken-stuffed-with-rice-and-ginseng soup here. The most hideous shop in the world is here. I must get a photo of it.

Lastly, a night view from my flat, south Seoul.

The World of Kimchi!

Ha! I have arrived in Seoul, and I am now the proud tenant of a little flat in Seoul National University with a view over the city which is pretty good at night. I am still a bit jet-lagged and feeling quite tired at the moment. I notice that my mental abilities have dropped quite a bit during this journey, which took about 24 hours. 7hrs to Dubai from Gatwick, 8 hrs in Dubai (with a free meal from Emirates), then 8 hrs to Seoul. Emirates are a great airline, by far the best that I have travelled with.

Tips for Korea

No. 1: Wear lace-free shoes. You will continually have to take your shoes off when entering rooms, which is quite a time-consuming process if you have double-knots to untangle every time!

No. 2: Bring sheets if you are not staying in a hotel. I had to borrow a blanket off a student here. Luckily, it isn't cold here.

More TfK later...

And again...

After a long absence, caused by nothing more than a combination of sporadic travel and laziness, I have decided to post again. In fact, I thought I should write something before heading off to Korea, whither I go on Thursday. I am going out for about 3 months to do some post-docking. This should be an interesting experience and I hope to write about it here. I am not sure what the computing facilities will be like; for instance, will I be able to understand Korean Windows? I must get a laptop.

Anyhow, my Korean consists of about five words and interjections. It shouldn't be too much of a problem in the lab, but for things like buying washing powder it may prove woefully inadequate. Necessity will, no doubt, prove to be the mother of all sorts of unsuspected linguistic ability. Right, well, until I have something interesting to say on the matter and some photos to stick up, I might as well stop.

And, by the way, I had my viva!